• Here for the fics, thanks to all the GVF fanfic writers, because babies y'all are doing the lords work. If you're underage, go ahead and kickrocks, this page isn't for you •
warnings: drunk Jake, dorkass Jake, SMUT 18+!, drunk sex, oral sex (f. rec), unprotected sex, dirty talk, “keep me in there tonight”, lemme know if I missed any!
a/n: I was trying to write another fic and got the idea for this one after the tiktok GVF posted, so I hope yall enjoy this until I can get to some more of the requests!
Masterlist
You wake to a loud noise. A clatter that makes you shoot up in a half-asleep panic.
Your first initial thought is that you're about to be robbed. Your second, less sleep-filled thought is that your boyfriend is finally home from the bar.
You hear a loud curse, but it's not from inside the house— He's still outside.
You sigh.
Knowing him, he's either lost his keys again or still hasn't managed to get the key into the lock. It's the same cycle every time he drinks. And when you're drunk alongside him, it takes the two of you far too long to piece your brains together and get the door open.
You toss back your blankets, already making your way to the front door, eager to see your lover.
You pull open the door with a frown, immediately softening when you see Jake near the edge of the porch, tossing your watering can to the side without a care, “I watered your plants.”
“I—” You glance at the watering can, your frown deepening when you see it's landed on its side under the porch swing, “Be careful with that—”
He hums, making his way up the steps and stopping right in the doorway as he squares his shoulders, “Daddy's home. M'here to take care of everything.”
He's drunk. Eyes glassy, cheeks a pretty pink, and his skin lightly shining from sweat. His hair is messy, sticking up in places, but he looks just as beautiful as ever.
“Did you just now get home?” You ask with a laugh when he pushes you back gently, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him.
“I wanna touch you inappropriately,” he says, very matter-of-fact, before he holds up his hand at the side of his mouth as if he's telling you a secret as he whispers, “In all the places I'm not supposed to.”
“God,” you breathe, grinning at him, “You're really drunk, aren't you?”
“My level of sobriety has nothing to do with wanting my girl,” he frowns, “I always wanna touch you.”
“I saw you just this morning,” you say softly, wrapping your arms around his shoulders when he grabs your waist and pulls you to him.
“I'm insatiable,” he says, one of his hands wandering down to your thigh, “Like a wild animal— An untamed beast.”
“And a total fucking dork,” you add, your hands sliding up and cupping his face as you smile warmly at him.
He squints in offense, before he rakes his eyes over you, “You smell good,” he murmurs as he leans in, his nose at your throat, taking a deep breath. He lets out a loud sound of annoyance on his exhale, “I wanna be inside you.”
You pull back, placing your hands at his chest, “You're drunk, honey—”
“Shut up and sit on my face,” he murmurs, tugging you right back to him, “Will you do that for me? Let me have a taste? Just a little bit— I'll be so good to you, baby.”
Your cheeks burn hot, your eyes wide, “I don't… wanna suffocate you…”
He groans, his eyebrows tilting up, “Fuck, that's my life's dream, sweet girl.”
“Maybe we should go to bed,” you suggest, your hands settling over his, holding them still and stopping them from where they were dragging over you and grabbing at random.
“You hate me,” he pouts.
“I do not. I love you to bits, Jakey,” you say around a giggle, “But it's three in the morning.”
“If we go into that bedroom, I'm making you come in my mouth,” he warns.
You let out a breath, “No.”
His jaw drops when you push back, but this time he doesn't yank you back to him. It takes everything in you not to laugh at him.
You step towards the hallway, “It's late, I have a busy day tomorrow. Just come to bed.”
“Fine,” he mutters, “But I don't like it.”
“I know,” you murmur sympathetically as he trudges along behind you.
Getting him undressed is a nightmare. He grumbles the entire time, complaining about your shared bedroom being hot, pouting when you tell him he's sweaty.
You're not sure how long it takes, but finally, you're both laying in bed, you beneath the blankets and Jake sprawled out over them.
“My mouth's dry,” he whispers after you'd thought he'd started to doze off.
“Do you want some water?” You ask, peeking at him over your shoulder.
“No,” he says, “I want you.”
“Stupid,” you mutter, grinning wide as you turn back onto your side.
He sighs loudly, and you feel the bed dip as he moves. He's still again only for a second, before you're jostled as he moves yet again.
“Jake.”
“I'm trying to get comfortable,” he defends.
You hum, letting your eyes fall shut again. Then you feel the bed dip behind you, before you feel his hair tickling your cheek. You open your eyes to find him leaning over you, frowning at you.
“What are you doing?” You ask, turning onto your back as he hovers over you.
“I'm just looking at you,” he murmurs, “You're pretty.”
“That's creepy,” you laugh despite yourself, “Don't do that.”
But he keeps looking at you, his lips turning up just a little bit, “I don't care if it's creepy. I like to look at you.”
“Watching me sleep is a bit much,” you say, reaching up and tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear.
“Mm, but you're not asleep,” he tilts his head, pressing a kiss to your wrist beside his face, “Which leads me to my next question.”
“And what might that be?” You ask, trailing your fingers down his jaw.
“What if,” he starts, his hand already snaking beneath the blankets, “I make you come so hard you fall asleep?”
You let out a soft sigh, your thighs subconsciously falling apart as his fingers ghost against the edge of your panties, “You really are insatiable.”
“You don't have to do anything,” he leans in, pressing his lips against your cheek, “Just lay there and let me lick into that sweet cunt.”
You trail your hand down to his hips, brushing your fingers just barely against where he's already hard and straining against his underwear, “What if I want this?”
“Think you can come twice for me?” He asks, already slipping his hand in your panties, petting gently just centimeters away from your clit, “Once in my mouth and another around my cock?”
You let out a dreamy sigh, “I think I can manage that.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, his hand disappearing from your panties and pulling the blankets away from you, “Too tired, my ass,” he mutters, moving down and grabbing your thighs, splitting them apart for him to fit in between, “You're just mean.”
“M'not mean,” you say weakly as he tugs your panties down, “I am tired.”
“Mm, I know,” he says, “Poor baby's got a busy day tomorrow and here she is in the middle of the night with her pretty thighs spread for me.”
“Jake,” you nudge him with your foot, your cheeks burning.
He groans as he pushes your legs impossibly wider, taking a moment to stare between them, “You're fuckin’ soaked, baby,” he uses his fingers to spread your folds apart, his eyes heavy as he just stares. “I can't let my sweet girl go to sleep all wet and needy, now, can I?”
“No,” you sigh, your fingers twisting into the sheets beside you, eager for his mouth.
“No,” he repeats, dragging a single finger from your slick entrance up to your clit, circling the bud before he pulls it away completely.
Before you can plead, he leans in, and places a kiss directly to your clit, then another, and another, each one slower and wetter than before.
“Fuck,” he groans, flattening his tongue at your entrance and teasing it by almost pushing inside, before he licks up to your clit.
You gasp when he wraps his lips around it, lulling his tongue with a low hum, before he pulls back to look at your most intimate area.
He grabs your inner thighs, fingers digging in as he goes back in with a low growl, kissing and sucking your clit all at once. Your mouth falls open, your hands tightening in the sheets as he makes out with your cunt.
You're amazed every time he does this— How attentive he is, how into it and passionate he is.
You pull a hand away from the sheets, tangling your fingers into his hair as you let out a soft sound. He hums in response, his eyes finding yours as he smirks against your slick skin.
Your hips rock up into his mouth, gasping a quiet, drawn out, “Nooo,” when he pulls back, “Jake— Please…”
“Shh,” he uses his thumbs to spread you open again, “I'll be right back, babydoll, let me just look at you.”
“I want your mouth,” you sigh, knowing that your little pleas and desperate words always make him weak.
And sure enough, he's back within seconds. Your eyes roll back as he starts to flick his tongue over your clit. That low fire in the pit of your tummy that he's been steadily stoking all night burns hot now, making your thighs tremble and your body tighten as your orgasm draws closer.
“I'm so close,” you gasp, now freely rocking your hips as you tighten your hold in his hair.
“Then fuckin’ come for me,” he says it like a demand, no room for arguing— not that you would at this point.
It smacks into you before you really even fathom that he'd just commanded an orgasm out of your body. Your thighs tighten around his head, your back arching off the bed as you helplessly cry out into the black of the night.
He hums and groans against you, not letting up even a bit until you collapse back against the mattress, panting and whimpering as you try to push his head away.
He leaves one final kiss to your throbbing clit before he pushes himself up, dragging your shirt up your body as he climbs over you.
He leans in, running his tongue over your nipple before he draws it into his mouth and sucks at it. Your legs twitch around him when he lets go with a sound pop, before he does the same thing to your other breast.
Your body is still thrumming intensely, your chest is rising and falling as you try to catch your breath, your eyes are shut as you hear him move.
They pop wide open when you feel the hot, plush head of his cock teasing over your pulsing cunt.
“I want it,” you breathe, letting your thighs fall wide open once again.
“It's yours,” he says lowly, his eyes heavy as he watches himself move over your wet slit.
“Then give it to me,” you try to demand it, but it comes out weak and needy, desperate.
He hums, the corner of his mouth twitching upward, “Oh, she thinks she's in charge,” he mutters to himself.
You whine, wrapping your thighs around his hips, trying to angle them enough for him to slip inside.
Instead of letting you struggle for much longer, he grabs your hips, pulling them up just right and easing into you in one slow, easy push of his own hips.
Your eyes roll shut as you let out a content sigh, hyperaware of every thick inch of him inside of you.
He leans over you, his hands on either side of your head, gripping the pillow tight as he lets out a strained hum.
“Fuck, Jake,” you sigh, your eyes fluttering open.
“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, lifting his hand to cover your eyes as he settles onto his forearms.
“Why?” You ask, pouting at him even though you can't see him.
He shushes you sweetly, pressing his lips to your cheek, “Just lay there, baby— Let me fuck you to sleep.”
You whine, biting your bottom lip as he pushes your hair back with the hand that was covering your eyes, but you keep your eyes shut as he starts to rock his hips.
“Fuck,” he whispers beneath his breath, so quiet you almost didn't hear it.
His cock grinds into you in slow, rhythmic rolls, every ridge and curve of it sliding along your walls perfectly.
“You feel so good,” you breathe, your jaw falling slack as he leans into you, more of his weight pressing you into the mattress.
You wrap your arms around his neck, eagerly pulling him to you to kiss him. His hand slides down to your hip, holding you tightly as he works his lips against yours, “My sweet girl,” he murmurs between kisses, “I love you.”
“I love you,” you whine it directly into his mouth, lifting your legs higher up, wrapping them around him and holding tightly as he starts to move quicker and harder.
Each thrust sends the head gliding directly and perfectly against that sensitive, spongy bump inside of you that makes you see stars. His pelvic bone is grinding against your clit, rubbing in a way that could send you over the edge rather quickly.
“Fuck, I love your cock,” you gasp when you feel the blunt, warm head brushing against your cervix. “You feel so fucking good.”
He presses his forehead to your temple, and you can feel his lips turned up in a grin, “Listen to you,” he murmurs, “Is that all you can say, baby? Hm? Just telling me how good it feels?”
“Yeah,” you agree mindlessly, your eyes quickly opening when he starts to fuck into you with more force than you expected.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he stills completely, his hand covering your eyes again, “Keep ‘em fucking closed, Y/n.”
You whine his name, and he slides his hand from your eyes to your mouth, covering it completely as he peppers tiny kisses over your cheeks.
He starts fucking into you again, “You gotta listen to me, baby,” he chides softly, his hips slamming into you in contrastingly harsh thrusts, “Just listen to me, be a good girl for me, I know you can do it.”
You let out a weak uh-huh that makes him throb inside of you, and that almost makes you come undone completely.
“I'm gonna come,” you warn him, grabbing tightly onto him, your nails digging in as his hand moves from your mouth to your clit, where he starts rubbing tight, quick circles over the swollen bud.
“Fuckin’ do it,” he breathes, “Come all over my cock, baby, let me feel every fuckin’ bit of it.”
It swells inside you, before it explodes through you like a dam breaking, the waters bursting forth and wrecking everything in sight. Your vision goes white as your thighs clamp around his hips, your breath frozen in your lungs as stars shoot wildly behind your eyelids.
You sob, your nails dragging down his back as he grunts and moans out filthy praise.
“Fuck, that's it, Y/n— Just like that, honey, c'mon,” he lets out a choked sound, “Fuck—”
His own release washes over him with a gasp of your name. His hold is gentle and harsh and loving and possessive all at once, and it all draws out your orgasm as he fucks you both through your respective endings.
You keep your eyes shut, but now it's from a content exhaustion that makes your entire body heavy.
“Fuck,” you sigh, your chest heaving in tandem with his.
“Yeah,” he breathes, pulling back as he slips out of you with a quiet hiss.
“I know we should clean up,” you start, peeking one eye open to find him already staring at you with a half-drunken, lovestruck expression, “But I'm so fuckin’ tired.”
“No,” he says lowly, glancing down between your thighs, “I want you to keep me in there tonight.”
You nod, whispering a soft, “Okay,” as he moves to lay down beside you.
You both lay in the quiet for a moment, enjoying the afterglow, the warm satisfaction lulling you nearly to sleep.
Then he pats your thigh and says, "The beast has been tamed," he pauses, "...For now."
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Warnings: adult content, language, alcohol consumption (discussed), drug use, sexual content, oral sex (f/rec), dirty talk, idk this is all Jake’s fault just like always. Absolutely zero editing, don’t bring up any mistakes I’ll cry
Jake’s boots are dangling over the back of your sofa when you slip through the front door, right sole tapping at the air. Keeping time, though it sounds like all he’s doing is strumming the exact same chord over and over against the strings of his worn acoustic.
Ambling deeper into the room, he finally clocks your presence when you lean over, smiling at his upside down face.
“May I ask why you’re upside down on my couch, Jacob?”
He shrugs you off with a slow blink, still calling forth that monotonous, humming collection of sound. “No, you may not. S’my own business, nosy-rosy.”
“Okay,” crouching down, you plant a gentle kiss upon his forehead, “What about, how did you get in here, might I inquire about that?”
“No.”
Rising to your feet, your eyes roll fondly, “Stop breaking into my apartment, Kiszka. I’m going to figure out how you’re managing it, eventually.”
“Doubt it.” He lifts his head, and you find his cheeks have gone pink…sporting a lovely little blush thanks to gravity. “Hey, did you know they used to call couches Davenports? That’s much better, don’t you think? Davenport. Sounds very regal.”
“What are you even talking about right now?” You can’t help the huff of a laugh that escapes you as you pull off your coat, anxious to strip the day away.
“Are couches and sofas the same thing?” He ponders. To himself? To you? Who’s to say? “I mean, is it a regional dialect thing? Or are they actually different somehow?”
Hands on your hips, you turn firm. “Are you drunk? I swear, Jake, if you drank my last bottle of red, may god have mercy on your soul.”
He has slowly rolled into a sitting position. settling his guitar against the end table with one hand, waving you off with the other. “Shut up, sweetness. It’s in there. M’not drunk.”
“We’ll, you certainly aren’t sober.” Your voice travels back to him over your shoulder as you tromp your way into the kitchen to ensure the safety and well being of your wine.
When you return, he’s stretched out upon the cushions, lazy as a cat, lips curled into a lopsided grin, eyes glassy and half-lidded.
All at once, the pieces shuffle into place, “Oh my god, you’re such a drug addict.”
This widens his smile, glazed gaze dancing with affection, “I love you. Know that? Let's calm down though, my dramatic little thing. It was only an edible or two. Fruit snacks, really.”
“You’re making bad choices.” You have always played this role with your closest friend who is often more than a friend. The nun who lost her habit, watching over an unruly choir boy.
His shrug is heedless, “I’m a person who makes bad choices.”
Sliding in beside him, you notice, “Why is your hair wet?”
“Took a shower.” He hums, delighted with himself.
“So let’s go over the chain of events, shall we? You casually made me the victim of a home invasion, again, got high, probably scavenged snacks like some smoked out raccoon, then took a shower?”
“I mean, you got the sequence of said events wrong, but yes, close enough.” He’s pecking kisses against your cheeks now, fingers twisting at the ends of your ponytail. “I like showering here. I use up all your expensive products and come out smelling like—” he pauses to sniff his hair, “almonds.”
“You wasted all my products?” Annoyance is creeping in, but you know it won’t stay long. It never does when it comes to him. And that’s true of Jake for anybody, really. He flashes a smile at the world and gets away with anything and everything he wants.
“Yes.”
Your face scrunches, determined to stay cross. “You’re replacing them.”
“No, thank you.” His thumb smooths down the bridge of your nose, softly relaxing your muscles. “How did your little date go the other night? Did he sweep you off your feet, take you someplace nice? Were there flowers? Was there sex?”
With a huff, you begrudgingly respond. Might as well, since he won’t leave it alone until you do, anyway.
Jacob treats his curiosity like a living, breathing entity that stands beside him…guiding him. Urging him to poke, and prod, and hunt until he finds the answers he seeks.
He is a preschooler in a toy store. starstruck and beaming childlike primary colors. Touching shiny things on shelves, pressing buttons that call forth light and jaunty little tunes from plastic. Begging his mother for a special treat until she relents.
Shutting him down is useless, and as such, you present the answers he seeks in short order.
“No. Sort of. Yes. And none of your business.”
“Ah,” he raises his eyebrows sluggishly, still floating through his buzz. “I see. There was bad sex.”
“I didn’t say anything like that.” Your feet tuck beneath you, a ritual you only lean into when you don’t want to feel seen.
“Didn’t have to.” Jake is fiddling with his thumb now. Inspecting it with intent as he picks away at a hangnail. “Did he get you off?”
Again, resistance is futile and you damn well know it. “No. He just kept changing things up. When I’m close, I need—”
“Steady rhythm,” he interrupts, “Consistency. Praise. Words of encouragement, Darling.” There’s that crooked grin that makes your thighs inch apart, “Surely you don’t truly believe that what you need is a subject that needs to be explained to me.”
“No, I guess I don’t.” Heat crawls up your spine. An uneasiness you can’t begin to understand…you have found yourself in situations more vulnerable than this by far when it comes to Jacob.
“You guess you don’t.” He parrots, petting at his chin as he is wont to do. “Have I not proven countless times that I know exactly what you need?”
“Do you need me to stroke your ego that badly?” It lands with a bit more sass than you’d intended, but he laughs, endeared as ever by your bratty mouth.
“No.” He offers a lazy wink as he kisses your cheek with such tenderness your throat aches with confusing and unwelcome tears, “you needn’t do anything but exist to satisfy me, sweetness.”
Opting for safer territory, you cling to nonsense humor “There you sit, a smug and gorgeous thief, smelling of all my hard earned money washed down the drain.”
With an elegant roll of his body, he’s practically lying atop you, but he feels weightless somehow…forever a ghost standing in the flesh. “Better than you smelling of it. I hate it when you smell like that shit. Hate when you taste like it.”
His lips are wet and slick when they meet the thrum of pulse at your throat. “I don’t want you to taste like body wash, I want you to taste like you.”
A quiet sigh trips out of you…your very own vocal cords betraying you shamelessly “I suppose this is where you tell me I taste like strawberries or something equally ridiculous.”
“No,” he’s rolled you over effortlessly and is working your jeans down your thighs now, tugging and pulling at the denim with a languid eagerness “you taste like pussy. Like pretty, perfect pussy. I like to eat pussy. Especially yours. And I want it to taste like pussy when I do. Like your pussy.”
“Jesus, Jake…” you could happily curl up and die of embarrassment tinged with throbbing lust. “…could you cram one more ‘pussy’ into that sentiment?”
A hitching groan shakes his shoulders silently, “Say pussy again.”
Face flushing furiously, you avoid his line of sight, suddenly shy, “you’re vulgar.”
His eyes roll back in his head, but it’s so subtle you can’t be sure you haven’t imagined it. “What else? Tell me what I am. Go on.”
“You’re obscene, and indecent. Filthy.”
“And?” He presses, moving in closer.
“And you’re a fucking whore.”
He smirks, lips brushing along the inside of your thigh, “Yes, I suppose I am. But you, my love, are soaked, so what’s that say about you?”
“Are you going to do something? Or should I just accept that you’re going to babble at me all night long with your face between my legs?”
Smarting off earns you a slightly clumsy smack, just below your hip. “Don’t be sassy. I’m too stoned to be quick-witted enough to keep up.”
You spread a touch wider, lifting nearer to his mouth in invitation.
“Yeah?” When he looks up at you, there is a hungry energy floating around him like a darkened aura. But paired with his blissed out state of THC induced calm, it paints a curious expression across his breathtaking features. “What’s that mean, angel? Pushing this soft, dripping cunt in my face? Hmm? What’s that for? Are you asking me to lick it?”
“I can’t stand you,” it’s a hush into the room. a soft, meandering murmur that quakes gently with your poorly hidden want.
“Awe,” a wicked glint flashes in his upturned gaze like fire, “lovely girl hates me. And yet,” his lips, all velvet warmth, sweep over you with slick, gliding reverence, “she’s got these thighs spread wide right in my face.”
“Go home, Jacob…” your fingers tangle through chocolate locks to yank him closer.
“Go home?” He nuzzles against your aching center, tip of his nose catching at your swollen clit. Absently, you wonder if he can feel your wild, frantic pulse within it.
“Yeah,” you slur, intoxicated on Jake Jake Jake once again.
“Yeah?” He sounds like lazy trouble, “go home? Or get you off like he couldn’t? Hm? Would you like that? Right in my mouth? Down my chin? Let me drink it?”
The obscenities that he spoon feeds you are delectable in every way imaginable. When you’re alone at night, each word dances through your mind like prodding, persistent promises. Reminding you of what he’s done to you, guaranteeing what he’ll do next.
“Do I have to ask for it?” Your voice trembles in a way that makes you inwardly roll your eyes. He makes you weaker than you’d ever care to admit.
“No, sweetness…” he tilts his head, eyeing you in a way that tells you he doesn’t plan to be as kind as he sounds. “You don’t have to say a word, baby.” His lips, full and soft and so fucking warm, bestow the gentlest kiss over your clit, “why don’t you show me instead? Go ahead and touch this gorgeous cunt exactly where you’d like to feel my mouth.”
You’d love to comply, but there’s a fight in you, a needless, unwarranted fight that won’t relent. “Fuck you, Jacob. I told you to go home.”
His eyes, that’s all it takes…he cuts those brown eyes up at you and when your own lids flutter, he winks. Just a flash of motion, and that’s it, you’ve melted into his clutches. But you’ve wanted that from the start anyway…
“Show me, sweetness..” your thighs soak his kisses in and spread wider.
With trepidation, your fingertips crawl towards the throbbing ache he has created, strumming at your desperate clit tenderly, as you can’t take much more.
You’re close, and you’re furiously needy for it..but you want him to soothe that pulse inside you. Him.
“Don’t make me, baby…” it’s so hushed you hardly make a sound “I want you to do it.”
His pupils blow wide and frantic, but he’d deny it if you called him on it “What does my pretty sweetness want me to do? Does that gorgeous little pussy want to cum?”
You nod a bit too eagerly for your liking.
“Yeah?” His lips quirk upward so perfectly. “Right in my mouth?”
“Oh, fuck you,” you kick away, twisting on the cushions until you can crawl off.
His grip, firm and sure, wraps around your hips “who said you could leave, sweetness? I’ve got a pussy to lick and it’s right between these legs, so simmer down.”
You loathe your own vocal chords for the soft moan that answers him.
And you expect a bit of shit-talking, he’s so fond of it…instead, you’re wrenched around and pinned, helpless as his mouth, so wet and soft, sucks your clit in like he’s hungry for it. Starved.
When you begin to rock against him, he nods in earnest, sending his kiss sliding this way and that against your cunt as he stares up at you, heated and ready for you to give him whatever you decide he deserves.
Jacob is always so dominant until your pussy is in his pretty face, then he unravels, just as he has now.
“Cum in my mouth,” it begs out of him on a trembling breath that warms you, “please,”
“Make me,” you counter, fighting hard to cling to the dominance you don’t really feel.
“Make you what?” He murmurs, slurred and muffled against your skin, “make you cum? Say it. Tell me to make you cum.”
Yanking him in closer you shiver as a fervent moan vibrates into you, his tongue lapping at your clit like it’s candy. “Make me cum, Jake. Please, fuck, please baby, please…”
Trailing off as you thrust against his perfect mouth, dominance is lost completely. You are both reduced to the want of the other. His want to taste your release on his lips, to give you what someone else couldn’t. Your want to let him, to let him take and give and twist you ‘round his fingers until you come apart and shake for him.
He reaches up, smoothing your hair back behind your ear with his tongue still drawing tight circles right where you need them, steady and rhythmic. Just perfectly right, and it makes you smile. It breaks across your face in the unsexiest way imaginable, but he loves it. God, how he loves it.
“There she is,” he whispers against you, “smile for me, pretty girl.”
Furrowed brow, teeth buried in your bottom lip, you couldn’t smile for him if he begged you’re so close. But he knows you through and through, and that’s alright, too. “Whatever you need, sweetness. C’mon…”
And that’s all it takes, that quiet, muffled encouragement while he watches you like you’re a goddess sent to ruin him, and you’re falling apart, trembling and whining while he cradles your thighs, following every jerk and rock of your hips until you’re fighting away, pleading for reprieve.
“That’s it,” he cracks his palm against your calf and grabs it mercilessly, as he lazily pulls himself into a more presentable position “that’s a good girl. He missed out.”
His face, so pretty and smug, shines with you and he makes no move to wipe it away, “So you’re just gonna get me off and then, what? That’s it?”
“Yeah,” he nods and grabs up his guitar while you’re sprawled, disheveled and panting, at the other end of the couch. “Pretty much. Why? Would my favorite girl like something else?”
You’re crawling toward him before he can finish his quip, because of course you’d like something else. Of course you would.
Warnings: Angst, gore, smut, historical references that might not be accurate, vampires being vampires. I never really know how much or what to actually include here, so please just proceed with your own judgment. And if you come across something that you think deserves to be noted here, please let me know!
Summary: a brief look at Josh’s life from Because The Night
Josh POV
It’s so cold. Cold and wet. The rain dancing across my face, each drop stinging my flesh as if to mock the trembling that already grips me. I’m frozen to the core of myself. Shaking, hollow, and barely tethered to the world. I try to scream, to call for help, but no sound escapes beyond a broken gurgle.
The last thing I remember is walking with Narin, our usual shortcut through the park, the one that always felt like ours alone. We were talking about the future, about what it might hold. I had mentioned children, one day, perhaps. The way her face shifted so quickly, as if trying to hide the flash of disgust and disdain, cut deeper than I could admit.
She said she wanted to travel, to drift freely through the world, unanchored by the weight of a family. I didn’t argue. I only said that I couldn’t leave my brothers behind. Something in her changed then, as if a wire had been pulled too tight and finally snapped. The conversation fell into silence, and that silence grew heavy. So heavy it seemed to press against my chest. I remember walking beside her, uncertain of what to say, feeling the distance stretch wider with every step.
Narin turned to me and smiled, a slow, deliberate curve of her lips that did not quite reach her eyes.
“My precious pet, Joshua,” she murmured. “You know my love for you knows no bounds. But I cannot be weighted down by things that no longer hold necessity for me. Children are of no interest. The chains and bonds of family and the obligation of that are burdens I will not carry. You must understand that. I have no need for them.”
She stepped closer, her voice softening into something almost tender. “But I do wish to keep what is mine. And you, my pet, are mine.”
Her words caught me off guard. My thoughts splintered, reeling at the notion that someone could speak so easily of love yet deny the very roots from which it grows. How could anyone not long for the warmth of family, the simple grace of nurturing life?
“I am not your property, Narin,” I said, forcing calm into a voice that trembled beneath the weight of disbelief. My mind churned, refusing to make sense of what I was hearing. This was not the woman I thought I’d come to know. The one whose laughter had once sounded as sweet as rain falling through the trees.
I must have worn my confusion plainly upon my face, for her trill of laughter rang out in response, bright and cruel, echoing in my ears. My vision sharpened, catching the glimmer of her form as she twirled and spun, lost in a dance known only to her. The sound of her laughter seemed to multiply, ricocheting off the darkness until it came from everywhere at once.
Then suddenly, she was gone, the air became still and before I could draw breath, a searing pain tore through my neck. White-hot and merciless. The kind of pain worthy of myth, so profound it seemed to reverberate through my bones and breath alike. Fear tore through me, swift and absolute, just as another blaze of agony split across my shoulder. It felt as though the very skin and muscle were being flayed from the bone. The rich, metallic scent of blood filled the air, thick and heady dancing at the edges of my pain until it was all I could taste, all I could breathe.
For a fleeting moment, my mind grasped at reason, at memory. At the thought of the men who had met their end in such a similar way. Worry for Jacob and of course for Narin flickered within me, the last ember keeping my heart from collapsing into despair. I searched the darkness for her, praying she had escaped. But when my gaze found hers, hope died on my tongue.
Her eyes met mine, wild and unrecognizable as she sank her teeth into the flesh of my abdomen, her nails raking down my thighs and shredding the muscles beneath her touch. I could feel the warmth of my own blood spilling across my skin as deep gouges marked every inch of me. By the time she stopped, I was scarcely whole. Flesh torn from my shoulders and left arm, strips of it hanging in tatters from my throat.
To this day, I do not know what stayed her hand, what flicker of restraint, if any, held her back from ending me completely. My vision dimmed, the world collapsing inward as the darkness drew me under.
When awareness returned, it was to the sting of light pressing against my eyelids. I tried to open my eyes, but the brightness was too much. I closed them again, waiting for the world to soften. When I finally dared to look, my gaze met a blurred outline, a face carved with impossible precision, and eyes the color of ice, so piercing they seemed to look straight through me.
Time passed but how much, I couldn’t say. Some of my wounds had mended almost completely, and with them I’d begun to adjust to what now passed for life. Lucio had been my guide through it all, patient and unwavering as he helped me grasp the impossible. That I was both living and dead.
It was a strange existence. Foreign, hollow, and heavy with loss. The realization that I could no longer feel the sun upon my skin was a quiet devastation, but even that paled beside the truth that I no longer had Jake. I didn’t know if he still lived, nor could he know of me. The distance between us felt unnatural, like the world had split in two and I’d been left behind. We had been inseparable since birth, two halves of the same whole and now, half of me was simply… gone.
Lucio had been there when my eyes first opened after death. He had fed me, cared for me, guided me through those first, terrible hours. His were the first eyes I saw in that new darkness. Icy blue, set against a complexion dark as the earth and they became the anchor I clung to while the hunger tore through me. I remember the way he steadied me, lifting me upright, the clean slice of his blade across his arm, and the impossible kindness in the act that followed. I hadn’t known what to do, but Lucio taught me, gently, as one might teach an infant to feed.
Slowly, my strength returned. And with strength came restlessness. My thoughts began to outrun my steps, filled with questions that clawed at me in the quiet hours. Would I ever see Jake again? Or Sam? Was I destined to remain hidden away like some creature of myth, condemned to move only beneath the veil of night?
I must have worn on Lucio’s patience with my endless questions, but he never let it show. Through every outburst, every surge of anger I could not yet control, he remained steady. If I could still call anyone family, it was him. Though even that truth could never fill the void of my brother Jake.
In time, I began to feel the slow pull of madness at the edges of my mind. Lucio’s vast library had been placed entirely at my disposal, and though I made good use of it, there is only so much solace a student of cinema can find in the printed word. The books offered distraction, nothing more. Temporary escapes into other worlds while my thoughts endlessly circled back to Jake and the question that haunted me. What had become of him?
I asked Lucio often if I might go back and search for my brother. He never refused me, yet never granted permission either. His answer was always the same, quiet and evasive: “I will find a way for you.”
It became his mantra, his promise, and his defense. No matter what I asked of him, no matter the need or whim, his reply was always that he would find a way. And, in truth, he always did. Lucio took pride in his ability to provide, to ensure that nothing I desired went unmet. Nothing, save for one thing. Jake. For that, there were no answers, only the hollow ache of uncertainty.
At last, my persistence wore him down. He reached out to Sal for word of my brother, and when the news came, it was not what I had hoped. The moment Lucio entered the room, I knew. His expression was heavy with sorrow, his voice breaking as he spoke the words that shattered what remained of me.
Jake was gone.
Narin had taken him from this world.
“Joshua, I am so sorry,” Lucio said, kneeling before me, his composure unraveling. “If not for the need to convince Narin you were gone, you could have been there for him. This is my fault. I have damned you to walk this earth until the end of time for my own desires, and because of me, you have suffered this loss.”
“Don’t,” I said softly, reaching to lift his face, to meet the ice of his eyes. “Don’t say that, Lucio. You’ve done everything you could to give me this life, and for that, I thank you.” My voice broke beneath the weight of it all. He was gone. My brother Jacob was gone. Half of me had been stripped from existence, and the hollow that remained echoed with grief so sharp it felt as though it might tear me apart.
In those days that followed, I clung to Lucio out of sheer necessity. He became the tether that kept me from slipping entirely into the abyss. Time moved forward, indifferent, while I dragged behind. Sinking deeper into the cold mire of sorrow. Lucio tried endlessly to draw me out, to lift me from the shadows that clung to me.
Months passed in that fog of mourning before he finally suggested we travel. That a change of place, a breath of air beyond these walls, might begin to ease the ache. I resisted at first, unwilling to leave the sanctuary of my grief. But Lucio could be persuasive when he wished to be. And so, against my better judgment, I agreed even though he would not tell me where we were going.
Rossinière, Switzerland, was home to Lucio’s family chalet, where we were to stay for an extended time. The place was extraordinary - more akin to a kingdom than a residence. Had it been built of stone, one might have called it a castle. Instead, it rose from the earth in warm alpine timber, resting upon a foundation of old masonry. Gabled roofs, broad windows, carved balconies, and great exposed beams gave it the kind of presence that seemed older than memory itself. I had never seen a home so grand, so steeped in history and quiet majesty.
Lucio spoke of it with fondness, telling me how one of his ancestors had built it in the mid 1700s, and how it had remained in his family ever since. His voice held the weight of lineage, something I felt deeply, perhaps because I had lost my own.
Lucio told me I could choose whichever room I wished, and so, half in jest, half in defiance of the emptiness within me, I claimed the entire second floor. He laughed at first, until I spread my few belongings across the rooms and made myself comfortable.
The first few days were restless. When Lucio retired to his quarters, I found myself wandering the dim corridors alone, the old wood creaking softly beneath my feet. I didn’t understand at first what I was seeking, but it was him. His presence had become a kind of anchor to me, especially after learning Jake was gone. With Lucio near, I did not feel entirely severed from the world.
In time, that need shifted into something more than closeness. I began to understand that I wanted him not only as a companion, but as something deeper, more binding. There was a connection between us that defied reason or explanation, something neither of us spoke aloud, but both of us felt.
We spent weeks in that chalet without once stepping beyond its walls. Just the two of us, existing in the quiet, as though the world outside had ceased to matter. Neither of us wished to break the fragile peace we had found in each other. Lucio had become my solace, my tether to the world. And somewhere in the silence between us, I began to suspect that my longing was not mine alone.
Lucio was the kind of partner dreams are made of, The kind who placed every need, every desire of mine above his own. No matter the difficulty, he always found a way. He had been there through both of the darkest moments of my existence, the night Narin so brutally tore my life apart, and the day I learned Jake was truly gone.
Never once did he make me feel like a burden. He bore my grief, my rage, my need for solace and did so with that quiet, haunting smile that made him seem at once human and something far beyond.
I often caught myself watching him as he moved, studying the effortless grace of his body, the calm surety of his presence too often, or too long. And I was certain he noticed. The faint, knowing smirk that would ghost across his lips from time to time betrayed as much.
He came to my room that evening, asking if I was ready to hunt. His voice was casual, but my attention was lost to the shape of his mouth. The soft, full curve of his lips as he spoke. I didn’t even realize I had moved closer until my feet brushed against his.
When I looked up, his eyes met mine. Those icy depths that had so often steadied me, this time causing something inside me to unspool. Heat rose through me, deep and undeniable. Slowly, I leaned toward him, and he met me halfway. Our lips met in a feather-light kiss at first, tentative and questioning as though we were both afraid the other might disappear. The kiss deepened, slow and searching, until his hands found my waist and drew me flush against him. My fingers traced the line of his chest, finding the collar of his shirt and tugging him nearer still. He tasted like warm memories.
I broke the kiss only long enough to catch my breath.
“What made you finally give in?” Lucio murmured against my mouth, amusement warm in his voice as he drew back just enough to meet my eyes.
“I didn’t know the feelings were mutual,” I admitted, laughter threading through my breath. “If I had, I might have… hastened things.”
Lucio smiled then, his gaze holding mine with a kind of fierce tenderness.
“Oh, Joshua,” he sighed, and the sound was almost reverent. “My dear, lost soul. I wanted you the moment I saw you.”
His confession stunned me, leaving me momentarily slack-jawed. Lucio only smiled and lifted my chin with a gentle finger.
“Close your mouth, sweet boy,” he said softly, though the words carried heat. “Unless you intend to use it.”
The tension between us thickened, somehow fragile but still electric. Then, wordlessly, Lucio took my hand and led me from the room. The hunger that had once driven us both was forgotten, replaced by something far more consuming.
The air between us tightened, warm and charged. And then Lucio took my hand and guided me toward his bedroom. The hunt could wait.
This hunger could not wait any longer.
The next century passed in a blur of bodies, hunger, and devotion. Lucio and I spent those hundred years quite literally fucking our way across Europe, pausing only to hunt when we needed, to feed when the appetite demanded, and to savor the world in every small, fleeting moment it offered us. A soft, breathless laugh escaped Lucio when he realized I had ceased feeding altogether.
He knelt upon the forest floor, his shirt discarded somewhere in the darkness, warm crimson tracing slow paths down the center of his chest. Fingers flexing as he grasped the body beneath him while his forearms strained, and biceps tightened.
Moonlight filtered through the canopy above, catching upon the broad line of his shoulders and the powerful curve of his back each time he lowered himself to feed. I should have looked away.
Instead, I found myself unable to force my eyes away from his form.
The warmth of my own meal had long since faded against my lap, forgotten entirely as my attention drifted helplessly toward him. There was something almost unfair in the sight of him, something predatory and beautiful all at once. Every movement seemed deliberate, every flex of muscle possessing a quiet, devastating grace.
Lucio paused. Slowly, those icy blue eyes lifted to meet mine as a knowing smile, wicked and blood covered, curved his lips.
"Joshua," he murmured, amusement threading through his voice. "Are you quite finished pretending to feed?"
Heat rose unbidden to my face.
"I was distracted."
His laughter deepened, low and warm enough to send a shiver through me as his biceps remained full and tense under my watchful eyes. He sat back, his smirk returning in a way that could only be described as boastful.
"By what, I wonder?"
I opened my mouth to answer, only to find I possessed none. The smile upon his lips widened. Before I could fathom another thought, he was before me.
My back met the rough bark of a nearby tree, the force gentle only because it was Lucio. His body pressed close, surrounding me entirely, one arm braced beside my head while his mouth drifted to my throat.
"You wished to stare," he whispered, his lips brushing my skin. "Then stare."
His words alone nearly undid me.
My fingers found his hair instinctively, the strands soft beneath trembling hands as my head tipped back against the tree. I could feel his laughter against my throat. It was a terrible thing, how easily he unraveled me.
"Lucio..." I breathed.
He hummed softly in response, the sound vibrating through me in a way that seemed to still the entire world as he rutted his hips against my own. His hand trailed down from my neck to my waist, palm flattening low on my stomach, “Stay.”
“It would seem that I am incapable.”
“Hmm,” he teased with a slow lick from my collarbone to my ear, “I do believe you can.”
My thighs quivered under my own weight as I tried to steady myself against the tree.
Lucio enjoyed his ability to unnerve me, I could tell by the way he smiled against me, by the way his fingers dug into my skin, by the way he kept making these low, pleased sounds that blurred into my skin more than words. “Mmm. Is this where you desire my attention?” he asked, mouth still against me as he slid his hand around my cock.
I couldn’t gather the words, instead nodding against him.
His other hand squeezed roughly against my hip, “Words.”
“Yes.”
He kissed my throat, soft enough to be cruel, “Yes, what?”
I tried to glare down at him, but his fangs sank into my shoulder before I could form anything coherent, tongue dragging slow and flat, and the glare dissolved somewhere between pathetic and desperate, “Yes, there. That is where I desire your attention”
His eyes flicked up, “Good boy.”
My whole body clenched, and he felt it, “Oh?” his voice was rough now, a little wrecked around the edges, "You enjoy that?”
“Hush.”
He laughed against me, nearly causing my end from that alone.
“You're awfully mean,” he murmured, “For someone who was looking at me like he wanted me to bite them.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You did,” He shifted, letting go of my leaking cock. “You were perched there, not even pretending to partake of your meal with your eyes never straying from me, but your hardness straining against your trousers told me all I needed to know.”
My face burned hot, “Lucio.”
“What?” He kissed my neck open-mouthed, “You thought I would not notice?”
My fingers grabbed into his hair before tightening, “Please.”
That did something to him. His mouth stopped teasing at my neck as he drew away. His hands slid down to my trousers again as he guided them down my legs before growling at me to remove them.
Heat swirled through my abdomen as I listened to his command. I grabbed at his trousers, pulling until the buttons gave way. Revealing his hard cock, hot and heavy as it seemed to spring to life before me.
Reaching for him, I trailed my fingers up his leg until I wrapped one hand around his length, and cupped his balls with my other. The sound that tore out of him nearly sent me into a feral fit. I brought his leaking tip to my mouth as I licked up the underside of him, swirling my tongue around the head before taking him in my mouth completely.
I hollowed out my cheeks and sucked my way back up his shaft, all the while never taking my eyes away from his. The next lick was firmer but slower, more to savor him. He needed more though as his hands came to rest on the back of my head and directed me back down. I swallowed when he hit the back of my throat, and managed to bring my nose to his pubic bone. I fought hard against the gag in my throat as I rolled my eyes up to meet his.
This eye contact mixed with the second swallow must have really driven him to the brink of insanity as he grabbed my head and began to thrust into my mouth. I tried to keep my throat as relaxed as possible, but lost the battle within as my gag erupted. Lucio let out a growl that should have scared me, but instead had quite the opposite effect as he withdrew himself from my mouth.
My body drew in an unneeded breath that broke into a soft, useless sound, “Luc.”
“Mhm?”
“I desire more of you.”
He groaned as if the words hurt him. He hooked his arms underneath my thighs, hands grasping at the tree behind me as he lifted me up, pressing my back further into the tree. Slowly, he pushed himself between my legs as he held me pinned there with his hips.
His hands slid down to the backs of my knees as he pushed them up to rest against my chest with a devilish smirk on his lips. I was lost as to what he intended, but the look in his eyes had me intrigued.
“Do you trust me?” he murmured as he began lowering himself to kneel before me. My confusion worn very blatantly on my face as he looked upon me. “You’ll like it, I know you will,” he all but whispered as he continued to sink lower.
The unmistakable feeling of his lips, pressing soft and wet kisses down the back of my thigh registered before his tongue darted out to drag across my ass. My muscles seized of their own accord. The feeling was so foreign, but so good I wasn’t sure how to respond. Surely, Lucio wouldn’t dare.
But dare he did, “Relax for me Joshua, I need you to relax,” he said, with a smirk that was evident in his voice. I tried to relax as he moved his hands down to cup my ass cheeks, giving them a firm squeeze for good measure.
As he continued to massage the muscle there, I began to relax as well as I could pinned up against a tree. It wasn’t long before I felt his tongue brush against my hole, sending shockwaves throughout my body. The gasp and shudder that followed tore through me as if I had been shot.
The resounding pleasure of this foreign act buzzed through my cock and brain the same. A small gasp of air and moan came quickly after.
“Oh, you like that?” Lucio dared to ask as I tried to keep my mind from spiraling.
“Fuck,” was all I could manage to say as he licked at me again and again before pushing his tongue inside of me as he snaked his hand to my mouth. Swirling his pointer and middle finger against my tongue to gather as much spit as possible before withdrawing.
It felt like a flash but somehow an eternity before I felt his finger begin to stroke along my hole, rubbing soothing circles before applying a slight pressure. He licked at me once more before spitting directly on me, and pushing his index finger inside.
The stretch was glorious, and while it was something I was used to at this point, it still touched briefly on a pain that blossomed much deeper into a burning pleasure.
I looked down, searching for Lucio’s eyes. I had to bite my lip as I met his line of vision from the pleasure shining from those piercing blue eyes. He looked back down to his hand briefly, pulling out and pressing back in with two fingers slowly, causing my back to arch from the tree.
“Fuck.”
He smiled, but it was not smug this time, it was hungry. Eyes heavy lidded and blown out, like he had started this to tease me and ended up ruining himself instead. “Luc,” I whined, “I need more, I need all of you. Please?”
I could not stop the needy whimper as he slowly pulled his fingers out, and helped me plant my feet back on the ground. My fingers reached behind, grazing his cock as he bent me towards the tree.
As he straightened up, he stroked himself a few times before letting a trail of spit fall from his lips to coat himself. My hand intertwined with his against the tree as he pushed inside me. “Oh-,” He made another sound, almost a growl, and buried himself in me.
His hips worked savagely as he fucked into me, steady and deep, and I clung to his hand and the tree like it was the only thing keeping me anchored. My knees grew weaker with every thrust from him, until finally I couldn’t take it. I pushed back against him and forced us to stand as I pulled away from him.
He watched me with a look of uncertainty as I knelt to the ground, laying myself out in front of him. When the realization struck him as to what I was doing, he began to move with fervor, hooking my knees into his elbows as he knelt over me, “Couldn’t take it?” he questioned with that cocky grin again.
“No, I wanted to watch your face as you ruin me,” I snarked back, earning the red that flashed across his cheeks as I reached out to smooth my thumb along his jaw before trailing down to rest on his arm as he entered me again. His biceps flexed under my hand with every movement, hot and solid and so absurdly strong that my brain, already useless, managed only one thought.
Bite.
I did, bringing my mouth against the thick column of his neck, as my teeth sank in lightly because I could not help myself. Lucio froze. For half a second everything stopped, then he pulled back just enough to look at me.
His mouth was still covered with the faint traces of blood from his earlier feast. His eyes were dark enough to be dangerous, “did you just bite me?”
“Perhaps.”
He stared at me briefly, before he laughed, low and disbelieving. The sound made your stomach drop, “You are unbelievable.”
“You said I wanted to.”
“I was joking.”
“I wasn’t.”
Something changed in his face to pure lust and heat. His fingers gripped harder into my muscle as my mouth fell open, “You wanna bite?” he said, voice low, “Fine. Bite.”
“Luc-”
He brought his neck closer to my mouth and lowered his head again, “go on.” My thighs trembled against his arms as he thrust, “bite me while I make you come.” The sound that left me was embarrassing. Lucio hummed as if he liked it and thrust again.
I bit him again, harder this time.
His groan vibrated straight through my body, “Oh my god.” I snaked my hand down to my leaking cock. Lucio noticed, looking down to watch. As I began to stroke myself he pursed his lips and made a show of spitting on me.
“Mm?” he hummed, still working his hips, “that good?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Fu- Lucio.”
One hand still locked on his arm, mouth pressed to his throat, teeth scraping every time he hit that place inside me that made the world tilt. He kept his pace brutal and perfect, until my hips started to buck.
I was babbling now. No words, just little sounds and broken incoherent pieces.
“Luc- yes- there, there, please-”
He pulled back and looked at me, “For me?”
I nodded frantically, but his hips stopped as I nearly sobbed.
“Say it.”
I opened my eyes, as frustrated tears began to well, “For you.”
His face softened for one second, just one. Then his hips began moving again, and I was gone.
My orgasm hit hard, messy ropes of thick cum shooting up my belly and chest, thighs clenching against his arms, teeth scraping his throat as I came with a muffled cry against his skin. Lucio held me through it, arms locked behind my thighs, hips still moving in slow strokes as he rutted against me, chasing his own release. I worked my mouth along his throat, sinking my teeth into his throat one more time as he buried himself inside of me and cried out to the heavens.
Lucio gently helped me straighten my legs out before he crawled up my body like he had all the time in the world. Hair wrecked from my fingers, and faint marks blooming on his throat where my teeth had been.
I had long since ceased understanding what existed between us.
Perhaps it had begun as gratitude. Perhaps necessity. In those early days after my human death, when grief had hollowed me from the inside out, he had been my guide, my protector, my sole tether to a world that no longer felt real. Somewhere amid those endless nights, that dependence had transformed into something infinitely more dangerous.
His forehead rested briefly against mine, "You look at me," he murmured softly, amusement lingering in his voice, "as though I am something extraordinary."
I let out a quiet, incredulous laugh, "Because you are." The words escaped before I could stop them. Lucio stilled, even the forest seemed to hold its breath.
When his eyes lifted to mine once more, something within them had changed. The teasing warmth remained, but beneath it lay something deeper, older, and infinitely more vulnerable.
For a fleeting moment, he looked almost human. His fingers rose slowly, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
"Joshua..."
The way he spoke my name was unbearably gentle. I felt suddenly exposed beneath his gaze, as though he could see every fractured piece of me. Every grief, every fear, every desperate, impossible longing I had tried so hard to bury.
I swallowed, "I know I should not..." My voice faltered. "But when I look at you, I do not feel quite so alone."
The confession settled heavily between us. Lucio's expression softened entirely. A sadness touched his features then, subtle and fleeting. "You have never been alone."
I closed my eyes. How cruel that simple kindness could hurt more than any wound. When I opened them again, he was still there, watching me with an expression I could not entirely name. His hand rose to cradle my face. I leaned into it before I could stop myself. A faint smile touched his lips.
"There you are," he whispered. The words stirred something fragile within me. For so long I had felt as though half my soul had been buried with Jacob, as though I had become little more than a shadow wearing the shape of a man.
Yet laying there beneath the moonlight, with Lucio's hand against my cheek and the quiet murmur of the forest surrounding us, I felt strangely seen. The silence between us became something warm.
My fingers tightened slightly in his hair, Lucio exhaled softly. Neither of us moved. Neither of us seemed willing to break whatever fragile thing had formed between us. At last, his forehead came to rest against mine once more.
"I think," he said quietly, "that perhaps we are both ruined."
A laugh escaped me then, soft and trembling, "Only perhaps?"
His own laughter followed, low and rich. The sound wrapped around me like warmth. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I found myself smiling. Truly smiling.
The forest remained silent around us, moonlight filtered through the branches overhead. More than anything, we chose one another, over and over again. Our bond deepened with each passing year, until it felt older than stone.
But time does not pause, even for us. The world shifted around our eternal youth. Villages became towns, towns became cities, wild countrysides turned to settled land. The world became louder, fuller, and somehow lonelier.
We witnessed strife after strife. World War I, the Russian Civil War, the Irish War of Independence, then the second great war. After that came the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, the Balkan conflicts. Violence threaded itself through the century like a spine. By the year 2000, little had changed, just new flags waving above the same grief.
It weighed on me. I began to believe that if the world could simply learn to love—truly love, freely and without hesitation it might be unrecognizable. In another life, I might have led a revolution for love and tenderness. Lucio agreed the world needed more love, more softness, but it was still not safe for us to stand in the public eye as we were, but not just because we were vampires either.
This world was so fucked that being vampires seemed less fear inducing than our sexual preferences. No matter how many lifetimes we shared, I feared the day might never come when love was simply love. Without labels, without permission, without consequence. Just love in its purest, truest form. The kind we held between us.
Sal had reached out to Lucio a handful of times over the past century, though his messages were always brief. He never said much about himself, only wanted to ensure we were still here, but something shifted. He called six times over the past few days while Lucio and I were still tangled in each other, lost in pleasure and quiet laughter. Lucio kept promising he would return the call once we were finished.
The phone rang again while we were still wrapped in the warm haze of afterglow. “Someone really needs to work on their timing,” I teased as Lucio stood, stretching, and crossed the room to answer.
I couldn’t hear Sal’s words, but I watched the storm move across Lucio’s face. Annoyance morphed to anger, confusion, melting into frustration, until it settled into something that looked like old resentment. He closed his eyes, exhaling sharply.
“Sal, there is no fucking way—” he began, and whatever came back through the receiver silenced him. His jaw tightened as he swallowed his fury.
“Fine,” he said eventually, clipped and controlled. “I’ll handle it.”
He hung up.
Lucio turned back to me, a smile gentler than his eyes.
“Pack a bag, Sunshine. We’re going to the States.”
There was a flicker of something in his eyes that made his smile feel forced, and for the first time in our time together, I felt there was more he wasn’t saying. Something heavy and inevitable. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to hear it, or if he was ready to speak it.
But I didn’t question him. I gathered my things. Whatever awaited us, whatever storm was waking on the horizon, I knew one thing with absolute certainty that Lucio was with me.
And he would protect me, in every way that mattered.
The drive to Zürich passed in relative silence. Lucio and I had long since grown accustomed to existing in the quiet spaces between words. After over a hundred years together there was very little need to constantly fill the air with conversation.
Still, something felt different. The further we traveled, the more distant Lucio became. He kept glancing at me when he thought I wasn't looking. The first few times I ignored it, but by the time we boarded the flight to New York, I could no longer pretend not to notice.
The city lights of Zürich glittered beneath us as the plane climbed into the darkness. Lucio sat beside me with a drink untouched in his hand, that alone was strange. Normally he would have consumed half the cabin's alcohol supply simply because it amused him to watch flight attendants struggle to keep up with him.
Tonight he barely moved. I watched the reflection of his face in the window. His jaw was tight and his brows drawn together. Something was wrong. "What are you thinking about?"
Lucio blinked, "Hm?"
I smiled, "You've been staring into space for three hours."
A weak laugh escaped him, ‘Have I?"
His eyes found mine and the moment they did, my stomach tightened. There was guilt there, shadowed by fear. Something I had never seen directed toward me.
"What did Sal want?" The question hung between us. Lucio looked away first, "Trouble."
I snorted, "That could mean literally anything."
His smile appeared briefly and then vanished, "You're not wrong."
I continued watching him, waiting, hoping he might elaborate but he didn't. Instead he reached across the space between us and squeezed my knee. The gesture was familiar and comforting, yet somehow it felt more like reassurance for himself than for me.
The remainder of the flight passed in fragments, a movie neither of us watched, drinks neither of us touched. Hours spent drifting through darkness while Lucio sat beside me carrying something so heavy it seemed to bend his shoulders.
By the time we landed in New York, I was beginning to suspect Sal's mysterious emergency involved Narin. Nothing else explained the tension radiating from him. The train station was crowded. Humans rushed past in every direction carrying luggage, coffee, exhaustion and purpose. The smell of them was overwhelming.
Lucio placed a hand against the small of my back as we navigated through the crowd. A simple gesture, both protective and possessive. Yet his touch lingered longer than usual, as though he needed the reminder that I was still there.
By the time we boarded the train south toward Tennessee, my patience had worn thin. The train lurched forward, as more time passed.
Then more.
Finally I snapped, "Enough." Lucio looked up from the book he hadn't turned a page in for nearly half an hour. "Enough?" he asked.
"You're hiding something," I sighed, only to be met with more silence. I leaned forward, "You have been hiding something since that phone call."
His expression immediately hardened into what people wore before delivering terrible news. My chest tightened, "Narin?"
"No," He shook his head.
"Then what?" The train rattled beneath us as Lucio stared at me for so long that I began to regret asking. Then he smiled, small and sad but still just as beautiful and completely heartbreaking. "I was trying to figure out how to tell you."
Every instinct in my body immediately went on alert and fear curled around my ribs, "What?"
Lucio lowered his gaze and for the first time in over a century he looked afraid. Not afraid for himself, but afraid for me and somehow that was infinitely worse.
I kept my eyes locked on him, and when he finally looked me in my eyes I whispered, "Enough avoiding whatever this is." For a moment neither of us spoke as the train rattled softly beneath us. His eyes drifted back toward the window. My frustration flared immediately, "Luc."
His shoulders sagged and the movement alone filled me with dread. Slowly he turned back toward me. "I never wanted to lie to you," he said just loud enough for me to hear. My stomach dropped. The words struck me so unexpectedly that for a moment I simply stared at him.
"What?"
Pain flashed across his features. The kind of pain I had only seen a handful of times over the last century. "I never wanted to lie to you, Joshua." The use of my full name only made it worse. My throat tightened as I took a steadying breath, "What are you talking about?"
Lucio swallowed hard as I watched his movement full of hesitation. Whatever he was about to say had haunted him for a very long time. "If I tell you this," he began quietly, "there is no taking it back."
Fear clawed its way up my spine as I took my time to say "Then tell me." His eyes closed briefly and when they opened again they looked devastated.
"Jacob is among the living."
Everything inside me stopped, my brain felt dead as the sounds of the train rattling across the tracks and world around me muffled into nothing. I stared at him, waiting for him to explain or laugh or tell me I misunderstood. Instead he only looked at me with heartbreak written across every inch of his face.
"You knew?" I whispered.
His jaw flexed. "Joshua—"
"You knew?"
The words came out louder this time. My hands trembled and my chest burned. A century. A century of grief and mourning. A century of believing I was alone.
"You knew."
The tears gathering in Lucio's eyes stole some of the anger from me before it could fully take hold because Lucio was not a man who cried, not ever. And yet he looked as though my words had carved directly into his chest.
"I let you live."
The anger vanished completely as confusion took its place, "What?" I questioned, unsure of what he could have meant by that. Lucio leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, "I begged Sal to let me take you."
I stared at him completely speechless.
"I don't know why," a weak laugh escaped him. "I saw you and suddenly nothing else mattered." His eyes searched mine desperately. "Sal told me Narin believed you were dead." The pieces began slowly falling into place.
"If she found out otherwise..." I whispered as my eyes searched his face for a trace of anything other than the truth.
"She would have finished it."
The silence that filled the air between us felt so loud and stifling. The train continued moving forward and the world continued turning, yet I felt frozen. My mind was racing over everything I thought I knew of the last century, "You should have told me."
Lucio visibly flinched at that, his reaction immediate. It appeared visibly painful for him to admit, "I know."
"You should have told me,” my voice cracked, "Jake thought I was dead."
The tears finally spilled from Lucio's eyes, "I know."
"He was alone," the anger and hurt slipping into my tone.
"I know."
Every word felt like a knife cutting through my brain and flesh. "He thought he lost me.”
Lucio bowed his head, "And you thought you lost him." The grief in his voice shattered what remained of my anger. Because Lucio had carried this too. Every day, every year, for a century. Knowing what I did not. "I told myself it would only be temporary," his voice trembled. "A year,” he laughed bitterly. "Then five." I couldn't look away. "Then ten,” more tears fell. "I kept waiting for it to be safe."
His eyes met mine, "And I fell in love with you." The confession hit harder than everything else because of how broken he sounded. "I fell in love with you and every year it became harder," he looked away, ashamed. "As selfish as it sounds, I became terrified."
My heart twisted painfully, "Terrified of what?"
His answer came immediately, "Losing you." The honesty nearly broke me, "You would have gone looking for him." He wasn't asking because he already knew and so did I.
The truth sat between us, ugly and undeniable. I would have crossed oceans, and burned down kingdoms. I would have searched every corner of the earth until I found Jake.
"I am sorry for the pain I caused you,” his voice shook. "But Joshua," he said as those icy blue eyes met mine. Filled with love, fear, and a century of guilt. "I am not sorry that you survived." A sob caught in my throat and Lucio reached for my hand carefully as though afraid I might pull away.
I didn't, because despite everything… I understood and somehow that hurt even more.
Outside the window, the Smoky Mountains began to appear on the horizon. Dark blue silhouettes against the fading evening light.
Lucio followed my gaze and his expression softened. Then he reached across the table and covered my hand with his, "Whatever happens next, Sunshine..." His voice was quiet, "I need you to remember one thing."
I swallowed as I searched his face, "What?"
Those icy blue eyes met mine filled with a hundred plus years of devotion, love, and promises. "I never stopped trying."
Confusion swept through me. Trying for what? Before I could ask, the train rounded a bend and the mountains rose larger in the distance.
And for the first time since receiving Sal's call, Lucio looked absolutely terrified.
The remainder of the train ride passed in silence, but not because there was nothing left to say. Quite the opposite, there was too much. Too much grief and anger, too many years between what I had believed and what I now knew.
Jacob was alive. The words continued circling through my thoughts until they lost all meaning.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Well, as alive as a vampire could be.
Over a century.
Over a hundred years spent mourning someone who had never truly left this world. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to laugh, scream, or collapse beneath the weight of it. Lucio remained beside me through all of it. His hand never left mine, not once.
When the train finally slowed into the station, I felt as though I were walking through a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. I had not yet decided which. Sal was waiting for us. I recognized him immediately from the few occasions he had crossed paths with Lucio throughout the years.
His expression shifted the moment he saw me. Guilt, heavy and undeniable. I stepped around Lucio before either of them could speak.
For a moment I simply stared at him. More than one hundred years he had known, he had watched both of us grieve, "You knew."
Sal sighed, "Joshua."
"You knew,” the words cracked as they left me. Pain flashed across his features, "Yes." That single syllable somehow hurt more than any excuse could have. I looked away before my anger could consume me entirely because if I looked at him any longer I wasn't sure what I might say or do.
Thankfully, someone else chose that moment to step forward. A woman with dark hair and warm eyes. A human-very human, and staring at me as though she'd seen a ghost. I frowned looking at her and she blinked before she smiled and looked away.
Then immediately started staring again. The cycle repeated itself several times before I finally sighed, "Do I have something on my face?"
The question startled a laugh from her. A real, genuine one, "No."
"Then why do you keep looking at me like that?"
Her smile widened, "I don't mean to."
"That sounds suspiciously intentional,” I said, causing Lucio to snort beside me.
The woman laughed again, the sound bright and comforting. Familiar in a way I couldn't explain. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just..." she stopped and studied me again.
And there it was, that look. The one she kept giving me, like she was searching for someone or remembering someone, "You remind me of somebody."
My stomach tightened immediately. Jake. It had to be. The thought alone sent a fresh ache through my chest, "I've been told."
Her expression softened as a sadness settled behind her smile, "I imagine you have."
Something in her voice made me look at her properly, really look at the way she carried herself, the kindness in her eyes, the warmth that seemed to radiate from her. The kind of warmth that made people feel safe and the realization struck me unexpectedly that Jake would adore her. The certainty of it nearly stole my breath.
Whoever she was, whatever her relationship to my brother happened to be, I suddenly understood because she was exactly the sort of person Jacob would love.
"You're Joshua."
I blinked, "Last I checked."
A laugh escaped her and even her laugh felt familiar somehow, "I'm Ms. Wonder."
The name caught me off guard, one brow lifting, "Ms. Wonder?"
"Long story," she smiled.
"Clearly." I snorted.
For the first time since Lucio's confession, I felt something close to amusement. It surprised me and apparently it surprised Lucio too. The small smile he offered from beside me was painfully relieved as though hearing me laugh had returned something to him.
We piled into the vehicle soon after. Sal drove and Lucio sat beside him. Which left me trapped in the backseat with Ms. Wonder. Not that she seemed to mind. If anything, she appeared delighted by the arrangement.
The mountains rolled past outside as we drove deeper into Tennessee. Conversation came easily, unexpectedly easily. By the end of an hour it felt less like speaking to a stranger and more like speaking to someone I'd known for years.
Then I laughed at something she said and she immediately covered her mouth, "Oh no."
I frowned, "What?"
Her eyes widened, "You even laugh like him."
The vehicle fell silent. My chest tightened and Lucio's shoulders immediately stiffened. Sal muttered something beneath his breath. But Ms. Wonder simply stared looking increasingly emotional.
"He does that too."
I swallowed and scrunched my nose, "Does what?"
"The little nose scrunch," She pointed immediately, "That."
Lucio barked out a laugh in the moment, traitor I thought as heat rose to my face. Ms. Wonder looked moments away from tears, which only confused me further, "Why are you crying?"
She laughed, then cried harder and laughed again, "I don't know."
The answer was entirely unhelpful.
I glanced toward Lucio and he looked equally helpless.
"He talks about you,” the words were soft and quiet.
I froze, "What?"
Her smile immediately returned, gentler this time, "He always talks about you." The world felt like it narrowed. "He talks about your studies of film, and how good you would be now,” a laugh escaped her. "The trouble you got into as children,” followed by another laugh.
"The time you nearly broke your arm jumping from a tree because you were convinced you could fly."
I groaned, "Oh god."
Her eyes widened, "That happened?"
"Unfortunately."
Sal laughed, Lucio laughed and somehow so did I, a real laugh. One that felt strange after everything.
"He never stopped talking about you."
The smile slowly slipped from my face as emotion lodged itself painfully in my throat. For a moment I couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't think because somewhere out there Jacob had been talking about me all this time.
The thought alone nearly shattered me.
"What is he like?" The question escaped before I could stop it.
Ms. Wonder's entire expression softened into one of love, pure and unmistakable. The kind of love that changes people. "He cares too much."
A watery laugh escaped me because that sounded familiar.
"He believes everyone deserves a second chance."
Another nod.
"He carries the weight of the world around like it's somehow his responsibility."
I closed my eyes. God, that sounded exactly like him.
Ms. Wonder smiled sadly, "That's why meeting you is so strange."
I frowned, "What do you mean?"
She looked directly at me and for the first time since we'd met, I saw complete understanding settle across her face. "It's like meeting another Jake."
Silence followed. Outside, the trees began to thin.
A rooftop of a cabin came into view in the distance. Sal pulled the car over along the road and parked so we could slip quietly up to the cabin without being noticed. The woods should have been quiet and peaceful at this time of night, only it wasn't quiet.
Shouting echoed through the woods. Anger, violence and chaos rang loudly through the woods. The moment the vehicle stopped, Sal was out the door, Lucio moved just as quickly. I barely had time to process what was happening before Ms. Wonder grabbed my wrist as though we'd known one another forever. "Come on."
I followed Ms. Wonder as the sounds of fighting grew louder with every step. Then I saw her.
Narin.
For a moment the world disappeared. The rage that surged through me was immediate and overwhelming, but before she could move, Lucio stepped forward. His eyes flashed, and Narin froze completely. Locked in place, unable to move so much as a finger.
Sal moved toward the center of the clearing shouting for everyone to stop. The fighting slowly died away. One by one, heads turned toward Sal, then toward Lucio. Ms. Wonder's grip tightened around my wrist as she pulled me with her stepping forward out into the clearing.
That was when he turned to face us. If my heart still had a beat it would have stopped, and the world felt like it tipped on its axis. For the first time in over a hundred years I saw my brother Jake, standing before my own eyes. His shocked laughter took me by surprise, as tears filled my eyes as Lucio’s soft words danced in my ears “I found a way, Sunshine.”
.
.
.
AN: I had wanted to visit Josh’s life for sometime in this AU that @writingcold and myself dreamed up, and finally found the time to get it done when life wasn’t too busy. I also owe her a huge thank you for looking over this for me, and helping me when I needed it. Seriously, thank you P, for all of your advice, time, cheerleading and more importantly your friendship. Life wouldn’t be the same without you!! And anyone else, if you took the time to read this story, thank you from the bottom of my heart! 💜
I am including the tag list from the original story -
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*I knew how I wanted to end this revisit to Sugar months before I’d even written the first word, and then my world became chaotic, leaving this much overdue— but never overlooked, in my heart. Sugar Jake is my most beloved — nod to the actual beloved ;) — and here, though short and sweet, you will find his heart mended. Goodbye, Sugar Jake, how we have loved you ❤️
Josh
I knew it. The moment she’d gone, I mean.
It felt more concrete than when he’d taken his leave three weeks prior, though she — and likely the rest of the world — might have called me a liar.
No, I knew she’d gone because my soul felt his own breathe a sigh of relief. The feral, ancient content that radiated from his being, wherever it was, reached me loud and clear.
His great gig in the sky had fallen into place.
I, with my grief, and he, with his girl.
You see, Jacob passed on a night as still as glass. The universe was hushed. Did it understand?
Mother Earth quieted her creatures and calmed tempestuous skies for Jacob Thomas. Bowed in honor of the music man.
He, who created so much joyful noise, had earned a solemn silence.
I was there to watch Jake draw his last ragged breath, as I was witness to his first.
I told him, that still and cloudless day, that it was time to relax his fist. That he should let go of that rage for the dying of the light. “Learn to leave a room, brother. I’m sick of you.”
“Fuck you, Joshua.” Had been his response. That biting, perfect sentiment is tattooed upon my waning heart.
As the blues record spinning like a whisper in the corner skipped as though it somehow knew, she had fallen to the floor. Crumpled down against the scuffed wood like waterlogged tissue paper when the light in his eyes had gone out.
She’d been so strong for him.
When his memory failed, she was his unwavering hippocampus. She filled in the blanks happily, readily. She kept his mind whole by lending bits and pieces of her own.
Songs. She’d learned those too. Meticulized over the chords and frets of his favorites. When arthritis marched in to cruelly snatch the melodies from his hands, she’d done her best to make sure that the walls of their home always knew music from the hand of someone who knew how it craved him.
Yes, their home craved him.
Jacob’s gait had echoed the halls for decades. His voice, his laughter, tunes coaxed from strings. Sneezes muffled into the crease of his arm. Earnest timbres when he felt passionately about a subject. Murmured timbres secreted when he felt passionately about her in the night.
That house, the one he’d promised her, the one he’d built her, mourned for him like a living being. His absence hurt us all, even those inanimate. He became our collective lost limb.
But his sugar……
Every star in the sky might as well have been snuffed out. She no longer saw them. She simply closed her eyes and forgot anything beautiful that wasn’t her Jakey.
She held fast for her girls, two of them…and even faster for their third, a wild-child son who they both claimed was nearly my clone. I still think I might be the only one who sees it, how much like my twin my favorite nephew really is. He makes me feel less adrift, and there are many days when my grief is thankful for his anchor.
But yes, she had been strong for them.
They had lost their father, those babies of theirs who were so grown it was difficult to believe they were ever small to begin with….
However, as hours turned to days and they began to rediscover their rhythm, she turned desperately inward.
I tried to hold on to her. I struggled to keep her face upturned..fought to warm her cheeks with light rather than let her skin ache with the salt of tears. Tried to carry her through the way he would have.
In those moments, I know our hearts remembered the love. That seemingly endless well of devotion..the fire that once licked at the walls of anything that threatened to touch it insidiously.
She and I….
Once, it was she and I…
And how we burned.
But we loved him. We both loved him. So, so, much more. She and I never stood a chance, and maybe I knew that the moment I watched his eyes track her in that crowded bar so long ago I can’t remember when.
I miss him.
‘Miss’ feels like such a lie. A blatantly deceitful word. I don’t miss him…I lament and throb in my sorrow. I would swallow this entire world, gnash it to pieces and callously spit it out if it meant one more moment with him.
She was not alone in her grief. And she was never alone in her devotion to Jake.
I knew it wouldn’t be long. Knew she had yearned to stumble along behind him the moment he’d breathed his last.
He belongs to the ages now, I’d wanted to hush. He’d always thought those words, murmured after Lincoln had succumbed to his assassin, were reverent, and a touch pretentious in a way that he’d liked.
If anyone on this earth deserved reverent and pretentious, it was my other half.
But he didn’t belong to the ages then, and he doesn’t now…
He belonged— belongs, to her.
So yes, the night she left this world, I know he was there, watching in the shadows of the room they’d shared for so many years. He would have burned this entire universe to ashes to ensure she crossed over peacefully.
Jake’s sugar would come home to him, but she would make her way without so much as an unsure breath. Her hand was nestled within his before she could worry for a blink, I know this as well as I know the sun will rise tomorrow.
He would have died a thousand deaths in her stead if it meant she would know a gentle peace, always.
I dreamt of her the night after she’d gone to join him.
She was young again, and so was I…
The waters lapping at the shore were a strange, crystalline pink…shimmering and shifting like a cut glass held up to the light.
I reached out, tucked a salt-kissed lock of hair behind her ear, “He’s waiting for you,”
“Yes,” turning to the shimmering, shifting light were the sand disappeared, she’d sighed in the softest content, “…he is. It’s forever now, isn’t it?”
My hands cupped her face and held on gently for a breath “It is.”
I could feel her energy shifting, and I could feel his becoming, what I can only describe as tenderly impatient. So, with a brush of a kiss upon the apple of her cheek I asked one last favor of her,
“Will you tell him how much I love him?”
In return, her lips found my own cheek, “he knows, Josh. He has always known.”
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Warnings: swearing, smoking, drinking, mild drug use, insinuation of traumatic events.
A/N: Oh my gosh I can't believe we are finally back! It feels so good to be writing and posting again, starting off hot with Golden Oaks. This story will have plenty of ups and downs and twists and turns that you know we love to write. As of right now there is no set posting schedule as we both have very busy lives, but rest assured we are actively writing and will be posting as frequently as we can. We hope you stick around for this one, you won't want to miss it.
A glorious collaboration with my bestie and cowriter @gretavanmoon.
Listen: Apple Music
JAKE POV
The Catskill Mountains, 1987
‘You’re back with KROQ 106.7… The Catskills hottest spot on the dial for today's biggest rock, pop, and everything in between. I’m your girl, Jojo Marigold and I’m here to make your summer not only sound, but feel like you’re livin’ in dreamland, baby.
It’s finally Friday, it’s a scorcher out there guys, 90 degrees and the temperature is only rising as the weekend approaches. So you know what that means… Gentlemen, lose the t-shirts, and ladies… Ohhhh ladies, we know you’re already out there in your bikinis ready to throw on that suntan oil and soak! It! Up!
We’ve got the phones lit up and the request lines are open for the next hour, so give me a ring at 1-800-845-KROQ…that’s 1-800-845-5765, and I’ll spin whatever gets your weekend rockin’. Don’t touch that dial… you’re riding into summer with Jojo Marigold on KROQ 106.7!’
“Shut up…” you mumble, barely loud enough to count as words. You reach over and turn the dial down without looking, keeping your other wrist loose on the wheel. The joint between your fingers has burned to almost nothing, sending a thin thread of smoke toward the cracked window.
You kick it into third as the road bends, and the sign for Golden Oaks Mountain Resort drifts into your peripheral. Hand painted and slightly sun faded, Est 1942. Same as it ever was.
Jojo Marigold was right about one thing, it is hot. Even as the day is creeping towards five o’clock, the sun still burns through your windshield as if it is ready to fry you right there on the dashboard. The Trans Am’s AC had given up somewhere around the Pennsylvania border, which meant the last three hours had been you, the open windows, and a Springsteen tape that kept threatening to eat itself.
By the time you’d crossed into the Catskills proper your shirt was half unbuttoned, your hair was doing whatever it wanted, and the tension you'd been carrying on your shoulders since February had slipped out the window somewhere along Route 17. You take one last, long, slow drag and pitch the roach out the window as you push your new wayfarers up higher on your nose.
‘What time is it, baby?! It’s quittin’ time, 5:00. And I don’t know about you, but here at KROQ, we’re ready to parrrrty! Here’s our first request, ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ buy the ever-lovely Ms. Cyndi Lauper… so enjoy this one to get the weekend rolling!’
“No no NO! Not that shit–” you slap the dial all the way down until you hear static, then silence. Good.
The staff parking lot opens up ahead, a wide patch of gravel hemmed in by a row of old pines. You check your mirrors, and back the Trans Am in clean between the lines on the first try. She's only been yours since March– a ‘79, Red on Black, with a Firebird hood decal that the previous owner almost removed. Thank God he didn't. Eleven hundred dollars and a handshake from a mechanic in Flint who'd needed rent money more than he'd needed a car. Best deal you'd made in years. Maybe ever.
You kill the engine and the quiet rushes in. The cicadas, a lawnmower somewhere far off, the faint sound of someone's radio drifting down from the cabins above.
“Damn, Jake.” You hear her before you fully register the voice. “A Trans Am? When did that happen?”
You already know it’s Joy. You’d know that bubblegum pop anywhere. She’s leaned against one of the old picnic tables near the Welcome Center, arms folded across her chest, her tan already deep and holding, and her smile thin and sly— she knows exactly what she's doing. And though your current appearance is a bit worse for wear, she has decided to do it anyway.
“Happened when you started minding your business, Joy,” you say, swinging the door open as you step out in one easy motion, letting it close behind you with a solid slam.
“Ok, jerk,” she works her gum around her finger. “You get your balls in a bunch all winter or what?”
“Every winter.” You reach back through the window for your folder of paperwork. “You should know that by now.”
“You’re the worst,” she informs you.
“You say that every year, sweetheart.”
“And every year I mean it a little more,” she huffs.
You tuck the folder under your arm and cross the gravel lot towards her, your Sperrys crunching with each step. You pull your sunglasses up to sit on top of your head, and you lean in close. Close enough to smell her perfume, something sweet and summery. You look at her, making sure she's paying attention. “But as far as your question is concerned, you wanna take a feel and settle the matter?”
Her cheeks turn a deep pink and she turns on her heel. “Get a fuckin’ life Jacob. Or I'll throw your paperwork in the garbage before you can even sign it.” She's already moving towards the Welcome Center door, but the way she's walking tells you everything. “...Be like you were never even here. Never even showed up.” She’s mumbling with one hand flipping through the air. You’ve pissed her off just enough.
“Ah, come on, Joybird–” You follow her inside, grinning at the back of her head. “Don’t give me a hard time, now. I barely just got here.”
The lobby swallows the heat the moment you step through the door. It’s never had air conditioning, and probably never will. But the ceiling fans turn slowly in every corner, and the thick plaster walls hold in the cool air from the night before, so entry always feels like a reprieve.
Nothing here has changed, nothing ever does. That is, in fact, the whole point of Golden Oaks. It exists in a deliberate stillness, slightly outside of time. The carpet is the same deep green it was the first summer you walked through those heavy white doors. Nineteen years old, with nothing but a lifeguard certification and just enough sense to keep your mouth mostly shut.
The walls are still clean, the furniture still stiff, and vased pink zinnias sit on every available surface– the desk, the tables, the window sills. The walls are lined with photographs of golf pros mid-swing, tennis players at the net, framed commendations and ribbons dating back to 1950.
Best Mountain Resort. Best Mountain Resort. Best Mountain Resort. You’ve memorized every plaque.
Joy steps behind the front desk and you settle against the counter, watching as she works through a towering stack of manila folders. You wait a beat or two, and make a show of checking your wrist, which is bare.
“Alright, alright,” she mutters, not looking up.
“Any way you can move it along, Joybird? I’ve got beer to drink… new staff to impress.” You tap the face of your nonexistent watch. “Y’know how it is.”
“Cool your jets, Kiszka. I’m lookin’.”
“Not like I haven’t worked the same job here for almost a decade. You’d think there’d be a Jake pile by now.”
“I said cool it!” she barks. “You’re the last one of your brothers to get here, ya know,” she goes on, unbothered, finally pulling your employment file.
“Oh?” You take the pen from her desk cup without asking. You never ask. “Doesn’t surprise me.” You quickly flip through and sign all the necessary paperwork, making sure to not even read a single word of your yearly contract.
“Ya,” she pops her tongue. “Wasn’t sure you were comin’ back this year.”
You take a long sigh as you push the completed paperwork to her, meeting her deep brown eyes for the first time since last season.
“I always come back here, Joybird. You know that,” you mutter, licking your lips as your eyes unapologetically scan from her face down to her chest.
She grins, her fingers slowly gripping at the stack of papers. “Good,” is all she manages.
You clear your throat, shaking away the dirty thoughts that have already made their way into your mind. She makes it easy, though, the way her chest is already slowly heaving. “You going to the Haven tonight? Heard Doyle got a few kegs, couple bottles of something expensive. Gonna be good first night…”
“Uhm, I’ll be there a little later,” she mutters as she settles back onto her stool. “Don’t get off till ten.”
“Ten, things should be uh… heating up by then.” You press your palm flat to the counter, not a goodbye, more of a to be continued. She fully notices your deliberate and direct eye contact, and with another breath, you head for the door.
“Hope they are,” she says behind you, and you feel it follow you out.
“Wait, Jake! I forgot,” you hear Joy spout just as your hand reaches the knob. “You’re gonna have a couple newbies this season, they’re first years.”
Fuck. You turn back around, a look of disgust painted all over your face. Way to ruin the good vibe you had going. “Teenagers?! You’re shitting me… Where is everyone else? Where are my guys?”
“They’ll be here, don’t get so twisted up. You’re just gonna have to train a few new kids, that’s all.”
Your fingers tap the doorknob. “Am I getting a raise for that shit? I already trained these guys, I don’t need any more green help.”
Joy’s face flattens. “Yes you do, Jake. You know you need more help. Especially after what happened last ye–”
“Don’t, Joy.” You scoff, turning the knob once again. “I’ll see you later.”
The breeze cuts through the heat of the day, but not much. You climb back into your car and start the engine, ready to race to the top of the mountain to your cabin. Out of habit you crank the radio again, letting the music carry you up the dusty, winding road.
“I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun…”
You sing it without deciding to, half under your breath, the way you only do when you're alone and moving. And there it is, that feeling. The one that comes every summer on this exact stretch of road. Three months. Three months at the best resort in the Catskills. Three months of easy work, late nights, and the very specific pleasure of being known by the right people in a small world. The money is almost beside the point and has been for years. This has never felt like a job. It has never felt like anything except the particular and lucky thing that it is.
But there is the other thing, too. The new thing that has been sitting in your chest since you locked the door to your apartment. Whatever is coming, whatever quiet thing the universe has apparently decided is overdue, you've found yourself wanting it.
You're on the downhill slide of your twenties. Maybe that's what this is. Maybe this is just what it feels like to understand that a life you've loved, exactly as it was, cannot stay that way forever. That something is always in the process of beginning, whether you're ready for it or not. Or maybe it's going to be a good summer and you're overthinking it. You've always been good at that, too.
The gravel of the cabin lot comes up fast, dust and rocks pinging against the undercarriage as you pull in and cut the engine. The quiet is back, but then from up the hill, you hear the sounds. Music through open cabin windows, the voices carrying in the cooling air. The warm yellow glow of cabin lights turning on one by one as the mountain begins to darken. Summer frogs begin to chirp in the woods as they welcome dusk.
Suddenly, in the thrill of it all, your stomach turns over with something good. It feels like a peek of golden light on your horizon, a familiar hand on your shoulder. Old friends, old stories, old flames, maybe? The mountain has always been generous that way…
But there’s something else, too. Something that feels like it might be worth finding out about. It’s unnerving and unsettling, but you like it. Almost like that first sip of whiskey from a bottle that’s been sitting in the cabinet collecting dust. Sour and strong but so, so delicious once you let it sink in.
“Yes you do, Jake, especially after what happened last year…”
Without warning, the memory of Joy’s words creep back into your mind. Last year, last August… the fifteenth, to be exact. At six twenty-six in the evening. The single worst day of your entire life, thus far.
Good outcome, horrific circumstance. That day haunts you at nearly every corner you turn.
But you repress it. You have to. You’ve learned that reliving the negatives of the past does nothing but taint the present and spoil the future… bleeding every good experience you’ll ever have dry. You’re smart, you’re resourceful, and you’re one hell of a lifeguard. You’ll not ever forget that.
You sit for a moment with your hands still on the wheel, letting yourself feel all of it. The familiar old pull of this place, and underneath it, the sense of a door being held open, adding in the sense of something about to begin. You truly can’t tell if you want to slam the door or run full-force through it. Either way, you’re ready to savor every bit of it.
In the distance, you hear a familiar voice yell your name in question. It breaks you from your trance, bringing everything back to the here and now. You get out of your car and toss your army green duffle bag over your shoulder, listening as your name is excitedly called again. Somewhere up on this wild old mountain, without even knowing it yet, your summer is already waiting for you. With bated breath and open arms, you’re more than ready to dive in, head first.
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