Noah Sebastian God Complex - Tumblr Posts
The Devil's Advocate - Chapter 5
Delinquent!Noah Sebastian X Pastor's Daughter!Reader
Summary: Noah is a delinquent with a lot of anger at the church. You're a pastor's daughter plagued by moral perfectionism, charged with overseeing the community service he's been sentenced to complete. You've never encountered true temptation before. How will you fare up against Noah, who not only isn't bound by the same rules of purity as you, but actively scoffs at them?
Rating: 18+ Minors DNI
Warnings: Rough sex, NoahxOFC, slight degradation, religious trauma Masterlist
Banner by @flowerynerds
______
Early November was among your least favorite times of the year. It wasn’t yet cold enough to snow, but the rain was frigid. Halloween excitement had worn off and there wasn’t much to look forward to until Christmas (Thanksgiving was fine, you supposed, but you were staying on campus while your parents were on a missions trip to Africa).
Your socks had gotten wet on the walk to the worship center. You loathed wet socks, even partially wet socks. They stuck to your toes in the most uncomfortable way, freezing them while the rest of your foot stayed dry. Any time your socks got wet, you’d hyper-focus on the sensation until they either dried out or you changed them, and since you were obligated to spend the morning overseeing community service, they were about to be all you could think about for the next four hours.
All you could think about, that is, until you happened to glance up and spy Noah slouched on a bench near the church entrance. You stopped short, double-checking the time on your phone. 7:46. It was unlike him to be early, let alone fourteen minutes early.
He hadn’t noticed you approach, too busy staring at his lap. He fidgeted with an object in his hands—something you couldn’t see. You took a deep breath, squared your shoulders, and continued walking.
The day after Halloween, you made a pact with yourself: you would get over Noah Davis. It wasn’t because he was a bad guy or anything. You actually quite liked him and found him to be an overall positive influence.
The problem was that he was too much of an influence. You found yourself second-guessing your morals, wanting to agree with him before you’d fully thought everything through. You wanted to believe everything he said, regardless of whether or not it was true. And you knew it was partly because you wanted so badly to give into his temptation.
Not that giving into temptation was necessarily bad. But you’d grown up listening to and believing everything the men in your life had told you, simply because they were in positions of authority. That hadn’t exactly worked out in your best interests.
Were you going to let another man influence your beliefs just because it would justify chasing the things your body craved? And oh, did it crave.
That wasn’t to say Noah didn’t make a lot of very good points - you were inclined to agree with them, but you had to sort that out slowly and on your own. Without the influence of him or his body pulling you in any one direction.
On top of that, it was inappropriate of you to entertain feelings for him—you were in a supervisor role.
The full truth was that letting go of the idea of him? It hurt. Giving up something you really wanted for something you thought would be better for you in the long run was never easy. But you were determined to do it. God had something better in store for you, you were certain of it. And Noah’s body was simply a distraction—a pitfall for you to avoid.
And who knew? Perhaps you were doing Noah a favor as well, not giving into him so easily.
The moment Noah noticed you, he stood up, straightening the legs of his jeans. You kept him in your periphery but didn’t look directly at him. Looking at him was too hard. You didn’t want him to know that though, so you did your best to be friendly. “Hey,” you said, greeting him with a friendly wave and glance, noticing your voice came out meeker than you intended.
“Hey,” he replied, and his voice carried a soft, hollow timbre that already had your heart squeezing. This was going to be more difficult than you thought.
You kept your eyes on the ground, allowing him to fall into step beside you, and headed straight for the church doors. Pulling out the key and unlocking them gave you something to focus on that wasn’t him, and for that you were grateful.
“How was your week?” he asked.
“Good. Boring,” you said, eyes scanning along the light blue carpet in front of you as you walked through the foyer. “Yours?”
“Enlightening.”
Enlightening. How were you supposed to ignore that?
“Oh?” you asked, curiosity getting the better of you. You still held firm in not looking at him, one glance at his soft smile and your resolve would crumble. You knew it.
And then, in an attempt to seem normal, you glanced. Not directly at him, but in his direction. Enough to catch the soft smile on his face and knowing kindness in his dark eyes. The way his long hair spilled out from underneath his hood.
You dug your nails into your fists as punishment and looked back down at the floor, where your feet guided you to the supply closet at the end of the hall.
“I think I owe you an apology for how I behaved on Saturday,” he said. He stopped in front of the closet and turned to face you head-on. It was getting harder to avoid direct eye contact.
He remained silent, providing you an opportunity to respond, but you couldn’t will your mouth to open and instead settled on offering a quick nod.
“I should have warned you about the crowds. And about the content for some of the music we play... And for agreeing to play that last song.”
“Noah, the whole crowd wanted it,” you reasoned, fiddling with the latch on the supply closet. “I’m just one person.”
“Just,” he interjected, holding a hand up, “let me at least apologize for the way it affected you.”
The tension in your shoulders slackened infinitesimally and you allowed your eyes to travel to his inked hands. His fingers were so long. It ached, how much you wanted to gravitate toward them, feel them caress your face, envelop his thumb in your mouth and have him drag it down your chin…
Catching yourself mid-thought, you looked away again. “I suppose I can allow that.”
He puffed out a short breath, relieved at your acceptance. “It wasn’t cool of me to let you go into that unprepared,” he continued, voice filled with genuine regret. “I wish I would have handled it better.”
You chewed on the outer corner of your lip. The sentiment felt too heavy for the moment, and you needed to end the conversation quickly. “Thank you for saying that.”
“I also want to apologize for what happened after.”
Your stomach dropped. You’d really rather not talk about that. It wasn’t exactly your proudest moment. You’d fully embarrassed yourself with your overreaction to what happened at the party. But more than that, you’d experienced genuine temptation for the first time in your life, and had only barely made it out of there without completely walking back on all your scruples. Even talking about it meant risking being pulled back down the rabbit hole he was about to apologize for. Either way, you couldn’t help it when, in a moment of weakness, you glanced at his mouth. His smile faded and something more earnest took over his face. His lips parted a millimeter as he sucked a breath in through his teeth and you found yourself mimicking the movement without trying.
“If your beliefs surrounding…” he took another deep breath as he searched for the right word, “…physical intimacy are important to you, I want to do a better job of respecting that. From now on, I’ll be hands-off.” He raised his palms in surrender.
His words wrapped around your body like a rope, compressing, crushing your ribs, and holding you together.
Last summer, when Isaac had ended your kiss, it didn’t surprise you. In fact, it was something you had almost expected him to do. He performed Christianity like it was a Broadway show and he was the principal actor. It was almost a game to him, it seemed. How many points could he earn with God during his time on Earth? How big of a mansion would he be rewarded with in Heaven? How many virgin brides?
You smelled a hint of Isaac’s performance in Noah. But there was something else there underneath. An eagerness to respect you in the way that actually mattered. He wanted to get it right.
“Noah,” you sighed, feeling like he was perhaps taking this apology thing further than he needed to.
“I also want to give you this back,” he said, fishing out your silver ring from his back pocket and holding it out to you. “I’m sorry for removing it in the first place.”
You stared at the silver ring. The symbol of the promise you’d made when you were thirteen and had no idea how anything worked.
Now, for you, it symbolized a lie that had been spoon-fed to you. It symbolized blind obedience to the men in your life and a life you had no control over.
You deflated.
“Keep it.”
Noah’s eyebrows lifted, lips parting in surprise and confusion. “Why?”
You looked anywhere but the ring in front of you, settling on a speck of lint that dusted the shoulder of Noah’s zip-up.
“I just don’t want it anymore. It feels too constricting.”
Huffing, he stepped forward and grabbed your left wrist, bringing it to his hand. His touch sent warmth cascading down your arm and into the rest of your body.
Slowly, delicately, he slid the ring back onto your finger. The cold metal contrasted starkly with the warmth of his palm. His hand lingered there for a moment, thumb swiping the length of your finger.
It felt oddly reminiscent of a proposal, but in reverse. With this ring, he promised to leave you alone.
Something harsh and sour coated the back of your throat and you swallowed bitterly.
“I want you to have it back anyway,” he said, voice gentle and kind as he let go of your wrist. “If you want to remove it again, that should be your choice.”
You rolled your eyes, twisting the ring back off your finger and holding it out to him in your palm. “I don’t want the responsibility of keeping this. Can you please take it?”
He stepped back from you, clasping his hands behind his back.
“Ugh,” you scoffed and tossed it in the empty mop bucket in the corner of the supply closet, willing it to disappear. You turned back to face him with your hands on your hips. “You know you’re being a little dramatic about this, right?”
Your eyes flicked back up to his face. He looked from you, to the bucket, and back, but stayed silent.
“I allowed you to take it off because I wanted you to, not because I was under some sort of spell. Plus, I should be apologizing for how I left.”
Noah closed his eyes and shook his head firmly. “No way, don’t ever feel bad for setting boundaries. I’m actually glad you left when you felt uncomfortable instead of letting me pressure you into something you didn’t want.”
You shifted your weight from foot to foot. This much respect was new for you—not just from Noah, but from any man in your life.
“I still feel bad,” you confessed, twisting your hands together in front of you.
“Please don’t,” he said, arm reaching out a few inches as if he intended to touch you, but then he thought better of it and pulled back. Your eyes chased his hand as it fell back to his side, wishing he would have followed through. “I was in the wrong, not you.”
“Why are you doing this?” you asked.
A smile played on the corner of his lips. “I suppose you could say I’m turning over a new leaf.”
Inside, you smiled at the throwback to the conversation last month. Outwardly you pouted, rocking on your heels. “I liked the old leaf.”
“Tough,” he said, grinning defiantly. “Get used to this one.”
You crossed your arms and nodded over to the supply closet. “Well, can the new leaf go grab the broom and dustpan so he can get to work?”
“At your service, Angel,” he said, sidestepping you to get into to the closet.
“Angel?” you asked. “What happened to Mary?”
“Mary’s too boring,” he called over his shoulder, digging around the various mops and cleaners. “I like Angel better.”
“Can’t you just use my real name?” you asked.
“No,” he said reemerging from the closet with two brooms and two dustpans in tow. He smiled his full Cheshire-cat grin, lips stretching wide over his too-big teeth in a way that let you know he already won whatever debate you were about to start.
You decided not to press the matter. You also preferred Angel to Mary. At least it didn’t have the virgin connotation.
You waved him off. “Whatever. Just get to work.”
Noah winked and did just that, keeping his head down and minding his business until Nick showed up, six minutes late.
“What are we doing today, boss?” he asked. You pointed over to where Noah was sweeping.
“Aye, aye!” he said with a salute and started toward Noah.
“Actually can you hang back a second?” you said in a low voice. He paused mid-step, turning on his heel and leaning in with his full attention. “I wanted to talk to you.”
He sighed, eyes dropping to the floor. “Look. I know it wasn’t cool of me to sleep with your friend, but you should know—,”
“—I was actually going to thank you,” you cut him off. Nick’s brows pulled together.
“What?” he asked, mouth parting stupidly.
You nodded, fidgeting with the sleeve of your sweater. “She told me about how nervous she was, about how patient you were with her and how you walked her through the process, and that you insisted on making sure she was sober enough to give consent. Not all guys would do that for a girl they just met. Let alone someone whose first time it was.”
Nick blinked, then released the tension he’d been holding in his jaw, allowing his face to relax into a smile. “Of course. I’m not an asshole. Or, well at least not a complete asshole.”
You chuckled, signaling with your hand for him to join you while you meandered over to the other end of the foyer where Noah was working. “Ava can be pretty reckless at times,” you said, lowering your voice now that Noah was within earshot. “She gets in over her head. I appreciate that she had someone like you who prioritized her comfort and safety.”
“She’s not bad. You have good taste in friends.”
“Thanks,” you said, smiling fondly at the moment of shared appreciation for your friend.
“Now get to work,” you said, when the air got too thick. The last thing you needed was to allow Nick to burrow his way into your heart alongside his friend.
The workday passed by relatively easy. There were no major philosophical conversations to be had, and no interruptions from unwelcome strangers. The two men worked diligently for the whole session, and when it was time to go, they put their own supplies away.
“Hey,” said Noah while you all made your way out. “I was thinking about something.” He slowed his steps and allowed Nick to pass the two of you.
“Yeah?” you said, matching his pace.
“You’ve seen me in my element. I thought it was only fair if I returned the favor.”
“What do you mean?” you asked.
“I want to hear you sing.” He said it softly, lisp coming out on the last word and oh. You paused mid-stride to turn to him.
“Why?”
Noah looked at you as if you’d offended his bloodline, head rearing back in a scoff. “Because I’m curious? And I want to support you the way you supported me?”
“That’s not necessary,” you rushed to assure. The last thing you wanted was to have to perform in front of him. That was a level of vulnerability you weren’t interested in. Especially since he had such an extensive background in music and could easily judge you if you weren’t up to his standards.
“Will you let me do something nice, please?” he said, holding his arms out to the side before letting them drop back to his hips with a slap. “Isn’t the point of this entire community service thing to help me be a better person?”
He’d seen the corner he could back you into before you did. You couldn’t, in good faith, protest something like that without letting your cards show.
“I have a showcase coming up in December,” you said. “Here. At the church.”
Noah tucked his lips between his teeth and smiled in triumph.
“Are you sure you won’t burst into flames the second you step foot in a worship service?” you asked.
“Guess we’ll see,” He said, with a quick shrug of his shoulders. You continued walking down the path leading back into town.
“Isaac’s going to be there,” you said, reluctantly. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he assured you, making the sign of the cross over his chest and clapping his hands together in prayer.
You sighed and shook your head. “Good. See that you are.” Without anything better to say, you followed up with “now get out of here.”
Noah huffed out a laugh at your attempt at standoffishness and jogged to catch up with Nick. Your gut twisted at the thought of him coming to watch you sing. Even more so at the idea of the regular churchgoers seeing and potentially interacting with him, but you chose to trust that this would be a good thing. That Noah would keep his word.
Noah in a church. Standing in the middle of a church-going audience. You shook your head, unable to realistically picture it, but that didn’t stop a grin from sneaking up on you whenever you thought about it.
_______
November came and went in the same way a cloud would—slowly, and easily unnoticed unless you paid special attention.
You and Isaac continued to work together on his project. He brought up passing a collection plate around during the event so the two of you could raise money for charity, which you thought was a great idea.
“That way, we can give back a little,” he said, pinching the cross charm he wore around his neck between two of his fingers and sliding back and forth along its chain.
“I’d love that,” you said, feeling more energized about the showcase.
You and Isaac sat across from each other at a table in a room off to the side of the main worship area, often used for small group meetings, Bible studies, and Sunday School. Song books and sheets of music littered the table, musty from years of use. You sat doodling swirls in the margins of the notebook in front of you.
“How have we been marketing the event?” he asked, flipping through pages of a hymn book.
“I made an event page on Facebook,” you said, “and have been posting about it to the campus Facebook page. A few other local groups, too.”
“Good,” he said, nodding, but not looking up from the book in front of him.
“I’ve also been passing out flyers and posting them around campus to drum up some excitement.”
“Excellent,” said Isaac, smiling.
Surprisingly enough, working with Isaac hadn’t been as painful as you’d expected. He remained focused on planning out the logistics of the showcase, appropriately delegating tasks to you as needed, but taking on the bulk of the work himself.
You liked this Isaac. He was at his best when he had a goal and worked diligently to achieve it. When you’d first developed an interest in him, it was when he was pursuing a leadership role on the worship team. Before then, he’d always been a scrawny, nerdy kid that existed only in the fringes of your memory. You’d seen him in church and at school but hadn’t paid much attention to him.
It wasn’t until your teen years, when he’d grown his hair out and started learning how to play guitar that you’d truly noticed. One day, he’d asked to perform a song in front of the congregation. You couldn’t even remember the song, but you remembered being transfixed by his singing.
That was the beginning of the crush you’d been nursing for over four years. It had largely dissipated, but it still peeked out every once in a while, in moments like this.
He closed the book in his hands, setting it down on the table and straightening out some of the papers in front of him. “How’s the community service going?” he asked without looking at you.
Your warm feelings for him slipped away just as quickly and easily as they had arrived.
Tension flared in your neck, pulling your shoulders up to a defensive position. Aside from that telltale sign, however, you chose to play it cool.
“It’s fine,” you said, joining him in arranging the stack of music sheets in front of you so you had something to focus on aside from him.
“You better get a move on,” he said, setting his stack of papers aside and resting his elbows on the table. He spoke directly to you. “You only have a month left before you never see them again. Not a lot of time to bring people to Christ.”
Truthfully, you’d forgotten all about that. He was right—the job had been handed to you with the specific instructions towitness to these men, but you were starting to think you no longer agreed with that cause.
“Did you talk about Hell?” he continued. “That sometimes works for me.”
You shook your head. “I don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?” he asked, brows furrowing with confusion. “You have to do something. Their souls are on the line.”
“I really don’t want to talk about this,” you snapped, shifting your chair back from the table and standing. You had some homework you should be getting to, anyway. “Can we drop it?”
“No!” he barked, standing up to be on your level. He splayed his palms on the table, leaning his weight on them and eyes boring a hole into you. Even from across the table, his height was menacing. Not as tall as Noah, but definitely tall. “That’s the whole point of you being there. You have to make sure they know what’s at stake if they keep going down the path they’re on.”
“It’s not that simple,” you said, voice raising in volume.
All this talk of eternal damnation set you on edge. You still hadn’t even figured out where you stood on the issue. How were you supposed to preach to someone who had made up their mind long ago? And who was Isaac to tell you how to talk to them when he’d only briefly encountered them once and made a fool out of himself in the process?
“What’s complicated about it? They repent or they go to Hell,” he stated with a huff, blowing his fringe bangs out of his eyes.
The pressure he was putting on you was familiar—much like the pressure your father had always put on you to “go out and make disciples” but things weren’t as black-and-white as they were when you were a child.
How were you supposed to preach something you weren’t even sure you understood or believed in? Blindly giving into the pressure to convert as many people as you could to a faith you only half-trusted felt more and more like a betrayal of yourself.
Not only that, but in your experience, people simply did not want to hear the gospel preached at them. You’d tried once—when you’d joined a local theater production of Fiddler on the Roof as a stagehand. There was one girl there who you’d made fast friends with—Stephanie.
You spent all summer trying to share the Good News with her. At the end of three long months, she agreed to accept Christ into her heart, allowing you to lead her in The Prayer. It was the defining moment of your adolescence. You’d managed to validate your existence by saving at least one soul.
It wasn’t until the wrap party later that week that you overheard her making fun of you to some of the other cast members, all huddled together in a corner of the theater, that you realized she’d gone through with it as a joke.
There was no explaining that to Isaac, however. He was so caught up in everything he’d been taught that it would take much longer than you had time to explain everything, and that was if he even listened, which he didn’t seem interested in…
…much like the people you were supposed to evangelize to.
“I have to go,” you said, turning on your heel and walking out of the warmth of the worship center, into the frigid rain. Isaac called after you, but you broke into a jog, heading—well, somewhere.
You didn’t know where you were heading, actually. Your rain boots clunked haphazardly on the sidewalk, splashing through puddles as you ran. You contemplated going back to your dorm, but knew Stevie was home. It didn’t seem like the place to be.
You weren’t interested in any of the usual places on campus, either. The wind and rain bit at your skin, chilling you through the oversized Sherpa-lined hoodie you’d worn.
Your feet guided you to the crossroads that would lead you back to campus, and you turned in the opposite direction, running headlong toward town.
Your breaths grew uneven, whether it was due to the energy you were expending, or the crushing weight of your religious obligations.
You were supposed to lead these men to God, lest their souls be cast into Hell for eternity.
Except, did you believe in Hell anymore?
You weren’t sure. You supposed it could exist, but was it really that easy to wind up serving a permanent sentence for an impermanent crime? For simply getting the theology wrong?
That didn’t seem like something a loving god would do. And if it was, did you really want to devote your life to serving someone like that? Someone who could be so utterly cruel to his creations for making simple mistakes?
You were angry. For the first time, you felt a glimpse of the anger Noah had expressed that night. He was right to feel angry. There were so many contradictions—so much about the church that just felt backwards to you. And whenever you raised legitimate questions, you were always met with the same answer:
God works in mysterious ways.
It was a mantra the church elders repeated, but it felt more like a cop-out. A common method of spiritual bypassing.
You wiped the rain that had been pelting your face with your sleeve, unsure of how far you’d ran when a familiar voice interrupted your thoughts.
“Whoa!”
___________
At no point in his evening did Noah anticipate running into you—figuratively, and certainly not literally. But when he spotted you bounding toward him with a panicked expression, that’s what nearly happened.
Upon further reflection, you were probably aiming to run past him, but in the moment, it looked like you were on track to collide directly into his chest.
“Whoa!” he called out. Your attention snapped from the sidewalk in front of you to his face, and in the process, your left foot miscalculated its landing. It slid out from under you, giving you a half a second to react and catch yourself on a steel signpost. It was a good thing you had quick reflexes, otherwise you’d have planted ass-first into the muddy puddles lining the street.
“Easy,” said Noah, catching you by the elbows and helping you regain your balance. He observed your soaked hoodie, the way your breaths came out staggered, and the rapid rise and fall of your chest as you caught your breath. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” you exhaled, struggling to catch your breath.
Noah blinked at you, eyes narrowing in on your expression. Something was off about the way you looked around you nervously.
“You sure?” he asked again.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” You looked up at him, fake smile plastered on your face to better sell the lie, but eyes blown wide as if you’d been trying to outrun a predator. Noah wasn’t buying it.
“You tell me,” he said, observing your footwear.
You looked down at your rain boots and back up to him. “I wanted to go for a run?” you said. It was framed as a question. Half-acknowledging that you’d been caught, but hoping he would drop it anyway.
“Right.” He humored you for now. He’d get to the bottom of it eventually.
“What are you doing here?” you deflected. Your breathing had begun to slow. You tucked your wet, matted hair behind your ear and looked up at him with curiosity in your eyes. The tension in his chest began to fade the more you relaxed. As if his nervous system was inextricably tied to yours.
“I was about to grab some tea,” he said, nodding towards the small hole-in-the-wall café across the street. Your eyes followed, then dropped to where he still held your elbows, and he released them. “Care to join?”
“Sure,” you said. He nodded and gestured for you to follow him before stuffing his hands in his pockets.
The two of you crossed the street, Noah taking the opportunity to glance backwards to see if he could gather any context clues and opened the door for you when he found none.
He gestured toward the counter, indicating for you to order first, and sidled up behind you, standing protectively close, just in case there was indeed a threat.
“Want to take this to go?” he asked.
“Sure,” you said, placing an order for a decaf cinnamon latte. Gross. Too sweet for his taste. “To go, please.”
Noah placed his own order for a green tea before the barista could give you your total. You looked up at him with a question on your face, and he handed his card over to pay for both orders without pause. Perhaps he could buy some of your time.
The two of you stepped to the side while you waited for your drinks to be made. Noah leaned casually against the counter, putting his height on display and moving just enough into your personal space that you’d have to take notice.
“Why were you running in the rain?” he asked.
You looked him over, taking note of his new proximity. “Long story.”
“Do you always deflect this much?” he asked.
You smiled sheepishly. “I’ll tell you, just not right here.”
That was enough to put Noah fully at ease. Perhaps it truly was nothing and he’d just read into your body language too much.
Noah caught you glancing over his body out of the corner of his eye. He smiled to himself. He knew he was attractive. At this point, using his attractiveness to his advantage was almost second nature to him. He drummed his fingers against the counter, feeling a slight surge of energy when he saw you studying the tattoos on his hands and trying not to be obvious about it.
Noah knew he could be cocky at times. His own attractiveness became clear to him in high school, when he hit a growth spurt and got his first tattoo. He received much more attention from girls than his friends did, and it increased exponentially the older he got and the more his once-lanky body filled out. By the time he dropped out of high school, well before his sixteenth birthday, he’d lost his virginity and then some. He couldn’t remember what his body count was up to, but he’d guess it was approaching triple digits.
He tried to stay humble about it, knowing that too much attention wasn’t healthy for his ego, but he did, at times, like to indulge.
Like right now. He was aware you were looking at him. He knew he could invite you back to his studio, that you’d probably say yes, and that you were very conflicted about your attraction to him, because this might be the first time you’d wrestled with sexual attraction to someone who wasn’t bound by the same laws of purity as you.
He’d give you time to figure out what you wanted. He wouldn’t outright pressure you the way he had last time. But he also wasn’t going to stop himself from craving you, or from responding the way his body told him to when in pursuit of something he wanted.
He slid his hands across the counter, allowing his weight to drop to his elbows, and leaned towards you. He was tall enough that his face still hovered slightly over yours when he looked you in the eye.
Many times, people were intimidated by the weight of his full attention on them. They’d step back or break eye contact to diffuse it. You, however, just looked up at him with a question on your face.
Oh, he liked that. He liked you not being intimidated by him.
“So,” he said. A segue into nothing. A great move on his part since he had nothing to say.
“So,” you mimicked, knowing smile teasing the corner of your mouth upward. A warm, sensation rippled through Noah’s diaphragm. He didn’t smile though. He wasn’t going to break his façade so early.
“What…,” he began. He looked out the window as if he’d find a cue card with the prompt he’d need. He didn’t. “…do you like to do? For fun?”
A clumsy introduction to a conversation. Possibly the clumsiest he’s ever made.
You licked your lips and nodded to yourself, amused by his attempt. Without his permission, his eyes darted to your lips. He chided himself and looked away, hoping you hadn’t noticed the rookie mistake.
“Angel,” yelled the barista, shaking him from his thoughts. Noah had given them his nickname for you as the name of the order. It went over the way he expected, with you rolling your eyes and begrudgingly offering him a smile. Glee spread into his cheeks and he shot a grin at you before turning to the hand-off plane.
You grabbed your drinks, handing Noah’s to him and led the way back outside into the rain. Your lead didn’t last long—Noah’s long legs easily overtook you and he had to make a concerted effort to slow his pace so you could keep up.
“I like movies,” you said eventually.
“What?” he asked.
“For fun,” you said. “I like to watch movies.”
Oh. Right. He’d forgotten about that.
“What’s your favorite?” he asked, this question coming out much smoother than the last, and Noah felt like he was back on track.
“Three-way tie for all of the Lord of the Rings movies.”
Noah stopped short. “Are you serious?” he asked. You nodded.
Without thinking about it, he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and gave you an overly dramatic kiss on the top of the head, not worrying for a second about how you’d react. This time, you did get shy, shrinking into yourself and making a noise of protest before he let you go.
The power was back in Noah’s possession for the time being.
“What was that for?” you asked, smoothing out your hair. In the dark street, Noah couldn’t see the flush on your cheeks, but he knew it was there.
“I love Lord of the Rings,” he said. It was true. He’d been an avid fan of the films since grade school, back when he and his friends used to pretend to be the fellowship. Tall and slender with long hair, he’d been cast as the elf of the friend group, though he’d secretly always resonated more with Aragorn.
“Which one is your favorite?” you asked, falling back into step alongside him. Even with his slower pace, you had to take long strides to keep up.
“Return of the King,” said Noah without missing a beat. “I get chills every time the beacons are lit.”
“Did you know that in The Two Towers, when Viggo kicks—,”
“—he breaks his toe,” Noah cut you off. He immediately knew where you were going with it. Everyone with even the most basic appreciation for Lord of the Rings knew. It had become a calling card among fans to know that bit of trivia, but he still took pride in finishing your sentence.
The pride within him swelled tenfold when you smiled as if you’d never been more impressed or pleased with him in your life. He couldn’t help but fall a little bit in love with you.
Which was not good, considering how much harder it would be to restrain himself around you. God, he wanted nothing more than to seduce the religion out of you. He wanted to turn his pockets inside out, use every trick in the book to get you into bed, but he would probably end up embarrassing himself if he did, because his charm didn’t seem to faze you.
He knew it wasn’t a matter of attraction. You showed all the signs of being attracted to him, yet you still had the self-control not to act on it, and that drove him wild.
Had he been wrong about you? He thought the reason you were still a virgin was because your resolve had never been tested, but he’d definitely tested it on Halloween, and you’d resisted.
Which Noah had not expected.
And though he had reacted poorly at the time (which he now found extremely embarrassing), he’s started to like that you shut him down. He’s always appreciated a bit of a chase—a smidge of hard-to-get. It made the game all the more exciting for him.
But this was different. You weren’t playing a game. You simply existed as yourself, with no agenda he could detect. And maybe the part of him that needed someone to help tame his ego would like you to continue shutting him down, as much as it killed him.
“I play video games,” he said, breaking out of his thoughts when he noticed he’d been silent for too long. “For fun.”
“What games?” you asked, not missing a beat.
“I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout recently.”
If you told him you played Fallout, he would propose to you on the spot.
“I never got into video games,” you said, and Noah breathed a sigh of relief, because he didn’t need to be any more whipped for you. “Where are we going, by the way?”
“Oh,” he said, halting his steps. “Um, I was thinking of going back to the studio, if you were okay with that.” Nerves in his sides and in his throat tingled uncomfortably. You hesitated, and Noah wondered if the memory of what happened last time dwelled in the back of your mind, like it did his.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” you said after a beat, and picked up your pace once again. Noah exhaled softly, nerves soothed for the time being, and followed.
That was another thing: whenever he was with you, his nervous system oscillated wildly between feeling completely relaxed and supremely on-edge. The constant spikes in his adrenaline translated into excess energy that built up beneath his skin and all he wanted to do was sigh it into your mouth.
The three-block walk back to the studio was over all too soon. When the two of you arrived, Noah unlocked it like he had last time, and like last time, you sat in the same position on the couch.
Noah decided sit on the other end of the couch, rather than his usual desk chair. He faced you, legs crossed underneath him.
You turned to mirror his pose.
“So,” he said, this time knowing what he wanted to ask. “Nice night for a jog, huh?”
“Yeah,” you said, clearing your throat and retreating further into your hoodie.
“Not the best shoes for running, I have to say.” He nodded over to the rainboots that rested by the door in a small puddle.
You chuckled nervously, then worried at your lip. “I needed some air,” you said.
“Why?”
You bounced your knee up and down, collecting your thoughts. There was obviously something eating at you, and it concerned Noah that you were struggling so much to talk about it.
He relaxed his gaze, trying his best to train his face into a neutral, open expression.
“Okay,” you prefaced, exhaling a deep breath and twisting the cuff of your oversized sleeve in your hands. You looked anywhere but him. “So I have been questioning a lot about my faith recently. You know this.”
Noah nodded, stomach rolling with pride and with something slightly sicker and more selfish, knowing he’d been a catalyst of sorts for your questioning. He fought it back down, not allowing his feelings to distract him from listening to you.
“Yeah,” you nodded back at him, pulling your sleeves over your hands and bunching the ends up in your fists. Noah liked you this way. Cozy. Vulnerable. “And some people in the church are starting to notice.”
“Ah,” he said, understanding dawning on him. It was hard to ignore the changes in your behavior and demeanor. You’d become more confident over the last few weeks, less eager to please and more willing to stand up for yourself. He wasn’t surprised the church had caught onto it. The same thing had happened to him when he started deconstructing his beliefs—they saw it as a threat.
“When did you stop believing in Hell?” you asked, shifting the subject slightly.
“Oh,” he said again, feeling rather like a broken record.
You looked up at him, eyes growing wet with tears that threatened to spill over, and Noah began to see just how important this conversation was for you.
You waited patiently while he gathered his thoughts. His thumb traced along a seam in the leg of his jeans, grounding him while he tried to recall long-repressed memories.
“I don’t think there was any one significant moment.” He finally spoke, pausing to sip at his tea, savoring its bitterness. “It was more like I slowly came to understand that it was bullshit.”
“What made you realize?” you asked. Now it was Noah’s turn to carry the weight of your full attention. You hung on his every word, eyes trained on him as if you were looking into his soul and it made it difficult to focus. The collar of his shirt was suddenly too constricting. The room had grown warm. The knot of hair at the nape of his neck was tied too tight.
“My grandparents,” he began, clearing his throat. “They overused the threat of it. So did the church leaders. It started to feel empty after a while.”
You nodded, eager for him to continue speaking. “How long did it take to stop believing once you noticed?”
“Longer than it should have,” he confessed, heaving out a breath. “But in my defense, the stakes were pretty high. Had to figure out if I was willing to wager an eternity of torture on it.”
You hummed in thought, attention finally lifting off him and drifting to the space between the two of you.
“Noah, I think I’m…,” you began, but didn’t finish the rest of your sentence. He caught the hitch in your breath. The slight shudder in your shoulders.
He was pulled to you, as if there were a thread tugging at him. He needed reach out and touch you, so he did, placing his hand on your knee and rubbing his thumb back and forth. Something in his bones told him to stay quiet and let you figure this out.
You took a deep breath to steady yourself.
“I’ve never struggled with my faith before,” you began, and Noah nodded to show he was listening. “But now, it’s like I don’t know what to believe. I used to feel so sure. And some things I still feel sure about, but everything around it is like…crumbling.”
Noah watched you deliberately, hoping you felt you had his full attention, save for his right hand, which twirled a frayed thread from a rip in the knee of your jeans. To his surprise and delight, you inched closer to him. He made sure not to let it show. He needed his body language to match your tone—to be open and receptive. To be what you need.
“I feel like I was lied to,” you continued, voice breaking. “For my whole life, I was told that I had to act a certain way and believe in certain things. Things that I’ve struggled with for a long time. But I still did because I was afraid of ending up in Hell.”
You paused to sniffle. “And now I’m starting to think that it might not all be true, but I’m scared to think that, because what if it is true? And I do go to Hell? I just feel like…like the ground is being washed out from under me.”
Noah’s tongue prodded the inside of his cheek as your voice became watery. You were so close to a breakthrough. He didn’t want to say or do anything that would interrupt it, but he also wanted to cheer you on.
“I don’t want to become angry and bitter,” you confessed. “But I am angry. And I don’t know at who or what.”
“Are you afraid of being angry?” he asked, hoping it was the right question. This was toeing the edge of his jurisdiction.
“Kind of,” you said. “But it’s more than that. I’m afraid to start questioning, because I’m afraid I’ll abandon my faith altogether. Noah, I don’t know who I am without my faith.”
“Do you want to figure that out?”
You looked up at him, eyes glassy, threatening to spill over.
“Yeah,” you whispered.
Noah could kiss you. He wanted to kiss you, wanted to hold you by your jaw, make you breathe all your worries into his mouth so he could digest them and free you from the confines of your crushing guilt. Whatever suffocating remains you couldn’t exhale, he would swallow whole.
He yearned to crush his body against yours, to card his fingers through your hair and tug at the root, to hear your soft whimpers as he licked along the soft spots of your neck. He wanted the pressure of your thighs wrapped around his hips as he slid home over and over again.
Noah wanted you to take your anger out on him. Wanted you to sink your teeth into his throat, claw your nails down his back, to spit out your unfiltered rage. He wanted you to slap him hard across the face for having the audacity to dream of doing such lewd things to you.
He didn’t do any of those things, but he did take both your hands in his.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you still believe in God?”
You sniffed and nodded. “I think so.”
“Okay. What do you think he would say if he saw you like this right now? If he loves you like he says he does. Do you think he’d be disappointed?”
You sniffed again, blinking back your tears and shook your head.
“How would he feel?”
“I think,” you began. Noah could practically see the cogs turning in your yead. He willed—almost prayed for—you to come to the right conclusion: one that didn’t end in self-hatred or shame.
“I think…he’d be proud of me,” you said.
Noah squeezed your hands in encouragement, manifesting a breakthrough for you. “Why would he be proud?”
“For having the courage to ask these questions.”
Noah’s dick was known to twitch at odd times. But this, by far, was the weirdest.
“To me,” he said, trying his best to ignore the feeling in his dick and focus on the task at hand, “it seems like you’re notabandoning your faith. You’re realizing that it’s so important that you’re willing to risk going to Hell to make sure you get it right.”
A strangled sob escaped from you and you dove into him, wrapping your arms around his middle and burying your head into his chest.
Noah couldn’t breathe, and not because you held him in a vise grip. He draped his arms across your back, placing a gentle kiss on the top of your head and praying to God for the first time since he was fifteen that he wouldn’t get a boner.
“I’m sorry,” you whimpered into his chest. “I feel like I’m always crying these days.”
“It’s fine,” he said. You smelled like rain and vanilla and something floral he couldn’t place. He tried his hardest to touch you as lightly as possible because if he gave into even the most innocent of his desires, his hands would be wrapped around your throat and he’d be burying himself in you.
You adjusted, crying into his shoulder now, and he could feel your hot breath steaming across his neck. Yes, he knew you were crying and that wasn’t exactly the sexiest thing in the world (at least in this context), but it took every ounce of self-control he had to not put you through the couch. You were half in his lap. Despite his prayers, he was semi-hard, and if you shifted your weight even an inch, you’d be able to feel.
When your sobs finally slowed and your breathing went back to normal, Noah continued to stroke your back with his palm.
Having you in his arms was like flirting with the devil. A serpent, offering him a bite of fruit he knew was forbidden, lest he be cast out of Eden, but the sight and scent and touch of which proving to be far too sweet to resist.
All too soon though, you were self-aware again, recognizing what you were doing and where you were. You pulled back to look at the tear-stained mess you left and had the loss of your touch not been excruciating, Noah would have been grateful because his self-control was just about spent.
“Gross,” he said, pulling the fabric of his shirt out and away from his skin. You had snotted on it.
“Sorry,” you said, laughing and getting up to find a tissue, and Noah was looking at your ass. No other thought ran through his head besides the stern acknowledgement that he was looking at your ass and nothing on this earth would stop him from looking at your ass until you turned back around.
“Feel better?” he asked, eyes flicking up to meet yours.
You nodded, face all red and splotchy.
“I should go,” you said, and his heart twisted and wrenched away from his ribs, but he agreed because he needed to put his cock in somethingimmediately or he was literally going to die.
“Call me if you need anything,” he said.
“I don’t have your number.”
Noah reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, opening a new contact page and handing it to you. Your fingers brushed over his when you took it and he wondered if it was on purpose.
You tapped the screen a few times and handed it back to him. He opened a new text, typed his name, and pressed send. A few seconds later, your phone pinged.
His heart untwisted a millimeter. He had a tether to you now.
“Thanks,” you said. “For everything.” You stumbled back into your rain boots and walked over to where he was still sat on the couch (he couldn’t stand up without giving himself away by that point), and touched your lips briefly to his cheek bone. His skin burned under the touch and he didn’t even have a chance to respond before you were across the room and out the door.
Noah tipped sideways off the couch and rolled onto the floor, sprawled across the narrow passage between couch and desk.
He took a deep breath, feeling like his heart was about to beat out of his chest, then rolled onto his stomach and did twenty push-ups in a row.
His dick was burning a hole through his jeans and if he didn’t do something immediately, he was going to bash his head into the floor.
He pulled out his phone, with one number in mind.
Noah 9:37 PM: ?
Madison 9:37 PM: ;)
Noah 9:38 PM: 5?
Madison 9:38 PM: ✔️ _________
Noah just about ran the few blocks to Madison’s apartment. He walked in unceremoniously, ignoring her roommates, and took the stairs two at a time all the way up to her room.
She was there, sitting on her bed with a hungry smile twisting on her lips. She wore a sports bra and the shortest shorts Noah’s ever seen, but he barely looked at them.
He kneeled in front of her, grasping her shoulders in his hands.
“What’s your safe word?”
“Candyland.”
Noah nodded.
“That’s the only word you’re allowed to say,” he commanded. Giggling, she fell back on the bed, opening her legs wide for Noah to wedge himself between.
Noah closed his eyes, focusing on breathing in and out through his nose and his hands found the flimsy fabric of Madison’s sports bra. She gave a yelp when he just about ripped it off her, flinging it across the room. He turned his focus to her shorts to do the same.
Once she was rid of her clothes, he ran a finger between her hairless folds to find she was already wet. Madison was always reliably wet.
Even so, he stuck two of his fingers in his mouth, collecting saliva before he plunged them into her, moving them up and down, scissoring them the way he knew she liked. It wasn’t long before she expanded enough to accommodate him.
Fumbling while removing his own clothes, he wasted no time taking his heavy cock out and stroking it. He reached into the familiar top drawer of her nightstand, producing a condom and rolling it onto himself. He cradled his throbbing cock and lined it up with her entrance, glancing up at her to check in, and she nodded.
Noah didn’t go slow. He pushed into her all the way as deep as he could go with a snap of his hips, and once he was fully sheathed, he finally he felt like he could breathe.
He groaned low as he began to thrust inside her. She moaned loudly, draping her arms around him, and the second he registered her touch, he grabbed her arms and pinned them above her head. With one hand, he held them there, while the other crushed her jaw between his fingers.
“I need you to listen to me,” he growled, looking her directly in the eye. “Do not move. Do not make a fucking sound. Any other night you can do what you want but tonight, if we do this, you are a fuck doll. Got it?”
She bit her swollen lower lip and nodded eagerly.
“Open,” he said.
She opened her mouth for him and he spat into it.
“Swallow,” he hissed.
She closed her mouth around his saliva and swallowed it obediently.
“Good. Now hold still.”
She preened, eyes rolling back into her head and lips dropping open.
Noah relaxed, finally feeling in control for the first time that evening since running into you. He folded Madison’s legs up over her, found purchase on the backs of her thighs, and began his descent into his lowest and most carnal self.
Madison, to her credit, didn’t make a sound. She didn’t move. She braced herself against her headboard and held her position like a dutiful fuck doll.
Noah didn’t make a habit of treating women like objects, and he didn’t like that he was doing it right then. In many ways, he was disgusted with himself, but tried his best to get over it, telling himself the ends justified the means.
He threw his head back and breathed deep, the heavy musty smell of sex permeating through the air, but Noah didn’t care much about that. He pistoned his hips into her, squeezing his eyes shut tight, wishing he was anywhere and anyone else but the depraved man he knew himself to be.
Wanting to feel at least a little better about what he was doing, he took a thumb and rubbed quick circles into Madison’s clit to reward her for letting him use her body like this.
She whimpered. He didn’t care enough to tell her to shut up again. Any sounds from her were just white noise.
God, Noah hated himself. Hated how absolutely weak he was, submitting to his body without even trying to put up a fight.
He never stood a chance, though. How did you do it?
He sighed and picked up his pace, reveling in the tight warmth of cunt.
Had your roles been reversed the other week? Had it been you on your knees in front of him, practically begging him to give himself over to you, he would have done it without question. Had you given him any hint of desire—had you given him even an inch, he would have taken the whole fucking mile and he would have doubled back just to do it again. What made you so much more capable of resisting?
Madison pulsed around him, and when something splashed against his abdomen with each thrust, he realized Madison had released onto him. She did that sometimes. Whatever. He was used to it. He kept going.
He thought of you masturbating. He thought of you thinking of him while you touched yourself, your fingers slipping beneath the waistband of your white panties, whining his name while you made a mess of your bedsheets. He thought of you thinking of him tying you down and forcing you, and he could almost cry, he was so hard.
He tried not to think about the fact that he was fucking someone. He wasn’t really. He was using a body to masturbate because he knew it would give him a bigger release than he could get with just his hand.
And fuck, did he need release. He needed control. He needed to defile something beautiful and make it as ugly as he was inside.
Recognizing he wasn’t going to get what he needed in this position, he pulled out, flipped the girl over easily, and pushed back into her with a hard smack to the soft flesh of her ass.
She yelped, but made no other sound, and that was enough for him.
He thought of you coming undone beneath him. Of you weeping with the release of years of pent-up sexual energy. Of your makeup smearing down your face as you cried his name out to the heavens like a prayer for salvation.
He fucked Madison at a punishing pace. She arched her back and whipped her hair around to look over her shoulder at him, and as soon as he noticed, he stared at a random spot about two-thirds of the way up her wall.
Madison gave a choked, strangled sort of sob before everything grew more wet and her pussy began to flutter around him.
Noah would have to finish soon. Madison always got overstimulated if she was forced to keep going.
He gave a low, guttural growl and picked up his pace, needing to get as much energy out of himself as fast as he possibly could. The headboard slammed into the wall over and over, the bed creaked beneath him. Madison was a sobbing, sputtering mess as she tried desperately to keep still and silent for him.
“Just a little more,” he muttered angrily under his breath, picturing you on the brink of orgasm, body tensed up as you began to tip over the edge. “Come on.”
He dug his hands into Madison’s hips, slamming his body into hers and using his full strength to get as deep into her as he possibly could.
His lower abdomen tightened and his balls pulled up with the tell-tale sign of impending climax. He wrenched himself away from her, ripped off the condom, and gave himself a few quick strokes before he spilled himself onto her trembling body. Then he collapsed onto the bed, half on top of her, and curled himself around one of her pillows.
“I’m sorry,” he said, emotions washing over him like a tidal wave. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Madison said, cradling his trembling body into hers. “Noah, that was amazing. Don’t be sorry.”
Noah shook his head, throat closing in as he struggled to breathe. “I have to go.”
“What? Noah, don’t be ridiculous. It’s late. Just stay.” She said—his cum dripping down her shoulder and back as she sat up to look at him.
But Noah was already up, scrambling to pull up his jeans and find the shirt he’d thrown somewhere in his lust.
He all but ran out of the room, down the stairs, and out the front door. He ran the several blocks it took to get to his house. He slowed down momentarily as he entered through the front door and past the main living space, but it was only to fend off questions from his roommates.
Once in the safety of his room, he collapsed to the floor, crawled to his bed, and knelt.
“I…,” he began, whispering into his clasped palms. And then he blanked. Because he didn’t know who he was praying to, or what for. All he knew was that he was praying.
“I’m sorry,” he eventually settled on. And that’s all he could find to say for the moment. It wasn’t enough. Taglist: @reyadawn @sundamariis @noahsebastions @cyber-tiny @livingdeceasedgirl @just-randomm-stuff @xxkittenkissesxx @treacheryinblue @flowerynerds @1toreyouapart @badomensls @rain-down-on-me @poisongirl616 Let me know if I missed anyone!
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