𝓥𝓲 streams on twitch every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday whilst you make dinner in the kitchen. You join her in her office on Fridays, different platform, different content. So she can thank her girl like you deserve.
𝓒ontents ✮ Nsfw ༝ mdni ༝ smut ༝ fluff ༝ streamer!vi ༝ strap-on use (r!rec) ༝ edging ༝ strap warming ༝ making out ༝ kitchen sex ༝ vaginal fingering (r!rec) ༝ oral sex ༝ making new graphics what do we think?
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who streams multiple games multiple times a week. Sitting in her office, headset on, talking to her chat for hours. Who has never showed your face on camera to her viewers. All they’ve seen of you is your hands whenever you come in to give Vi snacks or drinks. The chat always going crazy with the simping every time.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who admittedly gets a little possessive over you when her chat starts spamming compliments directed at you. Who says that the reason she timed someone out for ten minutes was because they sent the same words asking for a game over and over again when it was actually because they said they wanted you because of your hands alone.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who ends stream around 8 or 9 ish at night to join you for dinner, which you had always spent time making whilst she was streaming. Who walks up behind you at the counter, wrapping her strong arms around your waist as you wait for the food to be ready. Who is sometimes in an extremely appreciative mood, slipping her hand up and under your shirt to slide it across your skin. Her mouth moving to kiss down the expanse of your neck.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who wastes no time in moving her hand to your breast, tweaking your nipple between her fingers and teasing you about wearing no bra around the house despite the fact that you never do regardless. Who has you pushed back against the counter within minutes, her tongue shoved into your mouth and her fingers moving through your slick folds to toy with your clit.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who has a whole separate channel on a different platform where she does more sexual streams. With you. Game on her computer, hands on her controller… sometimes. A lot of the time they’re on you. Trailing over the skin of your neck, sliding knuckle deep inside of your cunt whilst hundreds of people watch what they can’t have.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who really wanted to be the one pleasuring you during those streams, thanking you for all the hard work you do whilst she games and for just existing in the first place, yet couldn’t say no when you practically begged her to let you eat her out as she gamed. Who was left flushed and bucking her hips against your mouth as you sat under the desk on your knees, sucking her clit into your mouth and running your thumb over her leaking hole. The only thing the viewers could see was her reaction to it.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who knows you sometimes watch her twitch streams, sometimes even chatting in them. Who is always getting called out by her chat whenever she can’t control the smile on her face after reading out a message from you. Who always gets the same look on her face whenever you send a slightly teasing one, the look showing that she’s keeping her composure purely for the stream and that it will be gone when it’s over.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who switches it up every Friday. Sometimes you’re sitting on her lap, hand grabbing her bicep tightly as she games. Every jolt her body makes having the strap move inside of you leaving you groaning against her and subtly moving your hips to try and take it deeper only for her arm to wrap around your waste stopping you.
“Patience, baby.”
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who never lets you cum on camera. Ever. Nah they don’t get to see that. That’s for her only. But it does leave you writhing in her hold as she pulls her hand away just as you were on the edge again, slick pooling on her jeans as you sit on her lap whining for a release she won’t give you yet.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who pounces on you the second she presses the end stream button, lifting you into her muscular arms and straight to the bedroom next to her office and practically throwing you on the bed before attaching her lips to yours. Who lets you grind your cunt against her thigh desperately as she decides what to do with you that night.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who barely needs to prepare you for her strap due to how wet and open you are from her fingers sliding in and out of you during the multiple hour long stream. Who wastes no time in slamming into you, her lips instantly claiming yours muffling your loud moans as she thrusts into you. This time she lets you cum, relishing in the feeling of your walls tightening around her strap as she helps you ride it out.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who licks you clean after. Her tongue moving through your folds, groaning at the taste of you. Swirling over your sensitive clit making you whimper and twitch against the hands holding your hips in place.
· · ───.★ STREAMER!VI who, despite loving streaming, also loves the days she gets to just be with you. Whether it’s going out together, on dates, the movies, or just shopping to put food in the fridge, she’s happy. Especially when she gets to wake up with you in her arms every single morning.
⭑.ᐟ 𝓒𝔀. . . Nsfw :: mdni :: kind of smut :: fluff :: making out :: couch sex :: oral sex :: gentle vi.
Vi! whose favourite things to do is make out with you. It doesn’t even have to be during sex, just sitting there with her lips moving against yours is enough for her to be content.
Having you sat in her lap, legs either side of hers, her lips connected to yours as they lazily move together. Neither of you racing to get ready for work as you usually are. No stress of being late, having someone come into the apartment with no warning acting as if they lived there. Just the two of you.
It doesn’t even have to lead to sex after. Sometimes Vi loves that the both of you can just sit on the couch, curled up under a blanket together with a movie on the tv, and just kiss. Connect.
Don’t get her wrong though, she also loves when it does lead to sex.
Sitting up, the blanket sliding off you both and only the floor, and pushing forward to kiss you deeper. Hands cradling your face as she shuffles forward until you’re lying beneath her on the soft cushions. Vi’s lips trail from your lips down and across your jaw until they reach your neck, sucking a light mark into the skin before catching your lips once more.
One of her hands reaches down to untie the soft sweatpants around your waist, pulling them down your hips along with your underwear until you’re mostly bare in front of her.
Vi! who eats you out real good, knowing exactly how you like it after being together for a long while. Her hand grabbing under your thigh to push it up slightly for more room as she sucks your clit into her mouth. You’re already leaking onto the couch beneath you, Vi’s tongue collecting most of it and moaning at the taste of you. She’ll never get tired of it.
She doesn’t mind the feeling of your hands threading through her hair, starting by moving the pink strands out of her face before you’re hips are arching into her and grasping her hair tightly in your fists as you fall over the edge.
Vi! who leans up to kiss you after, licking her tongue into your mouth to let you taste yourself on it. Reaching a hand behind to cradle your head as she sloppily slides her lips against yours.
Sloppy makeouts are one of her favourites. Just being able to distract you in seconds. Walking into the kitchen in the morning, hair messy from sleep, finding you making breakfast at the counter and sliding behind you to wrap her arms around you.
Giving you a soft kiss on the side of your jaw making you turn your head, her immediately taking advantage of it and lunging forward to catch your lips with hers. Letting you pull back with a laugh for only a second before she kisses you again. Turning you around until you’re leaning against the counter between her arms planted either side of you. Barely able to get a word in with her insistent kissing.
ᓚᘏ𑄝 nanami hates when you push on his hips slightly cause of the overstimulation he’s fucking you into . . mdni!
nanami’s already so deep when it starts getting too much for you.
his cock’s thick and hot, stretching you open with every slow, deliberate roll of his hips, and you’re shaking underneath him, thighs trembling, breath hitching into little broken sobs. he’s been fucking you steady for what feels like forever, patient, controlled, whispering soft praises against your temple even while he’s splitting you apart.
but the second your hands slip down to his hips and push—just a tiny, desperate nudge to get a break from how intense it feels—he freezes.
his whole body locks up.
then that low, dangerous voice right against your ear.
“hah… fuck.” he exhales hard through his nose. “where do you think you’re going?”
before you can even stammer out an answer his weight drops.
full. heavy and pinning. chest crushing your tits flat to the mattress, thick arms caging your head, forearms bracketing your face so you can’t turn away. his hips snap forward harder than before, burying every last inch so deep your eyes roll and your mouth falls open on a silent scream.
“you don’t get to run from this,” he murmurs, voice rougher now, still soft in that awful, loving way that makes your cunt flutter around him. “you take it. all of it.”
one big hand slides up, covers your mouth completely. palm warm, fingers splayed wide so your muffled whimpers vibrate right into his skin. he doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t hurt—just holds. keeps every needy little sound locked behind his hand while he starts fucking you in long, punishing strokes.
the wet slap of his hips meeting your ass fills the room. loud. obscene. you can feel how soaked you are, how your slick’s dripping down your thighs, coating his balls every time he bottoms out.
his other hand snakes between your bodies.
two fingers find your clit immediately: swollen, oversensitive, throbbing and he doesn’t tease you, just rubs firm, tight circles.
your man is mean.
your whole body jerks under him, back arching uselessly because there’s nowhere to go. he’s too heavy, too deep, too everywhere. the overstimulation hits like a freight train and you’re crying into his palm, tears slipping down your temples, thighs trying to snap shut but his knees keep you spread wide.
“there she is,” he breathes against your cheek. “that’s it. let it happen.”
he grinds in deep, pubic bone crushing right against your clit while his fingers keep working merciless little circles. your cunt clamps down so hard he groans—low, wrecked—and his rhythm stutters for half a second before he fucks you even harder.
“gonna cum again for me?” his voice is velvet dragged over gravel. “even though it’s too much? even though you’re shaking?”
you can only sob into his hand. nod frantically. thighs quivering, toes curling, whole body wound so tight you think you might break.
he presses his forehead to yours. eyes dark, pupils blown. watching every twitch of your face while he ruins you.
“good girl,” he whispers. “cum on my cock. soak me. make a fucking mess.”
his fingers speed up. relentless, and you do.
you shatter so hard your vision whites out, back bowing, cunt spasming violently around his length while you scream into his palm. he doesn’t stop fucking you through it—keeps that same brutal pace, drawing it out until you’re limp and twitching and drooling against his hand.
only then does he finally slow.
still buried to the hilt.
still heavy on top of you.
he lifts his palm just enough to let you gasp wet, shaky breaths.
then he kisses the corner of your mouth, soft and almost tender.
“you’re not going anywhere,” he murmurs. “not until i say so.”
and he rolls his hips again—just once. slow and deep.
𐚁 ₊˚ʚ c.w | smut :: p in v :: nerd!reader? :: degrading :: hair pulling :: swearing :: dom!toji :: spanking :: nicknames .
WHEN TOJI saw how intelligent you were, he couldn’t get enough of the idea of fucking you till you were too dumb to even answer a question.
“What’s wrong, baby? Can’t you handle it?” He mocked, he had you bent over the bed, pounding deep into you.
You couldn’t even reply, the only sounds coming from your lips were moans, tears streaming down your face from just the sensation of him buried inside you. He laughs lowly, a smug expression on his face. “Poor baby.”
He grabs your hair, tugging it back, your spine arching into the mattress. “Too fucking dumb to even answer me, huh?” He groaned deeply, his thrusts only becoming more erratic from the sounds of your innocent whines. “Mhhmm..” you moaned out, words failed on your tongue.
Your whole body jolted forward with each thrust, the headboard repeatedly tapping against the wall. The sound of skin against skin echoed through the room.
Your breathing became uneven as you felt your climax reaching you, your eyes squeezing shut as your walls clenched tight around his cock. “Not yet..” he ordered, but his movements didn’t slow down, you whined in disapproval, trying hard to push back your orgasm till he said otherwise.
But the way his tip continually hit against that perfect spot inside you, made it hard to hold back. Your pussy gripped around him, you couldn’t stop yourself anymore, your orgasm pushing over. Your walls fluttered around him as your body trembled, a loud moan reaching his ears.
“Stupid girl, did i say to finish yet?” He grunts, a punishing slap meeting against your ass, leaving a red mark blooming across your cheek. “Head so empty you can’t follow instructions either, isn’t that right?” He says his breath hitching as his own orgasm caught up to him.
You nod your head frantically, your body sensitive from your previous orgasm but he didn’t stop till he was done. He grabs your chin, forcing your head towards him. “Use your words.”
“Yes..” you sighed out, he spanked your ass again before soothing it over with his palm. Only a few moments later, his orgasm caught up to him. His head tipping back as he buried himself deep inside you. Ropes of thick release filling you to the brim as a groan escaped his throat.
He let out a sigh of relief, pulling his softening cock out of you, both of your releases spilling out your entrance, dripping down your shaking thighs. He leans over kissing your temple possessively. “My dumb princess, hm..”
ᨳଓ * .ﾟ a/n | thank you for 1.3k im so happy 🥹 request from this. ᰔ ᰔ
The most vulnerable you’ll ever catch Megumi is completely naked, stretched out on top of you with nothing between your bare skin and his, just like right now.
His weight feels perfect, heavy in the best way, chest pressed flush to yours so you feel every breath he takes. One of his hands cradles the side of your face, thumb stroking slow circles over your cheekbone, while the other grips your hand tightly. His cock is buried deep inside you and he rocks into you with these slow thrusts that drag against every sensitive inch. He’s never in a rush. Never.
“Megumi…” Your voice comes out shaky as he pushes in again slowly. Your walls flutter around him and he lets out this quiet breath against your neck.
“Shh.. I’ve got you,” he murmurs, voice low and a little rough. He pulls back until just the tip is stretching you open, then sinks back in so deep your toes curl. Every thrust is thought through, his hips rolling in this steady rhythm that grinds his pelvis against your clit on every downstroke. He kisses the corner of your mouth, then your jaw, breath hot against your skin.
“Look at me.”
You do. Those dark blue eyes are half-lidded and locked on yours. He squeezes your hand harder and thrusts a little deeper, angling his hips until he hits that spot that makes your back arch. A soft, needy sound slips out of you, he swallows it with a slow kiss, tongue brushing yours like he’s tasting how good you feel.
“Fuck, you’re... so perfect,” he whispers against your lips. Your thighs tremble around his waist, yet he doesn’t speed up, he just keeps that same devastatingly slow pace, grinding in circles while he’s buried into you, letting you feel every inch of him stretching you, worshipping you. Your free hand slides down to grip his ass, pulling him closer and he makes this low sound in his throat.
“Yeah… just like that.” He presses his forehead to yours, breathing with you as the pleasure builds heavy in your belly. Every time he pulls out, your pussy clenches like it doesn’t want to let him go. Every time he pushes back in, you feel so full it borders on too much. You’re getting close, your legs are shaking, your breath is coming in short gasps. Megumi notices, of course he does. He shifts just a fraction, changing the angle and starts rocking into that perfect spot over and over, still slow but firmer now.
“Come on,” he says quietly, voice strained. “Let me feel you. I want to feel you come around me.”
It hits you hard, waves of pleasure crashing through your body as your pussy spasms tight around his cock, soaking him. You moan his name into his shoulder, nails digging into his back as he keeps moving through it. Only then does he let himself chase it. His thrusts get a little deeper, a little less controlled, hips stuttering as he buries his face in your neck.
“I love you,” he breathes. “Fuck… I love you.”
He comes with a quiet groan, cock pulsing inside you as he fills you up. He stays there afterward, your bodies still locked together and breathing hard.
Because Megumi never fucks. He loves. And when he loves, he makes sure you feel every single bit of it.
pairing: peter parker x fem!reader, set after brand new day
summary: it's been a long time coming and you want nothing more than to jump peter parker's bones. or in other words, as charlotte york from sex and the city once said, damn it! I just really wanna be fucked, you know? just really fucked!
content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem!reader, no use of y/n, sweet (and spicy) lil. drabble, established relationship, fingering, light dom/sub undertones, leaving marks, peter fingers you from behind, cum eating, pussy slapping, peter being so gosh darn tooth rottingly cute ugh, not beta read
"This is what you wanted, isn't it? Just wanted to make a mess on my couch, get my fingers all filthy? For me to take it?"
You're gonna be in serious trouble, you think. Peter's fingers curl upwards, and your whines break off, broken and wanton and so delightfully needed. You can feel stray tears dripping down your cheeks, lashes wet from all the different sensations Peter's taking out of your body. "I–I think I'm gonna come."
"Yeah?" He leans back in, not quite kissing her, eyes dilated in the dark of his apartment. "You think you deserve it?"
Nodding, head shaking up and down frantically. Why yes, absolutely, Peter Parker, you do deserve it.
You had been on a total of three dates with one Peter Parker so far. Far too impatient for your own good, so you'd suggested his place this time, low-key, no pressure, you'll bring the wine, and he'd said yes fast, too fast, in a way you'd have found suspicious from anyone else. But not Peter.
You wanted, so badly, horrifically, to get your hands on him. You had wanted this since date one, technically, possibly since before date one, and you had spent the intervening weeks channeling that want into research and preparation, the same way you channeled everything, because if you were going to lose your mind over a boy you were at least going to do it efficiently.
First, you wore kitten heels for the occasion even though this is definitely not the right occasion, but you couldn't help yourself. They were the ones that made your ass perk up just-so and led to three seconds of Peter eyeing your legs up and down as you passed him into the elevator, and you even wore perfume that a very reputable and frankly life-changing article on The Cut described as the closest thing to a pharmaceutical aphrodisiac you can legally buy at Sephora. He had leaned over in the cramped elevator car and looked at you, wonderstruck and in that low, boyish voice of his, "You smell really good."
And you were, as of nine-forty-two p.m., extremely fucking frustrated, because none of it, not one single thing you've done, had resulted in the guy making a move.
The movie's some spin-off Star Wars movie that Peter had frantically explained before chucking it into his bootleg streaming site, laptop flickering slightly as he plopped next to you on his couch. God yeah, Rogue One was just so severely underrated, he says as one hand brushes against your shoulder, and you'd nodded along like you had any context for what he was talking about, and you'd had to press your knees together like that would help. You've already decided you're going to watch the other seven (eight? nine? you should probably know this) before you see him again, so that next time you can argue back instead of just making the interested noise you've been perfecting for the last twenty minutes.
You end up abandoning the heels.
That was his idea, technically, a stammered offer somewhere around minute fifteen—you can, um, if your feet hurt, I don't know if they hurt, forget I said anything—that you'd accepted with a swiftness that surprised you both, unbuckling the little metal straps and easing your feet into his lap like you'd been waiting all night for permission.
Now his hand's on your ankle. His thumb does this thing, tracing little spiderwebs around your lateral malleolus, and you're so fine. So okay with this progression, totally.
"You can talk during it," he says ten minutes later when your feet, have decidedly fallen asleep, not looking away from the screen. "I know people say you're not supposed to talk during movies, but I like—I mean, only if you want. You don't have to. I just talk during movies, but not in like, a mean, dickish way like some people do in theaters, not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just a little disrespectful, but not in my apartment, so if you were gonna say something you don't have to feel—"
His thumb then drags one slow line up along your instep, absent, unthinking, entirely unaware of what it's doing to the rest of you, and something in your chest pulls taut like a wire about to snap.
"Peter, that's not it. That's not—it's just—I've never done this," you say, quieter now, and it costs you something to say it, you can feel it cost you something. "Any of it. I don't have a… single fucking clue. I don't know how this part goes."
"Neither do I."
"I know you don't, that's the problem, we're both just sitting here being—" You cut yourself off. Start over. "I'm not gonna say it. You have to do it."
"Do what?"
"Peter."
"I don't know what you—"
"Take what you want," you say, and it comes out low, and a little wrecked, and entirely unlike you. "For the love of God. Just—take it. Please. I'm not saying it again."
That's how he ends up fingering you over the arm of his couch, half-suspended and scrambling for purchase. A mean, relentless lover is most definitely not what you pegged Peter Parker to be. The boy who was flustered and uncertain just a mere ten minutes ago shouldn't be wrapping a stray arm around your waist to pull you closer, practically making you fuck yourself against his fingers. The boy who's now making embarrassing huffs of breath escape your lipgloss-stained lips and wrenching the oxygen out of you.
You know, for a fact, that Peter would never, ever let you drop, but the look on his face when you turn your head over your shoulder makes you think that the ground might be a bit safer for you.
God, you've never even been fingered from behind before but the angle of it, the relentlessness, it makes you feel so thoroughly used, dizzy from the speed and the sheer force of him taking you. Combined with him dipping his head down, sucking harsh love bites into the swell of your ass, and you think you may as well have just lost your mind.
The movie's still playing when his hands force your legs wider apart, his hushed "that's right, hips up for me," lining up at the same time as Vader chokes and dismisses Director Krennic, breath hitching. You're so proud of Peter, he had mentioned how cool this scene was, and he's so focused—your cunt squeezing tight like a vice grip on his fingers. Your whole world is spinning, just an endless cacophony of Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter—and oh, oh god, when his thumb swipes over your clit, you realize that that that's all you've been saying.
"What is it? What do you need, sweet girl?" He bites harder at your neck, filing the way you twitch and heartbeat flutters uselessly. You're gonna be all marked up tomorrow, but you couldn't care less. The pleasure and pain felt like an electric current through your body, sending phantom shocks down your spine.
"M–More, please—Peter, oh, Peter—"
"Pretty girl needed someone to take care of her, huh?" His brows furrow in mock concern, even though his hands make no move to slow down. Your thoughts trail off, wondering if Peter could take care of you just like this forever. You think he might, he could, he should. You wouldn't mind. You'd let him keep fucking you until your voice ran raw, keep his fingers wet and pretty for as long as he wanted, just one orgasm into another.
"Someone to spoil you," his tongue drags from your cheek, up to your lower back, "someone to give it to you every day," up, and up, and up your spine until his breath bears down on your neck. "I can be that for you, right, baby?"
Your whining hits a fever pitch, blissed out and on the edge of your orgasm. "Yes, of course, mmm—just don't stop."
Peter slaps your clit once, twice—fuck, and your cunt squeezes one final time around his fingers, and you're coming, your hand closing into a fist on the chenille fabric. It feels like the rest of the room is just pure nothingness, just static and buzzing and the feeling of Peter's hand coaxing you through each wave.
"You got my hand so wet, honey," He tuts, and oh. There was no reason for that to be as hot as it was, and you're sure he can feel it too, the way you clench down on his hand and pull him further into you. You've always been told you respond like a dream. "Such a good pussy. You're going to feel so good around my cock."
You turn onto your back when Peter gently pulls his fingers out of your cunt, still breathless and heaving from the attack on your senses and nothing ever could've prepared you from the sight before you. He examines his fingers in the light, the way they glisten–god, did you really get that wet—a small smile playing at his lips—and sucks those very fingers into his mouth.
Maybe it's only been seconds, or maybe it's an eternity, but you sit there like that, watching him in that entranced way of yours. He doesn't break eye contact with you once. It's filthy. You think you could be raring up to go again just from the way he looks at you.
Peter hums contentedly. The sound goes straight to your cunt. This boy's gonna be the death of you.
The laptop stirs back to life at some accidental brush of the trackpad many, many moments later, Rogue One resuming exactly where you left it, some spaceship still doing something important that neither of you had ever actually been watching.
"Oh man, we missed the ending," Peter says, squinting at the screen and dragging his mouse down to try and wind it back.
"Really, Peter? You just made me come and you'd rather I care about the ending?"
"You're gonna care. I'm gonna make you care. I have so many more things to explain to you."
"I'm sure you do."
"Is that—was that sarcastic? I can't always tell with you."
"Fine, we can watch the movie," you say, and press your smile into his shoulder so he can't see it, and he does, mostly, in between turning to look at you every ninety seconds like he still can't quite believe you're still there, and you let him check, again and again, all night, because you're checking too. "Go ahead, play it back."
+ from mara
this was short and sweet! i haven't written anything in over a year, but after seeing tom holland's rock hard abs grace my screen, i simply had to dip my toes back in. it's been hard getting back on the horse (that is, the metaphorical writing horse) and i fear you guys will most definitely be able to tell but i hope you guys like it! IM SO SCARED but okay stream audrey hobert and support your local nurses <3
Price really is a sweet guy, can’t help but spoil you and treat you nice, loves having you in his lap and cuddling, hugging you from behind or having you hug him from behind— he’s a softie.
He’s just stern. More strict on rules: coming home on time, telling him where you’re going to be (not every second of the day but giving him the run down of where you’re going to be is appreciated), will tell you ‘no’ on hanging out with certain people, making sure you’re eating properly and respectful. Price is big on respect, (more than Simon). ‘Yes sir’ and ‘no sir’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ is a must. No exceptions. Ickier? Definitely. He doesn’t go by name, never. Not even by last name, so he knows you’re dead serious or shit faced drunk when you don’t call him Daddy.
His meanness (?) is more so when he’s angry. So condescending during fights, “Is that right?” “Oh I’m sure baby,” “Maybe if you acted correctly, you wouldn’t end up in this predicament. Would you? Hm?”
The main reason you two ended up in this dynamic is because he patiently tried to let you blow off your own steam, it was a two day fight and then you called him old, said something along the lines of, “You’re not my fucking father Price! Get off my fucking dick.”
And he simply took on the role to prove you wrong. To piss you off.
Had you choking on sobs as you rode him, overstimulated, about to pass out. Gripping onto his broad shoulders and Price still moved your hips to bottom himself out to kiss your cervix. How spent god knows how long, about how good your Daddy had stretched you out. How sopping wet you were for your Dad.
Price crooned, kissing your ear, “Dad doesn’t like when you talk like that, do I, honey?”
“Price-“ and he cuts you off with a swat to your ass. You cry out, twitch and shake as he holds you close. He doesn’t let you go, not once, why? Because you’re his good girl. A Price girl can take anything he gives you.
“You know better.” He tsked, rubbing at your back.
And you do. It’s like something in your brain sets off, your gummy walls tightening around him. He’s got you hooked and airing you out to dry.
“Daddy, nnngh- I-I’m so sorry Dad.” You hiccup, you look up with those pretty brown eyes.
And his cock loved the sound of you calling him that. Slowly thrusting up into you making you moan.
“You’re my good girl sweetheart doing so well,” he coos, kissing your head, gripping your ass as he slowly grinds you down onto him. “Cum f’me one more time dovie, you got it.”
A Deep Dive Into Subspace, Domspace, Subdrop, Domdrop, and Aftercare
This post has lived in my heart for some time now. I’ve put off writing it because every part of it feels close to the bone, and deeply personal. But I’ve received too many messages, too many quiet confessions in the dark hours of the night, from submissives and Dominants alike who are confused, hurting, or feeling broken.
So I want to say this clearly, before we go any further:
You are not broken.
You are not weak.
And you are not alone.
This post is for the people who have floated in bliss, and the people who have fallen and didn’t know how to ask for a hand.
It’s for the ones who thought they were “too much,” or “not enough,” because they didn’t come down the way they thought they should.
It’s for the caretakers who forgot to care for themselves.
It’s for the ones who needed a post like this a long time ago and never found it.
So let’s talk about the journey.
Subspace: The Fall Into Surrender
Subspace is hard to describe because it lives beyond words. For many submissives, it’s an altered state that comes during or after a scene, a place of euphoria, softness, floatiness, or absolute stillness. It’s the moment your mind stops racing, your body stops bracing, and your heart opens so wide it almost aches.
It is often described as:
A warm, dreamy float
Loss of time or orientation
Heightened sensitivity or emotional openness
Dissociation (positive or neutral)
Non-verbal states
Deep peace, sometimes even spiritual
It doesn’t always look blissful. Some people cry. Some laugh. Some shake. Some can’t move or speak. Some look like they’re somewhere else entirely. And some never enter it at all and that is perfectly okay. Subspace isn’t required for a scene to be “real” or meaningful.
But for those who do go there, it can be deeply addictive. And deeply vulnerable.
Because in Subspace, you are raw. Unarmored. Wide open.
You are handing over not just control, but your self.
And that level of surrender requires a depth of trust that should never be taken lightly.
It’s not about being “good enough” to go there. It’s about being safe enough.
Domspace: The Still Point of Control
Domspace is less talked about, but no less profound.
It’s the place a Dominant may enter when they are completely tuned in to the moment, the energy, the responsibility, and the power exchange. It’s not about ego or bravado. It’s about presence. Precision. Connection.
When I’m in Domspace, I feel:
A trance-like sense of flow and power
Deep emotional intimacy and presence
Fierce protectiveness
A sharp awareness of my submissive’s body and signals
Grounded clarity and confidence
A high, yes, Dominants can float too
There is a stillness to it, a silence, like the eye of a storm. I feel every breath my submissive takes. I am aware of every tremble, every shift in energy. It is not a game. It is not about control for control’s sake. It’s about holding the fullness of another person’s vulnerability and offering them back to themselves, marked, but whole.
For some Dominants, it feels euphoric. For others, it’s somber, focused, sacred.
And yes, it is just as real as Subspace.
But unlike Subspace, which often requires letting go, Domspace requires holding steady. And that takes a toll.
Which brings us here.
The Crash: Subdrop & Domdrop
Let me say this plainly:
What goes up must come down.
And the higher the space, the harder the drop.
Subdrop and Domdrop are real, valid, and sometimes intense. They are the body and mind’s response to intense emotional and physical stimuli followed by a sudden release.
Let’s break them down.
Subdrop: The Aftermath of Surrender
When the scene ends, when the body stops pulsing with endorphins, when the adrenaline fades, when the oxytocin begins to level out, Subspace dissolves. And what’s left behind can feel like a crash after a sugar rush.
It might look like:
Sudden sadness or crying
Feeling empty, alone, or unloved
Guilt or shame about the scene
Anxiety, insecurity, or panic
Exhaustion, shakiness, or chills
Wanting reassurance but not knowing how to ask
Needing connection but withdrawing instead
It can feel like your Dominant doesn’t love you anymore. Like you did something wrong. Like you're spiraling.
You didn’t.
You’re just crashing.
And this is not to scare you, but to create awareness of feelings that might arise after a scene.
It's also important to add that Subdrop can be especially difficult for those who already battle depression, anxiety, trauma, or dissociation. It doesn’t mean the scene was bad. It means it was powerful. And your body is recovering from that.
Domdrop: The Hidden Descent
Now let’s talk about the side no one warns you about.
Domdrop.
It can sneak up on you. Or crash over you like a wave when you’re least expecting it. And unlike Subdrop, which people are more familiar with, Domdrop often goes unnoticed, even by the Dominant themselves.
Because we're supposed to be the steady ones, right? The rock. The anchor. The one who always knows what to do.
Except... what happens when we give all of ourselves in a scene, and no one notices we’re hurting after?
So here is some indications of what a Domdrop can feel like:
Guilt or regret, even when the scene went well
Emotional numbness or withdrawal
Self-doubt or questioning your worth as a Dominant
Feeling unseen, unappreciated, or invisible
Emotional crash: sadness, shame, loneliness
Fatigue, insomnia, restlessness
Needing reassurance, but feeling like you’re not allowed to ask for it
I’ve had scenes where I held someone with such intensity, such emotional power, that afterward I couldn’t move. I sat in silence for hours, questioning myself, shaking, waiting for someone to check on me. And when no one did? The drop was worse than anything I’ve ever experienced physically. I’ve also dropped so hard I left a scenes and vomited. Which was equally painful for myself as my partner.
I’ve also spent weeks hating myself for scenes that were beautiful, but still left me feeling unworthy, invisible, or ashamed.
Because a Dominant who deeply cares will always ask: Did I do right by them? Did I go too far? Did I take care of what was given to me?
And when there’s no response, (no feedback, no aftercare) we sit with those questions. Sometimes for days.
So let me say this, clearly and gently:
Dominants deserve aftercare too.
Dominants deserve to be held too.
Dominants feel. Deeply. And that feeling does not make them less, only more.
Aftercare: The Healing We Come Home To
Aftercare is not optional.
It is not a bonus.
It is not something you “earn.”
It is an act of love. Of repair. Of sacred return.
Aftercare says, “I saw all of you, and I still see you. I still want you. You are safe. You are loved.”
Simply... being present. Not rushing. Not pulling away.
Aftercare also happens after aftercare.
It may come days later. A text. A call. A gentle, “How are you feeling now?”
That matters.
And it doesn’t just belong to one role.
A submissive may need to be held. A Dominant may need to be reassured.
There is no hierarchy to need.
There is only care. Or the absence of it.
So write your needs down beforehand.
Say them aloud. Say, “This is what helps me come back.”
And never let anyone dismiss your needs or make you feel guilty for needing something soft after something hard.
If You Take Anything Away From This…
Let it be this:
Intensity without care is harm.
Power exchange without presence is dangerous.
What you give is sacred, and what you receive should be treated as such.
We are all human. Messy. Soft. Glorious in our complexity.
And scenes, when done well, can be life-changing.
But only if we take responsibility for what happens after.
I’ve seen the most beautiful parts of people in the hours after the ropes come off, the paddle is set down, and the tears have dried. I’ve whispered praise to trembling partners. I’ve kissed bruises like prayers. I’ve fallen apart and had someone pull me into their arms before I could speak.
These connections are powerful. And they deserve to be protected, before, during, and especially after.
And if anyone tells you aftercare isn't needed?
Run. That's a huge red flag!
Aftercare is sacred and non-negotiable.
Care is where the bond deepens.
Care is where we build trust.
Care is where we bring each other home.
i love ur baby daddy pope can you please please please do a baby daddy sammy bryant who constantly flirts with reader at drop offs and begs her to get back with him
i think baby daddy!sammy is toxic and sleeeeeeazy
you would pull up to the station, your usual and neutral meeting spot to drop your son off to sammy whenever it was his weekend. the reason you divorced in the first place was a mix of things. your schedules never aligning, constant bickering, never being able to agree. you were the one to file for divorce, sammy begging and pleading you not lot leave but after months, he finally relented and signed the papers. he never stopped trying to get back with you though.
it was 10 minutes since you had pulled up, a sigh leaving your lips at his usual lateness. you had plans with your friends that evening, planning to go out to the bars and drink till you couldn't stand. the dress you wore was one you had bought after your divorce, deciding to do something for yourself for once instead of trying to please sammy all the time. you had started working out more, dressing a little more revealing, and going out more when you didn't have your son. your top priority was always him though, making sure he was happy whenever he was at your house. "you excited to stay with daddy this weekend?" you spoke, turning back in your seat to your son who was 4 now. all he did was nod, the toys in his hands keeping him distracted.
you were snapped out of your thoughts at the sound of a door closing, sammy making his way outside with a smirk on his face at the sight of you. he had changed quite a bit too since your divorce. he was fitter than ever, having lost a lot of his weight, cockier than ever, and loved to push your buttons ten times more. you only glanced at him before you were climbing out of the car, going to the backseat to unbuckle your son. what you didn't see was his smirk drop and eyebrows furrow together at your outfit. "daddy!" your son called as he ran to sammy, hugging onto his legs tightly. sammy was quick to lift your son up, pressing a kiss to his head. "hi buddy, you have a good time with mommy?" he hummed to the boy, smiling to his son before his attention was turned to you, watching you bend over in the backseat to grab his bag of clothes.
you leaned forward to press a soft kiss to your son's cheek, shoving the bag into sammy's free arm. his cologne was strong, the same one he wore when you were married. the same one you were so addicted to. "say bye to mommy and head inside, i have to talk to her," sammy spoke, your son reaching to hug you tight before he was wriggling out of his father's arms and running to the door of the police station. you were already turning around to get back into the driver's seat, sammy's hand slamming against the door to keep you from opening it. "got plans or something?" he mumbled, an irritated sigh as leaving your lips as you turned to face him.
his eyes looked you up and down slowly, his teeth clenching at the sight of your cleavage popping out. "yes. now let me go, sammy," you mumbled, trying to push his arm from the door but he was quick to grab your wrist. "where you going? especially wearing this?" he mumbled, his fingertip moving to run against the top of the dress where it rested on your tits. you couldn't help but swallow hard, goosebumps popping up all over your body that had him smirking. "out with my friends. now if you'll excuse me i am going to be late because someone can never seem to be on time," you murmured, trying to free your wrist from his tight grip.
that only made him hold tighter, pulling you close so your bodies were pressed together. "don't be like that, baby," he hummed, hands moving to rest on your hips as he looked down at you. "could skip your plans and come over for dinner? lil family night," he suggested as he leaned down to your ear, pressing a small kiss to it. you hated the effect he still managed to have on you after all this time. curse him and his smooth talking and his sexy face. "not happening, it's amanda's birthday," you mumbled, hands moving to his police vest to try to push him back but he didn't budge, his hands only squeezing at your hips. "just come over after then. he'll be asleep. just wanna see what you have on under this," he continued to press soft kisses to your ear, knowing it was your weak spot.
you couldn't stop your thighs from clenching together, the sight of it making the evil smile on his face grow. "you're a pig," you mumbled, shoving him back before climbing into the driver's seat. he was quick to move between the door, not allowing you to shut it. he leaned across you to buckle your seat belt for you, pressing a small kiss to your cleavage. "you have my number, sweetheart. call me when you're all done tonight," he spoke, shooting a quick wink at you before he was shutting the door behind him.
and of fucking course you called him in your drunken state that night. who else was going to take care of you when you were this far gone?
Summary: You carelessly wish for your crush, Yuta, to be 'madly in love with you' on what you assumed was an occultist scam stick but before you could change your mind— you accidentally snap the willow. Believing it to be a fake, you think nothing of it, but when Yuta's behavior soon turns erratic and demented, you quickly realise you've made a grave mistake.
Warnings: NONCON, DUBCON, MDNI, coercion, p in v, unprotected sex, creampie, slight breeding kink, fingering, cunnilingus, forced orgasms, cumming inside, obsessive themes of violence(?), threats against reader, reader tries taking her own life, so much plot with porn, yuta snaps in and out after the wish is made & there's an indicator for real yuta's dialogue sort of like an easter egg? 👀, slight angst maybe(?), DD;DNE. + not proofread. If you're uncomfortable, please feel free to block me or filter the tags.
do not romanticize or normalize dark content irl.
WC: 15k.
A/N: this fic is just merely inspired from the concept of one wish willow since I've been obsessed with obsession tbh, though there are some references to the film in terms of a few dialogues in this fic, and just saying I despise bear with my entire heart so yeah. this also felt like I rushed it but maybe not idk there's 15k words, it was supposed to be short but I uhm got carried away, been working on this since July 6th, sorry for the delay :(.
The distinct chatter of the crowd faded into the background of the party, people socializing and chatting away, which you observed from a distance for a bit before you grabbed the drink that was placed on the bar counter, you took a sip nervously before chugging the entire thing down, feeling the alcohol burn your throat as it goes down.
You cannot bear to be sober right now.
Things weren't the same anymore after you lost your grandma a few months ago, you cherished her deeply— her having been the only one who raised you since you were born. Although she passed away naturally due to old age, it still left a void in you, she was the one that raised you after all.
You miss her especially on nights like these, when you're out and about, knowing you have no one to go back to home to.
“You should really go easy on the drinks.” A smooth and soft voice snaps you out of your thoughts, you blink a few times, recollecting yourself before you look at the source.
In front of you stood Yuta, a really close friend and a co-worker of yours with a concerned expression on his face. He was one person who had been actively helping you cope with the loss of your grandma for the past few months.
“It's my first shot though.” You roll your eyes, placing the shot glass on the bar table.
“Well, that's what you said last time too and ended up throwing up all over me.” Yuta pointed out, his tone teasing you.
“Shut up. Don't remind me.” You grunted, turning away from him and hiding your face in embarrassment, he let out a hearty laugh at your behavior, you stared at him for a moment before returning a chuckle.
“But for real, it's true. This is my first shot.” You affirm, giving him a reassuring smile, he nods, deciding to trust you. You both begin to chat for a bit about life. You felt butterflies in your stomach when he shot you a charming smile. You quickly looked away, not wanting him to catch you staring intently.
He always knew how to make you feel better at times like this.
You mentally scold yourself for feeling this way about him, you both had gotten a lot closer in the past few months, closer than you guys ever were. Such a change in situation caused a few shifts in your perspective about him, especially when he was so kind, you soon found yourself crushing on him.
Your conversation comes to an abrupt end when one of your mutual friends grabs Yuta and drags him to the table in the middle, jokingly asking your permission to borrow him for a game, which you all laugh at.
You think about taking a second shot before deciding you've had enough, concluding that one shot was enough after what Yuta told you. You really shouldn't be developing an alcohol problem over grief, so now you're just watching him from across the room, observing how the game is unfolding.
“So, when are you going to ask him out?” A familiar voice echoed in your ears, you turned to face towards that direction, seeing the familiar dark green hair catch your eye. It was Maki.
“Ask who out?” You blinked, trying to process what she was implying.
“Oh don't play dumb, I'm obviously talking about Yuta.” She rolls her eyes, grabbing her own drink as she chugs it down.
“Uh, I don't know. I'm not sure.” You reply quickly, feeling conflicted about your own feelings. You felt your hands turn moist at the sheer nervousness you were feeling from this conversation alone.
“Just do it, I'm pretty sure he also has some sort of feelings for you.” Maki nudges you, nodding her head to the direction he's in. You felt embarrassed, shaking your head.
“Eh, I don't know. It's probably best not to ruin things we have right now.” You shrug it off, Maki doesn't prod you further, and just backs off.
The conversation soon shifted to Maki talking about her life. You were so deeply invested, until you felt someone bump into your shoulder really hard, causing you to fall back at the sheer force, almost like they purposefully pushed you.
You landed on your butt with a hiss, cursing the man, who didn't bother stopping to apologize, Maki quickly came to your aid, lifting you up and checking if you're okay.
“What the fuck is wrong with some people dude.” She muttered under her breath, glaring at the man disappearing off to the exit in a rush. You felt irritated, huffing in anger as you tried to hold back the rage you felt.
But then something on the floor caught your eye. You bent down, picking it up as you stared at the package with a scowl on your face. It was likely dropped by the man in a rush earlier.
“The hell is this?” You mutter underneath your breath, and Maki looks over your shoulder.
“One wish willow? What's that?” You almost scoff, reading the label and warnings, anyone can tell that this is a scam, but you still analyze it.
“Should I return it back to him?” You ask Maki, genuinely considering going after that man to return it. She quickly takes it away from your hand, reading the label.
“Nah, that asshole knocked you over, you don't owe him that courtesy, besides it's probably just some occult bullshit.” She sighs, tossing it back into your hands. “Maybe you could wish for Yuta's love since you can't bring yourself to confess. You'll need all the luck in the world.” Maki suggests, mocking you in a friendly way all while raising an eyebrow.
“Fuck you. I'm not that desperate.” You scrunch your face at your friend's suggestion before chuckling, you slip the thing into your pocket, reminding yourself to throw it away later as you continue to chat away with Maki.
And soon it was time to go, you booked a taxi to your house until Yuta chimed in, grabbing your phone and cancelling the ride. He asked you if he could drive you home, which you reluctantly agreed to, feeling bad for troubling him like that.
“I hope you're taking care of yourself after you know—, it's been a while since we got some alone time like this.” Yuta broke the silence first.
“I am, but I miss her sometimes but honestly, you all make up for it. Especially you.” You reply, exhaling as you relax in the car, letting your body go loose.
“I'm glad.” Yuta replies shortly, hands gripping the steering wheel as he takes a turn, one of it slides down, grabbing a hold of your thigh which makes you jump slightly as if it was unexpected.
He gently caresses your thigh, drawing soothing circles for a bit before he retreats it back, the absence of his hand was much more noticeable than when he was caressing you, you missed the warmth already.
“You know i—” Yuta begins before quickly shutting himself up. He takes a deep breath.
“Mhm?” You hum in question.
“Nothing, I forgot what I wanted to say.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“Thank you for being here, Yuta.” You begin, all of a sudden, as you gaze out of the window, staring at the night sky, feeling really sentimental for some reason. “I really appreciate you.” You turn your head towards him, giving him a smile. Yuta remains quiet for a while, before he nods.
“Of course, I'm always here. We're friends after all.” He replies back, though there was a slight hesitation in his words.
Comfortable silence falls over the two of you, and soon enough, you reach your home. You unlock the car door, opening it and stepping a foot outside before you're yanked inside into the car once again.
You shriek, confused when you see Yuta gripping your wrist tightly.
“What's wrong?” You ask when he loosens his grip, he swallows nervously biting his lip and shaking his head no.
“Sorry, I just wanted you to be here for a little longer. For some reason I feel like something bad is going to happen.” He answers, letting out a deep sigh. “I know it's stupid—”
“It's not. Don't worry, I'll stay here for a bit.” You cut him off, settling down into the car once again, letting the moments pass by in silence.
“What do you think of us?” Yuta asks all of a sudden, making your mind go blank since you did not expect him to be straightforward. You feel your throat closing up as you struggle to answer.
“We're really good friends aren't we?” You let out a nervous chuckle and you swear you see something dark pass by in Yuta's eyes before his expression changes into a smile.
“Right. We're. Friends.” His tone had slightly shifted, leaving a gap between each word when he spoke them. You nodded, wanting to facepalm yourself because what the fuck, why did you miss a great opportunity to profess your love? Gosh you're such a fucking coward.
“Actually I—” You whisper quietly under your breath, trying to get the words out, finally building up your courage.
“Good night.” Yuta cuts you off, most likely because he wasn't able to hear you since he seemed spaced out and occupied with his own thoughts. He shot you a tight lipped smile, the one that didn't reach his eyes.
You blinked, the courage you gathered deflating immediately, you didn't speak up again, and just nodded, shooting him an awkward smile.
You don't waste another second getting out of the car, bending down and sending off Yuta with a good night. You walk back into your house, mentally exhausted from everything. Internally groaning as you open the front door and slamming it shut before you hang your coat, throwing your bag on the couch and plopping face down on it. Letting out a muffled screech at the chance you blew.
Maybe this was for the better.
It's better to move on.
You press your cheek to the seat, staring at the texture of the sofa's fabric, noticing a patchy stitch that was a complete contrast from the rest of the plain design.
It was a spot your grandma stitched up a few months ago before her passing, she didn't want you to waste money on a new sofa. You gently caress the patch, the stitch lines bumping into your fingertips as you trace it.
You wish she was still alive, she probably would be laughing in your face if you had told her what just happened with Yuta.
You let out a bitter chuckle, remembering her playfulness before you take a deep breath, trying to hold back the tears from falling.
You prop yourself up, sitting upright and going to your bathroom to wash this day's exhaustion off. After showering, you grab your dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket, just when you grab your pants— the triangular shaped box from earlier falls out of it. You pick it up, setting it on the table and not paying it any mind as you put your clothes away.
Now you're on a phone call with Maki, who enthusiastically called you because she looked up information about the one wish willow online, telling you that it's a real deal, you have to break the stick for it to come into reality.
“No way, let me check it myself.” You put her on speaker, quickly going to the search engine to look for it.
“Nah maki, it has mixed reviews, some say it's real, some say it doesn't work. I'm telling you, it's just bullshit.” You argue adamantly, annoyed by this stupid little ordeal.
“Why don't you wish for something then?” She suggests again, and you think for a while.
“I mean, it isn't like anything bad will happen, on one hand, your wish will come true, while then on the other, it just turns out to be a fake.” She adds, which makes you grab the thing off the table and open it.
“Wish for like a billion dollars for something, we'll be rich in no time— oh wait fuck! ugh, fuck off— wait I'll call you right back, my sister made a mess everywhere..” Maki hurriedly hung up before you could get a word in. Though you understood what she meant since you could literally hear her sister throwing up in the background when you both were talking. You set your phone down, now intensely staring at the box before prying it open, a weird melody plays when you open it and take the stick out.
You ponder deeply what you should wish for, because a billion dollars would be too suspicious if this was real, like you could be taxed, and if it did come true— how will you explain it to the authorities? you think hard for a few moments before realising how stupid you look right now, all this effort going into something that has absolutely no chance of coming true. You groan, laying down on your sofa.
You don't put a single thought behind your words, choosing to be really dramatic instead of logical, “I wish Yuta was madly in love with me.” You say out loud before putting pressure onto the willow slowly, though you didn't intend on breaking it.
Yeah no, you weren't that desperate—
BOOM!
The ground ends up rattling, as if an earthquake had hit, making you jump and sit up out of panic before you hear the sound of thunder, it scares the absolute crap out of you. You snap your head to the window at that moment, watching flashes of light reflect off the curtain before you hear a few more roars of thunder follow suit with the noise of rain pouring outside.
You let out an exhale after processing what happened, It was just rain. You shake your head in disbelief before turning your attention back to the willow, mind drifting off again to a wish you wanted to make, a simple one.
Probably something like getting a salary hike at the cafe you were currently working for.
You look down, ready to snap the willow.
But your eyes widen when you realise.
The stick now rested in your hands, broken into two pieces.
You must've snapped it in half out of panic unknowingly.
“Fuck noooo that wasn't what I wanted to wish for.” You whine to yourself, voice grating with annoyance.
You were so fucking careless.
You slowly felt something in your gut churn, a feeling of dread but you decided to ignore it.
Ugh whatever, not like it's real or anything, you're getting way too worked up over it.
You get up off the couch, brushing the weird feeling off you and quickly discard the broken pieces and make your way back to your couch, you text Maki.
‘This shit is not real lmao.’
You put your phone down and turn on the TV, trying to find a good show to watch, you immerse yourself in whatever show that is playing right now for a good few minutes, completely getting into the plot—
Ding Dong!
You hear the door bell ring. You furrow your brows, getting off the couch and walking up to the door, wondering who it could be this late. When you look through the peephole, your eyes widen when you see Yuta standing there.
You quickly open the door, surprised by his sudden presence, he probably should've reached his home by now, what was he doing here? Not to mention, he was completely drenched head to toe and breathing heavily as if he had run a marathon.
Your mind wanders off to the wish from earlier, there is no way right?—
Yuta sneezes, which snaps you out.
“Y-Yuta?! Are you okay?” You quickly ask in a worried tone, pulling him inside, before rushing off to get some towels for him.
“Yeah, I'm fine. My car broke down and it started raining so I rushed here.” He sighed, taking the towel from your hands, his hold lingering for a bit longer than usual. You didn't think much of it.
“I don't have spare clothes for you, so you'll have to make do with this bathrobe.” You hand him the bathrobe, to which he quickly grabs before he grabs the hem of his shirt and takes it off.
You turn around, not wanting to look at him as he undresses.
But why the fuck was he undressing right in front of you in the first place? You felt weirded out, this was something Yuta would've never done.
You furrow your brows, quickly turning around to face him only to find him standing still, staring at you in his bathrobe blankly. He suddenly lunges forward, grabbing you by your arms as he pulls you into a hug.
“I'm so sorry. I'm so scared.” He mutters, dipping his head into the crook of your neck before inhaling your scent.
You freeze when he does that, eyes widening with your hands pushing up against his chest to get him off you.
What fuck is wrong with him?
He notices you trying to push him away and steps back, his eyes widening when he sees you.
“Wait, what the fuck? Are you alright?” He asks genuinely concerned, stepping back, his tone shifted way too eerily for you to not notice as if he snapped out of something, you took a step back, not wanting to be near him.
“Uhm, no. You should probably ride a taxi home, let me book one for you. We can deal with the car later.” You blink, weirded out, before reaching for your phone from the couch. But Yuta grabs a hold of your hand before you can reach for it.
“No, please let me stay, I don't want to be alone right now.” He pleads, staring at you with teary eyes which make you feel bad. He lets go of your hand, before hunching down and burying his face in his hands.
“I've been.. having such a bad day. I don't think I cannot be alone with my thoughts. They're scary.” His voice was cracking, emotion spilling out in between as he drags his hands along his face before slowly clutching his hair as if he was going insane.
“Can I just stay here, for the night? Please.” He drops his hands, stands up straight and looks directly into your eyes, you swallowed the lump in your throat, trying to speak.
But, no words would come out, for some reason you felt intimated by him. So you just nodded. He gave you a smile.
“Thank you.” He muttered before he quickly turned and walked towards your bedroom.
“Wait Yuta— that's not the guest room.” You call out, he stops before slowly turning around.
“I know.” He replies before opening your bedroom door and going inside.
Something was genuinely off about him, and it started to scare you. You plop down back on the sofa as you think through what just happened. Yuta is behaving really oddly. You could tell because you're both close enough for you to realise something is wrong with him.
There was no way the wish willow was real, right? If it was, you just practically doomed Yuta's life.
This isn't what you wanted.
But then again, you can't say for sure because Yuta has never once been vulnerable in front of anyone, not even his close friends, not you, no one. What if this odd behavior is just him finally being vulnerable? Just a side that you've never seen before? He did seem pretty desperate and scared. You felt bad, maybe you should give him time to recover until the next morning.
You turn off the TV playing in the living room and quickly move to the guest room, deciding that you'll be the one sleeping in it since Yuta was sleeping in your room. You locked the door before turning off the lights and crawling into the bed.
The soft mattress welcomes you, followed by the warmth under the blankets putting you in a cozy mood. The clock on the wall ticks with every second, the noise echoing through the silent room. Your sense of hearing is heightened as you take in all the noise, the rain, the clock, the soft thuds of droplets hitting the window all lulled you to sleep.
You slowly drift off to sleep as a few minutes pass by, the exhaustion from the day finally kicking in.
All of a sudden, a violent bang rattled through the door, making you snap your eyes open and sit up.
Your heart starts beating quickly, breathing becoming heavy as the banging gets louder and louder.
“Yes?” You call out loudly, your voice shaky, and then the banging stops, you see the door knob twist and turn erratically while the door frame jangles, yet the door doesn't open since you locked it. The relentless banging starts again after the struggle with the door knob stops, which scares you.
“Yuta?” You call out again, and then it stops again, but this time followed by an eerie silence.
The silence is shortly broken.
“[Name], it's me, please open the door.” You hear his voice on the other side. “Please, please, why did you lock it? Please. I can't be alone, why did you leave me alone?” He speaks, you can hear him sniffling loudly as he sounds like he's on the verge of a breakdown.
“Yuta please stop, you're scaring me.” You reply, breathing heavily.
“Why aren't you in bed with me?” He asks, shaking the door.
“Why the fuck would I be in bed the with you? It's not appropriate.” You are taken aback by his question, you could hear your own shock in your reply.
“Please, I keep having nightmares about something bad happening to you. It's scaring me on top of my own thoughts, just be together with me.” He begs, trying to twist the door knob open again. That's when your mind drifts off to the moment in the car, Yuta behaved in a similar manner when he grabbed you to stay with him in the car for a few more minutes, when he told you that he felt like something bad might happen.
“Yuta, I'll be fine.” You affirm, trying to calm him down, but then you hear him sobbing outside your door.
“Please— don't leave me. Please. Please. Please.” He cries out, which makes you feel like the shittiest person alive, but you still hesitate, quickly letting out a deep sigh, you throw the blanket off you and go to the door before unlocking it.
The moment Yuta hears you unlock it, he wastes no time barging in, it makes you back up out of fear and regret your decision of unlocking the door but then he pulls you into a hug, a tight suffocating hug.
His tears soak through your shirt as he cries on your shoulder, body shaking as he sobs really loudly.
“I'm sorry, I don't know what has gotten into me today.” He sniffles, pulling back from the hug. “In the car— I felt like you might be in danger, so I made you stay for a few more minutes, but it never went away even when I started driving back home.” He explains himself.
“So I rushed here pretty quickly to check on you. Yet the feeling hasn't gone away at all. In fact it keeps getting worse every second. I'm so sorry for being paranoid, but please let me stay with you.” He adds, staring into your eyes, you furrow your brows, something wasn't adding up.
“But you said your car broke down.” You mutter and you felt the room go completely silent, Yuta stopped sobbing abruptly, going completely silent.
“I- uh, yeah, it broke down, it was a sign for me to go to you. I think. But it doesn't matter, please just be with me.” He began to sob again, which burdens you with emotion again. You nod.
“Fine, but I'll sleep on the floor.” You agree with a condition. You grab a few spare pillows from the bed before making your way to your bedroom and laying them on the floor. Yuta follows shortly, settling down on the bed as he watches you lay down on the floor.
“You could just share a bed with me. I don't mind.” He proposed, you shook your head, grabbed the blanket and pulled it over your head.
Yuta didn't bother you after that, so you quickly fell asleep.
The morning arrives quickly, you hear your alarm go off, you reach for it blindly to turn it off, face scrunched up is disturbance, before settling into the soft sheets, changing position as you twist on the soft mattress of your bed.
You snap your eyes open.
Soft?
You wake up immediately, examining your surroundings as you find yourself in the middle of your bed. You check to your side, expecting to see Yuta, but he's nowhere to be found. Though, there is a note on the bedside table.
‘Sorry for the trouble I caused :(, I left early cause I needed to get my car fixed as well. Thank you for letting me stay over. Btw, I moved you to the bed since you look uncomfortable on the floor. Don't worry, I didn't do anything. See you at work!
Love Yuta <3’
You chuckled when you read it, finding it cute at the small symbols he used.
Maybe you were just overthinking after all, he was probably just having a bad day yesterday. You felt stupid for being so paranoid and scared.
Quickly, you get off the bed and begin getting ready for work, grabbing the robe Yuta discarded and throwing it in the laundry to wash later. You hoped his clothes were dry by the time he left, cause it rained all through the night.
You wear your outfit for work, and head out.
When you reach the cafe, you already see Yuta clocked in behind the counter, sorting everything out and making sure the machine is working properly. His eyes immediately lock on to you when you walk in.
“Good morning.” He greets you as usual with a bright smile on his face, which you return before clocking in as well.
The cafe bustles with customers immediately after opening, Yuta handles all customers and orders like he usually does while you and Maki prepare the drinks. You spend your entire day like that, working full time before your shift officially concludes.
You stay behind to close the cafe, helping Maki out while Yuta has already left.
“I don't know if you've noticed, but Yuta has been staring at you all day.” She speaks, finishing up her task and washing her hands. “Like, at first I thought it was normal, but then it was so constant, I was starting to get weirded out.”
“I think he's just been going through something,” You say, blinking at her as you untie your apron. “He came over yesterday night and started acting all weird.”
“Did anything happen?” She asks which makes you shake your head. You quickly fill her in on the details about what happened last night.
“That's crazy.” She lets out an exasperated reaction.
“By the way, is the wish truly not real?” She asks, changing topics since she noticed how uncomfortable you felt recalling last night's events.
“Uh, yeah. It's not real, I did as it said and nothing changed.” You fidget with your fingers.
“What did you wish for?” She tilts her head in a questioning manner.
“A salary hike here.” You don't know why you're lying, but it technically wasn't a lie cause you were going to wish for it, keyword: were, but you broke the willow on a separate wish entirely.
“Yeah no, that's never happening in this life at least.” Maki jokes wrapping an arm around your shoulder as she pulls you close, you chuckle awkwardly, feeling guilty.
You both exit through the backdoor, chatting away about different things when you suddenly spot Yuta, who was leaning against his car as if he was waiting for someone.
Didn't he leave like an hour ago? Why is he still here?
Maki is probably questioning the same thing.
His face lights up when he spots you, immediately waving at you to come over.
“Let me drop you home today as well.” He spoke while grabbing your hand and pulling you away from Maki.
“Uh no Yuta, I brought my own car—”
“The tire is flat.” He interrupts you and you furrow your brows, going over to your car to examine it.
The tire was indeed flat, but what was the reason? You check it further and spot a bunch of huge knife slashes on various spots.
“Who could've done this?” Maki asks, confused.
“I don't know. It was like that when I was leaving, I just waited until you both were done to drop her off. But I didn't know it would take an hour.” He answers.
“Anyway, let's go. I'll call someone to come repair it. It's getting late.” He grabs you before dragging you away from further examining it, you follow him into his car, too much on your mind right now to just think straight, you wave a quick goodbye to Maki before Yuta drives away.
You couldn't wrap your brain around the fact why he didn't just come in and tell you if he spotted that your tires were flat. You would've repaired it before it got too late. It felt like he deliberately waited to tell you so he could drive you home.
And the slashes? Who the fuck would do such a thing? They looked clumsy, as if they were done in a hurry and in a fit of insanity.
“There's something I always wanted to tell you.” You tense up when Yuta speaks, his eyes were on the road yet he was speaking to you.
“I— I've been hiding it for too long but I like you. No— I love you. I've been too much of a coward to admit it.” He confesses. “Last night, you've seen the worst of me. I always wanted to look cool from your perspective, you know? But ughhh. I don't give a fuck anymore.” He whispered the last part.
You felt your heart flutter at his confession before a heat rose up your cheeks.
“What?” Is all that you could let out.
“I love you.” He repeats, pulling the car over before halting it. He faces you directly, caressing your cheek, his eyes examining your entire face.
“Yuta— are you sure?” You ask, heart beating loudly in your chest. He nods, thumb grazing over your bottom lip, his finger pad was soft to the touch.
“Do you like me?” His eyes flicker to your lips shortly.
You swallow, nodding.
“I do, I like you.” You finally confess your feelings as well. Yuta gives you a soft smile before he leans in.
You slowly close your eyes, and hold your breath.
And then you feel it, his soft lips against yours, pressing lightly as he kisses you, slowly tilting his face to the side before he swipes your bottom lip with his tongue in between, asking for permission to let him in.
When you do, he wastes no time in pushing his tongue in, hand moving your cheek to the back of your head as he presses your face into his, his kiss turns desperate as he breathes heavily before you both pull away.
He pulls you in for another kiss again, before he stops, inches away from your lips, his eyes widen like he snapped out a trance as he observes your face, your eyes still closed, anticipating another kiss from him.
He slowly pushes his lips against yours, this time it feels different, his earlier kiss was full of confidence, yet now it feels like he is hesitant and unsure, but he continues to kiss you awkwardly anyway, you shoot your eyes open, slightly pulling away, wondering what's wrong with him, but then the hand resting on the back of your head pushes you, his kiss now transitions into like how it was earlier.
It was weird, but you push the thought away to the back of your mind.
❀❀❀❀❀❀
A week passes.
You and Yuta now became official, everything was going so well— or you had assumed.
Yuta has been behaving really oddly, getting weirder and weirder as the time passed.
“Yuta, what the fuck is wrong with you?” You question genuinely, spitting out the coffee he made into the sink before pouring it down the drain. He stares at you like he was heartbroken.
“Why the fuck would you cum in my coffee? How long have you been doing that for? That's fucking disgusting!” You freak out, grabbing your head as you realise what he's been doing since the past week.
He hasn't left your side for the past week and it was beginning to get suffocating. At first you let him stay over, thinking nothing of it, but the next day, he brought his clothes over and started living with you.
Everything was fine for like one whole day initially, but then it got worse. Yuta was extremely possessive, from the second day onwards, he monitored every action of yours, where you went, what you ate, who you were with, how long you've been in the bathroom for. It was obsessive.
You'd caught him sniffing your pillow, or your dirty clothes in the laundry, which you were weirded off by, the relationship felt like it was progressively getting weirder and creepier.
This isn't what you thought it would be like to be in a relationship with him.
And today? you found out that he came in your cup of coffee which he makes everyday for you in the morning before work. You only found that out because it tasted so weird today.
He was the one that admitted to it.
Like it was the most casual and normal thing ever.
You felt like crying and throwing up, why would he ever think of doing this?
But when he started crying, you couldn't help but feel bad, falling to his knees as he apologized, promising that he'll never do it again. You felt awkward and had no choice but to forgive him. You pull up to his feet and give him a hug which he returns, holding you tightly in his grip, inhaling your scent.
You thought that would be the end of the weird things.
But you were wrong.
The very next night, Yuta initiated intimacy like he did in the past week, his hands slid around your waist as you both laid in the bed, tugging your shirt upwards, you quickly shoved his hands away and fixed yourself. You weren't comfortable being intimate that early on into the relationship.
“Yuta, no, I don't want to.” You firmly say, rejecting him once again, pissed off that the cute cuddling moment was ruined by his advances, you didn't want to be pressured into doing that so early into the relationship, you wanted to take your own time opening up, you constantly had to keep on denying him for the past week.
You turn your back to him, laying on your side facing away from him.
Yuta blinks, his face going blank, “Sorry.” He quickly replies before turning away from you.
It was a constant cycle, he'd initiate, you'd say no, he'd say sorry, and everything would go back to normal because you'd forgive him, but it was starting to irritate you now, even though you made it clear multiple times.
“It's oka—” Before you could finish your usual sentence, you hear Yuta scream into his pillow really loudly out of anger, the sound was muffled yet still roaring, the grating screech of his scream scared you. You backed away slightly out of fear, the monstrous cry continued for what felt like an eternity before he abruptly stopped and turned to face you.
Silence occupies the room again, the only noise you could hear was your heavy breathing.
What the fuck was that?
He gives you a sweet smile before he pulls you towards him, cuddling into you, acting as if he didn't just let out a blood-curdling scream just seconds ago. You went still, just letting him cozy up against you.
You couldn't sleep well that night.
Is this how Yuta behaves in a relationship? It couldn't be, right? From your time with him, he was an absolute gentleman, a sweetheart who's always helped you out, so why is he suddenly going insane like this?
Did something trigger this?
Yuta left for work early the next day, you didn't have a shift today, so you were grateful that you could spend some time alone away from him.
Through, he left you a present on the couch, a note sticking to it.
‘To make up for last night.’ You thought it would be an apology gift, maybe he finally understood? It was probably something to cheer you up because of the way he behaved last night— is what you had assumed until you opened the box, but you immediately dropped it, letting it fall to the floor.
In the box were your used panties, torn at the base and covered in fresh cum. It was your favourite pair too. Why was he doing this to you?
You tried to take your mind off it, sleeping the entire day, too frustrated to deal with it. You regret getting into a relationship with Yuta. He was getting progressively worse. You decide to address the elephant in the room immediately after he came back home from his work.
You wake up to a phone call, and immediately pick up.
“Hello?” You speak, voice hoarse.
“Yo, [name], I just found out something insane.” You hear maki speak.
“Do you remember the slashes on your tires? I checked the cctv footage and holy fuck. I shared it with you. But Yuta was the one who slashed them.” You sit up immediately the minute you hear that.
You exit the call, opening the message she sent you and watching the video.
In the footage, Yuta loomed over your tire so scarily still before he started stabbing it like a madman, he made multiple punctures before he threw the knife away and went back to his car, standing there eerily, just waiting.
“This is so fucking crazy, I've never seen him act like that before.” You hear Maki's voice as your mind goes blank.
Just then you hear the front door open.
“I'll call you later, okay?” You tell her before hanging up. Yuta calls out your name before he spots you in your bed. He greets you before sitting down next to you and cuddling against you.
The revelation of the tire thing made you wonder, how he changed into such a deranged person overnight, because it wasn't like him to do so, and besides it was not a weekly progression like you had initially thought when he started behaving off, no, he had been deranged from the day.
The day since you made the wish.
“Yuta,” You call his name, he hums in response, looking at you with a sparkle in his eyes.
You pause for a brief moment, too shaken by this revelation.
You needed a break to figure this shit out.
“I think we need some space—”
“NO!” Yuta yells, screaming on the top of his lungs, recoiling away from you. “Why? Why? Why? What did I do? Did I upset you? I'm sorry I'll never do it again. Please don't say that.” He blabbled wildly, grabbing you by your shoulders. You were taken aback by his outburst, seeing him whine and hearing his voice distort as if he was glitching or recalibrating.
“The things you do— they're weird, it's almost like you're trying to scare me away.” You quickly add, getting it out of your system before he begins to make you feel bad.
“Why would I do that?” He asks, furrowing his brows. “I'm literally madly in love with you, why the fuck would I try to scare you away?” He declared and you went quiet.
“What?” You questioned, breathlessly, “Madly in love with me?” The familiar wording brought a sense of dread over you, as it slowly started clicking to you. That he has indeed been like this since the day you made the wish. You recalled all the moments from the past week, when all of a sudden he would snap out of something, questioning you if he had hurt you before behaving like his unusual self. He would sometimes apologize out of turn. And that one time when he was kissing you?— it felt like you were kissing two different people.
You think you broke him, unknowing of the actual truth on why he's snapping into different personas.
You stare at the man in front of you, his familiar face suddenly becoming unfamiliar as he shoots you a shy smile before he nods.
“Yes, I'm madly in love with you.” You could hear the tone drop in his voice as he gazed at you like he's high, drunk on love.
You slowly feel your surroundings blending together.
This was wrong, very wrong.
What have you done?
The wish was real.
His words just confirmed it, especially the specifics of it.
You just fucked him over.
You take a deep breath, trying to first focus on what to do. He reacted violently at the sheer mention of taking space, so you need to thread carefully. You slowly blink, giving him a smile.
“I'm glad.” You reply, trying to play it safe and he immediately hugs you tightly, forgetting the prior argument.
You cuddle him until he slowly drifts off, watching the man in front of you fall asleep as he takes small breaths, he must've been exhausted.
After making sure he's deep in his sleep, you quickly break free from his grasp, tip-toeing into your living room before searching for the box that the willow stick came in. You were glad you didn't throw it away. You grab your phone from the nightstand as well.
You immediately search for something that can be helpful, like a manufacturing address, customer helpline— which the later one you find, you don't waste any time, locking yourself in the bathroom as you call the number.
The phone rings for a couple of seconds before someone picks it up.
“Hello?” The monotonous voice of a guy on the other line breaks through, you take a deep breath.
“Uh hi, is this the one wish willow?” You ask, voice shaking.
“Yes.” The answer was short, followed by a silence, you purse your lips waiting for them to say anything else but they don't.
“So uh— I have something I'd like to request.”
“What is it?” The uninterested voice inquires you, you could hear their heavy breathing which set you off.
“I uh made a wish on accident, it was a crazy one— I snapped the willow on accident over it. And now there's a person suffering because of me, I think, I don't know if it's still real or not.” You mutter, biting your lip nervously.
“Just because it was an accident, doesn't make it any less real. It's real.” You hear the confirmation that makes your gut drop.
“I want to cancel it. Please, he isn't like himself and is acting very weirdly because of me. I want him to be free. He's suffering because of a wish I made by accident.” You ramble on, panic coating your voice.
“I'm afraid it isn't possible, a wish cannot be reversed once it has been made.” The representative replies, which makes you want to break into sobs.
“So he'll be like this forever?” You tighten the grip on your phone.
“Well… yes, as long as you're alive.”
The bathroom stills for a moment.
Your brain processes what he just said.
The implication was as clear as day.
You need to die for him to be free.
Before you could ask any further questions, the bathroom door slams open, the hinges flying off, and the door opening with a brute force that almost made it break in half, Yuta steps in slowly.
You panic and hang up, immediately getting on guard as he walks in.
“Yuta what the fuck?” You question, horrified at what he had done.
He quickly rushes over to you.
“Who were you talking to? Are you cheating on me?” His face contorts into rage, you shake your head really quickly.
“No, no, it was just Maki.” You lie, which makes him tilt his head in disbelief.
“I heard a man’s voice.” He replies before he dips down, grabbing you by your legs before throwing you over his shoulder and taking you out the bathroom.
Yuta takes you over to your bedroom before throwing you on the bed. He pries the phone away from your hand, you quickly press the home button to turn the screen off before he can access it.
“What's the password?” He asks before he turns the phone towards you, luckily you had face recognition off.
You remain quiet not telling him anything.
“So you are cheating on me.” His voice breaks as he drops your phone to the ground and climbs up the bed, grabbing you by your shoulders.
“Why? Why? Why? Why? Am I not enough?” He chants, gripping your shoulders tight, all while you could only stare at him with a scared expression.
He starts to sob.
“I love you so much, yet you do this to me, is that why you don't let me touch you? Because you're fucking some other guy?” Your mouth slightly parts in shock from the baseless accusations he was throwing at you.
Yuta never left you alone for you to have a secret rendezvous of any sorts, you couldn't even hang out with your friends without him joining, so he isn't making any sense throwing around these claims.
It genuinely offended you when he accused you of cheating on him.
“Yuta— listen to me, no I'm not cheating on you. How can you even assume that? You're always around me 24/7! You know damn well I would never cheat on you.” You argue back.
“Then why won't you let me fuck you?”
What?
His voice went flat as he stopped sobbing when he uttered those words, his expression shifting from a sad one to a blank yet serious one, he looked at you with his sunken eyes, something dark clouding in them.
You're appalled by that question. You blink rapidly and let out a huff of confusion.
“Tell me,” He shakes you “Why can't I fuck you? You always reject my advances. Do you hate me? I love you, I want to do everything couples do, but you don't let me.” His lips tremble slightly.
“Because— it has only been a week, it's too early, I wasn't ready.” You tell him truthfully. “We already talked about this.” You remind him.
“Why does time matter? If you truly loved me you would let me do it. I don't want you think I'm just here for your body— I love all of you, but fuck,” He takes a deep breath “I want to merge my soul with yours.” He whispers that last part.
You wanted to push him off, scream that he doesn't actually love you but were forced by your own accident. You wanted to tell him, but you hesitate, wondering if it will escalate the situation.
“And the only thing closest to the feeling is to be buried inside you, our bodies pressed together, I want access to your deepest parts, because I fucking love you.” He adds.
He drops his face, his head resting on your shoulder as his tight grip loosens.
“You don't love me, Yuta.” You declare, deciding to just say it. “You're forced to. I'm sorry.” He raises his head, letting out a breath of disbelief before shaking his head.
“No, I love you, I love you, I love you so so so much [name]. I really do. Why would you say that? That hurts me.” He insisted, grip tightening in a painful vice.
“I know you do. But Yuta doesn't, Yuta would never do this. Yuta doesn't love me.” Tears well up in your eyes as you feel the guilt in your heart swell up, everything finally crashing onto you know. “I'm a fool. I should've noticed. Why did I just go along without questioning it?” You sniff, tears falling down your cheeks, staring at the man in front of you, who had an expression of confusion plastered across his face.
“What are you talking about? I am Yuta, I love you.” He replies and you shake your head, denying him.
“You are not Yuta.” You affirm.
“Yes I am.” He corrects you.
“No you're not.”
“I am.”
“You are not—”
“I TOLD you I am Yuta!” He screams loudly as his hand suddenly grabs you by your throat, squeezing it. He tightened his grip brutally before you could react. You try prying his hand off your throat since he was choking you so hard to the point you began seeing spots in your vision, slowly becoming unable to breathe.
You land small hits on his arm, struggling to break free. “Y-yuta.. stop.” You choke out, gasping for air as he looks at you, his eyes short wide with a darkness in them that mirrored a void as he continues to squeeze your throat further and tug your face close to his, you swore you saw a psychotic glint in his eyes for a brief moment.
But then it shifts, panic flooding his irises.
“Wait, what the fuck? What the fuck?” He repeated in shock, eyes shooting wide as he withdrew his hand immediately as if he snapped out of something, scrambling back in fear and falling off the bed.
You cough up a few breaths, rubbing your chest as you take in the air.
“Did I hurt you? I'm sorry. Are you okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I would never do that. I love you. I really do. I would never hurt you. I just can't get back—” He freaks out, eyeballs shaking as he trembles, rambling off on his own, he's staring at his trembling hands in shock, as if he couldn't believe what he had done— before he blinks, and stops trembling. An eerie calm washes over him again when he lifts his gaze to meet yours. He looks at you for a moment tilting his head sideways.
He climbs back into the bed again. “I love you so much.” He whispers, grabbing your face with his hands gently, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek as you stare at him traumatized.
You were seconds away from breaking down.
Yuta pulls you into a hug, caressing the back of your head, you didn't know he would break this badly, you genuinely wonder if there was no other way to bring him back to normal. You were pretty sure the spell was beginning to cloud his logical judgement as well.
Though it was far from the truth, you began believing in it.
Yuta's voice breaks you away from your thoughts.
“I-I feel like you don't love me as much as I do.” He stutters breathlessly. “Am I just some decision you made on a whim? Did you really want to date me? Do you even love me?”
The question causes your brain to recall the words that the one wish willow representative uttered.
‘Just because it was an accident doesn't make it any less real.’
You pull away from the hug, staring into Yuta's eyes, noticing the pain in them. He was the one suffering the consequences of your actions.
This yuta loves you a lot, he was altered just to love you, madly.
You have a moral obligation to be there for him, whether you want it or not.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry for saying that you don't love me.” You apologize to him, acknowledging that this Yuta's love is real, and that it definitely hurt him when you uttered the earlier words, he looks at you, expression softening as he caresses your cheeks.
“It's okay.” The corners of his mouth lift up.
He closes the distance between you suddenly, pressing his lips against yours. You were caught off guard by him as you tried to push him away, but he didn't budge, instead his hands snake around you and pull you closer.
He pushes you down on the bed, your back hits the mattress and you're pressed to it by his weight as he gets on top of you. You try to move your head and break away from the kiss, but he refuses to let go and resorts to biting your lip to prevent you from turning your face away.
It hurts so you just let him continue kissing you and hoping he'd be done with just that.
But then you feel his hand tug on your bottoms, making you snap your eyes open.
You grab his wrist trying to prevent him from pulling them down, but he yanks away your hand, breaking free from it and immediately ripping them apart, you whine, trying to wiggle underneath him while he's still kissing you.
You feel the cool hit you down there, as he tears the fabric and throws it to the side, his hand cupping your cunt. You use both your hands to grab him now, yet he still doesn't let go.
He makes some space, plopping onto the side to make it more comfortable and accessible, but you use that to scoot away, only for him to drag you and hold you in place.
He breaks the kiss, “Stop.” He had the audacity to warn you. But before you could say anything, he captures your lips again, preventing you from speaking. He suckles on your bottom lip before licking it and pushing his tongue inside you.
Regardless of his warning, you grip tightly onto his wrist but it isn't enough to stop. You let out an involuntary gasp when you feel his cool finger dip between your pads and into your folds, your grip falters.
Yuta pulls away from the kiss to catch his breath, pressing his forehead against yours as he stares into your eyes. He was panting heavily while looking at you, his fingers slowly rubbing your clit.
“Please, I need this.” He whimpers, his voice shaking like he was recovering from a high. You try to speak but you can only let out a small squeak when you feel his finger prod at your entrance.
He's scooping the wetness that was leaking from down there, bringing it upwards to your clit before rubbing it slowly, he repeated the movements like he was under a spell, coating your folds with your wetness.
“You also need this.” He gently kisses your forehead as if he's trying to hypnotise you, now fully focusing on massaging your bundle of nerves to disrupt your thinking process.
You feel arousal rise in between your legs, you bite your lip, trying to fight the feeling but the stimulation followed by Yuta peppering kisses along your jaw makes your brain melt. You need to push him off, especially when you know he's not in control of his body, what if Yuta doesn't want this? You were about to move away but then you felt Yuta's finger dip downwards, his pauses at your entrance for a second before he slowly pushes his finger in. You let out a sigh at the sensation, his warm digit slipped in and out slowly, stretching you out patiently before he inserted another finger.
Your cunt contracted around his digits as if it's trying to suck him in completely, Yuta's mouth parts open in awe as he stares downwards and feels the way your walls are gripping his fingers. He bites his lip, wondering how tightly you'll cling on to his cock if he was inside you.
He pumps his fingers with precision and technique, fingers pressing to your upper wall, maintaining the pace all while trying to feel the one spot that should elicit a reaction out of you.
All while he's searching for that, he presses his thumb against your clit, applying pressure on it simultaneously. You almost see stars when he does so. You felt yourself burn with desire, mind becoming cloudy as Yuta slowly peeled away the layers of your resistance.
He used his free hand to push up your top, fondling your breasts through the bra before he pulled it down. Your nipples pebbled up naturally when they met the cool air of the night, his soft thumb grazed over them, toying and playing with your nipples as if they were his entertainment.
He tugged on one of your nipples before twisting it gently— causing you to shiver visibly.
Why was his touch so addictive?
You wanted to pull yourself out of it, but you couldn't, not when his fingers were thrusting in and out of you, not when he's toying with your nipples, and especially not when he finally finds your sweet spot, that caused you to let out a choked gasp.
You whined, throwing your head back in pleasure as his fingers repeatedly hit your g-spot. You felt your entire body getting even more hotter than before, hands gripping the sheets below in anticipation.
Yuta observed your reaction with a smirk on his face, loving every second of it as he maintained the steady rhythm, now precisely hitting your sensitive spot with a lot of accuracy.
Your high toppled over unexpectedly due to Yuta's consistent effort, causing your body to convulse as your walls clenched around him, shuddering around his finger while you moaned, arching your back while you almost went blind. You heaved in a heavy breath.
The bliss of your orgasm settled over you, you watched Yuta pull his fingers out before slowly giving them a lick, closing his eyes in pleasure as he tasted your tangy essence, he sucked on his own fingers like his life depended on it.
He lets his fingers go with a wet ‘pop’ before he looks at you.
The cloud of bliss quickly fades when the clarity settles in much harder after your orgasm, the reality of what just happened. You shoot up from the bed, trying to push him away and escape him but he grabs your wrist before you could fully leave and pushes you back down again, pinning you to the bed.
“Where are you escaping to, huh?” He questions, holding you down tightly as you struggle underneath.
“Yuta, We can't do this!” You protest, twisting your wrists to try and escape his grasp.
“Why not? Is having sex with me that disgusting in your perspective?” He grips you tighter.
You don't know how you can ever explain it to him, the outburst from earlier made you fear for your life.
And it's all your fault.
Yuta’s freed your wrists before he's tearing at your bra, trying to get you fully naked in front of him, he grabs it really roughly before yanking it away.
You try to use your legs to kick him off, but Yuta straddles them, using his weight to pin you down and prevent you from escaping him, meanwhile he too undresses. He grabs the hem of his shirt before pulling it over his head as he takes it off himself. Leaving him topless in front of you.
He presses you down with one of his hands while he gets off your legs in order to take his pants off before quickly assuming the same position again.
“Always wanted to embrace you like this.” He whispers before he lays on top of you, pulling you flush against him, he buries his face in your neck while he feels every part of him make contact with you. He sighs into your ear.
“You're so warm.”
You struggle beneath his weight.
He pushes one knee between your legs, using it to force your leg to the side as settles himself down between your legs. You go completely still when you feel his bare crotch rub against yours.
You feel his crotch press up against you, squishing against your cunt while his stiff cock twitches at your lower abdomen, and then he begins to move— pressing and rubbing himself against you, his satisfactory sighs feel warm against your ear while he humps you like an animal.
He reels himself to his knees, sitting back as he holds your legs open, admiring the front view before he lifts off slightly, grabbing the underside of your thigh before pushing your leg towards your chest as he lines himself against your entrance.
There is a humming ache in your thighs at the position, sending prickling tingles throughout your entire leg as it stretches uncomfortably. You feel his tip press against your hole before he leans forward, throwing your legs over his shoulder as he places his hands next to your head.
His cock slowly inches in, pushing into you in a controlled manner, your cunt welcomes him, the orgasm from earlier and wetness aiding him with a struggle-free entry.
You see him visibly shiver as he stares at you from above, biting his lip.
“Awh, fuck baby,” He curses, shutting his eyes close as he bottoms out.
You lay there, just staring at him now, the fight has left your body as you just accepted your fate, struggling was futile and only exhausted you out— besides, Yuta already made up his mind.
He opened his eyes again, the corners of his mouth lifted up slightly as he shot you a gentle smile. He withdrew his hips slowly before he thrust with a harsh force that made you wince.
His lips parted in awe at the sensation as he set the pace, ramming his dick in and out of you. He quickly grabbed a hold of your hands once again, intertwining yours with his as he moaned.
“Been wanting to do this— hah, for a while now.” He speaks, panting as he moves from above. “Do you know how many nights I spent beating my cock to the thought of you?” He grunts, staring at you from above.
“Many, I wanted to make a move but I was too fucking scared, but I'm glad you're mine now. I'm so glad I could finally do this to you.” He pressed a kiss to your cheek.
You furrow your brows in both confusion and pleasure, wondering if it is Yuta's true memories speaking or the deluded ones this version made up.
If it was the actual Yuta you were with right now— you'd be blushing at those words. And that Yuta would never force you to have sex with him and would wait until you were ready to do it. He wouldn't torment you every day by doing creepy things.
But it wasn't him.
The person above you, doing this to you isn't him.
This is why you wanted to avoid it after the phone call, but ultimately failed. Yuta was not the one in control of his own autonomy and by extension, sex with you would also be something he probably wouldn't want at the moment.
“I wanted this so badly, craved it everyday I was with you. I love you so much.” He whispers, casting the air of warm breath.
‘No you don't.’ You wanted to reply.
But then another realisation hit you, that made your gut churn with even more guilt.
The assumption that Yuta did not want this made you realise that he probably doesn't want to force himself on you either. This entire situation is happening because of the wish.
You stare up at Yuta's blissed out expression as you feel him invade your walls, mind spinning when you realise what your actions were making him do to you.
Everything was your fault.
You made him do this to you— even if it was an accident, the consequences were very real.
Your thoughts only spiral further as you continue to stare at him but then they come to an abrupt end when he hits brushes against your sweet spot, it makes you gasp, your body slowly gets hotter and hotter as heat and arousal travels all across it. You shouldn't be feeling this way, especially with the way your emotions are all over the place. But you had no control over any of the reactions.
What made it worse is the fact that your conscious and subconscious are fighting, one accepting it and the other one making you feel guilty.
And the way he's rocking above you, hair all disheveled while he's gasping and letting out soft moans as he's completely losing himself in you made the dilemma worse.
The bed creaks with a rhythm, filling the gap in between Yuta’s moans with a squeak. The headboard slams into the wall, hard thuds echoing in the room.
You were sure it might leave a dent.
You tighten your lips, pressing them into a line to prevent the also lewd noises from escaping you, a form of resistance especially with the way he made you feel.
His tip smooched your cervix with every thrust, and it just dawned on you how big he was.
Yuta narrows his eyes, letting out a disappointed sigh when he catches you holding back your moans, one of his hands comes up to your face, thumb tugging on your chin to free your lips that you pressed together.
And when he does free them, he caresses your lips, pushing a thumb between them, making you open your mouth.
“Let me hear you.” He mutters.
But you only cry, feeling the guilt crashing down on you with immense pressure that suffocated you. The constant voice in the back of your brain telling you that it's your fault, blaming yourself for the wish you made, and the way Yuta was looking at you so lovingly from above was the final straw, especially when you convinced yourself that he didn't want it.
Yuta is taken aback by your cries, but he doesn't stop, but instead only changes his pace into a slower one while hushing you.
“Shh, it's okay. It's too big right? It won't hurt once you get used to me.” He caresses your cheek, believing the cause of your crying to be all because he's too big.
You couldn't respond properly.
“I'll be gentle, okay? See, I've slowed my pace. It won't hurt, baby. I don't want to hurt you.” His gaze softened.
“Just don't deny me okay? It hurts when you do that. I promise it'll get better eventually. I cannot live without you. Please don't tell me you don't want this again.” His voice shakes with emotion, turmoil forming in his eyes at just the thought of you rejecting him. It made you feel like a criminal of some sort.
You had every right to reject him, it's a fundamental right. But the Yuta you wished for doesn't know anything and doesn't care for it cause all he knows is to love you, albeit in his own selfish way. And you can never truly place the blame on one person in this situation, knowing you were just as guilty, if not more guilty than Yuta because you were the cause of this.
Your hand reaches up to him, thumb gently touching his cheek as you trace his cheekbone.
“I'm sorry. It's all my fault.” You apologize.
Yuta looks at you in confusion but leans into your touch.
But he stops.
He stops moving his hips, and the trembling gaze returns again as he stares at you beneath him, taking in the way your hair was splayed all across the pillow and the way tears were streaming down your face as you looked at him with sadness.
He tries to pull out from you in a panic, but your cunt clenches around him at that exact moment that causes him to collapse onto his elbows as he buries his face in your neck.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” He chants as he begins to move his hips again, his moans becoming louder than before. “I don't want to do this to you— but I can't pull out— no won't let me pull out.” He croaks.
“Please tell me you want this. Please. I want you too. I want you so bad.” He cries while bucking against you.
You wrap your arounds around his shoulder, embracing him.
Your heart couldn't bear to watch him break like this constantly, overwhelmed by emotions due to your carelessness.
“I want this.” You softly whisper, caressing the back of his head.
You feel him press a soft kiss to your neck.
“I want you to remember, even if I'm like this. I do indeed love you. I want this. I want to fuck you. But I want you to want me too. It might not be me, but I love you.” His shoulders soften as he melts into you.
You pause.
“What? What do you mean it might not be you?” You voiced with concern, which made Yuta pull himself back onto his arms again, looking at you directly. He opens his mouth to speak, but you see his face visibly change. It suddenly became more uncanny.
He doesn't elaborate further and instead leans down and captures your lips in a hungry kiss as if he was mad at something. He moves them with such fervor and hunger that it's hard to keep up. His tongue slips into your mouth easily while his hand roams all over your body, groping your tits really roughly.
His pace changes too, now becoming more rough and faster as you cling onto him, hands placed on his firm shoulders as you try to process what he meant.
But it's difficult to do so when he's rocking you up and down and kissing you really roughly.
“Mhm fuck, I love you.” He rasped against your lips before kissing you again.
You too were letting out noises now, the lewd sounds of skin slapping against one another fills up the room, followed by the way you're both now gasping and moaning, his dick drove you crazy, making you forget any prior thoughts you had.
You felt your lower abdomen tighten as you concentrated on it, the way his cock is hitting every inch inside you, his hands on your tits and his intoxicating kiss and the desire to come undone clouded your judgement.
And then it snapped, the tight knot in your stomach split, sending pleasure signals across your body as the endorphin and serotonin released from your brain, causing you to get lost in the moment as you held Yuta tightly against you.
Yuta grunted at the way he felt your pussy contract around him, he broke the kiss and trailed multiple smooches down your neck as his hips faltered as well, unable to hold himself back anymore.
He almost collapsed on top of you when his orgasm hit him, but he held himself up as he pushed his cock deeper before he went completely still, his hips bucked lightly as his cock released his semen so deep inside you.
It splattered all over inside you and directly against your cervix, drenching it in his spend as he came a lot.
You felt your cunt ache from overstimulation, since you just came back to back.
Yuta slowly pulls out, his cock becoming flaccid all while you feel his cum leak from inside you. He topples over to the side, falling onto the pillow with a satisfied hum as he catches his breath.
“That was amazing.” He says before turning to face you, softly caressing your cheek as his hand travels downwards towards your chest, he passes by it and instead stops at your waist. He wraps his arm around, pulling you closer by it.
He rests his head on your shoulder after giving a kiss to you. Exhaustion overwhelms him and he slowly drifts off.
You, however, are wide awake.
You swallow the lump in your throat as you stare at the ceiling, minutes pass by with thoughts clouding your brain again.
You unwrap his arms from around you, slowly getting up and grabbing clothes from the closet before putting them on, being careful not to make a noise in order to not wake him up.
This is the second time you'd be sneaking out, you hope he doesn't wake up like the last time.
‘As long as you're alive.’
You hear those words again.
You make up your mind, feeling way too guilty after what happened and turn to leave the room.
“[Name].”
You still.
You slowly turn on your feet, facing Yuta, expecting him to be awake and bombard you with questions about where you're going.
But you're taken aback when you see him laying there, still asleep.
Did you mishear him?
“[Name], it's me, Yuta.” Your eyes widened, not knowing if this was just him playing tricks or actually the real Yuta who finally broke through.
You teared up at the realisation that he was probably still in there, just unable to get his body back.
“Yuta? Is it actually you? Yuta? Please, I'm so sorry.” You whisper, voice shaking with emotion.
“Yes, it's me. I don't know what happened to me, I can't get back my control, and I'm putting you through hell.” His voice wavers “I didn't mean to force you into it. I'm sorry.” He apologizes.
“I know, Yuta.” You reply softly. “It's all my fault, I didn't think the wish was real.”
“What do you mean? What wish?” He asks.
You tell him everything that happened, from how you got the one wish willow, to how you accidentally broke it, and how you didn't believe it at first but now fully do, because the situation currently is the proof of it being real.
Yuta went quiet, you panicked, thinking he lost control.
“You didn't know. It's okay.” He answered after a while, you shook your head.
“No, no, it doesn't matter if I didn't know. I should've been more careful. I wished for a cursed thing.”
Yuta goes quiet again after that, he just hummed.
“But I still love you.” He breaks the silence.
“I tried so hard to snap back, I even did it multiple times but I cannot gain full control— maybe if I resist harder, I can break out of it.” He speaks.
“You were able to snap back?” You question, unaware that it was actually happening. But then it made sense, the brief moments where Yuta's expression would be of panic, and how sometimes he behaved way too differently. You thought the split personality was just him being weird due to the wish.
But no, it was the real Yuta snapping in and out.
“Yes, I think I'll gain full control back if i—”
“No you cannot.” You cut him off, swallowing a lump in your throat.
“You're under a spell out by me Yuta, you cannot undo it. Unless…” You trail off, wondering if it's something you should tell him.
“Unless?” His voice asks back.
“You cannot return back as long as I am alive.”
The room goes still, like it was holding its breath at the revelation. Yuta doesn't say anything for a long time, but he could sense something was off.
“Where are you headed off to?” He suddenly questions, too concerned about you than himself.
“I'm going out for a walk.” You lie, quickly turning on your heel and taking steps out of the bedroom.
“No, no, no, [name]. Get back here, no there might be another way. Please don't do that to yourself. Please, please. I cannot lose you. Please.” Yuta pleads, immediately seeing through your lie. He cannot move, because the other version Yuta was still asleep so he can only plead.
You lock the bedroom door, muffling his pleas that made you more guilty before you went inside your bathroom.
You looked at the broken bathroom door for a moment before stepping further inside and searching the cabinets for your grandma's medicine. You grew frustrated each minute, looking at the labels for all the bottles she had, desperately searching for the one you needed.
Then you heard a loud bang against your bedroom door, the door rattling and shaking as you heard Yuta's monstrous screams.
Your hands shook as adrenaline pumped through you, you scanned the shelves quickly before finding what you wanted and grabbing the bottle.
You needed to be quick.
You struggled with opening the cap, wondering why it was tightened so much, and your hands being shaky didn't help in the slightest either.
Just then, the bedroom door breaks open, and at the same time, the bottle pops open. You quickly collect a bunch of them, emptying the bottle into your hand just as Yuta spotted your silhouette in the bathroom and he ran towards you in a frenzy.
You tried to be quicker, to make sure you ingest the pills but Yuta reaches you by then, grabbing your hand before you could put the pills in your mouth and twisting it away from your face cruelly.
You wince in pain, hand reflexively letting go of the pills, they drop to the floor and scatter everywhere. His grip on your wrist was painful, fingers digging into your flesh as he looked at you with what you could describe as sheer disappointment with a touch of insanity.
He tugged you out of the bathroom, dragging you out forcefully as you tried to stay planted, you hissed feeling his nails bite into your skin, tears forming in your eyes at the pain.
He uses force and yanks you to the front before letting you go, you stumble forward and lose your balance, falling to the floor with a thud right in front of him.
He kneels down grabbing you by your face.
“Is being with me that horrible?” He asked. “Tell me, please tell me what I can do to fix it. Just don't resort to this, we'll find another way to fix everything okay?.” He squeezed your face, mushing your cheeks together.
“You cannot leave me like this, not when I finally fucking have you.” He grit his teeth.
“I don't mind being stuck—” He then abruptly stops.
And then,
He yawns all of a sudden, blinking his eyes slowly.
“Baby? What happened? Why are you on the floor?” His pupils became blown out as his eyes widened slowly as if he just woke up, he looked around, assessing the situation and realising you were a complete mess before he quickly picked you up, before taking you back into your bedroom.
What is going on?
“How did we end up on the floor but are you okay? Was I sleep walking?” He asked you, gently placing you down on the bed.
“Yuta?” You question, your mind too confused to understand what was happening, is this the real Yuta currently speaking to you?
“Mhm?” He looked at you, waiting for you to speak.
“Nothing.” You cut the conversation short.
Yuta tucks you into bed, wrapping his arms extremely tightly around you this time, to make sure there is no chance of you leaving. He falls back asleep, as if nothing happened.
As if he couldn't recall anything.
Your eyes close on their own as your body enters a state of tiredness, your fight or flight state calming down but also taking your energy with it. You shut your eyes.
“I don't mind being stuck like this forever if it means I can have you.”
You catch Yuta's voice right before you fall deep into your slumber.
❀❀❀❀❀
You wake up feeling horrible the next day, feeling more tired and exhausted rather than relaxed. Your body felt stiff as you tried to move, muscles aching as they contracted. You stared to the side where Yuta should be, but it was empty, just a dent left behind from where he slept. You quickly get up, recalling everything from last night.
It didn't feel real at all.
The fact that Yuta was still in there?
You needed to break him out and save him.
You get up off your bed, noticing that the broken door of the bedroom had been completely removed, same with the bathroom door.
You sighed, realising you might need to call someone to fix it later.
But for now, your focus is on Yuta.
You take baby steps into the living room, you see Yuta there, sitting on the sofa and watching the TV, he also had two plates on the table in front of it. He spots you and gives you a quick smile.
“Come, I made breakfast.” He urges you, which you awkwardly obey.
You hated this.
The way he pretends everything is normal while you're left with a heavy feeling in your chest.
You sit on the sofa next to him and grab your plate, you scan for weird translucent and sticky stuff before deciding it is safe to eat. Yuta chuckles at your behavior.
“Don't worry, I didn't cum in it. I don't need to anymore.” He blushes, recalling the events of last night. You look away, feeling self conscious for some reason.
You began consuming the said breakfast while trying to watch the show, but you couldn't focus due to Yuta's intense staring in your direction.
You needed to get the original Yuta back, you can't have him suffer like this anymore. You finish your breakfast quickly and get up to put the plates away.
Yuta continues to watch you, not taking his eyes off you as come back from the kitchen and then you go into your bedroom, searching for the phone Yuta discarded. You found it on the floor, you quickly grabbed it, unlocked it, and opened a search engine to try and see where you could get more one wish willows.
You quickly make your way into the living room, Yuta still sitting on the sofa and continuing to stare at you as you approach him.
“Yuta— I'll be going out. I'll be quick okay?” You tell him.
“Let me come with you.” He gets up, stepping forward.
“No. Just stay home okay? Don't go anywhere, or else I'll be really uh— mad.” You cut him off, pushing him back down onto the sofa.
He pouts, eyes glistening with tears as he holds your wrists. “Okay… Please don't be mad at me.” He replies, voice all down and sad. You nod, cupping his face and pressing a kiss to forehead to pass it off as something genuine, so he doesn't go batshit insane like last night.
“I love you, okay? I love you a lot.” You affirm, staring into his eyes, he looks away feeling shy, blood rushing to his cheeks at your affection.
“I love you too.” He murmurs back before looking up at you again, giving you a small smile.
“I'll go now, see ya.” You step back, waving a goodbye to which he returns the gesture.
You quickly step outside, hurrying to your car as you enter the location of the shop the search engine showed you.
The drive there felt like hours even though it was just a few minutes away, your mind was occupied with events of last night and every situation that led to this.
Why did you even say such a thing out loud back then? Especially when you didn't fully know if it would work? You shouldn't have picked the thing the stranger dropped, you should've thrown it away, you shouldn't have gone to the bar that night—
Your mind spirals, scattering everywhere as it comes up with multiple scenarios that could've prevented this, everything seemed like your fault.
You felt a sense of doom when you reached the occult shop, you quickly parked your car and rushed into the shop, going up to the cashier in a panic.
“Uh hey, hi, do you have the one wish willows here? you know? the kind you snap?” You ask in a hurry and he looks confused which makes you panic, thinking they might not have it.
If they don't have it here, you’d have to go to another shop which is an hour drive from where you were, you were scared what Yuta might do if he sees that you're gone for longer than necessary.
“Oh yeah, there's one left. Right over here.” He points to the side, showing the display that had them.
You let out a sigh of relief before grabbing it and paying for it. You quickly open it, a melody breaking through the air, the same one that played on that night, now it seemed more haunting.
“I wish for my previous wish to be undone.” You say out loud before you try to break it.
But it doesn't snap, you use more force, but it still doesn't break.
The cashier looks at you for a moment.
“You can only make one wish.” He says, eyes flickering between the willow and you.
You hand it over to him when you quickly register what he said.
“Can you break it for me? I found myself in such a shitty situation, I think I've ruined a person— just repeat after me please, I need to save him.” You nudge the willow to him, he shakes his head.
“I can't, I already made my wish.” He says regretfully.
Fuck.
You let out an annoyed sigh before you take the willow back and leave the shop in a hurry.
You need to find someone who can undo this wish.
Maki? No, you cannot face her like this.
And then, an idea enters your mind.
You could pay a stranger to do it.
You look around trying to find a stranger who could make the wish for you, before you quickly spot one. You rush up to the lady.
“Hi, excuse me— can you take this and repeat after me and then break it? I'll give you 100 bucks if you do it. Please.” You request, the stranger looks taken aback and distrustful at first but then you mention the money to which her eyes light up, she quickly grabs the stick.
“I don't know what this is, but money is money. You better keep your promise, I hope this isn't some voodoo shit.” She narrows her eyes. “Go ahead, tell me what I'm supposed to repeat.”
Your eyes light up.
“Just say, ‘I wish for [full name]’s wish to be undone and everything to return to normal.’ Okay?” You blink, swallowing a lump in your throat.
She nods, repeating after you and snapping the willow.
You stay there for a few moments, hoping that everything is reversed now, the only way to confirm it is to go home and check.
“Where's the money?” The lady makes you snap out, you nod, quickly sending her 100 bucks digitally. She gives you a satisfied smile before she waves a goodbye.
You get back in your car and drive home, thinking about how you're going to apologize to Yuta for causing all this.
You were so thankful you had the thought of buying another one wish willow and undoing the wish— though you couldn't do it yourself, it still would've undid everything, right?
You reach your house after a few minutes, you lock your car before rushing into your house, only to see Yuta still sitting in the same spot, watching TV. He lights up when he sees you.
“Where did you go?” He asks, tilting his head to the side before he gets up and walks over to you and pulls into a hug.
He buries his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent.
“I missed you.” He whispers, warm breath cascading down your neck.
You are frozen, mind reeling as you question the situation. You pull away from the hug wondering if anything changed.
“Yuta, how do you feel?” You inquire, doubt clouding your mind.
But he lifts you up all of a sudden, throwing you over his shoulder as he takes you to the bedroom.
“Free.” He replies after he settles you down on the bed.
“I-i finally have control of my body now.” He adds, “What did you do?” He questions, climbing up the bed, you back away slowly.
“Well, it doesn't matter now. Sorry you had to see that side of me. It seemed like my restraints completely broke free because of the wish you made, and I couldn't control them enough to not scare you. But don't worry, I'll be in control now.” Your eyes widen when you see the same psychotic smile etched onto his face.
What?
“Don't worry, everything will be okay now, my love. I'm so thankful you made that wish, like I said before— you didn't have to bring me back, I wouldn't mind staying stuck if it means you won't leave me.” He leans in, pressing his forehead to yours.
“But I understand, the side of me without any restraint can be too much to handle. I'll be careful.” He smooches your eyes. “I don't want to hurt you in the process, you know?”
“Anyway I'm glad, it's finally my turn now.” He whispers before pressing his lips against yours and pushing you into the mattress.
“I can't wait to love you like you deserve. You'll forgive me right? Please? I love you, I promise not to hurt you or put you through emotional turmoil this time.” He mutters staring into your eyes with a lot of love pouring from him, you brain could barely form any thought at his words, at the reveal that everything you experienced was a personality of his without any restraints.
What the actual fuck?
Yuta was madly in love with you since the beginning, your wish— was just a mere catalyst.
𝒮atoru keeps you bent over, taking his time while his eyes stay fixed on the mirror..watching every needy, dazed expression you make..
1.0k words, quick read 𝑓𝑡. byf!toru ( +18 )
Satoru had you bent over the edge of the bed, one hand splayed between your shoulder blades keeping you down, the other locked around your hip. The mirror across the room caught everything ; your face half-buried in the sheets, mouth open, eyes glassy. He watched himself fuck into you, slow and deep at first, then harder when your thighs started shaking.
“Look at you,” he murmured, voice low and rough with that cocky edge he never bothered hiding. “Can’t even keep your eyes open. You’re taking it so fucking well.”
You made a soft, broken sound, more whine than word, fingers twisting in the blanket. He rolled his hips and bottomed out, grinding there just to feel you clench around him. Your reflection showed the exact second the pleasure hit, lips parting wider, a dazed little flutter of your lashes.
“There it is.” He pulled almost all the way out and snapped back in, the sound wet and sharp in the quiet room. “That face. I could watch it all night.”
You tried to push back against him, needy, but he controlled the pace completely. Every thrust forced another soft, high noise out of you. He leaned over your back, chest warm against your skin, and reached around to cup your chin, tipping your face up toward the mirror.
“Open your eyes for me babe.”
You did, slow and heavy-lidded. The sight of yourself, flushed, messy, completely taken made you clench hard around him. He groaned under his breath and fucked into you harder, the hand on your hip tightening until you felt the bruise forming.
“.. You love this uh ? Love getting bent over and used while I stare at how pretty you look when you’re falling apart.”
“Sa..toru—” Your voice cracked on his name, half plea, half complaint. You sounded wrecked already, needy and spaced out.
He chuckled, and slowed down just enough to make you whimper in protest. “What? You want it faster? Harder? Use your words, baby. I know you can.”
You shook your head against the mattress, hips trying to chase him. “Please… just—don’t stop—”
“Not stopping sweetheart.” He drove in deep again, the force of it rocking you forward. His free hand slid down your stomach and found your clit, circling slow and deliberate while he kept thrusting. “Not when you sound like that. Not when you’re this wet for me.”
Your arms gave out. You dropped fully onto the bed, face turned to the side so you could still see the mirror. He followed you down without missing a beat, covering you, fucking you into the mattress. Every stroke punched soft, desperate noises out of your throat. He watched the whole time, your open mouth, the way your eyes kept rolling back, the helpless little trembles that ran through you every time he hit that spot just right.
“That’s it,” he breathed against your ear. “You’re doing so fucking good for me.”
You were past coherent answers, reduced to soft, continuous whines and the occasional broken “please.” He kept the pressure on your clit steady, thrusts deep and relentless, until your whole body went tight under him. The orgasm hit hard, your reflection showed it clearly, the way your face crumpled, mouth falling open on a silent cry before the sound finally tore free.
He didn’t stop. He fucked you through it, slower now but still deep, riding the aftershocks until you were shaking and oversensitive, pushing weakly at his hip. Only then did he pull out, turn you onto your back, and push back in facing you. Your legs wrapped around him automatically. He braced over you, blue eyes half-lidded and smug, and started moving again, gentler this time, rolling into you while he watched every flicker of expression on your face up close.
“Still with me?” he asked, voice softer but still teasing.
You nodded, dazed, hands sliding up his arms. “Mmm… just—just slow for a second..”
“Got you.” He kissed the corner of your mouth, then deeper, swallowing the soft sounds you made. His hips kept a steady, deep rhythm, not rushing. One hand stroked your hair back from your face. “But you’re so fucking beautiful like this. Completely gone on my cock.”
You let out a quiet, needy whimper against his lips. He smiled into the next kiss, still moving, still watching you like you were the only thing in the room worth looking at.
“Gonna make you cum again princess,” he promised, low and certain. “Then maybe I’ll let you rest. Maybe..”
You didn’t argue. You just held on, legs tightening around him, already drifting back under the slow, relentless pleasure he was feeding you.
᭡ kali’s notes ⸻I think I’m a little obsessed with writing about him right now... He’s so much fun to write about him! Butttt anyway, I hope you liked it mwahh !
Jack Abbot, who was your first post-college relationship. An older man who sang your praises after your college boyfriend absolutely ripped your self confidence to shreds after your breakup. Who saw you looking hesitant at a bar one night and offered to buy you a drink. Who listened while you spilled your heart about getting a job in Pittsburgh, a city where you knew no one. Who promised to show you the city.
And eventually your sight seeing turned into something more. Late night drinks in his kitchen. Dropping off lunch for him at the hospital (because you knew he never cooked for himself). Him spending hours between your thighs. He was never your boyfriend per se. Somewhere between a friend and a lover. Your proclaimed “vessel of self-discovery”. Who taught you how to rebuild yourself while you worked out the rest of your contract at the job. Who held you while you cried, saying that you wanted to go back home. Who bought you a cupcake to celebrate your new position a few states over. Who helped you pack up your apartment and dropped you off at the airport. Who kissed you when you looked up at him with teary eyes and told him you would miss him the most. Who you texted updates about your new life, him smiling at his screen alone in his house, ignoring the tugging at his chest at the coldness of his mattress and the fact your perfume was beginning to fade from his memory.
Who, even after all this time, feels something ugly curl in his chest when he sees you announce your engagement to someone else.
fucking her with a toy i know is too big just to watch her fall apart. pushing it all the way in to hear the sound she makes, letting my hips rest against hers for a minute, holding her still and feeling her try to squirm under me before i pull all the way out and push back in. she whines and tries to hide her face before i force her to look at me. "uhuhuh, lemme see how pretty you look while you take it."
noticing her tears and faking concern, wiping them away with my thumb. "what's wrong? is it too much, sweet girl?" ,as i continue to fuck her harder, not even giving her an opportunity to answer. watching her cry because its almost too big for her to handle. "aww i know, bunny. but you're taking me so well. look how deep i am."
summary: the evolution of you and carmy's relationship, as told by the layers of the dessert that brought you together in the first place, and almost ruined your life. or: the four times carmy caught himself falling in love with you, and the one time he actually let himself. (10k)
characters: carmy berzatto / fem!reader, mentions of claire / carmy, luca, richie jerimovich, sydney adamu, chef terry
contents: slow burn, strangers to friends to lovers, idiots in love, angst (hurt/comfort), jealousy, so much yearning, reheating sydcarmy nachos, canon divergent (i kinda mish-mash the events of season 2 and 3 together here for funsies), cw for mentions of grief, talks of depression and anxiety, smut 18+ (carmy's touch-starved and cries during sex, you heard it here first guys!)
( NAVIGATION ) | ( AO3 )
pear mille-feuille, a classic parisian dessert, meaning "a thousand layers" in french, pronounced: pair-meel-fwee.
—
I. BURNT CARAMEL
Carmy rushed out of the restaurant with his pulse thrumming in his throat and the word of David Fields bouncing around in his pounding skull. “I don’t think about you at all,” he’d said. “I don’t think about you at all. I don’t think about you at all—” Carmy shoved the metal door open with a too-aggressive hand, so hard it hit the brick wall on the other side with a resounding bang.
He waited for the cool Chicago night air to smack him in the face, to remind him how to breathe again. He got a heavy whiff of warm caramel and sweet pear instead.
With his tattooed knuckles running hard along his tight chest, he turned his head to find a strange woman he only vaguely recognized sitting on the curb a few feet away — dressed for a funeral, wearing a wrinkled black dress and a run in her tights along the knee. A plate of something sweet rested in her lap.
“Uh… Hi,” Carmy greeted shakily, half-strangled from the leftover panic still clutching him hard by the throat.
“Hi,” you responded quietly, as if choked by some strange emotion of your own.
The man’s wet, ocean eyes flit between your face and the food in your lap. A rogue brown curl fell over his forehead as he nodded down towards you. “What’s, uh… What’s that?”
“My mortal enemy,” you answered gravelly, before turning away. “It’s a Pear Mille-Feuille… I thought maybe I could finally get it right before we closed…”
Carmy blinked owlishly at your profile. “…Well, did you?”
“Nope…” you answered through a heavy sigh, popping your lips together. “The pastry’s too soft. But somehow the pears are still overdone, so… I can’t win.”
Carmy looked it over with an inquisitive eye — the thin gold layers of puff pastry, all stacked neatly atop one another; pears poached to the perfect amber color; thick cream piped with a near impossible precision. It looked like something straight out of a magazine. And, if Carmy had to guess by how hard you were on yourself about the whole thing, it’s entirely likely you’d been published in one before.
“Well, it looks good, at least.”
“That’s only ‘cause you’re standing six feet away.”
Carmy scoffed a quiet laugh and found his breath coming more easily to him. “Here,” he offered, shoes scraping the worn pavement as he approached you. “Let me try it.”
Your head snapped in his direction. Your wide eyes raised to follow his form as he loomed suddenly over you, black blazer rippling in the cool, late-summer breeze. The night air filled suddenly with the scent of him — deep cologne, cigarette smoke, and nicotine gum.
“Wh…What?” you stammered.
“Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective, is all. Like, uh… A new pallet, you know?”
Carmy reached a tattooed hand in your direction, leaving little room for argument. You got the feeling that he must run a restaurant of his own as you passed him the ceramic plate, fingers trembling. You watched anxiously as he took the fork in his large hand and cut himself a slice of the pastry.
He shoveled it into his mouth — an explosion of butter, vanilla, pear, and caramel — the near-perfect balance of elegant and comforting. Just refined enough not to impose too much on itself.
His cheek jut softly out as he chewed. He nodded to himself until the words caught up to him. “Yeah, this is… incredible, Chef,” he said through the mouthful, laughing slightly through his nose. The sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
You didn’t believe him, not entirely, but the line in your taut shoulders relaxed slightly at his praise anyway. Sometimes, feeding others felt like a leap of faith. Sometimes, feeding someone felt like handing over a piece of yourself to them, and hoping they found something worth keeping.
—
Months later, Carmy realizes that there are only two kinds of things a person holds onto in this world — things they can’t bear to lose, and things they never meant to keep.
Mikey belongs perpetually in the first category. And, ever since you started working here, he’s begun to realize that you belong in the second. Maybe that’s why he felt himself on the verge of a panic attack for the third time today, ‘cause he was spending his evening excavating his brother’s office like an archeological dig, and found himself surrounded by both at once.
This office had belonged to Mikey, and would be the last thing that ever truly did.
Carmy thinks, knows, that’s why he put off cleaning it out for so long — like keeping it exactly the way his brother left it would preserve his ghost there in some way. This place was practically his tomb, made of four concrete walls faded to the color of old dishwater, an ancient desk so cluttered you can barely see its surface, and a bunch of dented filing cabinets that haven’t been organized in at least three presidential administrations.
They’re all half empty now, organized in boxes with Mikey’s frantic scrawl left on every crumpled receipt, invoice, and payroll record. Soon this office would match the rest of the place — clean, sleek, erased — and what’s left of his brother would be gone.
Carmy slouches against the cool brick with his arms propped on his bent knees, holding the last of Mikey’s things in a tattooed hand. A prescription pill bottle with the label scratched off, which he found while grave-digging through the cabinet drawers. He clutches it tight in his fist, holding the remnants of addiction as if it were his brother’s hand.
The grey, mildew-and-coffee-scented abyss of his grief is abated only by the sound of your laughter, which bounces off the concrete walls and finds him like the rays of milky-orange sunlight filtering through the stained window above his head, which turns his wild curls a more golden shade of brown.
His heavy ocean eyes lift and find you instantly — the way they always seemed to do — and his features flood with horror when he finds you with his sketchbook in your hands.
“What’s all this?” you wonder with a quiet laugh, beneath the subtle thwipping of the pages as you flick through them with your thumb.
Inside are random lists, phone numbers, and mock-ups for the restaurant, all in Carmy’s scrawled handwriting. Then you stumble upon a series of sloppy portraits — some of them of the others in the kitchen; most of them of you, like he was trying to capture you just right.
They feel like memories in some way, moments stolen when no one else was looking. They’re slightly messy, as if drawn by a loose and absentminded hand. It’s quite strange, looking at yourself from another person’s perspective. But even still, you don’t think you’ve ever looked so pretty, so alive, than on these pages of smudged ink.
“I didn’t know you could draw.”
Carmy shrugs lazily with his pink mouth softly jutted, feigning an air of indifference despite the red tint speckling across his cheeks.
“I can’t,” he mumbles through a huff as he stands to full height again, bracing himself on the cleared-out desk beside him. He tucks the pill bottle into the front pocket of his slacks and clears his throat when he feels his pulse skipping there. “N-Not really.”
“Well, I beg to differ,” you scoff and turn another page.
Another scribbled portrait of you sits in the center, drawn in blue ink this time. You’ve got the eraser end of a pencil in your mouth and another sitting behind your ear, concentrating on coming up with a new dessert menu. You were captured quite beautifully, even in your subtle frustration. “I didn’t think I was capable of looking this good until now.”
“You look good all the time,” he dismisses quietly, curls swaying when he shakes his head at you.
He grimaces at himself right after the words spill from his lips, face flaring hotter when the expression on your face shifts slightly in response to them. He lacks the courage to meet your eyes as he looms before you, smelling of stale cologne and sweat from days of renovation.
“What do you, uh— What do you usually draw?” you stammer and pass the sketchbook back to him.
“I don’t know…” Carmy mutters. “Whatever’s, you know, on my mind, I guess—”
Your heart lurches in your chest, both at his words and at the office door slamming suddenly open across the room. Your heads snap to the side in tandem to find Richie towering in the narrow doorway. “Cousin, I swear to god, I’m about to fuckin’ lose it, man—”
“You’re so dramatic, Richie, jeez…” Sydney sighs as she walks past him and further into the newly renovated kitchen, to busy herself with actual work.
Carmy hangs his head and closes his eyes, digging his thumb and forefinger into the sockets in a quiet frustration. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come to me with any problems while I was in here—”
“I know that,” Richie shrugs. “It’s not a problem.
“—I don’t have time for this shit right now, Rich.”
“Well, it’s not a fuckin’ problem, Carm! What do you want me to say?” the older man repeats, louder now.
“It’s literally a problem,” Syd monotones from somewhere further inside the kitchen.
“Well, Ms. Know-It-All over here wants less tables in the dining room— says it’ll fuckin’… make it more systematic or whatever, I don’t know,” Richie rambles, gesturing wildly with his hands. “But I told her we’re opening a restaurant here. Not a library. More seats means more customers, which means more money— Which we’re slowly running out of, might I add!”
He turns over his shoulder to yell into the kitchen. You wince when his voice bounces off the bare concrete walls.
“Yeah, Syd’s right,” Carmy nods.
“Thank you!” the girl calls distantly.
Richie blinks slowly in offense. “…What?”
“Syd’s right—”
“No, I heard you—”
“Then why’d you say what—?”
“‘Cause you’re fucking with me,” Richie scoffs an emotionless, half-delirious laugh.
“I’m trying to be efficient here, Rich—”
“You’re all fucking with me—”
“We can turn over tables quicker if there’s less of them,” Carmy explains, much more calmly in response, though there’s a sudden bite behind his words that you don’t miss. He keeps one hand propped on his waist while his other gestures with the sketchbook between his fingers. “Which means more customers, which means more money, which… we are running out of…”
Richie laughs like it’s funny. “Well, that’s real funny, Carm, ‘cause I bet if I brought Claire-Bear in here, and she agreed with me — which she would, by the way — you’d change your mind like that—”
Carmy flinches when the man lifts his hand to snap in his face. He swats him away with a little more aggression than probably necessary. “Get your hand out of my face— What are you twelve?”
“Yeah, you’re mad ‘cause you know I’m right.”
Your head tilts to the side like an intrigued puppy at the foreign name, which you haven’t yet become acquainted with in your weeks working here. Your wide eyes dart between the two men in front of you. Your smile trembles slightly at the edges.
“Who’s… Who’s Claire-Bear?”
Carmy’s head snaps in your direction. His mouth parts, but nothing comes out for an embarrassing fraction of a second, as if he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. Bringing her up in front of you feels wrong in a way he can’t explain.
“She’s uh… She’s— She’s no one,” Carmy stammers.
“Oh, please,” Richie scoffs, dark blue eyes flitting in your direction. “She’s his girlfriend.”
Your stomach sinks, even despite Carmy’s arguing.
“For the last time, she’s not my fucking girlfriend. Richie—”
“Well, not for lack of tryin’, cousin—”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Carmy repeats, this time only to you. There’s a solemn look in his light eyes, like he’s trying to make sure you really hear him. “She’s, you know, an old friend. A family friend. That’s all.”
“Oh,” Richie laughs. “I bet Claire-Bear would love to hear that.”
“Fuck off, Richie,” Carmy spits.
“Oh, there you are.” A softer, deeper, more foreign voice breaks through the boyish bickering in an instant. Luca appears in the doorway behind Richie — golden locks pushed over his forehead, physically built beneath his white undershirt, looking a lot less plagued by the chaos of the kitchen than the rest of them. His pink lips quirk into a smile at the sight of you. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you— I need an expert opinion on this lemon-blueberry trifle I’m trying out.”
“Yeah, put this girl out of her misery. Please,” Richie scoffs drily, then turns back to you with a warm, sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “I apologize for my cousin, Sunshine. I did warn you he could be a bit of an asshole—”
“Richie.”
“It’s… okay,” you murmur with a sheepish laugh, before glancing over at Carmy beneath your lashes in a sheepish look. “Are you… okay in here?”
Carmy’s expression shifts slightly, like he’s about to say the exact opposite of what he really means. He feels his chest stinging with a pinch of misplaced jealousy — because he knows you spent time in Copenhagen with Luca some years back, and the idea of someone knowing parts of you that he doesn’t feels a little like a punch to the stomach.
“Yeah,” he nods anyway, slightly strangled, like his body’s trying to keep him from saying the words. “Yeah, I got the rest of it. Go ahead.”
You flash the boy a smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes as you go. Carmy watches you trail behind Luca out of the office and back towards the dessert station. Richie watches Carmy watch you.
“So about the tables—”
“Enough about the fucking tables, Richie!”
II. ORANGE BLOSSOM HONEY.
There were only two times in your entire life that you swore you’d never bake again: first, when you got your first scathing review that sent you on a downward spiral for longer than you’d like to admit, and second, when Ever closed down for good.
There was still joy in it, somewhere deep down, you just couldn’t find it anymore. Honestly, you had trouble finding it most days in most anything. Which is probably why Luca told you to give The Bear a shot in the first place.
“I’ll tell him you’re stopping by, alright?” he’d told you over the phone that evening. “Just talk to Carmy. See the place out. And if you hate it, I will personally fly myself across the Atlantic so you can say ‘I told you so’ to my face.”
“That sounds very expensive, Lu.”
“Well, it’d be worth every penny.”
So there you were, weaving through a restaurant that seemed more abandoned than not — as though someone had taken a perfectly good kitchen and detonated a small explosive in the center of it. Walls had been torn down. Floors were covered in sawdust. Extension cords snaked across the room like vines. The smell of drywall and fresh paint grew stronger the further you went.
For a moment, you worried that no one was inside waiting for you, and that you had accidentally committed a breaking and entering — until you spotted a curly-haired stranger hunched over a metal counter in the not-quite kitchen, scribbling at a notepad with his pen.
He glanced up at the sound of your footsteps, dark curls hanging over his eyes. A mixture of surprise and confusion flashed in his gaze, brows raising and lowering again.
You lifted a hand in an awkward wave. “Hi…”
“Hey…”
“I’m sorry. I let myself in— I… I tried to knock, but I guess you couldn’t… hear me…” You trailed off with a wavering smile, scratching anxiously at the back of your neck. “Uh, Luca was supposed to call you, I think...”
Realization flooded the sharp edges of Carmy’s face.
“Oh. Right,” he nodded. “Yeah, for the, uh...”
“Yeah…”
Carmy swallowed hard, tapping his pen along his palm, no more anxious than you are now. “Well, uh, I— I hope he warned you that we don’t have much of a kitchen yet...”
“Yeah…” you answered with a breathless laugh, eyes wandering across the spray-painted tarps hanging as makeshift walls as you strolled further inside. “I just… I thought he was exaggerating a little bit.”
A short laugh escaped him then as he rounded the counter in front of him. “Yeah, this is— basically a construction zone more than a kitchen at this point, so… Sorry in advance.”
“Well, if we’re sharing apologies, I’m sorry for not bringing a résumé,” you confessed sheepishly, struggling to meet the man’s gaze when he stood before you. The scent of paint and sawdust clung heavily to his navy sweatshirt. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me working here.”
“C’mon. I know your résumé,” Carmy scoffed. “I’ve actually eaten your food before, remember?”
“The desert I was crying over at Ever, you mean?”
His lip twitched into a soft smile before he turned away, too shy to say this to your face:“Well, in my opinion, something that perfect is worth crying over.”
You grinned at the back of him, wider than you realized. “You’re still sparing my feelings after all this time…”
Carmy planted himself on the right wing end of the soon-to-be kitchen and turned to face you again. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but… This is gonna be our dessert station. Hopefully. If this entire place doesn’t cave in—”
‘Ours,’ he said, as if it were already yours in some way, too.
“—That’s a joke. Sorta,” he said, scratching at the back of his wild curls. He glanced up at you once more. “Have you tried making it again since we met?” he wondered suddenly. “You know that… pear… mill-fill thing?”
A giggle sputtered from your lips before you could stop it. Your hand flew to your mouth, as if you were trying to put it inside.
Carmy grinned shyly at having earned the pretty sound, despite his mild embarrassment. He fidgeted with the pen in his tattooed hands and gave you a sheepish look in response. “Help me out here…”
“It’s French,” you told him. “It’s mee-fwee.”
His brows lowered with a visible hesitation. “Mee… foy…”
“Close enough,” you laughed with a shake of your head. “And, to answer your question, no. I haven’t made it again. And I probably never will— I’m too fragile for another defeat.”
The grin that tugged at the corner of Carmy’s mouth then was brief, but no less genuine. “You will,” he said, like some kind of an oath, with so much conviction you couldn’t help but believe him.
—
“You seem happier here.”
Luca’s observation comes suddenly. His English-deep voice cuts through the soft quiet of the empty restaurant, renovated to near completion now. The two of you lie supine on the cool hardwood, the tops of your heads nearly brushing, as you put together Carmy’s newest splurge — which his uncle called “expensive, ergonomic, fuckin’ hippie tables.” You screw each bolt in by hand. You can feel your fingers threatening to cramp around the screwdriver clutched between them.
“Happier than Copenhagen, I mean,” he continues.
You scoff. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure any version of me is happier than I was in Copenhagen…”
“Oh, c’mon…” Luca lilts lowly. “I wasn’t that bad company, was I?”
“You know it wasn’t about you…” you mumble.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know…”
It was the fault of that goddamn critic, and the devastating review he left that seemed to compliment everything but your work alone.“The pear mille-feuille reads less like a dessert and more like a young chef begging for validation,” the publication read. “For all its technical accomplishment, the pastry never once feels human. It is difficult to imagine, dear reader, a pastry with so much insecurity baked into each of its layers.”
Your world seemed to shrink after that. The singular paragraph of disapproval lodged itself somewhere deep within your psyche, along with all the cynicism and sorrow that built a home inside you, too. Every other failed recipe somehow led back to it, and every success thereafter felt purely accidental — until, eventually, baking stopped being fun and started being the one thing most capable of hurting you.
It hollowed you from the inside out. You worked the kitchen like a ghost returning to its haunt. You wanted to quit, in virtually every sense of the word, and it was Chef Andrea who convinced you to stay — by sending you four thousand miles away to Copenhagen, that is, to remember a world without critics and service and non-stop perfection; to remember what it felt like to exist without constantly needing to prove yourself.
It was there that you met Luca, who taught you what it meant to approach food with curiosity again. And it was here now, in the bones of The Bear, that reminded you how to love the work again — the simple joy of making something with your bare hands and sharing it with the people who mattered most.
“I’m just glad you didn’t stop cooking…” Luca continues with a quiet grunt in the back of his throat as he slides out from under the table. “And I’m glad Chef Andrea sent you over to my neck of the woods.”
“Let me?” you scoff, tilting your head back against the floor to look at the boy upside down. “She practically forced me on that plane.”
“Best thing she ever did,” the boy croons with an air of sarcasm to mask his sincerity. He rises to full height and dusts his palms off on his slacks. “I’m headed out for the night… Need a ride?”
“I think I’m gonna stay here for a while…” you sigh.
“Suit yourself,” he huffs and walks away. “Just don’t overdo it.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will be very upset with you,” he deadpans with faux-solemnity.
“Oh, the horror!” you call to his disappearing figure, right before the door shuts behind him.
Silence returns when he’s gone. Your chest deflates with a heavy sigh, a held breath you didn’t know you were keeping, as you return to your work — twisting the screwdriver in your fist and reveling in the burn in your wrist, the only thing keeping you from thinking.
About that critic. About Copenhagen. About Carmy’s sketchbook, about Carmy and the girl called Claire-Bear.
You rise onto your elbows with a huff when you’re done, stretching out the aching tendons in your neck. You vaguely hear the kitchen door swishing open and shut again before a sudden voice calls out. “Oh, hey—”
The sound of Carmy’s voice startles you for a reason you can’t name. You sit further up on instinct and slam your head against the table with a whack that jostles one of the screws.
“Ow...” you whimper.
“Shit—” Carmy rushes to your side, catching the wooden top when it wavers. His long, tattooed fingers curl around the edge of it to keep its weight from falling back on you. He ducks his head to look at you, features twisting with a sympathetic grimace as you rub at your aching forehead. “Sorry… Didn’t mean to scare you…”
“You didn’t scare me…” you assure him weakly.
His mouth lifts into an amused half-smile. “No?”
You shrug, lips jutted in feigned apathy despite the newfound pounding in your skull. “Not even a little bit...”
Carmy’s grin widens, but he makes no further argument. He just crouches down in front of you and keeps the tabletop steady while you lie back to realign its leg. You spend the next minute or so screwing the loose bolts back into the blanched oak, hands going clammy around the screwdriver at the proximity between you now. The air grows considerably warmer accordingly, filled with the familiar scent of him — of cologne, garlic, and cigarette smoke. You have to keep reminding yourself to breathe.
“You, uh— You never told me,” Carmy starts suddenly, as if he’d been sitting on the words for some time and only now got the courage to say them. He swipes at his nose with the back of his free hand and mumbles shyly behind his fingers.“About, you know, why you almost didn’t come here… Why you went to Copenhagen...”
Your breath hitches faintly in throat. You hope he doesn’t notice. The screw twisting itself back into the pale wood above you becomes the most interesting thing in the room. “It never came up…” you answer quietly. “It was stupid anyway…”
“No, what the asshole critic said was stupid.”
You turn your head against the floor to flash him a playful look, hiding behind the veil of your sarcasm. “There you go again…”
“There I go again?” he echoes.
“Sparing my feelings.”
“No, I— I’m serious.” Carmy stammers with a breathless laugh. “And I know I’m right because I’ve had your stuff before.”
“Yeah,” you scoff and turn away again. “That stupid fucking pear dish that I still can’t get right.”
“No, it was, uh…” Carmy trails off and shakes his head, going distant with recollection. He rests the elbow of his free arm on his bent knee and drops his wild head into his palm. He digs his thumb and forefinger into his eyes as he struggles to recall the name. “It was, uh… It was the— the Bordeaux, I think?”
He lifts his head to glance down at you once more. Your arms fall to your lap, eyes narrowing in confusion as your lip twitches into a shock half-smile. “The Canalé de Bordeaux?” you repeat with much more ease.
“Yeah,” Carmy nods, brown curls swaying. “It was right before I took over here— when I was, you know, eating everywhere I could, trying to learn as much as I could, and I…” His mouth lifts into a distant smile; his eyes glaze over at the memory. “I didn’t even place it until you made it for the kitchen the other day… Don’t think I would’ve noticed otherwise…”
“That was… God, that was forever ago,” you say with a laugh of disbelief, rising back up onto your eblows. “I’m surprised you remember it now.”
“I remember everything,” Carmy shrugs.
“That sounds… terrifying,” you scoff.
“It is. Sometimes,” he jokes with a breathy chuckle. “But, I don’t know… Now I’m starting to think it’s not so bad…”
His light eyes lock with yours. You lose your breath almost instantly, chest aching as your lungs struggle to find it again. You feel like the distance between you has vanished in a blink; each of your breaths feels like inhaling him in some way. You feel like you can taste him, almost, and your mouth waters at the thought alone, parting for his on instinct.
With your heavy eyes settled on his glassy ones, you catch the soft blue of his irises flick down to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You want so desperately for him to kiss you. And you hate how badly you need it.
“I-I don’t think this is a good idea,” you hear yourself blurt.
Carmy’s brows lower in confusion as you scramble suddenly out from under the table. You rise to full height on shaky legs and place several feet of distance between the two of you, crossing your arms over your chest in a feeble attempt to soothe your racing heart.
Carmy rises slowly from his crouched position, blinking the lingering haze from his eyes. “Wha… What are you talking about?” he stammers with his hands splayed in front of him, approaching you again the way someone would a stray puppy.
“Because of, you know… Because of… Claire.” You whisper the name like it’s a curse of some kind.
The confusion etched on his features only deepens further. “Claire?” he echoes, face screwed. “Wh—What does Claire have to do with this? Claire is— Claire is nobody—”
“Does she know that?” you press, brows raised.
“Yes!” he answers without missing a beat. “Because nothing ever happened between us! Because nothing will ever happen between us! Because I— I’m not into her that way!”
“That… way?”
“Yeah,” he shrugs, tattooed biceps straining against the sleeves of his undershirt as he rests his hands on his hips. “You know, the— The way I’m into…”
He trails off when he catches himself. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. His unwavering stare bores into yours as he weighs the words in his head, wondering briefly if he should say them aloud. His wild curls sway as he shakes his head to himself. “You know what. Fuck it. The way I’m— The way I’m into you.”
Your chest warms at his words. So furiously, it feels someone has taken a white-hot blade and pierced your sternum with it. You can feel the heart flaring in your face, too, as your mouth curls into a wide, slightly apprehensive smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Carmy nods firmly, though something in his gaze seems distantly surprised by his own forwardness. He scratches at the back of his curls and looks down at the table just beside you. “Are you, uh— Are we you good here?”
You nod rapidly until the words to speak catch up to you. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Good,” he hums. “Do you… Do you need a ride, or…?”
You hesitate on instinct, nose scrunching sheepishly. “If it’s not too far out of your way…”
Carmy scoffs like it’s funny. “You’re never too far out of my way,” he says and turns on the heel of his sneaker to walk away, as if he hadn’t just taken all the breath from your lungs right with him.
III. ALMOND PRALINE.
Your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
You pressed your back hard into the rough brick behind you, letting it snag against your chef whites in a feeble attempt to ground yourself. You tipped your head back for further assistance, and fought every instinct that told you to beat your skull against the concrete as your heart thrummed wildly in your throat — as though it were trying to burst through the delicate tendon there altogether.
Adrenaline soared through your veins. The starry night air refused to pierce through your burning skin, face burning red-hot while your fingers turned to ice.
You had survived a million dinner services much harder than this one, The Bear’s very first. You had survived Carmy’s anger, Richie’s shouting, and the entire kitchen learning how to operate itself. But it was the food critic that nearly killed you — the man who came in older than you remembered, greyer, and a little skinnier than you recall.
It took you a long moment to remember to breathe as you watched Fak seat him through the kitchen window. “I need you back at your station, Chef,” you heard Carmy telling you from the expo, though his voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. “Back at your station, Chef! Now!”
You listened, but your body seemed to work on autopilot. You broke out the baking sheet, the jelly roll pan, and the perforated pastry tray without thinking. You patted out the puff pastry and fired the pears like it was muscle memory to you. You had Richie deliver it to the man, on the house, and tried to expel the rest of it from your mind.
You forgot how to be human thereafter, hardly more useful than a fumbling ball of panic. Carmy told you to get out of the kitchen when you dropped a bowl of sourdough starter you’d been tending to for nearly two months. And now there you were, post-shift, with all the anxiety of a prey animal being hunted for sport.
And the worst part was, you couldn’t tell if you were terrified or exhilarated. Or both.
The heavy metal door beside you squeaked slowly open. A familiar voice broke through the memory. “There you are…” Carmy hummed as he walked out, chef coat hanging open, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the expanse of his tattooed arms.
His wild curls were still damp from sweat and steam, glowing a more golden shade beneath the amber streetlights. The exhaustion of the shift seemed to carve into all the chiseled edges of his face. But his eyes were heavy with relief at finally being alone with you all the same.
You grew sheepish as he stood before you, struggling to meet his gaze like a scolded child. “I’m sorry, by the way. For… all that.”
Carmy shrugged and cupped his palm around the cigarette he pinched into his mouth. His lighter clicked a few times before it lit, basking his features in a flicker orange hue. “It happens,” he mumbled before inhaling the nicotine into his lungs. The grey smoke left through his nostrils a few seconds later as he flashed you a sterner look. “Just don’t let it happen again, Chef.”
You nodded once. “Heard, Chef…”
Carmy flicked the orange filter with his thumb. His eyes fell to your lap, where you wrung your hands together in a feeble attempt to keep them from trembling. Concern surged through his chest instantly.
“Jeez,” he mumbled.
Your eyes followed his form as he crouched to set the newly-lit cig to the sidewalk, leaving it burning there as he rose to full height again.
“What?”
“Your hands… You’re shaking…” He closed the brief distance between you and took your hands in his warmer, larger ones. The contact stole the breath from your lungs. You’re still getting used to touching him so freely. “God, you’re ice cold.”
You laughed breathlessly. “Because my nervous system is shot.”
Carmy began to rub the warmth back into your fingertips. His palms felt like velvet, calloused from years of burns and knives and hard labor. The gesture was so gentle that it made you feel the crying. Again.
“He liked it, you know,” he told you. “The critic, I mean.”
Your stomach fell as anxiety flooded your veins once more. “I appreciate the sentiment, Carm, but… You can’t know that…”
“No, he said it. Cousin cornered him on the way out— asked him about it,” Carmy confessed. “And after he answered, Richie defended you. Said the guy was an asshole, and that he was a pretty shit critic if he didn’t know what good food tasted like.”
Another startled laugh sputtered from your lips. “That means we’re definitely getting a bad review outta him, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “But it’ll be worth it.”
Quiet settled between you. The city grew louder on either side of you in its wake — wind whipping warmly down the alley, cars passing distantly, a train rattling against the tracks somewhere further away. Carmy still hadn’t let go of your hands; he just kept holding you there as his eyes flicked down to your mouth.
He spent a long moment just staring, as if silently trying to will some courage into his body.
Your lips curled slowly into a sheepish smile. “You gonna kiss me, Bear?” you wondered lowly, almost inaudibly.
He nodded for a moment, then pinched his brows to ask. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
“I always want you to kiss me,” you laughed.
His mouth twitched shyly. “Then get over here then.”
Your chest swelled when he urged you forward with a gentle tug at your hands. You pressed yourself to his chest as his mouth ducked down to yours, tasting of nicotine and garlic and boy. You moaned at the feeling of him against you, fingers twisting in his silky brown curls. His larger, tattooed hands splayed along your waist, a little less confident in comparison.
The metal door shrieked open once more with little warning. The droning of ten different conversations filled the air as the rest of the kitchen staff spilled out all at once. You and Carmy sprang apart quickly, losing any and all ability to play it off.
The conversation quietened in an instant. You turned away, wiping at your mouth with the back of your hand and refusing to meet their eyes. The three or more seconds of silence that went by felt like a lifetime, until—
“Pay up, assholes!” Richie shouted, fist pumping triumphantly in the air. He continued gloating through the chorus of laughter and groans of failure. “I knew you idiots were dating, and everyone acted like I was losing my mind! But the house always wins, baby!”
—
Carmy sat along the top of the booth with a plate of Canalé de Bordeaux in his lap. Family was your turn tonight, and you’d opted to make the first dish of yours that Carmy had ever tried for the rest of the kitchen. No one knows just how much tenderness is cooked into the caramelized crust and soft custard. No one, perhaps, other than Carmy.
His sneakers dig into the smooth pleather booth below as he props his back against the wall behind him. The rum-vanilla dish melts in his mouth as he surveys the bustling dining area, filled with his family and friends, some of whom were halfway strangers to him a few years ago. His eyes fall to you without trying as you deliver an alcohol-free dessert to a heavily pregnant Sugar. A distant smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your lips move with a conversation he can’t hear from here.
The soul music playing on the radio drowns out your conversation, but not the sound of Richie’s voice as he slides into the booth next to Carmy. His long, graceless limbs bump against the table as he goes, trying to cut a bite of dessert to shovel into his mouth at the same time.
Annoyance twists in the younger boy’s features on instinct. “I’m not cleaning that up if you spill it—”
“I’m not gonna spill it!” Richie argues boyishly, with his mouth full of food, as he settles into the booth a few inches from Carmy’s sneakers. He nudges the boy’s leg with his elbow. “And get your feet off my booth, you fuckin’ animal... Jeez, I don’t know what that girl sees in you…”
“You’re a fuckin’ asshole…”
“No, I’m serious!” the older man laughs with amusement glittering in his dark blue eyes. He shovels another too-big bite into his cheek and talks through the yellow custard clinging to the sides of his mouth. “I don’t know how you managed to pull that off, cousin— There’s no way you even know what to do with all that.”
Richie turns away, still laughing through his nose at his own stupid joke. He cuts himself another bite, already calculating a retort to Carmy’s inevitable argument on the matter — only one never comes.
The younger boy just stabs absentmindedly at his plate, distracting himself from the topic under the guise of forming the perfect bite.
Richie pauses with his own fork to his mouth. He turns slowly over his shoulder, brows raising to his hairline until four wrinkles line his forehead. “Oh, shit,” he scoffs after a few moments. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
“Shut up…” Carmy murmurs under his breath, taking another aggressive bite.
“Oh, c’mon! Don’t tell me you’re not gettin’ your dick wet, Carm—”
“Keep your voice down, fuck-o!” he spits through his mouthful, eyes darting anxiously to make sure no one else had heard him — that you hadn’t somehow heard him, from your spot all the way across the room, laughing with Sugar and Tina. Carmy turns away with a lazy shrug. “We’re just… We’re taking things slow. Not that it concerns you, FYI.”
“Well, FYI, you guys have been dating for months—”
“Oh, thanks for keeping track. I had no idea.”
“—And if she isn’t getting it with you, she’s gotta be getting it from someone else,” Richie rambles absentmindedly as he turns back to his plate. “I mean, I don’t even swing this way, obviously, but if I were a chick, I’d be all over that Luca guy—”
Carmy’s chest stings with a misplaced jealousy. He shouldn’t listen to Richie; he trusts you far too much for any of that. But maybe it’s his own lingering insecurity coming through — the cynicism that always lingers in the back of his head like a shadow, telling him that he’s unworthy of touching you, and then berating him for not being man enough to try.
He huffs. “Well, this is making me feel a whole lot better, cousin. Thank you.”
“I’m just sayin’!” Richie says, muffled through the dessert wadded in his cheek. “She’s obviously crazy about you, man— She looks at you like you hung the fuckin’ moon! I’m just sayin’, you know, trust your instincts. That’s all.”
“…Trust my instincts?” Carmy monotones.
“Yeah,” the older man shrugs. “You’re a chef. Isn’t that supposed to be, like, your whole thing?”
Carmy just blinks at him. “Your point?”
“My point is… She likes you. And you like her— I’m pretty sure half of Chicago knows that by now. So just… Stop getting in your own damn way before you ruin somethin’ good, alright? She picked you, cousin—”
Carmy leans back when Richie gestures too closely with his fork.
“So if you can’t trust your own judgment, at least trust hers.”
Richie’s words pierce him almost physically, giving him that surge of courage he’d been lacking these past few months with you. It makes him want to stop dissecting each of his feelings, for once, until they’re just lying there ahead of him, dead and useless.
Carmy’s light eyes narrow suspiciously. “You know… You’ve gotten, like, really good at giving advice since becoming house manager. You know that?”
“Yeah, I know, it’s freaking me out, too,” Richie deadpans, stabbing at his plate. “Sometimes I hear myself talk and I’m like, who the fuck said that?”
IV. PUFF PASTRY.
The first time you spent the night at his place, Carmy had a panic attack.
It started as a dream, or a nightmare, or maybe a memory. It played through static like an old film — Christmas Eve at the Berzatto house, beneath glowing Christmas lights and smoke from his mother’s cigarettes and something she burnt on the stove. He could smell the nicotine hanging in the hair, and the thick smell of tomato sauce, and Cicero’s expensive nose-stinging cologne.
Carmy was sitting at the head of the table, unable to move from his chair. The rest around him were empty, save for the one at the opposite end. Mikey’s seat. The ghost of his brother was laughing one moment, then screaming at him, then crying the next. Carmy was terrified — the kind of terrified he got as a kid when his mother got in another one of her moods — but he was comforted, at the very least, that his brother was here.
Alive.
Then the lights went out, for only a fraction of a second. And the Christmas lights were glowing again, but his brother’s seat was empty. And the silence was worse than the screaming.
Carmy woke with a sharp breath to a bedroom filled with a navy blue darkness. He rose to his elbows, chest aching as he waited, for a fleeting moment, for the Christmas lights to come back on. Then he realized that he was back in his bedroom, and his brother’s still dead; but you were beside him now, and that was enough.
As his eyes adjusted, he found you lying beside him, bathed in the dim glow of the muted streetlamp outside his window. You’d kicked off the sheets, revealing the expanse of your bare legs and the softness of your stomach from where your shirt had ridden up — one of his, which you wore with a plain pair of cotton underwear. Your mouth was softly parted; your breathing was even and slow.
He tried to match each of your exhales, but the panic dug deeper into his chest. His lungs refused to fill properly. His skin felt too tight. The air was too hot, but his teeth were still chattering. He couldn’t ask you for help if he tried.
The walls spun around him as he rushed immediately to the kitchen. He bent over the sink, gripping the counter hard enough to blanch his knuckles with one hand, while his other scooped handfuls of freezing water into his mouth. He was not sure how much it was helping.
The muscles in his back tensed when a warm hand settled suddenly between his shoulder blades. Carmy didn’t realize you’d followed him out until then; until he heard your voice in his ear, cutting through the wild pounding of his heartbeat.
His breath came easier to him after that. The kitchen soon filled with the sound of his trembling pants and the loud hissing of the kitchen sink. Carmy’s shoulders loosened slowly under your hand.
“Do you need me to do something?” you wondered quietly.
He shook his head, curls hanging over his eyes from where he was still hunched over. “No, I— I got it— I’m… I’m good now.”
He waved you off with a trembling hand. You couldn’t help but notice the way he avoided your gaze; the way he fought every instinct to tense again when you rubbed along his spine. You wondered if you were only making it worse.
“Do you want me to go—?”
“No,” Carmy blurted instantly. His head snapped in your direction. He blinked back at you with wet ocean eyes. “Please. D-Don’t go. I just— I had a bad dream. I’m okay, I swear.”
You didn’t look convinced, and, honestly, neither did he.
“No, you’re not, Bear…” you murmured gently, with a sleepy smile that bordered on sympathetic. But you didn’t ask him to explain the feelings he didn’t have the words for. You just stood beside him and asked if he wanted breakfast.
—
Carmy’s apartment always smelled different when you were in it. Less like an ashtray and more like warm sugar, and your fruit-sweet perfume, and whatever sweet treat you’d spent the service dreaming about. Tonight, it was homemade churros.
Carmy can smell it down the hall when he exits the bathroom. The shower steam mixes with that sweet cinnamon wafting from the kitchen — where he finds you standing at the stove, tapping a socked foot to the synth pop on the radio, and stirring a pot of glossy chocolate syrup with a wooden spoon.
“Only a psychopath spends all night cooking just to come home and cook some more,” he says to announce his presence as he leans against the doorway, replacing his uniform with a sweatshirt and a pair of plaid boxers. “You know that, right?”
“What can I say?” you grin as you glance over your shoulder at him. “You’re rubbing off on me, Bear.”
Carmy exhales a quiet laugh and spends a long moment just watching you, with all the attentiveness of someone who watched sunsets come or go or mapped constellations in the starry sky. You occupied his kitchen as if you’d been there this whole time, in a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed to your elbows, big enough to hide the less-than-flattering underwear you’re wearing beneath it. You look like home, in every sense of the word.
“You know…” Carmy starts lowly, swiping at the tip of his nose with his thumb. “For a while there… I kinda thought I was done with all this…”
Your spoon slows as it slides along the bottom of the pan. “…What do you mean?”
“Cooking,” he answers. “There was a stretch where I couldn’t even look at a stove without… hoping it would blow up.”
He laughs at himself, though, admittedly, the words sound slightly more concerning leaving his lips than they did in his head. He swallows hard, grateful when you don’t press him on the matter. You just eye him with a carefulness that makes him shift his weight on his bare feet — uncomfortable at being so foreignly vulnerable.
He crosses his arms over his chest in a childlike attempt to hide, scratching along the expanse of his bicep. “Yeah, I, uh… I just— didn’t enjoy it anymore. I didn’t enjoy anything anymore.”
“What changed?” you press gently.
“You came around,” he confesses. “And I watched you learn to love it again— have fun again, and it made… realize why I loved doing what I do.”
Your mouth lifts in a sheepish half-smile. You turn away, grinning wide at the pot of dark chocolate below as it ripples beneath the spoon.
“Well, I probably wouldn’t have learned to have fun again if I didn’t start working at The Bear…” you tell him. “It’s very likely I would’ve stopped baking altogether. I mean, Copenhagen was great and all, but… you, and Syd, and Richie— watching all of you work… I feel like I could do this forever…”
Carmy’s eyes soften as he watches you. A strange emotion surges warmly through his chest and up into his throat. He feels like he could cry.
“Yeah,” he hums, half-strangled. “Me too…”
Your smile turns shy when you look back at him, nodding your head to beckon him over. “C’mere. Come try this.”
Carmy obeys instantly, as if every muscle and bone in his body was made to be under your command. You twist the spoon to gather the liquid chocolate and hold it out toward him, cupping your free hand beneath it to catch any rogue drizzles. Carmy’s pink mouth parts for a taste — the syrup is warm on his tongue, silky and rich as it coats his mouth.
A low sound of approval sounds in the back of his throat. His damp curls sway as he nods.
Your smile widens instantly, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Yeah?”
“Mm,” he hums. “Hell yeah.”
His smile falters slightly when your free hand reaches suddenly towards him. Your thumb brushes the corner of his mouth, gathering the bit of chocolate lingering on the corner there. You press the pad of it to his lips without thinking, and Carmy drags his tongue against it just the same.
The motion was more instinctive than not. He didn’t realize how charged the moment was until your eyes flickered with it — going glassy and heavy in an instant. Even still, you don’t part from his stare as you bring your hand to your mouth, licking the remnants of chocolate on your thumb that was more of Carmy’s spit than anything.
Carmy’s ocean eyes darken in a flash. The cynical, uncertain thing that lingered in him like a shadow seemed to vanish, as his racing heart lurched with an emotion that bordered on primitive. He decides not to think — to follow his instinct, as it were.
He ducks down to kiss you, hard, with the bridge of his nose smushing against the side of yours and his tongue licking into your mouth.The spoon in your hand clatters hopelessly to the tile floor when he urges you back against the counter with a pair of wide hands splayed along your waist.
Behind you, the chocolate continues to simmer.
V. SPICED PEARS.
The first time Carmy had tasted any part of you was at Ever.
It wasn’t long after Mikey died, and he was making his tour around the city to try new food — seeing what changed and what hadn’t — and trying to take his mind off all the rest. He sat alone at a small square table, finishing up his lemon chicken piccata, when another plate was slid suddenly in front of him.
“Oh, I— I didn’t order this,” he stammered.
Then his eyes lifted to find Chef Terry standing before him, with a smile much gentler than he remembered.
“This one’s on the house,” she’d told him. She did not mention the death of his brother, but Carmy knew that was likely why she came over. “Figured you might appreciate something with a wee bit of alcohol in it. I had our pastry chef whip it up for you—” Her eyes flickered with warmth at the mention of you, who Carmy had not yet met. “I’m quite proud of that one.”
She left him with a pat on the back and nothing more. Carmy eyed the dessert before him, studying it.
The burnished bronze pastry sat on the small plate ahead of him like a tiny piece of architecture. The caramel on the ridged exterior gleamed in the candlelight. The shell cracked audibly beneath his fork, a delicate snap that most chefs spend weeks trying to perfect. The inside yielded immediately — golden custard oozing from its center.
Carmy scooped a bite into his mouth, and his world stopped for a fraction of a moment.
The deeply caramelized sugar hit his palate like a memory; a taste of nostalgia accompanied by a satisfying crunch. The silken custard melted on his tongue, rich with vanilla and warm with dark rum. A brittle shell followed by an impossibly soft heart.
Carmy thought, at the time, that it was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
But it wasn’t.
—
You were.
His face burns hot between your thighs, which tremble on either side of his flushed cheeks from your previous orgasm (that he gave you with two of his fingers, a lot quicker than you’re willing to admit to.)
“Can you take another?” he’d asked, right after pulling his hand out of your underwear and licking your cum off his fingers, which glistened down the knuckle. You whined at the sight of it, half-scared at the warmth still lingering in the pit of your stomach. “C’mon. Let me taste it, yeah?”
You lift your head from the pillows to watch the boy slink down your body, still wearing all of his clothes despite you lying half-naked in the center of his unmade bed. He slides your panties to the side with a pair of tattooed fingers and licks a fat stripe up your pussy, from your pulsing hole to your already sensitive clit.
Your whine fills the lamplit bedroom as your hips buck to follow him.
Carmy pulls off wearing a barely-there half-smile. “Good?” he asks, for the hundredth time or so since you started.
“Yes…” you moan, head tipped back.
And then he starts eating you. Like eats you, eats you — with his mouth wide and his broad nose smushed into your clit. He’s led by nothing more than primal emotion and pure instinct as he laps all the honey you leak for him. The lewd wet noises of his mouth are only slightly muffled by your contented sighs and his own moans, as he rocks his hips against the mattress in a feeble attempt to relieve the ache in his boxers.
Your fingers tighten in his wild curls, as though you mean to pull him off of you, though your hips chase his tongue all the same. His lips latch on your clit, sucking the delicate button, and you cum with a drawn-out sound you didn’t know you were capable of making. He pushes your knees to your chest with a pair of wide hands to milk the orgasm from your pulsing confines.
“No— No more,” you whine feebly, watching with a pained sort of look as he continues licking at you. “It’s too much, Carm—”
“Just let me taste it, baby,” he says, half-muffled against you.
He’s wearing your glittering cum down to his chin when he crawls back up your body. It’s a mess of awkward, tangled limbs as you drag his sweatshirt up his torso from the hem while he reaches into his nightstand for a condom (a feat made more difficult by the fact that the box is still wrapped in its plastic). He kneels between your thighs, open and wet, and tucks his heavy balls under the hem of his plaid boxers.
You watch him as he rips the foil open with his teeth and rolls the latex on. Your eyes trail down his tattooed torso — over the sparse brown hair along his sternum and down to where it trails along his stomach in a thin line. His cock is heavy in his fist, glowing crimson with desire at the tip and leaking drops of pearly-white.
You should tell him that it’s been a while for you — long enough that you’re not sure if you can take something so thick — but you don’t want to stop the momentum you have going, not even for a second. You just curl your arms down and over his shoulders, palms splayed along his sweat-slick back, and fall back with him when he leans down over you.
His gold chain brushes your chest as he ducks down to open his mouth against yours. He rolls his hips forward and back, gliding his cock through your velvety folds, before piercing you fully.
There’s a fleeting, burning sensation as your cunt stretches around him — which quickly floods into a warmer, fuller feeling when he’s seated fully inside you, with his tuft of coarse hair pressed mercilessly against your throbbing clit.
“Oh, fuck—”
Carmy’s words sound less pleasured and more terrified.
Your eyes snap open. You catch a mere glimpse of his profile as his lips smudge along your burning cheek. “You okay?” you ask through panted breaths.
“Y-Yeah. I just—” The words come out strangled and half-muffled against your neck. “It’s just… been a while for me. I can’t— I can’t move.”
A delirious grin tugs at your mouth. You rake your nails gently along the expanse of his spine, until he shivers on top of you. “You can move, Carm,” you tell him.
He laughs breathlessly, though it comes out more like a punched-out breath. “I can’t, babe. I— I really can’t.”
“It’s okay if you’re close,” you murmur gently, smearing your lips along his flushed cheek. “You already made me cum— twice. This is about you feeling good, too, you know?”
Carmy makes a strangled noise, as if your words had hit him physically somehow. He lets himself go at your permission to feel good and rolls his hips against you. There is little rhythm or precision to his thrusts. They’re shallow and quick and a little sloppy, never pulling all the way out, as he buries his moans into your neck. The bed creaks below you like it might break.
“Fuck,” he groans like it hurts him, like he’s half-scared of his own orgasm.
“That’s it...” you coo in his ear. “I know you’re close, Carm. It’s okay. Just cum for me—”
“Fuck!” It comes out like more of a whimper this time, because he’s trying to calculate how long it’s been — two minutes, if that — but his brain’s too fogged and his stomach is starting to cramp from how hard he’s tensing to keep the feeling going a little longer.
Carmy doesn’t warn you when he cums. Not that you need him to. His heavy body just tenses on top of you, forearms shaking beside your head. You exhale a contented sigh when you feel him pulsing inside of you. “There it is…” you whisper in his ear. “Give me all of it, bear. C’mon. Doing so good for me…”
As your hands rub soothingly along his spine, you feel his bare shoulders shaking a little harder than before. It’s like he’s laughing to himself, or crying maybe. Then you feel something warm and wet drip along your neck.
“Bear?”
“Fuck—” He clears his throat when his voice breaks, lifting one hand to wipe at the tear running down the bridge of his nose. He laughs wetly at himself. “Fuck, I’m so lame. I’m sorry.”
“Are you okay?” you whisper, as if anything too loud might break him.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he assures you, sniffling as he pulls slightly off of you. “It was just— a lot, you know?”
“Yeah,” you nod.
“I wasn’t lying when I said it’s been a while for me.”
“Wow,” you hum sarcastically. “You’re telling me the anxious-avoidant chef who keeps his jeans in his oven isn’t absolutely drowning in ass? In this… very illustrious bachelor pad?”
His laugh is more humorous this time. “Fuck you.”
“You already did,” you remind him with a cheeky grin. “Unless you’re askin’ for round two— which I’m not opposed to.”
His mouth twitches into a more sincere grin. His glassy eyes soften further as they dart across your features, memorizing the wrinkles beside your squinted eyes and how your smile sits a little crooked to the left.
He shakes his head, ocean eyes still a little wet, as he smooths his fingers over your temple to brush away an invisible strand of hair there. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that?”
“Oh, but what a sweet, sweet way to go,” you croon as he ducks down over you again.
But if loving you is a slow death, why does kissing you taste like salvation?
if you made it this far, thank u so much! pls let me know what you think and reblogs are always appreciated! here's a virtual forehead kiss for me to you *mwah*!!!
needy!bottom!abby who pushes your face impossibly deeper into her pussy, grinding her hips down hard. whining that she needs you even closer than that.
needy!bottom!abby who sneaks in quickies anywhere, even on patrols—finding quiet hidden places for you to ruin her. once securely hidden she shyly pulls your hand down to her her belt buckle whimpering a small “please” & “i’ll be so fast.”
needy!bottom!abby that will often lay in your shared bed in positions that expose her glistening pussy, in hopes that you’ll be so tempted she won’t have to ask you to give her what she so desperately needs.
needy!bottom!abby who isn’t afraid to get handsy in public. hands wrapped around your waist dipping just a bit too low; everyone around thinks it’s her way of asserting her dominance, but you know this is her way of telling you she needs you.
needy!bottom!abby who also gets really clingy, sitting next to you so close your thighs are touching, her arm wrapped around yours. often quickly burying her face in your neck to give quick kisses.
needy!bottom!abby that whenever you’re out for a long time she’ll lean down and whisper “i can’t wait to go home” in an attempt to be subtle. at her breaking point she’ll give you the cutest pouty face looking at you and then gesturing towards her.
needy!bottom!abby who goes feral when you eat her pussy and finger her at the same time. even though she tries to be quiet out of courtesy for your neighbors she can’t help but let out the sluttiest noises. she completely loses her mind and she loves every second of it.
needy!bottom!abby who’ll sometimes edge herself when she’s alone so she’ll be even more desperate for you.
needy!bottom!abby is completely addicted to your strap, she’ll do anything to feel you inside of her. she loves fucking herself on it in doggy, completely bottoming out
servicetop!abby slapping your pussy with her strap biting her lip at the way you whine, grinding against her.
“abbyyyy,” a desperate moan falls from your lips, “don’t tease!”
“mm teasing only makes you cum harder, baby”
servicetop!abby who’s been fucking you for hours, pounding you into the mattress, your legs shaking around every thrust,
“i’m trying to stop.” abby chuckles, a fake innocence playing at her lips, “you just keep taking it.”
servicetop!abby begs for “one more orgasm” her pussy throbbing at the sight of you fucked stupid nodding mindlessly for more.
servicetop!abby who can’t even think of anything else when she’s eating your pussy. only letting out needy, guttural moans that send shock waves up your core. roughly pumping her fingers into her own cunt. the other hand gripping your leg holding you open while she devours your pussy. her tongue tracing tight flat circles across your clit.
servicetop!abby not being able to pull herself off of your pussy until you’re screaming from the overstimulation, tapping her shoulders, and wilding bucking your hips.
servicetop!abby who will fuck you anywhere, she loves being your toy. you hardly have to give her a look and she’s following you to nearest bathroom so you can do what you please with her.
servicetop!abby that gets an attitude and when you point it out she crosses her arms muttering,
“i couldn’t talk back if my mouth was full of pussy.”
❝ Don't you feel like crying? Well, here I am, baby.
Come on, cry to me. ❞
You stopped him before he could say it. It took a bleeding heart to shout it for you.
— pairing: Kyle Garrick × fem!medic!Reader
— cw: 18+ | friends to lovers; mutual pining; angst; hurt/comfort; graphic depictions of battlefield medicine/injuries; smut; fluff; wc: 6k
author's note: Inspired by "Cry to Me" by Solomon Burke (and that one scene in Dirty Dancing…)
You meet Kyle Garrick on one of the worst days of his life.
That's an exaggeration—he'd tell you so himself later, with that easy grin and a dismissive wave—but in the moment, lying on a stretcher with a piece of shrapnel the size of a two-pence coin lodged in his left shoulder and a look on his face like he's more annoyed than injured, it certainly seems like a contender.
"Don't move," you tell him, snapping on a fresh pair of gloves as the medivac shudders and banks.
"Wasn't planning on it," he replies through gritted teeth, and then, because apparently, he's incapable of not being charming even while slowly bleeding out.
"You always this bossy, or am I special?"
"Just for the ones who are too stupid to duck."
He laughs a short, startled bark that immediately turns into a groan when the movement jostles his shoulder too much, so you press your palm flat against his chest and push him back down firmly.
"Don't bloody move, Sergeant."
He groans in pain and obeys. "Yes, ma'am."
Then his eyes find yours; warm, hazelnut brown, and sharp with pain but alert, and he holds your gaze for a beat longer than necessary until you look away first.
And you start working on his wound, cleaning it with a gentleness that you usually have no time to spare.
That's how it starts.
The friendship builds the way military friendships do, namely in proximity and repetition, in shared meals and overlapping schedules and the intimacy of being two people who exist in the same small ecosystem of a forward operating base.
You're not 141—not technically.
You're attached to the medical unit that supports their operations, one of a handful of combat medics who rotate through depending on the mission profile. But somehow, Kyle Garrick's name keeps appearing on the ops you're assigned to, and somehow, he keeps finding his way to your table in the mess until the space next to you becomes his space without anyone deciding it should be.
He brings you tea. Not regularly or performatively, but on the mornings after bad nights, the kind where you've been elbow-deep in someone's chest cavity for hours and the adrenaline crash leaves you hollowed out and shaking at four a.m. And he doesn't say anything about it. Just appears with two mugs, sits down, and talks about something mundane like football scores, a podcast he's been listening to, and the ongoing sad saga of Soap trying to grow a moustache, until the tremor in your hands eases and you can hold the mug without spilling.
You learn Kyle in fragments.
He's from London—Battersea, specifically, which he brings up with a particular local pride. That he reads more than anyone else on the team and never talks about it unless you ask, and that he can cook, properly cook, not just the sad bachelor reheating that passes for cuisine among most of the men on base. And that he calls his mum every Sunday without fail, even from a FOB in the middle of nowhere, even if the connection is shit and they spend half the call saying, “You're breaking up,” at each other.
However, the fact that he looks at you differently than he looks at anyone else, that he keeps to himself.
But you notice it anyway, the way you notice a change in a patient's vitals before any machine can tell you—gradually, then all at once.
How his eyes track you across a room; how his voice shifts when he talks to you—softer, lower, a register reserved exclusively for your frequency, and the way his hand lands on the small of your back when you're walking through a crowded corridor and stays there a beat too long, warm through your shirt. And neither of you mentions it.
Then again, you don't mention a lot of things.
The rule is established on a Tuesday night in a shipping container that serves as a break room, four months into whatever this is.
You're sitting on the floor with your back against a supply crate, sharing a bag of crisps and a companionable silence. Kyle is beside you; close enough that his shoulder presses against yours and you can feel the warmth radiating off his body while you're watching him read something on his phone.
The blue light catches the profile of his face, and the thought that surfaces in your chest is so sudden and so clear that it knocks the breath out of you momentarily.
I could love you so easily it terrifies me.
Kyle looks up, catches your expression, and whatever you let slip onto your face in that unguarded second makes something in his eyes shift and crack open. He turns towards you, and you can practically see the words forming on his lips, can feel the entire trajectory of what's about to happen.
"Don't."
He stops, closes his mouth. Your heart stutters.
"Don't say it, Kyle."
Silence follows. Not uncomfortable or confused. Kyle knows exactly what you're asking. His jaw works, his eyes search your face, and you watch him weigh the cost of obedience against the cost of defiance.
"Why?" he asks eventually.
Because if you say it, I'll have to fucking feel it and it will distract me and I can't fucking allow that. I can't do my fucking job if I'm worrying about whether you're coming back to me. Because I've watched women lose men in this line of work and I've seen what it fucking does to them and I can't. I fucking can't, Kyle.
Your face stays neutral and then you don't say any of that; you merely look at him, and despite your charade, he reads it on your face the way he is trained to read hidden clues.
"Okay," he breathes and his shoulders slump some, but you have to ignore it.
And that's it. Okay.
He goes back to his phone. His shoulder stays pressed against yours. The bag of crisps sits between you, and after a minute, his hand dips in and retrieves one, and the crunch of it in the silence is so absurdly normal that you almost laugh.
Kyle never says it.
He doesn't need to, because it's in every cup of tea, every quiet walk, every time his eyes find you across a crowded room and stay. It's said in the space he keeps beside him that is always yours; in the way he says your name and makes it sound like the answer to a question he's been carrying for years.
Kyle looks at you like you're the sun, and he never says a word, and you keep pretending you’re not the one burning.
The op goes sideways at 0344 hrs, and you're not even supposed to be this close to the action.
The medical station is set up two hundred metres back from the primary assault position, behind a concrete barrier wall that provides decent cover and a clear line to the extraction point.
You've done this before—dozens of times, probably more. All the waiting, the radio chatter, the controlled calm of a medical team standing by while operators do what operators do.
Then the radio crackles with a voice you don't recognise, young and tight with panic, calling for a medic, and you're moving before the call sign finishes.
The rookie's name is Leon. Lance Corporal. Twenty-two, maybe twenty-three; you don't ask, because asking how old they are makes it worse when it goes bad. He's lying on his side behind a low wall, and there's blood—too much blood, dark and arterial, soaking through his fatigues and pooling beneath him on the packed dirt.
You drop to your knees beside him, and your hands are already moving; pulling your gloves on and shears out, eyes flickering and assessing while your voice does the thing it always does, shifting into that calm, steady register that has nothing to do with how you feel and everything to do with what he needs.
"Leon, I'm here. You're alright. I've got you."
"Hey—h-hey, Doc—" He's talking. Talking is good. It means conscious, means his airway is free, and that means precious time. His voice is thin and reedy, in shock, but he's trying to grin, and the sight of it—this young man, someone’s boy, grinning up at you with blood on his teeth—makes something behind your sternum compress.
"Y're pretty," he slurs. "Has anyone—has anyone told y-you that?"
You pull your gloves on, snapping them in place. "Save it, Casanova. I need you to stay still."
"'M just saying—" He coughs, winces, keeps going because they always keep going. "If I'd known the medic was this fit,” he tries to lift his hand to gesture, but drops it with a guttural groan, “I would've—would've gotten shot sooner."
"Hilarious. Now don't move."
You're cutting his fatigues open, working fast, locating the source of the bleeding. Lower abdomen, right side, bad but not the worst you've seen. And when his hand suddenly does come up, it’s to catch your wrist in a weak grip.
He’s trembling, but insistent.
"C-careful," he sputters, and his eyes, so wide and glassy, scared beneath the bravado, flicker down to his chest. "Careful with—be careful with my heart."
You pause to look at him.
His hand releases your wrist and pats clumsily at his breast until it finds his chest pocket, just above the body armour line, and you can see the edge of it poking out. A photograph. A Polaroid, slightly bent and stained, tucked against his chest like a talisman.
"My girl," he mumbles, and his grin softens into something private and unbearably young. "That's—that's m-my girl in there. Don't let it—Don't get blood on it, aye? She'll—she'll kill me—"
Your hands don't stop. They never truly stop. You reach into his pocket with two fingers, extract the Polaroid, and tuck it safely into your own vest without looking at it, because if you look at it, you'll see a face, and if you see a face, you'll think about someone waiting at home for a phone call, and if you think about that it will stay with you.
"Safe with me," you assure him, and your voice doesn't waver, because it can't.
"Cheers, Doc." His eyes are drifting. "You're—You're proper lovely, y’know that? My mum would—my mum—"
"Stay with me, Corporal. Eyes open. On me."
You work efficiently; packing the wound, applying pressure, calling for the stretcher team, and relaying vitals in the clipped shorthand of someone who has done this too many times. All while Leon keeps talking about his girlfriend, his mum, and the puppy he's going to get when he's out, and you let him, because the talking means he's alive and the noise means you don't have to think.
You hand him off to the stretcher team eleven minutes after you reached him. He'll live. The wound is ugly but the bleed is controlled and he'll make it to the surgical team and he'll live, and you stand up and your gloves are soaked and there's blood on your knees and the Polaroid is still in your vest pocket, pressed against your chest.
Be careful with my heart.
You walk behind the barrier wall. You make it four steps before your legs give out.
It's not the blood. You can handle the blood. It's not the fear, you manage the fear, that's the job.
It's the fucking Polaroid.
It's this kid—this stupid, brave, terrified kid—lying in the dirt with his insides trying to escape and his only concern being a photograph of a girl who's probably sitting in a flat somewhere right now, watching telly, not knowing, not feeling it yet, the way she will when the call comes, the way she'll carry it for the rest of her life even though he'll live, because now she'll know how close she came to a world without him in it.
And you think about Kyle.
The looks you share and rules you’ve set; the metaphorical photograph you've been carrying in your own chest pocket.
What if it was him on that stretcher? What if it was his blood on your gloves?
What if the last thing he said to you was your name and he never got to say the rest because you told him not to?
Your breath hitches while your vision blurs. And your hands, usually so steady and reliable, are trembling so badly you must press them flat against the concrete wall to keep them still.
"Hey."
You flinch at Kyle's sudden voice behind you. He must have come to find you first after falling back with his comrades. Always seeking you out, even in the middle of a warzone.
You hear his boots on the gravel, the careful approach, and you know without turning around that his face will be open and concerned, and you cannot look at it right now.
"Don't."
The word comes out sharp, like a warning shot fired from a position that's already been overrun.
His footsteps stop.
"Don't—come closer. Don't—I'm fine, Kyle, I'm—"
Your voice breaks on his name, shatters like glass in your mouth, and the silence that follows is awful and filled with everything you've been refusing to say for months.
Kyle doesn't come closer, but he doesn't leave, either. You can hear his long exhale as he waits at a distance of three feet behind you.
And you press your forehead against the concrete wall, not crying but swallowing against the lump in your throat, because if you start you know you won't be able to stop.
Instead, you breathe, counting, pulling yourself together because this is hardly the place. And then you straighten up, strip off your soiled gloves, stuff them in the waste bag at your hip, and walk past him without meeting his eyes.
"I'm fine," you say again.
Kyle doesn't answer, but you feel his gaze on your back all the way to the medical station, infuriatingly warm and steady.
Two days later, they’re stateside again.
It's half-nine in the evening and Kyle is sitting on his sofa in his flat, wearing grey joggers and a t-shirt, not doing any of the things he normally does to decompress after deployment. He's just sitting, one arm along the back of the sofa, staring at nothing, turning a thought repeatedly in his head like a stone in his palm.
The radio is on. It's always on nowadays. The flat is too quiet without it, the silence too close to the kind of silence you sit in on a rooftop at two a.m. waiting for a target to emerge. It’s set on some station that plays a mix of old soul and R&B that he doesn't actively listen to but lets wash over him like white noise.
His phone buzzes with a message from Soap.
kid's stable. docs say full recovery. told him you said cheers.
And Kyle types back: Good. Thanks.
Three dots. Soap is typing. Kyle watches them pulse.
you alright mate?
Yeah. Why?
didnt seem alright on the flight back. neither did she.
Kyle stares at the screen while the cursor keeps blinking in the empty reply field.
whats going on between you 2?
He could answer that, type the ugly truth, and tell his best mate that he loves her and she won't let him say it and two days ago she nearly broke in front of him and he had to stand there and watch, but the words look kind of wrong on a screen. Impersonal. They look wrong everywhere Kyle has come to realize lately. They've been sitting inside his chest for so long they've calcified, become part of the architecture, load-bearing walls he can't remove without the whole structure coming down.
Nothing, he replies and sets the phone face-down on the cushion beside him.
And it's so far from nothing that the word feels like a lie in a foreign language, technically incorrect but functionally necessary.
He thinks about the wall, and you pressed against it; your forehead bowed against concrete, your hands shaking for the first time since he's known you. You looked like a woman who was coming apart at the seams, and something is burning behind his chest to know why, because it’s not about that young soldier. Partially, maybe.
And then Kyle ponders about the fact that you walked past him afterwards and said, “I'm fine,” in a voice that was the exact opposite of fine, and he let you go, because that's the deal. That's the bloody rule. You drew the line months ago, he is staying behind it like an obedient little soldier, and he watched you walk away and he didn’t follow.
And he's so fucking tired of not following, but it seems to be the only way to even keep you around.
Kyle drops his head back against the sofa and closes his eyes. The radio murmurs something slow and warm into the dim flat, and the candle on the coffee table that you gifted him some time ago flickers in the draft from the cracked window.
He should sleep, eat something, and call his mum, who will hear it in his voice immediately and ask what's wrong and he'll say nothing again, and she won't believe him, but she'll let it go.
Instead, he sits in the semi-dark and the candlelight and the quiet music and he thinks about you, the way he's been thinking about you for too damn long. Since that day he found himself with a bullet hole on a stretcher, looking up at you for the first time like he was seeing an angel.
His phone buzzes again, but he doesn’t check it.
A few seconds later, there is a knock at his front door. Soft, almost reserved, like the person isn’t sure if they want the door to be opened.
Kyle's eyes open and his heart does something hopeful before he gets up and crosses the flat, floorboards warm under his bare feet. And when he reaches for the door handle, unlocking and opening the door, you’re suddenly standing on his doorstep, looking like you haven't slept.
You're in civvies, hair undone in a way he's rarely seen with shadows under your eyes and a tightness around your mouth that he recognises as the last line of defence before something collapses entirely.
Your head tips back to meet his gaze and his eyes lock on yours while the radio plays softly behind him, and the candlelight throws warm amber across the hallway, and the summer air drifts through the cracked window carrying the smell of cut grass and distant rain.
"I don't know how to do this," you admit suddenly, and your voice is so small that he barely recognizes it from the usual commanding and steady tone you use in the field.
And Kyle doesn't speak, because he doesn’t trust himself not to break this fragile moment, so he holds your gaze for one long, careful moment, and steps aside to give you the option.
The door opens wider. The warmth of his flat presses out towards you; cedar candle, the low murmur of the radio, the quiet of a space that belongs to someone who keeps it tidy because chaos fills enough of his life elsewhere, and you look at the open doorway, then back at him, standing beside it, ever the patient friend who says nothing because you told him to.
You walk inside, passing him tentatively.
The flat is warmer than the night outside, dimmer. The overhead light is off; just the candle on the coffee table and another on the kitchen counter, casting everything in a soft, amber glow that smooths the edges of the furniture and catches in Kyle's eyes when he turns to face you.
"Tea?" he asks, already moving towards the kitchen, because this is what he does. This is the language he speaks when words aren't enough. Acts of quiet service, offered without ceremony.
"I don't want tea."
He stops; his back is to you, and you can see the line of his shoulders through his t-shirt, the tension he's holding there carefully the way he holds everything, and he turns around slowly.
"Okay," he says. "What do you want then?"
The question is simple and open, contains no pressure and no presumption, and it nearly undoes you on the spot, because Kyle Garrick has been asking you this question in a hundred different ways for over a year and this is the first time you're going to answer it honestly.
"I don't want to talk about what happened."
"Alright."
"I don't want to," you inhale, make a vague gesture which makes it clear that you’re currently just winging it like he is, "debrief, or process, or—"
Kyle nods, his brows set in focus. "Alright."
"I want—" Your voice catches as you look at him properly, standing in his kitchen in joggers and bare feet, candlelight warm on his skin, watching you with those steady brown eyes that have never, looked at you with anything less than complete, unwavering attention, and the thing inside you that's been holding, holding, holding for months finally gives.
Your shoulders sag as you deflate in surrender. "Kyle… I want you."
Those words fall into the space between you, and the radio fills the silence that follows—some song fading out, a beat of static, and then the opening notes of something slow and aching, a voice you recognise, deep and rich and full of longing.
…When your baby leaves you all alone…
Kyle's expression doesn't change; doesn't light up in triumph or crack into relief. He just looks at you, and his eyes are so warm, so full, that you understand, suddenly, what it must have cost him—all those months of silence, of holding the shape of this feeling without being allowed to name it.
…And nobody calls you on the phone…
You cross the kitchen towards him, drawn in like a magnet who has finally been let go, until you're standing close enough to feel the heat radiating off his chest and see the way his breathing has changed to something deeper and deliberately controlled.
Your hands come up slowly, like you're approaching an animal that might startle, except the only thing that might startle here is you. Your fingers brush the sides of his neck, trail up to his stubbled jaw, and your arms loop loosely around his neck, your wrists crossing behind his head.
…Don't you feel like crying? Well, here I am, baby…
Kyle's hands find your waist; tentative like a question at first, and then settling, his palms warm and solid against the fabric of your jumper, thumbs pressing gently against your ribs.
You sway together. It's not a dance, not really—there's no rhythm to it, no form, just two bodies finding each other in a dim kitchen and moving because standing still feels impossible. Then his forehead tips down to meet yours, and your noses brush, and you breathe the same air, and the song washes over both of you like warm water.
…Come on, cry to me…
"Be careful with my heart," you whisper.
His hands tighten on your waist, a fractional compression, like a held breath.
"Always," he replies, and his voice is rough and low, barely more than an exhale, and he means it the way he means everything he was allowed to say to you—completely, without reservation and caveat.
You allow yourself to kiss him.
And it's not the desperate, hungry collision you expected—not the dam breaking and the flood taking you both. It's slow, careful. His lips meet yours softly, like he's memorising the shape of you in case you change your mind again, and then his hand slides up from your waist to the side of your neck, his thumb against your jaw, tilting your head just slightly, and he deepens it; more present and intentional. The kind of kiss that tells you he has been thinking about exactly this for a very long time and he isn’t going to rush a single second of it.
You melt into him. Your fingers brush over the short hair at the back of his head and his arm wraps around your lower back, pulling you flush against him, and the sound he makes vibrates against your lips and settles somewhere deep in your chest.
"Kyle—"
"I know, babygirl." His mouth moves to your jaw, your neck, pressing slow, open kisses against the skin there. "I know."
He doesn't say the thing he wasn’t allowed to say before. Even now, even with your body finally pressed against his like this, he doesn't say it yet, because you told him not to, and he's a man who keeps his word, even when keeping it is killing him inside.
"You can say it," you whisper against his temple frantically as if you might be running out of time now. "Kyle. You can say it."
He pulls back, studies you, and the expression on his face, the sheer, unbearable relief of someone who's been holding a breath for over a year, makes your eyes sting.
But Kyle doesn't say it with words.
He says it by lifting you with his hands under your thighs and carrying you down the short hallway to his bedroom, where the window is cracked open and the cream curtains shift in the warm summer breeze and the sheets on his bed are clean, cool, and tucked into the corners with military precision like everything else in his flat.
He lays you down like you're precious; someone he's been trusted with and intends to deserve.
"Tell me if it's too much," he murmurs, kneeling over you, and his hands are trembling as he reaches for the hem of your jumper.
You blink up at him, heart fluttering with sweet anticipation. "It's not too much."
And his eyes soften at your reaction when he notices your pulse thudding in your neck. "Tell me anyway."
He pulls the jumper over your head slowly, his eyes travel over you, drinking you in, and the weight of his attention is heavier and warmer than any touch.
"You're—" he starts, stops and shakes his head like he cannot quite fathom what he is seeing, and a breath that might be a laugh escapes him. "Christ."
"Eloquent."
"Shut up." He's smiling now, that private, soft smile that he only ever gives to you, and he dips his head and presses his mouth to the hollow of your throat while you arch into it, your hands gripping his broad shoulders.
He undresses you slowly, treating every piece of clothing removed with the same care, the same deliberate attention; his mouth following his hands, pressing kisses to your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder, the inside of your wrist. When he pulls his own shirt over his head, you reach for him immediately, clammy palms flat against his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart beneath heated skin.
"Kyle." Your voice is barely there. "Please."
He settles between your thighs, and the solid weight of him makes something deep and yearning in your chest crack open and spill over at last.
His mouth finds yours again, slow and thorough and devastating; his tongue sliding against yours as his hand trails down between your bodies, his fingers brushing against your cotton panties where you're already wet and wanting, and the sound you make into his mouth is small and desperate, and nothing like the woman who holds men together on battlefields.
"I've got you," he murmurs, and his fingers move over the damp fabric; slow circles, gentle pressure, learning you slowly until your back arches and your face is hot.
Then his fingers hook under the edge of your waistband to slide your panties off and leave you bare.
When your legs part wider for him, Kyle nuzzles the crease at the apex of your thigh, inhaling your scent deeply while a shudder ripples through his body.
"You smell incredible," he groans shamelessly, and before you can get flustered, his tongue flicks out to taste your swollen clit and the keen you let out makes him curse again. "Fuck. And you taste even better."
Your eyes roll back when Kyle starts licking you in earnest; sucking your clit between his supple lips, flickering his tongue against the sensitive pearl and slipping one, then two fingers inside until your hips buck and you come beneath his tongue with a moan that dissolves into a drawn-out sigh.
"Kyle," you mewl needily, and he understands immediately.
The aching and yearning, and the knowledge that you’re finally allowed to get and take what you have been craving for so long. It’s as exhilarating as it is dizzying.
He presses the softest kiss to the tuft of hair on your mound before crawling up your body with a look of purest devotion and hunger in his eyes that causes your breath to stutter.
You sit up to help him slide his joggers off, and when you realize that he was going commando all this time, your lashes flutter at the sight of his cock. Long, uncut, and thick, slightly curved upward, a vein throbbing along the underside of his shaft, with velvety skin and his fat tip flushed mauve.
"Bloody hell, Kyle."
He ducks his head, looking sheepish. "What?"
Reaching out, you grasp his length carefully, keeping one hand on his hip, and give him a few slow strokes that make his defined abs clench and his head tip back with a hiss.
A clear pearl of precum beads at the slit and your mouth waters.
"You’re so beautiful," you whisper in awe, thumb swiping over his tip reverently.
Now he is the one getting flustered, and the only thing keeping him from coming undone then and there is taking over control again.
"Not nearly as beautiful as you, love," he murmurs, pushing you back onto the mattress.
You make a choked sound and hide your face in one of his pillows, but he pulls it away and the smile he flashes then, boyish and delighted, sears itself into your memory.
Kyle caresses your waist and feels the goosebumps pebbled on your skin, and when he squeezes a pillow under your lower back, you lift your hips for him. His cock twitches, a drop of pre dribbles onto your thigh.
"Can I? I’m clean." His chest is heaving, his pupils blown as he drinks you in underneath him; all lax, beautiful and trembling while he rubs his thumb over your puffy folds, spreading them to see your pretty, wet hole.
You nod jaggedly, spreading your legs for him, heels digging into the mattress.
"I need words, love," he tells you, rubbing your clit maddeningly slow and watching your pussy clench around nothing. "Fuck, babygirl."
"Yes, Kyle! Fuck, please—" Your voice pitches and cracks, body wound tight, and when he kneels between your thighs, gripping his cock at the root, he finally pushes inside you, and the world stops spinning.
He does it slow, agonisingly and exquisitely so; working all eight inches into your needy cunt with one hand braced next to your head, the other holding your thigh while his forehead presses against yours; his breath ragged against your mouth, lips brushing yours in a barely there kiss.
The feeling of him is overwhelming at first; the stretch and the fullness, and the rightness of it all. And your hands grip his back, fingers flexing against the muscles, while your legs go slack for him, inviting him deeper, because close isn’t close enough now.
"Fuck—" The word punches out of him, bitten off and breathless, and his hips still for a moment, cock buried deep, his whole body taut with the effort of not moving. "You feel—God—"
"Move," you whisper. "Please move."
Always obeying you, he moves. Long, slow strokes that drag the curve of his cock against every nerve ending, his hips rolling into yours with an unhurried rhythm that matches the pace of the song still drifting faintly from the kitchen. His hand cradles the back of your head, fingers curling into your hair, and he watches your face with an expression that is so open and so tender that you have to close your eyes against it.
"No," he says softly. "Look at me."
You open your eyes. His face is still close, and you observe how his lips part with each thrust, and his brow furrows with both concentration and restraint, his eyes bright and dark and full of everything he's never said.
"Yes," he breathes, "just like that."
You come apart again; still not the shattering, violent kind of orgasm, but the kind that builds like a tide, rising and cresting until your body tightens around him in long, rolling waves as his name falls from your lips like a plea or confession, like the answer to a question you've been afraid to ask.
"That's it," he murmurs, his pace never faltering, carrying you through it with the same steadiness he has been carrying everything so far. "That's it, baby. I've got you. 'M, fuck, right here."
Then his eyes flutter shut when his own release follows yours as you squeeze and convulse around his cock mercilessly. A shudder that starts in his spine and rolls through his entire body, his hips pressing deep, breath hitching as he bites his bottom lip and buries his face in the curve of your neck with a groan so raw that you nearly come again.
He stays nestled inside you, shifts his weight to keep from crushing your body into the mattress, even while his own body is quaking with the onslaught of oxytocin; mouth against your shoulder, hand still in your hair, heartbeat pounding against your chest.
The breeze moves through the curtains. The flat smells like cedar candle and summer air and him. The scent you've been breathing in for over a year and pretending it didn't make you feel safe.
"I love you," he says and it sounds like a breath of relief.
Not triumphant but truth. Stated plainly, simply, the way you state a fact—the sky is up, the ground is down. I love you.
A tear slips from the corner of your eye and runs down your temple, disappearing into your hair. Then another and another. Quiet, soundless tears that come from somewhere so deep you didn't know it existed until you were guts deep in a young soldier, saving his life while he spoke about his love waiting back home.
Kyle lifts his head and sees the tears. And he doesn't panic, he simply brushes his thumb across your temple, catching the wetness, and presses his lips to the damp trail it leaves behind.
"I know," he whispers. "It’s been a lot. For both of us."
You close your eyes and let it come. The crying you've been holding in your chest like a clenched fist for months—years, maybe, longer than Kyle, longer than the rule, all the way back to the first time you knelt in the dirt beside a bleeding stranger and realised that this was your life now, and it would cost you, and you would pay the price and pay it and pay it and never let anyone see the bill.
Kyle holds you through it.
…Here I am, baby. Come on, cry to me….
Eventually, the tears slow and your breath evens. His hand moves over your hair in long, rhythmic strokes, and the radio in the kitchen has gone soft—a late-night DJ speaking in a low murmur between songs—and the candle has burned down to a warm glow.
"Stay. Here… with me."
It’s an offer, the same way everything he's ever given you has been an offer. Open-handed and without strings; yours if you want it, though you know he would crumble if you’d decline.
You press your face into his neck and breathe him in.
