Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see a girl who doesn’t recognize herself. Every so often when I look at my reflection, I see the same old expression time and again. It was like an everyday routine for me to just stand in front of the mirror and see my own eyes staring back at me. The rosary around my neck hung loosely yet it felt like the beads were pinching my skin and choking my neck. Honestly, I’d feel better if it did, I wouldn’t have to put up with this any longer. This fake, tattered image of me that isn’t real and is only in my head, it was an endless cycle of me piecing together the person I’d sought out to be, and like a puzzle, I’d only end up scattered, not knowing where to start.
I tucked my rosary into my bell sleeved shirt, adjusted my jeans so they were over my boots instead of under. The bottoms of my jeans being tucked into my boots had always given me a sort of uncomfortable feeling, it was like an itch that I couldn’t reach.
synopsis. willy wonka lets you play around in his chocolate kit. neither of you could have predicted that you would create an aphrodisiac chocolate.
includes. aphrodisiacs, smut 18+ MDNI, accidental drugging (due to aphrodisiacs), oral (f receiving), dry humping, cumming untouched, premature ejaculation, p n v intercourse, virgin coded willy, teaching/coaching, neighbors/friends to lovers, typical wonka shenanigans, fluff
word count. 6k
a/n. title from candy rain by soul for real. art is aftersleep by lewinale havette.
Willy should have never let you in his chocolatier kit. He was being sweet, charming, romantic, even. It seemed like a harmless idea at the time, letting you have full reign over the elaborate ingredients in his at home kit, allowing you to make whatever chocolate you wanted.
You’ve seen him make chocolate often enough to know the process. You stressed that you didn’t need his guidance. You wanted your creation to be a surprise, so you casted him off to his living room while you sat in the kitchen, working diligently to create your masterpiece.
When you finished and had two tiny and harmless-seeming chocolates in your hand, you and Willy quickly indulged yourselves, humming around the surprisingly pleasant taste. But then the effects began to kick in.
They were slightly unnoticeable at first, and your immediate instinct was to attribute the sudden warmth to a shift in the temperature, the sweat gathering along your hairline to the stress of making chocolate, the adrenaline in your limbs to the sugar making its way through your body, the stirring low in your abdomen to the presence of someone you feel something for standing just across from you.
But the growth of your symptoms were confusing. Willy displaying similar symptoms was alarming.
Standing in the center of his apartment, you’re trying to ignore the way your heart is trying to jump out of your chest and into his while you focus on the way Willy’s green eyes are a little lidded and heavy and—dare you say—lustful as he stares at you, all while you’re trying to get to the bottom of the incident.
“Willy,” you call his name once, and when he doesn’t answer, you call it twice. It’s not until you introduce a firm tone that he blinks himself out of whatever stupor he was in. When he looks at you again, his eyes seem a little clearer.
(He was intensely trained on the way your blouse, newly tailored by your own hands, fit over your bosom with just enough strain to create emphasis. In fact, you were filling out all of your clothes quite well today, but he hadn’t noticed until now. Until the chocolate has taken effect, he reminds himself.)
“I’m sorry, have you been talking?”
You nod. “Yes!”
Willy clearly hasn’t been listening at all. Now, he stands straight with his hands tucked into his front pockets. You don’t fail to notice the tension in his shoulders and his face, especially since he attempts to relax both areas, only to end up in the same predicament as before.
“Did I do something wrong with the chocolates?” You ask him.
Willy takes a second. He clicks his tongue, turns to face the wall to your left, and hums.
“That depends. Did you do something wrong with the chocolates?” His attempt at a joke falls flat, especially when your response is the same expression. He presses his lips into a thin line, dips his head. “Sorry.”
He runs down the list of the standard ingredients, asking if you’d included each and every one to the T. Then he gets to the additives, the ingredients that make Wonka’s chocolate unique. The array that you previously had free reign to, left with one singular instruction to not mix them together.
“You didn’t mix them, right?” His eyebrows lift, his eyes widen as if mixing the ingredients could cause something as disastrous as the end of the world. When you shake your head with the absolute truth, worries melt from Willy’s face for just a second, before his eyebrows push together and he takes a step closer to you.
“Oh, God, don’t tell me you used the pink bottle? The small one tucked in the corner?” He says it with caution, and this tone alerts you more than the previous. This tone is careful, as if he’s attempting to not scare you as well as himself.
This tone makes you hesitate to answer truthfully. You choose avoidance as a replacement strategy.
“What would happen if I did use the pink bottle? Nothing bad, right?”
Willy steps back, turns, and begins to pace the apartment, your eyes following him to and fro.
“Nothing bad, I guess. Just … unfavorable. Awkward. Debauched.” With each adjective he stops, faces you, and then continues pacing.
Debauched? Is that why you feel like this? Is that why you’ve been watching Willy’s mouth and hands move rapidly? Why you’ve been noticing how pink and smooth his lips are, and how slim and long his fingers are, and why you suddenly can’t stop thinking about exactly what he could do with both.
It takes loads of strength to snap yourself out of your daze.
“Um … debauched? What d’you mean, Willy? What was in the pink bottle?”
He finally stops his pacing to face you. His green eyes seem a little remorseful, maybe regretful. He looks like he’s going to deliver unfavorable news, things that could change the trajectory of your slightly comfortable life.
“It’s an aphrodisiac.”
An aphrodisiac. Willy Wonka has an aphrodisiac in his chocolatier kit. It shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is, the man has Yeti tears and Hoverflies and other things you can’t even begin to comprehend. But Willy Wonka making sex chocolates is the thing you’re struggling to wrap your head around.
You don’t bother asking why he has an aphrodisiac, and you know what it would do—what it will do to you both—but you still find yourself asking for assurance.
“What would an aphrodisiac chocolate do?”
Willy clicks his teeth. “Well, I suppose it would … do what aphrodisiacs do.”
Currently, it’s certainly doing what aphrodisiacs do. Willy really shouldn’t have let you make chocolates.
You turn away from him.
When you’d been sitting in front of all of Willy’s ingredients, they were all a little overwhelming. You had endless options for what you wanted to create. Endless possibilities for effects. And when you’d decided to keep it simple with a pretty pink unlabeled bottle, you assumed the chocolate would be strawberry flavored at most. Not this. You can’t help but ruminate, letting your thoughts lead you down twisted corridor after twisted corridor, all lined with possibilities of how you and Willy’s cherished friendship could be destroyed by this one mistake. Your mistake.
You hear his footsteps first. Soft thuds of his worn in boots against the creaky floor. You feel the warmth of his body next, getting closer and closer until he’s right behind you.
When his hand touches your elbow, you flinch at first. When he doesn’t remove his touch, you quickly become used to it.
“Hey, you aren’t panicking, are you? Because I’m sure I could whip up an anecdote or something. It might take a while because I don’t know the exact ratio, but I’m sure I could do it.”
There’s a second where you don’t say anything, even though you have a worried reply already brewing on your tongue, the words along the lines of Willy either making the situation worse or taking too long to create an anecdote. Ultimately, you decide to hold your tongue, not willingly, instead because you’re acutely aware of the way Willy’s trying to soothe you. You’re focused on the way his voice reverberates in his throat, the volume and tone so soft that you can’t help but create an entirely different scenario for when the words could be said in your imagination. He sounds so beautiful, a voice you want to hear for as long as the universe would allow it.
And if that’s the chocolate or your long term crush talking, you don’t know. What you do know is that you and Willy should stay away from each other just in case either of you thought about giving in and ruined whatever good thing you had going thus far.
Willy doesn’t take kindly to your suggestion.
He steps in front of you, bending down enough to force you to look at him, his hopeful eyes searching for your downcast ones.
“Stay away from each other? I think we should do the opposite, just for our own safety. We don’t know how strong this batch is, you know. What if you walk out of this flat and jump onto the first guy you see?”
He talks fast, bordering on rambling, and his words hold an edge stronger than plain worry. Jealousy, even, but you refuse to believe it.
(Willy certainly is jealous at the thought of someone taking care of you in this state, especially since that would leave him alone with only his hand and the memory of you once more.)
When you agree to stay, your decision is based on wishful thinking. You both sit back on Willy’s new couch, a display of how well his chocolate shop was doing. There’s a little too much space between you both, but the energy radiating from your bodies occupies the gap.
Willy asks you about your symptoms first.
You list them off, the same as before save for the addition of the arousal gathering in your panties. Willy nods, you notice his ears turning a very light pink as he divulges into his symptoms.
“The same as you and I uh …” he hesitates. His hips shift along the couch and he wipes his hands along the knees of his trousers. “I have an erection,” he eventually admits, his voice just a tad bit too low.
It is plain curiosity that drives you to look over at his crotch where you take notice of the evidence.
You want to stare longer, you really do, and your gaze does linger for a moment. Until you feel Willy watching you and you lift your eyes to his, taking in the way they’re just wide enough to display curiosity, a look he wears often and well.
He licks his lips and your ever inquisitive eyes pick it up.
“How long do you think the symptoms will last?” You ask him.
Willy shrugs. “It can’t be more than a few hours, right?”
You nod, sit back, and wait.
Two hours pass by before you give in.
You make it through the first hour with much difficulty and nothing but board games, books, and stories about your childhoods to keep you tethered. You go to the bathroom an hour and a half in and seriously consider forcing your fingers between your thighs for just a bit of relief, but Willy calls out for your turn in a rousing game of chess from the otherside of the door and you’re flushing the toilet and waddling back out to face him.
It’s a slight brush against the other that changes the course.
You’re both in Willy’s kitchen attempting to make tea. The space is like yours, just inverted, which means it is entirely too small for the price you pay. You’re moving around well enough at first, asking Willy where things are before you grab them yourself as he works in tandem.
And then it’s a slight brush, just the smallest bit of friction from his crotch running against your bottom, that makes your breaths hitch.
For the past two hours, you both had been avoiding the issues at hand, dancing around the elephant in the room like hormonal teenagers going through their first near-sex encounter. Willy kept a pillow over his lap to shroud his prominent boner. You tried your best to keep your blouse from rubbing against your erect nipples, or the seam of your trousers from rubbing against your cunt. And all things considered, you were doing pretty well.
All it took was one little brush and suddenly your pelvis is pressed against the counter, the cabinet above you is closed with its desired contents forgotten, and Willy has you caged in your spot with his hands on either side of you.
His head rests against your shoulder as he frantically rocks his hips into yours. One of his hands leaves the material of the counter to grip your hip, keeping you still as he continues to hump you. Your own stimulation from the act is minimal, but the aphrodisiac has apparently also made you grateful because you take what you can get.
Plus, the little sounds Willy makes are enough to get you off alone. You wished you could bottle them up and take them back with you, in fear that this would only be a one time thing.
He is all but whimpering against your back with each shaky thrust into your ass. He glides the length of his cock along the seam of your cheeks, working in strokes as long as the situation allows for.
There’s not much coordination to it, but apparently it gets the job done because it is alarming how soon his hips stutter and he rocks into you one final time before he stops and pants against your back.
His turnaround time is even quicker.
“Oh God,” he steps back from you, but the kitchen doesn’t allow for much space. When you turn around to face him, he’s still within arms reach. “I’m sorry. I … I don’t know what came over me. Maybe you were right, we should’ve gone our separate ways. Allow me to show you out…”
You put an end to his rambling by pulling him close with one hand on his face and the other on his shoulder.
You’re bold for a moment, bold enough to bring your mouths almost together. The tips of your noses touch, you can feel his breath mingling with yours, but then you give him space. You give him the option to back out, positively damning you to your own devices and memories once more.
But if it means you and Willy could remain friends, then you’ll take it.
The doubt begins to creep into your mind. It starts to make a home in your frontal lobe, distorting the image in front of you into something shameful. Self deprecating, even. He had just humped himself to completion against your back, yet you question how he feels about you.
Your touch on Willy’s body lessens into a gentle press for just a second in preparation to separate from him completely, but then Willy takes the initiative to move a hair closer and presses his lips to yours.
It’s swift at first, nothing but a hesitant press of lips against lips. It’s not halfhearted, though. On both ends is a certain amount of exercised restraint, and when you sigh and press your chest to Willy’s, he gets rid of his first.
Like before, Willy displays an unruly side to him that you had barely seen before. He delivers onto you a passion you have only seen him have for his business thus far.
His hands eagerly cup your cheeks as he sears his mouth against yours. Your lips move in uncoordinated tandem, lacking any cleanliness within it. You allow yourself to be coaxed into opening up until you have your hips against Willy’s and your hands in his hair.
When you bump your crotch into his, Willy makes a noise into your mouth that sounds like he’s been wounded. It’s then that you notice that he’s hard again. Or, maybe he was never soft to begin with, despite the dampness you know to exist within his trousers.
An idea forms into your mind.
You continue to allow Willy to kiss you, opening your mouth just enough to tease your tongue into his, before placing the muscle back into its home. Meanwhile, your hand travels down, over Willy’s chest, along his waist and pelvis, and then right to his croctch where you brush the palm of your hand over his boner with just enough pressure to elicit a reaction.
He sighs, pulling back from your lips to rest his forehead against yours. You take the positive reaction in stride and continue your work.
Your lips part in grateful shock whenever Willy rests one of his hands on your bottom, gripping the flesh through your skirt in his hand. His eyelashes flutter to open, revealing his big green eyes, windows into his soul that display the desire swarming through his body like a colony of active bees.
You only palm Willy’s cock twice more before he rests his hand on your wrist.
Your eyebrows lift, but you don’t have to voice your curiosity.
Willy smiles at you sheepishly as he delicately peels your touch away. “I don’t wanna …” He shakes his head. “Not too soon. Again. I want you to feel good, too.”
You don’t have to be told twice.
You dig your fingertips into the stiff waistband of Willy’s trousers and use your grip to pull him to the den behind you. Truthfully, even if you hadn’t tethered him you knew he would have followed.
As soon as the couch is within sight, you direct Willy to it and push him to sit. He falls back unceremoniously with a light “oh!”, looking up at you expectantly, eagerly. His lithe hands resting on his knees, his eyes as wide and curious as ever
As soon as you straddle him, he weakly thrusts up into you, as if the reaction was unintentional and instinctive. When your hands begin undoing the buttons of your blouse, Willy’s eyes drift down to watch, and it’s comical how they widen even more whenever your blouse is open and he gets the first look at your chest.
You pull the remainder of the shirt off of your body, and slip the straps of your bra off of your shoulders, but you stop there.
“Do you wanna take it off?” The previous haste hangs suspended over you both for just long enough for Willy to answer. As soon as he nods you’re directing his nimble fingers to the back of your bra, dropping your touch to allow him to fumble for the clasp. You expect it to take longer than it does, but only a few seconds and two attempts are needed before Willy has your tits exposed.
He stares. And stares. His lips quirk into a small smile, he compliments you with so much sincerity that you think you flush a little bit.
His hands still rest at your back, fingers lightly pressed into where the band of your bra had been digging into your skin all night. You don’t say anything when you latch your fingers onto his forearms and pull his hands around to the front.
Willy looks up at you with raised eyebrows, nonverbally asking for the permission you’ve already given him. Still, you nod once, and then he has two large hands covering your tits. You let him gather his bearings there, directing him every so often in ways to massage and pinch and rub against your nipple. Just when he starts to pull direct pleasure from you, he inhales as if he was going to say something.
“Can you—uh …” he hesitates and then starts again. “Can you teach me how to make you feel good? What can I do?”
You’re busy knocking your hips in a search for more pleasure, so it takes you a second to respond. “You can use your fingers. Or your mouth.”
Willy’s reply comes incredibly fast. “My mouth. If that’s okay with you.”
You stop moving and just smile down at Willy, brushing a stray curl off of his face only to watch it fall right back into place. “More than okay with me.”
Which is how you end up sitting on Willy Wonka’s new couch entirely bare, your legs spread before Willy who is on his knees in front of the couch. He has only taken his shirt off, and despite the disparity in nudity, you don’t feel uncomfortable. Even though you’re spread open before him.
From above, you’re able to see the way your cunt glistens, enticing even you to do something about it. It’s all the more confusing on why Willy is just sitting there, staring. You know he’s inexperienced from the way he requested guidance, but does he not know what to do at all?
Your lips part. “You can start by–” Willy doesn’t let you finish before he speaks over you.
“Just one second.” He drags it out.
It’s there where you realize he’s not completely lost. He’s just admiring.
You don’t rush Willy, even when your emptiness starts to become unbearable and you can feel frustration growing. You don’t have to wait for long, though, because Willy is soon extending a long middle finger and gently pushing it against your folds, applying just enough pressure to separate your lips and dip into your arousal.
He swipes through the fluid, gathering it on the tip of his finger before lifting the digit to the light, ignoring the way you shiver. You watch him inspect the way his finger glistens. You watch him bring it to his mouth and wrap his lips around it. You watch his cheeks hollow as he sucks his finger clean, his eyes fluttering shut much like they do whenever he’s tasting one of his particularly well made chocolates.
He releases his finger with an audible pop, his eyes opening and focusing right back on their target. When he speaks, it’s likely to himself.
“Wonder if I could harness this flavor.” He leans in as he says it, his lips getting closer and closer to the place you’ve wanted him for a while now. His last few words are spoken in almost a whisper, but you catch it anyway. “Maybe put it in one of my chocolates …” and then he’s letting his tongue exit his mouth and placing it on the path he’d opened.
He takes tiny and tentative licks for a few moments, focused on not one particular spot. He’s in between your entrance and your clit, occasionally catching a cluster of nerves that provide a teaser of what he could be doing with just a bit of guidance. Guidance that you’re willing to provide.
“Go up a bit,” you tell him, your hands digging into the velvet fabric of the couch cushions under you. He moves up, his eyes watching you and his eyebrows raised curiously. “Just a little further. There should be a–” He finds it just then and your head throws back.
You think he speaks a “there?” into your clit, but you can’t be sure. You nod either way, letting praises slip past your lips while Willy focuses his tongue there.
He’s not half bad now that he knows what to look for. His hands hold you open, one palm on each thigh, five fingers pressing into your skin with a firm focus. The tip of his tongue flicks your clit, sometimes slipping a little too far under or above but it works. The aphrodisiac knocking through your system makes sure that it all works.
Your hand eventually gravitates towards Wonka’s curls, fingers slotting through the tousled brown until you have the hair along his crown pushed back. He responds positively to this, pushing himself further into your cunt until his nose is buried in your mound. His enthusiasm peaks, he has a burst of energy, and he starts to lap at you. He pushes your legs up and back, opening all of you up to him, and he devours.
He’s messy and audible with it, switching between sliding around your entrance to going back to your clit. Every so often, he misses his target, but his recovery is quick, strong, and impressive.
You want to tell him to slip a finger in you, but the words refuse to find your tongue. They float aimlessly and uselessly around in your head, evading the hand that attempts to grab them. Instead, you grip his hair, push him down while you push your hips up, and Willy takes the direction as a hint to force his tongue in you. It’s unexpected, but it feels so good. You’re nodding and moaning far too loud.
“Yes, yes, right there, Willy. Don’t stop, please.”
It’s a little counterproductive and ironic when he briefly stops to assure you that he won’t stop, but the sentiment is still there. His nose nudges at your clit as his head bobs with the movement of his tongue working in and out of you. The combination has you close, and closer, and closer, until …
Your legs close around Willy’s head and your hips cant up towards his mouth while one of the strongest orgasms you’ve ever had takes over you. It surely has to be a combination of your recent celibacy, your feelings for the chocolatier between your legs, and the sweet candy still taking over your system. And you’re so thankful for each aspect as your thighs continue to tremble and you struggle to catch your breath.
Willy doesn’t seem to notice your struggle. He continues his work in the same place and with the same amount of determination, undeterred by your thighs pressed against his ears. He has accepted the position, resting his hands on the outside of your thighs and rubbing his palms up and down your skin. It’s almost too much, and you’re just about to tell him as such whenever you feel the beginnings of another orgasm creeping up your spine.
You debate your options: letting this orgasm taper off or letting it exist, and you can’t come to a conclusion before your body is making it for you.
Willy has switched back to your clit for this one, pink lips puckered around the bud as he sucks and licks and even nips every so often. Finally, he pushes a finger into you, just one but the rough pad of the digit massaging the top of your walls is enough for your head to throw back and your mouth to open in a silent shout as your toes point and your back curls. And soon after you’ve gone through this orgasm, you go limp and simply exist, shockingly thankful when he takes his mouth away from you.
“You taste good,” is the first thing he tells you. His lips and the surrounding area glisten. His overindulgence is obvious on both of your bodies.
You hum, trying to come back to.
“Do you want a taste?” He’s already rising to your lips when he asks it, and you wouldn’t have said no anyway. You kiss him gratefully, but lazily, letting his tongue slip into your mouth without much reciprocation on your end as you’re not wanting the flavor as much as you’re just wanting him. Thankfully, Willy doesn’t seem to mind.
Remaining lazy on top, you use your hands below Willy’s waistband to lightly palm his cock. When you find what you’re looking for, another boner stuffed in his trousers, you start to undo his pants.
When you pull his cock out of his boxers, you momentarily forget about his moment of weakness earlier. The mix of dry and wet cum around him doesn’t bother you, and you momentarily have the thought to clean him up with your mouth. You don’t get to act on it before Willy speaks.
“I should get protection.”
Your eyebrows lift. “Do you have any?”
When Willy nods enthusiastically, as if he’s proud to own condoms, your heart thuds painfully behind your throat. It makes sense that Willy would have slept with someone who wasn’t you, but that doesn't make it sting any less.
You watch him, anticipating him to stand and walk away to grab a condom. Instead, he reaches under the couch cushion, searching for a second, and pulls out a metal tin. You go to ask him about the location, your lips already forming the question whenever he answers it for you.
“Just in case.” His lips pull into a thin smile.
Is Willy really that desired that he keeps condoms stashed around his apartment? You wonder where else they are, and how often he gets to use them.
(Unbeknownst to you, it’s not very often at all. The locations are picked simply as a trait of overplanning and born from his hopefulness.)
In no time, Willy has the condom slipped over his dick and his tip nudges at your entrance. You’ve laid on the floor beside the couch, your back pressing into the rug you’d helped him buy not too long ago. When his tip is kissing your entrance, he stops there, eyes raising to meet yours for a second. You don’t know exactly what he’s waiting for, but you give him a curt nod anyway and that seems to do the trick. He pushes forward slowly and you don’t know if it’s for your benefit or his, for he shudders as soon as his tip breaches your entrance and you hiss and he continues to introduce more and more of his length.
You didn’t get a good look at him before allowing him to enter you, so you go on feeling alone. He’s thicker than you would have imagined, with more veins than you would have thought, too. The condom shields more than you would have liked, but safety is the most important thing here, even though your amplified brain tells you that it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have a kid with Willy. You’ve seen him interact with children before, and the thought would sometimes find you late at night, or during moments like now. But before you can dwell on it any longer, you push it away as Willy sinks more length into you.
You try to be patient and breathe through it all. When Willy finally stops, you think you’ve reached the end. But then he moves a little more and apologizes when you groan exasperatedly.
“Almost there. I promise.” Just a few more seconds, and some impossible inches later, and Willy is finally nestled completely within you, deeper than you anticipated.
You’re unresponsive under him, your eyes blinking at the ceiling and your lips parted. From an outside perspective, it looks like you don’t have a single thought behind your eyes. When really, it’s the complete opposite. Your thoughts are taking over every bit of your being, echoing the same phrase in an exclamation: It’s finally happening!
He’s not moving yet, but even this feels heavenly. You’re so full, fuller than you’ve been in a while. Willy’s combination of length and girth is something you’ve never had before and you worry that after this dream completes, you might never have it again. You’ll forever be an addict chasing a high you won’t ever achieve again.
But that’s for you to worry about afterwards.
Willy has his head hung low above you, his hands pressed into the rug beside your head. His hips are flush with yours, still unmoving, but he’s breathing heavily above you. Labored, almost.
In an attempt to be soothing, you rake your hands through his hair. He shakes against you and lets out a sound that is a combination between a gasp and a moan. It’s so pretty that you want him to do it again, so you repeat your motion. It doesn’t get your intended reaction until you pull on the thinner hairs at the back of his head, and then he makes the sound again and gives you your first thrust.
After that, he doesn’t stop. You don’t think he can.
His thrusts are clearly unpracticed, which qualms your worry about Willy sleeping with someone other than you (not that it matters or anything). You don’t know if he gets the hang of it, or if it’s just pure luck, because after a short while he improves.
He starts rolling his hips instead of just moving them back and forth. He angles them a little, likely something accidental but it works, and you push your legs into his side to keep him there. He’s finally lifted his head, but his eyes are closed while he feels it. He’s deep in you still, his thrusts are a little shallow as they reach for your cervix and this alone makes you shudder. It’s a slightly unusual feeling for you, which makes it all the more alluring. You encourage him to keep going through unfinished sentences, and he praises you for how good you feel in between your words. You both are speaking at the same time, not exactly listening to the other and creating a concoction of words.
“You feel so good. I can’t believe this is happening. Thank you, thank you, thank you …”
It’s no surprise to you when he cums first. He warns you before it happens, his words are a little shameful when he admits it. “I’m close. I’m not gonna last.”
You tell him to let go anyway and when he does, it’s such a pretty sight. Earlier today, he was behind you when he did this, and you weren’t graced with his face. But now that you are, you kick yourself for missing it before.
He’s so pretty.
His pink lips swollen and open. His dark eyebrows pushed together. His eyes closed. His curls hang over his forehead. But the small features in his face is what makes the picture so pretty. All of the tiny muscles working together, minute in nature, but joining to create a painted canvas that you want to either save or see as many times as possible.
This orgasm lasts long enough for him to pull you in it with him. He’s still cumming into the condom, providing a warmth that’s so close but so far inside of you. His thrusts are strong and constant, even though the rhythm of them is off and unpredictable. But each time his crotch presses into yours, nudging against your clit, and after enough times you’re letting go too, allowing whatever your orgasm wants to bring work its way through your body.
Here, like this, it’s a beautiful, harmonious scene. You exist together like this, and not just together. It’s a bliss and a level of intimacy you’ve always dreamed of, and you want to sit in it for as long as you can. Apparently, you both do.
Willy doesn’t move even whenever both of your bodies are limp. He holds his weight off of you on his forearms, but his head is resting between your breasts and along your stomach. He sits like that for a minute before rising, shakily pulling out of you, and then laying beside you.
You speak first.
“D’you think we should try to sell those chocolates?”
Willy laughs weakly. “Valentine’s day special?”
You hum, your eyes glancing down to where Willy has rested a hand on your stomach. The appendage sits there, unmoving, for a second, and when you don’t protest, he begins to draw indistinguishable shapes along your skin.
Answering your question without humor, he says, “No. I think we would keep it between us. If that’s okay.”
The way he says us has undertones attached to it, creating more weight than the two-letter word would usually have. You like the way he says it.
You turn your head to look at him, already finding him looking at you. For the first time, your skin flushes at the thought and you feel giddy. A little embarrassed, too. The aphrodisiacs must be wearing off and the confidence with it.
“Yeah. That sounds good.” A moment passes. Then, “But I don’t remember the recipe so don’t hold it to me.”
Willy laughs with a little more enthusiasm this time and you return it.
“Should we get cleaned up? Maybe have some dinner?”
You nod, leaning in towards his lips. When you kiss him, he tastes like strawberry flavored chocolate. Well, underneath the distinct bitterness of your arousal he does.
perverts is seriously one of the greatest works of art my ears have been blessed with. i've had people tell me that it's not that deep but idgaf i think it is. it explains the feeling of guilt around sexual contexts when you're raised in a christian household and how it can affect you. and obviously as a growing person, you will experience sexual feelings, and the project perfectly encapsulates the intense feelings of shame and also deep sense of desire regardless of whether it's a sin or not. it even shows the painful parts like dealing with addiction, whether it be substances or giving into your sexual urges far too often. the animosity and resentment built towards god is also a big part of this ep for me that affects me emotionally. obviously, if it feels like a god you're told to obey and worship is punishing you for having human feelings and urges, you grow to hate him. however, as i've said before, the hatred only tears you apart because you resent a being that does not exist, for he can't end your suffering, nor did he start it, but the people around you began it. in the end you are blinded by love and unable to see how they caused your pain. from feeling as if you are a pervert for having normal human thoughts because of the harmful ideology that was pushed onto you, and the sense of failure that falls over you after you give in, this EP is undeniably the most wonderful piece of media ever. my interpretation could be completely wrong but i really don't care lol
SUMMARY: A slow afternoon in Shady Grove is quickly tainted by the rot that spreads through the foundations of the town. Thankfully, this time Willoughby Tucker is able to find a way out, all thanks to a completely unexpected ally—you. 8.1k
WARNINGS: willoughby tucker x reader. preacher's daughter au. no use of y/n. set around the time of fuck me eyes. which means ethel is in love with willoughby but they're not together. underage smoking. violence and blood. angst. sexual harrasment (not from willoughby). mentions of child abuse. tw: joseph cain mention. fluff. hurt/comfort. teen romance. time skips. author is ex-catholic and knows next to nothing about the baptist church. but she is deeply troubled. author is also not southern but tried her best. hayden if you stumble upon this for some reason look away. happy ending.
If it weren’t for the faint taste of watered-down coffee that clings to your tongue and the sound of your own breath that hums along with the store’s pedestal fan in the corner, you’d be convinced you’ve already died and reached the sixth circle of hell.
The summer heat is like blood raining down on you—thick, warm, suffocating blood, even inside. Sweat sticks to the back of your knees and the insides of your elbows, beads on your hairline and over your top lip, leaves blurry smudges on the refrigerator glass door when you grab a Coca-Cola bottle and push it closed with your shoulder.
It’s another slow afternoon in Shady Grove, nothing left to do but wander around like mourning spirits and try to drown out the ever-wailing voices with your poison of choice. In your case, it’s a pack of reds and the less exciting type of coke.
The woman behind the counter—a blonde with trembling hands and blood-shot eyes that you vaguely recognize as Holly Reddick’s mother—barely looks your way as you hand her the last bucks you’d saved from winter break, the whole week spent down in Tampa working in your aunt’s bar. She keeps her eyes on the clock as she throws the Marlboro carton your way, immediately jumping to her feet when it hits five, dropping the money on the ground and reaching for her bag, hungry fingers fishing out a bottle of pills.
As you said, poison of choice.
With a low sigh, you walk out of the corner store and wonder whether the woman knows that her daughter is probably hanging around some liquor store, flirting with greasy men to try and get her hands around a drink strong enough to forget about her. The thought makes you drop heavily on the curb, sitting on scorching asphalt and plucking your lighter from where it’s tucked into your buckled biker boot.
The weight of the cig between your lips feels like home, the smell of burning paper and lighter fluid comforting. The sun slowly sets in the sky, only making your skin burn hotter, the sweet summer breeze washing away the smoke that escapes your mouth—sweet not like sugar, but like decay.
The place feels, for once, peaceful. The parking lot is empty, the store witnessing no one’s presence but Mrs. Reddick’s doped one. The road is devoid of any roaring cars, nothing but the sound of cicadas and the distant hum of the gas plant to fill the air, sparking cola and bitter tobacco washing down your throat.
No matter how miserable, after all these years, there’s some solace in the familiarity of it all.
You watch as a beetle lands on the concrete next to you, iridescent wings fluttering in the air before flattening against its back. It starts to make its slow way toward a dried-down patch of grass that’s grown from a crack on the sidewalk, every step short and insignificant.
He’s never gonna make it, you think distantly, sipping your coke. It’s too far away, someone will step on him first.
“You look like you’ve got better places to be.”
You jump at the sudden voice that slashes through the air and shatters the serenity you’d been basking in. With wide eyes, you turn your head to find Willoughby Tucker, leaning against the side of the store, a half-crushed smoke between his fingers, his other hand holding a zippo that he flicks open and closed repeatedly as he stares off at the clouds.
You’ve seen him around before, skipping class behind the school and roaming around the fields out of town, but it’s hard to not know someone in this godforsaken hole. You’ve crossed ways in the school hallways a few times, maybe shared a class or two, definitely sat close by on Sunday Mass. But you’ve never spoken, not really.
Still, he’s one of the few friendly faces around here. Not one of those holier-than-thou assholes or a gossiping bitch, his face always tinted with kindness, his smile always a tad too warm—even if he always looks a little angry.
Actually, he might be the only other person who hates Shady Grove more than you.
That’s what drives you to let out a low chuckle, placing your coke down on the curb and rising to your feet, brushing off dust from the back of your white dress before walking toward him.
“Not really,” you murmur, taking a long drag of your cig as you settle in front of him, the smoke drifting up and joining the one leaving his lips. “Not much to do in this place aside from this.”
Willoughby huffs, still not looking at you, raising an eyebrow and flickering his nearly-disintegrated cigarette into a muddy puddle. “Yeah, you’ve got a point.”
He laughs bitterly before crossing his arms over his chest, his camo jacket frayed at the edges and patched up at the elbows, speckled with something you could swear is blood.
Slowly, silence creeps back in like a bruise, blooming all around you and thickening the air. You hum, rolling back and forth on your heels, studying the way the golden sun reflects on Willoughby’s blond messy hair and questioning whether you should return to your previous spot or continue the conversation.
Backwater girl, always so bad at making friends.
You fidget with your smoke like Willoughby fidges with his lighter—clink, clink, clink. Like the Jaws theme song getting louder in the back of your mind.
Licking your dry lips, you try to speak again, your voice coming out strangled.
Clink, clink, clink.
You clear your throat, taking a long breath before trying again.
“So, what’re you doing here?”
You grimace at your awkward delivery, placing your cigarette between your lips to shut yourself up, restless fingers finding the end of one of your braids and tugging at it absentmindedly.
It, at least, earns you an actual look from Willoughby. His eyes are round and curious at first, caramel glowing under the last sunrays of the day, thoughtful yet guarded as they take you in. He scoffs then, his face breaking into a lighthearted smile.
“Same thing as you are, I reckon. Shoplifting beef jerky, smoking myself stupid, and just… not wanting to be anywhere else.”
That makes you giggle, your shoulders relaxing at the easiness that bubbles in your chest. You nod, plucking the cig from your lips and blowing the smoke toward the darkening sky.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m here for the caviar and the top-shelf wine.”
Willoughby laughs, a sweet sound that startles you almost as much as the gentle look he sends your way. Gentle things don’t survive long in places like this.
When it dies down, he pauses, tossing his cigarette butt to the ground and grinding it under his sole. His eyes flicker over the parking lot behind you, as if looking for witnesses.
“Do you ever just want to disappear?” he asks under his breath, like he’s disclosing government secrets. “Like—poof,” he mimes an explosion with his hand. “No more Shady Grove bullshit.”
You sigh heavily, the words resonating so deep in your soul that you have to lean back on the wall next to Willoughby, nodding as you wash out the taste of dreadfulness with another puff of smoke.
“All the fucking time.” You feel him watching you again, but you keep your gaze on the horizon. “Every day I wake up wishing I could just drive away and never come back. It’s not like anyone would look for me if I did.”
When you finally face Willoughby, his eyes lock onto yours, something intense and driven burning behind those tender irises. It leaves you breathless, the way he stares at you like you’ve just fallen from heaven, when you both know you crawled out of the mud like everyone else in here.
For a moment, everything freezes, and it’s only the two of you in the Christ-forgotten south. With trembling fingers, you offer him your pack of reds, throat crushed by a crown of thorns and shoulders heavy with the weight of the cross.
“Want one?”
That seems to wake Willoughby from whatever spell had draped over him, his doe eyes blinking slowly before dropping to the Marlboro carton, nodding almost imperceptively and taking the pack with a small smirk.
“Sure, thanks.”
His fingers brush over yours, you both pretend not to notice the way the other shivers.
He shakes a cigarette free and places it between his lips before returning the carton, his swift fingers flicking his zippo back open and bringing the flame up to his face, the reflecting light highlighting the slope of his nose and the curve of his lips.
You hold the smoke in your lungs long enough for them to burn.
“You know which way you’d go if you left this hellhole?”
You can’t help but stare at his profile—his delicate features, the cut on his lip, the shades of black and blue that taint his cheekbone.
For a moment, you wonder if it’s from his father. The whole town knows about Mr. Tucker’s tendency for violence, about how he takes out his war trauma on his son, about how he drinks until he passes out and then wakes up to beat him up again.
You remember, one time when you were eight, when the police had to be called to his house on Halloween night. The images are still engraved in your brain: Willoughby’s blood-smeared face as the sheriff carried him out, his wounded sobs muffled against the man’s uniform, his torn makeshift firefighter costume stiff with crimson.
It was the same year his mother had abandoned them.
He almost killed the damn kid, you remember Mom saying the next morning. They had to rip the boy out of his bloody hands.
Just two hours after that, father and son were returned to their home, nothing but a pat on Willoughby’s back and the pitiful but salacious eyes of the whole town on them.
“West, probably,” you answer after a second, eyes darting away before Willoughby notices the sick way you were staring at him. The sky is now a pretty shade of fuscia, one last streak of color before the darkness. “But not Cali, higher up north. Oregon, maybe Washington. Somewhere far away from this southern heat.”
“Oregon, huh?” he snorts, shaking his head and flicking his cig. “You couldn’t pay me enough to spend a winter in the Pacific Northwest. Too fuckin’ cold, too many damn windstorms.” The word seems to leave an acidic taste in his mouth. He shakes it off easily. “Besides, it’s just more small town bullshit over there.”
You hum, mulling over his words. The outside light of the store flickers on over your heads, washing you both in yellow lights, mosquitos and lightning bugs starting to buzz through the air.
“Small towns don’t have to be all bad,” you reason, tilting your head and glancing at him from the corner of your eye at the same time he does, caramel coating the roof of your mouth and the back of your throat. “This one’s just fucking rotted.”
Willoughby stays quiet for a moment before he shakes his head again, fingers returning to the old comfort of fidgeting with his lighter, smoke leaving his lips and blowing in the wind as he studies you—something unreadable flickering on his expression before he mutters:
“I’d like to be a writer, if I could escape this place. A small town wouldn’t do.” You feel like you’re being offered a small piece of sacred land no one else has access to. Your hands shake as you cradle it close to your chest. “Nah, I’d go east.”
Your eyebrows raise with surprise, not expecting that. You’d thought he'd say somewhere closer, maybe Montana or Nebraska, even Florida. But as you take in the fire behind Willoughby’s eyes, that desire for more that matches the one bubbling up inside you, it starts to make sense.
His eyes divert, finding the puddle where his ash becomes one with the mud. “...Though I’d settle for anywhere far enough not to hear my dad’s truck pull up at three AM drunk.”
The sadness that taints his pretty face is too much to bear, as if the fading bruise on his cheek was expanding and bleeding all over his skin. You stub your cig out against the brick wall and nudge his arm with your hand, making his gaze return to you.
“Where east?” You smile encouragingly at him, not wanting the memory of his father to kill the dream that you’d been building together.
He hesitates for a moment, but then he chuckles—half amused, half relieved.
“I haven’t thought that far.” The tug of his lips tell you he’s lying. You give him a look, and he bites his lower lip before his chin dips. "Pennsylvania, maybe. Or Virginia. Close enough to the big cities, but away from all the chaos.”
“So you have thought about it.”
Willoughby shrugs, a dry smirk growing on his face as he leans slightly forward, both of you now resting sideways against the wall, rough brick digging into the meat of your shoulder. “Why? You wanna come with?”
You mirror his smile, your heart fluttering with a lightness that you haven’t felt since Tampa.
“Anything to get away from this place.” You beam up at him, his hair now pinkish under the twilight glow, the summer breeze turning cooler as the night creeps in. Goosebumps rise all over your body. “But you’d have to take me to New York before we settle down.”
Willoughby scoffs, his cigarette pausing halfway to his lips.
“New York, New York? You wanna visit the Big Apple, sweetheart?” he teases, arching a brow. “You sure you’re not secretly some rich Daddy’s girl? You got expensive taste.”
You giggle, crossing your arms over your chest and shaking your head.
“Please, I don’t even know who my daddy is.” Before the mood is killed, you’re quick to nudge him again, shoulder against shoulder. “We’ve been stuck in this hellhole our whole lives, and every time I’ve gotten away for a while is just to another freaking dumpster. I wanna know what the big city looks like, at least once.”
You sigh, resting your temple against cold brick, your lips still fixed into a relaxed grin. You’d never expected to be friends with Willoughby, had zero faith in this conversation once it started, but this—this is nice.
“We’d have to scrap for money, maybe spend the night in a subway station. But it’d be fun to spend a day there before settling down in Philly or Alexandria.”
“I guess I could survive a day in the concrete jungle if it meant ditching this town forever.”
His smirk softens just slightly as he watches you, pausing and tilting his head, like he's trying to figure out if this is some kind of joke or not.
You’ve never been more earnest in your goddamn life.
“...You serious about this, darlin’? Or are we just talking to pass the time 'til one of us gets jumped behind Dairy Queen?”
Your heart skips a beat at the pet name, your cheeks flushing slightly under the buzzing fluorescents raining down on you, the stifling sun no longer an excuse for the redness. Still, you keep your face neutral as you gaze into Willoughby’s eyes, trying to pour your soul out your pupils and down his.
“I just don’t wanna die in this fucking place,” you confess in a barely-there whisper, rocking back on your heels, chewing on your lower lip until you break the skin. “So I'm serious if you’re serious.”
Willoughby freezes, like he's just stumbled upon an oasis in the arid desert just when he was about to pass out. The cigarette dangles forgotten between his fingers, smoke curling upward into the dusk like a ghost.
For a long second, he just stares at you—really stares. Like he’s seeing something in your face that wasn’t there before. His jaw tenses, a million emotions flashing on his face. Disbelief, doubt, fear, anger, determination, solace.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is quieter than you’ve ever heard it: "...Ain't gonna lie to ya, I'd rather eat glass than die here too."
A beat of silence, twin hearts finding each other for the first time, the fire in one feeding the flame in the other.
"...Yeah. I’m serious."
Your breath hitches, your lips parting open to say something, anything. A plan, a pledge, a plea—
BAM.
The door behind you slaps open, the little bubble that’d been slowly wrapping around you and Willoughby bursting wide open as two drunk men stumble out of the store. One of them is short and has a beer belly that spills out of his polo shirt, the other one is tall and lanky with a long beard and a cowboy hat thrown over thinning hair.
You rack your brain trying to recognize their faces, but in the dim flickering lights, they look like every other brain-dead junkie that inhabits Shady Grove.
They're both holding a six-pack in one hand, a pack of cigarettes in the other one. The shorter man mumbles something unintelligible to his buddy as they stagger into the night, tripping over their own feet and snickering obnoxiously loud.
You look over your shoulder as their voices reach you, drunk-old-men blabbering that sends shivers down your spine—not in the way Willoughby’s fire did before, but like ice water trickling down your body. Too many bad memories, too close to home.
You go rigid, a prey playing dead and hoping the danger will just pass by. Of course, it doesn’t.
The men suddenly turn toward you, sharks smelling blood, their eyes glowing red like the end of Willoughby’s cigarette.
“Well, well,” the taller one slurs, grease staining the collar of his button-up shirt, his crooked grin revealing yellow teeth and a sharp tongue. He topples forward, right into your space. Willoughby’s hand immediately wraps around your arm, tugging you away from the man, chin raised high as he glares up at him. “Ain’t you Will Tucker? Your daddy's been lookin’ for ya.”
Beer-Belly laughs like a rusty hinge, squeaky and unsettling, making you cringe. Willoughby’s grip on his cig tightens until it crushes in his fist, his chest puffing out with a furious intake of breath.
“Fuck off,” he grunts through clenched teeth. Then he murmurs your name, and it isn’t until then that you realize you never gave it to him. “Go into the store.”
“Poor guy’s been asking the whole town about ya. Guess he needs his punchin’ bag back,” the shorter guy continues, making your frown turn into a full-on scowl, your arm tugging loose from Willoughby’s grip.
You ignore Willoughby’s order, shoulders squaring up as you move to stand just-barely in front of him, your bare arm pressed against his warm jacket.
“Let's just go, Willow,” you whisper just for him. “They’re not worth it.”
He shoots you a look that says “not a chance in Hell,” his eyes soon returning to the men as Beer-Belly takes a menacing step closer.
“You better listen to your girl, boy,” Yellow-Teeth sneers, joining his friend and hovering over you, the store lights making their shadows drape over you like tar. “Go back home before your daddy finds ya. Think he might take his belt to both of you.”
Slowly, in a movement so imperceptible that the men’s gazes stay only on Willoughby, your hand slips inside your boot. Your fingers brush over your lighter before finding their target—a silver butterfly knife you’d stolen from some high school boys back in fifth grade.
You flick it open as Beer-Belly spits at Willoughby’s feet, the metallic hiss concealed by the disgusting squelch of phlegm.
“Bet you still piss the bed, huh? When daddy comes into your room at night?”
You can’t help but think about how pathetic the men look, trying to play tough in front of some kids, nothing else left to do in their misery but try to feel superior to anyone smaller than them.
You take a deliberate step forward, ignoring the small sound of protest that leaves Willoughby’s mouth. You face the men with a cold, furious gaze, your voice as low and ominous as the hum of the power plant.
“Don’t you have a ditch to die in or something?” you spit out, keeping the knife carefully hidden behind your back. “Leave us the fuck alone.”
The two guys glance at each other, intoxicated grins growing sharper on their faces, turning back to you like hyenas seizing the carcass of some poor thing—already dead, with nowhere to go but between their fangs.
“Aw, look at her,” Yellow-Teeth mocks, puffing out his chest as he takes another step closer, the stench of stale liquor and fermented body odor bringing tears to your eyes. “Pretty girl’s got a big mouth. She’s just like her mommy.”
Your breath grows ragged as his grubby hand clutches your arm, right over Willoughby’s touch still warmed your skin, his leering face far too close to yours as he continues to talk to his friend.
“Think she wants a mouthful, too? She may be better than her slut mother—”
It all happens in a blur. One second, Yellow-Teeth’s breath is hitting your cheek as his face fills your line of vision. The next one, Willoughby’s boot is slamming into the man’s shin with a brutal crack, sending him stumbling back with a howl of pain.
As if in slow motion, you all watch as Yellow-Teeth slips on Willoughby’s ash puddle, falling backwards and hitting the ground with a resounding thud, right over your long-forgotten Coke bottle. There’s a shattering sound, fragments of iridescent crystal flying all over as the man screams in agony, a dark red stain growing on his greasy shirt.
“Holy fuck.”
“Run,” Willoughby barks at you, already yanking his car keys from his pocket.
Beer-Belly, face pale as he takes in the image of his companion bleeding out on the ground, lurges toward Willoughby, who has his back turned to the man as he prepares to bolt. You slide between them, swiftly swinging your knife at his face, landing a long cut deep enough to slash his cheek open—all the way through.
Blood splatters all over you, Beer-Belly’s wail echoing in your ears as a warm, now familiar hand gets a hold of your wrist. The last thing you see before you’re dragged away is a flash of white molars through the mess of torn flesh and gore.
An everlasting, lopsided smirk—fitting for such a bastard.
“You fuckin’ bitch! Imma fuckin’ kill ya!”
Willoughby doesn’t let go of you until you’re both in his truck, yanking you into the passenger seat as he slams his door behind him, cranking the engine and snarling your name under his breath: “Fucking hell, why the hell did you do that?”
The tires screech against asphalt when he peels out of that parking lot, frantically glancing at the side view mirrors like Satan had finally ascended and was on your tail.
He might as well be, you think feverishly. The Devil doesn’t live in Hell, he inhabits the bodies of men.
Willoughby keeps one hand on the steering wheel as he drives through town, white-knuckled and bruised. The other one shoves a wad of fast food napkins at you from under his seat, not even spearing you a look, eyes seared to the road.
“Wipe that shit off before someone sees and thinks I stabbed ya.”
Your breath is ragged as you try to make sense of the world, warm blood on your face and dress, filling your mouth and nose with sulfur. Everything is still glitchy, your veins sparkling with a kind of electricity you’d never felt before, head swimming with an exhilaration you’d only experienced the time you’d stolen some acid from Mom’s medical cabinet.
Sluggishly, you pick up the napkins and start to clean up, first your knife and then your face, the blood on your hands already dry by the time you try to scrub it off. Finally, when you feel more grounded and less like your heart is gonna burst out of your chest, you scoff. “No one would care, Willoughby. You could actually kill me and no one in this stupid town would do anything about it.”
Still, you claw at your skin to try and get out as much maroon as possible, some of it still sticking under your nails and between the crevices of your knuckles.
Willoughby continues to drive, changing course every so often, switching from backroad to parkway and back to backroad, jaw clenched and shoulders tense. The only sign that he's heard you is a muscle in his cheek that moves back and forth, like he's grinding his teeth.
But the longer you sit there, listening to the crickets in the night as you reach the outskirts of town, the more the tension in your body starts slowly draining away, leaving behind only glittering exhilaration. It forces a giggle out of your mouth, crazed and startling in the drowning silence.
It earns you a bewildered look by Willoughby, the deep frown in his face melting as you start to laugh. A full-bellied laugh that rocks your body and leaves you breathless, your knife plummeting to the truck’s footwell and your head tilting back, hair blowing in the wind coming from the open window.
“You’re batshit crazy, y’know?” Willoughby tries to sound mad, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “I thought I was insane, but damn.”
You yelp as Willoughby suddenly veers out of the road, his beat-up truck making a valiant effort to speed into a corn field. Tassels and corn husks fly through the window and hit your face as you delve deeper into the darkness, only stopping when you are virtually in the middle of nowhere, tall crops veiling your existence.
“What the Hell?”
“I had to get us off the main roads, those motherfuckers probably called the sheriff already.” Willoughby kills the engine and rubs a hand over his face in exhaustion, his hair glimmering silver under the moonlight.
Then, he turns to you, taking in the smeared blood on your white dress and your trembling hands. For a second, something akin to horror flashes across his face, like the weight of what happened just sank down on him.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he says angrily, cicadas and crickets singing in the background, the wind carrying pollen through the air. “Jesus, they could’ve killed you!”
His voice is low but pitchy, his doe eyes wide with fear that he tries so hard to push back, his fingers wiggling around nothing like they’re searching for an anchor—his lighter, a cigarette, a friendly hand to hold.
“They could’ve killed you too,” you murmur, leaning back on the bench and staring out the window, moonbeams casting a blue hue over the whole field. “The guy freaking attacked you! I couldn’t just stand there and watch you get hurt.”
The words hang in the air, heavy and poisonous like lead, filling your lungs and crawling under your skin.
It clicks then. You're probably the first person to ever protect Willoughby like that, to ever fight for him. Everyone else had just stood around and watched.
“Oh, fuck. I can’t go back now, my dad’s gonna be so fuckin’ pissed.” He drops his head on his hands, forehead slamming against the steering wheel forcefully. “It was already gonna be bad, but if the damn cops get a hold of me…” He chuckles bitterly, like he’s spitting venom. “Just say your fuckin’ goodbyes now.”
With adrenaline still pumping through you like heroin and your eyes just adapting to the newfound darkness, you’re barely able to catch the tiny oil slick-colored dot that flutters from the bed of the truck and lands on a nearby cornstalk.
It’s probably just your delusional mind trying to make sense of your tragic life, but you could swear that the little thing crawling up that leaf is the same beetle from the parking lot.
Not only did he make it to the patch of grass, he made it to a goddamn field.
“What if you didn’t?” You don’t take your eyes off the insect, but you can feel Willoughby’s burning on your skin. “What if you didn’t go back? What if we ditched town, right now?”
He stays still for a long moment, the beetle slowly munching on his leaf, taking mouthful after mouthful of green tissue, forcing his way through.
Forcing his way out.
There’s a sudden pang on the side of your head that makes you wince, turning around with a scowl to find Willoughby’s hand hovering over your forehead where he just flicked it, his expression stoic.
“Ow!” You pout, swatting his hand away. “What was that for?”
“You got blood in your eyes or somethin’? Ditch town?” He scoffs, the roll of his eyes barely visible.
“Why not?” With a sudden wave of determination, you slide closer to him in the bench seat, grabbing a hold of his wrist. “You said you were serious, Willoughby. We can do it, this is our chance.”
To his credit, he takes the time to ponder over the idea, his eyes growing cloudy as he gets lost in thought. You wait, still buzzing with the thrill, with hope.
Willoughby’s gaze drops to the truck’s footwell, finding the shining metal of your knife, before returning to your face. “We ain’t even got gas money, darlin’.”
There it is, the pet name again. The smell of corn and boyishly-sweet sweat fills your nose as the breeze pushes Willoughby’s hair onto his face, and you feel dazed as you tug him closer, your voice dropping lower than the song of the cicadas.
“I happen to know that Preacher Cain keeps all the church’s tithes on a coffer, under a loose tile in the altar.” Your heart picks up as you keep whispering, your fingers clammy and warm on the tender skin of his inner wrist, his pulse under your thumb. “His daughter locks the church on Friday nights, but she always forgets to lock the back door. I heard her complaining about it to that girl Janie just yesterday. With the amount of cash these people throw at his feet, I bet you it’s enough to get us out.”
Willoughby goes perfectly still next to you, eyes narrowing and lips pressing together, sharp and calculating.
“...You know, I ain’t got a moral compass,” he mutters, leather seat creaking under him as he shifts his weight. “But you wanna steal from God?”
“Come on, Willoughby.” You tilt your head, giving him a pointed look. “We both know that the bastard's no saint. He only feeds on this town’s avid thirst for salvation, tries to sell them a heaven that won’t ever come. There’s no damn God in this place.”
“No, there isn’t,” he admits, his jaw ticking as he weighs it. Like this, with his doe eyes dark as lenten ashes and fear still tugging down his eyebrows, he looks younger than ever. It hits you, then, that this is actually the same sobbing boy you saw being taken to the hospital all those years ago. “But people in this shithole look up to Cain like he’s God. Even my father listens to that son of a bitch. If we get caught…”
“We won’t. Cain won’t check the coffer again until after Sunday mass. By then we’ll be long gone, we’ll be free.”
With the pure desperation of a spirit trying to escape purgatory, your hand that was holding his wrist moves to his face, cupping his cheek in an impulse that leaves you as surprised as Willoughby looks. Delicately, your thumb rubs circles over the bruise on his cheekbone—the proof of his father’s scorn, the physical mark of what this condemned place does to you.
“This is our one chance, Willow. We just have to be brave enough to take it.”
The whole world narrows to the two of you, like you’re the only people in the world God left to mind to. Two scheming criminals working in the middle of the night. Two terrified children trying to outrun Death.
“No one’s ever called me that, y’know? No one’s ever minded to be so… soft with me,” he murmurs, a shaky breath rattling his chest. A second passes, and then his eyes shutter close as he leans into your touch, defeated. “How much do you think Cain’s got in that box?”
A wide smile parts your lips, anticipation blooming like spring flowers on your chest.
“Enough to get us east.” Your fingers stay on his face, drawing invincible shapes over the ugly clouds of purple and blue. “We’ll figure it out after that. I can work as a bartender and you can write us a book that’ll make us rich, or we’ll just—join the circus or something.”
That drags a rasping laugh out of him, long eyelashes fluttering as he stares at you again, like you’re some kind of miracle. It’s overwhelming. Dazzling. Almost devoted.
Blushing and hoping the poor lighting conceals it, you frown, asking—admitingly a little defensive, “What?”
“Nothin’.” He lets out a long breath that hits right against your lips. “I just—you have a plan. A crazy, stupid, dangerous plan, but you… y’know what you want, and how to make it happen.”
“You can’t get out of Hell with hopes and daydreams, Willow. I told you, I don’t wanna die here.”
“Yeah,” he whispers, mostly to himself, nodding a few times before that fire from before returns to his irises, almost as bright as the morning sun. “Yeah, we’re not dying here.”
Still catching some doubt creeping on his expression, you smile and finally drop your hand from his face to offer him your pinky, sending him a bright look.
“You and me, we break free tonight. Together."
Your faces are just inches apart, foreheads almost pressed together, so you see the exact moment in which Willoughby’s shoulders drop, the corner of his mouth curving.
“You’re goddamn crazy.” Still, his pinky wraps around yours, steady and unwavering. “Together.”
Your breath hitches when his eyes suddenly drop to your lips, his chest growing heavier and his finger tightening on yours, white noise buzzing loudly in your ears. Willoughby’s throat bobs as he shallows hard, pink tongue peaking out to wet his lips.
“Fuckin’ hell—”
Then he leans in and kisses you—quick, rough, and over before you could even process it. You’re left gawking as he retreats, the ghost of chapped lips and a hint of stubble burning on your skin, your mouth parted and expecting.
He whispers, trembling and shockingly timid: “That counts as signing the contract.”
If you felt dazed before, you’re high as a fucking kite now. Your heart pounds loudly against your ribcage, your brain leaking out as coherence deserts you. But then a breathy, fervent giggle leaves your tongue, your whole body swaying forward as you search for his mouth again.
The kiss is slow and tender this time, gentle like nothing else in your lives. Your hand returns to his bruised cheek, chests pressed together and breaths fusing into one. Willoughby makes a rough sound in the back of his throat before his arms latch onto your waist, pulling you so close that you can barely notice where you end and he begins.
“I don’t know if I can keep us safe out there, sweetheart,” he confesses against your lips, now that both your eyes are closed. “I don’t want you to regret choosing me for this.”
A huff of laughter escapes you. You break away from him but leave your foreheads resting against each other, your words landing directly on his tongue. “I don’t need you to save me, Willow. I would’ve ended up leaving sooner or later. I’m not asking you to take me with you, I’m asking you to come with me.”
The sigh Willoughby lets out is pure and unadulterated relief.
“Right.” He finally pulls back, leaning on the backrest with still half-lidded eyes and spit-glossy lips. “We should go now. The quicker we are, the less chance we get caught.”
The truck rumbles to life under you, headlights flooding the field with a golden gleam as Willoughby starts to back out of the field. His whole face is finally visible once more, and it knocks the breath out of you.
He’s really fucking pretty. You lick at your lips, savoring the lingering taste of him.
Oh, this is gonna be a problem.
The drive to the Shady Grove Baptist Church is quiet and antsy. Willoughby doesn’t stop tapping his fingers against the wheel and you can’t help but glance at the rearview mirror every so often in search of red and blue lights. But against all odds, the night stays silent and unperturbed, no wailing sirens or pitchfork mobs.
Willoughby turns off the headlights before pulling into the church’s parking lot. The building is big and intimidating where it stands in the middle of nowhere, right in the entrance of town—because of course it had to be the first thing you see when driving into Shady Grove.
A god-fearing town, full of god-fearing people.
It comes to your advantage, though. No nosy neighbors or wandering nightwalkers to catch you jerking to a stop right in front of the back door, only the stars here to witness your sins.
“Well.” Willoughby smacks his open palms on his thighs, as if hyping himself up. “Let’s steal from motherfuckin’ God.”
You chuckle, tugging him in for one last good luck kiss before jumping out of the truck, sending him a grin from across the rusty red hood.
“Welcome to the first day of the rest of our lives.”
Once you cross the predictably unlocked back wooden door, you understand why Cain’s daughter chooses to forget about it.
The hall it leads you down into is dank and completely lightless, no windows in the mildew-covered stone walls or ventilations to allow any air flow. Both Willoughby and you are forced to take out your lighters and flick them open, breathing in thick, humid air and making your way through the labyrinthian corridors as best as you can.
Willoughby walks just a step ahead of you, your knife in his hand and his steps as light as a deer wandering through the woods—like he’s used to moving through life trying not to be found by the hunter.
Still, every thud of your boots reverberates on the walls, echoing like a chorus of condemned souls. You can’t imagine growing up here, surrounded by nothing but made-up stories of damnation and shadows creeping in the corners. You would’ve gone insane long ago.
In what you take as a sign from the fates, the hall leads you directly to the altar, colors dancing on the wood as moonlight spills through stained glass. It’d almost be beautiful, if it weren’t for the nightmarish memories that flood your mind. Memories of kneeling of those same pews, of the constricting confessional and the furious eyes of Christ. Memories of praying for deliverance that would never come.
Willoughby seems to feel the same way, because he keeps his eyes pointedly casted away from the nave as he whispers in your ear. “Let’s be fast, I don’t wanna be here longer than necessary.”
The loose wood is astonishingly easy to find. It lays right next to the lectern, with scratch marks all over the surface and a half an inch gap between it and the next plank. It’d make you laugh, if fury hadn’t seized you first.
Of course it’s easy to find. Cain never thought anyone would dare steal from him, everyone in town so devoted to him, crawling here Sunday after Sunday and hanging onto his every word, singing praise to the Lord and returning home to their abused and love-starved kids.
Any guilt you could’ve felt about taking the money evaporates, your movements cautious but purposeful as you lift the plank and reach for the coffer. To add insult to injury, there’s no chain or lock around it, the lid splitting open like a ripe fruit with a light tap from your thumb.
“Oh my God.”
“Please,” Willoughby mutters, restlessly pivoting like the Holy Spirit was about to barge in through the front doors. “Don’t invoke him.”
“Willougby…” you mumble, your eyes still glued to the inside of the coffer. Hesitantly, you pull out the stack of cash that rests innocuously on the dark wood, afraid it’ll vanish at your touch. You hold it high in the air, gaping at it before turning to face your partner in crime, frozen in front of you and just as dumbfounded.
“What the hell?”
“Willow,” you repeat stupidly, your fingers barely able to wrap around the disgusting amount of bills you’re holding. “Either people in town are not half as poor as they pretend to be, or this must be all the offerings given since, like, Easter.”
You stare at each other for what feels like ages, like coal miners suddenly stumbling upon diamonds. At the same time, your faces break with mirroring beams. A light at the end of the tunnel.
“That’s enough to…”
“Get us east, for sure.” You can barely speak through the toothy joy pulling at your lips. “Maybe even a whole night in New York.”
“Praise our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
It’s hard to stifle your giggles as you put back the coffer and slide the wooden plank in its place, even harder to do it right when Willoughby is suddenly all over you—hands on your waist and hips, chest pressed to your back as he lands pecks all over your cheek and neck and shoulders.
“Willoughby,” you chastise him, elbowing him in the ribs as his fingers slide down your body, tips brushing your bare thighs. “I don’t know what the fuck got into you, but if you get us caught when we’ve gotten this far, I swear I’ll chew your head off.”
“Feisty,” he purrs against your ear, dragging you closer as you tuck the cash in the inside of your boot, spinning you around and giving you a kiss that’s mostly teeth and pure bliss. “I’m your designated driver, baby, ya can’t get rid of me.”
“I could. I’d just steal your truck and run away with the money.”
“You just carved up a guy in my name tonight, I know you ain’t leaving me behind.”
“Gosh, we’re not even out of state and I’m already regretting this.”
“Too bad, ‘cause there’s no backing up now.”
It’s only once Willoughby’s hands start to wander down to your ass that you muster enough strength to push him away, glaring at him as you start to retreat into the hall to the back door.
“The power of Christ compels you, you demon boy.” You sparkled your lighter as the darkness swallowed you once more, keeping an eye on Willoughby’s smug face. “Let’s get outta here before lightning strikes us down.”
You’re about halfway through the corridor when something tugs at your chest, a greater force compelling you to halt right in front of a small alcove. You hold your lighter closer to it, illuminating the inside as the flames reflect on the gray stone and the dark wood frame hanging on the wall.
The face of Joseph Cain materializes from the shadows, making you jump in your place. It takes you a moment to realize it’s a picture, his eyes just as punishing and judgemental as they are during service. You wonder what kind of psycho keeps a giant print of himself on his sinister passageway, but soon you realize it’s a family portrait.
Mrs. Cain, who you’ve never really seen outside of Mass, stands a step behind her husband, her face barely visible over his shoulder. Their daughter, Ethel—who you’ve seen around school and a few times at the drive-in, both of you too withdrawn to have ever actually interacted—stares right down at you, tucked into her father’s side as his arm rests possessively around her waist, black suit jacket against cream-colored lace.
She’s smiling, but the sorrow in her eyes is too blatant to miss. She looks like Christ in his cross, trapped, bearing the weight of humanity’s sins. Your heart pangs for her, and for Holly, and for every kid who’ll be stuck in this place until they become their parents.
“I hope you make it out,” you whisper at her picture, stepping back when Willoughby calls your name from the doorway. “I pray that you escape this place as well, Ethel Cain.”
⋆˚｡⛪︎⋆˚࿔
Alabama is only a smudge in your rearview mirror by the time the sun rises.
Your first purchase with your newfound small fortune is pack of menthols and two greasy burgers that you munch on while sitting in the sun-warmed bed of Willoughby’s truck, your hair still dripping from your morning dip in a nearby lake, your legs thrown over his and his hand wrapped securely around your ankle.
Willoughby starts writing that same morning, scribbled words printed in a journal you’d stolen from a souvenir shop, because you weren’t about to waste money on an “I heart South Carolina” notebook.
You’re put in charge of figuring out the routes while he fills page after page with prose, on small town diners and resting stops and motel rooms. His fingers are now perpetually smudged with ink, his eyes bleary by the time he’s done for the day, running through pens like water and wringing his brain dry.
“You’re gonna have a whole novella down by the time we reach Philly,” you tease him one night as you drag him to bed, not about to let him stay up all night when he’s supposed to drive you into Virginia the next morning. “Should I start looking for publishers already, Shakespeare?”
Willoughby only rolls his eyes, shoving you onto the bed and shutting you up with a kiss that you welcome merrily.
A month later, a tornado sweeps through Shady Grove.
Willoughby and you hear the news from a shitty TV in New York City, snuggled together under the covers and holding your breaths as the reporter continues to talk about the homes destroyed, about how the community is holding up, about the two people that’d ended up dead.
The small room in the back of the bar you work at is usually cold now that fall is creeping in, the owner letting you stay there while you’re in town but not willing to pay higher heating bills. Still, the temperature drops to freezing as you watch the images of all the floods, the broken roofs, the bloody pavement.
Before they can reveal the identities of the deceased, Willoughby starts to violently shake next to you, his face burying on the blanket and his breath growing ragged.
You turn off the TV immediately, wrapping your arms around him and holding him against your chest, murmuring soft reassurances against the top of his head and petting his long golden hair.
“Shhh, it’s okay, pretty boy. It’s okay. We made it out, we don’t ever have to go back.”
He cries in your arms for a while, phantom thunder roaring through that beautiful, broken brain of his.
“I hope it was my dad,” he whispers moments later, voice croaky, his face still pressed against the crook of your neck. “That place would be better off without him.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Willow.” You kiss his cheek, and then the tip of his nose, and then the arch of his brow. You don’t stop until you hear the sweetest giggle leave his mouth. “You outran the storm, you’re free.”
“We’re free.”
You smile, pulling him in for a deep kiss.
“Yeah, we’re free.”
⋆˚｡⛪︎⋆˚࿔
It’s only two years later, when you and Willoughby are browsing C-Town’s dairy aisle, that you see her.
MISSING; STRANGER ABDUCTION.
Name: Ethel Cain.
“Guess not everyone got as lucky as us,” Willoughby says somberly, his caramel eyes gazing at the picture of the young girl over your shoulder, the cold milk carton numbing your fingertips. “I hope they find her soon.”
The same thing that stopped you in that church hallway all those years ago comes back, wrapping around your lungs like vines, and you get the feeling Ethel is not missing.
No. You know, somehow, that she’s dead.
You run a thumb over her tiny face, your engagement ring glinting in the white light of the refrigerators. “Maybe she’s free now, too.”
NOTES: idk how many of you will actually read this, but i'll do something i've never done before and beg you to give it a try. i actually really liked the concept of this one, and i haven't been able to get willoughby out of my brain the past few weeks. idk man, i have a savior complex, what do you want me to do about it.
anyway, thank you for being here, i adore you all, and i'll come back with a more normal fic soon lol.
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