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scuttling · 20 days ago

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Happy Accidents

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 6,300 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Art, Neighbor Hotch, Shy and Oblivious Hotch, Flirting, It's soo sappy I'm sorry, Oral sex, Unprotected sex Summary: Aaron's new neighbor is out of his league for so many reasons: she's young, beautiful, artistic, unique, free-spirited, the kind of person who turns heads when she walks down the street. It's no wonder he ends up falling in love with her. *Requested by anon Link to A03 or read below! Against all of his better judgement, Aaron is kind of creeping on his new next door neighbor.

He is absolutely the type of man, any other time, to approach a woman he’s interested in and introduce himself, look for a way to connect, some common ground, but this is no ordinary woman.

She is out of his league in so many ways: young, beautiful, unique, free-spirited, the type of person who turns heads when she walks down the street. There’s not a chance in hell she would look twice at an old, stuffy, monotone suit with a seven year old son and perpetual bags under his eyes. That’s not him feeling bad about himself, it’s just the way the world works.

The first time he saw her, she was getting on the elevator while he was getting off of it, and they’d bumped into each other; she was wearing a short, flowy dress, and she’d smiled at him, apologized, eyes sparkling, smelling like she’d spent all day in the sunshine. It was the only time since Haley he’d ever entertained the idea of love at first sight.

She keeps to herself most of the time, gives off the air of being really cool and mysterious; their paths have crossed a few times since then—at the bank of mailboxes downstairs, in the hallway they share, once during a false alarm fire alarm—but he enjoys watching her paint more than anything.

They have balconies next to each other, and one night when he was tending to his herb garden—Jack enjoys watching the plants grow, and picking the herbs, Aaron likes to eat them—he spotted her standing on hers, facing away from him, in cut off jean shorts and a baggy t-shirt, barefoot. She’d been painting the city, the sky, with the sunset glowing behind her like she was the work of art, and he actually felt an ache in his chest, the feeling of missing someone he’s never really met.

Since that night, he’s started taking his work outside in the evenings after Jack goes to bed, and sitting in near silence while she paints, hums—sometimes songs he knows, sometimes songs he doesn’t. The first time he goes out before she does, she says hello when she drags her easel out, so he starts to say hello to her when she beats him there, too, but that’s pretty much the extent of their interaction. One evening when Aaron and Jack are getting home from dinner, she is lugging a canvas bigger than she is through the hallway and Jack almost runs headfirst into it; when he looks up, he exclaims about how big it is, and pretty—it’s covered with colors, something abstract and cheerful, and even if he’d seen it on the side of the road, he would have just known that she painted it. (That may be a good indicator that he’s getting in a little too deep.)

“Wow, that’s the biggest painting I’ve ever seen! And so many colors,” Jack says, awed. Aaron puts his hands on his shoulders to keep him out of her way; they’re already bothering her enough, when she’s clearly trying to get that giant thing home.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I carry bigger pieces around at my studio, believe it or not,” she says to him, poking her head around the side to look at him.

“You have a studio?” His eyes are wide with interest; his favorite subject has always been art, as evidenced by their refrigerator, which is covered in drawings. She offers him an even brighter smile.

“I do! It’s not far from here; it’s called Live in Color. There’s a big rainbow painted on the side.”

“That’s so cool; it must be awesome to have your own studio.” Aaron loves that Jack seems to be so passionate about this, but the way they are obviously holding her up has him feeling awkward; he tugs gently on Jack’s backpack.

“That is really cool, bud, but we should let her go. I’m sure that’s heavy.” She smiles, shrugs.

“It’s no trouble. Hey, actually, we have some children’s art classes at the studio, and you look like you’d fit right in with the Green group—ages 7-9?” She looks up at Aaron, who nods. “Maybe we can talk dad into bringing you down sometime. We do painting, drawing, and crafts, it’s really fun.” She’s still looking right at Aaron, gives him a little wink, and he swears to god he gets butterflies in his stomach.

He’s a grown man. A federal agent. With butterflies. It’s insane.

“Oh man, dad, please? Can I take classes at her studio pleeease?” Jack tugs on the sleeve of his suit, and he nods, smiles down at him.

“Yeah, absolutely, Jack. We’ll go down and get more information tomorrow?” he offers, to both placate him and finally free the poor girl from the conversation; he nods excitedly, and she smiles, looks sweet, genuinely happy Jack is so excited to take the class.

“Cool, I look forward to seeing you guys there. Actually, if you give me one sec, I can grab my card for you.” She passes them, carrying the canvas and looking effortless while she does it; she props it up against the wall to get her keys out, unlocks her door and heads in, pops back out with a business card in a vivid watercolor yellow. “It has the address and phone number for the studio on the front, and I put my cell on the back; I figured it couldn’t hurt, considering we live next door to each other. Now you know who to call if you ever have an art emergency.”

He takes the card from her fingers, flips it over just to see the handwritten name and number; he knew her script would be lovely, and it is, easy and flowing and natural. It suits her. He tries not to grin, or flush, or otherwise be awkward about the fact that she just gave him her phone number, however innocently.

“Thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow.” They turn to head for their apartment, and she clears her throat; he smiles a little, turns back, and she’s leaning casually up against the canvas with her arms crossed.

“You know my name now. What’s yours?” She’s just being polite, but he gets the goddamn butterflies again.

“Aaron.” She smiles, something beautiful and a little wild.

“Okay, Aaron. See you outside.” From then on, most of their free time, be it evenings or weekends, is spent at the studio. Aaron isn’t the only parent who sticks around—it’s an art class, not a daycare, he doesn’t feel right just dropping Jack off and leaving him there—and he’s also not the only parent, it seems, who is aware of his beautiful young neighbor.

“She’s incredible, right?” another dad says to him one evening, over by the coffee. Aaron looks him over briefly—it’s a job hazard, he sizes up everyone, but he already has a weird feeling about this guy. “I’ve been bringing my kid here for a month just to look at that little ass running around. My wife just thinks our daughter is just really into art.” He says it with a laugh, like that’s a ridiculous concept. Aaron feels himself start to boil.

“You shouldn’t be disrespectful. She’s doing a great thing here, for the children; she’s not doing it for you to ogle her.” He feels a little hypocritical, because he is also looking, but not like this guy. He knows guys like this. He puts away guys like this.

He glances over at Aaron, looking a little taken aback that someone actually commented on his behavior, then rolls his eyes.

“She doesn’t need you to defend her honor, buddy. She wouldn’t run around here in those overalls if she didn’t want us looking. It’s job security.” She’s wearing the overalls tonight, denim shorts with one of the straps unhooked, a t-shirt underneath, but it’s not as if she’s performing a striptease. She just looks like an artist, covered in drips of paint, smiling as she looks at the kids’ pictures over their shoulders. Aaron really, really hates this guy.

“In my experience, women usually dress for themselves; they probably have pockets, easier to keep things at hand that she may need, and it’s warm in here, so she’s likely dressing for comfort. She’s certainly not dressing for you.”

As if she can sense the tension, she looks over at them, flicks her eyes over Aaron, then the other guy, and walks over with a soft smile on her face.

“Hey, Aaron, Jack really wanted you to see what he’s working on.” She reaches out a hand, wraps it around his wrist and guides him over to Jack’s table. “I figured I’d save you,” she says when they’re out of earshot. “That guy sucks. He’s always saying creepy things to me and Alaina.”

“You should ask him to leave if he makes you uncomfortable,” he says, looking down at her with worry. “I can do it.” She shrugs.

“I would, but his daughter really does enjoy the class, and it’s not fair to her that her dad’s disgusting. It’s nothing we can’t handle.” She squeezes his wrist lightly. “Thanks, though. Hey Jack, show dad your project.” He peers over his shoulder, and it’s a pink and orange skyline, much like the one he saw her painting that first time on the balcony. “I asked the kids to paint my favorite thing today, and that’s sunset.”

“I saw you painting this one night,” he says, and then he feels abruptly like an idiot. She just smiles at him though, nods.

“Yeah, I’m a sucker for a beautiful sunset. It makes you feel like, just because the day ends, it doesn’t have to mean things are over; it’s just one of life’s beautiful natural transitions. And the colors are to die for: peach, coral, jasmine, rose, tiger’s eye.” He finds himself unexpectedly touched by her description, smiles softly to shake himself of the emotions.

“The way you see the world is extraordinary. To me it’s just kind of… orange.” She returns his expression, but softer, and squeezes his wrist again; he didn’t even realize she was still holding it.

“Sounds like you need some art in your heart. I give lessons for adults, too; you could even come over and paint with me on my balcony, some time. Special neighbor privileges.”

The thought of being with her on her balcony while she paints is almost overwhelming, which he finds funny, considering he currently sits no more than twenty feet away. There is an intimacy about it, while they both do their work in the cool, quiet breeze, but standing like this, close enough to touch, with the late day sun on her face while she talks about colors… he’s not sure he could handle it without falling in love.

She pats him on the back, moves on to another child, and he tells Jack what a great job he’s doing; his face is lit up, so happy, and regardless of the neighbor, he’s glad they stumbled upon this hobby.

When they pack up to leave, the jerk from earlier comes up to him, leans in to speak in a hushed voice. “You should have just told me you were fucking her. I would have backed off.” He blinks, but the guy and his daughter are walking out the door before he finds himself able to do more than that. About a week later, he goes over for that lesson almost by accident. Jack is at Jessica’s for the night at his request, and Aaron was planning to order takeout and have a paperwork cramming session, but when goes out onto the balcony, phone in hand to place an order, his neighbor is standing on hers like she’s waiting for him.

“Hey. I saw you don’t have Jack; I made some pasta with vodka sauce, if you’re hungry. I always prepare too much.” He sets his phone on the table, walks over to the railing to get a little closer.

“Uh. Sure. I have fresh basil growing here; trade?” She smiles, nods.

“Yeah, sounds delicious. I’ll be right back.” She ducks inside, returns a few moments later with two dishes of steaming, saucy pasta, sets one down on her table and gets right up against her railing, hands the other over to him across his. “That one’s for you,” she says, handing him an orange plate, and he sets it down, picks a few good looking leaves from his basil plant and tears them up, drops them on top. “And this one’s for me.” She reaches, holds a green plate over the gap between their porches, and he adds some basil to it before she pulls it back, takes a deep sniff. “God, it smells so good and fresh. Thank you, Aaron.”

“Thank you, it looks great.” He goes to sit at his table with it, but she scoots her chair closer to the railing, closer to his balcony, so he does the same. They make easy small talk while they eat, mostly about Jack, a little about her studio and his work.

“FBI, huh? I can definitely see that, with your suits, and your… neutrals.” She cringes when she says it, and it makes him laugh.

“I’m sorry I can’t wear paint covered overalls to the office,” he teases, and she shoots him a playfully affronted look, grins.

“You love my paint covered overalls—and for the record, you’d look great in them. You should find a pair. Preferably not black.” He flushes a little at that, but she doesn’t notice, just finishes up her pasta with a sigh of contentment. “That was so good, thanks again for the basil.”

“You’re welcome; thanks for feeding me something other than the takeout I planned to have.” He stands up, gestures to his apartment. “I’ll wash the plate and then hand it back over.”

“Why don’t you just bring it over and come paint with me for a little while? If you want,” she tacks on, and for the first time she seems a little nervous. “I’m not trying to be pushy, I just think it would be fun.”

It’s not that he doesn’t want to; it would be amazing to watch her paint up close and personal. He’s just also afraid he’ll pass the point of no return if he does it, and he can’t handle any more heartache. He only very recently got to a place where just waking up in the morning no longer causes him agony.

It’s the look on her face, though, soft and sweet and open, that makes his decision for him.

“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.” She grins.

“I’ll unlock the door.”

She’s dragging out her easel when he walks through the door; her apartment is stark white walls with vibrant furniture, artwork, canvases propped up against every bare spot along the wall, paints and brushes and charcoal and pencils on every surface. It’s exactly what he would have expected, warm and lived-in and comforting, very unlike the mostly black and gray interior of his own apartment. She smiles when she sees him.

“Hey! Can you grab that tray of paint on your way out?” she asks, and he picks up what looks kind of like an ice cube tray filled with many different colors, carries it out to the balcony with him. She has a canvas propped up, a little larger than a computer monitor, and she’s gotten started, but he can’t tell what it’s going to be just yet. When he hands her the paint she looks down at it, peers around the edge of the canvas like she’s comparing something. He’s so intrigued, curious about the way her mind works, what she’s thinking.

“What are you painting?” he asks when she picks up a brush, sets it down, picks up another. She smiles at him.

“Well, we’re painting that.” She points to the street, where there’s a rusty, pale blue antique car parked—he says that loosely, because it looks broken down—in the alley. Aaron chuckles softly.

“We’re going to paint that? It’s a little… grim.”

“Yes. It’s part of a series I just decided to create: ‘Beauty in the Ordinary.’” She sighs, and he’s surprised to see that her eyes are a little wet. She wipes the back of her hand over her eyes. “You know Bob Ross, right? Everyone knows Bob Ross.” He nods.

“Yes; the guy who paints the happy trees on PBS.”

“Right. I used to watch him growing up, and I vividly remember something he said once, about needing both darkness and light in life and in painting. ‘You have to have a little sadness once in a while to know when the good times come. I’m waiting on the good times now.’” She sniffles, exhales softly. “I’m waiting on the good times too. Sometimes looking at things like this car, and forcing myself to find something beautiful in it, is the easiest way to get through the day. Does that make sense?” He swallows hard when she looks up at him, because aside from Jack, she has been the lightest part of his life since the first time they passed each other on the elevator.

“Yeah, it really does.” She shoots him a soft, slightly sadder smile, and then explains about the paints a little, shows him the difference in the brushes, lets him feel the weight of them, the textures of the bristles.

She starts painting the car—the background is mostly finished—and he’s more than happy to watch, to hear her talk about her process. She asks if she can use his forearm to mix paints, and he turns it over, wrist up, tries not to smile too hard when she puts some dark blue on him, then white, mixing them and then comparing them to the car on the street. He looks down at her, the concentration on her face, the softness in her eyes, and is met with the sudden desire to brush a line of paint over her nose and make her laugh and kiss her breathless.

“Okay, your turn,” she says when she’s about halfway done with the car. She puts her hands on the backs of his arms, pulls him in front of the canvas so she’s between him and the railing. “You’ve been watching me, so you know what to do.” He has been watching her, but not necessarily for her technique, so he’s a little nervous; he dips the brush in the blue paint but hesitates to make a stroke. “I have faith in you, Aaron. Here.”

She wraps her fingers around his hand, guides him toward the canvas, and together they make a wide, curved line, rounding out the bumper. It doesn’t look half bad.

“It gets easier once you understand the relationship between specific paint, specific brushes, and your hands,” she says softly, and she helps him paint another line. “Are you having fun? You look stressed,” she teases, and he makes it a point to relax his face.

“I’m having a lot of fun,” he says, looking down at her; they make eye contact for a long moment, and she leans a little closer, and he leans a little closer, and then he accidentally dabs a blob of blue onto the canvas. He pulls back, grimaces, deflates. “I made a mistake. You can’t erase paint, right?” She laughs softly, takes the brush from his hand.

“No, you can’t erase paint, but as Mr. Ross would say, ‘There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.’” She gets her fingers close to the tip of the brush, makes a few quick movements, then grabs another brush, dips it in green. When she pulls back, there is a little blue flower growing out of a patch of grass where his blob used to be. He exhales, a little amazed.

“If only the mistakes we make in life were that easy to fix,” he says, and she nods.

“Yeah, that would be nice, but a lot of the time we find a way to turn them into beautiful things eventually. Are you willing to give it another shot?” He says yes, and she guides his hand for a while, then just hovers near it, then just instructs him on what to do. It’s dark before their painting is finished, and she carries it inside to dry, then takes him to the kitchen sink to scrub the paint off of his arm.

“Thanks for having me over; I had a really good time,” he murmurs as she dries his clean skin. She looks up, smiles softly, nods her head.

“I had a really good time too. I’m glad you came over; you’re welcome to join me any time.”

He says goodbye, heads home, looks at his stack of work with a groan, and brews a pot of coffee. He’s in for a long night, but he wouldn’t change his evening for anything. Life is much the same for the next few weeks: school and work, Jack’s art class at the studio a couple times a week, painting on the balcony on the weekend, with and without Jack. When Jack joins them for the first time, she pulls out a big box of markers and thick sheets of paper and he draws elaborate scenes while they talk and paint together. When Aaron makes mistakes, she’s never upset, just turns them into perfect little details that end up being his favorite parts of the paintings.

“What ever happened with your ‘Beauty in the Ordinary’ series?” he asks one evening while they’re painting some ocean waves. “Did I cause you enough trouble with the car to give up?” She looks down at the ground, looks a little shy, then shakes her head and smiles.

“No, you didn’t make me want to give up. I’ve been working on it at the studio. You’ll see it when it’s all done, I plan to hang them there.”

“Looking forward to it,” he tells her, and then Jack tugs on her shorts, shows them the picture he drew of the ocean, too.

Later that week, the team takes a case, and on the day he’s set to come home, Jessica drops Jack off at the studio with the plan that Aaron will pick him up when his flight lands. Due to some weather between where the team is and home, they get a little delayed; he doesn’t want to make Jessica head back out that way almost immediately after dropping him off, but he’s not sure who else he could ask to pick Jack up. It’s almost a stupid length of time before it dawns on him to call the studio.

“Life in Color, this is Alaina.”

“Alaina, hi, this is Jack’s dad—” He has his whole spiel prepared, but she cuts him off.

“Oh, sure, hang on a sec, she’s right here. It’s Jack’s dad,” she says, but it sounds further away, like she’s trying to cover the receiver. After a moment, his neighbor picks up.

“Aaron, hi. Jack said you were working.”

“Yeah, I was, and I’m supposed to pick him up after class, but our flight was delayed.” He doesn’t know how to ask for help with Jack; even with all the time they’ve been spending together, she still makes him a little nervous. Luckily, he doesn’t have to figure that part out on his own.

“Hey, that’s no problem. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just take him home with me. I’ll order pizza, we’ll draw, and you can just stop by when you’re home and pick him up.” He breathes a sigh of relief, runs a hand over the back of his head.

“That would be perfect. Thank you—I’ll owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything. Hanging out with your mini me is reward enough; he’s painting something special for you today, won’t let me see it.” That makes him smile, and he feels so warm at the prospect of picking him up from her bright apartment, seeing his artwork, her smile. After a long, draining day like this one, it’s exactly what he needs.

“I’ll have to remain in suspense until tonight, I guess. Can you let him know I said hi? And thank you, I’ll see you later tonight.”

“Of course. We’ll see you then.”

It’s late, after nine, by the time he makes it home. He doesn’t even take his bags inside, just drops them outside his door and knocks softly on hers. She answers with a smile, ushers him in, asks him if he’d like a drink and gets them each a beer.

Jack is in her room, asleep, so they have a little time to chat; she asks about his flight, his case, and he asks about the studio, and she gets a little shy when it comes to that topic, clears her throat.

“Um. I have Jack’s secret project, if you want to see it. He said I could show you.” He’s not sure why that would make her nervous—at least, until he sees it.

The background is all watercolors, a gradient of rainbow colors starting with pink at the top and ending with a soft purple at the bottom. Over that, in black marker, he’s drawn the three of them, with a big heart around them.

“Tonight’s theme was the thing that makes you the happiest, and he said he’s the happiest when the three of us are on the balcony together. It was… really, really sweet.” She looks up at him, brushes a hand over the crown of her head. “If I’m being honest, that’s when I’m the happiest, too.” He takes the picture from her hands, runs his fingers over it, and smiles, feeling a warm ache in his chest—not like before, not like losing someone he’s never really met, but like finding something he never really planned on.

“That’s when I’m the happiest, too,” he agrees, and when he looks up, she looks determined, like she does when trying to find just the right shade of paint. She takes Jack’s picture out of his hand, sets it on the counter, and then pulls him down by the lapels of his suit, kisses him long and slow. His hands move to her waist, keeping her close, and eventually she pauses for breath, looks at him again, and then wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him some more.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the first time I saw you—tall and dark and serious, striding out of the elevator. So intriguing, mysterious,” she breathes when they separate again. “I wanted to know everything about you.”

“Are you kidding?” he asks, huffing a laugh. “I’m boring, but you are so vibrant, so full of life; I felt like you were everything I wasn’t, and I wanted to know you so badly.”

“You know me now; would you like to keep getting to know me?” It’s one of the easiest questions he’s ever been asked; he nods, and she beams, and he lifts her into his arms and carries her to the couch, drapes himself over her while she leans back against the cushions, pulling him closer.

They make out like neither of them have a care in the world—god, how long has it been since he’s made out with someone?—her fingers scraping through his hair, his hands on her bare waist when her shirt rides up, and she’s in the process of pushing his jacket off his shoulders when they hear a sound from the other room that startles them apart. Jack.

“I’ll go check on him,” Aaron says, and when he goes into her room Jack is still snuggled up on her bed sound asleep. It looks like some canvases fell over, though, and he stoops to pick them up, then spots the car they painted together. He turns and she’s right behind him, skids to a stop. “I thought you said these were at the studio?”

“They were,” she says, and she looks nervous again. “But I changed my mind about hanging them there. They felt too personal.” He runs his hand over the car and sees where she’s coming from; this one feels personal to him, too.

“Can I see the rest?” he asks. “Only if you want to show me them.”

“You’re the only one I want to show them to,” she says with a soft smile, and she grabs a few more canvases, carries them into the light of the living room. “Beauty in the ordinary, remember.” He remembers, could never forget.

She turns one over, and it’s a kitchen sink, and in the kitchen sink is an orange plate with a fork resting on it—like the plate she’d given him with the pasta on it. She turns one over and it’s a man’s hand, holding a paintbrush, with pale blue paint on his forearm. The next one is a little herb garden on a balcony; the next one is a view from above, of a sandy haired boy with markers all around him. The last one is an open elevator—ripe with possibilities.

When he looks up at her, she’s got tears in her eyes, and one slips down her cheek.

“So, I think I’ve found my good times.” She smiles through her tears, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses the salt from her lips. “I love you,” she says when he pulls back to wipe her face with his sleeve, and he kisses her softly, again and again, and tells her he loves her, too. The next weekend, Jack is at Jessica’s for a sleepover, and Aaron has been enlisted to help with an art project. He walks next door, knocks lightly, and enters the living room; he is met with a very deep, passionate kiss and a smile, and instructions to help move the furniture out of the way.

“I’m really curious what kind of art requires this much floor space,” he says, shoving her couch back against the wall, and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, a move he has been unable to resist since she did it the first time they had sex. She knows it’s a weakness, exploits it, and he loves every minute of it.

“You’ll see, but I promise you’re going to like it.” When they clear the floor, she grabs a large, rolled-up fabric canvas and lays it out in the middle of the room, then drops three bottles of paint—one is yellow (jasmine), one is orange (peach), and one is kind of pink (coral? He’s still not sure.)—onto it. “You can obviously say no if you want, but I wanted something over my bed with the sunset colors, and I found this…” She steps closer to him, runs her hands down his chest, guides him down for a kiss so delicious he loses his train of thought. “It’s sex art; we put the paint on the canvas, and on ourselves, and… you know, go at it. What do you think?”

He thinks he really, really loves art now, even more than he thought possible.

“So we have paint-covered sex and then you just hang it on the wall? Like regular art?”

“Yep, I got the supplies I’ll need to hang it; letting it dry will probably take the longest. I figured we could shower while it’s drying, maybe go for round two, if you’re up for it.” She moves her hand to his waist, slips it inside his shorts, and he pulls her closer to his body. “Are you up for it, Aaron?”

That is an understatement.

Undressing happens extremely fast, because this is really sexy and they’re kind of in a phase where they can’t keep their hands off of each other anyway. She pulls her hair up onto the top of her head to try to minimize the amount of paint in it, and then she pours paint on the canvas, turns around and drizzles some on his back and tells him to lay down.

“I think we should probably change positions often so we get a lot of motion on the canvas; I apologize to your old knees in advance,” she teases, but she soothes the sting of her words by pouring paint on herself and then laying between his legs and licking at his dick. “Do some stuff with your hands; I want to see those big handprints on my wall,” she murmurs, and he groans, puts his palms down in the paint and drags them through it.

She leans up a little, sliding her knees through some yellow paint, sucks him fully, deeply into her mouth for couple of minutes, and then stretches forward and puts an orange hand right in the middle of his chest; the look in her eyes is playful, and he reaches out with one finger, hooks it under her chin, and guides her off and up so they can kiss.

“Your turn,” he says with a smirk, and then he gets her onto her back and ducks between her legs, hopes she doesn’t grab for his hair like she usually does. He rubs his pointed tongue over her clit, waits for the mmm it always elicits, and looks up at her, covers each of her breasts with a paint-covered palm and squeezes. “Leave handprints for me,” he leans up and reminds her, kissing her stomach, and she plants her hands, then presses up and grabs his shoulder, smearing pink down his back. “Oh, you wanted more of that?”

“Don’t tease me, the paint will dry,” she whines, and he spreads her thighs wider with his elbows and licks her pussy quickly, until she’s squirming against the canvas and panting for more. “Come here, come here.”

He’s not ready for that, though, paint or not, wants her to come from this; he takes his hands off of her, dips them in the paint again and presses down, then puts his hands under her ass and brings her closer so he can fuck her with his tongue, quick and deep and slick.

“Aaron, Aaron, god.” She slides her hands down his arms, over his neck, digs her nails in when she comes moaning like music.

While she catches her breath, so gorgeous, she sticks her arms out like she’s making a snow angel, and he catches her while she’s off guard and turns her onto her stomach, puts his hands on the smears of paint he’s already left on her ass, and slides inside.

“Oh my god; I was trying to impress you with this sexy art project, but you’re rocking my world.” She’s breathless, pressing back into his thrusts and painting with her entire body. God, he loves her mind.

“You know I always take your projects very seriously,” he says, leaning forward to whisper in her ear, and she groans, laughs.

“Yes you do. From the side? Let’s lay diagonally.” They shift, and he hooks his chin over her shoulder, kisses her neck and huffs hot against her hair. “Hmm, love it like this,” she sighs, and she reaches back to press her hand to his hip, holding him while he moves inside her. “I love you.”

“Love you. I want you to finish on top of me,” he instructs with a wet kiss to her throat, and she nods against his lips.

“Yeah, next; I’m getting close.” A few more strokes and she gets up onto her knees, lets him lay back, propped up on his arms, and climbs on top of him; she kisses him slow and dirty and then runs her hands over him, sits back on his dick and glides up and down. “You wanna come like this too? I owe you a little world rocking,” she says with a flick of her tongue over his bottom lip, and he nods, squeezes her thigh.

“It’s the least you can do after making me move all the heavy furniture.” She rolls her eyes but kisses his chin, down his throat, and bounces harder on him, all delicious eye contact and moans. “Mmm. Just like that, baby, come for me.”

“Fuck. I will, I will.” She wraps a hand around the back of his neck, kisses him kind of rough and with lots of tongue, and then tips her head back and climaxes, clenches, wrings his orgasm out of him so quickly it’s almost jarring. “Oh, yes Aaron. So good,” she mumbles, and then he lays back, out of breath, and she slides out of his lap and lays beside him, out of breath too.

After a moment, she looks over at him, smiles, and swipes a pink fingertip over his cheek.

“This is the hottest thing I’ve ever done with anyone. I’m glad I got to do it with you.” He rolls on top of her, presses a kiss to her nose, and nods.

“Me too. You know,” he adds after a moment, “my bedroom could use some artwork, too.” She grins, wraps her arms around him and squeezes tight.

“You’re right; I think we should do yours in blue: liberty, that’s dark blue; periwinkle, that’s light blue; maybe steel gray, too.”

“You’re the expert. I’m just your paintbrush.” Her hands smooth up his back, and contentment washes over him like a warm breeze.

“Hmm. I like the sound of that. Want to get cleaned up?”

Cleaning up is almost as fun as making the mess, because they’re well and truly covered, and when the canvas dries, the sunset colors are almost as beautiful as the ones she used the first time he ever saw her paint. Taglist ❤️: @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner @heliotropehotch @angelhotchner @qtip-blog @gspenc

#reblogging because I was in my feelings about this one today 🤍#aaron hotchner #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfic

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scuttling · 22 days ago

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I like two kinds of men: dumb and sexy, or mean and sexy. But the dummy can be smart, and the meanie can be nice, as a treat.

#men #and my declining mental health 😅

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scuttling · 22 days ago

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I Can Handle Me A Dangerous Man - Ch 9

Fandom: True Blood (TV) Pairings: Eric Northman/Female Reader or Eric Northman/OFC Word Count: 6,836 Tags: 18+, NSFW, D/s, Sexy blood drinking, hand job, dream sex, more stupid feelings

Masterlist

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Cam glances up at bartender Darren and shrugs.

“You can ask. I may not answer,” she tells him with the ghost of a smile she doesn’t really feel. It’s been a week since her conversation with Eric, and since then their interactions have been stilted and tense. She tries not to let it get to her, continues to do the things he asks to the best of her abilities. Tries to tell herself that having the temptation taken away has been good for her, helped her clear her head.

“Okay, no offense,” he says, his blue eyes sparkling as he grins. He gives off ‘good guy’ vibes most of the time, and his thoughts are usually harmless, but nothing good ever comes from the phrase no offense. “But what do you actually do here?”

She blinks at the question, understands that, to anyone other than Eric and Pam and Chow, that is a very valid question. She’s just not exactly sure how she’s supposed to answer it. Full-time legal counsel? Club wing-woman?

“What do you think I do?” she asks, turning it back on him. She stirs the toothpick in her glass, then takes a sip around it and offers him a more genuine smile. “I’ll tell you if you’re right or wrong.”

He looks down at his hands at that, licks his lips, then glances back up looking almost apprehensive—like he’s about to say something he knows he shouldn’t.

“Honestly, from what I see… you hang around the bar looking hot, drink for free, and flirt with the boss.”

The implication of that should probably upset her, but she coughs a laugh instead. Of course, that’s exactly what it would look like to anyone without the finer details of her distinctive gift—and some of the time, when her talents aren’t needed for anything in particular, that is basically all she does.

“Then there was that business deal…” he adds, and she feels her stomach drop a little. They’d gotten carried away that night, had never been quite so public with their undercover roleplay. Darren continues. “We were chatting here, and he called you away, and I–well, I watched you,” he says, but this time he makes eye contact with her. “And I was wondering if you’d let any coworker fondle you, or just the one in charge.”

Cam swallows, her heart racing, and abruptly gets to her feet.

“I need to go,” she says dumbly, and though she’d normally tip him—for her free fucking drinks—she is feeling anything but generous. She’s ashamed for some reason she can’t explain, because she’s not a prude and would typically just tell a man to fuck off if he made that kind of statement about her sexual decisions. Maybe it’s because he is technically a coworker, or now, kind of a creep… or because she does feel cheap sometimes, taking every opportunity she can to pull Eric close to her and let him make her feel good.

And speaking of Eric—he appears beside her in a flash, with a strained expression on his face, like he’s holding himself back from something.

“You, stay,” he says gently, peering down at her and putting his hand on her shoulder, and then his eyes move to Darren, thunderous. “You, go. And do not let me see you here again.”

Darren plasters that ‘good guy’ look onto his face, like he’s going to try to talk his way out of this one somehow, pretend he didn’t say what he said. “Seriously? We were just talking,” he adds, feigning ignorance, and Eric makes a fist with his free hand and slams it on the bar top, hard enough to split a crack down the counter. Darren—and several other patrons around them—jumps and draws in a breath, surprised by the display of strength.

“Get the fuck out of my bar,” Eric replies, voice low and dangerous. The man quickly loses his attitude, grabs his jacket from behind the bar, and makes his way out the front door while the previously surprised patrons watch Eric in awe. They got their money’s worth tonight, Cam thinks absently, and then Eric glances down at her in concern. “Come back to the office with me?” he asks cautiously, and it’s strange how different it all feels. It's like seeing someone on the street who used to be your closest friend and barely recognizing them.

She nods, and he lets her lead, which, again, is unusual for them. She should be used to this by now, the way the script changes every time one of them decides the waters of their relationship are getting a little too muddied, but still it feels off.

When they enter the office, he closes the door behind them and walks over, to lean against the desk. His arms are crossed, but he looks… open, curious, and a little hesitant.

“I didn’t hear what he said; I only know that it upset you,” he says as a way of starting a dialogue. She shrugs and moves closer to him, then drops into the chair she usually occupies.

“It was nothing,” she tries, but he can see right through that, of course. He could feel how Darren’s proposition affected her whether she admits to it or not. She sighs, hates that he’s actually going to make her say it. “You won’t like it.”

“If something upsets you, I already don’t like it,” he says, frowning, and then he reaches out like he’s going to touch her; he changes his mind at the last moment, places his palm face down on the desk.

“He asked me what I actually do here besides drink for free and flirt with you,” she begins, and he tenses up at that, his fingers flexing on the table top, “and then he asked if I’d let him fondle me, or if that kind of thing is reserved for the boss.” She meets his eyes, acknowledges that it’s a touchy subject, for lack of a better word; his expression is unreadable.

“It’s not too late to kill him; I do have his address,” he reminds her, and she huffs a laugh, appreciates his attempt at lightening the mood. Being alone with him has already made her anxiety practically non-existent.

“No need to go to extremes,” she quips, and that brings a half-smile to his face. Carefully, slowly, he turns his palm over on the desk—and because she wants to, and he wants her to, she rests her hand on top of his. He curls his fingers around hers, looking suddenly serious.

“You know you’re intelligent, capable, that you have a remarkable extra sensory perception. You are more significant than he will ever know.” The words sit heavily between them, in the silence of the office, and after a few moments he pulls his hand away, stands up to shift gears. “I have a job for you, if you’re interested in hearing about it.”

“Of course,” she says as he walks around the desk to take his seat. Back to it, then.

“I’d like to bring you to another vampire’s lair, to a party there. There will be several sheriffs from the region, along with their companions, and one of them is suspected of committing a crime in Arkansas. I’m hoping you can help me figure out who that is.”

“Okay. How will this differ from other situations we’ve been in? How should I behave?” After the last meeting, where she let herself get carried away, she needs to ensure she’s on steady ground, that she knows what she’s getting into.

“This gathering is more political than others you’ve attended. These particular vampires are fond of their companions, but they are not in love with or devoted to them like Melanie and her friends. They will be drinking from their companions, or asking their companions to drink from them, as a sign of power and loyalty. The humans are willing, but it’s unlike the situations we’ve been in before, so I wanted to give you some warning in case you’d like to change your mind.”

“Will you be drinking from me?” she has to ask, because that hasn’t actually happened yet, and she’s not so sure she’d want it to in this kind of setting. Eric shakes his head.

“If I need to, I’ll have you drink from me. They won’t question it—sharing my blood is a deeper sign of attachment than simply showing them you offer yours.” He looks oddly serious as he says it, then clears his throat as if it will clear his mind as well. “If you’re uncomfortable with that possibility…”

“No, I’m not uncomfortable,” she tells him honestly. There hasn’t been the need yet for her to drink from him for any prolonged period of time, but it’s not something she’s unwilling to do. “I appreciate the heads up. When do we go?” Two nights later, after an hour-long drive, Eric and Cam walk into the swanky apartment, Cam’s arm wrapped around his. She is covered up tonight, at his recommendation—nude turtleneck, black pants, her hair falling in waves—as much to suppress his own temptation as the other vampires around them. He can’t lose his head, fall prey to bitterness if someone looks at her and he can’t lay his claim the way he wants to: the way he did during the business deal that put things into perspective for both of them.

He takes too much from her, puts her in situations where desires and cravings can overwhelm one’s logical mind—something he’s clearly not immune to himself, when it comes to her. He’s already toeing the line by having her drink from him, because the first time she tasted him, on her knees for him, he wanted to consume her, take her, his thirst for her extreme. This time, he is wiser, and better prepared.

“You should remain out here with the rest of the party, until I send someone to fetch you; the first part of our meeting will be closed-door, sheriffs only, with no exceptions,” he tells Cam after getting her a drink from the bar. She nods and takes a sip of the lime soda through a thin black straw.

“Okay. I’ll be right out here, doing my thing,” she adds with a tap of her ear, to indicate her additional sense. He leaves her with the rowdy, dancing crowd and heads to the back room to get the blander portion of their meeting out of the way. After about half an hour, Cam is taken to the back room, brought through a heavy velvet curtain. The room is dark, with navy-painted walls and heavy drapery, baskets full of vines hanging around the room; a dozen or so candles are lit, towering in brass stands, providing dim light, and incense like smoky sandalwood fills the air. All around her, vampires sit with their companions—in their laps, at their feet—in various stages of bloodletting, and she tries to commit their faces to memory. To her left, Eric is leaning back in a chair, his knees spread, jacket off, arms strong and rippling where the straps of his tank top end.

“She is with me,” he says to the room at large, around his fangs, and when no one responds or makes a move she steps toward him, stops to stand just between his open legs. He looks up at her, skims his eyes over her body, flicks them over her face, and then brings his wrist to his mouth and easily tears open the skin.

She takes a step back, certain he wants her to drink but unsure how he wants her to do it, and then he extends his arm over the side of the chair, his posture unbothered and casual, almost bored.

Something about that pose sends a thrill through her, as puzzling as that may be, and she swallows hard and waits patiently for his command. She hopes her heart isn’t beating abnormally fast, that the other vampires won’t find her strange for being so captivated.

“Drink,” Eric finally says, looking pointedly away from her, and she gets down on her knees beside him, hands wrapped around his forearm to hold it steady, and does as he says.

This makes it very hard for her to focus on the other companions; even though they are all either drinking blood or having their throats sucked, their thoughts are prevalent as ever, jumping from one track to another as humans do. She admires their ability to multitask, the way they can consider things as mundane as a doctor’s appointment or a trip to the mall while at the mercy of their vampires, whoever they may be.

“We’re leaving for Texarkana tomorrow,” one man says. It’s the vampire with the cowboy hat, his southern drawl unmistakable, the spurs on his boots shiny and silver in the dim light. “Just to visit some old friends of mine before we head back to El Dorado. I’m glad we could make this work on such short notice.”

I’m going to be sweating balls in Texarkana, his companion thinks, a blonde girl who is as much a buckle bunny as Cam’s ever seen, her hair high to the sky even as she licks at his neck.

“Oh, I should join you,” another vampire says, this one female, her voice lilting. She is ethereally pale, with long, white-blonde hair, and her mouth is red where she has been drinking the blood of a young man perched on the arm of her chair. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in your great state.”

Lying bitch, her companion thinks, though he sits unmoving and expressionless, shirtless and bloody. We were just in El Dorado last weekend. Boring as hell, kept me locked up in that hotel room all night while she ran around doing whatever it is she does. Didn’t even touch my dick until Sunday…

Unsure how to signal Eric to the possible tip without pulling away from his wrist, she moves a hand to his thigh and squeezes, hoping like hell he’ll take the hint; he surprises her by taking his free hand and bringing it to hers to squeeze back.

“Really, Yasmin? I thought I caught wind that you were there not long ago.” His voice is unaffected, monotone, but it catches the pale blonde woman off guard.

“I’m not sure who would have told you that. It’s been so long since we left home that I’d almost forgotten what it was like outside of Florida,” she adds with an unconvincing laugh. Eric hums.

“I must have misheard,” he says, though everyone in the room knows exactly how unlikely that is. “Maybe I was talking to someone about the trouble in Brett’s district. What exactly happened there again?”

Brett must be the cowboy, because he responds in his twang, “new vampires being created to kill old vampires. Sick things,” he says, and Yasmin tuts unhappily.

“Horrible news. Do you have any suspects?”

“We’re pretty sure one of the vamps creating them is Leroy Wilson—you know Leroy, don’t you, Eric?” Brett asks.

“Megalomaniacal prick,” Eric says beside her, and Yasmin’s companion huffs a bitter laugh inside his head.

You don’t know the half of it. He always wants a threesome when we meet up with him, and he always makes me call him your majesty while I blow him.

Cam squeezes Eric’s thigh again, taps her fingers against him, and he uses the hand resting on top of hers to grab her wrist abruptly and pull her roughly to her feet.

She stands in front of him, lips wet with his blood, her heartbeat startled and erratic… and he reaches into the pocket of his pants to pull out a compact knife. It’s maybe four inches long when he unfolds it, the handle made of a white, iridescent material—something like bone?—and before she has a chance to consider what he might plan to do with it, he draws the blade against his own neck, letting blood well up there instead.

It captivates her, turns her on, that steady flow of crimson, and she swipes her tongue over her lips, catching Eric’s eye.

Cam understands his goal quickly after that, and she straddles him, sliding into his lap and moving her mouth to the slowly weeping cut. She licks at the blood, cards a hand slowly through his hair, and presses her lips against his ear.

“Leroy’s fucking Yasmin,” she whispers, low and quick, before moving her mouth back to the wound. She takes a few long pulls, makes a show of pressing up against him, then murmurs something she hopes looks like dirty talk: “Find out where she was last weekend.”

Slowly, languidly, she kisses down the line of his throat, back to the cut, trying to make their interaction feel more like a sensual feeding. It’s already clear to everyone in the room that their desire is real, it has to be, because she can feel it vibrating off of Eric and echoing inside her own body; it needs to look the part as well.

She quickly discovers that drinking from his throat is more intoxicating than drinking from his hands or wrists; she’s not sure if that’s because of the added sexual component, or if the flow of blood is stronger here, but it becomes harder for her to focus on the conversation, the cacophony of thoughts playing in the humans’ minds.

She never hears him ask about the weekend, but he must, because the next time she pulls back for a breath they are alone in the room, and Eric radiates the pride and satisfaction of a job well done.

Had he gotten Yasmin to confess already?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize everyone else was gone, or I would have stopped,” she says, feeling greedy and bashful. She must have had so much of his blood, to completely lose time like that.

“You don’t have to stop,” Eric says, his voice gravelly, and he runs his hands gently, adoringly up and down her throat. She feels so full of him, intoxicated but hyper-aware of the firmness of his thighs and his cock beneath her, his fingers on her skin.

“I’m taking too much,” she murmurs, and she knows she must look wild, his blood on her mouth, her chin. She feels wild, wonders if this is how the vampires feel when they start to feed—like no amount will ever be enough, like she is a bottomless pit that won’t be satisfied until she has taken every last drop. As if Eric can feel what she’s thinking, he squeezes her throat, leans in to kiss the red from her lips. His gaze is deep and soulful, penetrating, hungry.

“You can take it all.”

It’s all she needs to hear to dive in again, to suck at his open throat and pull mouthful after mouthful of him into her body. She won’t take it all, of course, probably couldn’t even if she tried, but the invitation is there just the same and she will drink until she can take no more.

Eric moans, shifts beneath her, and she has just enough presence of mind to reach down and fumble with the button of his pants, to drag his zipper down and feel him hard and thick under her hand.

She strokes him a couple of times, pleased that he’s finally letting her touch him—the velvet of his shaft, the smoothness of his head between her fingers. She groans against his neck, and he presses a broad palm to the back of her head and covers her hand with his, helping her bring him to orgasm as she drinks.

“Just like that,” he pants, pressing her mouth to his throat and jerking off with her hand. She feels hedonistic and unrestrained, insatiable, thrilled at the size of his cock as it pulses beneath her fingers. He has made her feel so good, so many times, and now she gets to make him come in her hand and she’s going to smell like him forever. “Fuck,” Eric grits, thrusting up into their combined grasp, and though she has no fangs she bites down hard as he climaxes, teeth sinking in like she has any right to claim him even though she’s only human and he is practically a god.

When she pulls away from his neck, they’re both shaking, alone in the room but so deeply entwined she has never felt more complete. She doesn’t get off, doesn’t need to, because the feel of his arms around her as he sighs his relief and the pulse of his blood in her veins is already everything she desires. She curls against him like a contented cat, warm and satisfied.

“Yasmin confessed, and Brett has offered me something I never expected—a seat on a board of Southern vampires I’ve been coveting for years,” he says, rubbing his hands up and down her back. She could fall asleep like this, heavy with his blood, comfortable in his arms, his voice a luxurious whisper in her ear. “Thank you, Camila. You really are remarkable.” The next day, Cam wakes early, before noon, though she feels so well-rested and revived it would be a crime to go back to bed and not own the day. She slips into a sports bra, running shorts, and a pair of Nikes—as cool an outfit as she can manage for such a hot day—and covers five miles faster than she had in college. When she finally stops for a swig of water, sweat pooling between her breasts and at the base of her neck, she’s surprised to look up and note that she’s standing in Fangtasia’s parking lot; she didn’t even realize her feet had been taking her that way.

She pauses for a moment, considering the implications of this, then turns back the way she came and trots up to a diner with a sign in the window promising pure maple syrup and applewood smoked bacon. She’s practically ravenous, feels so alive and vital, and hungry, that she abandons the thought of a cool shower and goes inside. Eric wakes with a startle, a throbbing ache in his groin, and when he reaches down to palm his cock it is hard and leaking, so tender to his touch he can’t help but moan aloud. He closes his eyes, thinks back to figure out if this is simply evening-morning wood or the result of a forgotten dream—and a familiar scent hits him, hot and potent, and so close his teeth ache.

Cam was nearby, not long ago, the scent of her sun-kissed skin syrupy sweet on his tongue. He closes his eyes and breathes it in, thinks of what it would have been like had she come inside and opened his coffin, saw him naked and wanting her; would she still have been able to resist, like she has all this time, or would she give in and finally let him feel her from the inside? A shiver runs through Cam that has nothing to do with the blasting air conditioning in the diner, and she closes her eyes on instinct, is instantly transported into a fantasy in which she’s found Eric in his coffin, his body nude, his cock hard. With nothing in the way, she thinks, it would be so easy to lean in and lick him, from his balls up to the tip where he’s shiny and red and wet, so she does, wrapping her fingers around the ornate wood of the casket and lathing him with her tongue. Almost as if he’d wished it into existence, he feels wet heat between his legs, the smooth, delicate brush of phantom lips along the head of his cock. He bucks up into the sensation, and though he’s left bereft for a moment the mouth of his dreams takes the head inside and suckles him, gentle, familiar fingers wrapping around the base to rub and tease.

“Camila,” he breathes, moving his own hand to his chest to somehow anchor himself back into his body, because there is no way this fantasy woman is anyone but her. She takes him more deeply, sucking hard, her hand jerking him off like it did last night, and he extends his neck and pants into his pillow, fucks up into her hand for more.

He can feel the vibrations of her throat as she moans around him, groans at the ache of her fingernails pressing against his thigh, and when he comes he can almost taste her again, her lips soft and firm, her kiss bitter, tasting faintly of him as well. Cam is brought back to reality when the waitress sets down a plate of pancakes and bacon, covered in syrup, with a loud clatter in front of her. Cam inhales, exhales, thanks the waitress who smiles down at her, looking mildly concerned, and takes another deep breath before diving into her breakfast. She’d planned to slowly savor it, but now she wants to move quickly, to get home and ease the tension that built up so swiftly between her legs. A few days—and a large package at her door—later, and Cam is accompanying Eric to another event; this one promises to be considerably more upscale, and to include little to no blood.

They didn’t speak about the night with the sheriffs, except for an enthusiastic retelling of the evening’s events to Pam and Chow—some of the events, anyway. Eric doesn’t mention how much blood Cam drank, that she drank any at all, in fact, and he certainly doesn’t bring up the hand job. She thinks Pam knows about the blood anyway, because she seems to take a special interest in her for the next couple of nights, filling in for Eric as her Fangtasia shadow and following her around as she scopes out relevant thoughts around the bar.

“So, what should I expect?” Cam asks from the passenger’s seat of a sleek and expensive silver sports car, Eric at the wheel. She’s wearing a floor-length black lace gown that was delivered by courier just before sunset, with a long slit that shows off her leg as well as the black, high-heeled sandals that wrap around her ankles. “I’ve never been to a vampire charity ball.”

“It’s the same as a human charity ball, I imagine,” Eric says, glancing over at her, though he should really keep his eyes on the road. “Although some of the auctioned items will be… unique.”

“Unique as in old?” she asks, imagining Viking weapons and lost Roman artwork and Ancient Egyptian tools. “Or illegal? Or supernatural?”

“Probably a combination of all three.” He takes a right turn, pulling into the driveway of a gigantic, sprawling estate that would put some castles to shame. “The kinds of people who come to these events have too much time, too much money, and, most importantly, connections. Some of them are power players in the business world, some are highly ranked military officials, politicians. They’re the reason we’re here.”

“And what will I be listening for?”

“Nothing in particular tonight. You’re just my companion,” he says, putting the car in park, and he looks over at her again, his gaze lingering over her bare shoulders. “Is that alright?”

After their last adventure, just being a companion sounds wonderfully simple, and she smiles at him and nods her head.

“Absolutely.”

Eric hands the keys off to the valet and they exit the car, Cam smoothing out the front of her dress as he closes her door behind her. She expects him to take her arm and loop it around his, like they usually do at events like this, but she is pleasantly surprised when he takes her hand in his instead.

She feels confident and beautiful as they enter, as they’re shown the way to the ballroom–-part of it is this dress, with its flattering sweetheart neckline and sexy sheer bodice, but part of it is the simple fact that she is with him. People’s heads literally turn when they walk by, when he walks by, looking so tall and tailored in his gray suit, black shirt. She gets it, she does, he’s sex and blood and power walking, the oldest person in the room by far, and his presence carries weight in a way that both comforts her and keeps her eternally on edge.

“You’re not the guest of honor or anything, are you?” she asks in a hushed tone as they walk by a young couple who are actually recording him on their phones. He pays them no mind, but he does laugh softly at her question, leans down to answer it.

“No, nothing like that. I’ve been invited to many of these but never accepted, so I think maybe there’s some thrill in that. Or they just want to get a good look at my gorgeous date,” he adds, tightening his grip on her hand, and though she rolls her eyes in return it’s a playful gesture, one that makes him laugh again.

The hosts of the event approach them warmly, introducing themselves to Cam and telling Eric they’re so happy he was finally able to join in the festivities. Both men look like they are in their thirties—she has no idea how old they actually are, but it’s an approximation of their features—and they’re handsome and kind to her, fetching her a martini, complimenting her hair and jewelry and shoes.

“We always knew that if Eric decided to come he would bring someone special, and just look at you, god,” the one named Anthony says, gesturing to… all of her. “You’re a vision. The two of you look like you should be walking a red carpet somewhere, not making small talk with this crowd, but we are so glad you’re here.”

“It’s our pleasure,” she responds, finding herself genuinely liking him and enjoying his company. “Eric chose my dress, so that’s a compliment to his good taste.”

“Oh absolutely. He knows what his lady looks best in—though honestly, you’ve got a killer body, and I bet you’d look good wearing a potato sack.”

“You would look good wearing a potato sack,” Eric comments, and she wraps her free hand around his arm and huffs a laugh at the unexpected compliment.

They speak to so many people that it’s a little stressful trying to keep their names straight. The vampires are certainly more striking, more memorable, but even they are difficult for her to put a name to from one introduction to the next. She knows she’s met CEOs, politicians, local celebrities, even foreign dignitaries, and that they’ve all seemed cautiously in awe of Eric—for that, she can’t blame them.

After a couple of martinis she loosens up a little, talking legal strategy with the head of council for an oil company, discussing vampire legislation when the topics arise. She also makes it her mission to speak exceptionally well of Eric, to pitch potentially lucrative partnerships and advertise his keen business sense. He pulls her closer when she does any of those things, gazes down at her, sometimes even stoops to kiss her gently on the lips, and though she knows those things are for their audience, she lets herself enjoy them anyway.

When the drinks catch up to her, she excuses herself to find the nearest ladies’ room; Eric offers to accompany her, but she declines and slips away so he can continue his conversation with a bank president near the bar.

She makes it less than ten steps before she is stopped by a hand on her arm.

“Pardon me,” a woman with a posh British accent says, her hand warm and gentle. She is beautifully dark skinned, practically glowing in a long white dress that is perfectly fitted to her figure. In the other hand, she holds a flute of champagne, and a diamond ring glitters under the light of the chandelier. She smiles kindly. “Forgive me, but I just had to say: your vampire is absolutely stunning. Just breathtaking. A truly swoon worthy specimen,” she adds with a mischievous raised brow. “Where can I find another like him?”

“Oh, there are no others like him,” Cam responds, and she glances across the room at Eric, standing tall and broad and beautiful near the bar, his head cocked ever so slightly in their direction. She doesn’t bother to explain that he’s not really her vampire, so far from it it drives her crazy some days, because she’s sure that would only further intrigue the woman in front of her.

“I don’t doubt that,” the woman says with a long, lingering stare and a sip of champagne. “If you feel like sharing him tonight,” she tacks on with an elegant smirk, “I’m staying in the Apollo Suite. I promise I’ll make it worth your time.”

With a kiss on the cheek, she releases Cam’s arm and glides away, and Cam inhales slowly, thrown off by the proposition and trying to remember what brought her to this side of the room in the first place.

She finds the ladies’ room eventually, and when she exits she is stopped again, by a couple in their sixties, overdressed even for this crowd, the woman glittering with expensive jewelry. The man looks over her body, eyes lingering on her breasts, and the woman grips his arm and flashes her a bright, artificial smile.

“You, my dear, are absolutely lovely. What a dress—I remember being as young as you are, though never quite as beautiful.”

“We heard your vampire is over a thousand years old,” the man cuts in before Cam can return a compliment, his voice slightly slurred. “So I suppose age doesn’t bother you.”

“I value experience and maturity,” she responds, looking beyond them, for Eric, so they’ll take the hint and let her pass. “Age is a very subjective thing.”

“Still,” the woman says, leaning closer, resting a hand on her forearm, “a thousand years is very impressive. I bet his blood is positively orgasmic.” She attempts a conspiratorial wink, and Cam connects the dots easily, feels anger coil tight in the pit of her stomach. “How much for a taste?”

“His blood is mine, and not for sale,” she states matter of factly, with more conviction than she’d intended. All traces of patience have seeped out of her tone, and she tugs her arm away. “So if you’ll excuse me.”

She steps past them, intent on the trajectory that will lead her most quickly to Eric, but the man grabs her by the shoulder, whipping her back around to face them.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks angrily, spit collecting at the corners of his mouth, and she prepares a fist to show him she does not care, but Eric is at her side in a second, his hand on the man’s outstretched arm. His expression is carefully blank, but she can feel him, can see behind his eyes that he is not afraid to display violence if he deems it necessary, no matter the venue or audience.

“Excuse us,” Eric says, removing the man’s hand from her arm; he covers her shoulder with his own hand, rubs it gently, and turns them away from the couple—not toward their hosts or more new faces, but the open-air balcony to their left.

As he closes the French doors behind them, effectively dampening the noise of the party, Cam leans her arms against the railing, looking down on the glittering courtyard below. She takes a few deep breaths to calm herself down, and a moment later, he steps up behind her; she can feel the cool line of his body through the lace of her dress.

“The audacity of the wealthy,” she tells him, willing her heart not to beat out of her chest at his proximity; you’d think she’d be used to it, by now, “will never cease to amaze me. They think they can have whatever they want, do whatever they want.” One of his hands smooths over her hair, tumbling in waves down her back, and he moves it out of the way, runs his fingertips over the spot where the man had grabbed her to regain her attention. It’s unmarked, not even sore, but he seems to trace the spot as if he knows exactly where she was disturbed and he intends to make it right.

Having his attention focused so specifically on her, even surrounded as they are by sparkling, shiny people whose connections could be far more useful to him than she is… it usually makes her feel dizzy, intoxicated, but tonight it just makes her feel powerful.

“You never cease to amaze me,” he murmurs, dragging his fingers down her bare arm, to wrap around her elbow. “So ready to fight for a dead man’s honor.” She sighs at his choice of words, but smiles a little to herself, does a quarter-turn in his grasp.

“You are no more a bag of blood than I am,” she tells him earnestly, her gaze meeting his; his expression is softer than she’d expected, his eyes full of gratitude, not teasing her in the slightest, “and I could never assign a price to the bond we share.”

“That became clear to me when you prepared to assault a state senator,” he says, lip quirking up into the ghost of a smirk, and she raises her brows, turns to face him completely.

“A state senator, really? What’s his name?—I hope Sookie didn’t vote for him.” Eric leans in, then, caresses her cheek, and they move toward each other in what feels like slow motion, the anticipation of his lips on hers so strong she can’t stop herself from breathing his name.

He kisses her like he did in the ballroom, soft and tender, then slow and deep. She brings her hands to his chest, anchoring herself against his firm body while melting against his mouth, in his arms as they wrap securely around her waist.

“You’ve never been as stunning as you are now,” he murmurs when the kiss breaks, his hands gliding up her back, “full of my blood and in that gown, in your element. You are brilliant, beautiful—a force to be reckoned with,” he says against her lips, and then he parts them and presses his tongue inside.

Her hands move to his face, his hair, and his hands tighten against her, pulling her flush against his body. She exhales deeply at the force of his kiss, tips her head back when his lips move to her jaw, so he can complete the trail down her throat and mouth at her bare collarbone, the swell of her breasts.

“I want to live inside you,” he rumbles, running his hands up to her neck and stroking her there, and when their eyes meet she can see that he means it, wants it all as badly as she does. “I want to own you, fuck you, take you apart and put you back together over and over again.”

“What’s stopping you?” she asks, breathless, her voice barely there, and that’s the question, isn’t it? If he wants the same things she wants—and she does want them, wants all of them and more—then why the cat and mouse, the hot and cold? Why doesn’t he just take her and make her his? “You know I care about you, you know I want you. I have complete access to your feelings, but I never know what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking about you,” he says, like it should be obvious. His eyes are smoldering. “And about how hard it would be for me to walk away if you changed your mind. If you saw everything I want, all of my desires, and you decided it was too much.”

“Too much? I thought it was obvious by now that I can’t get enough of you. I want you every way a person can want,” she tells him, running her hands over his chest and then roughly grabbing the fabric of his shirt. “I want your mind and your sex and your blood and your pain—as long as you’re the one healing me, too,” she adds, softly, head tipped up so she can try to make sense of his expression. It’s unreadable, even to her, but the fire in his eyes still burns hot. “Say something,” she all but begs, and like fate is unsure about them, too, their host Anthony steps out onto the balcony looking apologetic. Eric waits a beat, staring at her like he’s reading her soul, then turns to face the man.

She doesn’t listen to their conversation, and she moves through the rest of the night feeling unhappy, unsettled, even after Eric drops her off at home.

She’d wanted to tell him to stay, to tell him to do something, but she can’t be the only one sharing her thoughts anymore.

#eric northman #eric northman fanfic #true blood #true blood fanfic #eric northman x reader #eric northman x original female character

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scuttling · 23 days ago

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All Too Well - Ch 1

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 1,639 Tags: Anxiety, Trauma, Panic attacks, Serial killers, Family issues, More tags to be added Summary: Have you heard? It's happening again.

2:28

The clock ticks audibly as several silent seconds pass by, each one feeling longer than the last. I look down at my notepad, at the looping doodle I’ve been subconsciously inking across the white page, then back up to the girl sitting in front of me. She’s fifteen, I know, but looks younger, her clear, smooth skin nearly as pale as the page I deface. Her jet black, bottle-dyed hair is a shocking contrast, a straight, silky curtain to hide behind—or her own personal suit of armor. I’m not quite sure yet.

“Kaci,” I say softly, hoping she’ll look at me, and for a moment, she does; I can see the pain in her gaze, the ghastly remnants of the trauma that brought her to my office in the first place, three weeks ago.

Three weeks. Three sessions. All of them absolutely silent.

“I know this is difficult to talk about; I know you’re feeling all kinds of emotions, some of them conflicting, so big you can barely handle them. Talking to me about them will help get them out, and we can start to make sense of them all.”

That earns a reaction, but not a pleasant one: her expression twists into one of anger, her blue eyes wet and dark like gleaming sapphires, her voice shaky and weak from disuse.

“Make sense? You think you can make any of this make sense?”

In my first few years as a practicing psychologist, I would have scrambled, backtracked, apologized profusely for my blunder, but now I just sit back and let her speak. I’d chosen my words carefully, and I knew what I’d said would be upsetting—just enough to finally jolt her out of her head and into my office where she needs to be.

“None of this makes sense. First my mom leaves us, and my dad gets drunk every night, stops going to work, stops taking care of himself. Then he sets our freaking house on fire, and I have to leave my school, my house, my friends, because my dad’s a deadbeat who can’t take care of his family.”

She groans, frustrated, and pushes a hand through her hair. I half expect her palm to be covered in black ink afterward, like the smear left by a wet newspaper or permanent marker against the skin.

“Now my mom wants to be back in my life, but I don’t know. Nothing makes sense anymore. I don’t feel at home anywhere, I don’t feel safe anywhere… I don’t feel like I belong��anywhere.”

Once she’s started talking, Kaci hardly stops for a breath. Her session goes over seventeen minutes, but I can’t stop her, can’t interrupt when the words I’ve been patiently waiting for flow like a rushing river. When the session finally ends and we rise from our chairs, she looks at me like she trusts me for the very first time, but I can tell she's still guarded. The hope that I might get through to her and eventually ease her pain, help her cope, makes me smile, and when her mother sees us in the waiting room, she stands and smiles too.

Some shells are difficult to crack, but under a skillful—persistent—set of hands like mine, even the toughest shell crumbles eventually. It’s what you do with the hollow, broken person beneath that really makes a difference in the end.

Kaci's appointment causes all the rest to run long, but I don’t mind and neither do my patients. They’ve all been there before, so frustrated and bottled up that when the cork pops there’s no stopping the rush of emotion that follows. It also helps that they’re all teenagers, which they wear like a badge of honor—some kind of camaraderie they share despite not knowing a thing about each other, except that they all see me once a week.

I sit with Shawn, Rachel, and Isaac, and it’s nearly seven o’clock by the time I finish organizing my notes and locking up my office. Ava, my receptionist, left after my last patient arrived, so I do a final sweep of the waiting room, the restroom, the coatroom, and then lock the main door behind me too.

My stomach growls the moment I slide into the front seat of my car, so I set my handbag on the hook behind the headrest and pull out my phone, powering it on for the first time since my quick lunch break. Within a minute, I’ve reordered my usual from the local Greek restaurant, and I’m just about to put the car in reverse to back out of the parking spot when my phone's text message chime rings—seven times in quick succession. That’s enough to get my heart racing, to cause panic to rise up in my throat, but it’s the two voicemail notifications that pop up next that make me tense up, anxious and terrified.

So terrified I can’t even listen to them. Not yet. Not until my suddenly blurry vision clears and the knot in my stomach dissolves into something other than the boulder that rests there now. The texts are easier, and I open my little sister Rose’s first, my top priority always.

Hey

Did you see the news?

Where are you?

I have a missed call from her, and I have to call her back, but I’m not sure my voice will even be loud enough for her to hear it down the line.

The next text is from Ava, who sent it when she arrived home for the night, judging by the timestamp.

Oh my god…

Turn on the local news.

The final message causes dread to rush through my body, knocking the wind out of me. There’s an empty ache, an almost painful tingling in my arms and legs, and I can feel my cheeks heat, my nerves frayed. I can’t breathe, can’t blink, my throat tight, my eyes heavy though I’m wide awake; I want to drive away, just speed into the darkness, foot pressed to the pedal, not stopping until I run out of gas, or– or hop out of the car and run until my muscles cramp and burn.

The number stares back at me, glowing on the screen. Unknown. I swallow hard.

Have you heard?

It’s happening again.

It’s not possible, I think to myself as I drive slightly over the speed limit on the way to my sister’s house. I forget all about the delicious dinner that awaits me, because my formerly growling stomach now churns with nausea and unease.

Have you heard? It’s happening again.

It’s not possible. That’s all I can think as I take a left-hand turn onto my sister’s street, a row of picture-perfect ranch-style homes so similar it takes me a moment to remember which is hers. All of the manicured lawns are the same, all of the exteriors painted in the carefully selected neutrals chosen by the homeowner’s association, but I eventually spot her silver Jetta in a driveway and pull in behind her.

She’s thrown the door open before I can even raise a hand to knock.

“It’s not him, right? It can’t be him.” We both know who she means, and I agree there’s no sense wasting time with small talk when it’s happening again.

“It’s not him.” He’s right where he’s supposed to be, locked securely in his cell at the Black Mountain Federal Correctional Facility in Manassas, Virginia—I know because I called the warden, and the prosecutor, and the investigator assigned to his case all those years ago, just to be sure. “But it sounds like a copycat, and that’s almost as bad. If this guy feels connected to him in some way, he might come looking for us.”

Some may say I invest a little too much of my free time in true crime—irritated ex-boyfriends, the sluggish owner of my local bookstore, even my sweet sister Rosie herself—but it never hurts to be informed or prepared, especially with a past like ours.

“Is Rob home yet? Maybe you could go to his mom's for a couple of days,” I suggest, but Rose shakes her head and brings a hand to her slowly growing stomach. I wonder absently if my unborn nephew is kicking her, if he can feel the tension that radiates off of her body the same way I can.

“He’s home, but you know he doesn’t take these things as seriously as I do. He’ll tell me to relax and put my feet up, to breathe, that he’d never let anyone hurt me–hurt us.”

I love Rob, I do, he’s perfect for my sister, but she’s right about this: he’ll never understand why we jump when a car door slams, when a waitress drops a tray of plates in a restaurant, when fireworks crack like gunshots in the sky. He’ll never understand why news of a missing teenage girl has us so frantic, because he wasn’t there, not like Rose and I were. He wasn’t there, in that house, where seven of them were killed.

Rob and Rose do go to his mother’s house, eventually; it takes lots of convincing, and I almost think he did it just so he could lecture Rose on the way, about how her sister is an insane crime-junkie conspiracy theorist who won’t be allowed around little Jamie or Collin or Asher without parental supervision. That doesn’t matter to me right now, nothing matters but their safety, so I watch them leave in a Volkswagon laden with luggage and then redial the last number on my phone, the one belonging to the man who makes me feel safer almost the moment I hear his voice.

The man who put my father behind bars twenty years ago.

“David Rossi.”

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner/female reader #aaron hotchner/original female character

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scuttling · 24 days ago

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i love being a writer. it’s so chill and easy and stress-free, unless you count the constant mental ping-pong between “i’m a genius” and “this is the worst thing ever written by a human being”

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scuttling · 24 days ago

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All You Had To Do Was - Chapter 1 of 2

Fandom: The X-Files Pairings: Alex Krycek/Female Reader or Alex Krycek/OFC Word Count: 12,369 Tags: 18+, NSFW, D/s, Consensual sexual violence, Rough sex, Hair pulling, Biting, Bruising, Manhandling, Degradation, Pining, Emotions and feelings and whatnot, Krycek is a bad guy but not THAT bad a guy Summary: Five times Krycek leaves, and one time he stays. Notes: I wanted to write something toxic, but we all know I don't do toxic well and these losers caught feelings. C'est la vie!

It happens when she least expects it—but isn’t that always the way?

She’s holed up in a cheap, bureau-funded motel room in Oregon, fresh from the shower after being caught in a chilling downpour that soaked her to her bones. Her clothes had clung to her when she finally trudged in from the warmth of the rental car, and she took in a deep breath of recycled air before stripping down quickly, to wash away the scent of dirt and wood smoke and Douglas fir.

The case she’s on is hers alone, and she’s searching for a missing girl in the Malheur National Forest while Mulder and Scully search for signs of alien life three thousand miles away. She doesn’t really mind their absence, enjoys the freedom working out of the sheriff’s department, essentially on her own, provides.

She is exhausted, burnt out, still cold to her core, and trying to decide between ordering a greasy dinner or just going to bed without, when there’s a knock at the door. Still wrapped in a towel, her hair loose and damp, she grabs her gun from the bedside table and takes careful, quiet steps across the room.

Never in a million years would she have expected to see Alex Krycek through the peephole, looking… actually kind of paranoid?

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asks as she opens the door, only as far as the chain will allow; she doesn’t put down her gun, but she does flick the safety back on, lets her arm fall to her side so it’s no longer aimed to kill.

To maim, maybe, depending on his reply.

“Let me in,” he demands, looking over his shoulder, and though her first instinct is to slam the door in his face and let him be found by whoever is looking for him, she inhales deeply and blows out a long, steadying breath.

She closes the door far gentler than she’d imagined, slides the lock free, and when she swings it all the way open, he looks almost surprised. After a brief hesitation, he steps in beside her and closes it behind him, locking the knob, the chain, and the deadbolt securely.

“Someone on your tail?” she asks, setting her gun down on the table, because she’s seen him less anxious when literally running for his life, and he lifts the curtain to peek out the window before turning back to face her.

When he does, his eyes rake over her body slowly, thoroughly. His rapt attention makes heat rise in her cheeks, and she folds her arms tightly across her chest like armor, clears her throat.

“I can kick you out as quickly as I let you in,” she reminds him, and his gaze meets hers for the first time, his eyes dark and guarded. He wets his lips briefly, shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it.

“Someone doesn’t want you back out in those woods,” he tells her cryptically, stepping toward her. She recognizes it for what it is—his attempt at controlling the situation, controlling her—and stands her ground firmly.

“Care to tell me who, or should we play charades?” She raises an eyebrow, holds his gaze, and he exhales his exasperation; she can see the muscles in his jaw tighten, remembers a time when that would have made her think about leaning in to press a kiss to the corner of his lips.

But that was a lifetime ago.

He wasn’t just Mulder’s partner, once upon a time, but her… something, too. Not a partner, but almost a friend, then almost more. He was intelligent, charismatic, trying to get on her good side to get to Mulder’s, and combined with his long eyelashes, his endearing smile, it’s no wonder she started falling for him as immediately as she did.

Based on the increasing amount of time they spent together, he felt the same way—or so she thought, until Duane Barry, when suddenly everything changed for the worse.

At Skyland Mountain, he put all their lives in danger, showed his true, traitorous colors, and by the time Scully was returned every trace of him had been destroyed, every link to them removed as if it had never existed.

She saw him only once after that, beaten and bloody by Mulder’s hand, so of course he would show up in fucking Oregon acting like a knight in tarnished armor when she is at her weakest, completely physically and mentally drained.

“Someone I work for,” he answers tersely, like she’s overstepping by asking questions about the person who has clearly been following the case, following her. She runs a hand through her hair in frustration.

“If you’re going to be mysterious, or purposefully obtuse, you might as well just leave. I’m going back out there tomorrow regardless, so honestly, you’re wasting your time.”

Krycek grits his teeth, looks skyward as if trying to summon some strength, then back to her, his gaze lingering on her lips.

“Wasting my time. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I should have known better,” he mutters, and he turns around and strides toward the door before stopping dead in his tracks and spinning to face her. There’s anger in his eyes, resentment, and the intensity nearly knocks the breath from her lungs. “No, you know what? I’m not doing this again.”

“Doing what?” she asks, crossing her arms again, this time defiantly. “Doing what, Krycek? Why are you even here? To warn me? I’m touched that you still care.”

“To warn you,” he agrees, even though they both know that was sarcasm, and he takes a couple steps forward, backing her toward the corner of the room. She feels small as he looms over her, vulnerable, but she’s surprised to note it’s not fear driving these intense emotions—it’s longing. Part of her still wants him close, despite it all. “Because even though you hate me, I do still care whether you live or die. Stupid, I know.”

Her lips part to draw in a confused breath, her mind working to make sense of his words, and after a moment of uncertainty he presses forward, like it’s an invitation—maybe it is, a subconscious one, she can’t be sure. All she knows is that his kiss feels like the thing she has been missing, like now that she’s finally felt his lips on her own she’ll no longer be so adrift: eternally seeking, searching, yearning for something more. Something Mulder and Scully have found in each other.

Their kisses are desperate, feverish, and when his arms wrap around her body and pull her closer she gives into her impulses and grabs for him, digs her nails into his bicep, his shoulder.

“You’re an asshole,” she pants when the kiss breaks, but she knows the way she looks at him betrays the insult. She’s all over the place, anger and frustration and desire warring inside her; she wants to hate him, but despite her every effort, that’s never been an option. “Coming here like this, acting like you give a fuck.”

“I do give a fuck,” he insists, and he lifts a hand to smooth her wet hair back from her face. “And if you go back out there alone, your life will be in danger.”

“If your employer wants me to keep away so badly, that must mean there’s something there I need to see,” she counters. It seems like Mulder’s logic is rubbing off on her.

He huffs an unamused laugh, steps away from her, runs a hand over his own hair.

“And it’s worth risking your life for? I know you’re into solving the unsolvable, but this alien thing, it isn’t your fight.”

“So this case is related," she says, feeling redeemed, and she walks quickly across the room to where her luggage is stored. "To what they’re looking into in DC.” She digs through her bag for a sweatshirt, jeans, underclothes, and tosses them on the bed while he scrambles for a way to backtrack himself out of whatever he's started.

“No, I didn’t say that-” he fumbles as she slides on underwear beneath her towel, pulling her sweatshirt over her head. “What are you doing?” he asks when she drops the towel, when she pulls on the jeans and bends over for socks and her pair of boots.

“Getting dressed. Something's going on out there, and if it's serious enough for your people to care, I'm not waiting for morning. You’re going to take me back out there, tonight.” What they'd been looking for is gone before they even make it all the way to the clearing; they are ambushed before that, thrown to the ground by a human-like figure that is stronger than it should be. The thing could have killed her, would have killed her, if she'd met her intended target, but Krycek pulled her out of the way just as the... the craft, there's nothing else to call it, landed in front of them. They were blinded by white light, but apart from that she couldn't see anything, and she is at a loss, frustrated, the entire ride back to her motel.

She climbs out of the car without a word, slamming the door, and Krycek turns off the engine and follows her to her room. She's already angry, not in the mood for whatever lying and obfuscating is sure to come next, so she closes the door behind her quickly, with force, but he catches it and shoves it open, huffs an unhappy breath.

"Thanks for saving my ass, Krycek," he mocks sarcastically, and she spins to face him, livid.

"Thanks for nothing, Krycek. That's what I have now: nothing," she tells him, and she pulls off her jacket and tosses it onto a chair. Her hands fall to her hips, and she strides toward the bed, and then back in his direction. "I had nothing before you, and I have nothing after you. Does that make you happy?"

"Of course it doesn't make me happy." He steps further into the room, reaches out like he intends to grab her, stop her exasperated pacing, but she shrugs away from him before he can get close.

"Just—stop. Stop doing this, stop being here," she tells him bitterly, and she can feel her features twist in anger. "I was fine here, working this case on my own, until you showed up, acting like I matter to you."

He narrows his eyes and takes a step closer, but keeps his hands down at his sides this time.

"You matter to me. If you didn't, I wouldn't fucking be here."

"Why are you fucking here, Alex?" She gestures wildly around the room. "Why are you here? And don't say it's because my life was in danger. I never would have made it to that clearing before them, and they would have been long gone by the time I returned, so why are you here?"

Usually calm and collected, she feels like she's reaching her boiling point; it has to be him, the fact that he came back after all these months when she was finally over what he did to them, the way he left them, gave up on it all. She's been throwing herself into her work, outpacing even Mulder at the track, but nothing has been enough since he went away, and she was finally able to see the light on the other side before he showed up at her goddamn door.

"I'm here because I heard you were here, and I—I wanted to see you," he tells her, looking softer than she's ever seen him, even before, when he was playing the nice guy just to deceive them. She laughs humorlessly, scrubs a hand through her hair.

"Well who says I wanted to see you?" she spits, and that must be what pushes him over the edge; he is on her in a second, taking up her space, so close she can see the bruise blooming on his face where their adversary struck him.

"You wanted to see me. You hate how badly you wanted to see me," he says like he has some kind of direct line to her thoughts. "You haven't been able to stop thinking about me since I left." She grits her teeth, prepares a scathing remark to toss back at him for that, but he presses her back against the bathroom door, his palms on either side of her head. "You can't pretend it isn't true; I know it is. I felt the same way, every day." He wets his lips, takes a breath. "I watched you, and you looked lost without me."

That pisses her off—what right does he have to watch her, to judge her from afar—and she fists a hand in the front of his shirt, pushes against him, though he doesn't yield.

"Give me a break," she snaps, shoving against him again, wishing he were anywhere but here, wishing he were closer still. "I'm fine without you. Better, without a lying, malicious bastard using me to get what he wants."

She should have expected it, that inside his twisted brain the provocation would seem like a come-on, but when he surges forward to kiss her she is in shock, kisses back, moaning and arching against his body for more of the contact she has been missing. His hands move to her face, holding her steady, close, kissing her so well she trembles with desire; when she comes to her senses, she puts her hands on top of his and pushes them away, forcing him to give her space.

She stares at him, her chest heaving, his own body reacting to the kiss in the same ways, and she doesn't stop him when he crowds against her again, when he cradles her cheeks and kisses her dirty, filthy, with lips and teeth and tongue.

“Don’t pretend you don’t want it. Not with me," he growls against her ear when they part. His eyes bore into hers, liquid, serious. "I felt that spark the first time Mulder introduced us, and it’s been inside me ever since. Inside you.” The next kiss is languid, steamy, his hands on her face, in her hair. “I want to be inside you,” he murmurs, his voice low, his lips hovering over her jaw, and her teeth press into her bottom lip, her breath stuttering at the words.

“You can’t do this,” she tells him, but her voice is weak to her own ears, lacking conviction. He kisses her softly, like he knows her resolve is almost non-existent, like if he keeps showing her what they could have she’ll give in eventually. He can’t know how close to the truth he really is. “Show up here after all this time and expect me to forget every horrible thing you’ve done.”

Krycek shakes his head softly, his breath warm against her skin, and he rests his forehead gently against hers.

“I don’t expect you to forget. Punish me for it all you want. I know I deserve it.”

“You do deserve it,” she agrees breathlessly. “In some ways, I do too.” Again, he rejects that notion, presses his lips to hers.

“Not you. You’re the one good thing in my head,” he admits to her, and her heart pounds at the thought that he’s carried her with him all this time.

She wills her hands to move slowly, so her actions appear deliberate, but she knows she’s gravitating toward him instinctively, emotionally, without rational thought; she reaches for him, for his jacket, and he reacts in an instant, pushing her back onto the bed, his hands rough on her arms.

She gasps in surprise, but she’s not afraid of him; in that moment, all she can focus on is his body above hers, his dark eyes boring into hers. He fists her hair in his hands and kisses her wildly, like he’s suddenly out of control.

“I hurt you. That’s all I ever do: hurt people,” he pants as the kiss breaks, and when he tugs at her roots she moans, can’t help the way the pain translates to pleasure in this heightened state. His eyes smolder, and he yanks it again, pressing down against her when her back arches off of the bed.

A firm, broad palm reaches down, to push her legs apart, and he slots himself between them, kisses her until she is breathless and squeezing her thighs around him in desperation. If she’s going to give into this—and she is, there’s no stopping either of them now—she wants to feel his skin, his weight, his body.

Like he can read her mind, he leans back and removes his jacket, his shirt, then unzips her jeans and tugs them down her legs. She reaches up to touch him, to help him undress, but he shoves her back down onto the bed and the forcefulness leaves her panting, wetting her lips with her tongue.

His eyes alight with something new, and he kisses her roughly but pulls away when she tries to deepen it, like he’s taunting her. His hands move to her waist, pushing her shirt up and over her head, and then he pins her wrists there, presses her down into the bed again, making her abruptly just as frustrated as she is aroused.

“But you need it, don’t you?” he asks, hovering over her, and he brings one hand to rest at the base of her throat—not squeezing, but staking his claim on her all the same. “Yeah, you need it just like I do.”

“I don’t need a damn thing from you,” she says, her tone biting, because there’s no way he’s going to come back like this, out of nowhere, and tell her anything about herself; he has been completely absent, blissfully free from the self-scrutiny she can’t seem to escape.

She struggles in his grasp, half-tempted to kick him out of the room and tell him never to darken her doorstep again, but even as she fights him, even as she says the words, she knows they’re not true.

He is everything she’s wanted, everything she’s needed, and they’ve already reached the point of no return; they coexist like parasites, destined to find their way back to each other against all odds, against all common sense.

“Tell me to stop,” he all but growls, and she can feel the desire vibrating through him, through herself. All it would take is one word from her and he’d go, she knows that now—but she also knows she is too far gone, that she can’t bring herself to send him away now that she’s been pulled into his orbit once again.

“I want you,” she says instead, her voice soft and rough, and he bends down to kiss her, to drag her panties down her legs until they hit the floor. He kicks off his boots and takes down his pants, glides his lips achingly slow all over her bare skin, and when he enters her it feels intrusive, too fast, too much.

But this relationship, whatever it is, was meant to hurt. It’s the only way either of them can find satisfaction—when the physicality is so intense there’s no way to feel anything other than good.

They make love almost violently, his hard, strong body pounding against hers, her arms and legs vice-tight, holding him hostage there. His kisses are scorching and sometimes unkind, and she reciprocates by scraping her nails down his back, over the flesh of his hips, digging in when her orgasm flashes flame-white behind her eyes.

Krycek kisses her deep and messy, pulls out and strokes himself a couple of times before spilling across her stomach, and when their eyes meet she feels that spark, just like he said, like the first time they spoke. Their mouths clash in a desperate, post-coital kiss, their bodies sticky and, in her case at least, sore.

A shower is certainly needed again, especially if she expects to get even a minute of sleep, and though she invites him to join her he just kisses her softly, tells her he’ll get the next one, that he has some calls he needs to make.

It’s disappointing, but unsurprising, that he’s no longer in the room when she steps out in her towel again; she tries not to feel used, dries her hair and slips on a pair of comfortable pajamas, tosses and turns until it’s an acceptable hour to return to the sheriff's station again. She forgets all about Krycek… or tries to, anyway.

What had she expected? That after months of working against them, setting them up for failure, he’d stick around, spend the night, joke with her over plates of pancakes in the morning? He’s a smarmy, two-faced son of a bitch on a good day, and that was, objectively, not a good day, she reminds herself.

So she works, travels, pushes paper, doesn’t ever mention to Mulder or Scully that he’d appeared out of the woodwork in Oregon, against his better judgement, to potentially save her life.

Mulder and Scully fly to California for a case, ask her to hang back to work on digitizing the X-Files, to make research and tracking easier; she's frustrated at being left out of the loop yet again, but she throws herself into the project, scans UFO sightings and accusations of witchcraft until her eyes are bleary with lack of sleep.

She staggers into her apartment after thirty—four?—straight hours sorting files in the basement, and she knows she’s probably just being paranoid, but she can’t help feeling like she’s not alone in the room. The air is heavy, the silence loud, and she’s two steps away from clicking on the table lamp when someone shoves her up against the wall and pins her hands behind her back.

“Let me go,” she grits, fighting back against the man whose thick fingers grip her wrists. He towers over her, and the pressure is painful, sure to bruise, so she knows he’s tall and strong; his cologne is familiar, a faint, woodsy scent she knows she’s smelled before, and for a moment, she’s surprised by the way her body reacts to it. It’s not just the adrenaline of being attacked, but something almost like arousal—which is unfamiliar in situations like these, and a little worrying, if she’s being honest.

The voice at her ear makes it all make sense.

“You should really invest in a security system, Agent.” With one hand, he pulls the gun from the holster at her hip, then leans down and runs his fingers slowly over her legs before removing the gun from her ankle holster, too.

“What do you want, Krycek?” she asks, and for a moment she thinks he’s going to release her—he removes his hands, but presses her against the wall with his body instead, unloads the clips and tosses them away. “I know you would have killed me by now, if that was the goal.”

She speaks like she’s bored by their interaction, hopes her tone doesn’t give away just how captivated she is as he crushes her against the wall with his chest at her back. She can feel his breath on her neck, hot and even, and then his hands are on her again, this time holding her hips, his fingers digging in.

“Where are Mulder and Scully?” he asks, his voice low, and she wills her heart to slow as if he can feel it pounding through the layers of clothes they wear.

“On a case. West Coast,” she says, figuring that’s vague enough to be of no real use to him. Krycek huffs a sardonic laugh.

“And they left their little pet sidekick behind again?” His tone is unkind, but he brings a hand up and gently pulls back a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. She shakes her head, tries to shake him loose, but he tightens his grip on her and tugs more roughly on that same piece of hair.

It’s entirely too reminiscent of their last encounter—or their first encounter, if that’s how she chooses to look at it, the first time he touched her that didn’t involve hand-to-hand sparring or resisting arrest. She’d vowed to put that rendezvous out of her mind for good, but here he is again, in her apartment this time, forcing her to face an inner conflict she should never have let herself experience in the first place.

She knows he’s not good for her, but that doesn’t make the push-and-pull any less irresistible.

“Fuck you. Why do you want to know?”

“Need to make sure they won’t interrupt me,” he murmurs, yanking her hair again, hard enough to expose her throat. She swallows, holds back a whimper at the pain that shoots through her neck, and Krycek leans in and presses his lips there, warm and soft.

The kiss is in tender juxtaposition to the rest of his plan; she knows him well enough to know that, at least.

“You can’t—” she begins, but he moves the hand from her hip and slowly slides it beneath the fabric of her sweater. Long fingers smooth over the cup of her bra, and he gropes her breast roughly, presses one knee in between her spread thighs. His voice is low, thick, sweet as honey in her ear despite the harshness of his touch.

“I can do anything I want, baby.”

He tugs her hair again, slides his hand out from beneath her top and all but drags her toward the bedroom. She stumbles, reaches out to get ahold of his arms, his clothes, something, but he brings his free hand to her throat and squeezes, and she feels suddenly subservient, completely powerless in his grip.

It makes her feel numb, and she shakes with adrenaline, but beneath the fear of giving up control it feels good, exhilarating, a rush she hadn’t known she was missing in her already high-risk life—not until he’d shown up in it again.

He throws her back onto the bed, and by that point she is so thrilled by him, and so overwhelmed, she feels a desire for violence creeping up inside her, a flush heating her face and traveling down her body. Krycek leans over her, and she shoves his solid chest hard on instinct, then grips his shirt and pulls him closer, until their lips are crushed together in a kiss.

He puts his hands on her, wraps his fingers around her arms, pressing her body down into the bed and grinding against her; she moans at the contact, frees a hand so she can scrape her nails through his close-cropped hair, and he smirks into the kiss, but she knows she’s not the only one affected by their position.

“You want it now, huh?” he says, his voice rough, and when he reaches down to undo his belt she helps him with the clasp.

“It’s the only thing I want from you,” she spits, and as he leans in for another kiss she meets him, works her hands up the inside of his t-shirt so she can remove it. It takes everything she has not to just rip it off of him, to tear into the fabric and his skin beneath it. “If you’re going to fuck me, fuck me.”

Another kiss, then he moves to pull her sweater over her head, roughly opens her pants with one firm, steady hand as he squeezes her breast with the other.

“I wonder what Mulder and Scully would think if they could see you now: their sweet little pet, begging for my cock,” he croons; he leans back, gets his hands inside the waistband of her jeans and yanks them down and off.

“Shut up,” she pants, shoving at his shoulders in frustration—she’s had enough of his irritating, pretty mouth already, would prefer him on top of her, silent but for the grunts and moans of pleasure she’s certain will follow. He’s unmoving, firm, and the corner of his lips turns up in a gorgeous, vexing smirk.

Eventually, he pulls back, lets her finish stripping him down, hurried, frantic, and his hands are hot and rough when he slides her panties down her legs, when he hikes them up over his shoulders and puts that annoying mouth to considerably better use.

He quickly brings her to the edge with his sharp tongue, but he won’t get her off like this; that would be too quick, too easy, and too enjoyable for her. He needs to make her want more, need more, make her love him as much as she hates him—which would be impossible if she wasn’t halfway there already.

When he stops, he moves up her body, hovers over her, then kisses her mouth deep and wet and dirty. She claws at him, scratches nails down his neck and over his back, and when he pushes inside her she bites down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Bitch,” he grunts, filling her to the hilt, but it’s as fond as it is wounded. He presses his palms to the bed and lets his body do the talking, his pace brutal, each snap of his hips painful pleasure she can’t help chasing with her own. He grins, something smug and sexy, as they move together, in sync. “You like that, huh?”

She groans, doesn’t answer, won’t give him the satisfaction, but her fingertips dig into his biceps and she figures that’s almost the same thing.

“Yeah, you like that,” he murmurs, leaning in for another messy kiss with tongue and teeth. He brings a hand to her face, caresses it almost tenderly, then grabs her jaw, tight. “Fucking hate me, but you love the way I make you feel.”

“Love the way you get me off. Otherwise, you’re useless,” she gasps between thrusts, pulling him closer and carding a hand through his hair. They kiss, his grip on her jaw unrelenting, her fingers tight against his scalp, and when he comes he buries his face in her neck, groaning her name into her skin.

“I should leave you like this,” he pants there, moments later, reaching his free hand down to rub her between her legs. “Wet and desperate and used.” His skin is slick with sweat, but so is hers, and he looks into her eyes, turns her face so she can’t help looking into his.

“So leave me, Alex,” she breathes, feeling truly vulnerable for the first time this evening. He stares down at her, his hand working to bring her off despite his words, and her climax is powerful, leaves her moaning and shaking beneath his body.

For all his roughness leading up to sex, during it, he is soft after, his lips brushing over her hair, his hands soothing her body where his grip had been tight and punishing. He’s still big, imposing, covering her as they come down from their high, but she settles easily into the warmth he provides. He leaves shortly after, can’t let himself linger, because that way lies madness.

Being with her is like a dream, when the rest of the world around him is a devastating nightmare, but he has to wake up from that dream eventually; the longer he fights it, the harder it is to go back to being himself.

The memory of her touch lives on, though, travels with him whether he is in a back alley in DC or a cave in New Mexico or a forest in Russia—so does the scent of her hair, the warmth of her kiss, the softness of her skin that he bruises and batters for his pleasure, and hers.

He went to her, that night in Oregon, against his own best interest, because he couldn’t let that bastard kill her as part of a cover-up, too; too many people were already gone in the name of government secrecy, in the name of keeping power-hungry old men in power and taking the rest of them for a long, winding ride.

He knows his hands are unclean, that he is far from brave or noble most of the time, but he remembered her intelligence, her tenacity, the softness of her voice and the sparkle in her eyes, and he wasn’t about to let his overseer remove those pure, beautiful things from the world as long as he was in it.

A few weeks later, he is tasked with something shady, but considerably less unsavory—theft of confidential information, planting false evidence, a touch of blackmail—and it takes him to Quantico. Despite the importance and secrecy of this chore, he is unable to resist making a stop in the dingy basement office that houses the X-Files, because any time spent away from her is too long now that he’s got her under his skin again. She’s standing in the middle of the office, hands on her hips, looking around at the filing cabinets and trying to remember which one contains swamp creatures, when there’s a careful knock on the open door.

“Krycek,” she says as the figure moves out of the shadows and into the dim light of the lamp in the corner. He’s wearing a navy blue suit, impeccably tailored, and his face is unreadable, the downward curve of his mouth serious as he rakes his eyes over her form.

“Agent.”

Heaving a sigh, she crosses her arms over her chest; his stoicism is nothing new, but approaching her in the office is, and she has to wonder if it’s business or pleasure, or neither, which brings him here today.

Her eyes travel over him, lingering on his throat, his neatly buttoned up collar… then she spots the visitor’s badge pinned to his lapel and frowns.

“What idiot let you in?”

Krycek wets his lips, stalks slowly toward her, and her traitorous heartbeat immediately accelerates. Whether it’s because of how good he looks in that suit, or the memory of his hands rough on her body, or the gentler touch as he reaches out to brush his thumb over her cheek, she can’t be certain.

“When will you get it? I don’t need anyone to let me,” he enunciates, his voice smoky and low. He brings his other hand to her face, too, leans in, and presses her back against the edge of the desk, kissing her breathless.

The way she yearns for him, even when he’s right in front of her, is maddening; she knows he’s not good for her, knows Mulder and Scully would be disgusted if they could see her clinging to him the way she is, but despite all the warring emotions she’s experienced since the first time she saw him, she can’t bring herself to let him go.

“Why are you here?” she breathes when they pull apart, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, and he moves his hands to her waist and squeezes her tightly.

“They’re gone again, aren’t they? To Vegas, of all places,” he adds with a roll of his eyes.

“I bet Sin City is at least half alien,” she jokes, and when he looks down at her his face betrays the barest hint of a smile. “What do you want?”

Her voice is soft, and he responds just as softly, leaning in for a slow, gentle kiss that’s very unlike their usual quick, rough embraces. His gaze glides over her face, his hands firm but careful as they press into the fabric of her dress.

“To be anyone but myself, for a moment,” he answers eventually, and it affects her more than she’d expected it would. Her heart suddenly aches for him—because it sounds like he desperately means it, and because it’s not a problem that’s within her power to solve.

“I can’t help with that,” she tells him unhappily, but after a moment of prolonged eye contact he pulls her closer, and the fire in his stare returns. Their next kiss is deep, frantic, familiar, his hands all over her—smoothing over her throat, pushing her skirt up so it bunches at her thighs.

“Yes you can,” he pants, bringing his mouth to her neck and kissing her, nipping at her skin. She reaches behind her to clear a space, swatting at loose sheets of paper in the dark, and he lifts her up and sets her ass down on the section of wood she’d cleared. “On Mulder’s desk?” he asks as she finds the buckle of his belt and opens it, as she slips free the button on his pants.

“Well I don’t have my own,” she says, her tone slightly more bitter than she’d planned. She passes her tongue over her lips. “I’m just—what did you call me? Their little pet sidekick.” She pulls down his zipper and untucks his shirt, guides him closer for a hot kiss, and when they part he stares down into her eyes, his brow furrowed.

“You’re upset,” he mutters, almost like he’s confused, and she doesn’t deny it, just hitches her dress up further and slides her panties down her legs. Her fingers drag over the buttons of his shirt, yanking impatiently, twisting them open.

“Does it matter?” she asks, peering up at him where he stands between her spread knees, and he inhales deeply, leans over her, and curls a wide hand around the base of her throat.

“No, it doesn’t.”

She tips her head back at his insistence, moans when his lips find the spot just behind her ear that makes her squirm where she sits. He pushes her skirt up around her waist with a forearm, so she’s bare and exposed to him, then slides his fingers over her throat and down her body, where they find her aching heat.

“Oh, god,” she whimpers as he pushes two fingers inside her, as his arm tightens around her waist and his fingers thrust, deep and smooth. “Mmm,” she nearly purrs, pressing her palm back against the desk to keep herself upright.

“That’s right,” he tells her, curling his wrist so he can stroke the sensitive flesh inside her; he clearly has something to prove, wants her loud, and though they’re alone in the dark, deserted basement her cheeks flush at the thought of her moans echoing in the hall. “Gotta open you up so you can take me… on your boss’s desk, like the slut you are.”

Degradation has never sounded as sweet as it does coming from his mouth, his words harsh but his tone silky smooth, like his lips when he swipes his tongue over them, concentrating on her pleasure. He leans in for a kiss that she reciprocates greedily, and she paws at his chest, feeling hot skin over his racing heart.

“Can’t believe how badly you want me—a pathetic failure like me,” he murmurs when he breaks the kiss, and he brings a broad hand up to caress her face, to tip her head back so he can mouth at her pulse again. He sucks hard, a bruise blossoming beneath her skin that makes her moan long, her hips stuttering against his hand, and he fucks her with his fingers as she comes, biting and licking her exposed throat.

As swiftly as he slips his fingers out of her, he presses his cock in, and he pulls her hips forward so she’s on the very edge of the desk, meeting him thrust for thrust, her fingers twisted in the fabric of his rumpled, open shirt. “Harder, ah, harder.”

“Harder?” he repeats, and it’s nearly a taunt; his hands are tight on her bare hips as her dress rides up, as the sounds of their hurried, desperate bodies fill the room. She holds herself up with both hands behind her back now, pressed tight against the smooth wood of the desk, and he pulls her closer, plunging deeply, roughly inside. “You like it when I hurt you, baby. You always like it when I hurt you.”

“Yes—when it’s you,” she pants, and she shifts forward to dig fingernails into his ass, holding him inside her so he has to grind harshly against her for any relief.

Despite what she said before, she does love the way he makes her feel, whether it’s pleasure or pain, but she can’t bear to reflect on it too deeply in the moments when she can’t feel their skin on skin. It’s easier, like this, to take what he’s willing to give and pretend there isn’t more she dreams of when she closes her eyes.

She wants him out of the shadows, but that’s where he belongs now, so she is resigned to meeting him halfway, embracing her dark side in order to enjoy this little bit of light.

He drives inside her so forcefully it moves the desk, causes its legs to scrape along the worn linoleum, but he only holds her tighter, more securely, his eyes boring into hers as they gasp and groan. Papers are dislodged, a thick file falling to the ground and cascading crime scene photos across the floor in a spill of black and white, and they climax together, her hands in his hair, his mouth on her own.

They get themselves cleaned up, tidy the desk, and she straightens his tie with hands that have only just stopped shaking—for all of his faults, he is an attentive, caring lover, but that’s not a thought she’s able to dissect any further than that.

“You’re upset,” she says, a repetition of what he’d commented on earlier. He doesn’t acknowledge it, only smooths a hand over his hair and exhales deeply, looking away. “What are they making you do?”

That gets his eyes on hers, his mouth set in a grim line.

“No one makes me do anything,” he tells her, but she gets the feeling that’s not quite the truth. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I couldn’t leave them if I wanted to. They’re too powerful.”

She hadn’t mentioned leaving them, the shadow faction he works for, so it must have been on his mind already; maybe, she thinks, that’s why he’s here in the first place. Why he feels pathetic, like a failure, desperate to separate himself from the actions in motion. The plans he’s made.

With cautious hands, she caresses his face, and she pulls him in for a kiss he willingly, gently reciprocates.

“They’re powerful because they have you,” she murmurs when they break apart, and in one swift, sudden motion, he grabs hold of her wrists and pushes her away, his whole demeanor changing.

“I have to go,” he says abruptly, coldly, and she sighs but lets him go, watches his retreating form as he heads for the door.

Before he exits, he turns back to look at her, his eyes dark and his face unreadable. Handsome. Devastating. “They won’t find what they’re looking for in Vegas. They won’t find what they’re looking for anywhere.” They don’t find it, and she’s not surprised.

She’s not surprised that Mulder pushes himself to the edge of death as he tries to expose the Smoking Man, that she and Scully are hunkered down in a hospital, drinking bad coffee out of paper cups and taking turns standing watch over his room. She’s not surprised when Scully sends her home at four in the morning, to get some rest she desperately needs but doesn’t think she’ll find, because the thought of closing her eyes and being still, doing nothing, is absolutely unappealing. She doesn’t know it, but he’s waiting in her apartment, sitting on an armchair in the dark; he listens to her footsteps as she approaches the door, can tell she’s worn out due to more than just the hour. She slides the key into the lock, steps into the dark room, and he can barely make out her figure; she leans down to slip off her shoes, hangs up her jacket, then reaches over to flick on the lamp.

She doesn’t startle when she sees him, and he’s not sure if that speaks to her instincts or his natural aptitude for showing up exactly when she expects he will. She closes her eyes briefly, exhales, and pads across the room toward the kitchen.

“You’re ignoring me now?” he asks, standing, anger simmering inside him as he follows her into the kitchen. She takes a glass down from the cabinet overhead and fills it with water from the sink, takes a long sip before she’ll look back at him. Her eyes are stormy, intense as they look over his face.

“I’ve let you do this to me for too long: sneak in when you want me, disappear when you don’t. I’m tired of playing games, of making the same mistakes.”

“I always want you,” he tells her, stepping closer so her back is against the counter; it may be beyond her point, but it is true. He stretches his arm in front of him, trapping her between the counter and his body, and he leans in to speak lowly near her ear. “It’s only on these rare occasions that I let myself act on it.” She peers up at him, looks conflicted like she always does when they’re together now, and it makes him hungry for more of her, her body and mind and soul. He’s not sure if he wants to be gentle or rough, but he starts with gentle, crooks a finger and caresses the soft skin of her cheek. “If I could, I’d own you. You’d be mine in every way that matters.”

Her eyes flutter closed at the admission, her lips parting softly, and he glides over them with his thumb, presses the tip of it to her tongue.

She’s delicious like this, softening for him, not weak in any way but stronger than ever for all she puts up with from him. He is rough and callous, a bastard most of the time, but their stolen moments make him ache in ways he never thought possible.

Those moments are fleeting, though, and so is this one; she opens her eyes, sets her jaw, and he can see the fierce passion smoldering within them.

“You could have, if you’d worked with Mulder instead of against him, in the beginning. If you hadn’t sold your soul to the fucking Syndicate,” she spits, furious. He exhales and takes a step away from her, runs a hand over his hair. He can’t do this, didn’t come here for this.

“Well there are no second chances, are there? This is who I am now,” he says, turning on his heel to face her again. Anger rises up within him, threatens to choke him, and her expression mirrors the way he feels inside, tempestuous and wild.

“You’re doing what’s easy, what’s convenient for you, not what’s good for you. I know who you are.”

His heart thunders in his chest at her declaration, and he can feel his hands go hot, nearly numb with seething fury.

“You don’t know anything about me,” he spits through gritted teeth. Their chests heave, and he brings his hands to her face, leans into her space and kisses her roughly, with a closed mouth and far too much force. He can’t imagine she finds pleasure in it, and for a moment, he doesn’t want her to, wants her to remember what it was like when this thing between them was bitter and cold.

At first, it seems as if she’s struggling against his grip, her hands trapped between their bodies, tugging at the fabric of his t-shirt, but when he pulls away she hauls him closer, presses her teeth into his bottom lip and tugs. With rough hands, he tilts her head, bites down harder on her lip, then swipes his tongue over her mouth and groans at the coppery taste of blood.

Her lips part, and she urges him closer still, sliding her hands beneath his shirt, up his back, holding him tightly against her; he kisses her like he wants to, now, like he means it, grinds forward so she can feel him growing hard in his pants.

“Alex,” she breathes when they part for air, and she pulls his shirt over his head and drops it into a pile on the floor of the kitchen. Her fingernails are sharp against his skin, digging angry half-moons into the flesh of his shoulders as they kiss; when she’s had enough and pulls back, gasping for breath, her mouth red and raw, he lifts her into his arms and takes her to the sofa, drops her body down onto the pillows and cushions.

His hands are quick and eager as he tugs at the buttons of her blouse, the zip of her skirt, pulling off each layer of clothing until she is naked beside him, flushed, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. Hers are gentler but no less efficient as she opens his jeans, as she takes his cock in her hand and strokes him slowly.

Their mouths meet, kissing greedy and deep, until they’re both breathless and quivering with arousal. He pulls back, needs to look into her eyes, and loves what he sees when he does—her cheeks are hot, her lips slick, her gaze fond, maybe even affectionate. She wants him, needs him, despite everything else, and he’s taken her devotion for granted for far too long.

“What?” she asks softly, looking over his face like his expression is a puzzle she’s trying to solve. He shakes his head, can’t say what he wants to say, just pulls her down for another long and fervent kiss. She moans into it, thumbs at the head of his cock, and teases him with a slow, skillful tongue before climbing off the couch, sinking to her knees on the carpet in front of him, and taking him into her warm, wet mouth.

“Fuck, baby,” he groans, hands moving to her hair so he can pull it back and see her face.

She whines appreciatively as he tightens his grip on her, and he guides her head easily, knows how wet it makes her when he takes control like this; she could almost get off just by sucking him, especially if he keeps talking, sharing every filthy thing that slithers around in his mind.

“I’m gonna fill your pretty mouth with come,” he tells her, his voice raw, and the muscles in his neck flex as she moans around him, her pace quickening automatically at his words. She’s too hot around him, too tight, and after a few too many delicious strokes, he yanks her hair roughly and slows her down again, teases her by thrusting up into her mouth and then pulling her off of him completely. “Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll make you wear it, so everyone can tell you’re my dirty little whore.”

They make eye contact, and fuck, if she isn’t gorgeous like this—reverent, compliant, her mouth open, eyes blazing. It makes him throb all over, makes him want to pin her down and fuck her stupid, makes him crave her submission and the unexplainable tranquility that comes when she gives herself over to him completely.

When she gives him this precious thing, lets him put his hands on her, as unclean and impure as they are.

“Come here,” he directs her, pulling her to her feet and up into his lap; he hopes she can’t hear the quavering of his voice, the tightness of his vocal cords as he swallows around a swell of emotion that snuck up on him all too quickly.

Her thighs spread around his, and he presses his cock inside her, watches her face as he guides her down onto it until their bodies meet. One hand falls to his chest to steady herself, and the other glides over his cheek, his jaw, a tender softness he leans into as they begin to move.

Their motions are frenzied, searching, his hips pounding up as she grinds down on him, and he wraps his arms around her back, holds her close, probably too tightly, as they fuck. “Alex,” she moans, hair falling over her shoulder as she undulates above him, as her beautiful, strong body works toward the gratification they’re both seeking.

He pulls her into a kiss, can’t help himself, his fingertips clenched against her sides so firmly he can imagine the bruises they’ll leave behind. She moans for him again, is met with his own long, low, keening sounds of pleasure as he presses up into her and stutters, his orgasm powerful but not enough to stop him from fucking her, bringing her with him over the edge.

They pant against each other's mouths, press kisses to all the skin they can reach while remaining entangled together; he murmurs her name and soft words of praise against her hair. The last thing he wants to do is separate, but they both need to shower, so he doesn’t stop her from climbing out of his lap, taking his hand; he follows her to the bathroom and watches her, studies the curve of her body as she leans in to adjust the spray of water to a comfortable temperature.

He uses it as an opportunity to worship her, to scrub her clean of sweat and fluids, to kiss her cheeks, wash her hair. So often he does exactly what she’d accused him of—sneaking in, taking what he wants, and disappearing into the darkness—and he vows to do better when he can, when there’s time, when he’s not running to her because the alternative is losing himself altogether.

Despite all the shit the Syndicate has put him through, all the blood on his hands instead of theirs, he’d never entertained the thought of leaving until she showed him tenderness, until she made him want to be a better man.

Dreams aside, he’s not a good man, never will be—but for a couple of hours, every now and again, she plays her part in his most irrational fantasy of all.

“You’re not going to say that was another mistake, are you?” he asks later, when they’re brought back to reality, as he sits on the edge of her bed and laces up his boots. He looks across the room at her, waiting for her answer, and she folds her arms over her chest, over the robe she threw on when the heat of their bodies had finally cooled.

“It wasn’t a mistake, it was a choice. So is this,” she tells him, and she walks toward him and brushes her fingers through his hair again; this time, her touch is softer, and he closes his eyes as if his lack of sight will prevent him from hearing the next word. “Stay.”

He exhales, swallows, and shakes his head.

“I can’t,” he murmurs, opening his eyes to peer into hers, and he stands, forcing her to step back or be knocked over by the weight of him. He walks out of her bedroom, and she follows, bare feet padding over the hardwood floor.

“Do you ever think about it? How if you hadn’t gone to the dark side, we could have more than this?” she asks him—and he pauses, hesitates. Is it really possible she’s asking this question, after everything?

He reaches for the doorknob, turns it, glances back at her before crossing over the threshold and back into the world he’d been trying to avoid.

“I think about it all the time.” They are invited to an exclusive gathering, the kind with fancy gowns and bite-sized canapés, champagne, where they rub elbows with the type of patrons who run the government with their checkbooks, and make things harder for dedicated agents like the three of them, who are just doing their best to seek out the truth.

She wears a long, sleek, black dress and gold jewelry, gold heels, ensures she’s cleaned-up well, because the last thing tonight’s sponsors want to be reminded of is that their battles are fought on the ground, in the dirt, a product of blood, sweat, and tears.

The women are heavily adorned in high-end couture that would cost her two years worth of rent, and the men obviously think they’re cosplaying James Bond for the night, their eyes lingering while their dutiful wives stand by and smile at one another.

A man has been hovering near her at the bar for the better part of twenty minutes, and though she hasn’t been able to make out his face, she knows his body well enough to confidently identify him.

He moves closer, and she purposefully turns away, willing to play cat-and-mouse if he is, since apparently that’s all they can do anymore.

“Hello, gorgeous,” the man says, leaning down to whisper in her ear, and she doesn’t need to face him to know it’s Krycek, because her body reacts to his voice the way it always does; she shivers, breaks out in gooseflesh, longs to feel his cruel hands in her hair despite their posh, sparkling location.

“I’m working,” she replies, taking a cautious sip of her champagne. She’s allowed herself one glass—because, when does she ever get to enjoy champagne?—and knows she has to make it last, but the sudden appearance of someone who frequently makes her want to drink certainly doesn’t help with the rationing.

“I know. That doesn’t mean you aren’t gorgeous.” With a careful hand on her upper arm, he turns her to face him… and damnit, if he doesn’t look incredible in that black suit, strong and tall and imposing; he is unfairly handsome up close, his crisp white shirt intensifying the darkness of his hair, his eyes.

“I’m working,” she repeats, softer, because when he touches her she goes from zero to one hundred incredibly quickly, and at this venue, with these people, they both need to be on their absolute finest behavior. The corner of his mouth twitches up, just a little, like he can tell what is running through her mind.

“So am I,” he says, and she takes another sip, can’t stop to assess the implications of that information, what it means he’ll have to do.

“Mulder and Scully are here. Skinner too,” she tells him, because Skinner would probably kick his ass no matter the venue, and she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, but Krycek only shrugs.

“I saw them. I’m more concerned about you.”

“Why?” she has to ask, because his expression is serious, concerned, and if he’s here to tell her the Syndicate wants her dead again, she’s going to be more than a little irritated. His jaw tightens, and he wets his lips.

“I heard you were suspended. For punching a fucking Russian mobster in the face, without cause.”

Of course he would have heard about that, would have come running after weeks of silence to put her in her place after what was really just a small lapse in judgement. She was well within her rights to punch Mikhailov—he hit her first, after all—but she should have known better than to escalate, and she took accountability for that already.

“I had cause. It’s because he’s a son of a bitch,” she says with a wry smile, taking another sip of champagne. He grabs her wrist, looks down into her eyes, and slowly plucks the glass from her hand, setting it down on a nearby table.

He’s not just concerned, he’s pissed, and he wants her to know it.

“It isn’t funny. He wants to have you killed,” he murmurs, glancing around, and he uses the hand on her wrist to direct her to the side of the crowded room, where no one will notice the severity of their conversation. Her brow furrows, confused.

“How do you know that?” she probes, and as he moves closer she can spot fire in his eyes.

“Because he’s hired an acquaintance of mine to do it. Tonight.”

“Where?” she asks, suddenly hyper-aware of their surroundings, and he shakes his head just once.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s obviously not going to happen.” He looks around the room, doesn’t appear tense or anxious, so she assumes they’re safe here for now. “But we should go soon,” he adds, and she takes a deep breath.

“I need to tell Skinner,” she says, and she pulls away to find him, but Krycek tightens his grip on her wrist, tugs her back to him.

“You don’t think I can protect you?” he asks, his voice low and almost dangerous, and she exhales, wets her lips instinctively. Like Pavlov’s fucking dog.

“I know you can protect me, but I can’t ask you to,” she tells him, reaching up to cover his hand on her wrist with one of her own. He moves in closer, towers over her even with the heels, his gaze burning, sexy, serious.

“You never have to ask me for anything. Whatever you want, or need, it’s yours.”

“Is this dick bothering you?” Before she can make the mistake of pressing up for a kiss, Mulder’s voice cuts through the tension, and Krycek releases her wrist, turns to face the other man.

“And what if I am?” he challenges, the target of his intensity shifting direction; she wants to reach for him, ground him, but of course she can’t, not here. She takes a step forward, though, looks over Mulder’s shoulder at Scully and Skinner, and sighs.

“Will you two stop it? The five of us need to speak, in private. Now.”

She hopes to convey the urgency with her tone, and she does, if the way Skinner stands taller is any indication. Scully looks back to him, to Mulder, and nods.

“I think there’s an empty room just on the other side of the hall.”

Krycek fills the others in on the plot against her, after a moment of bickering about why they should listen to him in the first place. It makes her wish for another glass of champagne.

“I can take her home—she’ll be protected as long as I’m there,” Krycek offers, but the others disregard his approach and continue to plan among themselves.

“Scully and I could go to Mikhailov’s, see if the agent already tailing him has any more intel,” Mulder suggests to the group at large. Skinner turns and places a hand on her shoulder, a cautious but welcome comfort.

“We can get you to a safe house, put a few agents on you until we learn more.”

“That only protects her for a night,” Scully says, not in opposition, but addition. “We should stake out her apartment, if that’s where he’s supposed to be, find a way to apprehend him.”

Mulder nods in agreement, purses his lips in thought, and Krycek shakes his head and scoffs a laugh, which earns all of their attention.

“You have something to add?” Skinner asks like his presence alone is aggravating, and Krycek gestures toward them.

“You two hit the streets, do the special agent thing, go after him legally; I’ll be ready to blow his head off if he walks in her front door.”

“That’s not the way we do things,” Scully counters, looking irritated for the first time since they gathered in this room, and Skinner grits his teeth at the other man.

“Why are you so insistent upon being there with her? What do you know that we don’t?” he asks, his tone suspicious, and Krycek raises his palms in supplication.

“Nothing. I’m the one who warned you about all this, but if you don’t want me involved, by all means—leave the job up to the dynamic duo. Protect her yourselves.”

It’s fleeting, almost unrecognizable, but his eyes meet hers in a brief apology before he turns his face away.

“We could use all the help we can get,” Scully says, as if trying to warm Mulder and Skinner to the idea of Krycek’s involvement. “We know he’s… capable,” she says, glancing over at him, which is a roundabout way of admitting they’re entrusting her safety to a killer, “and it will free the three of us up to focusing on capturing this man. Put a couple of agents on her block, just in case.”

The conversation continues down that path—and she realizes very early on that everyone is deciding what is best for her without asking for her input in the slightest, as usual; she tries not to let that get to her, which is considerably easier when the decision is made that Krycek will drive her home, stay with her, until the trouble has passed.

In the car, a short while later, as they head for her apartment, he glances over at her from the driver’s seat.

“I didn’t mean what I said earlier, about leaving them to protect you; it was for Skinner’s benefit. I didn’t think you’d want me telling him the truth.”

“I know,” she says, though neither of them is able to admit exactly what the truth is.

Cautiously, like he’s unsure how she will receive it, he extends his arm over the console between them, his palm up, and she studies his profile before taking his offered hand.

“I’d stop at nothing to protect you,” he says, eyes on the road, his voice thick. “I wouldn’t hesitate to put someone down, if it meant keeping you safe.” She swallows and nods her head in understanding, leans closer to him so she can rest her cheek against his arm.

“I know, Alex. I know.” He does a sweep of the apartment while Mulder and Scully sit with her in Skinner’s car, and they bring her upstairs when given the all clear. “We’ll be a phone call away if you need us,” Mulder says gently, and he looks over at Krycek where he stands in the hall. “Even if it’s just to say he’s getting on your nerves and you want another bodyguard.”

“Thank you,” she tells them all sincerely, despite the jab, and when they leave she locks the door behind them, turns to face her protector with a tired smile. “It’s safe to change into some comfortable clothes, right?”

He hesitates for a moment, glances toward the bedroom, then nods his head.

“I’ll go with you,” he says, not offering any room for disagreement, and he walks toward her, presses his palm against her back to guide her across the room.

She strips down in front of him, abandoning her gown for a pair of jeans and a comfortable sweater. Feeling awkward at the silence, the formality, she apologizes for not having anything for him to change into—while secretly a little thrilled he’s still wearing that suit—but he dismisses her and removes his jacket, laying it over the back of an armchair in the living room. He rolls up his sleeves, and she swoons a little, despite her predicament.

She hadn’t expected him to be irresponsible, of course, but the level of dedication to protecting her, to maintaining awareness of their surroundings, wasn’t something she’d anticipated; while she curls up on the couch and half-watches a late-night talk show, the volume low, he peers out the window, watching the street, careful not to be seen.

It’s incredibly hot, and more distracting than she’s willing to admit.

He patrols the entire square-footage of her apartment, checking the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, like anyone could have gotten inside without his knowledge. Her eyes begin to close, the soft thumping of his footsteps a soothing, predictable repetition that threatens to put her to sleep if it continues much longer.

“I know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and I’m grateful, but would you stop pacing? You’re making me nervous,” she says, glancing at him over the back of the couch. “Come sit with me,” she suggests, fully expecting him to decline the offer, but after a moment he makes his way toward the sofa and settles into the space beside her.

They both stare at the television, silent, neither of them absorbing what they’re watching, and as time passes and the programming transitions from comedy to infomercials, they move closer to each other, pressing comfortably against one another like the situation isn’t as dire as it seems.

She turns to look over at him, to sweep her eyes over his face, and he takes her hand like he did in the car, linking their fingers together; she exhales softly, leans against his shoulder, and somehow drifts to sleep. His phone rings later, startling her awake, and he squeezes her hand, then releases it, leaning over so he can take the device from his pocket. With a glance at her face, he punches the button to accept the call.

“Krycek. You’re sure? Got it,” he replies gruffly, and after a moment he hangs up the phone and looks over at her, brushes a careful hand over her cheek. “Mulder and Scully have him in custody. You’re safe.”

She lets his words sink in, leans into his touch, exhaling softly.

“I’ve been safe all night, with you here,” she tells him quietly, reaching up to cover the hand on her face. “You’re always taking care of me.” His worried eyes soften at that, and he leans in for a comforting, unhurried kiss; the longer it lasts, the deeper it gets, and the more alive and awake she suddenly feels.

She leans up, gets her knees beneath her, and runs a hand through his hair, down the back of his neck, past the collar of his shirt. “Baby,” he breathes, wrapping his arms around her body and pulling her closer, then into his lap. They kiss hotly, mouths moving slow but fervent, hands groping and pulling at clothing, at hair.

She presses her lips to his neck, indulges in the groan she can feel vibrating in his throat, and travels across it, kisses his jaw, languid and soft.

“It's getting late. You should stay,” she murmurs, pausing to look down at him, and he’s nodding his head and rising to his feet when the door swings open and Mulder and Scully enter the room.

“What the hell is this?” Scully questions, and while she remains calm, Mulder reaches into his waistband and pulls out his gun, clicks off the safety.

“Get away from her, you scumbag,” he says, stalking forward; the kissing couple parts, and Krycek sets her carefully on her feet, smooths a hand over his own disheveled hair. “That’s why you offered to protect her?” he asks, leveling his weapon in Krycek’s direction, “to trick her into sleeping with you?”

“Enough!” she says sternly, stepping in between them, closer to Krycek but not enough to touch. “Put your goddamn gun away, Mulder, it’s not what it looks like. Alex and I—”

She trails off, unsure if telling the truth now will only add flame to the fire, and Scully raises her eyebrows. Mulder’s eyes go wide with disbelief.

“Alex and I? Are you serious? This guy?” he demands, gesturing to Krycek. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“What’s going on between the two of you?” Scully asks, stepping forward, a voice of reason, and she’s grateful for the deescalation.

“For the last few months, we’ve been…” she trails off, not quite sure how to explain the nature of their relationship. “This isn’t the first time,” she decides, opting for the simple truth.

Krycek is not one for the simple truth, though, and he steps closer, standing at her back with a possessive hand around her waist.

“We fuck like animals. Is that what you need to hear?” he snarls at Mulder, who grits his teeth, seething. “She wants it, wants me. She always has.”

The room goes silent, her colleagues staring at her, at her partner, at each other. This night was doomed from the start, she thinks, though oddly, her attempted murder is now the furthest thing from her mind.

“Then she deserves better,” Mulder finally mutters, and he looks over at her like he’s deeply disappointed before turning to Scully. “I gotta get out of here. You're okay, right?” he throws over his shoulder, glancing back to her. She takes it as a good sign, a peace offering, until he speaks again, his tone biting and sarcastic. “I assume you’re okay, since you went straight from assassination attempt to sticking your tongue in his mouth.”

“I’m okay,” she says sheepishly, because it wasn’t like that and he must be aware of that, but he just nods his head and turns away.

“Great. Scully?”

Scully’s gaze roams over her face, looks curious, concerned, but she follows Mulder wordlessly out of the apartment and down the hall.

“I should go,” Krycek says after a long moment, his voice low, almost broken. She turns back to him, presses a hand to his chest, but she can already tell the intrusion has shaped their night for the worse.

“Alex,” she murmurs, and he covers her hand with his own, squeezes it, and moves it away. He clears his throat, his expression pained.

“He’s right about one thing: you do deserve better. If I care about you, I need to stay away.” He wets his lips anxiously, takes a breath, and then turns toward the armchair and grabs his jacket up in a clenched fist.

She is suddenly overwhelmed with fear, feels as if they are dangerously close to collapsing back to square zero, and her eyes dampen with tears.

“Don’t say that, please. You were right: I want you, I want you here.” She steps toward him, puts her hands on his forearms and peers up into warm, soft eyes. “I want you with me all the time.”

“I wish it was that simple,” he says, wrapping a firm hand around her wrist, and when she drops her hands he lets her go, leaves without saying goodbye.

#the x files #alex krycek #the x files fanfic #alex krycek fanfic #alex krycek/orignal female character #alex krycek/female reader #long time viewer first time writer #alex krycek is a whimpy dork but god do I love him anyway

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scuttling · 1 month ago

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give me a try

buddie, rated t, 1.7k

“Can I say something a little weird?” Buck turns to look at him, endeared. Eddie’s not looking at him, instead slumped in the corner of the couch and staring straight up at the ceiling. “‘Course,” Buck says. “Sometimes,” Eddie says. “I wish you were a woman.” Everything in Buck sort of freezes. “What,” he croaks. “I just mean--if you were a woman then you and I could be, like, together.” -- Or, a few revelations are had all around.

#nah that’s not silly it’s off screen canon in my mind forever #buddie #911 #eddie diaz #evan buckley

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scuttling · 1 month ago

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Oliver Starks as Evan 'Buck' Buckley - Battle of the Bucks

#tie between clipboard buck (slutty) and backwards hat buck (sluttier)#he is the best looking man my eyes have ever seen #evan buckley #911 #buck

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scuttling · 1 month ago

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I Can Handle Me A Dangerous Man - Ch 8

Fandom: True Blood (TV) Pairings: Eric Northman/Female Reader or Eric Northman/OFC Word Count: 6,775 Tags: 18+, NSFW, D/s, Making out, tension, oral sex, murder, feelings Summary: Things get complicated. Notes: I just love him 😝

Masterlist

After the night of her attack, things are… strained. Cam isn’t surprised, necessarily, because things between her and Eric have always been one incendiary step forward and three steps back, but that doesn’t mean she’s happy about it.

They have a history of kissing, flirting, then getting back to business, butting heads, but on this occasion, he even goes so far as to ignore her when she walks up to him one evening at the bar. He’s mid-conversation with a vampire in a dark blue dress, she understands that, but he completely refuses to acknowledge Cam’s presence as she waits, something he has never done before.

It makes her feel irrational anger, shame, and she orders a strong drink and takes it to the back of the room where she can sulk peacefully.

“How’s the assignment?” Pam asks Cam later as she stops alongside her table. She doesn’t ask how Cam is doing after the attack, for which she’s grateful. Everyone has been doting on her, but she’s ready to put the whole mess behind her and get her head in the game.

Eric called her here because of reports of an aggressive V dealer in the area, and she needs to scan the bar for related thoughts, proof of their existence. She has no time to deal with her stupid feelings about the hot and cold nature of Eric’s attention.

“It would be easier to track the people who aren’t here for V,” she responds with more judgment than intended, taking a sip of her drink. Pam folds her arms in front of her.

“Does that really surprise you? Humans are gluttonous and greedy. Always looking for instant gratification,” she says with her own critical tone. Cam raises a brow.

She can think of one very such vampire who has been stringing her along for his own gratification… but that’s not exactly true, because she has been initiating, pushing, just as much as he has, enjoyed it all just as much as he did. Probably more.

“And vampires aren’t?” she asks, all the same. Pam takes the seat beside her—this practically makes them besties, Cam thinks sardonically—and scans her eyes over the crowd.

“I never said that. Humans seem to think they are so much more evolved than we are, but when you remove the fine details, we’re basically all the same.”

“Now with that, I agree.”

“So what’s stopping you, then? From… instant gratification,” Pam asks, glancing over at Eric. He wears a black button-up shirt tonight, and Cam has been thinking about untucking and unbuttoning it for the last hour and a half. She exhales deeply.

“It’s not like that.” Pam immediately shoots her a look that says ‘bull shit,’ complete with a roll of her mascaraed eyes, and Cam waves her hand before she can go on a full blown rant. “What I mean is, I don’t want instant gratification, and I know that’s all I’m able to have, so I try to refrain.”

Tries and fails epically, she doesn’t say.

“I think you’d be surprised,” Pam tells her after a brief silence. Her eyes fall to Eric again, and Cam can see the affection there, the loyalty, the care. “Eric doesn’t treat anyone quite the way he treats you.”

She’s not so sure that’s a good thing, even if it’s true. He makes her feel wanted, special, but it only causes her to drop that much harder when the winds of his favor change. It would be easier if he treated her like any other employee, all the time, but their undeniable attraction severely complicates that.

Later the same night, when Cam is doing a casual loop around the room, Eric steps in front of her, blocking her path. She looks up at him, brow quirked in question, and tries to ignore the way her body responds to his sudden proximity.

“Something I can help you with?”

There has to be something wrong with her, because the way his eyes darken with irritation at her flippant greeting only makes her heart race faster.

“No,” he says, with an edge to his voice, even though she’s fairly certain that’s not the truth. He’s just responding to her attitude with one of his own. “I was coming to see what you wanted earlier, when I was having a conversation with the woman in blue.”

“I didn’t want anything,” she replies, and she can hear in her own voice that she’s being unnecessarily curt, but that doesn’t stop her from carrying on in the same tone. She takes a sip of the drink she’s been nursing the last half hour. “I’m here because you told me to be.” He wets his lips like he’s agitated and looks beyond her, at the clock on the wall, for a long beat before responding.

“Well far be it for me to keep you, if you want to leave.” His voice is frustratingly monotone, unreadable, and she sets her drink down a nearby table.

“Are you dismissing me?” she asks, crossing her arms in front of her and raking her gaze over his face. His expression gives nothing away, but his eyes slide back down to make contact again.

“Do you want me to dismiss you?” She says nothing—she doesn’t know what she wants anymore, or what he wants—and exhales deeply, tracks the way he lingers over her neck and chest when she does it. He moves in closer, wraps long fingers around her upper arm and holds her tightly; it hurts the way his kisses sometimes hurt, like their desire is dangerous, and it does nothing to quell the growing arousal that tenses her body. “Do you want me to dismiss you?” he asks again, this time more slowly, and for the first time she fears the wrong answer might actually end these things between them once and for all.

Sometimes, all she wants is for them to behave normally with each other, but when presented with the option to be the one to put a stop to it, she finds herself completely unable to drag herself away from him.

“No, I don’t,” she tells him firmly, and he lets go of her arm but grazes his fingers down the length of it, to her wrist. He lifts her hand to his mouth, presses soft lips to her pulse, and releases her.

“Good. Now tell me what it is you wanted to say.”

Between Cam’s analysis and Eric’s own conversations, they determine that the V dealer who has been abducting vampires is a vampire himself, and that he is a newcomer to the area who is becoming a frequent flyer at Fangtasia. Eric hates traitors more than he hates greedy opportunists, and he likes to make an example of them, so their apprehension of the dealer has to be swift—and, if he has his way, bloody. Cam has involved Sookie, against his own wishes, because that means Bill is lurking in the corner of the bar, and everyone is aware that lurkers are bad for business.

Okay, much of their clientele probably loves having a brooding old corpse like Bill on display, but that doesn’t mean Eric is happy about it. Still, with as cold as he has been toward Cam lately—for her own good as well as his—he chooses to let her have anything she wants.

She and Sookie turn up in little sundresses, block heels, playing the role of good Southern girls looking for a dark vampire adventure. Cam’s is nude, with small leopard spots, and Sookie’s is white, with intricate lace and a deep v-neck; both women are gorgeous, earning looks of interest from humans and vampires alike, but he’s hoping Cam’s unique, captivating aura will catch the perpetrator’s attention, that she can glean something from the way he behaves if he approaches them.

Eric watches her: the determined set of her eyes as she scans the room, the curve of her lips as she sips at a drink that’s mostly non-alcoholic, so she’ll stay sharp, not miss a moment. His eyes linger over the curve of her dress as it clings to her ass, her bare legs, and then he reminds himself that he's trying to be good—a word he passionately despises—and glances away.

He follows Pam around, listens for concerning conversations himself, but when his phone buzzes with a text message he pulls it out of his pocket and scans the bar for Cam immediately.

Check out Nosferatu chatting up your friend in blue, she’d sent him, and when he spots her, they make eye contact and she tugs on her right earlobe, a clandestine signal for him to look in that direction and follow up on her tip.

The vampire she pointed out does have a bit of a resemblance to the pale, bald, very fictional creature she referenced—and he is irritatingly familiar to Eric. Instantly on edge, Eric puts his phone away and stalks over toward that side of the room.

“Something’s wrong,” Cam murmurs to Sookie where they stand beside the bar. It was Eric’s idea that they act as bait for the vampire V dealer, despite Bill’s protests, and though they’ve gotten some interested looks, nothing particularly stood out to her until now. A short, rather pale man—even for a vampire—has cornered the woman Eric spoke to the other night, and while she can’t hear either of their thoughts, the general atmosphere surrounding them is bitter and biting. She doesn’t like the way it feels.

“What do you mean something’s wrong? Everyone sounds— looks fine to me,” Sookie says, scanning the floor, but Cam’s eyes are locked on Eric across the room, as he strides up to the man she suspects.

“Eric isn’t happy. His shoulders are tense, look at him.” It takes Sookie a moment to locate him, but when she glances over the shape of him she shrugs, like she sees nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the nuances of Eric’s personality, his body language, are simply clearer to Cam than to anyone else. “If I could see his face it would be easier to tell what he’s thinking.”

“You can’t,” Sookie reminds her, taking hold of her arm to stop her mid-stride. “If the dealer is here and he sees you with him, it’s over.”

“I think he’s found exactly who we’re looking for,” Cam explains as she takes in the tension of his muscles beneath his t-shirt, as she feels for him through the tether. He is thrown off balance, but quietly enraged. Murderous, even. “And I think he’s pissed about it.”

“I have known him for 100 years—he would not dare,” Bill says when Cam and Sookie find him, when Cam points out the bad guy on the other side of the room. Apparently he’s an old friend of both Eric and Bill, someone neither of them had never expected to see in Louisiana again.

“It’s him,” Cam insists despite his disagreement, her eyes almost pleading, her hand firm around Bill’s wrist. Sookie is both confused and curious about her sudden insistence, the way she’d reached for Bill, and how intense her grip seems to be.

Sookie has been sharing blood with Bill for a while now, but she’s never felt the effects quite as strongly as this.

“We need to follow them,” Cam says, and it’s then that Sookie notices the three vampires are walking out of the main area of the bar and toward the offices, the bathrooms… the exit to the alley.

“Do you believe Eric is in danger?” Bill asks, looking seriously down into her eyes, and she shakes her head quickly.

“No, he can handle this,” she replies confidently, “but I feel like I need to be there. I don’t know why, but I’ll go without you if I have to.”

Bill thinks this over carefully, then reaches for Sookie and lets Cam lead the two of them to the back of the bar.

“...who you think you are,” Eric is saying as they step into the alley, watching him and the other two vampires from afar. The pale man is on his knees in front of Eric, the female vampire standing him, and Eric looks large and angry and unforgiving where he stands. Cam starts toward him, but Bill pulls her back, keeps her hidden in the shadows even though the others must already know they’re there. “But this is my bar, my territory—and I’ve already shown you mercy once. You know it’s not something I’ll do again.”

“I did not know,” the pale man says, words tripping over themselves as he says them, like he’s begging Eric to hear them all. Eric raises one hand, silencing the other vampire immediately, and then leans closer toward him, fists his hand into his jacket to hold him still.

“You know now,” he rumbles, and in one quick motion he grabs the man’s jaw and tears off his head. Sookie gasps at the violence, the blood and gore that sprays all over the pavement, and when Bill pulls her close to him, comforts her, Cam hurries toward Eric and stops to stand at his side.

Sookie can hear him directing the other vampire to get rid of the head and body, to clean up the alley, and then he takes Cam’s hand and tells her to follow him. Bill offers to take Sookie home, tells her he’ll make sure Cam is okay later, and the two of them quickly head back to Sookie’s car.

“Do you have any idea who that was?” Eric asks Cam as he busts into the office with her and slams the door behind them.

“Bill only said he’s an acquaintance of yours,” she answers honestly, waiting for the answer to his… it’s excitement, if the resulting tightness of his pants is any indication. She knows violence can turn people on, vampires and humans alike, so it’s unsurprising that someone like Eric would get hard right after a kill; it surprises her more that she feels it too, heat and fire inside her, though it could be their bond turning spark into a flame. Eric turns to face her and licks his lips.

“He’s not old, but he is connected, and to take him down the way we just did…” She flushes hot at his choice of words, we , that he credits her for this as well even though he's the one who did the killing; satisfaction, pride, and power surge through him, through her, and he moves closer then stops in front of her, takes a deep breath. “I want to taste you.”

And just like that, despite everything, Cam is putty in his hands again, molded by the tether between them and the memory of his mouth, his fingers. She reaches for him, hand resting at the back of his neck, and he kisses her deeply, passionately, then lifts her into his arms and carries her over to the desk.

Her knees separate easily for him, and he fits his body between them, leaning over her and kissing her mouth raw. He’s quick, eager, palms flat against the desk, but when he tips her head to bare her throat he slows down, glides his lips and tongue over her chin, her neck, her collarbones.

She doesn't even think to question the way he wants to taste her; if it’s her mouth, if it’s her blood, if it’s the desire pooling between her legs, she’ll give it to him happily. Whatever he wants, she’ll give it to him.

“Lean back,” he guides, his voice thick and undemanding, his eyes so blue and heavy with longing. He presses a palm to the small of her back as she puts her weight on her arms to support herself, then ducks down to trail his mouth along the softness of her inner thighs.

They move together wordlessly; she arches against him, lifts her hips as he cups her ass, as he pulls her panties down her legs until they gather at her ankles, then fall to the ground. Strong hands push her dress up around her hips, and he slots his broad shoulders between her thighs and mouths at her, slick tongue slipping through her wetness and making her gasp for breath.

She focuses on holding herself up as he licks her, kisses her, probes inside her with a greedy tongue. This has never been the easiest way to climax, for Cam, but it’s like Eric can tell exactly where she wants the pressure, where she wants to feel him, needs to feel him. She lets her head fall back at the pleasure, lifts a hand to tug softly at his hair, and he moans against her flesh, making her legs shake with the vibration.

It doesn’t take long for his capable mouth to bring her off, not with his fingers spreading her open like a feast, teasing all of her tender, sensitive spots; he strokes one over and over that would have made her scream if it weren’t for his big hand snaking up to cover her mouth as she comes.

He moves up to kiss her after, sharing the taste of herself with a warm, wet tongue, and she nuzzles against his chest when they part, feeling secure and satisfied when his arms wrap around her body.

It’s no fucking wonder she can’t bring herself to walk away.

Eric gets the text at 1:30, on one of Cam’s rare nights off.

We ran into a feral vamp at Merlotte’s. Bill caught him outside but he got the drop on him and took off. I’m going to Buffy this bitch. Just letting you know.

“Goddamnit,” he groans, dropping his phone onto the desk in frustration. “I need to leave for a while.”

“Your little girlfriend get kidnapped again?” Chow asks, and Eric shoots him a deadly look, silencing him immediately. He really needs to get better acquaintances.

“She’s going after a rogue vampire because Bill Compton couldn’t handle it.” And with skills she only learned because he wanted her to take self-defense classes after the last incident. He should have known that would only empower her to make decisions like these, like going after sick, strange vampires without him, with only Bill and Sookie as backup, which is essentially the same as her being on her own.

It was foolish of him, but lately half of his decisions are bad ones, made with things other than his rational mind. He’d blame Cam, but it’s his fault, really; she can’t help that she’s perfect, bewitching, that she draws him in no matter how many steps backward he tries to take.

When he tracks them down in the woods, it’s just Cam and Sookie, but the scents of Bill and the other vampire linger in the air. Sookie looks utterly unprepared for the events of the night, in a yellow checkered dress that makes her seem like a Southern Barbie doll, and Cam looks beautiful, in all black: t-shirt, slim pants, boots with a heel.

Beautiful and bloody, a distinction it takes him about half a second to notice.

He walks past Sookie and raises his eyebrows at Cam, who lifts her arm to show him the thin trail of blood that begins near her elbow and ends halfway down her forearm. It’s only a few drops, but enough to get the stranger on her tail and away from the other woman, if that’s what she intended.

“I’m fine. It was bait,” she explains before he can ask, and he’s pleased to know he correctly understood her motivations. He takes her hand, moves slowly so she can pull away if she wants, because this is new; when she doesn’t back away, he leans in and licks from the base of that pooling blood, slowly up the length of her arm. She stands perfectly still in his grasp, her breath quickening, and he presses a kiss to her wound, then looks into her eyes as she watches it heal.

He’s been doing this over a thousand years, healing wounds almost as long as he’s been inflicting them, but the way she looks at him like it’s a miracle is going to be his undoing.

“I assume Bill has finally captured the other vampire,” he says after a moment, not looking away from her eyes, and Cam nods her head. “I should go back to the house and help him deal with it.”

“We’ll be right behind you,” she says, conveying desire and gratitude through their bond when he lets go of her arm. “We came here on foot.” He agrees to that and exits, running toward the glowing porch lights of Bill’s house so he can give the vampire a piece of his very rational mind.

“You let him drink from you,” Sookie whispers harshly as they walk through the field that leads to her house. Cam sighs, irrationally frustrated that she can’t even enjoy the memory of Eric licking the blood from her skin in peace. Horny peace.

“He didn’t bite me, he cleaned it up. It’s different. And there’s no sense letting good blood go to waste.”

“Oh, does he clean up every human who works for him when they bleed?” Sookie asks, faux-innocent, and when Cam flounders for an answer, she grins as if her point has been made. ”I didn’t think so.”

“Please stop trying to warn me away from him, Sookie—” She’s heard it all, from Sookie and, to a lesser degree, from Bill, and she knows the risks associated with… Eric—both their working relationship and whatever it is they’re doing the other half of the time. Sookie surprises her by raising a hand in supplication.

“Whoa now. I’m through trying to warn you, believe me. You took that job, you drank his blood, you’ve made your bed. I’m happy to let you lie in it.” She moves her hands to her hips, a Southern motherly gesture if Cam’s ever seen one, and then cautiously looks over in her direction. “So… have you?”

“Have I what?” Cam asks, eyes narrowed curiously. Sookie blushes a little and turns away.

“You know. Laid in bed with him?”

Technically, she has laid in bed with him, but she knows Sookie is talking about sex… and while they’ve covered a lot of ground in that area, she understands that’s not what she means.

“No, it’s not… It’s not like that,” she explains, but it sounds weak to her own ears. They haven’t fucked, exactly, but it is definitely like that . They just haven’t been stupid enough to cross that boundary yet.

Sookie looks at her again, and she’s not reading her mind, but Cam supposes she doesn’t have to to know the truth.

“Mmhmm.”

When they walk into Bill’s house, the stranger is already gone—most likely dismembered, now a part of the roaring fire—and Bill stands by the fireplace, his tense back toward Eric and the door. Sookie goes to him, ducks down to whisper to him, and Cam takes her usual position next to Eric, looks up at him with curiosity.

“It’s done, and we’re needed at Fangtasia,” he says, reaching out to press a hand to the small of her back. “The two of you are welcome to join us,” he adds louder, for Sookie’s benefit, and she looks up at him with a frown.

“No thank you,” she responds after a moment, lips morphing into her usual sweet smile. “I think we’re going to stay in tonight.” She’s playing into politics, being uncommonly courteous, and Cam guesses that means Eric and Bill had a very strained conversation. Eric nods, seemingly unaffected either way.

“Very well. Thank you, Bill, for dealing with this unpleasantness for me.” He waits, pointedly, until Bill turns to face him with an answering nod, and then continues. “But next time, I expect you to take better care of my investment.”

He turns away on a swift heel, heading for the door, and Cam shoots Sookie an apologetic smile and follows behind him.

“I told you, your investment is fine,” she says when she catches up to his long strides, and she puts plenty of emphasis on the word. Is that all she is to him, after everything?

He opens the passenger’s side door of his SUV but blocks her from climbing into it.

“You had to offer yourself up to a starving vampire to do what he couldn’t do. Bill should have been more than capable of protecting you; he would have been, if he weren’t so hung up on Sookie’s every move.” Cam rolls her eyes—did he really expect Bill to prioritize her life over his actual true love?—and holds her hands out as if begging him to get a grip.

“I’m glad he took care of her before me. That’s what I wanted.”

Almost as soon as she says the words, Eric is in her space, his face so close to hers she can make out flecks of silver in his molten eyes.

“It’s not what I wanted.” His gaze flicks over her face, and he wets his lips, but just as quickly he exhales and steps back so she can get into the car. “Let’s go.”

After a few silent minutes—silent because Cam thinks this is just a tantrum he’s going to have to wear himself out with—Eric pulls the car over and parks on an overlook that gives them an excellent view of swamp, stars, and not much else. Eric gets out and stands at the front of the car, and she follows because she’s always going to follow him, until the day he tells her to go.

“I thought we were needed at Fangtasia,” she says quietly, crossing her arms in front of herself. The gesture isn’t standoffish, this time, but self-soothing.

“Not immediately, and I needed some fresh air.” It’s all he says, and she thinks maybe this is him cooling off, wearing it out, so she takes a few long breaths beside him and lets him take it in.

“The earth smells so good this time of year,” she says eventually, breaking the silence almost like a peace offering. Slowly, he looks over at her. “Do you know what I mean? Like rain and sun and new growth; I’ve never noticed it before.”

“It could be my blood, sharpening your senses,” he reminds her, and she nods her head.

“If it is, then I’m grateful,” she says, and she truly means it despite her confusion about everything else. “Do you enjoy the smell of the sun? The way the pavement stays hot even when it gets dark? Does it remind you of being out in the light?”

Eric shrugs, a gesture that seems so out of place on this confident, powerful man.

“Most of the time I find it unremarkable; just signs of the time. When you come to me just after sunset, though, and I can smell it lingering on your skin…” He looks down at her hand, then takes it in his, angles his body toward hers. “It’s been a very long time, but when I imagine a warm, sunny day, I think of you.”

That brief moment of vulnerability means more to her than she knows how to articulate, and she decides maybe the only way to respond is with vulnerability of her own. She ruminates over words she never thought she would say.

“If I were really hurt, or dying…” she begins, and he gently squeezes her hand.

“Would I turn you? Yes. If you wanted me to,” he adds, and briefly she’s shocked to consider he might imagine a world in which she didn’t want that. She exhales softly, chews on her bottom lip.

“Do you think I’d still be able to hear things?” Her voice is smaller this time, and like he can decipher this stream of consciousness he moves nearer, so that it’s almost uncomfortable to hold hands the way they are. His gaze is sure and serious as he crowds her against the front of the car.

“I’ve never met a vampire who could—but until you and Sookie, I’d never met a human who could, either. I really can’t say.”

“If I couldn’t hear, would I still be important to you?” she asks with great difficulty, and he leans in and brushes her hair back behind her ear. It makes her nervous, waiting for the answer to the question she has been thinking since the first night she agreed to do business with him, but it’s something she needs to know.

“Would I keep you? Yes. If you wanted me to,” he murmurs, and though she can feel through their tether that both of them long for a kiss, he drops her hand and walks back to the car. He opens her door for her and closes it behind her, then climbs in and drives off in the direction of Shreveport once again.

They weren’t really needed at Fangtasia; Eric said that to get away from Bill, so he didn’t have to look at his face and furiously rehash their argument in his head the entire night. All Bill could do was make pathetic excuses that started with, “I’m sorry, but Sookie… ”

Ultimately, Eric got his point across without violence, telling Bill in no uncertain terms that Cam was never to be put in harm's way while under his care again, or he would raze Bill’s whole life to the ground. Bill turned away to burn the rest of the body, tail between his legs, and then the women were back and all Eric wanted to do was take Cam and get out of there. He needed to be alone with her, to feel for himself that she was safe and unharmed.

He didn’t intend to bare his soul to her, his… heart, never imagined she could have wanted those things for herself: to be turned by him, kept by him. It’s thrown him for a loop, and for several days he’s been careful to limit their interactions, to stop staring at her when she’s at the club, to stop finding excuses to touch her or kiss her or challenge the dynamic between them.

He comes across a business opportunity, however, for which he needs her gift, so he goes up to her where she chats with bartender Darren and lays a careful hand on her lower back.

“We’re going to make a deal with some humans. I need you,” Eric says, loud enough for Darren to hear. Darren lifts a curious brow, but he doesn’t know about her gift, maybe never will—Eric has been strangely private about their arrangement lately, very business-like and quiet—so she just excuses herself and lets Eric lead her toward the VIP section where his guests are seated.

He fills her in on the deal on the way, something about equity in a condominium being built in Shreveport, and when he takes his usual seat upon the throne-like chair, she curls onto his lap, the best way they’ve found to communicate in a situation such as this. She listens carefully as they discuss the arrangement, compares it to the thoughts streaming through the head of the man in charge, as requested.

“He’s low-balling you—$50k or so,” she whispers into Eric’s ear, running her fingers through his hair in an attempt to look casual, like she did at Melanie’s.

“Arrogant or just stupid?” he asks under his breath, and when she hesitates he turns his head in her direction, looks up at her with curious eyes.

“Both,” she says, though she instantly regrets it. “He thinks you’re… distracted,” she finally says, skimming her fingertips over the curve of his jaw.

It’s an understatement, and projection: all the man can focus on is her bare legs, how close they are to Eric’s crotch, how easy it would be for the vampire to get rid of the clothing between them and thrust…

“Hmm,” Eric murmurs, and she almost thinks he’s reading her mind now, catching the replay, the highlights. “He’s jealous. He wants you.” Her breath hitches, because yes, the man’s thoughts were carnal, and she didn’t want to tell him that because she knew exactly what he’d do: taunt this petty business partner and drive her crazy in the process. The hand not holding her around the waist slides over her knee, along her bare thigh, stopping just beneath the slit of her skirt. “I think you’re being dishonest, Randy,” he projects at full volume. “And I hate dishonesty, don’t I, sweetheart?”

She nods because she can’t think of what to say, how to address him in this context, this role, in front of these people; he put her on the spot, and she’s not uncomfortable, but she needs his guidance. Like he knows, Eric removes his hand from her leg, slips it around her throat, tilts her head so she’s looking down at him and only him.

“I’m a bad man when people aren’t honest with me. I hurt people,” he coos, and she licks her lips, all but hypnotized by the eye contact, the fingers pressing against her neck. “I’d hate to have to hurt someone in front of her, Randy.” He pulls her closer, and she goes easily, willingly, pliant like putty in his hands; their mouths meet for a kiss, and Eric deepens it to something wet and messy, with lots of tongue and teeth for show.

It sends aching waves of need over her body, but when he pulls back, she’s able to catch her breath and remember that it’s all just a game. Eric swipes his thumb over her slick bottom lip and rests his hand on her thigh again before turning back to the business man and his crew.

“Final offer, gentlemen? There’s something I desperately need to do.” He squeezes her leg on the last syllable, guiding his fingers past the slit of her skirt, and she silently begs these assholes to get on with the deal so she can get out of this beautiful, confusing, stubborn vampire’s lap.

Randy inhales deeply, shifts in his seat, and raises his offer by $75,000. Eric stands up and sets Cam down gently in the chair he vacated, shakes the man’s hand booming words of agreement and business well done, and then they leave and Eric and Cam walk away with Pam, striding down the back hall.

Cam is a little embarrassed; she hadn’t even realized Pam had joined them.

“You were so good,” Eric says in her ear as they walk toward the office, his body close behind hers, chin hooked over her shoulder, his fingertips on her waist. “So good, Camila. You got me more than I wanted. Brilliant girl.”

“Yes, yes, she’s amazing. I don’t have to be back here for this part, do I?” Pam drawls from behind them. Eric stops in his tracks, his hands falling to Cam’s hips so she’ll stop too. “I could use a drink and some eye candy that’s actually on the tasting menu.”

“Yes Pam, you may be excused. Go find a pretty little thing to eat,” he calls over his shoulder, and with a wicked laugh and a toodle-lo they’re alone — or, nearly alone, the door to Eric’s office the only thing standing between them and peaceful silence.

They enter, and he closes the door behind them, then walks around the desk and pulls the chair out from under it.

“I want to give you more money,” he says, and he opens a drawer and produces a wrapped stack of bills, $10,000 in hundreds. Cam furrows her brow, confused.

“I don’t need more money.”

“Everyone needs more money,” he says, almost with a laugh, but she holds up a palm so he’ll see that she means it.

“No, I’m really all set. Thank you, though. It’s a generous offer.”

Looking almost equally as confused, he drops the money back into the drawer and closes it, stepping around to the front of the desk.

“What would you like, then? As a bonus—you were really perfect out there for me,” he adds, his voice low, and she has to hold firm or she’ll let the praise go to her head and walk out with thousands of dollars burning a hole in her handbag.

“I don’t need anything, but I’m glad I could help you. It’s what you hired me for.”

Hired seems to be the magical word that breaks them both of the post-kiss haze, and Eric crosses his arms, his expression serious. Suddenly he’s back to the strangely stoic version of himself she’s been seeing more of the past few weeks.

“I know I have been pushing the boundaries of our business relationship lately. I want to make sure you know I value you.”

“Thank you,” she says, and she knows he means it. She doesn’t need his money to know she’s important to him—or important enough to keep around for the time being, at least.

“I could take you out for a fantastic French dinner. Buy you a bottle of wine older than Bill Compton? There must be something you want,” he says, imploring this time, something he just doesn’t do; she doesn’t know how to handle it, isn’t sure she can be as vulnerable now as she was leaning against the hood of his car.

“Wanting is dangerous,” she says eventually, even tacking on a half-smile. “I’m happy with what I have now.”

“I never stop wanting,” Eric counters, and as he moves closer to her she finds her will fading, weakening with each step he takes.

“Does that speak to your character or your species?” she asks, breathlessly, trying to bait him into more banter, but he doesn’t play along this time.

“You don’t want this?” he asks, his voice a whisper, and then he tilts her head and glides his lips over her jaw, down her throat. Her breath hitches when he scrapes his teeth over her pulse—no fangs, just teeth—and when he presses his hips against her she can feel him stiff and thick in his pants.

She wants to grab for him, to rip off his clothes and lick and kiss and bite every inch of his perfect body, wants his hands and his mouth on her, wants to be his , but that way lies madness and she’s not stupid enough to risk everything they have now for everything they don’t.

“You know I do,” she murmurs instead of saying all those things, and he pulls back to let her look at him properly, without his mouth on her skin distracting them from the present. “You must feel it.”

“Then why pretend you don’t?” He asks the question like it makes no sense to him—and for someone who has been leading with his wants, his desires for a thousand years, maybe it doesn’t. Or maybe he just doesn’t understand how deeply she feels for him, even now.

“Because it doesn’t end well for me. Because I care about you,” she says, her voice soft and unguarded, and despite his cold reply, she can feel him ache through their bond when he hears her words.

“You shouldn’t.”

“I know,” is all she can say, because she has gone over the same thoughts on her own for quite some time now. It’s her own fault for giving in to all of the delicious offers Eric makes, for letting his words get to her the way they do. She knows that, too. “That’s why I can’t do this anymore, this tug of war, this back and forth. I can’t see you and not know if you’ll make out with me or–or treat me like an employee. I can’t put my personal life on the back-burner because I’m always sitting around waiting for you to decide whether or not I’m worth it.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to work for you anymore, or that I don’t want to see you… just that I can’t have you on my lips and on my skin without knowing if I’m just a pawn in a game you enjoy playing, or if I mean something more.”

Eric looks over her face, but says nothing, and she decides it’s time for a sensible exit, before she can say something she may not be able to take back. She steps away from him, then heads for the door, but she pauses before closing it behind her.

“Can you please send Bill and Sookie the wine? I think it’s their anniversary tomorrow.” He nods his head, and she slips out the door and back into the chaos of the bar.

#eric northman #eric northman fanfic #true blood #true blood fanfic #eric northman x reader #eric northman x original female character

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scuttling · 1 month ago

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@summerofbuddie 2025 // week two — last season reminiscing ↳ moments that confirmed buddie canon for me

#they really said let's make season 8 as gay as possible #buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911

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scuttling · 2 months ago

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evan buckley + ADHD

#911 #evan buckley #buck #my actual baby

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scuttling · 2 months ago

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I Can Handle Me A Dangerous Man - Ch 7

Fandom: True Blood (TV) Pairings: Eric Northman/Female Reader or Eric Northman/OFC Word Count: 6,323 Tags: 18+, NSFW, D/s, Making out, fingering, dream sex, masturbation, assault, murder and blood (canon typical) Summary: Eric is on a mission.

Masterlist

“So what’s tonight’s mission, boss?” Cam asks a few days later, as she approaches their table at an unopened Fangtasia, looking beautiful in nude heels and a slim black skirt, her cream colored blouse tastefully unbuttoned. She turns to Pam. “And why did you ask me to, and I quote, ‘dress like a lawyer?’”

Eric stands up and walks toward her.

“I am playing human tonight,” he explains, gesturing to the grey suit he wears; he rakes his gaze over her, her bare legs, bare throat, and then catches her eye. “And we’re crashing an office party for the employees of Morris, Morgan, and Moss.” Looking skeptical, she raises one perfectly sculpted eyebrow and crosses her arms in front of her. The look makes him note that she’s got kind of a librarian thing about her as well, which he finds more than a little intriguing. A thought for another time.

“The corporate law firm in Bossier City?” she asks, taking a step toward him. It always feels like cat and mouse, the way they gravitate toward each other, pull back, and he has to admit it’s part of the reason he always eagerly anticipates her arrival. He never knows exactly what she’ll do next. “Why?”

At that, he reaches out to take one of her hands in his own, holding it in the space between them. She looks up at him expectantly, questioning, and he reaches the other hand into his jacket pocket and produces a compact, silver USB drive.

“Because I need to see their client records, and you’re going to get them for me,” he tells her, pressing the drive into her open palm and closing her fingers around it. Cam’s eyes cut to Pam, then down at her closed fist, and back up to Eric.

“I assume you’re talking about non-public material… in which case, that would be felony theft of confidential information, Eric, so no I am not.” Before he can protest, she sets the drive on the table beside them and sighs. “You could have just told me over the phone so I didn’t have to waste time getting ready,” she says, turning again to look at Pam. Pam shrugs.

“I don’t know all the details of the top secret paranormal private investigator shit you two do,” she replies with a pretty, sarcastic smile. “How was I to know felonies were out of the question?”

“Felonies should always be out of the question! I may be a disgraced lawyer, but I’m still a damn lawyer,” Cam huffs, pinching the bridge of her nose and turning away from them. Eric can tell she’s frustrated, that he’s likely to lose the battle if he pushes, so he drums up a quick compromise.

“So we won’t copy the files. I’m really only looking for one, anyway; if we just take a peek, what’s the harm?” he asks, reaching for her so she’ll turn around to face him. He peers down at her and she sighs.

“The harm is hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.”

“I can pay your fines,” he reminds her confidently—she knows money is no issue—but she closes her eyes for a long blink, like he’s testing her patience.

“The harm is I will go to prison,” she enunciates, like she’s talking to a child. Feeling suddenly very sincere, he holds her arm more tightly and looks into her eyes.

“I would never let you go to prison.”

The immediate thrill that he feels through their bond is new, delicious, and hard to ignore; apparently, she likes him serious.

“Okay, the harm is I would be disbarred if anyone found out,” she says after a moment, trying to pretend that didn’t turn them both on.

“So I’ll kill anyone who finds out.”

…and there’s that little thrill again. Outwardly, she exhales, like he’s worn her down, but inside...

“Just a peek,” she says sternly, as if she can tell his mind is wandering, too. “Your eyes, not mine—plausible deniability—but I’ll find someone who knows the password.”

He’s unable to hide a smirk of satisfaction.

“Excellent.”

“So why do we need these files, anyway? It’s a corporate law firm,” she says when they’re in his car, driving through the city. The stars are out, but impossible to enjoy, surrounded by so many tall, artificially lit buildings.

“Yes, but they took one criminal case this year, pro bono, and that’s the file I'm looking for,” he explains as they finally pull up to a parking garage with vacancies. “Do you remember the first murder you helped me with, the werewolf who was bisected?”

“That one’s hard to forget,” she admits, and he thinks briefly back to that night, how well she’d handled the detective, the body. She’s always been able to amaze him, but that night she exceeded his expectations in every way.

“Of course,” he says eventually, pulling into a parking space. “Well, in working with the werewolf council, I learned that they have a suspect, and that he’s committed similar crimes before. Nothing so… grotesque, but he was on trial for assault with a deadly weapon, and Moss was able to get the charges dropped.”

“And you need a name? The council doesn’t know who he is?”

“Apparently he’s an omega—packless, just passing through. They only have a nickname: Radar.”

The two of them exit the car, discussing their general plan as they make their way to the elevator and ascend to the eleventh floor.

“And when we find out his real name, his location, what will you do?” she asks, in that self-righteous way he hates but can’t ignore. She looks up at him, waiting for his careful response.

“Turn him in to the council so he can be tried for his crimes, of course,” he says with just a hint of sarcasm, and she huffs a laugh. “If they decide to kill him, my hands are clean. Isn’t that what you want?”

Cam seems almost taken aback by the question, her brow furrowed when she replies.

“You seem to have assigned some kind of… naive purity to me. I’ve never said anything about keeping your hands clean,” she says, meeting his eyes. “I get that your world is covered in blood, and that I’m a part of it, now. I know the way you handle things is different from the way humans handle things. If I ask about part of the plan, it’s because I’m interested in you—what you do as sheriff,” she clarifies. “Not so I can accuse you of something if your vampire conventions don’t align with my morals.”

The bell dings to indicate they’ve reached their floor, but he presses the button to ignore that, to keep the door closed for another moment. He looms over her, already leaning into her space to reach the control panel, and hears her heart rate pick up, just slightly.

“I admire a woman who lives in shades of gray,” he tells her. He feels a bit contrite about his misstep, but no way he’s going to admit to that; he probably doesn’t need to, anyway, now that they’re bonded by his blood.

There’s a beat of silence between them, and he presses the button to open the door, straightens, and rests a hand on the small of her back. She exhales gently.

“Speaking of shades of gray.”

They mingle, blend in easily at such a large firm, where one team barely recognizes the other after 12 hour days in cramped conference rooms, and where nearly everyone is already drunk. Getting a password is easier than she expected, and so is sneaking into the office occupied by Moss’s paralegal, who tells pretty funny stories when working on her fourth vodka cranberry.

The office is at the end of an isolated corridor, which is great, but far from the exit, which poses a logistical problem. Eric insists she not worry, that he has everything under control, so she follows his lead and watches the door as he turns on a slim desktop computer and searches for the pro bono records.

Eric finds the file he needs, takes some screenshots with his phone—technically not ‘just a peek’, but she’s not going to argue at this point in the already very illegal scheme... And just in time, because she can hear Jennifer, the paralegal, making her way down the hallway toward her office.

“Hurry up and turn that off; we don’t have much time,” she warns, and Eric slides his phone into his pocket and forcibly shuts down the computer before walking around the desk to meet her at her side. She looks to him for a proposition. “There’s no way we’re going to get past her. I hope you have a plan."

He has a plan.

“Kiss me,” he murmurs, reaching for her and turning her face toward him, and she does without hesitation, stretching up and meeting his mouth with hers. She tugs on the lapels of his suit jacket, and he presses her back against the desk, then pushes her on top of it, kisses her like it’s the first time—softly at first, then deeply, with tongue, his hands moving to her hair so he can guide her head. She hums into it, hazy sounds of pleasure he catches with his lips, until someone opens the door to the office and they spring apart, caught.

He’d been so wrapped up in her he almost forgot getting caught was all part of the plan.

“What the hell,” the woman says when the light from the hall shines on them and she can see their messy hair, their kiss-red mouths. Eric clears his throat and helps Cam off the desk, sets her on her feet just behind him.

“Excuse us, ma’am, we were just… caught up in the moment,” he says in his best imitation of the local dialect, and he shoots the paralegal what he hopes is a sheepish, boyish smile. “We’ll go.”

“I think you’d better,” the woman says, and Eric takes Cam’s hand so they can flee the office. They try their best to blend in as they walk through the crowd of partying litigators, leaning on the fact that they had clearly been mid-makeout in the hopes that would prevent people from looking too closely at them.

When they finally reach the elevator, Cam leans back against the wall, and Eric stands in front of her, enthralled by her suddenly bright, breathless smile. “Okay, so," she begins, taking his lapels between her fingers again, "felonies are actually kind of exhilarating.”

“They certainly can be,” he agrees, leaning in, and before he knows it they’re kissing again. This time is different, because it’s not for anyone's benefit but their own, and her mouth is soft and sweet, her hands clinging to his clothes like she’s afraid to let go of him and break the spell they seem to be under. They break apart when they reach the lobby and the door opens, and he takes her hand to guide her out the front door when a sound down the hall stops him in his tracks.

"What is it?" she whispers, and then she must hear the thoughts that follow, because she sobers up, the memory of their kiss suddenly distant. The uniformed men parading through the building have changed things. "Someone called the cops?"

"Apparently, we weren't as clever as we thought," he tells her, and he glances across the hall at a door, the only one without a keypad handle. "Over here."

It's little more than a janitor's closet, stacked with bottles of cleaning supplies, towels, paper products, but it will do while they hide out from the cavalry. It's cramped, though, clearly meant for no more than one person to occupy for any longer than a moment, and he presses up against her, close enough to feel the huff of her breath against his skin when she laughs.

"Is our evading capture funny for some reason?" he asks, reaching over her head to brace himself against the wall. She looks up at him and shakes her head.

“It’s just… big, strong, scary vampire hiding in a supply closet?” she says, teasing him, and while he admits it does paint an odd picture, that's not the part he focuses on.

“You think I’m scary?” he murmurs, dipping down to whisper the words in her ear. She says nothing, and he cracks a smile in the dark. “You like that I’m scary.”

“Well when you’re looking for a guard dog, you don’t pick a golden retriever,” she replies, shifting between the wire shelf and his body, and it does answer his question, in a way. “Do you think they’ll be much longer?”

He shifts with her, moving a hand to her lower back where the contents of the shelf appear to be digging in and causing her discomfort.

“No way to know for sure,” he says, pressing against her. With one foot between hers, he’s about as close as he can possibly be, and she’s… she’s breathing heavily, but not because she is afraid. He brushes back a fallen lock of her hair and does his best not to smirk when he can hear her heart stutter. “But I promise, you’re safe with me.”

“And you’re not just saying that because we're hiding in a supply closet?” she asks, her voice light. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was unaffected by their proximity, but he can feel her, smell her, as easily as she can feel him. “Because I trust you at your word. If you say you’re going to be good to me,” she continues, and she rests her hand against his chest, warm and sure, before moving it down his stomach, “then I expect you to be good to me.”

It’s the glimmer in her eye that makes him think it’s a challenge, and he slides the hand from her back down to her ass, pressing their bodies together so the last inch of space between them is gone. There’s no doubt she can physically feel him even more easily than she could through the bond; if she doesn’t know he’s interested now, Eric thinks, well fuck, she never will.

“I’ll be good to you,” he says after a long moment of quiet, delicious tension. Her heart is racing, her body responding to the thrill of the moment, and when he dips his head down she stretches up to meet his lips for a kiss.

It escalates quickly, as all of their kisses do; her hands are all over him, and then she’s sliding her arms around his back to pull him closer, and he wraps his fingers around the wire shelf behind her, both arms caging her in. “Eric,” she pants during a brief moment when their mouths aren’t connected, and she grinds up against him, against his linen-covered hard-on, smelling of desire and hope and need. He presses his hips closer, so close he can almost imagine being inside her, the way he’s literally dreamed for weeks; Cam gasps into his kiss and moves a hand to his hair, kisses back deep and needy.

Eric has never felt so thoroughly enraptured by a woman in his very long life—from her scent to her mind, her face, her body, her heart, he can’t bring himself to fight all the things she ignites in him. He’d tried, of course, but each time she came around, each time she showed up for him, he’d only become more lost in her atmosphere. Having her pressed to him is intoxicating, but he does worry that the moments are fleeting, that eventually their bond will weaken and she will no longer be so tied to him.

“Are they still out there?” she breathes eventually, her hands on his sides now, beneath his jacket but over his shirt. He has to focus a moment to answer her question, hears the men moving around about the lobby, and nods in confirmation while she takes a moment to catch her breath. The way her chest heaves beneath her blouse does nothing to quell Eric’s desire.

They kiss again, and while she gropes at his arms and back he squeezes her ass hard, grinds against her and brings a hand up to carefully cover her throat. He presses down softly, earning a moan, then replaces his fingers with his mouth and lavishes her neck with attention.

The sounds she makes are sinful, he can feel them in his core, and he drops the hand on her ass a bit lower, to fumble for the hem of her skirt and lift it up, between her legs. He licks a line up the side of her neck, wants to groan when she shivers at the touch of his tongue; he does groan when he finds the wet patch of her panties, pushing his fingertips against it and earning a whimper from Cam's lips.

"Eric," she breathes, and he rumbles against her throat and pushes the fabric aside, gliding his fingers over her hot, wet lips. He grows so hard just feeling her heat, the slipperiness of her, how easily he could slide these fingers in and... "Yes, please, yes," Cam says, running her hand through his hair and pressing him closer to her. It's his official invitation, in a manner of speaking, one he does not intend to decline.

"You sound beautiful when you beg," he whispers, and then he pushes two fingers inside her swiftly, sinking deep into her pussy like he belongs in it. His mouth moves to hers to keep her quiet, because she gasps at the feel of his thick fingers and they are technically still hiding from the police—though he is so far from caring about consequences when she throbs around him, slips her tongue inside his mouth.

He is more gentle than he wants to be, because this is the first time she has asked him to touch her and he doesn't want it to be the last. He did promise to be good to her, after all, and he's nothing if not a man of his word.

They don't speak, simply exchanging hot, smacking kisses and murmurs as he thrusts up against her, his fingers deep. He slips the other hand into her panties as well, finds the spot that has her wrapping a leg around his hip and grinding against his palm.

"Breaking the law... getting finger fucked in a janitor's closet... naughty little thing, you are," he breathes against her ear, and she moans, pleased but quiet, and squeezes her thighs around him. It takes everything he has not to drop to his knees and taste her, drain her dry in more ways than one, but he focuses on making her come and ignores the aching pulse of his cock inside his pants.

This one needs to be all about her. He wants it more than he ever thought possible.

He doesn't need to command her, to tell her what he wants from her body—she knows, wants it too, pants faster and harder as her muscles tense with shivering orgasm, as she gushes and flutters around his fingers. She sighs her pleasure, her release, looks up at him with wide pupils and pink cheeks, and Eric swears he's never seen something so mouthwatering in any one of his years.

When he drops her off at home, this time, he kisses her softly, praises her for her work and her brilliance and her orgasm, and tucks her into bed.

The next morning, Cam wakes from another dream about Eric, but this time it’s cut off and she’s left unsatisfied, her limbs slow with sleep but her body revving with excitement beneath the skin. She groans, frustrated, then looks at her phone—it’s nearly noon, which means she’s been asleep for about five hours and could probably get up if she had to…

But she has nowhere to be, she thinks quickly, and her favorite vibrator is right beside her in the drawer of the bedside table. She’s earned another good orgasm and a few more hours of sleep, she tells herself, and when she flicks the switch and feels the powerful buzz between her legs, she sighs something a little like contentment.

Getting herself off is harder now than it’s ever been, possibly due to the impossible arousal she feels when she’s around Eric—something that has only doubled, maybe tripled since she drank his blood and created the tether between them. Her usual moves get her close, but after the previous night, the memory of his fingers so deep inside her, trying to climax is like grabbing for something just irritatingly out of reach. She nearly gives up once or twice and turns over to fall back asleep.

It’s Eric, then, who saves her—her dream-Eric, now also daydream-Eric—by whispering in her ear that she needs to “Come for me. Give daddy what he wants.” His voice, raspy and low, makes her thighs press together involuntarily… but it’s the phantom feeling of hands on her knees, forcing her legs apart, of a palm pressing down against the head of the vibrator exactly where she needs the almost-too-much pleasurable pain that earns the rough, shaking, gasping orgasm she finally achieves.

“Eric,” she breathes aloud, because that’s no more humiliating than not being able to come without his voice in her ear, “mmm. Thank you.” Sleepy, pleased smile on her face, she rests her arms comfortably over her head, and again she can almost feel the ghosts of his fingers sliding along her exposed wrists, the skin there over-sensitive and hot, before she drifts back to sleep.

Thursday, her regular shift at the bar listening to patron's thoughts is, for lack of a better word, dull. Eric feels it, and apparently Cam does too.

“It’s slow here tonight,” Cam says to him over a drink at the back of the bar. She’s correct, it has been uneventful, mostly regulars catching up, but he’d hardly noticed. He’s enjoying her company too much, has always enjoyed her too much. “Do you mind if I leave a little early and run over to Sookie’s? She wanted to borrow a pair of shoes from me, and I know tomorrow night will be busier.”

“Of course not,” he says, draining his drink. If she’s leaving, he’s headed for the back; no sense staying among the throng when he can get a little quiet. “I shouldn't have kept you so long.”

“I don’t mind being kept,” she says with the hint of a smile, and she stands up and leans into him, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to his cheek. It’s times like these he wants to challenge her, turn his head and kiss her like they’ve kissed before, but even if she kissed him back it wouldn’t be what he wants. It wouldn’t be enough. He knows that now.

“Can I drive you?”

“No need. I'll go right to Sookie's, I promise. I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she says, running her hand down his back. “Same time, same place.”

He murmurs his goodbyes, watches her walk out the front door, then heads to the back to bother Pam while she does paperwork. It’s not quite as enjoyable as spending time with Cam, but it’s something.

It’s a few hours to sunrise when a strange feeling hits him like an icy punch to the chest.

Something’s wrong with Cam. He can’t hear things like she can, can’t see them either, but through their tether he can feel them, and she feels all wrong. Scared, lost, hurt, alone… it’s tearing a hole through him from the inside out, and he rushes out the back door of the club and gets in his car, calling her every other minute until he arrives in Bon Temps. He goes to Sookie’s house immediately, because that’s where she’s supposed to be, and pounds on the front door until Bill and Sookie open it, frowning.

“Where is she?” Eric asks, voice rough and so low Bill is the only one who can understand him.

“Where is who?” he questions, stepping in front of Sookie like he’s afraid of him and needs to protect her. Eric rolls his eyes.

“Camila. She was supposed to come over to drop something off to Sookie,” he explains, slower, for Sookie’s benefit. “She’s close by. She needs me and I can’t find her.”

“She needs you?” Sookie asks, pulling her robe tighter over her nightgown as the breeze picks up. Her tone is confrontational, and he doesn’t have time for this. He’s about to just walk away and look for her again himself. They’re no fucking help.

“Yes, she needs me. She is under my protection and something is wrong. I can’t get a hold of her, and she was coming here. Do you know where she might be? Please,” he adds sincerely, and Sookie softens a little, sighs.

“There’s a spot in the woods near here that Bill once said was like a dead zone — his senses were all messed up there. Maybe that’s where she is?”

“Take me,” he says, on the edge of pleading, and without waiting for Bill, Sookie nods and heads in to grab a pair of shoes. “Save your self-righteous commentary for after I find her, and I’ll be happy to hear it,” he tells the other vampire, who is clearly judging him for coming here, for caring, for… he doesn’t know what.

Sookie comes out onto the porch, looks at Bill, and when he takes off Eric is right behind him, dodging branches and roots as they run through the forest. Bill stops right at the edge of a clearing, but Eric keeps rushing past, right into some kind of protective circle, a line that is trying its best to keep him from crossing it.

But he is old, and strong, and though the thing confused him it won’t keep him out. Nothing will.

“Camila?” he calls as he pushes through the uncomfortable feeling of nothing the circle provides. Then he hears a sound, like the clearing of a throat, and a thumping heartbeat. He smells blood.

“Eric?” she asks with a cough, and he could scream with the relief of hearing her voice after being so worried. At least she’s breathing, at least she’s talking.

“Camila!” He follows her coughing to the middle of the clearing, finds her laying on the ground, on her stomach with her hands tied behind her back, feet bound. He falls to a crouch and says her name again, brushes a hand over her hair so she knows he’s there, then flicks his eyes over her body to assess the damage.

The rope they’d used to bind her cuts into her wrists, leaving angry red welts he tries to avoid exacerbating when he tears through the makeshift handcuffs; it’s clear she’s been trying to do the same, as there are scratches around the welts from her own fingernails, and she’s loosened them a little already.

He unties her feet next, grateful she’s wearing pants so the ropes couldn't cut into her ankles.

He’s dreamed of her bound, hurt by his hands and begging for more, but this is not that and he wants to release a growl of primal rage at the person who would bastardize this, leave her here, alone and vulnerable and scared.

When she’s free she wraps her arms around him, presses her nose to his throat like she wants to crawl inside him for safety. It makes a strange wave of pride wash over him, knowing he brings her any kind of comfort. Despite the situation, it’s a feeling he enjoys.

“You’re alright,” he says, running a palm over her back, using the other hand to cradle her head. She coughs against his skin. “When I couldn’t find you, I feared the worst. I never should have let you come alone.” She pulls back, looks up at his face, and there’s blood on her lips, from coughing, maybe. He wipes it away with his sleeve. “Did they hurt you?

“I’m okay,” she says right away, and that’s her thing, he thinks, downplaying her injuries, her feelings, for everyone else around her. It’s bullshit, but he’ll get into that another time.

“Did they hurt you?” he asks again, fixing his eyes seriously on the ripped neck of her blouse that’s untucked at the waist. If they laid one dirty hand on her…

“Nothing’s broken,” she qualifies as she lifts up her blouse, showing blooming bruises over her ribs where they’d clearly kicked the shit out of her. Her coughing is internal bleeding.

Wordlessly—because all of his words are violent now, dripping red—he takes a small bite out of the flesh of his palm and offers her the wound.

He’s reading into things, he knows, always does with her, but she takes his hand and it’s almost as if she drinks with reverence—her eyes don’t leave his, and there’s gratitude and more gleaming in her gaze.

He hears Bill's footsteps running up to them, then Sookie’s, slower and softer, and a hitch of breath when her human eyes must register the sight of her beloved cousin drinking a vampire’s blood like it’s water instead of very forbidden fruit.

“Eric,” Bill hisses low in warning; Cam pulls her mouth away, cautious, but Eric shakes his head and preens a little when she obeys him, continues to drink. He doesn’t turn to properly address Bill, can’t bring himself to take his eyes off of the girl.

“She is badly injured,” he says, though badly is an overreaction on his part. She is bruised but not broken, and she would have healed just fine, in time, due to his blood already in her system. “And this is not her first taste of me.”

His statement lingers in the air, and it’s charged but quiet while Cam finishes drinking, when Eric pulls her into his arms and stands, motions for Bill and Sookie to follow him back to the house.

“Why didn’t she call for me? We–we can hear each other, telepaths,” Sookie says sadly when they’re about half a mile from the house; Cam is all but asleep in his grasp. Sookie’s asking Bill, who is walking slowly beside her, his arm around her shoulders, but it’s Eric who answers.

“That would have required effort. With me, it’s automatic. She calls to me so easily, sometimes she doesn’t even know she’s doing it.” He thinks of all the things he’s felt, all the things she’s let him feel, consciously or not, and wonders how it can be that she really has no idea the power of her ability.

“Because you convinced her to drink your blood,” Bill says firmly, an accusation, but it doesn’t bother Eric because he knows the truth.

“Because she chose to.” He tightens his grip on her, feeling soft and fond, and grateful she’s okay, and glances over at the couple. “If you think I can convince this woman to do anything, you don’t know her at all.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Eric asks Cam later, as she’s sitting cross legged on one of Sookie’s guest beds. She finishes the glass of water Sookie brought her and sets it on the nightstand.

“I’m fine. Your blood is already working miracles,” she says with a soft, grateful smile, and he covers her hand with his own. “I think I’ll stay here with Sookie tonight, though. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay,” he decides after a moment. Bill will be there until Eric can return, and what he needs to do won’t take long. He runs his fingers tenderly over her wrist, now soft and smooth again. “I have an errand to run, but I’ll come back afterward if you want me to.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she murmurs, looking up at him, but he can tell by the way their bond vibrates that she wants it very much. It makes him ache for her, and he reaches out to touch her face, caress her cheek.

“I promise you that you are safe now. The men who did this won’t bother you again.” His voice is solemn and low, and she presses against his hand and closes her eyes.

“Are you going to find them, Eric?”

He growls, a deep rumble in his chest she must be able to feel.

“Yes. I caught the scent in the woods.” Cam’s eyes open at that, lock on his, and they’re uncommonly fiery.

“Are you going to kill them?” she asks, heartbeat thundering in her chest, and he pushes her hair back behind her ear, cradles her jaw, nods his head.

“I am.”

“Good,” she says calmly, and he realizes that he really had misjudged her, before; her sense of justice may be strong, but she is vengeful too, like he is, full of simmering rage. Despite the dire situation earlier, it arouses him, this almost animalistic behavior he’s never seen from her before. She surprises him again by leaning in to press her soft lips to his cheek. “Thank you.”

“Thank me tomorrow,” he counters, then leans in for his own gentle kiss before heading for the door.

It’s almost ridiculous how easy it is to find the men who abducted Cam. They’re not smart, calculating threats from her time in Chicago, thankfully, just small town bigots with nothing better to do on a Thursday night than get drunk enough to vomit on themselves before passing out on their own front lawn.

When Eric approaches, they are standing in an alley outside a cowboy bar, leaning against a rusty Ford pickup truck, bottles of beer in hand and smashed to shards on the pavement. He can smell her on them, the light perfume she wears, the scent of panic and fear still lingering on their clothes, and he instantly sees red at the corners of his eyes. The men are joking, laughing, talking about a blind date that ended poorly as if kidnapping is everyday business, not even worth discussing—and he steps into the beam of the streetlight so they can see his face.

“You lost, pretty boy?” the older man asks, flicking a cigarette onto the ground and crushing it with the heel of his dirty boot. “Gay bar’s on the other end of town, and that fang-fucker place won’t be around too much longer.”

“Oh really?” Eric asks, taking a step toward them. He towers over them, knows he looks intimidating when the old man’s heartbeat picks up. “And what makes you say that?” The young man chuckles and takes a swig of his cheap beer.

“Someone’s stakin’ out the place–-haha, stake,” he repeats with an idiotic smile, and his partner laughs, then coughs, as Eric comes closer. “Findin’ all the sinful folks who go there to get their rocks off and scarin’ em away. Sendin’ a message.”

This one smells the most like Cam, was probably the one to grab her, tie her up, force her to the ground, and Eric’s anger threatens to boil over as he imagines the way she must have felt at the hands of this… loser.

“You won’t be doing that again, I can promise you that,” he says lowly, and the older man swallows audibly as Eric comes to a stop in front of him. “And I have a message of my own.”

Tearing out his heart makes Eric feel almost giddy, as does the look on the other man’s face when he does it. He pisses his pants, pathetic waste of space that he is, and with this one, Eric takes his time. Squeezing the man’s throat in one strong hand, pinning his back to the wall behind him, he breaks his fingers with the other, one after the next until all ten are little more than meat and a collection of crumbled bones.

He chokes the man harder as he cries out through the pain, as his useless hands scrabble for purchase against Eric’s unmovable arms—hell, he even revels in it, knowing this man will die afraid and in agony, just the way he left Cam.

“You are an insignificant, unpalatable sack of blood,” Eric tells him, fangs shifting to full length behind his lips, “not even worth the energy it would take to drain you dry. You never should have fucking touched her,” he says, leaning in to whisper in the man’s ear before twisting his wrist and severing the column of his spine.

“You’re back,” Bill says when Eric returns to Sookie’s house, striding through the front door. Bill hated that Cam had invited him inside, no doubt, and Eric could have knocked, but where’s the fun in that?

“Mmhmm. Had business to attend to. She’s asleep?” he asks, though he can hear for himself Cam’s steady, even breathing, and Sookie walks in from the other room with a cup of tea in her hands. She looks him over like she’s expecting… something, he can’t tell what, but she looks neither surprised nor disappointed when she doesn’t find it.

“Fell asleep about twenty minutes ago. Asked if we had anywhere you could stay when the sun rises.”

The thought warms Eric, though he’s not sure he’d trust the pair of them enough to sleep under this roof either way. He heads for the stairs.

“That’s not necessary. I just wanted to make sure she was alright before heading back to the bar.” He’s halfway up the flight when he turns his head, glancing down at Sookie as she stares at his retreating form. “Thank you.”

She hesitates a moment before saying “you’re welcome,” and Eric moves on to Cam’s room, kneeling down beside the bed to look over her sleeping face. She looks soft, angelic in the light of the moon, and he presses his lips to her forehead and leaves her to peaceful sleep.

#eric northman #eric northman fanfic #true blood #true blood fanfic #eric northman x reader #eric northman x original female character

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