#<- I say as if I have endless amounts of free time

[delaware-lemme-smash]

Ooh, excellent question! Poor Hawks, he can't catch a break, can he?

Characters: Takami Keigo/Hawks

Contents: fake dating, angst

Takami Keigo/Hawks

This is absolutely the kind of stunt the Commission would try to pull. Hawks, like most high-ranking Pro Heroes will have a publicist and chances are high for that person either working for the Commission directly or the PR agency being a third-party contractor of the Commission. Once they have their hooks in you, they do not let you go. 

For whatever reason, they decide their top Pro needs to be seen to be dating another Pro Hero. Maybe the other Pro has tanking ratings or it��s part of some deeper game. Whatever it is, Hawks doesn’t have much choice but to go along with it.

Another factor is whether or not the Commission knows you’re in a relationship with Hawks. He might have no choice to tell them, but I feel that if there was an opportunity to keep you a secret from them, he would. He doesn’t want them to have control over your life as well as his. And I’m sure he’d want to have a piece of his life that’s just for him, not for the Commission’s goals or the public’s consumption. 

It causes him no small amount of angst, having to sit you down and explain to you what they’re going to make him do. He dreads having to tell you, having to see the look on your face when you hear that he’ll be posing as some other person’s boyfriend. It’s hard enough, having to share him with the Commission and his endless work and his ravenous fans. Now you have to watch him post couple pics on Instagram with someone else. Or go on cute little dates where the paparazzi just so happen to stumble across the two heroes enjoying totally not sponsored smoothies. 

It’s maddening, to say the least. Hawks hates every second of it. 

While he’s not rude or hostile to the person he’s fake-dating, he’s not his usual lively, flirtatious self, because he knows every minute he spends with them is affecting you. His very little free time is being eaten up by this media-pandering bullshit, and he hates it.

There are a few ways he can go about making things easier. 

One, he’ll never take fake-girlfriend anywhere that he takes you. Your favourite little haunts and hangouts will never be tarnished by a photoshoot that ends up splashed across the front of Hero Weekly. 

Two, he’s honest with the fake-girlfriend. She has to know this is just a business arrangement, a contractual obligation. He already has a partner, and he’ll only be doing the bare minimum to make it look real for the cameras.

Three, he’ll set a deadline on it with the Commission. He can swing it by saying that all this prancing around for the cameras is affecting his performance. How’s he supposed to fight villains if he has to spend all his time doing photoshoots with Ultragleam or Mochigirl, or whoever they want to set him up with this week. 

Four, he can try and introduce the fake-girlfriend to you, so there’s no weird feeling of sneaking around. So you can set your own boundaries on what you are and aren’t comfortable with.

Despite all this? It’s still gonna suck.

There’s no way it doesn’t hurt to see your boyfriend posting cutesy photos with another hero. Fans will be gushing on social media, coming up with ship names, posting edits with sparkly effects and slow-mo reverb love songs playing over the top, filled with comments like “OMG THE WAY HE LOOKS AT HER!” 

The only way to make it bearable is to imagine he’s playing a character, like he’s the male lead in a romantic K-Drama, and fake-girlfriend is just his co-star. It’s true, in a way. Even if they’re attending events together and posting (staged) shots on the beach, holding hands, it’s all fake. 

When he comes home to you after a long day of patrolling, exhausted after an intense villain fight, and collapses facedown on the couch, head on your lap, wings askew, only to tiredly ask about your day and beg you to order chicken skewers? That’s real. 

[rimouskis]

thoughts on social media use, algorithms, and the strangeness of being a human in the world:

I don't remember when I downloaded tiktok. It was either 2021 or 2022. I was working from home and had more unsupervised down time than I was accustomed to. It was easy to scroll and get lost in it.

The algorithm was good. It had my interests pinned so quickly that it was almost alarming. I suddenly felt reattached to youth culture, which was something that had been slipping out of my fingers as I aged into my 20s. I rather enjoyed getting to explain new jokes or memes or references to my older friends who weren't on the platform. It was, for a time, my favorite way to spend time online, aside from Tumblr.

And all I did was consume. I barely even commented on things, mostly because the constant notifications you couldn't silence when your comment got liked were annoying, but also because I didn't think I had much worth adding. It was entirely passive. Scroll, watch, scroll, scroll, scroll, watch, watch, scroll. An eternal feed of dopamine beamed right into my skull.

I stopped writing as much, though there were lots of things I could blame that on. I stopped reading almost entirely, though that had been true for a little while, so I also couldn't blame that on the app either, not really. It wasn't like I could point to the app and say "THIS THING IS RUINING MY LIFE!" because it wasn't. I was entertained. I felt informed because I started seeing some news items this way that I hadn't seen elsewhere. I was Connected To The Culture, and I've always enjoyed that. I found music I liked, and cultural critics I liked, and endless, endless amounts of Content that I liked.

My phone was old. So old, in fact, that the screen was made out of some sort of thing where the stark white like/comment/home icons on tiktok's interface literally burnt themselves into my screen. I was kind of embarrassed about that. I didn't use it a weird amount, I was on other apps, I had a life, I ran, I was outdoors whenever the weather was good, I was always busy around the city going to events and seeing people and going to hockey games. So what if I burned some icons into an old, faulty screen?

Then my life got blown up in short order, through no fault of my own, and it wasn't until I got a new, fully in-person job that I began noticing how much I was watching tiktok when I had a SECOND of free time at my job. It was more obvious when I was in an office that my fingers twitched with desire to scroll and watch short-form videos. It was embarrassing. It was like a smoker tic for a cigarette between their fingers.

Sometime in late 2023, I told my friends I wanted to stay off of tiktok more. I was sick of not writing like I used to. I felt like all my time was spent staring down at a little screen. In bursts and spurts, I would go a day or two without using the app, or only using it in the evening before I slept. I always ended up back on it, though.

It wasn't until March 2024 that I deleted the app off of my phone instead of just hour-limiting it. It was gone.

Funnily, some time later, maybe a week or two, I tried to redownload it. But, lo, my curated algorithm was gone. It had reset entirely, like it had forgotten me. My For You Page was gibberish, wholly unlike the fun, """"curated"""" (bleh) page I'd once had that could spoonfeed me stuff calibrated to my exact interests.

And just like that, the spell was broken. I deleted the app off of my phone forevermore. I left it logged in on my laptop, where the FYP was similarly broken, and I would—once every two months or so—go online to check on the pages I followed and watch a bit of their content. A mere five or so minutes would go by before I hit the end of my "Following" feed, and I'd close out of the tab, having seen all I wanted to see. It was kind of shocking how once the addictive, spot-on algorithm was destroyed, so too was my interest in the app.

That isn't to say my attention span has returned. It doesn't feel like it has. It wasn't like I smugly wiped my hands of algorithms, either. Even though I'd previously never used the "For You" tab on Twitter, I began clicking onto it. Then, a couple months ago, I started going into Instagram reels consistently, also having never done that before.

Twitter is, of course, a terrible place now filled with absolutely hateful bigots, but it's also a place unshakably dedicated to a culture of dunking and owning and getting one over another poster and being confrontational and being rude and being the first to say the most provocative, attention-grabbing thing about ANY topic.

It became deeply unpleasant to be on. It had been for a while, if we're being honest. I stayed off hockey twitter for months because I couldn't stand the horrible takes about the Pens, or about Geno's contract, or about how Sid should jump ship.

Instagram, meanwhile, was more insidious. I've never felt the kind of anxiety about my Instagram that I know bothers some other people—I deeply enjoy it as a tool of curation. I'm a hobbyist photographer. I like sharing snippets of my life (lol obviously, given what I'm doing right now). I love the language of images. I didn't really follow any influencers or news outlets, just old friends and acquaintances and family members and some small artists I enjoy. I muted the stories of people who shared incessant and oversimplified PSA graphics about the news or social issues. I kept it rather apolitical—that was what Twitter and sometimes Reddit were for.

When I started perusing the curated/algorithm Reels feed, though, I started to get sucked back in.

It was nice, at first. My tendency to stay away from political/news content meant I didn't get ragebait on there. In fact, the VAST majority of content I was served was interior design, furniture restoring/flipping, and home remodels.

It was really interesting. I liked seeing people's homes! I liked daydreaming about getting to do big-scale renovations with custom homemade cabinetry and wallpaper and gorgeous tiles. Sometimes I'd get recipe content, too, and vaguely crunchy-but-still-sensible environmentalist stuff.

I started noticing, again, how much time I was spending on it, but it also wasn't just taking my time.

All the beautiful new furniture made me want new furniture, too. All the starkly-beautiful and obsessive (and frankly stupid and overconsumption-informed) organization content made me want to improve my hall closet. Suddenly the interior design in my home—which had gotten compliments from everyone who'd ever stepped inside, from my landlord to my friends to my family—wasn't good enough for me anymore. I wanted a change. I wanted a gallery wall. I wanted a sideboard. I wanted removable wallpaper. I wanted beautiful, impractical, expensive storage. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

I've never been particularly influenceable, not when it comes to internet influencers. I'm very informed and watchful over my money. I know what I like spending on. I plan and I make it happen. And what influencers were often selling—clothes, makeup, beauty products—wasn't where I loved spending my money.

Home decor, though? Home improvement? Interior design? Turns out that could get me to open my wallet.

I did make some changes to my living space. I like them. I think they're beautiful and they solve both a storage issue I had and a oh-god-I-own-too-much-art-where-am-I-gonna-put-it-all problem I had. But I noticed what made me spend that money: seeing other peoples' beautiful homes.

I didn't like that.

I read AHP's "Culture Study" newsletter. I find her an interesting journalist and I usually find what she has to say, and what her guests have to say, to be interesting. This morning, she put out a newsletter talking about how she'd deleted Instagram from her phone before Christmas, and taken her email app off too while she was at it.

There are so many good chunks of this newsletter, but I want to share a few:

I find myself diverting my scroll energy to Facebook, where I still have an account to access dahlia groups, but it feels even more gross than before: a wasteland of AI accounts promising blue dahlias and weight loss reels and suggestions to friends of friends who haven’t updated their Facebook accounts in nearly a decade. It’s like a frat house basement at 10 am. Why the fuck am I here.

and

After years of people yelling at me in books, think pieces, and tweets (lol) to “break up with my phone,” “delete your social media accounts,” and “fuck Mark Zuckerberg,” turns out the thing that I needed was a whole conglomeration of quiet arguments and technological shifts that made my phone and the social media accounts on it feel less precious. Put differently, I haven’t come to value it less; instead, it’s become less valuable.

and

The amount of space these technologies take up in our lives — and their ever-diminishing utility — has brought us to a sort of cultural tipping point. I’ve sensed it over the last year, when my social feeds seemed to finish their years-long transformation from a neighborhood populated with friends to a glossy condo development of brands.

AHP articulated precisely what I'd been feeling. My curated feeds of people I'd CHOSEN to follow had been replaced with algorithms of content created by professional influencers who wanted my attention (to monetize it, to sell me things, to sell my eyes to a company, whatever).

I was disgusted by the few home renovation accounts I'd begun to follow posting their all-precious Amazon links of useless chintz. Twitter was plainly a hellhole. I'm sick of businesses and businesspeople deciding what I see in the desperate hope that I hand them money.

This has bled out to other parts of my life, even. Though I've lovingly heaped praise onto Spotify for giving me two new playlists of just-for-me algorithm-picked songs each week, I've gotten into watching and listening to DJ sets on Youtube (this and this were really enjoyable) because something that's become patently clearer to me was my own desire to experience curation.

I want to feel like what I read, what I hear, what I see, has been lovingly and intentionally made by another human because they loved it so much that they had to share it. Not because they wanted to sell me something. Not because an algorithm thinks that since I liked Song A, I'll like Song B, C, D, and XYZ based on other listener patterns. Because a real human put time and effort and a pinch of luck into discovering something and wanted to share it.

I'm getting off of Instagram Reels. I'm unfollowing the home decor/design pages I added into my feed. I'm debating deleting Twitter off my phone entirely. I'm tired of being fed ads, even if they're disguised as pretty home updates. I'm tired of being fed the worst news and the worst denizens of the internet all clamoring for attention. I'm tired of an algorithm determining what will suck up my attention.

So, all of this to say: it's been weird seeing people—friends, acquaintances, old coworkers—post on Instagram mourning the (very brief) death of Tiktok. The idea of the app being banned in the States, while worrying from a freedom of speech/oligarchy perspective, didn't bother me on a personal level as a now non-user. It's been weird noticing that my dad has started watching YouTube shorts in retirement. It's been weird seeing all the algorithms and feeling so claustrophobic about them. I want out. I want away. I can feel their presence like a shrinking room, the walls touching my skin.

This is pie-in-the-sky and naive, but it's why I like Tumblr. I shell out a few bucks a month so I don't even see ads anymore. I ticked the "do not show blazed posts" option for my dash. I don't go on the "For you" page. Every morning when I scroll my dash, I always reach the end, because I don't even follow all that many people. There is a finite limit to what I see. I can go a half hour without anything new appearing on my dash, some days. It can even get boring.

...it's nice. It feels self-curated. It's actually what I want out of social media.

Anyways, this is now a stupidly long post, and I don't have a closing statement beyond "I want to experience human-curated spaces that aren't trying to sell me shit" and "I want to stop subjecting myself to algorithms out of fear that I'm missing something or out of fear that I'll be bored."

I'll finish out with three more quotes from the AHP piece:

Not being bored is why you always feel busy, why you keep “not having time” to take a package to the post office or work on your novel. You do have time—you just spend it on your phone.

and

App Time is Time, App Energy is Energy

and

The world, filtered through the apps, is not the world we want for ourselves. And in many cases, it’s not the actual world we inhabit.

[hareofhrair]

So I could pull out a pile of sources for you on why starving yourself isn't going to make you thin, on the endless evils of the diet industry, on how being fat doesn't make you unhealthy. I can bring you a truck load of empirical evidence that fat is just a body type, and fatphobia is rooted in classism and racism. I will, if you ask me to.

But the truth is none of that would change your mind, because it's not actually about being fat.

It's about hurting yourself.

This is a form of self harm, no different from cutting, except that society at large will encourage you to keep doing it till you drop dead and then stand over your grave and say "what a shame, if she had just lost five more pounds she would have been so pretty." Society can suck a dick.

You can't fix an eating disorder by fixing your weight. It's a compulsive behavior, and generally speaking our brains latch on to these compulsive behaviors because they relieve stress in some way, even if that is self destructive down the road.

A lot of compulsive behaviors, at their root, are about feeling like we're in control, especially when we have limited control over the rest of our lives, or we're trying to grapple with something inherently uncontrollable.

You need to shift your focus away from your weight, and towards what obsessing over your weight allows you to control or avoid, and deal with the problem at its source. Sometimes the problem will be something that can't be fully dealt with. So you can look for healthier ways to cope with the stress.

Try making a note every time you find yourself dwelling on your weight or how much you eat, ect. Physically write it down, if you can. Take note of what you were just doing before the urge to hurt yourself started, and the date and time. This can help you track down the things that trigger those feelings, so that when you encounter those things, you can be prepared for the feelings that are going to follow and consciously work against them.

Here's a list of other free resources that may be helpful, but if you're restricting yourself to one meal a day, it'll be very difficult to pull out of this spiral on your own. You need help and support, including professional support.

As a last note-- try to keep in mind just how much prolonged hunger fucks with your brain.

Disordered eating is linked to a reduced ability to cope with stressful situations, as well as an increased incidence of suicidal thoughts and behaviours (NEDC, 2018). Research has found that starvation has widespread and profound effects on mood and cognitive functioning (Brockmeyer et al., 2012). Severely restricting the amount of food eaten can be a very dangerous practice. When starved of food, the body responds by reducing the rate at which it burns energy (the metabolic rate) (NEDC, 2018). The human brain operates at a very high metabolic rate, using a substantial portion of the body’s total energy and nutrient intake (Sarris et al., 2015). Without proper nutrition to fuel our brain transmission and function, our brain is left vulnerable (Altomare et al., 2017).

To end on a lighter note, related to the above, there's a historical anecdote about Ibn Sina, a famous doctor, who had a patient that fell into a depression, began refusing to eat, and fell under the delusion that he was a cow. He mooed and begged to be slaughtered. Ibn Sina approached the man pretending to be a butcher and said the cow was too lean and not ready to be slaughtered, it would need to eat and get fat first. The man began eating again, and, once he had a few meals in him and could think straight, the delusion ended.

You don't know me from adam and you didn't ask for my advice, so I don't blame you if you ignore this. But I care about you and I want you to live, because we're human and caring for each other is what we're meant to do. So if you ever need someone to talk to, my dms are open. I hope tomorrow is better than today.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Emotionally, I still haven't recovered from Antoine being very touched that Fit remembered Kameto, and Antoine describing Kameto as "the best of us."

[teapartyprincess4two]

On Stream- M. Sturniolo

pairing: gf!reader x bf!Matt

classification: fluff

warnings: use of y/n, short, slight cursing, some suggestive comments

summary: Matt mentions you on stream, causing the chat to go crazy.

—

Nowadays it seems that Matt and Chris have an abnormal amount of free time.

The pair have spent the past few days running errands, catching up on chores, spending quality time together, and unwinding. But two energetic young men can only do so much relaxing before it becomes unbearably boring, especially without you and Nick around.

Nick’s somewhere across the globe, relishing in the perks of having good friends. He’s experiencing the world with a sense of individuality, having been apart from his triplet brothers for over a week.

Without Nick around the house is quiet and boring enough, but Chris and Matt can usually count on you to keep them company. But it seems that they see you less and less every day.

You aren’t somewhere far away, not physically at least, you’re just very, very busy. As you enter the fall semester, you’re juggling a multitude of responsibilities including school, work, your social life, and your relationship. But as you adjust to your crazy hectic schedule, you spend less time at home with Matt and more time nose deep in a book.

So, just as the brothers grow accustomed to the eerie silence that haunts the halls of their home and the boredom that settles into their everyday lives, they decide enough is enough and take up a new hobby. Streaming.

Today, as Matt anchors himself in his rolling chair, his eyes skim through the endless chats that flood his screen. Chris sits next to him, a vibrant and excited smile adorning his features.

This is their third consecutive day going live on Twitch. At first they went live to entertain and chat with their fans, but now they’re doing it to occupy their bored minds.

Chris’s eyes skim the chat, fixating on one message in particular. He subconsciously reads it aloud, “Is Y/n on tour with Nick? We miss her.”

After reading the comment, the chat was flooded with similar messages asking for you. Matt slumps into his chair, the mention of your name reminding him that it’s been a week since he’s seen you.

“Nah, she’s just busy with school right now,” Chris replies mindlessly, skimming for another comment to read.

A lot of the viewers noticed Matt’s mood shift. They noticed the way his eyes drooped and the way the corners of his mouth turned into a frown. They especially noticed the disassociated look he wore, mind traveling to a place only you could bring him out of.

“Matt,” Chris says, waving a hand in front of his brother’s face. No response. “Matt!” He tries again, louder this time. Matt still doesn’t respond, only coming back into reality when Chris violently shakes his shoulders.

“What, dude? What?!” Matt asks, annoyance evident in his tone.

“Your phone’s ringing.” Chris replies with an eye roll and a small scoff.

Suddenly the blaring ring registers in Matt’s mind as he pats his pockets in search of his phone. When he finally finds it, your name illuminated the screen.

“Who’s calling?” Chris asks, stretching out his neck in hopes of catching a nosy glimpse at the caller ID.

“Umm be right back chat. Y/n’s calling,” Matt says, words spewing out a mile a minute. He disappears from the room faster than ever, immediately pressing the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey, baby.” Your voice is music to Matt’s ears. It feels like forever since he’s last heard it.

“Hey,” he murmurs, “everything okay?”

You hum in response, followed by a soft yawn.

“You sound tired. When are you coming home?” Matt asks, softly leaning against the wall. You’ve been at school all day stuck in lectures and studying, so Matt knows you need some well deserved rest.

“I’m on my way now. That’s why I called, wanted to see if you guys were hungry so I could pick up something to eat.”

The excitement that courses through Matt’s veins is unreal, winding him up with enough energy to last until tomorrow. He can’t wait to see you, hold you, kiss you, and make up for all the lost time.

“Whatever you want, baby,” he replies, pausing for a second to compose himself, “I just wanna see you.”

A warm smile graces your features and if Matt could see it he’d mirror your expression.

“I’ll be home soon don’t worry. How’s the stream going?”

“Huh?” For a second Matt forgot that he and his brother were live streaming for thousands of people.

“The stream. Aren’t you live with Chris right now?”

“Ohhh. It’s going… it’s going good.” Matt replies with a soft sigh.

Your smile is momentarily replaced with a frown. “It doesn’t sound like it’s going good. What’s wrong?”

Matt’s fingers pinch the bridge of his nose before gliding across his eyelids and massaging the tense nerves and muscles on his face. “It’s going fine. I just can’t focus. The chat keeps asking about you and it’s honestly making me really sad.”

A small chuckle escapes your lips. “Aww my poor baby. Can’t focus on Fortnite?”

“Not Fortnite.”

“Oops, sorry. Fall Guys?

“Y/n.” Matt warns, though he finds it slightly funny too.

“I’m joking, I’m joking. I’ll be home soon with some good food and open arms. We can cuddle and watch a movie, or do anything else you wanna do. Okay?”

Matt feels his spirit lighten up again, a cheeky smirk forming on his face. “Anything?”

“Don’t push it,” you laugh.

Just as Matt’s about to respond, he’s cut short by Chris calling his name from inside the room.

“Get back to your stream. I’ll be home soon, handsome.”

Matt’s lips form a silly pout you can’t even see as he replies, “But I wanna keep talking to you. Miss you so much.”

“MATT!” Chris calls again, this time much louder than the last.

“We’ll talk all you want when I get home. Now go! I have the stream pulled up on my computer and I think Chris is gonna start twerking,” you say, trying your best not to laugh.

“Holy fuck this kid,” Matt groans, face palming. “Alright baby, I love you. Drive safe.”

“I love you too,” you say through small giggles before hanging up.

When Matt renters the room, he’s not surprised to find Chris dancing for the camera. He pushes past him and settles back into his rolling chair wearing a huge, toothy smile.

“What did Y/n want?” Chris asks, briefly glancing at Matt as he switches from doing the griddy to shuffling across the room.

“Just asked if we were hungry,” Matt shrugs, attempting to act nonchalant, but there’s no hiding the newfound pep in his step.

“And it took you that long?”

“I was catching up with my girl. —Why the fuck are you still dancing?”

“Someone gifted,” Chris says, slightly breathless as he bops from corner to corner.

“Alright…” Matt shifts towards the computer, “What did I miss?”

He reads comments, expecting most of them to be about Chris and his absurd dancing skills, but he’s surprised to find that they’re all about you.

Some fans ask where you are, others ask what you’re doing, some speculate on the conversation you and Matt had, and others simply comment on how much happier Matt seems since talking to you.

All Matt can do is smile and patiently wait for you to arrive, ready to bombard you with kisses as soon as you step through the door.

—

MASTERLIST

a/n: hi babies! Hope you enjoy this short oneshot! I know I haven’t updated or posted much in a longggg time but I honestly had writers block :P I’m trying to get into the habit of writing again, so bear with me pls. I have a lotttt of drafts (some that just need to be edited) so be expecting that soon! Luv you all 😚

- L.A.M.B🪽💝

—

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note: if you want to be tagged in my fanfic related posts, you can access my TAGLIST and comment 💐 if your user is striked through, I wasn’t able to tag you :(

[kaijuno]

"No piece of art has ever emotionally affected me the way this robot arm piece has. It's programmed to try to contain the hydraulic fluid that’s constantly leaking out and required to keep itself running...if too much escapes, it will die so it's desperately trying to pull it back to continue to fight for another day. Saddest part is they gave the robot the ability to do these 'happy dances' to spectators. When the project was first launched it danced around spending most of its time interacting with the crowd since it could quickly pull back the small spillage. Many years later... (as you see it now in the video) it looks tired and hopeless as there isn't enough time to dance anymore.. It now only has enough time to try to keep itself alive as the amount of leaked hydraulic fluid became unmanageable as the spill grew over time. Living its last days in a never-ending cycle between sustaining life and simultaneously bleeding out... (Figuratively and literally as its hydraulic fluid was purposefully made to look like it's actual blood).

"The robot arm finally ran out of hydraulic fluid in 2019, slowly came to a halt and died - And I am now tearing up over a friggin robot arm 😭 It was programmed to live out this fate and no matter what it did or how hard it tried, there was no escaping it. Spectators watched as it slowly bled out until the day that it ceased to move forever. Saying that 'this resonates' doesn't even do it justice imo. Created by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, they named the piece, 'Can't Help Myself'. What a masterpiece. What a message."

Extended interpretations: the hydraulic fluid in relation to how we kill ourselves both mentally and physically for money just in an attempt to sustain life, how the system is set up for us to fail on purpose to essentially enslave us and to steal the best years of our lives to play the game that the richest people of the world have designed. How this robs us of our happiness, passion and our inner peace. How we are slowly drowning with more responsibilities, with more expected of us, less rewarding pay-offs and less free time to enjoy ourselves with as the years go by. How there's really no escaping the system and that we were destined at birth to follow a pretty specific path that was already laid out before us. How we can give and give and give and how easily we can be forgotten after we've gone.. How we are loved and respected when we are valuable, then one day we aren't any longer and we become a burden...and how our young, free-caring spirit gets stolen from us as we get churned out of the broken system that we are trapped inside of. Can also be seen to represent the human life cycle and the fact that none of us make it out of this world alive. But also can act as a reminder to allow yourself to heal, rest and love with all of your heart. That the endless chase for 'more' isn't necessary in finding your own inner happiness.”

[cameronsprincess]

love rafe x reader x jj with rafe being the main dominant one of the three 🤭 imagine him having jj tied to a chair with a cock ring on and making him watch while he edges reader over and over again

WOWZA. i found my inspo for writing right around ovulation time and i’m drooling

CW: smut! 18+ only! dom!rafe, sub!reader, sub!jj, use of toys, overstimulation, edging, orgasm denial, degrading.

deadly duo masterlist | requests

“r-rafe.. oh fuck, please?”

a dark laugh escapes his lips as he roughly shoves the pink silicone dildo in and out of your dripping core, “hear that maybank? hear the way she begs me to fuck her with the toys? see how she’s fuckin’ squirming, begging for a release?”

your eyes chance a glance to the corner of your bedroom, spotting jj naked and bound to a chair. his own body jerks, shaking from the overstimulation as the vibrating cock ring rafe placed on him brings him to his fourth orgasm. you know jj is in pain, but he’s also got endless amounts of pleasure rushing through him, even if it hurts, it feels so damn good.

rafe’s free hand reaches your face, ringed fingers tightly gripping your cheeks, squeezing so hard you cry out from the pain searing through your face, “eyes on me, doll. when i fuck you, your attention needs to be on me, understood?”

you avert your gaze back to rafe, his darkened blue eyes burning a hole into your face as he continues to work the soaked toy in and out of you. he shoves the toy deep inside your cunt, the lewd, very erotic sounds of your drenched pussy being fucked by the toy bounce off the walls mixing beautifully with you and jj’s cries of pain of pleasure.

rafe had been at this for over an hour, having walked in on you and jj spending some time together. he wasn’t happy to say the least. he didn’t mind if you fucked jj, but only if he said it was okay, and he had to be there, anything else was against his “rules” and resulted in punishments like these.

“god you’re both so fuckin’ pathetic. do you hear yourselves?” rafe taunts.

tears fill your eyes, making them sparkle. you squeeze your eyes shut, allowing the tears that had pooled in your eyes to spill past your lower lashes, staining your cheeks as yet another orgasm threatens to rush through you.

rafe quickly pulls the toy from inside you, making you heave out a frustrated groan. he’s not allowing you to cum, whereas he’s torturing jj with overstimulation, he’s denying you the release you so badly crave.

“rafe! please! god, we’re sorry! just- just please let me cum!” you whine, your bottom lip trembling as you stare up at him.

“awww, i almost feel sorry for you.. i mean, you’re fuckin’ begging to cum, like a worthless fucking whore who’s only purpose in life is to be fucked dumb,” he pauses, reaching behind him and grabbing your rose toy off the bed and turning it on, the loud vibration sounds filling the room. “too bad. you know the rules, doll. you’ll be brought to the brink of release, and then i’ll deny you that release, until i decide you’ve had enough. maybe you’ll learn to respect me, yeah?”

the sound of jj’s cries fill your room once more, your eyes glancing at him just in time to see his cock weakly spurting cum into his toned stomach. you watch as his abs flex, his jaw clenched and eyes squeezed shut as his fifth orgasm takes over his entire body.

jj’s bright blue eyes find yours, his head slightly bowing before he lifts it again, mouthing an “i’m so sorry.” to you. your eyes soften, letting him silently know it’s okay, you don’t blame him, you enjoy your time with just him, even if you know the consequences are rough.

“he’s so pathetic, isn’t he, doll? look at him… fuckin’ pathetic, but he’s such a good boy, aren’t you maybank?”

jj slowly nods his head, his teeth grinding so hard you’re surprised they don’t break. your body jerks, attention springing back to rafe when he gently places your rose toy against your swollen clit, the strong vibrations buzzing against your sensitive bundle of nerves mixed with your strong need for release making your entire body tighten.

“s’gonna be a long night, doll. i suggest you be prepared to be used, edged and denied life’s simple pleasures for a few hours. you wanna act like a fuckin’ slut? climb in bed with maybank while i’m not around, i’ll fuckin’ remind you of who owns you and this sweet little pussy. i’ll remind maybank who owns him and that nice cock he’s got too. maybe this’ll teach you both not to cross me again.”

reread this… lowkey hate it but i’m not rewriting it. reblogs are greatly appreciated <3

[niningtori]

cruel intentions | part two

part one

pairing: choi beomgyu x you

summary: in the wake following the revelation that your boyfriend, beomgyu, only dated you for a bet in order to get his rent paid, you're actually doing pretty well. on beomgyu's end? he can't say the same.

genre: romance, angst, melodrama, fluff

warnings: clichés everywhere

word count: 3.8k

notes: she's here! i fear that this might be super corny and somewhat abrupt but that's fine i think!

beomgyu is not okay. he really, really isn’t. how could anyone expect anything other than that? it’s been a year since he saw you last, but he’s starting to believe that whoever said time heals all wounds was just blowing smoke up his ass. if anything, the longer he’s spent away from you, the worse his heart aches. that’s natural, he supposes, because you’re definitely the one that got away, and the fact that he drove you to leave only twists the knife. he wishes he could go back to the day he agreed to that stupid fucking bet and wring his own neck — maybe that'd talk some sense into his old self. but like you said all that time ago, he can’t. he even wishes he could go back to the first day of freshman year just so he could meet you sooner. that way, he could have been in your life and alleviated some of the stress and pain you always felt. but, and he cannot stress this enough, he can’t.

you may have blocked him on everything he can think of, but that doesn’t stop him from asking about you. luckily, taehyun made good on his intentions to get to know you better before realizing that you were the girl beomgyu had secretly been dating for months. as a good friend, taehyun declared you as totally off-limits, but that didn’t stop your all’s friendship from blossoming. as it is, your friendship with taehyun is only rivaled by your friendship with chaeyoung — a fact that she is all too aware of.

“when are you gonna stop beating around the bush and just get with him already?” she pouts.

“never,” you snort. “i told you, we’re friends and nothing else.”

“i know, i know, but i think he’d be good for you,” she insists.

“you’re only saying that ‘cause you’re worried he’ll replace you as my best friend, which he won’t, by the way,” you tease.

“you caught me,” she says playfully. 

truthfully, your friendship with chaeyoung has only strengthened after graduation. with the help of your therapist and a certain someone whose name you can’t bear to speak these days, you finally grew enough courage to tell her how you’ve felt like you were nothing more than her shadow since you were a preteen. you even told her about all of the times men (and women alike) only talked to you to get to her. to say she was horrified is the understatement of the century. after endless reassurances that you bore no ill will towards her and didn’t fault her for anything, she finally stopped apologizing. now, you two are closer than ever. 

“it’s just… i want to see you happy with someone,” she adds. she doesn’t have to end her sentence with  “again”, since you already know what she means: she wants to see you as happy as you were with beomgyu, again. except, for real this time. not for a bet or for fun.

“it’s okay, chae,” you say with a smile. “i’m happy as i am, i mean it.” and you do. working in your desired career field has helped you tremendously with income, and you’re actually able to provide for yourself and for your family without killing yourself with working overtime. you have so much free time, you're even able to date around a little bit. it never amounts to anything particularly serious, but it’s enough as it is. gone is the permanent storm cloud looming over your head and you’re finally able to breathe for the first time since, well, your relationship with beomgyu.

“i know,” she replies. “i just want my best friend to be even happier; is that so bad?” you roll your eyes good naturedly and she grins. 

“who knows? maybe i’ll meet someone tonight,” you muse, but you don’t really mean it. taehyun, or “tyun” as you affectionately call him, is having a get together at his place. he hinted at bringing some of his single friends, but you don’t expect anything to come of it. while it’s true that with the help of therapy and being completely honest about the nature of your inferiority complex with your best friend has helped boost your confidence, you never expect much from prospective romantic partners. you’ll never say it, but everyone knows it’s because of beomgyu.

“maybe. y’know, soobin is pretty cute,” she says with a nod, taking everything you say way too seriously. 

“yeah. he is.” 

-

while you have been to many, many events taehyun has invited you to, there has always been an unspoken rule that beomgyu would not be there. it seems that taehyun is able to perfectly juggle you two without having you all appear at the same place at the same time. that is, until you arrive at his apartment with a big smile and a 12-pack of beer and see the man who haunts you religiously sitting listlessly on taehyun’s couch. he doesn’t usually care enough to look up from his drink when new arrivals step foot through the door, but for some odd reason, he does when you walk in. it’s almost as if his truly supernatural intuition tells him to. unfortunately for you, his intuition is a pain in your fucking ass. 

when you meet eyes (lock eyes, really) you feel a pit of dread bloom in your stomach, threatening to swallow you whole. still, there’s a light fluttering of your heart that you wish to god you could deny, but it’s there, nonetheless.

you all stay in a deadlock for what feels like a lifetime before taehyun pulls you from it with a smile and hug.

“i’m glad you made it,” he says lightly. 

“of course, tyun,” you smile, successfully pulled out from your daze and back into the real world. it’s okay. you can do this. you’re a different person now that a year has passed. you’re mature enough to be in the same place as beomgyu. what you’re not mature enough for, though, is actually having to speak to him. luckily, you have no plans to do so now (or ever). 

beomgyu thinks… differently. 

when you’re standing in a quiet corner nursing a drink and wondering what the hell you’re still doing here, you almost miss the sound of feet shuffling towards you. your eyes lazily glance up and see beomgyu himself unsurely leaning against the wall next to you. 

“h-hey,” he says softly, cautiously. you look confused for a second, almost like you’re unsure if he’s addressing you, but his eyes look so earnest, there's no way he’s not. 

“hey?” you reply before fussing with your cup and watching the alcohol swirl around, threatening to spill over the rim of your solo cup.

“uh, how… how have you been?” he asks so nervously that it sounds like he’s surprised that you even responded. and he is. if he were you, he wouldn’t give himself the time of day. why would he? he doesn't deserve it.

“good,” you say with a ghost of a genuine smile. if he knew you less, he wouldn’t even be able to catch it. thankfully, he does know you, for better or for worse. his heart sings at the thought that you’re able to smile at him like you did before.

he waits for you to ask him how he is — that’d be the perfect segue into his apology — but you don’t. it’s like you don’t care to know, and any tune his heart was previously singing is strangled in an instant.

well, he supposes that he’s lucky that you’ve even said two words to him (two words in the literal sense that you’ve only actually said two words in total, but that's not the point). he’s even luckier that you actually seem to mean that you’re doing well. taehyun had told him as much, but it’s not nearly as effective as seeing you glowing the way you do with his own eyes. you look normal. you look happy. there was a point in his life where he thought that’s all he wanted, but he realizes he was wrong. he shamelessly wants to be happy, too, and he knows the only way he can do that is if he’s with you.

the air is awkward and heavy for a few minutes, but neither of you make a move to break it until you decide enough is enough. you purse your lips and are about to bid him goodbye so you can get home and ruminate on your very, very brief interaction, but he notices your movement and reaches out to grab your arm before he can stop himself. instinctively, you smack his hand away. not hard at all, more like a swipe than a smack, really, but he recoils as if you’ve just backhanded him.

“s-sorry,” you stammer. “it was just a gut reaction.” 

somehow, that makes him feel even worse. there was a time where his touch soothed you like nothing else, but now all it does is put you on your guard. 

“it’s fine,” he says with a forced smile, and your heart aches. “i was just gonna see if you wanted a ride home. i haven’t drank anything, so i just thought that… maybe…”

“oh, it’s okay,” you politely decline. “chae is going to pick me up.” he flinches at the name and as much as he wishes you couldn’t tell, you definitely do. 

“but i can take you!” he insists a little too desperately. “i just thought, you know, that we could talk or something,” he mumbles. 

“talk? about what?” you ask sharply. you begin feeling like you’re going to lose your temper. why is he making this so hard? it’s starting to piss you off.

“i—”

“if you’re going to apologize to me again, i don't want to hear it,” you sneer. you said you weren't mad at him and that you forgave him, which felt true at the time, but the more you started respecting yourself, the less patience you had for him. as you look at him, looking like he's every part like a victim in this ordeal, you realize that you’re angrier than you previously let on. “you know, i’ve thought more about what you did.” he looks like he’s just been kicked in the stomach, but you don't stop.

“and i’ve thought about what i would do for rent. i thought, ‘well, maybe if i were desperate enough for the money, i could do that, too’, and you know how desperate i was.” his lips tremble because he does know. he knows it all too well. “but i realized i couldn’t, and even if i could, i never would. the shame? the humiliation? i would never put someone through that, and i thought you would never, either, but i was wrong. i was wrong about you and the kind of person you are, or were, or whatever. and i thought, at the very least, you had enough decency to at least leave me the fuck alone, but i guess i was wrong about you again, as always.” you don’t mean for your voice to get so loud, but it does. each syllable is ripping through beomgyu like a punch to his gut, but he can’t find it within himself to defend his actions. all he can do is sit there and take it. 

devastated doesn’t even begin to encapsulate how beomgyu looks and feels, but you don’t really give a shit. you’re absolutely fuming right now, nearly shaking from releasing the anger you’ve felt for months, and he has the nerve to look like the one who’s hurt? what about you? what about how you felt when your boyfriend admitted he only dated you because he needed (more like wanted) the cash?

“babe…” you hear a familiar voice say. chaeyoung. she must be here to pick you up. your attention snaps from her to the rest of the room and you finally register that everyone has gone silent, all their stares directed towards you. embarrassed isn’t even the word. mortified is more like it. you awkwardly clear your throat and take one last scathing glance at beomgyu before grabbing chaeyoung’s arm and storming outside of taehyun’s place.

the ride home is silent — unsettlingly silent — until chaeyoung pipes up after a few minutes of driving.

“why don’t you just talk to him?” chaeyoung asks tentatively.

“what?!” you exclaim, whipping your head around to meet her gaze. 

“it’s just — i mean, i don’t think it would hurt anything if you tried,” she says cautiously, which is very, very much unlike her. 

“why? i thought you, of all people, would understand. you know what he did to me.”

“i’m not defending him, honey,” she coos, as if she’s soothing a child during a tantrum. “i’m always on your side. always.”

“then why are you saying i should hear him out? i thought you hated him!” you don't really know why, but you’re becoming more and more defensive as you speak to her. 

“i did hate him. i just think there’s more to it than that. why don't you talk me through how you’re feeling?” she suggests.

“i… i just don’t understand. i’m not who i used to be — i’m not some spineless doormat who lets people treat me like shit. don’t you think so?” you ask, sounding increasingly unsure about that sentiment to the point where it’s nearly laughable. 

“what does that have to do with hearing somebody out when you clearly want to?” she argues patiently.

“it’s just… it’s just not fair!” you exclaim. “it’s not fair how he used me. i had to try so fucking hard to rebuild myself after him.”

“as much as i love you, you and i both know you weren’t rebuilding yourself; you never had that foundation in the first place, and that’s not your fault, but it’s not beomgyu’s, either. it’s true that he treated you like shit, and you don’t have to forgive him for that, but how you felt about yourself was always so much bigger than him.”

you find yourself recoiling with each point she makes.

you hate how much she makes sense. 

“b-but still, i’m different now,” you argue, more like you’re convincing yourself instead of her. “i won’t let myself fall back into him like that.” 

“don't you trust yourself to make the right decisions? people change — you know that better than anyone. look, i’m not saying you have to or should do anything, but i think it’d be good for you to at least listen to him. you’re not doing yourself any favors by torturing yourself with ‘what if’s’ instead of just, well, talking to him.”

-

you think about it, and think about it, then think about it some more. you wonder what beomgyu could say to change anything he's done before realizing that it's impossible. but maybe chaeyoung's right, maybe he did change. does that matter, though? probably not, but you still find yourself wanting to know what he has to say. maybe you'll find it within yourself to finally let him go.

you unblock his number and, before you can think too much about it, you’re calling him. it doesn’t ring more than once before you hear the line connect.

“h-hello?”

“i’ve thought about it, and i'd like to talk.” 

“s-sure. uh, when?” he stammers.

“whenever.”

“i'll be there in 15,” he hurriedly says, as if wasting a single second will lead you to change your mind.

“okay,” you reply with a soft smile on your face, hanging up shortly thereafter.

12 minutes later, you hear a frantic knocking on your door. you open it to find beomgyu out of breath and looking incredibly disheveled. your lips almost curl up at his sorry state, but they don’t quite make it there.

“hey,” he says between pants.

you don’t respond, but you crack your door open further to let him in. he takes your cue and stands awkwardly in your living room, almost as if he’s afraid to actually touch anything. you don’t miss the way he takes everything in. some of the interior is different, but the bones of it are still the same. he doesn't know why, but the thought relieves him.

“so?” you ask after clearing your throat, effectively breaking the silence. he looks at you confusedly before seeming to remember what he’s doing here.

“r-right. i’m— i mean, i just wanted to explain,” he says meekly. 

“explain what?” 

“explain why i, uh, why i d-d—”

“dated me for a bet?” you finish, and mercifully so, because the words feel like nails when they try to leave his own throat.

“yeah. that,” he says, taking his hand and nervously scratching the back of his neck.

“mm,” you hum.

“i just want you to know that i’m sorry,” he blurts out before he has half a mind to stop himself. he knows it’s the wrong thing to say when he sees impatience flash across your features.

“we’ve established that.”

“oh. right,” he croaks, looking more and more crestfallen and lost by the second. 

“listen, beomgyu,” you sigh. “if you don’t have anything to say, i think you should just l—” 

“i do! i do have something to say!” he exclaims. you still seem agitated, but against all odds, you nod.

“back when heeseung and i, you know, made the b-bet, i knew it was wrong,” he says. “i knew it was wrong, but i still did it. i guess i just saw you as, like, a challenge or something.” you flinch at his words and cross your arms as if your insides will spill out if you don’t. he winces, but continues, anyway.

“but then i got to know you,” he quickly adds. “really know you. and i realized that you’re so much more to me than that. every day i spent with you taught me more about myself, and i didn’t like what i learned; but  i think even just being around you made me into a better person. i don’t know how to ever thank you for that, but i guess it’s worth a shot, so thank you. really.” you can’t help but feel your eyes water. you were that important to him? “and every day, i want to fucking strangle myself when i think about how much i hurt you,” he says, voice cracking at the end of his sentence. you take him all in, finally noticing the fatigue in his gaze, in his entire being. reminiscent of the way you looked nearly a year ago. instead of satisfaction at the thought that he finally knows how you felt, all you can feel is sympathy. you know how it feels to be the kind of tired even sleep can't pacify.

“i want you to know that you are the most important person in my life, a-and even if you don’t forgive me, it’s… well, i understand. but you are not a joke to me, or a challenge, or whatever. i guess i just want to tell you that i meant it when i said that i loved you, and i mean it when i say it now. because i do. i really, really do.” you are silent, trying to scan his eyes for any signs of deception or ill intent, but you can’t find any. his teary eyes and quivering lips tell you that he really means what he says. is that enough, though? can it ever be enough? maybe not, probably not, but as you stare at the tears that threaten to leave his eyes, you decide you’d like to try.

“okay,” you say. 

“o-okay? does that mean—” 

“it means we can try again. as friends. for real this time. but i’m not the same person i was. is that okay?” the tears that were once on the precipice of leaving his waterline have now begun to flow freely. fuck his stupid pride, you can have all of it if you just let him give it to you.

“y-yeah. me neither. i mean, i’m not the same person, either,” he babbles. 

“okay,” you say with a nod, ever-so-graciously wiping his tears with the pads of your thumbs, smile floating on your lips. and he just can’t help himself. 

“can i kiss you?” he asks. 

“that’s not what friends do,” you chastise playfully, “but alright. just this once.” and you’re still as kind and merciful as ever. he lets out a shaky breath.

slowly, he takes his trembling hands and pushes your hair behind your ear before leaning down and planting his lips against yours. you melt into the feeling, just like you always did when he kissed you, and you feel your heart fluttering in your chest. on beomgyu’s part, he feels like he’s in a dream. to be perfectly honest, he’s had many dreams like this since you left, but nothing compares to how sweet his present reality is. 

when he deepens the kiss, you let him. you want to say you’re unsure why, but you know it’s because you don’t want this moment to end. you two stay in each other’s arms for longer than you’d like to admit. who can blame you for it when nothing in your life has felt this right in such a long, long time? 

for beomgyu, when you two finally part, he thinks it wasn’t long enough, at all. but then, no amount of time could really satisfy him, anyway. still, when he looks into your eyes, he can’t help the unconscious pout that adorns his face when he realizes the moment is over. you can’t control the way you let out a soft laugh at it.

-

being friends with you is very, very hard. not because you're hard to be around or because there's anything wrong with you, but because, to beomgyu, you're so easy and comforting to be with. it’s all too familiar to beomgyu and he finds himself slipping into old habits such as holding your hand and tucking your hair behind your ear when you let it fall into your face. surprisingly, you let him do whatever he wants. whether that's because you missed his touch or because you just don’t want him to stop, you don’t care to figure out. when taehyun brings up the unnecessary intimacy between you two, you can’t help but blush and deny anything crooked going on, which beomgyu takes to heart every time.

he’ll wait for you to accept him, though. he’ll always wait. 

and one night when you’re watching cheesy movies on your couch with him and you look down at your intertwined hands, his thumb unconsciously rubbing against your smaller one, you realize you don’t want to deny him. 

“beomgyu?” you whisper, drawing his gaze from the screen.

“yes?” he asks, attention fully on you like a puppy ready to listen to whatever you say.

“you don’t have to wait anymore.”

-

notes pt. 2: yeah sorry if this is the corniest thing u have ever read... my fault!

permanent (sfw only): @zzhyuu @defnotleee

permanent taglist (sfw/[n]sfw): @my313 @superbbananananana @lonelybutterflytae @cherrycolaberry @midwinterblizzard @everythingvirgoes @sooberryworld @20-cms @inkigayocamman @hyueika @boba-beom @vicurious28 @blossommi @lickingan0rchid @katsukis1wife @binniebakery @notevenheretbh1

series taglist: @vixensss @dejavu-jun @gyuchubss @missychief1404 @hihello-pinky @dojdcmidcmkmfekdvmkrkmvvrm

*bold names could not be tagged

[godjo]

✮ — ptolemaea.

you poor thing sweet, mourning lamb there’s nothing you can do it’s already been done

tags — wriothesley x afab!reader. 4k wc. yandere. noncon. non-explicit smut with allusions to oral sex (both receiving), rough sex, creampie, doggy style. minors, blank, and ageless blogs dni. 

from hunter — this is a repost. i listened religiously to ethel cain’s ptolemaea while writing this piece.  ✮

“step onto the platform, please.”

your stomach churns; what little you consumed that day threatens to spill from your mouth. there’s a continuous eddy in your mind, the headache affecting the strength of your bones. 

would you ever be prepared to face this kind of dilemma?

you have been given no chance to contemplate before the security in charge pushes the small of your back. you stagger towards the middle of the platform that will bring you down several feet underwater. as it starts to descend, you inhale whatever amount of fresh air you can, dreading that it’d probably take time before you could see the outside again. 

it’s just for a few months. all you have to do is endure your sentence, and you’ll be free. 

the air slowly turns scant the deeper you descend, as though you’re being submerged even in the absence of water. it doesn’t help that all you’ve seen so far is an endless stretch of metal, closing in on you, augmenting your anxiety. after what seems like forever, the elevator halts, hinting at your arrival, and there you struggle not to marvel at the magnificent view of the water outside. 

however, the security standing by your side tugs at your arm. another wave of nausea fills your throat with acid as the receptionist registers your information and recites the crime you’ve committed. sealing your fate as a prisoner is a quick mugshot before you’re brought to the administrative area. 

your wild eyes scan the area, noticing other newcomers lining up horizontally before a huge metallic door. they are stricken with the same anxiety as you, evident in how their throats are bobbing, their eyes burning holes in the ground.

“stand up straight. the duke is here,” the security announces as the gigantic door creaks open. 

“he’s here; we’re going to die,” the man beside you whispers in hysterics. 

his apprehension is a contagious disease, crawling to stick onto your skin, corrupting what little courage remains in your spine. 

your breath becomes strained and like everybody else, you’ve done your best to make your presence smaller. what is it about the duke that triggers this kind of paranoia?

“ah, here are the flock of lambs,” a strong voice dripping in confidence pronounces, causing the rest of the prisoners to shrink in size, as though all they’ve wanted is to disappear. “should i say ‘welcome’? or you’d rather we skip the pleasantries and go straight to business?”

looking at him now, you understand why the mere mention of his name evokes such palpable horror. he’s a man of tall stature and rough demeanor. his hair, unkempt yet strangely glossy, adds to the unnatural charm he possesses. it’s dark like a raven’s feathers, interspersed with strands of gray that somehow enhance his roguish appearance. 

he starts his scrutiny at the other end of the line, saving you for last. as he scans the prisoners, his mouth remains in a tight line, with an occasional cock of the brow or twitch of the lips. 

“and for the last one…” his tone tilts between authority and mischief, leaving no room for defiance. 

your heart hammers against your ribs, but fear holds your gaze down. mentally cursing yourself for potentially igniting the duke’s ire, you flinch when his warm fingers swiftly lift your chin. 

you suck in a sharp breath, expecting to be greeted by annoyance. what’s painted on his face is an expression you cannot quite name. his pale gray eyes are blown wide, penetrating you straight to the soul. lips slightly agape, he displays an image of someone utterly surprised. it hasn’t taken long for colors to flood his face again, delivered by his conscious recognition of the prisoners’ gawking stares. 

the duke clears his throat, summoning back his menacing aura. he motions for the nearest securities, instructing that they discuss the rules and send the prisoners to their respective bunkers. 

however, he finds your eyes again just as you’re preparing to follow the throng. 

“you. follow me,” declares the duke. 

it couldn’t have been anyone else, even though you turn around to see if he’s speaking to someone other than you. realizing the weight of the command, your heart lurches in your throat. how much anxiety can you handle for a day? and what could possibly compel him to seek a private audience with you?

behind the gargantuan doors, you find yourself yet again inside an unsettling chamber. the aged yet robust metal dominates the space, boasting the formidable reputation of the fortress of meropide. once or twice you have envisioned yourself barred in this place, courtesy of your way of living, but nothing can size up the fear of being here in flesh and bone. 

“i’m over here,” the duke echoes from above.

cut away from your reverie, you ascend the stairs upwards to the third level. the metal sculptures of three-headed wolves catch your eye, their craftsmanship a marvel, set amidst numerous bookshelves filled with various genres. in the center of the room sits a spacious table piled with papers, while another stands to your right, equally laden with documents.

“you’re probably wondering why you’re here,” he begins, reclining the back of his lower body against the table, strong arms crossed over his chest. “don’t worry, i’m not gonna hurt you. i’d merely like to ask you a few questions.”

through your parched throat, you respond, “ask away, your… your grace.”

to your surprise, the duke’s shoulders shake as his mouth echoes a merry laughter. 

“c’mon! loosen up. don’t you remember who i am?” he asks in between full-throated chuckles. “have i changed that drastically?” 

don’t you remember who i am? 

now that he’s mentioned it, there’s a wriggling part of your brain that finds him familiar. however, try as you might to fish for a particular memory involving him, you can only grasp at nothing. he remains just a figure you likely crossed paths with on a street somewhere.

“i… i can’t remember—”

he spreads his arms in glee, closing the distance between you without respect for personal space. large hands capture your shoulders, then, shaking you with undeniable enthusiasm. 

“it’s me! wriothesley! the boy from the orphanage. remember?”

memories flood your mind: blurred recollections of a boy with raven-like hair and pale gray eyes, scenes of a brawl in the yard where his fists repeatedly struck another orphan’s jaw. more images rush in: him behind bars, and you offering a piece of bread to his bloodied hands.

“wrio? is that really you?” you ask breathlessly. your hands have found their way on his shoulders, too. 

“yes, it’s me! it’s been a while, hasn’t it? how are you?” he looks like he’d seen a ghost, but there’s no trickle of terror in the planes of his face. only wonderment and utter euphoria. before you can respond, he raises a finger and dialed the nearest telephone, commanding whoever is at the end of the line to bring refreshments inside his office. 

he leads the both of you to the lone sofa before repeating his question. 

“well i… i tried to get by after the adoption,” you tell him, pursing your lips at the memory. “it wasn’t so dreadful, being in that house, but i wouldn’t claim that it had been easy. how about you?” your eyes wander at the expanse of the room. “you govern the fortress now? what even happened to you?” 

wriothesley’s lips stretch to a smile. “yeah. who would’ve thought that a rascal like me can do it, right?”

you playfully punch his shoulder. “you’ve always had that command in you, wrio. even when we were in the orphanage. you stood tall and lived by your principles. no wonder papa and mama liked you so much back then. speaking of which, do you know where they are now?” 

after your adoption, you haven’t had the ability to contact the orphanage and ask about everyone’s well-being. since you have been living by scraps, you’ve focused instead on surviving without any spare time to visit the orphanage. 

“papa and mama, huh?” an overcast went over his eyes. his words have a bite to them that you cannot decipher. when he looks back at you, there’s a cloud on his face as he mutters, “i killed them.”

the confession immediately turns your veins cold. he looks dead serious.

“what?” a nervous chuckle reverberates from you. “that’s a bad joke.”

his eyes are the most unsettling gray you have ever witnessed. 

“i know you haven’t had the best experience with your adoptive parents. none of the adopted children had. papa and mama took care of us, just so they could sell us. do you know that some of the children even died after being adopted? i did the right thing killing those fuckers,” he confesses without a trace of remorse for the gravity of what he’s done.

this is too much to take in one sitting. your head throbs again with a new intensity. perhaps it’s the years that you’ve been gone that exacerbates his revelation. you vividly recall the day you parted ways with the orphanage owner, tears in their eyes as they reluctantly let you go to your new foster parents. it was a poignant farewell, etched as your last memory of them. now you wonder, was it all a facade?

before you can bombard him with a set of questions, the arrival of refreshments completely dismisses the whole tête-à-tête. the security who’s placed the glasses on the table bestows you a questioning look; one that you would’ve missed had you the heart meet wriothesley’s gaze. through his dubious disposition, you realize how bizarre the scene might have looked like for an outsider. 

wriothesley overlooks the whole fortress, and you are a prisoner meant to serve your time. why are you drinking with the duke?

shame has found its way to settle in the pit of your stomach. you feel self-conscious about your appearance; a full day without bathing since your capture is not how you wished to present yourself to your old acquaintance. he’s climbed his way up as one of the authorities in fontaine, while you remain at the bottom of the food chain. things are not the same. 

“i should probably go to my bunker,” you voice after the security’s departure. “it doesn’t look good that you have a prisoner here.”

“nonsense,” wriothesley counters. “you’re not a stranger. and i don’t care whatever crime you’ve committed on the surface: you are my visitor here.”

you shake your head. despite the multiple stealing you’ve done until now, you still harbor a sense of dignity. it’s just as they say: you do the crime, you do the time. 

“no, wrio. i’m here as a prisoner. i’ll do whatever is required of me. it’s my punishment.” 

wriothesley sighs in defeat; an action you haven’t expected to come easily from him. 

“alright, then. you win.” he reaches for your hand and grasps. “you won’t deny me the occasional meals, though? you’re still my friend and it’s the least i could do for you.”

that marks the highlight of your first day inside the fortress. 

never in your wildest dreams could you have anticipated such a twist of fate, yet you can’t deny the comfort of seeing a familiar face in this bleak environment.

as the days of your imprisonment tick by, you’ve adapted to the routine within the prison walls. you’ve learned the importance of coupons and how to obtain them to survive. unlike most inmates who are tasked with heavy labor, you find yourself often idle. this is not due to any sloth on your part, as you’re eager to earn your keep, but it would seem as though the rest of the administrators have no job to assign you. which is peculiar in a sense that everybody has something on their hands. 

“how are you coping?” wriothesley asks during lunch. it’s one of those days when he’d summon you to eat with him. 

you fork the food on your plate, too conscious to wolf them down. the cafeteria’s open layout exposes the generous hospitality being extended to you, making you acutely aware of the conspicuous display. somehow, it gets to your skin, as though you have no more face to save. 

“everybody’s nice,” you reveal. they really are; there’s no lie in the statement. truth be told, the fortress is like a community where you work and earn a living. however, by definition, it remains a huge cage for wrongdoers like you. “but i can’t wait to go out.”

the cafeteria holds its breath when wrio’s utensils clatter against his plate. eyes turn towards your table, speculation rife that an argument is brewing. you glance around nervously, aware of the attention drawn by his prolonged silence.

“a… are you alright?” you stammer. 

“yeah,” he answers before lifting his head and displaying a smile that does not reach the eyes. “there was a weird taste in my mouth. what were you saying again?”

“oh… forget it,” you answer, wanting to dismiss the whole conversation as quickly as possible. “it’s nothing important.”

“i thought so,” he whispers without erasing his uncanny smile. 

at first, you conjectured that the source of wriothesley’s hospitality stemmed from his time at the orphanage, when he was punished for misconduct. unaware of the rules as a newcomer, and traumatized by the sudden upheaval in his life, he was quick to lash at the other kids. there had been a time that he would’ve beaten another orphan to death had no one interfered. it was only by the grace of the owners that he wasn’t kicked out.

in contrast, you had strived to keep a low profile during your orphanage days, knowing that well-behaved children stood a better chance of adoption. only once did you veer to the path of disobedience, and that had been the time when you stole bread for wriothesley. 

that first and last encounter had been brief and quickly forgotten over time, only resurfacing now upon your unexpected reunion.

you wouldn’t have expected that such a simple act of charity would help you tremendously during your life’s biggest disaster.

from the bottom of your heart, you acknowledge that life in meropide would have been harder without him. the depth of your gratitude for his companionship transcends words. and you swear by all the archons, you appreciate all that he’s done for you. 

that’s why it doesn’t make you feel good— not at all — to betray such munificence with doubt and a feeling of disquiet. 

have you gone paranoid? can you trust your guts? or are you simply unaccustomed to kindness?

but it’s not any of those things, is it? 

you wrestle with the idea that your paranoia might be justified. there’s validity in a way that your heart hasn’t been tranquil ever since the repudiation of your release. such holdup hinges on your distant aunt’s failure to communicate with the administrators of the prison. they refuse to issue your release without her signature. 

at first, you dismissed the dreadful news with masked disappointment. she lives miles away from the fortress. a little patience is all you need. yet, the absurdity gnaws at you—why should an orphaned adult still require the consent of a relative who never cared? 

for months you mingled with the rest of the prisoners without trouble. what harm could a few more days bring? and it would’ve been easy except for one thing. 

together with the anticipation of freedom there springs wriothesley’s unnatural behavior. certainly, you have been accustomed to his magnanimous nature, but not to his seemingly obsessed disposition. 

for one, he wouldn’t let you out of his sight. on the night before your release, you’ve woken up just to see him inside your bunker, sitting with arms hugging his knees at the edge of your bed, head tilted downward. the pounding of your heart drowned out all other sounds, making sleep elusive and confrontation daunting. convinced he would offer an explanation in due time, you pretended that nothing happened the next day. 

how many times has he sat there, barging in your bunker unannounced while guarding your sleep? you shudder at the thought. but it’s time you put an end to your suspicions. it’s time that you go up there, in his office, and find the answers you seek. 

“i’m sorry, but as per the duke’s order, no one is allowed inside until his return,” the security standing guard outside wriothesley’s office announces. 

“i told you; i was ordered to clean his office,” you insist for what seems like the thousandth time. of course, it’s a lie. however, you are not going to pass up the opportunity of sleuthing, especially with wriothesley’s absence. 

“the answer is no. it’s a strict rule from the duke himself,” he repeats. 

you swallow the bitter reality of what you’re about to do. you have never thought of weaponizing wriothesley’s treatment of you, but he leaves you with no choice.

“so, if he comes back and finds his office in disarray, i only need to mention that a certain guard wouldn’t let me in, right?” at your words, the security blinks frantically. “do you know how much wrio favors me? or do you need proof? but i’m telling you, right now: the proof wouldn’t be as pleasant for you.”

as you stand inside the room, your eyes sweep across its vast expanse, searching without a clear idea of what evidence you seek. yet, an instinctive feeling drives you—the conviction that the reason behind the prolonged delay of your release lies hidden somewhere within these walls. relying on your years of stealth and skill as a thief, your confidence grows in your ability to navigate this risky venture unscathed.

this is a bold move, facing potential consequences, and you know better than to underestimate wriothesley.

to summon a leveled head, you breathe, in and out, while fishing for the lock pick tucked inside your back pocket. 

you waste no time climbing the stairs to his desk. all proceedings certainly go through him before anyone else. perhaps you can find your release paper, already signed, among this endless heap of legal documents.

no, if he intends to keep it, he wouldn’t have it openly displayed. though the reasons for wriothesley’s denial of your freedom elude you, instinct alone guides your courage. abandoning your sleuth, you move on to open the drawers instead. beads of sweat dots your forehead, heart refusing to calm down as the lock pick you fashioned from a scrap metal jammed into the keyhole.

there’s nothing inside but another stack of paper containing the fortress’ mundane transactions. the weight of uncertainty bears down upon you like a relentless specter, your eyes flickering towards the staircase with a mix of fear and urgency. moored by the bookshelves, you grasp a volume, its hard cover yielding warmth against your palm. pages are turned in rapid succession, driven by your inexorable desperation to find something.

it has to be here. it has to be. 

“where is it? where is it? where is it?”

quick! where else would he keep it? think, think, think! 

“found what you’re looking for?”

hearing his voice feels as though you’ve pummeled down from the steepest cliff; that your innards have been hammered to smithereens; that your heart has been taken right from your ribcage. your veins turn to ice, knees threatening to buckle beneath you. 

“w… wrio…” you frenziedly grapple for reasons; anything that’d validate your suspicious presence in his office. “i was… i was just tidying up the space.”

“for what?” his eyes roam around the room that looks rather polished before settling on the book you clutch in your hands. “i didn’t know you’re interested in gardening.”

taking a gander at the book in your hands, you force a sheepish smile upon seeing its title. a comprehensive guide in gardening across different topographies in fontaine.

“if it’s not too much to ask, i’d like to borrow this book.” you steel your facade, refusing to give him an inch. it’s futile, knowing you’re crumbling inside, wishing to vanish into thin air to evade his palpable vexation.

“you see…” wriothesley begins, licking the inside of his cheek. “as far as i can remember, i told the guards not to let anyone in.”

you open your mouth to speak, but the grievous solemnity of his demeanor stops your words.  

“what are you doing here?”

“i told you, i was just—”

“what are you doing here?”

he already knows the answer; you just have to say it. like a feeble insect trapped in a spider’s web, you see no chances of escaping. the only thing you could do is to shackle your suspicions and hope that wriothesley somehow disproves them. 

“i was wondering about my release. it has been days and i…”

“grow suspicious of me?” he finishes. “thinking that i have something to do with it?” 

each step he takes brings your back closer to the bookshelves. until he has you trapped with his overwhelming presence. he’s so close you can smell a whiff of his perfume; even that exudes his unquestionable authority. 

“i just want to know the truth,” is your helpless whisper. you feel like a little lamb caught between the sharp claws of the wolf. 

with one hand, he takes the book from your hands, eyes never leaving your face, as he places it back to where it belongs. 

“oh, you’d never like it,” he divulges. 

mustering up the courage to flee from his entrapment, the thorns in your throat intensified after putting all your might to push him away only to suffer in vain. 

“please, wrio, let me go,” you huff, fighting back tears. 

your plea goes through deaf ears. not even a sliver of interest or acknowledgment can be seen in the depths of his eyes. 

“your aunt and her whole family left fontaine before she had to sign your papers. i had my men standing guard on her house just in case she comes back, but it’d seem she’s sold the whole lot to never come back,” he discloses. 

“what?” all the remaining hope stings you like betrayal. but of course, you should’ve expected less from a relative you’ve never even met before. 

wriothesley relaxes, but his body remains as overpowering before you. 

“i know what it feels like to not have someone, that’s why i didn’t know how to tell you,” he says, each word threaded carefully as if he refuses to shatter the delicate thing in front of him any further. 

to think that you’ve doubted him despite his keen interest in your well-being is more than enough to cause you unutterable shame. 

“i’m sorry, wrio. i… i didn’t know,” you admit shamefully. 

hand on his hip, he sighs, “i just can’t understand. after everything i’ve done for you, this is what i get in return?”

panic grips you in its cruel embrace. you shake your head, reaching for him. 

“it’s not my intention to hurt nor dismiss your kindness, i swear. i just… i’ll make it up to you.”

wriothesley perks up at the statement. it’s eerily noticeable how his grim bearing changes to that of a curious one. “you’ll do anything, then?” 

what accursed territory have you placed yourself in?

“anything.”

“then, kneel,” he commands after a heartbeat. 

there are two directions where your obedience can possibly turn to, and yet both choices cause your stomach to double over. in spite of your fear, you’ve acknowledged with terror that the point of return has already been barred. your knees buckle. 

fat tears dot the corner of your eyes, like crystal jewels of insurmountable value, as he unravels himself, and you take him in your mouth. he moves at first with delicacy, as though he fears of shattering such bliss. the warm flesh of your mouth, velvet-soft around him. you’re raw from shame; he’s rawed out from pleasure. 

diabolical desire urges that he push himself deeper, further, make you gag with guilt and watch your mouth reach him to the hilt. like dust of stars, tears now cling to your lashes, as your lips harvest the seed of his gluttony. 

in rapid succession he buries himself down your throat, reaching places no one else has trespassed in. your nails carve crescent moons on his pale skin, roguish marks to prove the existence of a fight, no matter how pathetic. 

he hungers, and hungers, and hungers. until his bones ached from his greed, and pleasure carves the pinnacle of release. beneath the ache in his incessant breath, he wells inside your mouth. when all sensibility has left, he taints your tongue with rife and thick globules, begging to be swallowed. 

tenderly he holds you, like his touches can heal your rotten sinews. at the end of his fingertips, your skin burns and he sinks you deeper into his pit. this place drowns in sweltering heat, from the shame, from the pain, from the guilt. the planes of your back settle on the oak table, etching the tale of his devouring. he peels you open with every lick; a fruit he wouldn’t mind the consequences of eating.

what is this, you think, the betrayal of the body? you despair how you shiver from his tongue; how you reek of humiliation when his fingers push into your dripping flesh. fog over your head, the clouds somber, the cruel zenith warm on your stomach, exploding in shades of red. since when did pleasure and poison start tasting the same?

“on your stomach,” he whispers, eyes dilated with barbarism.

the hunger continues. another triumph, another defeat. fingernails raking the wood, another tale of wrath unheard, of innocence gone. he lodges between your legs, pushing himself through the fluttering folds, tarnishing the flesh. your throat burns but you will not scream. 

he fucks you with absolute abandon. he fucks you with an appetite of a man deprived. 

lips between your teeth, crimson trails down your chin. he wants to turn your insides into pulp; to rattle both your bones and knit them together. with increasing greed, his movement turns rabid. your eyes glossy, your tears silent, as you swallow the vile reality of fulfilling his need. 

“i’m so close,” he grunts, the sound of his voice coming from deep within. 

your silence is a rebellion against your traitorous body. shrouded with mortification, you flare around his length, and he revels at the feeling. he concedes to the tight sensation, spilling every fiber of his being inside the warmth of your flesh. there’s too much of him inside you, that he leaks like liquid ivory from the wet and abused hole, trailing languorously between your shaking legs. 

you run to the abyss, to the sweet caress of sleep, hoping that once you wake up, you’re whole again. 

wriothesley observed your countenance as you slept upon the couch, noting with curiosity the weariness etched upon your features even in repose. he gently draws the silk sheet to cover you fully, then rises from his seat. proceeding to the telephone, he summons a meal, foreseeing your imminent awakening and the hunger it will bring.

now, he proceeds to one of the bookshelves, retrieving a particular book. a comprehensive guide in gardening across different topographies in fontaine. to think that you’ve been this close to knowing the truth. 

he opens the book, flipping through its final pages until he locates the concealed folded paper. despite the creases marring its surface, the parchment appears new. unfolding it has given him a sense of relief, like an anchor to his sanity. 

it reveals the deed to your aunt’s estate, which he acquired shortly before your release. now, the elderly woman resides a great distance away, forever barred from returning.

they would be foolish to return, especially with their lives at stake.

wriothesley’s lips curl in a bitter twist. believe him when he says he never intended for you to endure the same fate as he did. yet, endure it you must, just as he once did, for he is not so benevolent as to set you free.

[ellabscrush]

— don’t even think about it, brat.

pairings; gf!abby anderson x reader

cw; spanking, brat tamer abby, degrading kink, thigh riding, fingering & squirting.

your girlfriend wasn’t sure why you were acting weird the whole day. she had just came home from a long day at work with endless amounts of paperwork to look over. and on top of that, her coworkers being an absolute head case. yet, she didn’t expect to deal with a bigger headache at home.

“knock it off, seriously angel..” abby sighs, rubbing her temples.

all your giggling, sarcasting comments, and poking at her for fun is driving her nuts. she usually would let you go off in her ear about anything, but today it was clear abby needed me to shut up.

“i haven’t seen you all day,” you roll your eyes trying to get a reaction from her, “too busy for me? might not even need me anymore right?

abby threw her hands in the air, “never busy for you babe, you know that.”

“always lying,” you scoffed.

the blonde knew what you were doing and didn’t have time for this.

all that eye rolling and smart mouthing of yours turned into wet sobs as abby bent you over on the cold kitchen counter, nipples hard as it hits the marble.

“not giggling anymore i see?” she grunted, “don’t understand why.. you go out of your way just for a fuck.”

it was almost comical how much abby had an effect on you. her words making you an obedient mess as you were struggling to get out from the slaps of her rough hands on your ass.

“fuck!” you whined, she smiled at your responses. very different from how you were acting earlier.

“don’t even try and enjoy this, you’re pissing me the fuck off.”

her words made your pussy drool and practically ready to ride out that cum on her thighs. unfortunately she wouldn’t let you do that. maybe.

“please.. m’ sorry abby- fuck!”

abby lets out a dry laugh, “keep saying sorry..”

“i’m sorry.. sorry.. mama please..” you pleaded repeatedly, trying to get some gentleness out of her. she pulls you by the forearm to flip you over facing her, pushing her knee against your wet folds causing you to let out a loud moan.

“oh baby.. that feel good? keep rocking your hips for me.. just like that..”

god damn.

her eyes never leaving your damn hips as it rocks back and forth on her leg muscles. her one free hand trailing up on your neck gripping it firmly but making sure she wasn’t hurting you.

you could barely even think, barely even speak.

“oh- fuck i- feels good..”

“yeah?” she grips your hair, “you wanna get off from my thighs?” you nodded slowly with glossy eyes.

“don’t even think about it, angel.”

you whimpered, “but- i’m close.”

“you think i give a fuck?” abby hisses leaning towards you, “from the way you were acting today, you don’t deserve to be pleased.”

shit. you know you messed up.

“no.. please abby..” i opened my teary eyes, so desperate to orgasm it was almost humiliating and all she did was laugh at you.

“don’t be a dumb brat, you think you were cute pushing my buttons like that? you think you could just make a mess on me that easily?” she sneered,

and all you could say was, “please.”

the blonde raises her eyebrows, “will you be good?” you nodded in response trying to hold in your orgasm.

“i won’t be a br-brat.. m’ sorry abs..”

she hummed, “beg. maybe i’ll consider.”

you scoffed in frustration and muttered, “that’s so embarrassing..”

abby peeked up at you with bored eyes and held you hips in place, not letting you move a single muscle. your response was pathetic whines and pleading eyes to cum, barely even clench your thighs because hers was in the way.

your whimpering was just too cute for her. she trails her fingers on your jaw, “the only way you can get what you want is if you fucking beg,” she says softly.

you sighed and gave in.

“y-you make me feel good abs-“ you panted, “please, please i won’t be a brat.. i’ll stop- wanna cum please..”

and just like that she lifts you off from her lap and plops you on the couch. her ring and middle fingers going in and out of you making you squirt all over her sweatpants. her dark chuckling and fingers pacing faster made you go crazy.

“shit- FUCK abby!”

“oh fuck…” abby face hanging low as she watched you release yourself on her, “needed all that attitude out of you huh baby?”

“make a fuckin’ mess.. i love it.. i love fucking the shit out of you, brat.”

the only sound filling up the room was your wet cunt and mumbles coming out of your mouth. abby was in heaven, never seeing you let out this much.

“my- god” you moaned repeatedly while scratching her back muscles.

“i know, angel.. just missed me is that it? not the same when you fuck yourself huh?” she chuckles.

abby’s eyes watches all that cum dripping down the couch. looks like someone is cleaning that up later.

[arieslost]

reader and little leclerc meeting at a karting comp when they were tiny and growing up charles developed the fattest crush on the reader but only later in his f1 career does she find out. not from charles himself but from carlos who ‘accidentally’ slips up and mentions it

i’m assuming by little leclerc u meant arthur so i hope i was correct 🤞🏼🤞🏼

© arieslost 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

crush | cl16

you always thought charles leclerc had some sort of underlying hatred for you, even though he was nothing but kind to you every time you interacted. maybe it was the way he’d always look at you with what you could only describe as a pained expression, like it hurt to even be in your presence.

not that he had much choice, considering you’d been racing with his brother arthur since the beginning of time.

it never evolved into a career for you, but having formed such a close bond with arthur, as well as the rest of the leclercs, you stuck around. you remained a close friend even after arthur was promoted to single seater racing and you never left karting, not until their father passed and you dedicated all of your time and effort to comforting the family and helping however you could. eventually, that evolved into you working for ferrari in pr and other various communications a year after charles signed to ferrari.

wherever a leclerc was, you were bound to follow.

which leads you to now, having landed in imola a few days before most of the team (including the drivers) to coordinate interviews, filming, photography… the list is endless sometimes, but you love your job. even more so when you’re given the privilege of briefing the drivers on what to expect for the day.

except for the fact that charles comes in and sits down without sparing you so much as a fleeting glance.

that’s how your suspicions had started— when he stopped looking you in the eye. it used to be you who was intimidated by eye contact, those green eyes of his never failing to make your cheeks heat up. but eventually you got over it, and one day you fixed him with a brave stare that left him unable to mask his surprise. and then he stopped looking at you. then the incoherent mumbling started, then the abrupt “i have to go” in the middle of a conversation. you never understood why he was acting the way he was. you still don’t.

“good morning, querida,” carlos greets you smoothly as he enters the room, and you swear you see charles’ brows furrow for a split second.

“good morning,” you smile at him, chancing a look at charles, who is still deeply engrossed in whatever’s on his phone. “there’s a decent amount of things i want to go over with you guys, so i really need you to pay attention.”

you went through the itinerary, pausing every now and then to make sure both drivers were paying attention. charles had shut off his phone, but he was still looking anywhere else but at you. when you caught his eye upon glancing upwards, he looked down at his lap like you had told him he massively screwed something up.

you’ve often thought about confronting him, but to be honest, you could never really come up with a solid reason to do so. if he didn’t want to look at you, that was more his problem than it was yours.

“okay, i think that’s all i have for—” you’re not even finished with your sentence before charles is uttering a hasty “thanks” and rushing out the door.

“you’d think he would’ve caved and told you by now,” carlos muses when the door clicks shut, shaking his head.

“told me what?”

“you know,” carlos begins, rising from his seat, “that he’s madly in love with you.”

“what?!” you exclaim.

“oh, dear,” he continues dryly. “did i say that out loud?”

“carlos sainz, so help me—”

“you’ll have to excuse me, i don’t want to be late to the media pen,” he interrupts, making to leave as well. “i suggest confronting him, that’s probably the only way to get him to talk.”

your opportunity comes after the free practice sessions the next day, where you manage to corner charles as he’s leaving his driver room.

“is it true? do you—” you want to say love me, but the words just won’t come out. they feel too intimate. “do you have feelings for me, charles?”

he opens his mouth, but you don’t give him the chance to respond. “you won’t look at me, you barely talk to me anymore, and it feels like you hate me. so honestly, just tell me anything other than saying you hate me.”

“i don’t hate you,” he says immediately. “not at all— why don’t you come in so we can talk? i don’t want to have this conversation knowing someone with a camera could come around the corner.”

fair point. you allow him to guide you into his driver room, watching as he shuts the door behind him.

“who told you?” he asks.

“carlos. in a weird, unnecessarily cryptic way.”

“classic carlos,” charles huffs, raking a hand through his hair.

“is it true?” you repeat quietly, beginning to fear his answer.

he looks at you. “what if it was?”

“charles—”

he interrupts you now. “i can’t look at you because every time i do i think about how much i want you. i look at you and i wish more than anything that i could hold you, kiss you, make you laugh. things just haven’t been the same since… since papa.”

you reach for his hand, squeezing it tightly in your own.

“and eventually i just couldn’t talk to you, because if i did, everything i want to say would come out… like it is right now,” he smiles shyly.

you never thought you could make charles leclerc shy.

“anyway, i like you. a lot.” he declares, taking on a confident tone. “i’ve had a crush on you for a while, and i’m sorry that it manifested as something else. i don’t expect you to forgive me.”

“maybe…” you begin slowly, watching his eyes light up. “maybe you could take me out.”

he smiles widely, squeezing your hand. “i think i can make that happen.”

“good. i’ll be waiting for your call.” you lean up, pressing a brave kiss to his cheek before exiting the room.

the blush creeping over his cheeks stays imprinted on your mind for the rest of the day. it won’t be the last time you see him that way.

word count: 1,041

masterlist — join my tag list here!

note: this was such a cute request. i hate the ending (when do i not, honestly) so if this flops it’s fully my fault

my inbox is always open for comments, criticism, and conversation! feel free to pop in!

reblogs are greatly appreciated <33

dividers by @/saradika

tags: @venusacrossthestars @67-angelofthelordme-67 @emails-i-can-send @nelly187 @cixrosie @fangirl-dot-com @sainzluvrr @imheretoread @mellowarcadefun @yourbane @monsieurbacteria6 @c-losur3 @papayatori @ssprayberrythings @namgification @maih23 @evlkking @witchycarmen @ilovethispookie @maxverstappenfan79 @sya-skies @sweatrevenge5436-blog @kimis-gloves @mia-rrrs @decafmickey @customsbyjcg-blog @bigheartsthings @tania2748 @scuderiadevils @iloveyou3000morgan @ctrlyomomma @hiireadstuff @daemyratwst @arian-directioner @evelyn-ny @avg-golden-retriever @likedbygaslyy @vintagefucksstuff @piastorys @jisungstuff @personwhoisther @bernelflo @ahgase99 @ferrarisfailedstrats @levidazai @brune77e @watersquirtpewpewboomm

[newkatzkafe2023]

@lara-legomonkiekid

What if Monkey King was a Yandere with Y/N?

(Lmk Wukong) He has so much trauma and loss that it's known that he became a yandere. Whenever He finds joy and happiness, it either gets ruined by himself or heaven, and the fact that it happens again and again and again is what drives him mad. So when he finally meets you, his broken world is suddenly fixed, and it's all thanks to you. He just has to marry you and give you the immortality peach, and you'll be together forever🥰🥰🥰

(NR Wukong) I just know he'll be the most dangerous yandere. He's so unpredictable, like seriously, he's if the saying never let them know your next moves was a stone monkey. He is also clingy in a way that makes him mildly desperate, so I hope you don't have anything important during the cuddle session. Another thing is that I can see him killing behind your back like he could be a serial killer if he wanted, but what you don't know won't hurt you right.

(HIB Wukong) He is the king of isolation and paranoia. He was already stressed with almost losing Luier and silly girl, and then he got married to you. The only person who accepted with him and loved him despite his endless flaws and less the Stellar looks according to heaven, but you stayed away. But be careful if you don't pay attention it will soon just be you, him, and the children.

(MKR Wukong) He's the most brutal yandere, well second most brutal (you'll see who's the first later😈) He's has more blood on his claws then one can count, and it's all just for you after all he can't have loser scrub idiots trying to take what is his. He would even have to regulate his own group if they dared to mess with or upset you, especially if it's pigsy. So if he comes to you one day Offering bacon with your eggs, then you will know exactly who you're eating.

(Netflix Wukong) He's the yandere that has experienced way too much lost in a short amount of time. For example, if he loses you to anything or anyone, he can kiss his sanity and morals goodbye. Basically, he loves you so much that he would do anything for you, even kill just to make sure you will stay with him forever.

(BMW Wukong) This guy is a weapon of mass destruction and the Deadliest monkey king of all. He is not afraid to take lives of the ones who messed with you or tried to take you away from him. Of course he would gaslight and woo you into thinking that everything is fine and that you won't have to lift a single finger. Let your husband and king take care of everything darling.😈

(Destined one) Man he's the yandere nobody ever saw coming especially with how surprisingly chill he is. He would let you free and do whatever you want as long as you don't dare to escape him. Though he wouldn't have to worry because why would you do that for, he's also super Affectionate and would tear the world apart if he ever lost you. So if you were ever in any danger then the whole world with be as well👿👿👿

FEEL FREE TO REBLOG😍

[sunniepoo]

jj had spent a fair amount of time doing odd jobs all over different states but when his stay in an isolated,closed off community extends longer than expected, he can’t help but notice you; preachers daughter

when the storm outside brewed further, jj knew that he wouldn’t be able to travel for a while until everything was cleared up. the rough clash of the branches against the paley tinted window filled the air reminded him of the ongoing war of weathers outside, his eyes drifted into the endless fields of grass occasionally having a few buildings and houses adorned along the way tinted with a rough grey through the stained windows

he was lucky to have found refuge, the local preacher offering up his home to stay in while the storm calms down and he continues to do his work around town - fixing pipes and leaky sinks to cars and rundown trucks

different, everything here was different - it was as if the place was drowning in an endless silence gradually sucking the life out of the people but they didn’t seem to mind, mumbling on something about this is the way god had wanted them to live. it terrified him to start, being stuck somewhere like this; despite all his struggles back home in kildare at least it had life, friends,colour but the pay was quite generous and a couple weeks more couldn’t hurt him

“storms creating a right mess” the older man speaks, he was dressed in a dark cloak covering his body with a large cross necklaces adorning his neck. “s’gonna take a while for all the roads to clear up” jj replies, he would be lying if didn’t say the man in front of him didn’t intimidate him - he possessed the same loneliness that swarmed the rest of this town but he had offered up his home, gave him a hot meal; so he couldn’t be all that bad

at first he didn’t even see you, it wasn’t until the soft creak of the floorboard, he saw your small frame hidings behind the wall, watching him. the older man watched jj’s eyes shift, following at what was catching his attention “oh! i forgot to introduce you to our new guest honey” he says ushering you over to where they were standing “this young man will be staying with us for some time while he works. go on say hi” while he explains there is a slight look in his eye telling her it was okay. jj wasn’t going to bite

he didn’t miss the slight glint in your eyes as you locked eyes, your palm reaching out to meet his, it was a short handshake but he couldn’t forget the way your gentle hands gripped his, the tips of your fingers stroking against his “hi” it was barely a sound, moreso a squeak

cute. he thought, you looked nice - the kind of nice he thought was only in the movies, the kind of nice that would rather let the spider free than kill it

“well i’ll be off” your father interrupts the silence, pulling you into a quick hug before patting jj lightly on the shoulder “some work over at millers’ house” he begins to pack his stuff and leave before letting out a ‘don’t cause any trouble’ mostly aimed at you. mostly

it was silent for the most part, you’d run off to your room while he gathered his equipment and started working at the faulty sink in the kitchen. the long hours of the day seemed to fly by, he carried on as usual occasionally stopping for an odd break here and there and that’s when he saw you

you’d left your room door slightly open, sitting in between the gap watching him quietly “y’know you could come sit over here” he announces, hoping to have caught your attention “don’t bite, m’promise” the southern ting in his accent escaping between words. the light patter of your steps filled the air, replacing the once ominous silence, you’d decided to sit right opposite him, knees brought under your chin with big eyes staring into him

“are you hungry” the question comes very direct and forward, eyes never leaving his silently watching his every move. you knew your answer as the blonde lets out a cheeky grin, standing up to head towards the kitchen

what you were supposed to do was fix him a nice dinner and be in your way back to your room; what you were supposed to do was ask simple questions about his life and let him get on with his work - what you weren’t supposed to do was be sat on your kitchen counter with him working his way between your legs!

you didn’t even know how it happened, he was just so funny and he kept making you laugh and every time he spoke you found your eyes drifting from his eyes to his lips and the to his hands and the to the slight bulge of his cock in his pants. you hadn’t meant to fall into the temptation, if anyone found out oh god! you’d be in so much trouble, you’d be the talk of town

but something in you couldn’t find it in you to stop as his lips travelled down your body, loosely lifting your dress up to kiss between your thighs, kissing on top of your clothed pussy

“jay-jayj” the breathy moan that leaves your mouth is muffled by the patter of the rain against the window “n-not here, somewhere else” roughly grabbing the tops of his messy hair bringing him up from underneath your dress. you didn’t even have the self control to resist him - you’d been waiting for far too long for someone with life to come to this shitty little town and here he was in a 6ft blonde package.

he’d grabbed your hand locking your fingers together before dragging you over to the guest room he’d been sleeping in, gently nudging you to lay down on the bed. it was heaven, the way your lips collided against each other while his knees pealed your legs open. you could feel his hand sneaking down, slipping under the waistband of your panties, fingers rubbing slowly against your clit eliciting a loud moan from you

you felt shame as you looked at the walls decorated with framed pictures of mother mary, the rosary laying on the desk. how have come to do the one thing you’ve been told not to do? but it was so hard, trapped in this town where everyone had something to say about everyone, you couldn’t help but wonder - if there was something more outside the fields of grass, something like him

the same him whose tongue was down your throat “you sure about this sweatpea” he breathes out, mouth disconnecting from yours - panting slowly “cause you know once this happens…. there’s no going back” you couldn’t help but whimper at his words, giving him a small nod

“words baby.. words” he says before diving into the crook of your neck planting soft kisses along the bottom of your ear “mm yes jay yes yes yes” you were so so desperate to feel the spark, the colour, the life you’ve always wanted and if you passed on it now - it would never happen

the whine in your voice was all it took for him to pull at the straps of the top of your dress dragging it off you, letting your tits spill out leaving you in nothing but your panties

“jesuuus christ” as soon as he says that he doesn’t miss the subtle pout on your face at the name. right he would not approve “m’sorry babe” the apology is followed by the plaster of kisses down your stomach, getting closer and closer to your aching core “just got me acting crazy with all this. fuck . in front of me

you were soaked through and through thighs all sticky from your juices, “she really wants this…huh” it was cruel really how long he was taking, you were so tempted to just shove his face down there already “don’t worry papa s’gonna fix all of this” he’d already began to pull of your panties, mouth latching immediately on to your clit

“so fuckin’ good” he mumbles, words only making you more desperate “ah ah s’good jay” you moan out, hands roughly grabbing at the messy mop on top his head “so good” your pleasure only seemed to increase as his ringed fingers make their way into your needy little hole

the loud squelch that filled the air as his fingers piston roughly in and out of your soaking cunt, you were sure your juices were spread all over his mouth but that didn’t seem to stop him one bit, he was like a man starved the way his tongue flattened against your sensitive core, it had you morning like a kitten in heat

“oh god oh god oh god” as much as you hated using the lords name in vain, you couldn’t help as he fastened his face adding another finger inside your poor little hole. the blonde smirks mumbling “not god baby…..just me” your legs started to clamp lightly around his head, grinding your core against his face. you’d never be able to forget the way he made you writhe and tremble in his hold just from his mouth

you’d heard about it before, in old books that were thrown away for being ‘sent by the devil’ the feeling in your stomach - it was like a rough knot was tied in your stomach slowly building up “jay jay jay” you squeal as he moves his fingers impossibly faster “please jay ngh- need it uh- so bad jay” it was almost pathetic how needy you were for him but it only seemed to egg him on further

he was in his own form of bliss, jeans roughly grinding against the mattress beneath him, you were so perfect - he felt his cock throb harder than it ever has the moment he looked at you writhing against him “yeah that’s it” he breathily lets out “g’nna cum f’me baby” pillowy lips latching onto your fit sucking as harsh as possible while his fingers hit spots you’d never even dreamed of

“yes uh- yes ngh-yes” you were blessed to have your home at such a distance form town, it wouldn’t take much guessing to make out what was happening through the walls. the soft squeak was followed with a wave of sensations, a confusing pleasure taking out your body, causing almost pornographic moans to fill the room

overridden by pleasure your legs couldn’t stop shaking and much to jj’s surprise hot spurts of his own cum coated the front of his jeans as he came undone. the harsh pants were the only noise for some time before the troublesome blond came up lying next you

“did s’good babe” placing a firm kiss on your forehead pulling you into his arm, drawing soothing circles on your back as your realise the reality of what you’ve done. you were overridden with guilt but not because of what you’ve done but the lack of regret you have

you feel a weight go off the bed as jj gets up, arms reaching out to pick you up and bring you over to the bathroom. gentle, it was all so soft - it made you think about when he’d be gone, how you’d miss this, you’d be still stuck in this town with the same people, get married to someone you barely know and definitely don’t love. it made you press yourself as close as possible to him, soaking in his presence

and later that evening when you lay in his lap,his back pressed against the old couch as his hand strokes through the roots of your hair “m’gonna miss you so much” your hands travelled to wrap tightly around his arm like he’d be gone this second if you let go “don’ know what you saying sweetcheeks” he laughs, bringing a sweet kiss to the tops of your head “like you know” you breathe out, clearly melancholic about the situation “when you gotta go” eyes turning up to look at him

you didn’t expect him to say much, it was the truth and the both of you knew it - no one could change that. the palm of his hand grazes gently against your cheeks as he begins to speak, eyes locking with your intently “ion know a clue how m’gonna do it but your coming with me” his mouth leans down to place a deep kiss against your lips pulling you up against him

“really” the excitement in your voice was obvious, you typically would have thought he was bluffing but the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes proved otherwise. he was serious. “really. gonna get you out of here” it was as if he was also telling himself “ find you somewhere nice. somewhere where you belong…kay’ sweets” the words eased your restless mind. maybe he was right

and in that moment jj knew that no matter what, he was taking you with him. he had no clue how he was gonna do this but he knew it was happening and he’d rather stay here and die than leave you

[etheries1015]

Endless amount of marriage proposals. From your first meeting, to your very last. You couldn't help it, even being human and he a fae, General Lilia was the most beautiful man you had ever laid eyes upon.

Since your first meeting with him, despite being under threat of his weapon and nearing the end of the war, you had uttered with stars in your eyes your first proposal.

"Please marry me!" Your hands gripped the weapon with anticipation of his answer, Lilias eyes widening as he was taken back from the request. THIS was who he was meant to work with for the next however long? This was the human who stragitized and turned their back on the humans to aid the fae? How pathetic, he thought. He could never see himself remotely getting along with someone as air headed and brash as you.

You had a lot of perseverance, Lilia would give you that much. Yet no matter the amount of times you would pop the question "Will you marry me yet?" he ignored your advances and continued to brush you off, yet each time his resolve had lessen more and more. He could feel your words begin to affect him, and he was not liking it. He had to do something, and fast.

Thus, your simple words of affection drove him to blowing up at you, saying words he would soon come to regret and know deep down in his heart simply was not true. It would never happen! You're nothing but a feeble human in his eyes, and he would never love you. He wanted that much to be clear, that there was a line between you two. At least, to convince himself as much.

The final meeting was much sooner than he thought it would be. He could have sworn he had more time, you were so young, you were supposed to have a life ahead of you. You were supposed to continue to pursue him and break his walls down, to finally free him of his lonely life. He could feel his resolve fading, you were supposed to ask again that evening, yet there you were, bleeding out against the forest floor from an ambush that was unanticipated. You were caught unawares as you gathered herbs in the forest, Lilia now regretting his rejection to your extended invitation out of petty anger from the argument that ensued just the night prior.

Lilia was the first to find you. Hovering over your body with his long strands of hair cupping your frail body. He held your dying body as you moved your hand to his cheeks, cold fingers hesitantly pressing them against his soft pale skin suprised to witness wet tears staining them. You had never seen the general cry before, surely they were tears of happiness that you would stop pestering him with the question of marriage? Or perhaps on the flip side, you wondered. "Have I stolen your heart yet?" You breathed out with your same teasing smile, Lilia gripping your hand tighter as a tear slipped out of his glossed over ruby eyes and onto your muddied cheek.

"You have. A long time ago."

Alternative ending here

[muwapsturniolo]

✯FreshLove for the fit PT4 ✯

pt1 pt2 pt3 mww1 mww2 mww3 mww4

summary: Chris joins his girlfriend while streaming.

warnings: NSFW CONTENT. making out, fingering, pussy slapping, facial slapping, oral (m receiving), sex. dom! Chris, vibrator, live streaming. if I forgot anything let me know.

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Chris grunts as Y/n tries to get off his lap, using his hands to keep her in place. The two were in her living room on the couch, making out for what felt like hours. They have been dating for a few months now, keeping their relationship a secret from socials and certain friends.

"Chris, I told you I can't be with you all day, I have to work."

Work, aka streaming.

Chris isn't oblivious to her line of work, that's how they met and started dating. He didn't care about it, in fact he loved it. He would occasionally watch her streams, getting off to her moans and the way her body moved.

"Go do your stream then, I'll wait right here."

Y/n huffs at his stubbornness. She wasn't embarrassed or ashamed of her job, she loved it, but she was all about respect. She didn't want to make Chris uncomfortable in any way shape or form. She raised her prices for personal sessions, she only streamed at night, and she made it clear to Chris to tell her if he started getting uncomfortable.

"Chris... I'm not leaving you in my living room while I stream." He shrugs and starts rubbing small circles on her hips, looking over her body. She was wearing one of his shirts that she cropped herself, underboob showing. She had on the tiniest pair of shorts, the orange material leaving little to imagine.

"Well I want to spend time with you, I have the next two days free and I told you I was spending them with you." He begins to kiss along her neck, her hair tickling his face slightly. She cranes her head to the side, giving him more space to leave the incoming hickies.

She doesn't want this to stop, if she could ditch this stream, she would in a heartbeat, but she knew she needed to do her job. Suddenly, an idea, a bold one, pops into her head.

"You wanna watch?"

Chris stops kissing at her neck, pulling away to get a good look at her. "What do you mean? like on my phone?"

She moves off his lap, walking towards the stairs. "No, I mean in person."

"You'll let me?'' She notices the glimmer in his eye and says nothing, ascending up the stairs. Chris flies off the couch, racing up the stairs to reach her. She's standing in front of a door Chris has eyed multiple times.

Every time he came over, the door was locked, the key never to be found. She unlocks the door and walks inside, Chris following close behind her.

He recognizes the room immediately, it's her streaming room. his heart begins to race as he looks around.

Y/n moves around the room, getting everything set up for the long stream ahead of her. After a few minutes, she walks over to Chris and pushes him down in a chair that's out of view from the camera. "Sit here and don't move. Don't even make a noise," she demands. Chris smirks, sinking down further into the chair, "Yes ma'am." She rolls her eyes and walks over to the bed, yelping when Chris lands a firm smack on her ass. She turns and gives him a dirty look which he just smiles at. She huffs and hops into the endless amounts of pillows.

She grabs the sparkly keyboard and taps away, loading up the stream. He watches as the monitor lights up and comments roll in.

"Hi everyone," he notices her voice is softer, much like the first time they talked. Her eyes scan the monitor, soft giggles escaping her mouth. "The hickies?" She eyes Chris before looking back at the camera.

"I have a special guest with me today, he won't be participating but he's watching." She pushes the keyboard away and swaps it out for a pillow, purposely hugging it close so her boobs are pushed up.

The stream continues, her chatting with the viewers about random things, talking about her day, etc. "You want me to take my shirt off?" she hums and begins to fiddle with the orange Freshlove shirt. "You guys know the rules"

Like clockwork, her phone blows up with multiple payment notifications. Chris is shocked seeing the payments roll in, he knew she got paid, but not this much.

She lets go of the pillow and slowly takes her shirt off, her boobs rippling slightly. Chris sucks in a sharp breath, adjusting his hips.

Chris is hard, painfully hard.

His girlfriend is sitting a few feet away from him, naked, and teasing both him and the audience, yet he can't do anything about it. Every once in a while she would tweak her nipples, talk about a new vibrator she bought, and even going as far as opening her legs slightly, showing the slick covering her folds, all while eyeing Chris deviously.

This was torture.

"I want to play now, you guys are no fun." She bats her lashes, pouting at the camera. She suddenly grabs a vibrator from the side of the bed and smiles. She turns it on and trails it over her body, teasing herself and the stream. She eyes Chris once again before turning back to the screen, "I think I'm going to be nice today."

She leans back, propping her legs up and showing off her glistening cunt. She puts the vibrator on her clit and immediately throws her head back in relief. She had a bunch of pent-up tension from her and Chris previously making out, and now it's being handled.

He sucks in a sharp breath as he watches her play with herself. Of course he's seen her masturbate through a phone, but seeing it in person is a different type of feeling. His hand slips into his sweats, stroking his aching member in an attempt to relieve the pain. He bites his lip, suppressing the groan wanting to spill out of his mouth, his hand moving faster.

His dick is throbbing at this point, leaking precum and pulsing under his touch. he watches with hungry eyes as his girl shows off in front of the camera.

"Mmf fuck!" She moans throwing her head back and grinding against the vibrator.

He can't handle it.

"fuck it"

He jumps up and rushes over to the bed, wrapping his hand around her throat and yanking her into a lustful kiss. She's in shock but doesn't fight it, both of them forgetting they are on a live stream. "You're working me baby, having me sit there and watch you play with yourself like a little whore." He growls as he pulls away from her. He removes his hand from her neck and grabs ahold of her hair, slapping her firmly. She whimpers but doesn't back out, "You gonna make it up to me?" She nods eagerly, always excited to please him. He grins at her, shoving her face in his crotch, "Go ahead ma, make it up to me."

Her hands move quickly, pulling his sweats and boxers down. His dick springs up, slapping his stomach, aching to be engulfed in her warm mouth. She grabs it by the base, slowly stroking it as she rubs the tip against her puckered lips. His precum glossing the soft pillows.

Chris yanks her hair harder than the first time, slapping her once again and starting to brutally fuck her mouth., "Stop fucking playing with me." She gags and chokes around him, tears running down her face and mixing in with the spit pooling out her mouth, mixing with the spit bubbles.

The chat goes wild seeing their favorite cam girl getting throat fucked by her boyfriend. They haven't seen her collaborate with an actual guy in so long, they were feining for it. They were sending in payments like crazy, her phone constantly buzzing.

She tries to slow him down, but it's no use. He goes even harder, making it a mission to bruise her throat.

"Come on, be a good girl and take it. I know you can." He pants as he feels himself getting close. He stalls in her throat, letting out deep and raspy groans as his hot seed spills into her throat. She looks up at him through salty tears, her body lurching due to her gag reflex. He pulls out of her throat, giving her no time to breathe, before he pulls her into a hungry kiss, not caring about his own cum being pushed into his mouth.

He pushes her back harshly, settling down behind her. He slaps her pussy a few times making her whimper and whine. He stops and runs his fingers through her folds, gathering her slick, "Look at you, making a mess and I haven't even fucked you yet."

He slaps her pussy once again making her close her legs, "Keep 'em fucking open. You want to show off like a whore, I'll treat you like one." He pushes her legs open, grabbing the vibrator that was discarded on the side of the bed. He turns it on and presses it on her clit, making her throw her head back onto his shoulder. He snakes his other arm around her front and sinks his fingers deep into her cunt.

Her back arches against his, her eyes fluttering shut. "You love this, don't you? You love being treated like a whore?" He grunts in her ear, his fingers moving faster.

"Answer me Ma, you like being my whore?" The lewd squelching noises and vibrations fill the room. "Fucckk! I love being you whore!" she answers, her hips chasing both the vibrations and his fingers. He hums and kisses along her neck, still driving his fingers in and out of her.

He turns the vibrator up by two settings, watching as her legs begin to shake, her toes curling.

"Oh fuck Chris!" She looks down and watches his fingers pump in and out of her, the cream pooling on the slender digits.

She feels herself getting close, dangerously close. She tries to pull it away but Chris stops her, holding her body and the vibrator in place. "Come on baby, don't be so shy. Show them what you do," he whispers in her ear, urging her to show her viewers his favorite action of hers.

She has never shown her stream that she could squirt, keeping it a secret, and now she's being forced to. He curls his fingers and that's the breaking point. She lets out a mix of a moan and a scream. Chris pulls the vibrator away, using his fingers that were once pumping in and out of her to swipe back and forth across her clit, aiding in pushing the liquid out. Her hips lift off the bed as her juices splash in front of them, landing on the pink blankets and monitor.

The chat blows up seeing her squirt for the first time, urging Chris to keep giving them a show of a lifetime.

He pulls his hand away, shoving his soaked fingers into her mouth. She gags but proceeds to lick his fingers clean, knowing their routine like the back of her hand. "good girl," he says pulling his fingers away from her mouth.

She has no time to recover due to Chris pushing her down face-first into the mattress. He lifts her waist, positioning her exactly how he wants her. Without warning, he slips inside of her. Her velvety walls suck him up just right, taking him in with no problem. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, her body jolting with each harsh thrust Chris throws at her.

She tries to pull away from him, everything becoming too intense. "Don't run from me, you know I hate it." He grabs her waist and yanks her back, going even deeper and faster. "fuck fuck fuck I ca-" she reaches back and tries to push him away, angering him even more. He grabs her arm and holds it against her back, using it as an anchor to drive his body into hers. Her body falls onto the bed, Chris now lying on top of her, plowing relentlessly. He wraps his hand around her throat, forcing her head up. He smiles seeing the tears running down her face, "Aww, is it too much for you?" He taunts as he switches his pace, opting for slow and hard thrusts that would knock the wind out of her lungs. She's unable to speak, only being able to make a noise. He wraps his arm around her neck, squeezing slightly and watching as she goes cross-eyed, drool beginning to run out of her mouth.

With the deep thrusts that were already knocking the air from her lungs, and her oxygen supply being cut off, she's over the moon. She looks into the camera, giving a wide and fucked out smile that shows she's loving every second of it.

"You can handle it, I know you can. Be a good girl and cum for me." He whispers in her ear, still pounding his hips into her. Her eyes roll back as her body convulsed under him, reaching her high once again. He groans feeling her walls clamp down on him, begging him to stay inside her. He kisses her shoulder blade as he pulls out, a popping noise being heard. He flips her onto her back, grabbing her jaw harshly, "You gonna give me one more?" The girl is so fucked out and delirious, she doesn't answer.

He gives her a swift slap to the face that makes her moan. He smirks and lets go of her jaw, pushing her legs to her chest and slipping back inside of her with ease. Her back arches off the bed, a wheezing noise being heard from her. He wastes no time and ruthlessly pounds into her, enjoying the way she mumbles incoherently.

The creamy residue sits at the base of his dick, some of it flying and landing on the back of her thighs and his abdomen from the thrusts. He could never get tired of the sight, it was something about visually seeing their pleasure that drove him to keep going.

Y/n feels like she's about to pass out. Of course she has done streams where she has gotten fucked or overstimulated herself, but not like this. She usually had time to cool down so her stamina didn't run out, but with Chris it was different, and she loved it. chris was always ready to pleasure her back to back, pushing her to her limits, and leaving her shaking, fucked out, and pleading for more.

Chris feels his second high of the night approaching. In reality, it's been there the whole time but he refused to let go until Y/n was damn near passed out underneath him. He hooks his arms under her legs, going underneath her, and lifts her off the bed, beginning to jackhammer.

She lets out a scream, this new angle making her see stars, her sobs and moans bouncing off of the room. Chris has never fucked her while standing up, hell she was never fucked in this position in general. "Almost there, just a few more," he encourages as he drops her to the bed, pushing her legs to the side of her head, his pelvis meeting hers.

Their bodies bounce up and down on the bed, his dick reaching the deepest it could go, even hitting her cervix at times. She's holding on to his back, raking her acrylic nails down the soft skin.

"Fuck! I'm gonna cum!" She finally finds her voice to speak the four words. "Come on baby, I'm right there."

He rubs circles on her clit, driving her to her high. Her back arches off the bed, her body shaking as if an exorcism was being performed. Chris stalls his hips deep inside of her, painting her walls a milky white as he groans in her ear.

Y/n lays there, holding Chris with closed eyes and panting. Chris turns and looks at the monitor, reading a few comments as he comes down from his high.

"Isn't that Chris Sturniolo?"

That comment makes him freeze, his actions suddenly hitting him. He quickly stands up from the bed, pulling out of Y/n harshly. She whimpers from the sudden movement, her body sore and tired.

Chris quickly pulls on his boxers, darting toward her computer in the corner. His eyes dart across the screen, looking for the end button. He finds it and abruptly ends the stream, his heart pounding

He turns hearing Y/n whine. He walks over to her and picks her up, carrying her out of the room, and to her own bathroom.

"Let's get you cleaned up ok?" He mumbles looking down at her. She hums, allowing him to set her down on her bed.

As he runs the bathwater for Y/n, he only has one thought going through his head.

"I fucked up."

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

I'M SO SORRY THIS FIC TOOK 40 DAYS AND 40 NIGHTS TO BE PUT OUT😭 I JUST HAVE BAD WRITERS BLOCK WHEN IT COMES TO THIS FIC SPECIFICALLY!!! BUT THIS SERIES IS MY BABY CUZ I FEEL LIKE IT WAS THE ONE YALL ATE UP WHEN I FIRST STARTED POSTING SO I HAD TO BRING IT UP FOR THE ONE TIME!!!

THIS IS (finally) THE END OF MUWAP WEEK!!! THANK YOU FOR TUNNING IN!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

XOXO, PEACHES 🍑

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[quietstormxr]

Healing Scars

Xaden Riorson x Reader

TW: This post contains mentions of self-harm, depression, and suicidal thoughts. If you find any of these things triggering, I suggest skipping this one.

Also, to anyone reading this feel free to message me if you're in need of someone to talk to. I know it can feel hard to believe in the low moments, but please know that there are those out there who do love you and need you in so many different ways.

If you are in the United States and need someone else to speak to, please try: National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or dial 988 or (en Español).

Summary: As a daughter of the apostasy, you had no choice but to join the riders quadrant. Memories and your past do nothing but bring you down in every way.

A/N: Swearing, insinuated FW/IF spoilers

Word Count: 8k

This is probably the day I die.

The thought is both sobering and brings you an unfortunate sense of peace. After years of trying to hold onto a sliver of hope that things weren’t as bad as you thought, your mind had turned on you. 

Losing your parents to the apostasy was a blow that seemed to drag you under time and time again. The only thought pulling you forward being holding on for your younger sister. The way that she had looked at you that day as if you could rescue her from the nightmare the only picture stopping you so many times. The flash of dragon fire, the rush of pain flaring to life down your arm, the high-pitched scream from your sister that still rung in your ears six years later, and all of the memories sharper today than ever before.

‘Remember Y/N, you always need to take care of Flora. She’ll be looking to you to keep her safe.’ Your mother’s parting words to you constantly sounding in your ears. 

You tried to lock down the feelings you’d try to keep hidden, but the crushing weight of your directed fate weighed heavy on your soul. 

Looking up, your feet began to feel as if they are full of the stones holding up the fortress in front of you. No amount of description or facts listed could’ve prepared you for the force that was the war college you now found yourself in front of. 

You swallow thickly the bile and nerves that threaten to explode as you trudge towards the table with the rolls. However, nothing can mask the looks of disgust that you garner as you slog through the families saying their goodbyes. It seems every pair of eyes you pass stares at the black swirls that rage across your arm, a mark that noted, to them, you were the enemy. Yet, here you were, holding on by a single thread and not a threat to any one of them, let alone an entire kingdom.

As you walk up to the tables, you notice there is another child of the apostasy taking names. He looks up at you, but there’s no gleam of recognition, so he treats you as if you’re any other cadet. The hope that some of those would remember you diminishing little by little. Your parents were officers in Fen’s Assembly, but you were never one that fit into the group that would gather at Riorson House.

Realization that you’ll be just as alone here as you had been for the last six years hitting you hard. As you start making your ascent, your thoughts begin their incessant spiral. The thought of the way you were ignored and belittled by the other children in the orphanage in Calldyr leading to the blazing doubts you have about your own worth. 

Spending six years drowning in the passive aggressive taunts of the children of the orphanage, the endless punching bag for the staff, and the personal maid of the entire facility left you drained. You had no more tears, no more rage, no more screams, just nothing. Empty.

As you rounded the last few steps of the tower, you felt your face slacken. Devoid of all feeling and emotion, you found yourself finally at the top of the tower and across you could see the bridge that may just be the end of it all. 

Your eyes focus in on the narrow bridge as the cadets and candidates around you fade into the blackness around you. Your mind zoning in on the thought that you can finally forget. Forget the hurt, the burn of the anger, the sting of the pain, the fierce ache of the agony, the profound feeling of loss, the isolation of loneliness. 

Blindly walking forward as the next person in front of you does, you don’t notice the movement of the cadets that are taking names. You continue walking forward until you are the only one left before the opening of the stone bridge that looms to be your judge, jury, and executioner. 

As you go to take the next step forward, you are jolted back to the present by a firm hand tightening on your shoulder. You look to your left and are shocked to see a boy, no now a man, that causes your brain to ring with familiarity. Gone are the slightly rounded slope of his cheekbones and jaw, to now reveal a harsh slash of cutting bone along with a shadow of dark stubble.  Though you can’t help but notice how the color of his eyes and the sweep of his hair has remained the same, even though so much time has passed. The look he gives you is full of something you can’t quite understand, but at the same time you chalk that up to your own spiraling thoughts of nothingness.

“Y/N.” He says quietly as he looks back at you intently. The shock that he knows your name must flash brightly in your eyes because it seems his face falls slightly, as if disappointed you expected otherwise.

His hesitation at your shock doesn’t last though as he slightly lowers himself to speak in a hushed whisper only you can hear. 

“Make sure to keep your head up and remember if your pack falls, let it. I expect to see you on the other side.”

The second half of his statement leaves you with another flare of shock. Why would Xaden Riorson care if you made it across the parapet? In fact, if you were to fall that would be one less burden for him to carry. 

As if you said the thought aloud, you watch as his face falls into a slight frown while your brows furrow. Though you give him a curt nod before you continue to walk to the opening of the turret. 

The storm brewing inside of you seems to stretch to the skies as you look up and the rain begins to pour. You huff a laugh as you drop your head in a shake, hair now soaking and damp running down your back. Deciding to at least attempt to try, you pick your head up and slowly begin to put one foot in front of the other. 

As you step outside of the protective walls, you are blown to the side as a fierce gust of wind seems to batter at your frame. Through some blessing from Zinhal, you manage to stay upright. Before your thoughts have time to catch up, you find yourself stepping through the other side of the turret walls and entering the quadrant. The way your thoughts seem to drown out the trial ahead of you working in your favor.

You can’t help but huff as you give the rider your name. Surely you must be the only cadet who was hoping that you wouldn’t see the inside of the rider’s quadrant today. As soon as you say your name, you look around at your new personal hell and try to find the best corner to hide away in. 

Hidden. Invisible. 

_____________

Two weeks have passed, and you still find yourself alive. You huff a laugh at the thought while pulling your hood above your head. Who knew that the curse of this place for you would be the wanting to die and having difficulty doing so? At every turn, it felt as if any minute you could feel the release of death, but for some unknown reason, the axe had yet to fall completely.

You now find yourself creeping out of the dormitories in the middle of the night to convene with the rest of those cadets that are marked. Though you were invited by another cadet, you find yourself alone again making your way to the tree the other cadet had described. 

As your feet lumber to the meeting spot, you realize that you have been procrastinating as your pace becomes slower than a snail. You round the corner and see the group gathered under the tree, the words of Garrick slowly reaching your ears.

It’s then you realize this is the older riders trying to help. At the understanding, you stop entirely. There’s no reason for you to waste their time when your plan isn’t to survive or thrive in the quadrant. Instead of progressing forward or letting anyone see you, you slink into the shadows of one of the nearest trees and let your back hit the trunk and your body slide down to the ground.

You let your head fall back onto the tree and close your eyes. As you sit there, your hand seems to wander of its own accord to the dagger you have strapped to your thigh. You feel as your fingers brush the hilt that is carved with runes. Letting your fingers sink into the ridges of the hilt and tracing the dips and curves. 

Soon enough, your fingers have gravitated even lower and are ghosting across the sharp blade. You barely register when your own hand pulls the dagger from the sheath, and you begin to run the blade lightly up your thigh. 

As it skims around your waist, you bring the blade up to study it in the light. Hilt resting in your right palm, your left is now open with the shining blade laying across it. Your head tilts as your eyes begin to focus on the sharp silver glinting in your hand.

Vision tunneling, there’s nothing around you to stop the call of your mind to slash the gleaming metal across your palm. You can even imagine the well of the blood across the open wound and the slight sting that will accompany the damage. Before your brain can begin to bring the pressure to your hand, you’re shocked to find a black shimmering band coiling across your dagger.

Focus momentarily broken, your gaze is stolen by the way the shadows seem to coil and dance in your hands. Moments later your concentration is broken by the sound of footsteps through the grass beside you. You startle slightly when the large figure sits down next to you. 

His hand immediately darts to yours, taking the dagger from your grasp. As your gaze begins to sweep to his eyes, you watch as hand moves slowly and sheaths the dagger back at your thigh.

“Why didn’t you join the others?” He questions, an authoritative tone coating every word.

You shrug your shoulders struck with nothing but apathy. “Didn’t feel the need to, I suppose.”

Then you suddenly realize, through your own zoning out, you heard the words the man next to you said. 

“Didn’t you just tell that other first year to accept their fate and not take up any more of your time?” You retort your patience wearing thin when all you want is to slip into the darkness. 

“I was just sparing you from wasting your time.” The snap of your tone reverberating between you both in the darkness. With the anger flaring, you turn to get up and away from the man next to you, but you find yourself rooted to the spot when his hand clamps around your wrist.

“Yes, I did say that.” He snarls while looking at you with a gaze that could pierce stone. 

“Precisely, so please dear Wingleader, please just write me off in your books.” You can’t help the defiant tone that the man brings out in you. “I’ve always been an afterthought, a footnote in the story. At this point, I just want my story to reach the end.”

As you’ve continued speaking, you watch as the anger radiating from Xaden has grown to full wrath at your words.

“Why?” The one word turns your sulking into confusion as he continues to seem to study you, eyes burning. 

“Because I’m done. I’m tired of just existing.” The words leaving your mouth in an exasperated sigh. Your entire face falls, along with your body the fight draining from you. “Besides, why do you care? For all the years I’ve known you, you’ve said more words to me tonight than ever before.”

“You act as though people don’t see you. That they never have.” He argues. 

“They haven’t. The only reason I’m still here is because my parents told me I had to take care of my sister.” The derision in your tone is unavoidable as the force of the request begins to finally take its toll.

Xaden continues to study you as if this is the first time he’s actually seeing you. The scrutiny begins to gnaw at your insecurities, and you find yourself drawing into yourself. Sensing your hesitancy, his gaze softens. 

“Do you remember the first night you arrived at Riorson House?” He asks. You can’t help the furrow that sets into your brows as you contemplate his question. 

“Of course. It’s hard to forget feeling like an intruder when you’re fifteen years old and constantly moving around.” You sass at him.

His face falls ever so slightly while seeming to remember the night himself. “Yes, well that may be what it looked like to you, but things aren’t always what they seem.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“It means a beautiful girl shows up at a fortress filled with idiot teenage boys and they clearly didn’t know what to do.” He says with a reflective gaze levelled back at the moon. 

Your own bewilderment at his words can’t be hidden by the darkness of the moon. “You’re trying to tell me that you all avoided me because I was beautiful, and you were teenagers?”

The way your eyes roll and the scoff that leaves your lips is unavoidable. You can’t honestly believe anything coming out of this man’s mouth.

“Besides, I wasn’t the only girl there, was I?” You bark the tone of incredulity settled deep into your bones. 

“Just do yourself a service and forget I’m here. I’ll be out of your hair soon enough, I’m sure.” You continue rising to your feet and pull your hood back above your head. You let your feet carry you away from Xaden and back towards the citadel. 

As you make your way there, you try to shut off your mind, but can’t help the way it wanders at the words he said. Was he really being truthful or was it just a way to get under your skin and through your defenses?

You shake your head willing the thoughts away as you toss of your cloak and try to settle into your bed. Staring up at the bunk above you, you will your mind to settle as it continues to race with questions. If he wasn’t willing to help the other first year, why did Xaden stop you from slicing your own palm? What game was he playing at?

__________

Though you haven’t tried, the work of the rider’s quadrant has seemed to overpower your raging thoughts. The training, the fights, the academics, all holding your focus more than you thought possible. No matter what you tried, you were never able to completely give up the rouse of trying. Maybe it was the years of pushing through, maybe it was just the curse of never wanting to let anyone down, but you threw on a face of interest and found yourself being friendly and clicking with your squad mates.

In the dark cover of night, while everyone else was asleep you could finally drop the mask and let the emptiness settle into your bones. As an expert at sneaking past the patrols of the halls, you learned the times that they would be on your barracks block. 

Moving quietly through the halls, you scaled the stairs of the academic tower to the top. The latch of the now familiar door slightly creaking as you lifted the hatch to move to the roof. A huff leaves your lips as you think of someone you know finding you up here. The shock of their face as you balance on the precarious slate tiles that line the roof. Sitting down, you hear the unmistakable roar of a dragon as you look to the sky. The sight of the creatures now becoming a permanent fixture in your mind.

The thought sobering as you find yourself moving closer and closer to Threshing and the certainty you have in your mind that no dragon will find you worthy. 

Better yet, maybe one will be merciful and incinerate me onsite.

The thought coils around you like a blanket as you move further down the slope of the roof. Feet dangling over the side, you recline yourself on the tiles as you begin to throw your dagger in the air, the silver glinting menacingly in the moonlight. 

Hours pass and you don’t even realize, caught in the churning of your own thoughts and the mesmerizing twirl of your dagger. Rays of gold and orange begin to crest on the horizon, and you know it’s time for you to make your way back down towards the barracks to avoid being seen. 

As you turn to get up, you feel one of the tiles begin to shift. Before you can think of a way to move without disturbing more, you find your knee falling back into the roof tiles. The reverberation through your body throwing you forward, and your face colliding with the slate. Even before pulling your face up, you can feel the warm trickle of blood that is now staining your right cheek.

Mentally cursing yourself, there’s now no way to avoid a large bruise and cut to your cheek that you’ll have to come up with a story for. The small door creaking again as you open the hatch back up to get to the stairs. Continuing to climb down the spiraling staircase, you wipe at your cheek and realize that there is still a stream of blood flowing. The scarlet staining your fingers drags your attention away from the stairs and the hall around you tunneling your vision as you study your reddened fingers.

It isn’t until you realize that you’ve entered back into the sunlight of the rotunda that your awareness returns. As you look up, you lock onto a gaze you never expected to see. Eyes begin to scan your body up and down, a sliver of concern lancing through the golden flecks. You bring your hand down to your side, wiping the blood on your pants as you move on from the gaze and begin walking again. 

You hear the footsteps before you feel the hand that clamps around your arm turning you towards the man. 

“What the hell happened, Y/N?”

“Nothing.” You reply tearing your arm away from his grasp. 

“Nothing doesn’t leave you with a split cheek and bruising on your face.” Xaden growls back at you while going to loom over you.

“You’ll be surprised to find that intimidation doesn’t work with me Riorson.” You bite back. “If you must know, I tripped. Happy?”

You go to step around him as he continues to eye you with suspicion. Suddenly a flash of horror flies across his face and his hand is braced firmly on your arm again. 

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” He hisses the anger rising in his irises. 

“Maybe I am. What’s it to you?” He rears back at your words as if you slapped him across the face. You watch as his gaze burns changing from anger to concern, searching your face as if looking for another answer.

“Do you really think your life isn’t worth saving?” Xaden breathes as if he’s trying to convey something that you just don’t understand.

You just shrug your shoulders back at the brooding Wingleader, your nonchalant attitude causing his shoulders to droop. However, the next thing you know, he’s squaring his shoulders again and hardening his stare. “Come on, you’re going to the healers to get that taken care of.”

As he turns and begins to tug you by your hand, you try to pull back your hand. “I’m fine.” You argue as you continue to try and pry your wrist from his grasp. 

He whirls around and you take a slight step back. Realizing his own actions, he slows his movements as he brings his hand to your face. His thumb gently brushes over the cut moving some of the blood from the cut and you slightly wince at the pain. Golden flecks seem to disappear as he watches the movement cross your face.

“You aren’t.” He says quietly. “Will you please go to the healers with me?”

Unsure if it’s the tone of his voice or the gentleness of the question, but you give a curt nod in affirmation before he’s gently pulling on your wrist again and leading you to the healers. 

And not for the first time your interaction with Xaden has left you bewildered. 

The scent of healing herbs assaults you as you enter the healers and take a seat on one of the waiting beds. Waiting for the healer to come in, you can’t help but study the man that seems to always pop up during your lowest moments. As if he feels you study him, he picks up his head from the chair he is seated in, and his gaze rises to meet yours. You watch as his brow furrows in confusion.

“Who were you fostered with?” He asks as he tilts his head as if trying to piece together a complex puzzle.

You look back at him with a quizzical expression wondering why it could possibly matter where you were.

“No one.” You reply flatly looking at the questioning onyx eyes as he raises his scared brow. “I was sent to an orphanage in Calldyr because none of the families wanted me.”

It’s surprising to see the amount of shock that passes across his features as you go quiet after revealing this information. You can feel as the tension in the room seems to rise as neither one of you speaks. In a bid to break the heaviness that has settled between you, you decide to share what happened that day.

“While we were waiting with the rest of the children to be chosen, Lady Hawtrey took an interest in my sister and took her back to Grenmont Hall.” You continue with a shrug. “But after they left, no one gave me a second glance. My parents weren’t well known enough for me to draw interest I suppose. Or at least I wasn’t that interesting to anyone.”

A remorseful Xaden Riorson is a sight that you never thought you’d see in your life, yet here he is looking like he’d give anything in the world to change what happened. The golden shine in his eyes when he looks up at you causes your breath to catch in your throat. 

“No one told me that anyone ended up in the orphanage.” He breathes quietly, the weight of your circumstances weighing down his shoulders.

You can’t help the way you reach out instinctively to comfort the man in front of you placing your hand over his.

“It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.” The conviction in your voice causing it to rise slightly. The situation you had found yourself in after your parents’ death wasn’t ideal, but you knew you couldn’t let the man in front of you take the blame. “You were only a teenage boy making decisions for the fate of over a hundred children. Nothing like that should have ever fallen on your shoulders.”

The look in Xaden’s eyes as he looks back at you could be mistaken for reverence, but your mind knew that there was no way a man like him would ever look at you that way.

The spell between the two of you is suddenly broken when the healer enters the room. As she begins to fuss over your injury, you watch as Xaden rises and moves to the corner of the room. 

“My goodness, how did you manage to get cut by slate?” The healer asks almost to herself as you feel her pull a small sliver from the cut. “I can’t even remember any slate that is on the grounds, except for the roof.”

You slightly wince at the revelation she makes, and Xaden must’ve seen your face because the softness of his eyes is gone, and the hard steel of his stare is back. The next thing you know he’s turning and walking out of the room. You let your shoulders droop as suddenly a sense of guilt overwhelms you. You try to shake it, but the feeling that you’ve disappointed Xaden sits heavy on your chest. You look up trying to blink back the tears that are now stinging your eyes, but nothing seems to stop them from falling down the side of your face.

After being given clearance to leave, you slowly walk back towards the riders quadrant and your mind can’t help but wander to your interaction with Xaden. As you go over the morning, you think maybe you aren’t as alone as you thought you were.

___________

Then the day that you know will change your life one way or another arrives.

Threshing.

As you stand with the other first-years, you can’t help the way your mind reels at the fact that you’ve even made it this far. You sway back and forth on your feet feeling the daggers on your body shift in their sheaths. The band of the bow hanging across your body heavy with the possibility of use. 

You scan the crowd looking at the people around you and can see the looks of fear and even some that have a hint of blood lust in their eyes. You know however that you have resigned your fate to whatever the gods expect to happen today. 

While checking your sheaths one last time, your brows furrow in confusion as your hand clamps onto a paper that was crumpled in one of your empty ones. Pulling the paper out and hiding it in your palm, you quickly read the hastily scribbled note. 

You are worthy and important. Never forget that.

You try but come up blank when you try to decipher who’s handwriting this could possibly be. Before you can stop to give it more thought, the whistle blows, and you find yourself stepping forward to meet whatever fate lies ahead for you in the forest.

Hours later, you begin to feel a pull and find yourself moving further and further into the darkness of the forest. You had left behind several dragons and even some cadets that seemed out for blood, skirting through the shadows of tree cover.

Coming to the front of a cave, you begin to hear harsh breaths whooshing from the entrance. Taking a deep breath, you begin to slowly trek into the gaping maw of the cave. Unsure if you’ve just walked into a trap of your own making, voices are now floating to you on the wind. 

Trying to squint to acclimate your sight to the dimness of the cave, you can barely make out the outline of two other cadets. However, those figures are not what causes your breath to catch. There in the dim glow of the cave you can see the slight gleam of a shiny black or blue dragon, the miniscule light from the cave opening illuminating the scales with every color. Your eyes widen as you take in the size of the creature that is laying on the ground appearing not to be concerned with the other two cadets that have swords drawn in front of it.

“Come on dragon.” You hear a male voice taunt. “Which one of us are you going to find worthy?”

“Yeah,” an unmistakably female voice adds. “Let’s get going with this choice of yours. We need to get back to the celebrations.”

A large puff of steam leaves the nostrils of the large dragon, clearly a huff of annoyance. As you continue to watch the scene, two glowing golden orbs focus on you.

‘Are you going to take care of these two or are you going to make me?’ A rough female voice cuts through your thoughts.

Your eyes blow wide as understanding punches you in the gut.

“You think I’m the one you want?” You can’t help but voice the thought. 

The minute the question leaves your mouth, a breathless curse soon follows. Now both cadets have turned to you and have their weapons drawn.

“Looks like we’ll need to take care of this one first.” The male drawls while starting to slowly step towards you.

“What makes you think a dragon like that would find you worthy?” The female taunts as you watch her begin to move towards you as well. “You’ve barely been squeaking by in this quadrant. What better way to earn a dragon than take out one of the weak links.”

“And a traitor at that.” The male voice adds.

You can’t help but bristle at their words, although the ever-present nagging voice does nothing but agree with the sentiment at least about being a weak link. Not waiting to weigh your options, you remove the bow from your back and go to nock one arrow. Trying to analyze who is the bigger threat works against you as the male figure begins to charge towards you. As you pull the bow tight, you take a deep breath hoping that your aim is true in the dim light of the cave.

You loose the arrow and it strikes true hitting the cadet in the left side of his chest. As you watch him slump down, you suck in a tight breath when you feel the bite of a dagger split your side. You quickly look up to see the female stepping slightly back a wicked sneer across her face. Swiftly drawing your own dagger, you don’t think twice before letting it fly. 

Unfortunately for you, the girl dodges and swings back in an arc slicing your forearm. You quickly turn yourself and draw a second dagger from the sheath. Circling the girl, you notice that she must have been hurt already as she’s limping away from her left side. Without dwelling on your options, you surge forward and crouch low while aiming your dagger for the back of her knee. 

Not expecting you to squat low, you hear the slice of the blade as the girl’s dagger slices through air and then the scream of pain as she falls to the floor. You turn over your left shoulder and go to stand. You feel as your ankle is tugged back, and you scream when her blade pierces your calf. 

Dragging yourself forward, you grab an arrow that had fallen to the ground. You bring it over your head and with force drop it down on the back of the girl’s hand. With your leg immediately released, you scramble up and limp to where your bow had fallen to the ground. Nocking the second arrow of the day, you take a deep breath and exhale letting the arrow fly into the girls back as she tries to scoot away. 

With both threats eliminated, the feelings of guilt hit you with full force knocking the remaining breath from your lungs. The darkness of the cave seems to coil around you, letting your mind wander to all the reasons you should be the one with an arrow in your back.

‘Do you always deem yourself unworthy?’ The rough female voice slides through your mind again breaking you from the spiral of your thoughts.

Your gaze flies back to the two glowing orbs that are a stark contrast to the darkness from the cave.

“I haven’t had any reason to find myself worthy.” You reply though you can feel the smallness of your own voice.

You stall in fear as the dragon stalks towards you, the golden eyes narrowing on you. It’s in that moment if you wonder if she will incinerate you out of sheer annoyance. Before you can take your next full breath, you find yourself being nudged back by her large snout.

‘You now have no reason to doubt your worthiness.’ She says as her eyes continue to narrow on you. You swallow thickly as your mind begins to wonder if it’s too late to run.

‘You will not run from me, Y/N L/N. You are my rider and are more laudable than most cadets on that field. Come.’ She raises to her full height before beginning to stalk out of the cave.

Your feet seem bolted to the floor as the large shadow of the dragon passes overhead. You watch as she stalks out and looking at the opening of the cave, you can see that the darkness has descended on the forest as well. 

‘My patience is wearing thin. Come now and mount, Treasured One.’ Her voice brooks no room for argument, and you follow the orders of the dragon in front of you.

Its then the pain of your injuries rears back, and you hiss in pain as you begin the trek out of the cave. You have your palm pressed to your side as you try to staunch the bleeding from the wound. 

‘Take off your shirt and hold the wound closed. The faster you do this, the faster you can record our bond and seek medical attention.’ 

You look up at your commanding dragon and give a slight nod as you begin to lift your shirt over your head. You take the sides and secure it on your uninjured side and then look up at your dragon again. Your eyes now slowly roam over the expanse of the indomitable creature in front of you and your eyes widen. This must be one of the largest dragons you’ve ever seen.

“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to mount.” You say as you worry your lip between your teeth.

‘Do not be silly. I’ve seen what you are capable of. Stop stalling with your self-doubt and mount.’ She says as she brings her head slightly down for you to see the sweeping horns and glinting scales of her face.

At this point, you know there is no reason for you to keep arguing, lest you’re incinerated for petulance. You take as deep of a breath as possible with the sear of the pain from your side still radiating and run towards the dragon’s leg. With all the effort you have left, you manage to make it to her shoulder and carefully step to take your seat. 

As soon as you find yourself seated correctly and grabbing the pommel, your stomach bursts into your chest as you feel your dragon leave the ground.

‘My name is Candrirnome of the Uarraig line, but you can call me Candrir.’ She informs you as you begin to see the field come into view.

You hum in acknowledgement in your mind, though you find everything taking on an edge of fuzziness. Holding your hand to the wound at your side, you pull it away to feel the sensation of warm blood coating your palm. 

‘It’s time for you to tell the roll keeper my name and get medical attention swiftly.’ Candrir orders as she lands with a gentleness you weren’t expecting. 

You slowly get up, limping as the dripping of your wounds begins to take your strength and slide down her leg with the grace of an elephant. You tumble forward when you reach the ground and land on your hands and knees. You hear a menacing growl above you and as you go to look up, you find yourself being hoisted up to your feet by your waist.

As you look down to figure out what has a hold on you, your brows furrow when you realize shimmering shadows are wrapped around your waist trying to pull you to your feet. You shake your head clearing some of the haze and begin slow steps to the podium. 

After giving your dragon’s name to the roll keeper, you slowly trudge to the medical tent. 

‘Let him help you, Treasured One. The dragons will return soon.’ Candrir relays in your mind.

Your brows pull in with confusion etching on your face as you finally can see the opening of the medical tent. You know you must be a sight to see, your shirt tied around you, limping from multiple wounds, and your chest bindings on full display along with scars that you had so far kept hidden. 

As you finally enter the tent, you feel someone place a jacket over your shoulders and you immediately turn behind you trying to assess the new threat. Surprisingly enough, you look up into concerned eyes, the color indiscernible in the dim light. The quick action has the wound in your side pulling and you double over as a fresh wave of pain radiates down your body. 

Two arms grab you behind your back and knees bringing you to the nearest cot. You feel as warm hands untie the shirt that is holding your wound together and can’t help but hear the way his breathing stops when he sees the wound.

Your eyes begin to close as the exhaustion of lost blood hits your abused body, your breathing turning shallower than before.

“Hey” the man before you says quietly but with command, while gently shaking your shoulders. “You need to open your eyes. Come on, you need to stay conscious.”

“Open your eyes. You didn’t survive Threshing and bond a dragon to die in a medical tent.” The command in his voice rising as your eyes continue to drift closed.

The words finally registering, you do your best to open your eyes to the man in front of you.  Your brain immediately notices the way his eyes have turned to pure obsidian, losing all the soft golden hue. 

Your words rasp as you tease. “Careful Wingleader, someone might think you actually care.”

The immediate scoff that leaves his mouth has you turning your head away. 

“No, if you can tease me, you can keep your eyes open. Nolon is on his way.” He says while he turns your face back to his gently. 

As if being summoned, Nolon appears next to you and immediately begins cleaning the wounds you’ve sustained to mend them. You hiss in pain as the antiseptic hits the wound in your side relieving some of the blurring that had been overtaking your vision.

“If you are going to stand here Riorson, I suggest you keep her distracted. This wound is deep and will take a few minutes to knit back together.” Nolon tells Xaden while continuing his work cleaning the wound. 

“Here Cadet L/N. Bite down on this strap, I’m sorry but this isn’t going to be pleasant.” Nolon explains as he places a leather strap in your mouth. 

The next thing you remember is the wound beginning to burn as you feel the deep gash being magically healed. Everything in you wants to scream, but you just bite down as hard as you can and close your eyes. You can feel your face contort in pain, your eyes and brows furrowed tight. Your breathing turns labored as you try to focus past the pain that seems to be radiating from your every pore. 

As the pain of mending begins to subside slowly, you suddenly register the rub of calloused fingers over your knuckles. Finally opening your eyes, you look up to see Xaden with a concerned concentration staring at the wound on your side, almost as if he is trying to use his own power to mend you. As you stare at the brooding Wingleader, you can’t help but wonder exactly what is going through his mind. 

Why does it seem like he’s always in the right place at the right time, at least for you? What exactly are you worth to him?

It's as if your own thoughts were said out loud as his gaze swings back to you. The stare that he gives you makes you feel like he sees entirely too much. Your own musings over the complicated man in front you are broken when Nolon finally takes a step back. 

“Everything seems to be stitched up.” Nolon says to both of you. “However, you will need someone to assist you to get back to your dragon and to your new room tonight.” 

Nolon finishes before walking off to tend to his next patient. You take a few deep breaths trying to will away the lingering pain from the wound and its mending. Feeling steady enough, you put both your hands on the side of the bed and go to get off before a hand comes out and stops you.

“Didn’t you just hear the mender? You’re going to need someone’s help. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” He says flatly as if you are a naïve little child that needs to be scolded for not listening. 

“Of course, I heard him, but regrettably for me, I don’t see anyone volunteering to be my nursemaid. Besides, I can’t exactly look weak to the ones that are still looking for a dragon to bond. That’s how I got myself into this mess in the first place.” 

You huff out in irritation and begin to turn on your heel, but the minute you try to pick up your foot, you feel yourself falling to the side.

“Can’t you just listen for once.” He says tersely as he pulls you into his side beginning to walk.

Irritation bubbling through you, you can’t help but retort. “Can’t you just let me die.”

His steps falter immediately, and you must brace yourself as you feel your body beginning to fall. You squeeze your eyes shut, but for some reason the contact with the floor doesn’t come. You open your eyes to see yourself again wrapped in bands of onyx shadow. The wielder of said shadows still looking at you as if you’ve just called him the most offensive name on the continent. 

“You can’t honestly mean that.” He says, though you’re unsure as to why his voice is so quiet. 

“You’ll find I very much do. That’s what happens when you find yourself alone day after day and crying yourself to sleep night after night.” It seems the blood loss has loosened both your tongue and your ability to filter your mouth because everything you try to keep hidden begins to spill out. 

“Day after day waking up just wanting one person to give enough of a damn to be there. To show that you are important, that you’re wanted. To hug you just because you mean something to them. To sit with you and enjoy something simple. But alas, how would you know what that feels like? You have a found family and friends that look to you and have your back. Hell, almost the entire quadrant has some kind of feeling about you. You may wield shadows, but you don’t live in them. I do.” As you finally shut your mouth, you can feel as dragons begin to land back around you. You cast your eyes down and slowly begin the walk back to your spot next to your dragon leaving the Wingleader behind you.

_______________

Days pass and you find yourself wishing for the bitter bite of the incoming winter chill. Something to distract you from the hurt that you inflicted on a person who was only trying to help you in your time of need. Since the night of Threshing, you haven’t been able to meet the gaze of your Wingleader. Every time you find yourself in the same vicinity, you immediately dart as far away as possible. 

Reminiscing on all the words that escaped your mouth, you can only cower in shame at having said that to the man who watched his home, father, and city burn and then go through the brutality of taking responsibility for 107 children to save them from the same fate.

Wrapping your fur lined cloak over your shoulders, you slink through the shadowed corridors and find yourself underneath the same tree that you had your first conversation with months before. As your nervous habit dictates, you remove one of the daggers from the sheath at your thigh and begin to twirl it through your fingers.

It isn’t long before you begin to feel the presence of someone in the clearing with you. You hear the snap of a branch to your left and immediately get to your feet with your dagger poised to strike the intruder.

“Hard to believe you’ve survived this long with a fighting stance like that.” The voice says. 

You immediately roll your eyes not interested in the critique of your fighting style. 

“Yeah, well, I get by.” You sass irritated and sitting back down trying to get back the calm you had before the intrusion. 

You mentally curse when Xaden comes to sit down next to you. With an exaggerated sigh, you bring your face to look at his not trying to hide your irritation at the disturbance. 

“Can I help you with something or are you just here to intrude on my solitude?” You muse to your new companion.

“Intrude on your solitude, now why would I do something like that?” He teases back at you.

“Oh, I don’t know, because you just excel at irritating people.” You say while waiting for the man next to you to look you in the eyes. “Or is that your second signet, shadows and irritation?”

A look of shock passes over his features, and you furrow your brows almost thinking you imagined the gesture. You gently shake your head to yourself as you realize it must’ve been a trick of the light. Quiet falls between you as your head falls back to the tree you had been resting on. As the guilt of after Threshing hits you again, you can’t help but break the silence.

“I’m sorry.” You begin, the hesitancy in your voice very present. “I – I shouldn’t have said what I did. It isn’t fair to me to put that on you. Of all people, you have carried a weight heavier than all of us.”

You lower your eyes the heavy weight of your accusations sitting on your chest. You feel as his fingers lightly grab your chin and begin to bring your face back up to his. 

“You don’t need to apologize.” He says in a soft tone you’ve never heard from him before. “I know all too well the dark places your mind can take you, especially after everything we’ve been through.” 

You don’t miss the soft snort he gives before continuing. “Hell, the things we go through on a daily basis are enough to bring most people to their knees.”

A comfortable silence spreads between you both as your face turns to look back at the stars. 

“Thank you,” You begin quietly after some time has passed. “Thank you for all the times that you have saved me. Those are the words I should’ve told you after Threshing, but sometimes all the scars just feel too heavy.”

You take a deep breath and let your hands fall to your sides resting on the grass on either side of you. Seconds later you are caught off guard by a warm calloused hand wrapping around your own, intertwining your fingers. 

“Sometimes you need someone who has scars to let you help you heal yours.” He muses while looking up at the stars, thumb slowly stroking over your own. 

Even though he isn’t looking directly at you, you can see the way his features have softened as you sit there watching his profile. Memorizing his features, you can’t help but take a deep breath and think that maybe you mean more to the man in front of you than just another child of the apostasy.