#Besides unconditional love

[nei-ning]

I've been having many weird dreams now recently in couple nights. I don't remember most part of them but I remember faint flashes of images / places in my head.

Like last night. Very long dream but I only remember standing at old, abandoned highway with my brother. I had see through-plastic box which had old camera's battery, small other batteries etc. inside. I tossed it gently to the side of the road to leave it there, coming to get it later, but the plastic box bounced on the road few times, opening and everything from the inside spread on the road, breaking. I was shocked and surprised because they all were so shitty and broke so easily that I cursed out loud in confusion.

Now, tonight's dream (I just woke up from it). Long dream short. I was in big opening under the ground with some kind of ocean, very old / ancient city ruins etc. I needed to get to other ruins across me but the waves were crossing each other, being too strong. I suddenly got big working horse there, I think it was a mare I used to own in real life, and I ride on her to other side by using another way. I had to climb old broken stone stairs, coming to the door of old castle.

I then hear noble man's voice announcing the arrive of princes (all of their first name was William). I got happy about the name since William is also the main character in Nioh 1, a game and a guy which I love a lot. There was a box which had very detailed princesses chocolates, painted dresses, accessories etc. and they were wrapped inside see through plastic. When the noble man announced one princess' name, others got mad, starting to nag. She wasn't as pretty or fancy as the rest of them but she was the one who all princes wanted to meet.

I then met a man in another location. He was taller than I, skinnier but wore nice clothes. We were together but we had to keep it as a secret since his family was VERY religious - and therefor strict - and they never wouldn't had accept me because I'm not religious one bit. We kept meeting secretly, growing older.

We were at this little high "hill" in the middle of the forest, small pond with running water at the base of this "hill". He was without a shirt and I noticed weird spots on his body. He was very sick but kept hiding it - until now. He showed me around because his small house was there. He had a black cat who I managed to greet, petting it. It never allowed visitors to touch itself. We also searched for a missing baby chicken since the grass was so tall at some points. We heard it chirp but suddenly we had to hide under the bed which was placed in the middle of the hillroad. His family had arrived.

This man now turned more older right in front of my eyes, hiding by my side but eventually he crawled out, greeting his family. His father spotted me under the bed, telling me to come out. I did. I don't remember how things went from there but soon there was another man who attacked on my husband. The attacker was like a combination of Predator and Sylvester Stallone. He shot my husband few times and it made me furious. I grabbed this attacker's weird gun, pointed it at him and shot. He fell in the pond, lifting his head. He mumbled of getting shot too many times but I didn't give a damn. I shot him on the forehead from very close to make sure he dies because I knew he would come back if I didn't.

My focus now turned on my husband. I rushed to him, pressing his wounds. His family just stared in shock. I was sobbing and crying, starting to rant softly to the family about love. How love is the strongest and greatest thing on earth and everyone has right for it, religious or not. They shouldn't judge our love only because I'm not religious etc. I looked down at my husband and he wore very small, but extremely gentle and warm smile. I whispered something to him and saw how the light in his eyes left. I knew he just died. It made me so sad but this whole experience, apparently, opened his family's eyes. And hearts.

[danceinthunder]

Regulus is sure he was only given five senses to appreciate James Potter.

Anyone would know why it was a blessing to see James. He was pretty and handsome and always so happy. It was infectious, Regulus had to fight and fight and fight not to just grin because James was. He had pretty privilege and didn’t even know it. Sweet and innocent and fun and bright - sun incarnate.

Touching James was like burning. Warm and delightful but dangerously tempting to step closer till the flames that surrounded the boy engulfed you. James made touch casual. Happy to hug anyone; slap a hand on a shoulder; a tired head on the shoulder. But Regulus monopolised his touch. He found James’ hands linger and rest on his waist. A sly finger on his cheek, brushing off an eyelash. Holding his hand and playing with his fingers. To touch and be held by James Potter was to be touched and held by a God, Regulus thought. There is no other way to explain such perfection.

James Potter never smelt of one single thing. He was a teenage boy who played sports, so unfortunately, sometimes that was for the worse. But most of the time he would smell so good. His jumpers from home smelt of turmeric and ginger and dried basil - James’ mum used to dry off their cloths in the kitchen and the smells of his childhood and family followed him always. Sitting near enough to him, near enough to breath in the spice and sugar of him, made Regulus feel like a part of the exciting world that conjured James Potter.

Everyone across hogwarts would probably be able to hear James. He was unapologetically loud. Gleeful laughs and his loud chatting would linger in hallways like ghostly echoes of a happy life being lived. Regulus would chase empty corridors to follow the sound so comfortable and tender. If moths were drawn to flames they were stupid - to be drawn to anything but James’ laughter and joy would be stupid. And his whispers, the secret words that he would pour into Regulus ears were siren songs, honey-sweet promises. ‘Drown me in them and I’ll die happy’ Regulus would think staring up at the smiling boy resting him on his legs, ‘Orpheus and Eurydice, me and you, where I hear your voice I’ll follow.’

And Regulus held the secret of what it was like to taste James Potter. To feel his lips against his own and know what he tasted of. All the sugar sweetness and gentle spice that was addictive against his tongue. Regulus would starve himself to consume the taste of James, to define its changing feeling. All the joy and happiness and sunny warmth of his lover. Ambrosia and nectar and James Potter. Regulus would fight anyone, anything to steal a taste from his lips as many times as he could.

To take James Potter away from him would be to blind him. It would be to take away any pleasure of taste, any joy of music and sound, any sensation of feeling against his skin, and leave him unable to enjoy the subtle scents of the world around him. James Potter owned Regulus Black’s heart, and Regulus would fight to keep them both safe.

[tharacelehar]

The s2 trailer really was like btw Izzy Hands believes that the real treasure is the friends we made along the way. I love it here

[thedevotionaltour]

karen is MY special white woman. my problematic fave. because i understand why she sucks. i think in order to be allowed to be a karen fan you have to actually understand why she sucks. if you don't understand why she sucks then you're a bad karen fan i think.

[evermorecountsastherapy]

I think my problems started when I was 7 and chose Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel from Tangled as models for my personality. not complaining, just having a moment of realization. that's it send post

[fanfictionismyaddiction]

The Sweet Defender

Word count: 1.5k

Pairing: Max Verstappen x reader

Summary: A quiet and shy Y/n, Max Verstappen's sweet-natured girlfriend, surprises everyone by fiercely defending him against his father's harsh criticism, revealing her hidden strength and deep love for Max.

________________________________________________________

You were sweet in a way that made people soften around you. There was a kindness in the way you carried yourself, from the way you greeted everyone in the garage with a small, warm smile to how you always remembered little details about their lives. You made people feel seen, even if you rarely said much.

The mechanics would tease Max about how lucky he was to have such a sweet girlfriend. “Max, how did someone like you end up with her?” they’d joke. And Max would grin, ruffling your hair playfully before pulling you into a side hug. He always said you were his calm amidst the storm, the one person who could make him feel grounded, no matter what was happening around him.

You blushed easily—whether from Max’s teasing, a compliment from someone in the paddock, or even just catching him looking at you from across the garage. You didn’t like drawing attention to yourself, preferring to be the quiet presence in Max’s life, always supporting him from the shadows.

In the world of Formula 1, where everything was fast-paced, high-stakes, and often brutally competitive, you were a breath of fresh air. You didn’t come to the races to be seen or to be part of the glamorous world of motorsport. You were there because Max was there, and you cared deeply about him.

Your shyness was something everyone respected, never pushing you to speak up or step out of your comfort zone. It wasn’t that you didn’t have opinions or thoughts—you just preferred to keep them to yourself unless you felt it was necessary to say something. You always felt more comfortable observing, being the one who listened rather than the one who spoke.

But despite your quiet nature, everyone knew there was something strong about you. It was in the way you cared for people, the way you never hesitated to step in if someone needed help, and the way you looked at Max with such unconditional love. You had a soft heart, and that made you special.

Max would often call you his "sweet soul," a term of endearment he used whenever he saw you doing something that reminded him of your kind nature—whether it was making sure the team had enough water during a hot race weekend or asking how someone’s family was doing after a long absence. He admired your gentle spirit, always saying that you made his world feel less chaotic.

Everyone in the paddock adored you, seeing you as this quiet, sweet girl who somehow balanced Max's fiery personality with her calm and soothing presence. You had this unassuming beauty that radiated from the inside out, your kindness making people feel at ease around you. You were cute in the way you nervously tucked your hair behind your ear when someone addressed you directly, or how your cheeks flushed when Max wrapped an arm around you during post-race interviews, never comfortable being in the spotlight.

But today, something had changed.

The paddock was loud and chaotic, as it always was on race weekends, but today the tension was unbearable. Max was storming through the Red Bull garage, his face flushed with anger, frustration pouring out of him with every word.

“They didn’t set the car up right. It’s not even close to drivable!” Max’s voice cut through the air, sharp with disappointment. “How am I supposed to compete like this?”

You stood a little distance away, your hands clasped nervously in front of you, watching him pace back and forth. You hated seeing him like this—his frustration rolling off him in waves, but you knew better than to interrupt him when he was this wound up. Besides, you were never the type to speak up in these situations, even if your heart ached for him.

Then, Jos arrived.

As soon as Jos stepped into the garage, you could feel the atmosphere shift. Max’s body tensed, and you knew this wouldn’t end well. Jos walked straight up to him, not bothering with pleasantries, his voice already raised.

“You’re not good enough today, Max,” Jos said coldly. “You call that driving? You let everyone down out there. Again.”

Your heart clenched at Jos’s words. Max, already on edge from the race, stood frozen, his eyes cast down, taking the verbal onslaught in silence. He didn’t argue back, didn’t defend himself—just stood there, his father’s criticisms raining down on him.

“You used to be better than this,” Jos continued, his voice hard. “Maybe you’re getting too comfortable. Maybe you don’t have what it takes anymore. You think people care about your excuses? No, they care about results.”

It was too much.

Your hands started shaking, the pressure building inside you as you watched Max’s face. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be treated like this by his own father, the man who was supposed to support him, not tear him down. And as you stood there, something snapped inside you.

“No!” you shouted, your voice loud enough to startle even yourself. You felt the eyes of the entire garage turn to you, stunned by the sudden outburst from someone who was always so quiet. But you didn’t care anymore.

“Stop it!” you yelled at Jos, your voice trembling but firm. “You don’t get to talk to him like that! You’re not a good father. You never were.”

Jos turned toward you, his expression one of shock and disbelief. No one ever spoke to Jos Verstappen like that. Especially not you.

“You push him and push him, but have you ever once thought about how much you’re hurting him?!” you continued, the words pouring out before you could stop yourself. “Do you even care about him, or is it just about the wins to you? About your ego? Max is incredible—he’s kind and patient, and he doesn’t deserve to be yelled at because things didn’t go perfectly today!”

The entire garage fell silent. Even the mechanics stopped what they were doing, their eyes darting between you, Max, and Jos.

You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself, but you couldn’t stop now. “You’ve spent years breaking him down, telling him he’s not good enough, and I don’t know how, but despite everything, Max is still a good person. A better person than you ever were to him.”

Jos’s face twisted with anger, but before he could say anything, Max stepped forward, placing himself between you and his father. His hand reached for yours, squeezing it gently, grounding you.

“She’s right,” Max said quietly, his voice steady despite the tension in the air. “You’ve pushed me my entire life, and I’ve never said anything, but… it’s enough now, Dad. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not going to let you tear me down like this.”

You could see the emotion in Max’s eyes, the weight of everything he had been holding in for so long finally bubbling to the surface. He wasn’t yelling, wasn’t angry—he was calm, but there was an undeniable finality in his voice.

Jos looked taken aback for a moment, unsure of how to respond. He opened his mouth as if to argue but then closed it again, seemingly realizing there was nothing he could say.

For the first time since you’d known him, Jos Verstappen was speechless.

Max turned toward you, his eyes softening as he met your gaze. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the buzz of the paddock.

You nodded, your chest tight with emotion. You could feel the weight of everyone’s stares on you, but at that moment, all that mattered was Max. The anger that had driven you to speak had faded, replaced by a deep sadness for all that Max had endured. You reached up to touch his cheek gently, your thumb brushing over his skin.

“I couldn’t just stand by and watch him hurt you like that,” you whispered back, your voice trembling with the remnants of your outburst. “You don’t deserve any of it.”

Max pulled you into a soft embrace, and you could feel the tension in his body slowly easing away. For a moment, everything else faded—the race, the disappointment, the frustration. It was just the two of you, holding each other in the middle of the chaos.

“I’ve got you,” you murmured, your cheek resting against his chest. “Always.”

Max’s hand tightened on your back, his breathing finally evening out as he held you close. And despite everything, despite the chaos and the tension, in that moment, you knew that nothing else mattered as long as you were together.

[thepositivefella]

Yeah, yeah, Ford dated the triangle. But now can we talk about how Ford is now openly loving and caring (at least through his notes and journals) and letting his family into his supernatural shenanigans WHILE these bunch of wacky buffoons still manage to let him have his personal space and spend hours in his room without being disturbed???

LIKE he's okay with them entering the room whenever they please when he's not there and even reading his journals and notes (cause he expresses himself better through his writing) and they're all SO welcoming when he comes upstairs after hours locked in his room having a silent meltdown???

Ford will show no reaction besides an awkward smile and just being there but will write about how his family is his universe and how he actually loves doing cute stuff with Mabel like dressing the same and I CAN'T-

Autistic old man has rediscovered unconditional love and respected boundaries. Ford is living the dream.

[ohtobeleah]

Something that goes without saying is how uncertain Logan really is about sleeping in the same space as another person. Sure, he'll commit to the fun beforehand….The foreplay, the sex, the highs.

But the inevitable act of sleeping beside someone, terrifies him.

We see it in Origin, we see it in Days of Future Past. Sometimes while Logan is sleeping, his claws come out when he feels under duress. Nightmares are a common occurrence for this man, not a night goes by where he isn't waking in the dead of night to the ghost of his past.

And I'd like to think of all the Logans running around the multiverse, that the Worst!Logan has surely been through some things. He's never experienced true rest. Not until he met you.

“I'll sleep on the couch.” Its common at the beginning of whatever the dynamic between the two of you is. Logan ends up back at your cafe, or in your living-room, bathroom, kitchen or bed—but he never stays beside you for longer than a few minutes after. Not because he doesn't crave that intimacy or true human connection, but because the idea of losing you to his own mutation truly scares the ever-living fuck out of him.

But one night, you catch him off-guard. So off guard that Logan doesn't even have a counter proposal ready.

“Ill join you,” You beam, padding down the hallway with your blanket and pillow wrapped in your arms. “Somethings bothing you and with friends like me and Wade, that shits gonna come up eventually,” You ramble. As you sit beside Logan on the lounge he slept on more often than his own bed, he catches a glimpse of a few noticeable scars on your back. Scars where his claws had once accidentally taken over in an otherwise romantic moment between the two of you. “So, get talking pops.”

“Don't call me pops.” Logan sighs as he opens his body up for you to snuggle up against him. “It's nothing I can't handle, didn't anyone ever tell you not to stick your nose where it doesn't belong?”

“Are you trying to tell me that I don't belong here?” You counter quickly, playing Logan’s logic against himself. “Me? Resident of this timeline? Doesn't belong right here next to you?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Logan smiles all the while trying to keep his brooding man mask on. But with you he feels ever atom of his being igniting with desire and unconditional love. “I worry I'll hurt you, while I'm sleeping,” Logan explains as you listen to his heartbeat inside his chest. Snuggled on the lounge in your apartment. “You don't know how much that thought terrifies me.”

“Hmm,” You hum in response. “Perhaps the question you should be asking yourself Lo, is what if the nightmares, what if the fear stops, when you allow yourself to rest with someone you love?” It was a bold word to use, and even though it was rarely, if ever used, there wasn't another word in the English language to describe how Logan felt about you. Or how you felt about him.

And its a thought that's never crossed Logans mind before. He frowns, thinking it over in the late-night silence. You fall asleep there, right with your head on Logans chest as he tru thinks.

Only to wake up in a tangled mess of sheets, with Logan snorning next to you as the early morning sun kisses his golden, aging skin. Its the first night in years he hasn't woken in screaming terror.

“Tell me told you so and I'll turn you into a skewer.” Logan mumbles as you pepper him with kisses across his exposed back.

“I think I'll take my chances with you, Lo,” You chuckle to yourself. “I'll make you some coffee.”

@a-reader-and-a-writer Canon Ilya universe content

Ilya

[cryolyst]

~

[seumyo]

BAKUGOU KATSUKI ✰ 3:58

No amount of hectic schedules, exhausting patrols, rowdy villains, and never-ending legal paperwork could ever keep Bakugou from attending his daughters’ extracurricular activities—because he’d literally go through literal hell and back than to ever see a disheartened pout along with the silent treatment after he gets home from work.

You think he’ll ever miss any of his daughters’ milestones? Fuck no!

Bakugou insists on being at every event, his phone—and even an actual camera during a good day—in hand, his heart swelling with pride and unconditional love that makes his chest figuratively hurt; it might as well be a medical problem at some point. 

Because, if anything, Bakugou Katsuki is a father first and a hero second.

“Shit, ‘m late. Have they started yet?”

He’s sweating as if he just used his explosions to propel himself in the air to get to you quicker, but, in truth, he sort of had to just run since the traffic on the highway today would’ve only angered and slowed him down. He left patrol to Halfie, who offered to take his shift, knowing how many times Bakugou covered for him when he was in his son’s piano recital.

“They just started doing warmups,” you answer. “Did you run? You’re drenched to the bone; you’re going to catch a cold if you don’t get changed into some dry clothes.”

“Hah, doubt it.” He snorts, though he does appreciate the thought of you bringing him a spare shirt for just-in-case purposes.

You're always the one who thinks ahead, aren't you? Bakugou knows he’s a very lucky man to have such a doting, caring wife that humbles him whenever he gets too focused on his pride. The balance that he didn’t know he needed!

Ignoring the gawking stares of the other parents—because it’s not everyday you see the Pro Hero Dynamight in mundane activities such as watching his kid take gymnastics’ lessons—he looks through the glass in search of his little princess.

Just as he saw her, his lips curled to that oh-so genuine smile, one that just said, “That’s my daughter, right there! Look at how awesome she is!” 

Bakugou remembers how his parents were the same and how they were very supportive of his interests and hobbies, no matter how odd they may be for a five-year-old. How often do you see someone learning to take on both hiking and archery at the age of five? Bakugou was sure he learned most skills during his childhood that made him a firm hero in the field today.

“She has a bit of trouble with tumbling because of her tummy.”

“Yeah? And does that have somethin’ to do with my awesome cooking?” Bakugou replied smugly. “Besides, ‘ts just baby fat, and I’d prefer to see her like this than to see her thin but often sick.”

“Mhm, and she makes up for the cutest ending pose.”

“And her effortless splits. Have the coaches seen her do that?”

You shook your head. “Not yet,” you say, “but I think they’re about to do it—oh! Look, look!”

And he does; his phone’s camera is already recording his youngest daughter doing a perfect vertical split, while the other girls somewhat struggle to maintain a consistent posture. 

“She’s a natural, hun.”

“She is,” you chuckle, “just like her Daddy to a certain extent.”

“Damn right, she is.”

Bakugou tries to hold back his laughter when your daughter once again attempts a forward roll with the guidance of the staff. Her tummy somewhat makes it a bit difficult for her to do so. The way she hesitates but then does the forward roll, albeit a little lopsided with a smile that shows her adorable tooth gap—it was safe to say that your daughter was over the moon with her gymnastics lessons.

It’s all too much for him to take.

And when all is over, he greets his daughter by picking her up and blowing raspberries on her neck that have her squealing in laughter before he insists that he’ll be the one to talk to the coaches about the upcoming schedules and the progress your daughter has made. 

“Mr. Bakugou, she’s a good listener, and I believe that she’ll be moving onto the next class with the older children in no time,” they told him. “Has she received prior training before this one?”

“She’s also taking ballet lessons,” he answers, “but gymnastics is what she really likes. Ballet was just a compromise since your services weren’t available in our area at that time.”

“That’s wonderful to hear. It’s a joy to have her in class. I’ve already sent Dr. [Last Name] the schedules we offered, and we are looking forward to having your daughter in the upcoming lessons.”

The walk back to your car was light and quiet for a change. Your youngest daughter, Kusami, was out like a light in Bakugou’s arms, having worn herself out with socializing, rolling, doing splits, and whatnot the gymnastics’ instructors told her to do. And Bakugou was just letting the simple moment sink in because this is what he considers the most rewarding part of his day. 

Time spent with his family.

Bakugou also warmed up to the thought of having to interact with other parents. He chatted with a single father earlier, whose daughter was the oldest in Kusami’s class. It was nice to converse with equally enthusiastic and supportive parents that you meet through your children's extracurricular activities.

“Let’s go through a drive-through; get Katsumi her usual order,” Bakugou murmurs, remembering how his oldest daughter, Katsumi, would’ve probably woken up from her nap by now and was probably anticipating her family’s return. 

“Alright,” you nod. “Katsumi and Kusami have swimming lessons tomorrow at five in the afternoon, too. Do you think you’d get home that early?”

“Of course,” he answers. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

SEUMYO © 2024, PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, PLAGIARIZE, MODIFY OR TRANSLATE.

[the-dumpster-fire-of-life]

I love how Isha copied jinx by dying her blue and even doing her tattoos they're ADORABLE oh oh goodness. Could you write about how it would go? The process and all , it could be a headcanons or anything else!!!

Yeah i was crying when I saw Isha dressed as a little jinx bro 😭 BRIG ME BACK MY GIRLS BRO I did a scenario but it prob sucks cause I haven’t in a while but eh, thanks for requesting!

Mini-Jinx

You never thought you’d ever be taking care of a child, especially a mute child from the Undercity who clung to your girlfriend in the face of death.

And one that just so happened to never wanna leave your side, always having a finger looped onto your belt or gripping onto you.

Isha idolized you and Jinx since the moment you two saved her from those three goons, and you didn’t know why.

But ever since she started following you two and Sevika…

It’s like she just…fit.

She did wonders for your girlfriend, and you would sit back on the little pillow fort and watch them dance and see someone you never thought you’d ever see again.

Powder.

Isha was to thank for that, but she wanted to be like the two of you so badly she’d begged for dyed hair of your hair colors, tattoos or piercings.

Though the piercings were a no go, and so were permanent tattoos, Jinx had…other ways of persuading you.

“If I’d known you were ticklish I’d have said no.” Jinx said, playfully serious as you held Isha between your legs and colored blue clouds that replicated Jinx’s onto the girls back.

Isha laughed at the feeling, trying to squirm away naturally from the cold and ticklish tips of the colorful crayons.

“And…there! How ya like em, kid?” Jinx said, looking over her work on Ishas skin with a smile, as did the little girl.

Isha had a habit of dressing like the two of you, a mixture of the two she idolized.

Isha looked down at her arm, taking a second to admire as her lips parted and she made little sounds of awe.

She then looked up at Jinx, then over her shoulder at you, before grabbing Jinx in a hug and falling back into your chest.

You made a little “oof!” Sound of surprise, before smiling at the sight of your girlfriend so shocked at the hug.

Jinx sat, in the arms of a six year old child, stunned for a moment.

It was like she never got used to be unconditional love Isha so willingly gave her, and you.

Jinx peeked at you for a moment from beside the girls head, and you met her eyes with a little smile.

She slowly settled her hands on Isha’s back, hugging her back as you circled your arms around the two while the moment called for it.

Isha couldn’t have been more elated.

She’d found people that loved her and protected her till the end, and wanted nothing more than to be like you two.

Then came time for the hair.

“Isha! Stop squirming.” You giggled at the little girls excitement, some of the dye getting into your clothes and your own hair as Jinx simply laughed at it.

“Mh-mh!” Isha said defiantly, shaking her head with a laugh as she faced away from the mirror you and Jinx had put her in front of on the stool.

“You’re gonna look so cool kid- well, you’re gonna look like me. I’m pretty cool, aren’t I?”

Jinx said, a small little mix of a smirk and a smile on her lips as she leaned down in Isha’s face and emphasized it with gently wiggling Isha’s nose between her fingers.

Isha nodded in confirmation, looking from Jinx to you with her gapped tooth smile. She grabbed your wrist, a little smile shared between the both of you.

Isha wanted you to know she thought you were just as cool as she thought Jinx was.

You shook your head with a little smile, brushing dye on the girls cheek as she squirmed back, bumping into Jinx’s hip as she laughed.

“Gonna be cooler than me and Jinx, aren’t ya?” You asked, wiggling the girls ear as she gave another bashful smile, and you loved seeing the little tooth gap between her teeth.

Little bits and pieces of Powder you couldn’t deny embedded themselves into the girl. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to love her. Or maybe it was just that.

Because she was Isha.

“Ugh- Isha! You’re getting it on me!” Jinx complained once it was time for the shower and to rinse out her hair.

You laughed at how Isha purposely moved her hair to smack against Jinx’s side, painting it the color of Jinx’s hair with some of yours mixed in.

Isha kept letting out laughs and noises of joy, even as it was time for you to wring out her hair with a towel and make it all puff out.

Isha tried puffing her hair down, squirming as she was made to sit between Jinx’s legs as she brushed out her hair. The little girl had a sensitive and tender headed scalp, so she hated this part.

She kept trying to squirm back to you and away from the brush, but you were to busy putting the little twin braids in the back of her hair from already brushed out pieces.

“Cmon Isha, not sooo bad.” Jinx dragged out, laughing as the little girl huffed in her lap when Jinx accidentally tugged at a knot.

Jinx just grinned, and couldn’t help but look at you beside her.

You couldn’t help but return the grin, tooling over your beloveds face before leaning to press a small kiss against her lips.

Jinx hummed, stopping her movements with the brush as she leaned into the kiss.

For what felt like an eternity of bliss for you, it was two seconds of torture for Isha. She rolled out her tongue in disgust, waving her hands at you and pushing your faces away from each other.

“Hey!” Jinx protested, giving a frown but she knew it wouldn’t last long as she looked at Isha. The mute girl gave a little shrug, pushing the hair ties into your palms.

You giggled at that, and with one last look at jinx, went back to braiding.

It wasn’t long before Isha was done, and sprinting happily to Jinx’s work desk and waiting for you two to reveal the work to her on top of her head.

You watched with Jinx for a moment, waiting before Jinx looked at you with a funny look. You laughed.

“You’re the one who bet her.” You said, giving a look that said “I told you so” to your girlfriend. Jinx rolled her eyes at you, waving her hand.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, toots.” She said playfully before pecking your cheek, getting up to walk over and meet Isha who jumped in place on the back of her heels.

You watched with a smile the whole time as Jinx covered her eyes, and revealed her work.

The smile on Isha and Jinx’s face made everything worth it. Everything that went wrong, everything that went right, everything in your life.

You never wanted to leave this moment.

You wish it lasted longer.

You wish your peace with the two girls lasted longer, before it was taken…before she was taken…

[maybefae]

Messages From Your Forever Person

Pile 1 - Pile 2 - Pile 3

Remember, this is a general reading and it may not resonate for everyone or completely. Tarot is a tool to help guide but you are responsible for your actions and life, you choose your path.

Just a note!: I don’t like doing general love readings because I don’t feel like they are as personal as, well, personal love readings, but I had the urge to make one. Your forever person can be what you consider your significant other, long-term partner, or future spouse.

Tips!

|Pile 1

Tarot: King of Pentacles, The Fool, Ace of Pentacles, Three of Pentacles, Black Numen, Six of Wands, Knight of Pentacles, Three of Swords, Ace of Swords, The Star, Ten of Cups (Bottom of the Deck:

Oracle: Uplift, Forgiveness, Consistency

You know how the planet Jupiter is the defender of our solar system? How Jupiter pulls asteroids away from Earth and even take the hits itself? That’s the energy of this person. As soon as I pulled the cards, I got the feeling of comfort from a strong and stable energy. I must say, this person also has a comforting smile and as soon as you look at them, your nerves will instantly be soothed. They feel like they are standing beside me, hands in pockets, as they watch me write this. They could have a favorite cream cable knit sweater that they like to wear as soon as there’s a chill in the air. 

They are very patient and have the mentality of “it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done”. You could suffer from anxiety, but I feel this panicked and shaky energy coming from you. I don’t know if you used to be yelled at or punished for doing something wrong by a parent or partner, but it feels like you are terrified of doing anything around your forever person at first. And there are cards here that are telling me that you have been hurt in the past. It seems like this could be the first safe and healthy partner you’ve had. This could just be the first partner you’ve ever had and now you're 20/25+ years old and you don’t know what you’re doing, which brings out this anxiety towards this relationship. But your partner here holds a lot of patience and comfort for you! They really love you. Honestly, this is really fucking close to unconditional love (which is rare). They hold no judgement towards how you operate now because of your past, absolutely not. And they want you to know that. It’s like they have told you this but you continuously don’t believe them, which does hurt them a little ngl. The Jupiter reference could be what this was for. They will take the small hurts you do but persistently and consistently show up until you believe in their love for you. And it’s not that you don’t know, but there is a voice in your head that makes you doubt often even if there isn’t proof of those thoughts. 

God, pile 1, they love you. They are such a steady energy. They are also very stable in the physical and spiritual realms. They are a very hard worker and would do anything to help your dreams become a reality. Your dreams are their dreams and vice versa. They really just want a peaceful home life with you honestly; they like the simple things. I think a good personality reference would be the husband to the pregnant wife in Kiki’s Delivery Service. 

They really want me to drive home the message of forgiving yourself, pile 1. Sure, your actions or thoughts do hurt them sometimes, but they don’t really want that to be the focus. They want you to be aware that they do but in a way to help you heal. They aren’t your past partner, they aren’t going to react like your parent, they aren’t playing you just because you haven’t had a partner. It’s heartbreaking that you would dare to even compare them to others. Maybe this person hides a lot of their hurt not to upset you and this is a hurdle that they have to work through. It’s only really coming out towards the end so that’s why I want to say that. 

I think this message was to let you know how the beginning part of your relationship will be like. They just want to make you aware of it, maybe so you can comfort the insecurities you have so the beginning won’t be as difficult.

|Pile 2

Tarot: Ten of Swords, Queen of Pentacles, Six of Swords, The Hierophant, Three of Pentacles, King of Cups, Three of Cups, The Sun, King of Pentacles, Seven of Pentacles, The High Priestess, The Moon

Oracle: The Moon (again!), Wept Breath, The Chariot, Vulnerability, Divinity, Sacred

Before I pulled the cards, I heard six months to a year or eight weeks. I don’t like to do timing but that’s what I heard. So if that feels right to you, then take it. Or somewhere between a waning crescent and a waning gibbous moon.

Honestly, they are just happy to be here. I think they were ready to give up on love after so many failed attempts and heartbreak before you came along. And you honestly could’ve sworn off love too but you saw them and was like “I want that one.” This is the black cat, golden retriever pile. Raven and Beast Boy, Maleficent and Diaval, or Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit. 

The vulnerability oracle strongly comes from your side. It does come from theirs but they admit that they were practically enchanted by you. “The idea of giving up on love was a stupid idea on their part, sorry your highness, that was my bad.” They just folded and they would happily fall under any love spell you send their way. They are obsessed with you, in the most healthy way possible. They are banging the table with their fist, credit card in hand. There’s an energy that you were in the same room with them and kept your eye on them because you were drawn to how “pathetic” they were. You couldn’t help yourself so you gave in. There’s also an energy of “of course, you’re the fated one to be with me.” You two end up talking and you could kinda bust their balls a little, tease and be a little sassy, but they keep up with you and “pass your little test.” 

I don’t think they were necessarily a player in the past but they had quite a few lovers and most of them played your person. They could have the vibe of one just from how cheeky and flirty they are but those thoughts are soon squashed with you seeing how pathetically devoted they are to you. They are just a lover at their core, they like to keep things light and fun, but they also know how to be serious and fix any issue that comes up in the relationship. They would truly do anything for you. This could come from an insecurity of not getting the love they needed from their past partners so they are overcompensating to keep you in love with them. :( 

Are these the older daughters/siblings that I usually get? There could be something here that they have a pretty put-together family and you’re the first partner that the family actually loves. You could honestly get the love and care that you missed out on with their family. 

God, I keep seeing your partner looking at you with the biggest heart eyes and they do this all the time, which could make you so flustered. This could be one of the things about them that honestly gets you to melt a little and lower some walls you have up. This feels like a love that you probably didn’t get to experience in your teen years but this will span on until you're old and wrinkly. They will carry the “honeymoon phase” through the rest of your lives. You know those videos that people make of their parents being in love and fooling around? That’s you two! 

There’s just an overall feeling of excitement coming from them. They could talk about you a lot to their friends and family, but not in a bragging way. They are just so happy with you and thinks you’re the most beautiful person they have ever seen. I heard “A wish I didn’t know I was wishing for.”

|Pile 3

Tarot: Two of Cups, King of Swords, The Hermit, The Fool, ? Dreamworld (reconnection), Six of Wands, Two of Wands, Four of Pentacles, Five of Cups, The Chariot (rest, feeling at home)

Oracle: Serenity, Sincerity, Respite, Surrender

If this resonates, this could be a lover you had that had passed away.

For others, this pile is for the ones who believe in lifetimes before the one you’re currently living. Energy is recycled after all. This is the more mystical pile. 

Your person here has a large energy and could come off as cold and intimidating. They have come to me wearing all black, leather boots, and darker hair. They have very muscular arms and a broad chest, very tall. They could be goth. This could’ve been them in the past life or that is how they show up in this lifetime. They have their head down as they stand beside me and there is an energy of wanting you to know they are here. Their soul does watch over you and guide you but they may stay quiet and don’t give you many signs or messages that they are around. But I suppose they came through today to say hi! 

They are very protective over you and they think you’re a ray of sunshine that graces their life. They aren’t one to show many emotions nor really speak them out, but you accept this and know that you are deeply loved. They know you doubt that they even exist or if they are coming or if they love you and so they are very hesitantly showing up through this reading to say that “I’m on my way” and “just sit tight.” They could have a deeper voice. They could give you reassurance if you ask for it, by the way! They want me to specify that so they don’t come across as heartless. I think you’re the only one that they truly love with their whole being and they do make it known, but if you need a little verbal reassurance, all you gotta do is ask. They are a cat person.

There is something here that you may have lived in timelines where they never got to exist in, like it has been a long while since you two have been together. I heard, “I waited for the right time.” There could’ve been timelines where your lives probably wouldn’t have worked together or it was going to end in tragedy “like the one I met you in.” So they had to wait. And they watched over you through each timeline. Everytime you didn’t get to live a happy lifetime or if your partner of any lifetime didn’t treat you right, it would make your person terribly upset and they couldn’t do anything about it. They are very upset while they show this to me, angry and frustrated. But this lifetime is the one where you two will finally be together. 

You could feel like you are meant to be someone, like a little void spot where your soul is…and you could be waiting out until you meet this person. You actually could’ve done this for the past three lifetimes (which you probably lived more happily than others). And this could’ve been a lifetime where you planned to do the same thing, but your person is coming in. You will be suspicious but you will probably be very enamoured by them. They are different than others and stand out to you. I think they like to rub your back because I just got the feeling of someone doing that to me. They let you be your bubbly and lively self and actually love that about you. They have complete trust in you. They may be on the more quiet/shy side but you two work together perfectly. You two can rest easy in this lifetime. 

Dividers: @inklore

[urdreamydoodles]

i would like to request Cuclops, Beast, Storm, professor X, Magneto, Gmabit with a child reader who was made from they’re dna with another person and they dound them in a lab and is now they’re child they have to look after

X-Men x Child!Reader

You are their DNA child

The X-Men each find a child created from their DNA in a lab, taking on the role of protective and nurturing mothers and fathers despite their own struggles. As they guide their children through mastering inherited powers and dealing with past trauma, they provide unconditional love and support, forming deep familial bonds.

Characters: Scott Summers, Hank McCoy, Ororo Munroe, Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Remy LeBeau (+ my personal addition: Logan Howlett, Jean Grey, Kurt Wagner, Wanda Maximoff, Rogue & Laura Kinney)

I didn't think I'd enjoy writing about Child!Readers so much, so thank you for this prompt ♡ Hope you like it — Love, Marie, your friendly marvel fangirl

Scott Summers (Cyclops)

- It had been a routine mission, or at least that’s what Scott Summers thought. The X-Men had received a lead on a suspicious lab experimenting with mutant DNA, and Scott, as ever the disciplined leader, had led the charge. But nothing could have prepared him for what he found when they stormed the facility. Among the vials and tanks, amidst rows of sterile equipment, there was a child—you. Your wide eyes stared up at him through the glass container, fear and confusion swirling in them. It wasn’t until later, after the chaos settled, that Scott learned the horrifying truth: you were made from his DNA and that of another mutant. You were his daughter, created in some twisted experiment.

- Bringing you back to the mansion felt surreal. Scott, who had always struggled with family ties, now had a child to care for. He had never been one to show his emotions easily, but seeing you, so small and vulnerable, brought out something deep inside him. The first night you stayed in the mansion, you were scared, clinging to the unfamiliar surroundings. Scott sat beside your bed, his usually stoic face softened as he held your hand, unsure of what to say. “You’re safe now,” he said, his voice quiet but firm, his thumb gently brushing the back of your hand. “I promise.”

- The days that followed were full of awkward moments for Scott. He wasn’t used to being a father, let alone to a child created from his DNA in such a traumatic way. But as the weeks passed, he found himself growing more protective of you. He took it upon himself to teach you, both in combat and in life. Whether it was teaching you how to control your powers or helping you with homework, Scott was there, even if he fumbled through it. You were a reflection of him in so many ways—his discipline, his strength—but there was also a sweetness in you, a gentleness that Scott often struggled to express himself.

- One day, you were practicing with your optic blasts, and the frustration was clear on your face when you couldn’t get it quite right. “I’ll never be as good as you, Dad,” you said, your small fists clenched. Scott knelt down beside you, placing a hand on your shoulder. “You don’t have to be like me,” he said softly, “You just have to be you. And that’s more than enough.” His words carried a weight that neither of you fully understood at the time, but it was a turning point in your relationship. Scott wasn’t just your teacher—he was your father.

- Over time, Scott found that you brought out a side of him he hadn’t known existed. You gave him a reason to smile more, to laugh. It was in the small moments, like when you surprised him with a drawing of the two of you or when you’d curl up beside him on the couch after a long day. He wasn’t perfect, and there were moments when the weight of being a leader and a father seemed too much, but Scott never gave up on you. He had promised to keep you safe, and for Scott Summers, promises were everything.

Hank McCoy (Beast)

- Hank McCoy had always believed in science, in logic, and in facts. But nothing could have prepared him for the moment he found you in that cold, sterile lab. Among the syringes and data logs, there you were—a child created from his DNA and that of another person, a genetic experiment. At first, Hank didn’t believe it. He’d read about cloning and hybrid experiments, but seeing you, your little hands curled around a small teddy bear, he felt something crack in his usually logical mind. How could someone use his DNA for this? More importantly, how could he ever be a father?

- Bringing you home was no easy task. Hank’s lab, usually a place of quiet research and order, was suddenly filled with the chaos of a child. You asked endless questions, your curiosity insatiable, much like his own. “What does this machine do?” you’d ask, pointing at some complex piece of equipment, and Hank would patiently explain, even if your attention wandered halfway through. Despite the overwhelming change, Hank quickly realized how much you were like him—sharp, eager to learn, and always thinking two steps ahead. It wasn’t long before he found himself smiling every time you’d light up with excitement over a new discovery.

- But being a father didn’t come naturally to Hank. He was used to solving problems with science, but you were a whole different kind of puzzle. There were nights when you had nightmares, crying out for help, and Hank would rush to your side, his large, furry hands gently wiping away your tears. “I’m here,” he’d say, his deep voice soft and calming. He’d sit with you, reading one of your favorite science books until you fell asleep again, your tiny hand clutching his fur for comfort.

- One day, while you were sitting on the floor of his lab, drawing pictures of the two of you, you looked up at him with wide eyes. “Dad,” you said, hesitating for a moment. The word felt strange on your tongue, but when Hank smiled, it didn’t feel strange anymore. “Yes?” he replied, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses. “Do you think I’ll ever be as smart as you?” Your question was so earnest, so full of hope. Hank knelt down beside you, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. “You’re already brilliant,” he said, pride clear in his voice. “And you’ll only get smarter.”

- Hank’s life, once so full of equations and experiments, was now full of laughter, of you running through the mansion, leaving a trail of questions in your wake. You were a constant reminder that science wasn’t everything—that there were things like love and family that couldn’t be calculated or put under a microscope. And though Hank didn’t always have the answers when it came to being a father, he knew one thing for sure: you had changed his life for the better, and he wouldn’t trade that for all the knowledge in the world.

Ororo Munroe (Storm)

- Ororo Munroe, known as Storm, had always been a force of nature—both literally and figuratively. She controlled the weather with ease, a goddess in her own right. But when she found you in that hidden lab, a child made from her DNA and another’s, it was as if the wind had been knocked out of her. You were so small, so fragile, lying in a stasis pod with machines hooked up to monitor your vitals. Ororo felt a deep rage for the people who had done this, but as soon as you opened your eyes and looked up at her, that rage melted into something else—something softer.

- Taking you back to the mansion was a whirlwind, not just for you, but for Ororo as well. She was used to guiding young mutants, but being a mother? That was a different kind of responsibility. You, however, adapted quickly, attaching yourself to her like a shadow. You loved when she’d create tiny storms for you to watch—little gusts of wind that made your hair fly around, or small rain showers that you’d dance under. And despite Ororo’s usual grace and poise, you quickly learned that she was a soft touch when it came to you.

- There were moments when Ororo was unsure of herself, wondering if she could live up to the role of being your mother. One night, as thunder rumbled outside, you crept into her room, scared of the storm. Ororo, who could control even the wildest weather, pulled you close, letting you snuggle under the blankets with her. “You’re not scared of storms, are you?” you whispered, your voice trembling. Ororo smiled gently, her fingers brushing through your hair. “No, little one. I’m not.” She paused, pulling you closer. “And you don’t have to be afraid either. I will always protect you.”

- As the days turned into weeks, you became her world. She taught you everything she knew about the balance of nature and how to respect the power you might one day hold. But there were also simpler moments—Ororo teaching you how to braid your hair, laughing with you as you tried to copy her intricate designs. The X-Men often commented on how much you resembled Ororo, not just in looks but in the calm, confident way you carried yourself, even as a child. You were her legacy, and Ororo couldn’t have been more proud.

- One afternoon, after a day of training, you sat beside her in the garden, watching the flowers sway gently in the breeze she’d conjured for you. “Mom,” you said quietly, the word feeling more natural every time you used it, “Do you think I’ll ever be able to do what you do? Control the weather?” Ororo looked down at you, her smile warm and full of love. “You already have a power all your own, my dear,” she said, placing a hand on your cheek. “And one day, you’ll learn to control it, just as I did.” You nodded, feeling a sense of calm wash over you. With Ororo by your side, you knew you could handle anything.

Charles Xavier (Professor X)

- When Charles Xavier found you in that hidden lab, it felt as though time had stopped. He had read the reports of genetic experiments being conducted on mutants, but he had never expected to find you—a child made from his DNA and another’s. The scientists who had created you intended for you to be the perfect telepath, a child who could rival even Charles in mental power. As you stared up at him, your eyes wide with confusion, Charles couldn’t help but feel a deep connection to you. You were not just an experiment—you were his child. And though the circumstances were unnatural, he felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility for you.

- Bringing you back to the mansion, Charles knew that your upbringing would be difficult. Not because of your powers, which were still developing, but because you had been created in a sterile, loveless environment. You had never known the warmth of a family. He could feel your fear and uncertainty through your young mind as you clung to him. “I know this is all new for you,” Charles said softly one evening, his voice calm and reassuring. “But you are safe here. You’ll never have to be alone again.” His words weren’t just for comfort—they were a promise.

- Your powers began manifesting early on, sometimes in ways that startled even Charles. One day, during a lesson, you accidentally tapped into his mind without meaning to, and for a moment, you saw the depth of his thoughts, his past, and his pain. Frightened by what you had seen, you pulled back and cried, “I didn’t mean to!” Charles knelt before you, his eyes gentle. “It’s alright,” he said, his voice soothing. “Your powers are a part of you, just as mine are a part of me. We’ll learn to control them together.” And that’s what he did—patiently guiding you, helping you understand the vast capabilities of your mind.

- Despite his often serious demeanor, Charles loved spending time with you. He took you on walks around the mansion grounds, explaining the history of the X-Men, the importance of protecting both mutants and humans. But it wasn’t all lectures. Sometimes, he’d create small mental games for the two of you, making puzzles that you could solve together with your telepathy. He found himself enjoying the simple joy of watching you grow, both as a mutant and as his child. You weren’t just a student to him—you were family.

- One night, after a particularly long day of training, you crawled into his lap as he sat in his wheelchair, your small arms wrapping around him. “Dad,” you said quietly, “Do you think I’ll be strong enough one day? Like you?” Charles smiled softly, placing a gentle hand on your back. “You’re already strong,” he whispered, “In ways you don’t even realize yet.” His words comforted you, and as you drifted off to sleep in his arms, Charles knew that no matter what challenges lay ahead, you would never have to face them alone.

Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto)

- Erik Lehnsherr had seen many horrors in his life, but finding you in that lab—his child, created from his DNA and that of another—awakened a new kind of rage within him. The people who had done this saw you as nothing more than an experiment, a tool for control, and that disgusted him. When he found you, weak and scared in your containment cell, his heart broke in a way he hadn’t expected. You were small, innocent, and unaware of the forces that had brought you into the world. But as soon as he saw you, he knew one thing for certain: you were his, and he would protect you at all costs.

- Erik had never considered himself a nurturing figure, but the moment you reached for him, your tiny hand clutching the sleeve of his coat, something inside him softened. “You’re safe now,” he promised, his voice low but steady. He could see the confusion in your eyes, the fear of the unknown, but Erik was determined to make sure you never felt that way again. He took you back to his sanctuary, away from the prying eyes of the world, where he could keep you close, keep you safe.

- As the days turned into weeks, Erik began teaching you about your powers. Like him, you had control over magnetism, though your abilities were still weak and unfocused. He showed you how to manipulate small objects, how to feel the pull of metal in the air. You were eager to learn, your wide eyes always looking to him for approval. And though Erik was a strict teacher, there was a tenderness to the way he spoke to you, a gentleness that he reserved only for you. “You are strong,” he would tell you, his hands guiding yours as you lifted a metal ball with your mind. “Stronger than you know.”

- Erik wasn’t always the easiest man to be around—his anger often got the best of him, especially when it came to protecting you. He was fiercely protective, and the idea of anyone harming you sent him into a rage. But with you, he was different. You had a way of calming him, of bringing out a side of him that he had long buried. One night, after a particularly hard day of training, you climbed into his lap and rested your head on his chest. Erik froze for a moment, unaccustomed to such displays of affection, but then he relaxed, his arms wrapping around you protectively. “You’re my child,” he whispered, his voice barely audible, “And I’ll always protect you.”

- The bond between you and Erik grew stronger every day. He wasn’t perfect—his anger and need for control sometimes made things difficult—but you never doubted his love for you. He taught you to be strong, to stand tall, and to never let anyone make you feel small. And though Erik was often seen as a villain by the world, to you, he was a father—a man who loved you fiercely and would do anything to keep you safe.

Remy LeBeau (Gambit)

- When Remy LeBeau found you in that lab, it felt like a punch to the gut. You were a child—his child—created from his DNA and that of another person. Remy wasn’t the kind of man to be easily shaken, but the sight of you, so small and scared in that cold, sterile room, hit him harder than anything else ever had. You looked up at him with wide, uncertain eyes, and in that moment, something inside him changed. He had never expected to be a father, especially not like this, but as he reached out to you, offering you his hand, he knew he couldn’t walk away.

- Remy brought you back to the mansion, unsure of how to be a father but determined to figure it out. From the moment you arrived, you clung to him, and despite his usual carefree attitude, Remy felt a deep sense of responsibility for you. He’d always been a bit of a rogue, someone who played by his own rules, but when it came to you, everything was different. He found himself caring in ways he never thought possible. You were his petite, and he would do anything to make sure you were happy and safe.

- Life with Remy was never boring. He taught you how to play cards, how to move silently through a room without being noticed, and even a few harmless tricks to keep life fun. But it wasn’t all fun and games—Remy also took his role as your father seriously, even if he didn’t always show it in the traditional way. He was patient with you, always ready with a smile or a joke when things got tough. “Don’t worry, mon chéri,” he’d say when you struggled with your powers. “We’ll figure it out together, eh? Jus’ gotta take it one step at a time.”

- One evening, after a long day of training with your powers, you sat beside him on the porch, watching the sun set. You had been quiet all day, and Remy could tell something was on your mind. “What’s on ya mind, petite?” he asked, his voice soft and full of concern. You looked up at him, hesitating for a moment before asking, “Do you think I’ll ever be as good as you, Dad?” Remy chuckled softly, ruffling your hair. “Cher, you already better than me,” he said with a grin. “You just don’t know it yet.”

- Remy wasn’t perfect—he made mistakes, and sometimes his past caught up with him—but when it came to you, he was always there. He taught you not just how to use your powers, but how to navigate life with a sense of humor and a light heart. You were his pride and joy, and though he didn’t always say it, you knew he loved you more than anything. Remy LeBeau, the infamous Gambit, was a man of many faces, but to you, he was just Dad—the man who made you laugh, who taught you to be strong, and who loved you more than anyone ever could.

Logan Howlett (Wolverine)

- When Logan first found you in that lab, he wasn’t sure what to think. You were a kid—his kid, created from his DNA and that of another person. Logan had been through more than his fair share of experiments, but this one felt personal in a way that cut deeper than any blade ever had. The moment he saw you, small and confused in the sterile environment of the lab, something inside him clicked. He was a lone wolf by nature, but now? Now, he wasn’t alone. He had you.

- Taking you out of that lab and bringing you back to the mansion was one of the hardest things Logan had ever done. Not because you were difficult, but because the situation felt so foreign to him. He didn’t know how to be a father, not after everything he’d been through. But when you grabbed onto his hand, refusing to let go, he realized that maybe, just maybe, this was something he needed—something you both needed. “You’ll be alright, kid,” he muttered, his voice gruff but comforting. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

- Life with Logan was rough around the edges, but there was a certain comfort in it. He was protective, always keeping an eye on you, making sure you were safe. Your powers, inherited from him, were slow to develop, but he was patient, teaching you the best way he knew how. When your claws first emerged, you were scared—terrified of what they meant, of what you might become. But Logan just knelt beside you, showing you his own claws. “Ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of,” he said quietly. “We got the same blood. We’ll figure it out together.”

- Despite his gruff demeanor, Logan had a soft spot for you. He wasn’t the type to show affection openly, but there were little moments that made you feel safe and loved. Sometimes, he’d ruffle your hair or take you on quiet walks in the woods surrounding the mansion, sharing stories from his long, complicated past. And though he didn’t say it often, you knew he cared. “You’re tougher than you think, kid,” he’d say after a particularly hard day of training. “Don’t let anyone tell ya different.”

- One night, after a long day of training and dealing with the chaos of the X-Men’s missions, you sat beside Logan on the porch, watching the stars. You leaned into him, and to your surprise, he didn’t pull away. Instead, he put a strong arm around you, his usual gruff expression softening for just a moment. “Ain’t easy, bein’ like us,” he said quietly. “But you’re doin’ good, kid. Real good.” His words, simple as they were, meant everything to you. Logan wasn’t just your protector—he was your father, the one who would always be there, no matter what.

Jean Grey (Phoenix)

- When Jean Grey found you in that lab, it felt as if her heart had stopped. You were small, frail, and afraid—her child, created from her DNA and someone else’s. Jean had always known the world could be cruel, but seeing you, a child born from her, used in an experiment, broke her heart in ways she hadn’t expected. As you looked up at her, your wide, uncertain eyes searching for answers, Jean knew she had to protect you, to show you that you were more than just a project—you were her daughter, and you would never have to face the world alone.

- Bringing you to the X-Mansion, Jean took it upon herself to make sure you felt safe and loved. She was nurturing by nature, but being a mother, especially under such strange circumstances, was new to her. You had been raised in a lab, never knowing the warmth of a family, and Jean could sense the confusion and fear in your mind. “It’s okay,” she would often tell you, her voice soft and full of love. “I’m here now. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

- Your powers began to manifest slowly, but Jean was there every step of the way. Like her, you had telepathic abilities, but they were unpredictable, sometimes overwhelming. Jean knew what it was like to be afraid of your own mind, so she guided you patiently, helping you control your powers in a way that didn’t scare you. “I know it’s hard,” she would say when you struggled, “but we’ll work through it together. You’re never alone in this.”

- Jean was the type of mother who balanced discipline with love. She taught you about responsibility, the importance of using your powers for good, but she also made sure you had a childhood filled with warmth and care. She loved reading with you, taking you out to the garden, and spending quiet moments with you when the mansion was still. “You’re going to do great things,” she would whisper to you before bed. “I can already feel it.” Her belief in you was unwavering, and that gave you the strength to keep going.

- One night, after a particularly overwhelming day with your powers, you burst into tears, afraid of the thoughts and emotions that were swirling in your head. Jean held you close, her arms wrapped around you in a protective embrace. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, her voice gentle and soothing. “You’re stronger than you know. And no matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you.” Her words calmed you, and as you drifted off to sleep in her arms, you knew that with Jean as your mother, you would always be loved and protected.

Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler)

- Kurt Wagner’s heart broke the moment he found you in that cold, dark lab. You were a child—his child, created from his DNA and someone else’s. The scientists had clearly been experimenting on you, trying to replicate Kurt’s teleportation abilities, and the thought made him sick to his stomach. You were frightened, huddled in the corner of the cell, but when you looked up and saw Kurt, something changed. Despite your fear, you recognized him—your father—and in that moment, Kurt knew he had to get you out of there. He teleported into the cell and scooped you into his arms, holding you close as he whispered, “You’re safe now, mein kind. I’m going to take care of you.”

- Life with Kurt was full of warmth and love, despite the strangeness of your origins. He was a kind, gentle soul, and he made sure you always felt safe and loved in your new home at the mansion. You had been raised in a lab, and the world outside was new and overwhelming to you, but Kurt was always there to guide you through it. “The world can be a little scary sometimes,” he would say, his voice soft and full of love, “but you don’t have to face it alone. We’ll figure it out together, ja?”

- Your powers began to manifest early on, much like Kurt’s. You could teleport, though it was unpredictable, and it scared you at first. But Kurt was patient with you, teaching you how to control your abilities with care and precision. “It’s like a dance,” he would tell you with a smile. “You just have to find your rhythm.” He made it fun, turning your training sessions into games, and soon enough, you were teleporting with ease, your laughter filling the air as you disappeared and reappeared around the mansion.

- Kurt was the kind of father who filled your life with joy and laughter. He loved taking you on little adventures, teleporting you to different places around the mansion, or even to quiet spots in the nearby forest where the two of you could sit and talk. He would tell you stories of his own childhood, of his time with the X-Men, and you always felt a deep connection to him. “You’re a gift,” he would say to you often, his golden eyes full of warmth. “And I’m so proud to be your father.”

- One evening, after a particularly difficult day with your powers, you found yourself frustrated and on the verge of tears. Kurt noticed immediately and teleported to your side, wrapping you in a gentle embrace. “It’s okay, mein kind,” he said softly, his tail curling around you protectively. “You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be you. And that’s more than enough.” His words were comforting, and as you leaned into his embrace, you realized that no matter what challenges you faced, you would always have Kurt by your side, loving and supporting you every step of the way.

Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch)

- When Wanda found you in that lab, her heart ached in a way she hadn’t felt since losing her brother. There you were, small and fragile, created from her DNA and that of someone else’s, a product of twisted science. The fact that they had used her powers, her very essence, to bring you into existence shook her to the core. But as she reached out, sensing your fear and confusion, Wanda’s maternal instincts kicked in. She saw herself in you, vulnerable and lost. “You’re coming with me,” she whispered, her voice soft yet firm. And with a wave of her hand, she made sure the lab was nothing but a distant memory for the both of you.

- Adjusting to life outside of the lab wasn’t easy for you. Wanda knew that better than anyone—she had struggled with control over her powers too. But she was patient with you, teaching you how to harness your abilities in a way that didn’t overwhelm you. You inherited a portion of her reality-altering powers, though on a much smaller scale. Still, they frightened you at times, and Wanda was always there, offering a calm, understanding presence. “It’s okay to be scared,” she would say gently, holding your hand. “But you’re not alone. I’ll help you control it.”

- Wanda took a different approach to parenting than most, understanding that you had been through so much already. She was nurturing and protective, but she also gave you space to find yourself. Some days, the two of you would sit together in the living room, working on spells and abilities in a way that felt more like a bonding experience than training. “You’re stronger than you think,” she’d tell you, her eyes glowing softly with pride. “And I’ll always be here to guide you.”

- Despite the intensity of her own life, Wanda made sure you had moments of normalcy. She’d take you out for walks, playfully manipulate reality to make flowers bloom in winter, or make the stars shine brighter just for you. There were quiet evenings where the two of you would sit outside, watching the moon, and she’d tell you stories of her own childhood, of Sokovia, and of her brother Pietro. “Family is everything,” she’d say, a soft sadness in her voice. “And you, my dear, are my family.”

- One night, after a particularly hard day, you broke down in front of Wanda, frustrated with your powers and the fear of becoming something you didn’t understand. Wanda knelt down in front of you, wiping your tears away with a gentle touch. “You are not your powers,” she said softly, her voice steady but full of emotion. “You are so much more. And no matter what happens, I’ll always be by your side. You’re my child, and I love you.” The warmth in her words, the unconditional love, wrapped around you like a shield, and for the first time in a long time, you felt safe.

Rogue (Anna-Marie)

- Rogue had been through enough in her life to know that no one asked for the cards they were dealt. But when she found you in that lab, hooked up to machines, created from her DNA and another’s, it shook her to the core. The guilt hit her hard—someone had taken her powers, her life force, and used them to create you. As she gently pulled you out of that cold, sterile environment, she looked down at your young face, full of fear and uncertainty, and felt a fierce protective instinct rise within her. “C’mon, sugar,” she said softly, brushing your hair out of your face. “Ain’t nobody gonna hurt ya now.”

- Rogue wasn’t sure how to be a mother, especially considering her powers, but she was determined to make it work. She had never been able to touch people without fear, but with you, it was different. The scientists had altered something in your genetic makeup, allowing you to be immune to her powers, meaning she could hold you, comfort you, without the fear of harming you. And for the first time in a long time, Rogue felt like she could give someone the care and affection she’d always longed to give. “Ain’t that somethin’,” she’d say with a smile as she hugged you, grateful for the chance to finally feel human connection.

- You had inherited a version of Rogue’s powers, but they were different, more unstable. You couldn’t quite control when or how you absorbed someone’s abilities, and that scared you. But Rogue was patient, guiding you through your struggles with a warmth and understanding that only she could provide. “It’s okay, baby,” she’d say whenever you felt like you were losing control. “We’ll figure it out together. I know what it’s like to feel scared of your own skin, but I promise, you’re gonna be just fine.”

- Rogue was fiercely protective of you, always making sure you felt safe and loved. She’d take you out on long rides on her motorcycle, teaching you the thrill of the open road while also making sure you knew that no matter what, you had someone in your corner. She shared stories of her own life, her struggles with her powers, and how she found a family in the X-Men. “We’re family now,” she’d say, her Southern drawl comforting and familiar. “And family sticks together, no matter what.”

- One day, after a particularly rough incident where you accidentally absorbed another mutant’s abilities, you were left feeling scared and ashamed. Rogue found you curled up in your room, and she sat down beside you, pulling you into her arms. “Listen here, sugar,” she said softly, her voice full of warmth. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you. We all got our struggles, but you’re strong. Stronger than you know. And no matter what happens, I’m here for you. Always.” Her words, her unwavering support, made you feel like maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

Laura Kinney (X-23/Wolverine)

- Laura wasn’t one for showing emotion, but when she found you in that lab, something shifted inside her. You were a product of the same twisted science that had created her, only this time, they had used her DNA along with someone else’s to make you. Seeing you, so small and fragile, hooked up to those machines, brought back memories she had tried to bury. But you were different—you were hers. Without a second thought, she destroyed the lab and took you into her arms, her voice soft but firm as she whispered, “You’re coming with me.”

- Life with Laura wasn’t easy, but she was determined to be the mother you deserved. She wasn’t used to caring for someone else, especially not a child, but she knew what it was like to grow up alone, to feel abandoned, and she refused to let that happen to you. She didn’t talk much, but her actions spoke louder than words. She made sure you were safe, protected, and had everything you needed. And when you were scared, she’d sit with you in silence, her presence alone enough to make you feel secure. “I’m here,” she’d say quietly, her hand resting on your shoulder. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

- Like Laura, you had inherited claws, but yours were different—more unpredictable. Sometimes they would come out when you didn’t want them to, and other times you struggled to control your healing factor. Laura knew what that was like, and she was patient, teaching you how to manage your powers with a quiet strength that you came to rely on. “It’s not about control,” she’d say as she watched you practice. “It’s about understanding who you are. You’re not a weapon. You’re my child.”

- Despite her stoic nature, Laura was protective in a way that only a mother could be. She’d watch over you constantly, making sure you were never in danger. She didn’t express her love through words, but through actions—taking you hunting in the woods, teaching you survival skills, and making sure you knew how to defend yourself. “I’m not always going to be here,” she’d say, her voice low and serious. “But you’re strong. You can handle anything.”

- One night, after a particularly hard day of training, you broke down, frustrated with your abilities and feeling like you were more of a burden than anything else. Laura sat down beside you, silent at first, before she spoke quietly, her voice filled with an emotion she rarely showed. “You’re not a burden,” she said, her eyes fixed on the horizon. “You’re my child. And I’m proud of you. No matter what happens, I’ll always be here for you.” Her words, though simple, carried a weight that made you feel loved and understood in a way you hadn’t before. With Laura as your mother, you knew you were never truly alone.

[thebestsetter]

Michael Kaiser HATES parties.

He usually avoids them. He doesn't go to the parties his team hosts after they win an important game nor to the press parties. He feels like throwing up at the very mention of the word.

He hates everything in it. He hates the smell of alcohol that linges in the air, hates the lights that seem almost blinding, hates how sweaty the air feels.

But what he absolutely LOATHES are the people who frequent parties. He despises them.

He doesn't get what's wrong with them, honestly. They get drunk and all that crap, claim they're "having fun" when they can't even walk a straight line without tumbling. Kaiser hates alcohol. He hates people who idealize it, treating it as a savior when it ruined his life since he was only a kid with no name or fortune who got beaten daily by a drunk father. Therefore, he hates places where alcohol is treated as something good. He hates parties.

They're stupid. They're stupid, and yet people still go. It makes him feel like rolling his eyes and cussing them out at how dumb and blind they are.

But what makes him really hate the "party animals" is their twisted concept of love.

Love is not, by any means, an ideal that's easy to grasp. He, himself, didn't now what it was until 3 months ago. But he knows their idea of love couldn't be further from the truth.

They go around on parties, kissing strangers and dancing with shadows trying to fill the void that is where their heart should be. They lay down with people and kiss faceless silhouettes and claim that it's in the name of "love". He couldn't feel more repulsed by them. Because he knows that is NOT love.

He knows that because he, once, thought love came like that, too. He thought love meant just kissing and holding hands, finding someone pretty and settling down with them. He thought marriage was just a title, and love just a meaningless concept mothers tell their children before they go to bed.

His mind only changed when he met the embodiment of love itself: you.

You introduced him to what love really feels like. Love is not a myth. It'a not a legend. It's a reality. And he feels it every day, every hour and every second he spends with you.

He always thought he was unworthy of loving and being loved, but you showed him he can have this feeling in his life. That love is not something you deserve: it's something you just recieve. You don't need anything back: you just need him. And he's not complaining, even though he'll never understand.

Now, he knows love is really blind. Not saying you're ugly, God no. You're the prettiest person he's ever met. But he knows love is blind because he doesn't need to see you to love you.

All these people in parties need to see the person to fall for them. Their love is conditional, it's based on the ambient around them.

The music, the lights, the alcohol. It all makes people idealize what they see. They're influenced by the clothes, by the atmosphere. That's not love. That's reverie. Illusion. A trick their drunk brains pull.

When the party is over, their "love" dies. When they see the other without a skilled makeup or beautiful clothes, they stop loving the person they met. That is not love.

Love comes in the form of you.

Love is there when you go to his games. Love is there when you hold him close to your chest, caressing his hair after yet another episode of remembering his harsh childhood. Love is present when you wake up right beside one another, both laughing at each other's ridiculous bed hair. Love is there when you kiss the side of his eye, right at his tattooed eyeshadow. Or when you trace his arm tattoo.

Love is there whenever you are.

Because you are love for him. And when he sees you in your pajamas, almost sleeping and yet staying awake just to see him come back home after training and greet him, he knows for sure.

He doesn't need parties. He doesn't need lights, or alcohol.

His love for you is sober. It's unconditional. Endless.

And when you hug him, and he hears your sweet voice saying "Welcome home, my love. I missed you", he swears he feels like crying.

He never thought he'd be lucky enough, but he did it.

He found true love.

He found you. And he couldn't ask for anything more.

You are love, after all. What else could he possibly want?

~ Based on the poem "Se se morre de amor" by Gonçalves Dias!!!

Masterlist

[1800titz]

ᴋɪɴᴋᴛᴏʙᴇʀ — ʟᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ/ᴍᴀꜱᴋ ᴋɪɴᴋ

KISS ME | Stalker!Harry x Reader, purge au

You left him with a taste of you lingering between his teeth, after the first time. With his appetite, it’s only fair he comes back for seconds.

★18+

I don't know what possesses me to write a psycho sicko every time the pumpkins start rolling out onto the doorsteps (see Hitchhikerry) but there is simply something in the air, I fear. This is ᴋɪꜱꜱ ᴍᴇ for the KINKTOBER projects.

PLEASE read the warnings, and please put yourself and your comfort first and foremost. Consume only what you’re comfortable consuming. This one is not intended to be read as a love story, and has sensitive topics, dark themes, and *dubious consent.

If you enjoy this, consider checking out my patreon masterlist, constantly being updated, with loads of exclusive content. If you would like to see the other KINKTOBER projects and join the taglist for upcoming projects, do so here.

CONTENT/WARNINGS: dubcon. stalking. sexual assault. coping with sexual assault. under negotiated kink. unsafe sex (no use of condom, no negotiation prior). manipulation. mask kink. leather kink. daddy kink. breeding kink. p-in-v. oral (m to f). general manhandling.

WC: 12.3K

As always, Harry is just a faceclaim.

Spring is bleeding out onto the tarmac. 

Gold and liserian and bluebonnet. Midnight and cherry-red massacre, seeping into the gutter grate with the sky glowing like a peachring. 

Spring is bleeding out onto the tarmac. It’s unstilted, and smells like rust, and kerosene, and Summer feels a hundred miles away. A thousand, like sunrise on the twenty-second, milliseconds seeping like sand through a clogged hourglass. Like someone wedged their sticky fingers in through the top and stuck a piece of gum to the narrowed opening.

The miasma, even days later, when waste management hordes the lily-white cadavers into semi’s and street sweepers come out to pressure wash the asphalt, burns your nose like you’re huffing acid. 

And it feels like God cupping his hands around the continent and squeezing every ugly, brutish thing out. You wonder if the blood seeping between the asphalt slates sticks to the grooves of his palms. His fingerprints, casting massacre into the pitch sky, smudging asterisms together. You’re supposed to feel the holy spirit. 

(Feel it— don’t you feel it?) 

At the back of your tongue, in every empty room, like a nebulous haze of goodwill and unconditional love. When you were a kid, you wondered why feeling God didn’t make your skin itchy. It would, right? If the body of Christ stalled at your nape, looming over your shoulder. You were raised catholic, so it still lingers and sticks to the nook of your periphery like an oilslick, no matter how hard you knuckle at your eyes. 

You wonder if it’s that same holy spirit they’re tasting in the heme when they cough, supine on the sidewalk. If it’s God’s liquid love, righteous across every capillary, with the swing of a sword. A forefinger on a trigger. 

That’s what they say, anyways. Last Tuesday the blonde lady on Fox news said it was always God in our veins on the night of the holy purge— feel God (transubstantiation like a distant, muffled folklore ringing in your ears) cleanse your soul. Fox news always starts to lean on epistemic justification in Spring, and you wonder if people believe God is scrubbing them from the inside with a bathbrush. You wonder if they really even believe in God, anyways, when it’s all just a mangled apparatus for population control. 

(But God wants them to kill the poor people, right?)

Last spring, a man broke into your apartment. 

Charcoal bulk. Tapered obsidian. Wide shoulders, wide arms, wide, herculean thighs, in all black. Slate denim. Battered leather jacket. Those massive hands, coated in pure-nightfall leather. You remember them well, because you thought they resembled the thick, sheepskin gloves your grandfather would wear out in the snow—

Nothing besides black on him, besides the cruel arsenic white of a plastic doll mask stretched over his balaclava. Like those ugly, inexpressive porcelain things you’d find stacked up in antique stores. Your gaze lingered on the delirious scripture across the forehead. Kiss me.

He slunk in while you were in the bathroom. Cracked in your front door. You discovered a crater in the shape of his kneecap, days later, when you replaced the broken locks.

You found him on your couch like a stygian king, thighs split, like he belonged in your tiny living room in all his ominous, leathery heft, and for a second, you just stalled at the threshold with your heart at the base of your throat. Eyes wide. In stagnant impasse with this absurdly nonchalant intruder. Between a beleaguered rock and a hard place. He’d cocked his head at you. Dead silent, and your hindbrain prickled with parity of a slasher film clip— the kind you’d peep over your blanket, folded up to your nose with shaking hands, after bedtime. You weren’t allowed to watch the movie, at the time. But you always remembered that scene where the indifference rolled off the killer in lapping, tidal waves before he’d strike and carve a character open. 

Something scratched at your hindbrain. Some hysterical thread, clinging to the falsehood that this was a rancid illusion. A nightmare, limned in butter-yellow off the lamp on the side table. His dirty boots kicked up on your coffee table. Inkblots in the plastic cut-outs of the eye sockets, glimmering like hungry nightfall. Because it was the purge, sure, but it wasn’t you. 

Never you. It couldn’t happen to you.

Hindsight humbles the untouchable, crooked complex you wore on your shoulders. Your head, with your chin held high, behind the glowing string-lights tucked across your blinds and the bleeding street under your balcony.

(You remember you thought God prickled at your nape that night. May God be with you— that’s what they say.)

(God was cold, and it made your skin itch. Maybe he would have been warm, and kind, and you would’ve felt the goodwill and unconditional love if you didn’t ask so many stupid questions in kidhood during bible camp. If you didn’t bury your bible into the bottom of your nightstand when you realized they were justifying their gnarled agenda with the pages.)

You felt sick—

And he told you he didn’t have any interest in killing you. A purr, muffled by layers of stitched cotton and plastic. No interest in all that. Wouldn’t wanna hurt a pretty thing like you. 

Like a sarky paradox to all the formidable space he was taking up, in all his horrifying gear. 

Kiss me.

An irony to the ichor thumb-smudge across his forehead. An irony, you thought, to God with a bathbrush, and the date, and the time, and the uncomfortable, imperfect squeeze of you into the bracket of wrong-place-wrong-time. In your own apartment.

Aren’t you gonna thank me, he hummed, on his feet now, from across the room. Stalemate. Rotten stasis. Deadlock, at his discretion, with you, shaking like a leaf under the archway. 

For protecting you? That’s what he said. 

(If you weren’t frozen in place with the leftovers you had for dinner curdling in your belly— eye to eye with a facsimile of the reaper— you would have snorted. It was just so absurdly ironic that it nearly made your ribs ache.) 

He was so big, you thought, when his shoulders climbed and his chest swelled, under the animal skin. So rigid. You wondered if he was all bulk like that, under the layers, or if the loose coat, and the gloves, and the daunting mien of a predator just made him seem that much larger. You’re not a small thing, but he made you feel as much. Like a dolly. A maquette— a perfect marionette to toss around between his hands on the perfect night, the perfect date on the calendar. 

Lotta bad men around, tonight.

The floorboard creaked under his weight. One step forward. The carpet bristled under your heel. 

Aren’t you gonna thank me for protecting you? 

(Kiss me.)

You remember how you went along. Easy. Didn’t say no.

And you could chalk it up to survival— pure, self-preservational instinct— and the gunfire looming outside your window. No. You remember the swell of panic, the riptide of adrenaline tearing you into a deluge of auto-pilot. Something seeped into the hairline fracture across the line between saving yourself— and your dignity, your pride. 

(Something ugly, and wrong, and so out of place. So warm in a room so bone-chilling.)

You thought you were broken. The two choices, unequivocally, were always fight or flight. 

(So which synapse misfired, that night, that kicked your gears into neither?)

You remember ugly things from that night. It felt like your ribs were being pried open, and he was picking you apart, pinching some raw and deep to pluck it out between leather fingers, until you were squirming in a pool of your own spilled volition. Like milk knocked over on the counter. Left to rot. Curdle.  

Because it didn’t hurt. He didn’t hurt you. 

And maybe that was worse. Because you were supposed to kick, and fight, and scream, and you— 

Didn’t. 

And maybe at first, it was a form of endurance. Survival sense— shutdown, like a generator on its last limb, preserving its own continuance. Just go along, just survive, just—

It’s easier, you think, in retrospect, to justify that. 

What’s harder is that you remember you thought you were broken because part of you, eventually, didn’t want to kick, or fight, or scream. 

(Go for the eyes— that’s what they say— and where would you go, in those inky craters, under the shadows? Like polynyas brimful of tar. You’d drown.) 

You remember the way he called himself daddy— come sit on Daddy’s cock, tell Daddy how good he feels— and you remember the visceral burgeon of disgust swelling in your belly. 

The way it made you revolted, and shuddery, and white-hot. 

Wanting. Slick. 

Because he’s not your daddy. Wasn’t. Isn’t.

You knew it for what it was. A gross game. Meant to debase your conation. This scary man in his scary mask on this, scary night, in your home, here to take something for himself. A flinder of your rib— a cracked piece of bone, here to tuck it into the inside of his coat. To watch your face crease with the juxtaposing blend of repulsion and want, rolling down your spine like rainwater off a downspout, as your cunt fluttered. 

He fucked you stupid on his cock again, and again, and again, until the sun was scraping at the land with its hot fingers, and the corners of your room were white and blue. Took what he wanted, because he decided he could. 

And that’s the game. The brutal nature of humanity crumbling under the weight of anarchy, and unrestricted autonomy, even if only for a night. Bereft morals. Selfish whims.

(And you took it. Just took it. Didn’t put up a fight, not when terror started lagging behind pleasure.)

He ate your cunt, too, just the way you liked. For hours, with the plastic mask tucked up like the balaclava, to the tip of his nose. The hard edge, and the cotton, pressing into your mons when he rolled your clit with his tongue, pressed the flats of his white teeth against it. You remember that. 

His nice, clean white teeth, and his pink lips. 

He must’ve been a pretty man under all the unnerving guise.

By the time the siren screeched at seven, you were strewn on your sheets like puddy across the sidewalk. All worn, and tired, and malleable, which he seemed to like. Panting, sweaty, tacky. Covered in him. The sticky, pearlescent mimesis, like memorabilia. Your pink underwear dangling out of his pocket like a perverted token to pin up onto his wall like a poster, after. His hard, leather fingerprints, blooming across your soft love handles, where he held your bones in place (but you didn’t need him to— not when you were so willing to placate and assuage and give). The chiaroscuro made your ribs rattle when you breathed deep. 

You stared at the popcorn ceiling when his belt buckle clinked. Slotted himself back together, into unobtainable nightfall against the backdrop of daytime. 

There’s a lot of things that stuck with you from that night. He didn’t hurt you, and your skin stayed sealed, but according to everyone, a part of you maybe-died, or that’s how you should feel, anyway. So, you wondered if that gangrenous part of you was severed off, bleeding out onto the carpet. Between the floorboards, staining the ceiling of the apartment on the floor under yours. A nebula of rust red across plaster.

(You thought it was severed, because at first you didn’t feel it. Anything. Nothing. Numb. Pinpricks across your psyche like your hand when you slept on it the wrong way. Maybe he cut it loose when you weren’t looking— when your lashes fluttered, smogged in the haze of yellow string lights, when your cheek kissed the mattress, and sex.)

You remember a lot of things that make your chest feel tight, like cotton unspooling in the crevices of your lungs, and your head feel waterlogged, and your knees brittle. But you remember he told you, before he left, that he’ll see you next year. 

I’ll see you next year, sweetheart.

Like a portent. It should’ve been. In a way, it felt like a reassurance, and you hate that pulpy part of yourself. 

And what can you do? 

You’re a statistic. 

The label feels wrong. Permanent. Like a bumper sticker stamped onto your forehead with gorilla glue. You’re lucky, they tell you, after. What a close call, when you swallow preventive abortion pills and shiver at your own reflection passing in the mirror. You think, maybe, your guardian angel blinked, somnolence searing at the backs of its eyes. Because, maybe, angels sleep, too. You don’t know. They didn’t teach that in church. 

You go to therapy. The woman in the big, sable chair gives you this look. Crinkled countenance pinched in pity. How pitiful, you’re reminded, and how lucky you are to only be scratched by a freight train. You’re not smattered pulp on the railroad tracks, but in the cruel cosm, you feel like jam dripping down God’s hands. 

You ask her if it’s fucked up that it felt good. 

She tells you it’s not. 

But then, you ask if it’s fucked up that a crackled fragment of you, maybe-sort-of-in-a-way, wouldn’t mind if it happened again.  

That’s a different question. 

Because you’ve been mulling that thought over between your teeth, in the hollow gaps between mortified, pale-faced solaces, I’m sorry’s, I’m-sorry-that-happened-to-you’s. It’s been festering, and feels like a chunk of you rotting under the sun. But maybe, if someone tells you that it’s okay—

If you had to do it over— you put it that way, like emphasizing a crease in a sheet of paper, and she gives you another, long, reticent look this time, instead of a response. 

(Because, maybe, putting it that way makes the insatiable itch in your arteries more relatable. Easier to swallow. Easier to tolerate. Maybe you sound like less of a freak, with the tumult.) 

Guilt for feeling pleasure is, apparently, very common, as indicated by the PDF she emails you that night to look over. Rape Victims and the False Sense of Guilt. 

Rape. The word rape, across the screen, makes you flinch. It’s such a small word in the sea of the text, only four Lilliputian letters. Teeny-tiny. But it feels big. Like a big deal— rape, that’s a big word. It’s razor sharp when it echoes behind your skull. It’s ugly, and it ends on a blunt, hard sound. No elasticity. No give. This unyielding, little word that shatters around you in its hideous, mangled phonetics— is that what happened to you?

You’re lucky. What a close call. I’m sorry that happened to you.

Pleasure is a natural, physical reaction. A bodily reaction. That’s what it says.

You can cope with that. Comprehend that. The rest is— loaded. Like an assault rifle, in spring. You don’t know how to peel the pieces apart. You never learned how to take apart a gun.

You know what a bodily reaction is. 

But nothing explains the chimera you chase after— the fantasy, when you’re plugged around two of your own fingers, weeks, months later, chasing the phantom ache. 

Liking masks is okay, but liking masks is only okay if there’s something preliminary about them. Liking to feel small and scared is okay, but only if there’s a safety net, and safewords, and you trust the other person, and know them like the pores across the back of your hand. A stranger isn’t allowed to make you feel this way. 

But liking this— thinking about this, with your head fuzzy and your skin simmering— is wrong. Bad. 

It’s okay, but you need to heal. Something bad happened to you, and you need to sweep your pieces into the dustpan before you start to put them back together. That’s what you read between the lines. It feels accusatory.

(Only, you don’t think you could mold them into the same form, if you tried. Stick them back into their rifted crevasses, when they’re jagged and misshapen.)

The things you feel are, by all definitions— according to the internet, and everyone around you— wrong. Ugly. Sick. You shouldn’t feel anything but nausea scraping at the back of your throat, pooling briny under your tongue, when you think about that night. About him. That’s what you find in the vats of their eyes when you tell people what happened, the stricken shape of their faces. Like you’re broken. Because you are broken. 

Some part of you has a big indigo bruise stretched across it, smarting something awful. Some part of you is fractured ceramic. 

You’re a statistic. A number. A sliver on a bar graph. It feels like throwing yourself headfirst over a rock face. Into a yawning abyss. You splinter upon contact with the water, but it doesn’t ripple around you. Just lets your dissevered pieces wade and buoy.

You don’t go back to therapy after the third time, and you spend all summer burying your esoteric predilections at the back of the shelf. Let them gather dust, because they’re shattered anyways, and you don’t know how to make any sense of the smashed fragmentations. They’re so jagged, they’ll cut the soft skin on your palms up if you cup them too close.

You move when your lease ends in the summer. Not really by choice, but the decision has the weight of all those ruckled, condolatory looks. Those I’m-sorry-that-happened-to-you’s, like flour-sacks across your shoulders. Your apartment still reeks like him. It’s a phantom musk, whispering along your lungs. Cigarettes, and leather, and tangy sweat (it almost feels like it belongs— not unpleasant, like the brine across Poseidon’s abdomen). It’s uncomfortable. You long for it. You’re imagining it, you know that. 

Your new apartment is clean. It smells like bleach, and it has all different locks, and the promise spills in cobwebs behind your skull. You try not to get tangled in them.

And everything tells you it’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong— everything. A churning, gut feeling, when you sign the new lease, when you roll around your sheets in the middle of the night with your hand between your tacky thighs. 

You feel like you’re breaking an unspoken rule. You’re supposed to heal. This isn’t healing.

You consider booking that out-of-country trip in March. Week-long, just to stifle the premonition under the heel of your palm. The omen, that was still dripping heady, clotting the air alongside the stifling sound of the zipper closing its teeth together. Crinkling leather when he buckled his belt.

Your mom gives you a call. Tells you to come out to Maine for the weekend. You shrug the invitation off with your phone cradled between your cheek and your shoulder, and your laundry between your fingers. I’m fine, mom. I’m—

Fine. Cataclysmically. Okay. Bleeding out onto the tarmac with every step, like the incipient springtide. 

You cup a posy of daffodils between your hands with wistfulness speckling across your chest. 

You used to love spring. In kidhood, before the heavy, inordinate burden of purge-nights spanned across your shoulders, spring had the delicacy of a flower. The warmth of sunshine beading across your skin. The naivety of pastels. A callow touch of rose-tint.

You always knew living alone had its risks. In an apartment, no less, flimsy and unsheltered by security shutters and the bulwarks of a standalone. A danger, like a yellow warning sign. It’s the same precarious footing that warrants your mother’s calls back to your hometown every spring. 

(The same reason she called you last year. And you— stupid, stupid— didn’t go.)

You don’t know how to excuse yourself this year. Lack of self-preservation? Stupid, callow hope? You don’t know what you’re hoping for. 

(What you’re feeding.)

Maybe it’s the way you’ve been dusting the shattered shards on the shelf. 

Anybody else in your position would be halfway across the continent, and you’re shutting down your flower shop and turning in for the night. Pretending (that you’re pretending) you’re inviolable, like that headspace didn’t get crushed under his thumb last year. The clock ticks on the wall. 

The man who comes up to the register has a bouquet in his hand. A sprig of carmine carnations that crinkles when he lays it flat onto the countertop. He’s tall. Broad. Pretty— the first thing you think of, upon impression, mapping out the ridges of his face, the even slope of his nose, the burnt umber curl that spills over his forehead. Wordless. He stares at you. 

Just stares. Not quite boring into you, but lingering, inkpools fixed. Indescribably. Unremitting.

There’s a familiarity in his gaze. Something that weaves across you in unspooling, crepuscular cobwebs, something that prickles. And eye-contact feels like a stalemate. A competition; who will give first? Your mettle splinters in hairline fractures. 

“Is this,” your smile is flimsy. Brittle. Eyes dipping to the flowers he’s laid out. “…all for you today?” 

He smells expensive. Like amber musk, but something sticks to his scent like an afterthought. A note, in undertow. 

Smoke.

Like he washed his hands, brushed his teeth, but couldn’t kick the odor off his clothes, lingering in the stitches.  

Emotions dredge up from the pit of your psyche like his presence is the metal head of a shovel. Cold leather. A hot touch. Things you’ve left numb for too long, oozing, electric, alive. Your fingers flex on the stems, and the plastic clicks under your hand when you stare down at it. You can’t look. 

“Mm.”

You feel flayed. Raw. Like you’re going to come apart into tatters in the middle of the store. In front of a customer. You cast your gaze up. He isn’t looking at you anymore. Hands buried in his pockets, eyes listing across the melange of flower assortments you’ve got on display behind the counter. And you feel—

Embarrassed. Silly. Your cheeks heat, your heart thundering at your throat. It’s silly. 

“Oh,” you breathe as you roll the bouquet between your hands. Key in the numerical series to the system, “I like these. They’re very pretty. …Looks like today, it’s going to be… twenty-six.”

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Nothing at all, doesn’t make any motion towards procuring a payment method, and that nagging sense of worry spirals between your brows when you cast your inkpools up to find him staring again. Under your hands. There’s a judder to them. You watch his hand reach into the front-pocket of his jeans, and cull a cashfold. He licks his fingers before he separates the cash, and hands it to you. 

Your fingers brush. You swallow. 

You hand his change over with your fingers twitching. 

“Happy purge,” he tells you. Suddenly.

Your smile wobbles. Creases. Curls back up into a proxy of a cheery mien you have the resolve to upkeep. “Happy purge.”

His fingertips drum across the counter. “And may our souls be cleansed.”

It sounds droll. Wry. Like he’s making a mockery of every piece of propaganda the news channel paints across your screen, a week-long affair in snippets before commencement. You swallow. 

“Up for anything tonight?”

The question shouldn’t nick between your ribs. Scrape into the soft place— you’ll get loads of customers that ask. That participate, affluent folk. Young people, with grease smeared across their smiles when they tell you that they’re excited to exercise their God-given right. 

You shake your head. “No— no. I don’t… partake.”

The silence that congeals between you is suffocating. Heavy. You feel your poise withering. Shrinking back into you, under the weight of his gaze. It’s an eerie stagnancy, and you feel like you’re sinking to the depths. 

“You’re,” you tell him, trying to smile, but it doesn’t meet your eyes this time, “…all set.”

His eyes roam. Openly. Lash across you in bounds, slow, detail-oriented. It’s odd. Makes you feel strange. Finally, they fix on your face. No doubt, creased with discomfort. 

“Stay safe tonight,” he tells you, before he turns, bouquet in hand. 

“Right. You— stay safe,” you rock forward on your heels. The bell over the door jingles. 

You’re broken, but you’re not stupid. You twist the locks when you get home. Double-check every window. Turn off every light that you aren’t using. 

The announcement comes across the TV when you’re in the shower, and by the time you come out, the emergency broadcast has morphed off into a rerun of Friends. You don’t know what to do with yourself. Tuck your knees to your chest and stare at the clock? Roll into the fetal position and pray? 

May God be with you. 

The gunfire outside begins during the credits. You can’t stomach the harrowing scream that seeps across from the street below, so you plug your ears with your headphones, and you blast music until you feel like your ears are bleeding. Hole up in your bedroom.

You can’t discern the feeling that clots in your chest when you come out to your living room, eventually, to find him on your couch. In eerie stillness. Terror? Relief? 

He notices you. Swells when he breathes, all heft, just like you remember. The burgeon of fear that prickles at your nape, making your hair stand on end, you find, clots beside something you’re unable to dissect. For a long second, the both of you just breathe. Observe. 

He breaks the silence. 

“…Come tell Daddy hello.”

Daddy. Daddy— the titular moniker makes you bristle, startling you out of your stupor like whiplash. What are you doing? What are you doing?

You stall by the bathroom door. This game of cat and mouse is precarious. You’ll lose— that fact is brassbound. Undeniable. You don’t know what you were expecting. Why you stayed. You’ve got the short end of the stick, always. And still, you contemplate, lingering with your hand on the doorknob. The stagnancy in biding your time feels like staring at a snake coiling beside your feet. Waiting for it to lash forward. 

You take a slow step forward. Another. He doesn’t make any moves towards you, doesn’t give any indication that he’s keen to sit up. Content with the view of your dread snowballing. Mushrooming. Hands resting across his lap, his tree-trunk thighs split apart. 

Waiting. Watching. 

You don’t expect it when he sits up, grunting, to wrap his hand across your forearm. Lug you forward, into the alcove between his thighs. The brush of leather across your bare skin makes chills erupt across your skin. Manhandling you, like puddy between his hands. You’re supposed to fight, you’re supposed to kick, you’re supposed to—

Scream. You exhale when he twists you and forces you to sit on his knee. You’re stupid. What you’re chasing isn’t healthy.

You think he’s going to ask why you moved. Silly girl. Didn’t think I’d find you?

He doesn’t. 

“Been a good girl?” he drawls, instead, chest swelling in your periphery. It feels mocking, despite the casualness of his tone— unsanded around the edges. The irony of the position has your teeth set, like you’re a child on Santa’s lap, and not a grown woman on his. A petrifying— 

Half-stranger. Almost.

The revelation is uncanny to the way you’re searing under your skin. And there’s a thin line, you think, between coercion, and the way your heart batters a little faster, the way you clench your fingers together to avoid squeezing your thighs.

You don’t say anything. It’s rhetoric, because he isn't finished. He cups your knee under his palm, the dark leather, and says, “Kept your pussy to yourself, mm?”

Not your hands. Not your hands. 

Your pussy. 

The undiluted vulgarity trickles down your nape, makes you flinch, and you fist your hands a little harder, until the crescents dig into your palms. It’s still just as nonchalant, even-toned. But it’s crude, and it makes your face hot. 

Like he owns that. Like you belong to him, in some way.

(And maybe, in some way, some part of you does. That piece of your rib he still has tucked into his pocket from last spring.)

Your heart is in your throat. You turn your cheek. Away. Just enough, but the hand that was on your knee presses against the side of your face. Two fingers, gloved, that pry your attention back onto him. It’s almost effortless. Feels like he’s using hardly any strength at all, has your chin snapping back, and the weight of two fingers, against that groove under your cheekbone, has an ache radiating up into your temple. He’s feeling the ridges of your teeth through your soft flesh. Wrenching his fingertips into the hollow rift between the two rows, and your breath ebs your lungs in soft pants, free falling the gap between your lips. The slick, gummy inside of your cheek twinges under the pressure.

You stare back, and—

You don’t know what you find. What you’re looking for. There’s a hunger in the plastic cut outs, glimmering in the tenebrose, like a predator shimmering in the distance of the thicket. One that’s spent all winter hibernating.

He digs his fingers in a little harder. Makes your head tilt with an ease that makes your head spin. The sound that leaks out of you is embarrassing. So unlike you. So small, and vulnerable, and raw. 

It reminds you of feeling like you were being carved open, like you were having those pieces pulled out of you. Those fragments that you’ve buried deep behind your ribs, all yours. Delicate chattels between his fingers like a thread that he’ll tug to unspool you to the core.

His thumb grazes the corner of your mouth. Your lower lip. Rests there, all leather. It smells like charred tobacco. Tar. 

“Yes,” you breathe. Appease. The word comes out tangled with a frantic note, an exhale, and sounds garbled off your liquified, molasses-heavy tongue. 

Maintaining eye contact is difficult. Intense. Feels like wading a knee-deep morass with how treacly it makes your head feel, but it’s impossible to look away. With the angle he has your head, you feel snared into an unspoken standoff. Feels like you’re caught in a springe he’s laid out. You, with your rabbiting heart, and your ankle caught in a noose. And him—

Those deep-seated inkpools glimmer from the underbrush. 

“Is that right?”

It’s like a car crash, you think, stuck in limbo. A beatific maelstrom of metal scraping on metal. The beautiful, horrifying view, in the split-second of collision. Time in stasis. Slow motion.

You can’t look away.

He stops pressing to rap the pads against your cheekbone, instead, and the thump that echoes in your skull almost sounds hollow. Loud in your ears. The pang lingers in your jaw, like a dull ache, across your upper teeth, the inside of your cheek. 

There’s a split second there, where that bilious feeling slinks into your stomach and coils up, stretching between your lungs. That sick you find, buried under the galvanized cobwebs spooling your sense of self-preservation, like a haze of little, electric gossamers across your synapses. The incipience of a wave of nausea, softly lapping, at the thought that all of this, everything, is premeditated, and the gnarled root of it all sinks so much deeper than you’d ever expect. 

That he’ll know— knows— that you brought another man home last fall. 

It was stupid. A one off, scraped off a bar stool on a Saturday night after one too many whiskey sours, and the sex wasn’t even any good. You don’t remember it. 

But your head feels syrupy. You don’t know what’s worse: this burgeoning fear that you’ve disappointed him with— what? Free will? Autonomy? 

Or the slick ooze of the bone-juddering revelation that settles; he’s probably been watching you. Keeping tabs. 

(How else did he know where you moved? How to pin you under the pad of his thumb with such startling ease? You’re a thumbtack on a paper map, and a petrified part of you wonders if he’s got it— a chart of your whereabouts, your existence snared into a creased sheet— dangling next to the panties from last spring.)

If he knows about your liaison, he doesn’t indicate it. Opting to, instead, graze the shape of your lips with his thumb again, and push in to scrape the flats of your teeth with the leather. It’s gross. Feels strange— leather against the smooth inside of your lips, and when you breathe around it, you feel like you’re spinning out, headfirst, hurtling toward the ground. Something you don’t want to acknowledge rolls over, white-hot, in the pit of your tummy. 

“That’s good,” he settles on, and palms your breast so abruptly that it makes your lungs squeeze. Your throat clicks when you swallow. 

It feels so mechanical. Calculating. Collected. Nonchalantly purposeful— nothing gradual, no build up— like he’s here to reap and take, intent on what he’s looking for. But it’s all a startling, unnatural paradox, considering you were left so overly-satiated last spring, that you almost felt like a mindless shell of yourself. Entirely sapped. The enigma left your head clogged up and heavy for days. Weeks. Months. Your lashes flutter, dusting unfitting bliss across your cheeks like the speckling heat. Like pleasure is bulky, and rounded, and doesn’t fit into the jagged slot your anticipation has chiseled. 

He squeezes the doughy flesh in his hand, and scuffs your pebbling nipple with a side-swipe of his thumb. Then, the other. Long, thick fingers spanning, and coasting across your diaphragm, climbing your waist, the chiseled, swelling rungs of your ribcage, cupping under one of your tits again. He only stops at the soft sound that crawls out of your windpipe. Eyes flickering at the reedy, wanton whine that gushes through the seal of your teeth. The self-awareness makes you wither into yourself. Shrinking. Ecstasy feels like an agrestal parasite, mushrooming between your nerves. Budding in that slope under your navel.

(Wrong, wrong, wrong— a broken mechanism, misfiring. Grinding. Your eroded mettle squealing under the pressure.)

You can hear him breathing. He sounds like an animal. A panting beast. Feral. Untamed, wild, huffs stifled by ribbed cotton and matte plastic. He notches a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and pinches it. Tugs. A gust of your desperate breath escapes through that barren dearth between your teeth when he palms you by the front of your neck and pushes you against the back of the couch. 

It’s sloppy. Clumsy, an awkward angle from where you were on his lap— your limbs flail before you topple, and it requires more core strength on your part than you anticipate to sink back, but it isn’t violent. Aggressive. The coarse denim on his thigh abrades your naked skin when he twists to hover over you. Cushion denting under the weight of his knee. Your neck cranes back as he pins you to the back of the couch by the column of your throat. Head tipped back, nearly dangling over, neck straining. He looms over you.

Just—

Staring. Staring. You stare back and wonder if he feels your pulse hammering with the layer of the leather barricade between skin kissing skin. Like this, the mask is limned in shadows from the slant, and the crepuscular orifices under the plastic are even harder to make out. Harder to gauge. You want to gauge. You want to see—

You won’t have the upper hand. You know that, but prying for the threadbare margin of a hint, a motive, a reaction, feels like digging your fingers in for a last-ditch lifeline. 

His eyes are half-mast. Dark lashes spanned over the glint in pitch, mounted in white. You can’t see what he’s thinking. Can’t—

He reels forward, back hunched, leather jacket crinkling, and you feel the plastic mask tucked to your cheekbone. Your temple. Your hair. He reeks like santalum. Petrichor— the first rain spilling onto the pavement, scrubbing the bloodshed off into the grates— and the overwhelming scent of leather that clots in your nose. His mask scrapes your ear. He sniffs.

And you think, a little hysterically, that he’s smelling you. The recognition prickles in your skull, and climbs up your nape in a shiver. And it feels so— 

Animalistic. Primal. Indelicate. Like any sense of decorum flaking off and shedding like desquamate feathers, and it makes you feel so small. A frisson rides the ledges of your spine. Something shudders across his shoulders. Rattles them— you clock it in your periphery, stunned into subservience with your fingers twisting into the couch cushion. 

He sighs. Hums. Like he’s vibrating over you, buzzing, and the thought has that skein across your lungs tightening. The sound that seeps out of him is brassy. Low. Hungry. And the likeness that scrapes at your hindbrain, through the plume of reluctance and crushing desire, nearly makes you feel delirious— it almost sounds like a dog whining. Like he’s been holding himself back, and your scent is too much, chips an integral shard out of his flinty resolve. 

You don’t know why, but it makes you squirm. Makes your chest roll under him, hips shifting. Your eyes oscillate. Stutter from the ceiling fan to the corner of the room, because he’s smelling you and sounds like he’s falling apart. 

Your throat jumps under his hand. He drums his fingertip under your jaw, and it feels like the tick of a clock. He reels back. Slowly. Tipped over you, huffing with his head cocked. Almost panting. This harrowing monster, quivering in his skin, in all his heft, like he wants to eat you alive. Swallow you whole. His eyes slip. The feather-dust of his lashes kisses the pink-rimmed seam of his lower lashline, and he takes a deep breath, intumescent across the breadth of his shoulders. 

You swallow again, your throat still under his hand. The heel of his palm glued to your trachea. Your jaw arched back, under the press of his fingers. His eyes list. Stall across the apex of your denuded thighs, and the brief blip of pressure across your jaw, your throat, the fleeting restriction on your airway when he levels his weight and resituates, has your irises lolling and tainted gossamers stretching in sticky netting behind your skull. His freehand skates your abdomen. Prods your diaphragm, leather fingers grazing your belly button, the hem of your sleep shirt. Rucking it up. 

The boundary between arm-twisting and downright craving is negligible. It’s a foundation, under you— a poor excuse of a half-wall— crackled in fissures. When your hips hitch at the way he circles your navel, in a way, it feels like crumbled free will. Your own autonomy worn down and corroded by the chemistry spuming your veins (you tell yourself it’s artificial. A lethal injection of dopamine and melanocortin), because it feels like the hunger is pried out of you. Pulled out, tangled on his crooking fingertips. 

(And what do you have to say for yourself, when you need him like you need to eat.)

Your hips cant when he strokes his fingers over your waistband, across the sensitive, soft stretch of skin over your mons. You can still hear him breathing over the bloodrush, like spindrift, across the little, vibrating bones, deep in your ear. He sniffs, gaze pinned to the shape of your quivering thighs (juddering knees, swelling tummy)—

He knocks your legs apart with his thigh, until the plush of them spills around the shape of him. All broad, all muscle, all denim against your smooth skin, and he wrenches one of your thighs up with his fingers under your knee. Presses you back by the shin, with your sole planted on the couch cushion, and—

Like this, he has the perfect view. The perfect shape of your cunt, through your panties. They’re white this year. So unassuming, just a plain bikini-cut in ivory, but you wonder if he’s weighing the way they’ll look beside the other pair, like a sordid tchotchke. 

His eyes linger on it. You can’t see his inkpools, but they feel molten. Heady. Predatorial, and the shockwave riding the slanting arches of your ribcage makes it harder to take in a full breath. Lagoons spilling heat. They surge the soft shapes of your body like lavascapes, melting across your skin. 

You’re wet. You know that— feel the damp heat like you feel the want droning across your bones, lacing your muscles. And the sloppy, saturated shape of your dribbling pussy, behind the thin veil of a gusset, is no exception. You curl your toes. Dig them into the couch cushion. The carpet. Dangling onto the fragility of your self-possession (unraveling), and then he probes, with the tip of his index, right where your clit sits. A meager tap.

Your arousal is a tangible wad in your gut, and he plays with it between his fingers.

Desperation climbs to the base of your throat at an alarming rate. Echoes in your jugular as a thrum when his eyes sway between your face and the shape of your cunt. The shape of it under the entirety of his palm, swallowing you whole, between your legs, when he pastes his hand there. And he can’t feel the way it’s soaking, can’t feel how slick you are, but you wonder if the sheer heat leaches through the layers. 

If he can feel how hot and wanting you are, through the glove. 

He purrs like he can. Trails two fingers along the splitting fjord, your puffy lips. His thumb crooks into one end of your gusset just to let it snap back and watch the shiver roll up through your shoulders, huffing around a thick, rumbly noise that sounds amused. Drenched in humiliating mirth. A crater forms around his knee cap when he presses it onto the cushion. Between your split legs, thigh pressed flush to your cunt. Tight. 

“Gonna be a good girl,” he murmurs, face dangling over yours, and the words sound masticated. Starved. “—and let me eat that slutty cunt?”

There’s a fine line, you remind yourself, between being forced, and whatever the— you don’t want to admit it, won’t admit it, stuff it down— rapacious froth inside of you means.

He splits your lips with his fingers. Pries them apart like a butterfly to pin up and frame.  

Mental snapshots to encase on a shelf, mounted beside your underwear and a pushpin map with your face smattered in uneven, sawtooth cut-outs. All raw, and sloppy, and wet. Gushing down to the cleft of your ass— he can see everything, and his eyes rove like he’s mapping every bit of you to memory, your underwear balled and tucked into the pocket of his coat. Drinking in every delicate detail, your pebbled clit twitching under his thumb scuffing, and it’s so—

Humiliating. 

Embarrassing— shame clots in that interstice between your battering heart and your ribs, that soft spot it’s been dribbling into since he perched you on his lap like a little girl begging for a present. You screw your eyes, cup the heels of your palms over them. You can’t look— can’t—

He moans again. Gives you a heady hum, nearly as slick with want as you are between your thighs. Only, his is oil to your honey. Motor fluid to your syrup— a slippery smear of grease to sap. Rotten. Thick and coal-dark, like tar. Something gritty that catches like sand between his teeth when you try to close your knees. It’s a faulty maneuver, with your feet pried apart on his elbows, and you can only latch your knees, and—

It’s the wrong thing to do. 

A slipshod attempt to preserve your dignity, but what’s the use, when it’s porous enough for him to spew the virulent pollutant of longing for him? Noxious. Infectious. Enough to mill your pride from the inside into a powdered dust. Instead, he pries the folds of your cunt apart with one hand, on two fingers— an index and a thumb— and slaps the back of your thigh with the other. 

Your thighs quake. Plush flesh shaking upon impact, the searing heat wave that robs you of your ephemeral resistance— rolling the thought that this is gross, not what you want— and scorches it through to the core, until all that’s left for you to face is the overwhelming desire.

“Eyes on me,” he grunts. Dour. Unrelenting, until you peer through the spaces in your fingers like you’re watching a nightmare unfold, and let him wrest your knees back apart. “Yeah,” he tells you, hardly over the feather-light weight of a whisper, despite the way it feels like it’s crushing your skull from the inside when it swims your ears. “Just like that. On me, pretty girl.”

You can’t look away, so you chew on your fingers instead. Tuck them between your teeth, toes curling into the cushions. Your sleep shirt is in a discarded puddle of fabric on the floor, beside him. There’s something so uncomfortably potent in nakedness when he hasn’t even discarded his gloves. 

He won’t.

But an element of intrigue gets dredged up into the mist of your yearning when he sticks the pad of his thumb under the plastic chin of the mask to pry it to the bridge of his nose. Speckling the nebula, that clouds you, like stardust. Worse, yet, when he pries the balaclava to the same, angular slope, to show his bare chin, his full, pink mouth, his cupid’s bow. 

His nice, clean white teeth. 

His tongue, slinking out to smear across his lips. Like this, the cut outs aren’t over his eyes, and the pools of hunger are shrouded behind the plasticated layer. He feels with his fingers. Spreads your pussy apart, grazes his thumb pad across your throbbing clit, slick with your own sticky wetness, and you watch him purse his lips before a tacky, wet glob lands across your hood. Drool, dripping down, coagulating at your drenched hole. 

You shudder. Can’t look away— it’s—

Gross. It’s wet, and it’s rancid, and the feeling of it being smeared across your cunt, the feeling of a finger prodding at your rim, uselessly clenching at the air, makes your face crease. Brows pinching. 

(So why, then, do you feel so dizzy from the spiraling wave of your own lust fizzing across your veins?) 

You mewl. He tucks his fingers into his mouth. The same ones that have been smudging the amalgam of your slick and his own saliva, still tucked in that leather glove, and the sound he makes at the taste— pure hedonism, dripping around the plug of his own fingers— has your thighs hinging apart wider. Straining. 

It sounds so— shattered. So desperate. Frenzied. A sound like that, out of him, feels so unco that it nearly wrenches your head back. He groans around his fingers, sloppy, and grunts when he takes them out to feel for your hole, tease a breach with the middle digit, not quite bursting the threshold— 

And God, when he eats, it’s like he’s a man starved. Famished. All animal between your thighs, suckling on your clit, dragging his tongue across your hole, like it’s pure sustenance and he hasn’t eaten in weeks. Slurping around you, bullying your clit between his teeth like he wants to chew you up to spit you out. Rinse and repeat. 

He drags his tongue across you, so obscenely, seam to hood, like he wants you to see. Wants you to watch— wants you to know that you’ve got this horrifying brute on his knees between your legs, kissing on your cunt. Wants that ugly revelation to stick to the inside of your skull like knotgrass spilling across your bones— a twisted thought you’ll never be able to tame out of fruition. You let this happen; let him take. 

(And worse yet, you liked it.)

“Sloppy, little pussy,” he grunts, the words muzzled against your sopping cunt, spilling against his mouth, dripping. Sticking in strings to his lower lip, the corner of his mouth— and he crooks his finger. Notches it against your rim. 

It feels wrong. Strange. Leather against your cunt, instead of skin, when he prods and—

Pops the tip in. Stretches your gummy walls to the first, gloved knuckle. The soft, wet heat of you pulsing around him like a heartbeat is lost on the leather, the barrier between your skin, but he’ll make up for it. He’ll make up for it, he’ll—

“God,” you mewl when he crooks the finger and stuffs it to the hilt, stroking the wet squeeze of your walls enveloping it. 

The brutal ugliness in the concept of this man prying you open, stretching you taut when he wedges his ring finger in beside the first, with a glove on, douses you in shame. Has a white-hot heat spewing, geyser-like, at your underbelly. 

The sounds, though, the wet-squelch of those leather-coated fingers fucking into you, spilling slick and shoving it back in, makes your eyes screw. Has a heat nipping at the apples of your cheeks the way it nips at your cunt when he grinds harsh circles around your clit. It’s too much. Nearly too much when he nicks the razor-sharp mantel of your nerve-endings and hones there upon the horrid, wheezing sound you make, the way your leg flexes out beside his head in jarred reflex. Like he’s punishing it. You. For congealing up in his teeth like an insatiable sweet-tooth he’ll never scrape off his enamel. 

You cry out. Knock the heel of your palm into his forehead. Into the edge of that eerie mask, the kiss me, unsmudged, but he’s unperturbed. Unruffled. Unyielding, the same way the brutal crash of pleasure spooling tight behind your navel, your burning, flexed core. 

He catches your wrists in his hand. Like two limbs of a lamb, ensnared. The most perfect, decadent feast to carry out on a charcuterie board, and the sound he makes against your cunt nearly sounds inhuman. Like a rabid, territorial animal at its mealtime, mouthing off at a hand that tries to intrude. Encroach. Take. The vibrations make your head spin. Dizzy— you’re so dizzy, and you don’t recognize that you’ve been holding your breath until the shuddery cry that tears its way out of your mouth is silent. A hiss of a breath that melts into a long, wet gasp. 

He tucks your hands to your tummy, and takes. And takes, and takes. It belongs to him, right? The garbled slur that slips through the negligible gaps between your teeth sounds fucked stupid, and he hasn’t even split you apart on his cock. 

Your fingers twitch, pressed to your mons. Try to reach— to pry— hips canting back, forward, away, into. Against his slippery chin, and his tongue, and his unrelenting mouth. 

And oh, how you unravel, under his jaw, like you belong there. Under his hands, and the tip of his nose tucked to your mons, and the flats of his teeth, grazing—

He doubles down when he feels the pop— the release— your pretty, little cunt fluttering around his fingers, sucking them back in on every twist out, like a vice.

It starts on a long, wilting mewl. A desperate note that laces across your vocal cords and seeps out, not by your own volition, and ends on a gasp. The cord snaps. Too taut. Too much. The ripples of the aftershocks, lapping at your core, red-hot, sloppy, and spent, and overly sensitive, crescendo into a horrible ache when he suckles over your clit. Draws a searing stripe across your nerve endings with the tip, stifling groans into your puffy sex. 

You squeak. Tremble, toes tensing. Flexing. Hips arching back, trying to scoot away. Off. 

“I— came,” you bluster, but it sounds hoarse. Distant, in the thundering thrum of your vertiginous headrush. “I—“ you try again, hips canting, and he swipes out with his tongue, catches something raw and smarting on the fleshy edge. 

You jolt. Spine twisting, distorting pleas between your teeth you’re swishing them across your gums. You wriggle your foot, wheedling it under the space where his mouth is flush with your cunt. “I— please—“

He wrenches your foot back into place so aggressively that all you can do is make a pitiful, helpless squeak. Lashes fluttering, writhing, gnawing into your lower lip when he rolls his tongue across your pulsing clit. The sound that rumbles across your core rattles you down to the marrow. It feels like he wants to chew you to the bone. 

And when he pops off, finally— finally— panting like he’s had his fill, sucking at one of your lips until it’s tender and kiss-bruised— satiated this quenchless thirst that riles in the apertures of his skeleton, humming in his musculature— you breathe. Just breathe. Catch it— snag it. A soft repose in recompense for the throb in your guts, between your legs. Crystalline beads hover, sprouted from the corners of your eyes, streaking across your lash line. Your gaze is lachrymal. Pools of an unspooled bliss, mottled overwhelming, shimmery and red-rimmed. 

And the breath you’ve been catching—

Is forced out from between your lips when his hand lurches. Pins you, supine, to the couch, fingers spanning your nape. Heel of his palm at your jugular. The abruptness of the motion has your heart lurching to your throat. It nearly kisses the shape of his hand.

(But you suppose, if that cracked bit of your rib belongs to him, then maybe a sliver of your lung does, too.)

Somewhere between the dazed stupor of you, panting like you’ve run a marathon, and laying you out on the couch, he’s fixed the mask back on. The balaclava. And the crass, dirty thought that his chin is still slick under the cotton, making it sodden, and hot, and tacky to his skin, seeps across you and cakes like cement. 

He stares down at you through the cut-outs. Your heart is a hummingbird behind the rungs, trying to break free, and you feel it in your pulse, where his thumb strokes. You wonder if he can feel it. You’re still in that balmy, soggy headspace with your muscles pliable, your head heavy. A pastiche of heaven in a come-down, roping its way across your bones and smogging your hypervigilance. 

You’re less unnerved to be stared down at like that— like you’re a meal for him to chew apart between his teeth, like he’s contemplating every possible scenario and picking through to find the prettiest position to put you in, how to grind out the prettiest sounds— with your head feeling like it’s liquified.

Your lashes flutter. You trace the seams on the ceiling, where it’s been repaired for water damage. Maybe someone bled out on the floor above, you think. 

But the warmth of the evanescent fog doesn’t curb the note of nervousness that paints its way into your respiration— like bleeding watercolor— when you hear his hands on his belt buckle. See the way he hovers over you, so large, and indomitable, eyes potent and intoxicant. Hungry. 

(He’s sated his appetite enough to hold him over, bar him from tearing you apart, but he’s still hungry.)

“Think it’s about time you start to give back, sweetheart,” he tells you. Dripping ichor-thick with want. Like blood melded with syrup. 

Even with apprehension dancing across your mind, you want him to fuck you. You want him to stretch you fucking dumb around his cock, just the way you remember he did—

But his next words make that reluctance buzz a little louder in your hindbrain. Alarms. The blood-curdling croon of the siren.

“What do you think, mm?” he mulls aloud, tracing the pad of his finger across one of your pebbled nipples, then the smooth, unmarred skin of your tummy, pausing over your belly button. “Should Daddy make you a mommy this time? Make it stick?”

Your gasp sticks to your throat. Tangles between your tonsils. Your nostrils flare when you try to take a deep breath as indemnification, and you blink up at him, you find nothing but firm resolve in those voids. Abysmal, and unrelenting. 

“I— can’t… have a baby,” you croak, a touch incredulous, but you sound alien in your own ears. Like you’re drowning. 

He cocks his head, tipped down at you, with that ugly, ivory mask. “Sure you can. That’s what you’re built for, isn’t it?”

And the degradation, being stripped down to the metal cogs, the tender technicalities of your biology, makes your cheeks blister. It’s demeaning. You hate it. Hate him, you hate him— something molten rolls in your underbelly. 

(Something hot lingers between your thighs.)

You feel your legs dipping when under the weight of his crowding closer, between your split thighs. Bent at the knee, feet planted. The couch creaks. And when the coarse brush of denim kisses your naked skin, you feel the heat from it like a furnace. 

“No,” you tell him, eyes carved into narrowed slits, and the demand in your own voice makes your bones tremble when you hear. You suck in a breath. 

He blinks. Something flickers, congeals, in his eyes, almost like you’ve stunned him with your gall. Your unrestrained defiance. And there’s something uncomfortably stifling in his gaze, searing down at you, when he tips his head. Almost like he’s contemplating your response. Rolling it between his fingers. His thumb draws a feather-light line over your mons, across the stretch of skin where your womb is buried under the soft layers of muscle and fatty tissue. 

“How do you think,” he kisses his teeth behind the layers— a muffled sound, but one you pick up on with your heartbeat in your ears, “it works out if I take you now, and they find you later? Keep you all to myself. Cancels out, doesn’t it?”

The indirect threat, framed as a hypothetical happenstance, makes something curdle in your blood like sour milk. The bile rolls in the pit of your tummy, and you feel your throat squeeze. Your exhale is a weak hiss. A wheeze, because you feel like the breath has been knocked out of you, alongside the foolish temerity.

The finger that’d traced a line across morphs into a hand, and he presses the breadth of it to your underbelly. Big. All leather, broad, your belly button peeking from the wedge between his digits. 

He sighs, and takes the hand away. Works it back over his belt buckle, until the tails are free-standing, bifurcated, and his fingers work over his zipper. It’s a huff that swells his shoulders, and you’re reminded just how big he is, over you. How massive. How staunch to his ideas— you wouldn’t stand a chance. 

“But maybe,” his head bows to watch where he’s working, and his tone is thoughtful. Menacing. Saturated with condescension, the same way you’re drenched with the remnants of your gushing slick, between your thighs. He meets your eye. “They wouldn’t look at all. Awful lotta people go missin’ altogether, tonight.”

You blink. Squirm. Thoughts of you, swollen and pregnant with his baby— chain-linked to his wrist, to a dreary, foreign bedroom like a dog to a doghouse in a backyard— makes you vitriolic. Angry. 

Horrified. 

(So why, then, does it make your head fuzzy? Kindles crackle at your underbelly, where he pressed his enormous palm.)

“No— no. I’ll be. You can—“ you shake your head. Try again. Placate. This is a gun, broken china on a back shelf. You can’t dissect it for what it means. Your ribcage shakes. “You can do— anything. Please.”

You imagine he’s sneering at you from behind the mask. Under the balaclava, lips crooked, when he tucks a thumb into his waistband and frees his cock. One hand squeezing at the root, stroking up. The motion has a slimy glob of precum blurting from the tip. It’s thick in his fist. Heavy. Mushroomed ridges vivid pink, long, fat. A little lopsided, skewed slightly to the left in his hold, arching towards you. 

He didn’t make you suck it last time, but you wonder if he will, tonight. Gag the bold subversion out with the subtle flex of his hips, your insolence— you, stupid, little thing, telling him no— with his cockhead spewing against the gummy wall at the back of your throat. 

The view makes you dizzy. Like you’re staring up to the summit of a mountainside with him looming over you. The peak that crawls over you, so tall, and makes you feel so insignificant. 

Those liquid gemstones have shed across your temples, but you don’t recognize it until his thumb swipes at the corner of your eye. A pillow-soft caress. It’s almost tender. Almost. Deliriously, you watch him smudge the same thumb, brandished in your tear, along his cockhead. The wet thumbprint coagulates with the slick there, weeping from his slit. 

“‘Course I can,” he tells you. 

There’s no gentleness in the way he manhandles you, then. Wrangling you, by the scruff of your neck, into a hover across his lap. Positioning you how he sees fit, with him seated back on the couch, and you dangling over his cock, angled up in the seal of his palm. Your knees split across either side of his lap. 

“But mum and dad,” he grunts, and when his cockhead prods against your seam, you gasp, flinching up. “should stick together. Don’t you think?” 

He drags it forward, smudging it against your spent core, and it catches on your clit, the overstimulated nerve endings there, enough to make you shiver. It wracks up your spine. 

There’s nothing romantic about the way he holds you. He doesn’t cradle you close with this sense of softhearted adoration— despite your vulnerability— only pulling you close by the nape when his slick cockhead slaps your clit, your mons, with a wet smack. You gnaw into your lower lip, muscles clenching. Seeking. He smears the tip back to your pulsating rim. 

“What’s’a’matter?” he coos, probably at the rucks between your brows, creasing across your forehead. Your eyes flicker up. “You don’t wanna be my sweet, little wife?”

(You do, you do— you—)

“Oh—“ 

The press of his tip wrenching you open, taut around him, knocks your head back. Makes your shoulders rigid, spine arching over him, and his chuckle to the gasp that clots in your trachea is dark. Rich. It fizzles into a husking growl, though, when he presses down on the tops of your thighs and sinks you over him. Against him. Stretching the wet, sopping heat around him that throbs like a heartbeat with every tight breath you take, every inch lower. Your knuckles scrabble. Notch into his leather jacket, crinkling, burrowing, balling. 

“There you go,” he hisses. Groans. You’re not looking, but you know he is. Feel the molten pools of his gaze fixed where he’s feeding his cock, unwavering. He nearly sounds awed— splintering apart— when he tells you, “Such a pretty pussy. Look at this slutty, little cunt. Swallowing me right up.”

It’s raw. Bare— skin on skin— as close as you can get, and the pang that smarts at your rim permeates all the way up to your head, until that too, feels plugged. Foggy. 

It’s too much. Too—

He flexes his hips up sharply when you stall, just enough to wedge in to the hilt, and it wrests a high sound of surprise out of you. Nearly pained. Liked a kicked animal. It snags on something deep with the motion, something you haven’t been able to reach with your own measly fingers, and you mewl. 

He gruffs a slur behind the mask, tethers it with a groan, a breath that sounds caught in his mouth, but you can’t make out what it is. Not over the thrum in your ears. The assault on your senses, the unstilted stretch that feels like it’s prying you apart. Splitting you down the middle. Your thighs tremble. A sting. A dull throb that spills in your underbelly, lapping at your sex in sweltering, warm waves. Your clit twitches. 

There is something so cataclysmic in the way he hollows you out. Carves himself deep, scoring you in a way that’ll leave you begging for a piece of him, after, when you’re empty. A piece of his rib in return. It’s wrong— you shouldn’t want this man, crave him like you crave sanctum and stability. Your frenzied desperation, panting over him, seated to the throbbing root, feels chock-full of a festering longing you’ve been burrowing down since last spring. Spilling over. It sprouts— and spring, you think, bitterly, is all about revival. Rebirth. Flowering— the yearning you’ve been hiding behind your teeth germinates across your shuddering shoulders. 

He makes you ride him. Grunting, spitting how he wants you to bounce on his cock like the good girl you are. Soft, sloppy, half-hearted grinds you can manage over him, until he takes over, hitched on a huff that sounds nearly exasperated, and ruts up into you with the leverage of his feet on the carpet. 

He fucks you like he’s sedulous to make good on his words. Hard, fast, bludgeoning your rationale until it feels like you need the tang of cigarettes and santalum in every wheezing breath you take, writhing over the shape of him. His thumbs on your nipples. His fingers under the weight of your bouncing tits. 

Every pummel up into you feels like it kisses the seal of your womb. Feels like it’s battering a little closer to fruitions, to threats, and omens, and promises. 

And you like it. Love it. Can’t get away, can’t get enough, pawing at his chest, and then his collarbones, and then his chin, fingers knocking the border of the plastic mask. Kiss me— you think it’s cruel. So cruel, that you can’t kiss him. Can’t make out the shape of his bared teeth, the glint of them with his lips snarling. You want to lick across them. Bite. Taste blood for doing this to you. For making you feel this way. You want to tear him apart. Catch his tongue against your incisors. 

The thought is a distant chimera. A daydream you can’t chase, snared in a limbo— just take, take, take. But over the crests of your cheekbones, your dewy gaze watches him. Watches him, the way he’s watched you. Unrelenting. It’s hazy at the borders. Your sight flecked with wetness, shuddering, like a camera in hands that can’t stay still, but you’re unremitting. 

“Spit on me,” he growls. It’s an abrupt request— command, brimful of authority. Perverse. Then again, when you don’t oblige, it spills as a rasping grunt, “Spit on me.”

It wheedles into your threadbare sense of logic, registers. Your brows weave. Pinch, face creasing when he delivers a sharp plunge up, into you, tip to root. It’s gross. Disgusting. Lecherous. You think about your saliva blooming across his face, the way his heavy balls will throb. 

You want to spit on him. You want to bite him, claw at him, hit him— you pucker your lips. 

It lands as a tacky glob stretching across the bridge of the nose on the mask. Seeping into the inner-corner of the eye cut-out. Glistening, slick. The sight is revolting. Nasty. Your lips curl down, your brows crinkle—

He groans. It’s loud. Suffocated on desire, hunger, want, akin to the noise he made sniffing at your hair like a monstrous hound. A fucking creep. 

One of his hands leaves your chest, his thumb wriggles under the plastic white mask. It gets discarded, tossed off onto the couch. 

The view of him in, only in a balaclava, is new. 

No less unnerving, but it’s different, and it makes your inhale tangle in your throat. Something clicks in your lungs. You hover over him, with his neck craned up at you, and his eyes are green. Two pools of epidote, eroding under the swell of his pupils. Hornblende inkblots. A long, winding wild forest. You could get lost in it. 

(And pitifully, part of you already has. Melting apart like gum under the sun, between his stupid, thick fingers.)

“Fuck. Again. Give me another,” he tells you. It rumbles, but it sounds like a plea. You feel it vibrating in his chest, under your fingers, first, then watch the divot of the balaclava wavering into his mouth when he takes in a breath between his teeth. The way the cotton is stretched, tucked, across the bridge of his nose. 

You spit where he breathes. Where he’s huffing with every brutal thrust of his hips. It speckles the ribbed cotton with shimmer, then melts into the black where his lips lay. You can’t see how it saturates the mask, but you watch the way it affects him. Watch him unravel— the way he breathes through his nose, long, deep, lashes fluttering and dusting along his cheeks as his irises loll, and you’re faced with the view of their pure ivory frames. The pink rim across his lower lash line. 

He hammers into you, mercilessly, with his leather fingertips against your clit. It’s too much. Too harsh. Pleasure and pain coagulate into a lagoon that sloshes your head, pulses between your thighs, under his incessant fingers. 

And when he comes apart, under you, you nearly tip over the precipice at the experience alone. He makes a ragged sound, a groan, hips stuttering, and spurts ribbon after ribbon of his cum against the spongy walls flexing around him. Into you. Against the seal of your womb— oh, God— you burrow your hot face into his shoulder, hips canting, and bite at the leather. 

“Fuck,” he slurs. Heaves— and you feel him melting under you. Thawing. 

Your spine ripples. The molten heat of his cum, sticking to you, plugged up by his throbbing cock, makes you feel feverish. Aching. Charred all over, from the inside. You take a deep breathe and taste his musk at the back of your throat. Lingering along your tongue.

It’s almost comforting. But the reminder of who this man is, and what he does (has done to you, is doing), crawls along the serenity of your haze like a poisonous treacle. You muster the strength in your core to rock up onto your knees, make to clamber off. 

“Okay,” you breathe, “Okay—“

The thought of repose is a bittersweet mirage, though, sparkling in the distance, when he nudges his hips back up from beneath you. 

It knocks into something that makes your lungs seize. You feel his tacky spend coated across the undersides of your ass cheeks, spilling against the inside of your thighs. Pooling in the thicket of dark, wiry hair that nests around the root of his cock, dusting his balls. He grunts, and when he jostles you over his lap again, you have to catch your balance with your hands against his pecs. 

His eyes are shimmery when you blink up at them. Expressive enough for you to clock the derisive mirth that curdles, in shavings, along the chrysoberyl flecks in the tumultuous seas, when he hums. “You didn’t think I was done, did you?”   

He’s not done. Not for a good, long while. But you suppose, that a year of self-denial, precipitous self-restraint, is bound to spill over, eventually.

(It’s just too bad for you that you ended up in the path of the hurricane, front and center.)

He fucks you again over the arm of the couch, with your ribs smushed to the ledge and your knees on the cushion. Arms behind your back, head dangling, tits aching with the press of his weight, every drag against the fabric. Fingers in your mouth, straining the corners wide, riding the grooves of your clamped, slick teeth. Pawing at your ass, squeezing the flesh, prying your cheeks apart humiliatingly wide.

He makes you cum again. And again, until you’re sobbing. Legs hitched over his shoulders, chin twisted, gnawing into your own shoulder to stifle your mewls. 

“Tell me your name,” you slur under him. With his chin over tucked your shoulder, his hum ripples across your eardrum like a humid gust. Rolls between your shoulder blades. 

“Tell me your name,” you beg, again, mottled with frenzied desperation that climbs your throat. You know those eyes. You know that face— the one that lies underneath. The misty contours of it scratch across your skull in the smog of a memory. You know—

Your lower lip wobbles when he cups over your sternum, takes your breast in a doughy handful, squeezing around it, drowning you in every wet squelch, every slap of his hips against your ass. 

“Daddy.”

When you wake up, he’s not there. Ephemeral. The night nearly feels temporal, if not for the slick between your thighs, dewy at your cunt, where your seam is still aching. Crusting along the insides of your thighs. 

You feel like every bone is out of place. Like everything needs to crackle and slot back. Worn, tired, when you kick your feet over the edge of the mattress and stand. It pangs between your legs, first. And then across your chest. 

Your underwear is gone. You know you won’t find it. 

When you check the clock it’s midday. Late, too late to even be considered sleeping in. You’ve wasted the twenty-second off into somnolence. There’s still a haze across your head. This balmy, misty thing that keeps you sluggish. Tired. You’d chalk it up to oversleeping, but. 

It’s short-lived. Hollowed by the vacancy. Something stirs in the back of your head— you should probably send a life signal out to your family. Let them know you’re not splattered across the sidewalk, somewhere, or worse yet—

You think about his words. Keeping you all to himself. The thought makes your shoulders shudder. 

On the way to the bathroom, you find carmine carnations in your kitchen. Mounted in a vase that belongs to you, plucked out of the cabinet over your fridge. Beautiful, beautiful carnations.

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[morganbritton132]

Steve Has Older Siblings AU: Robin Edition

In an ideal world, Steve’s family life is completely separate from everything important. But in an ideal world, monsters don’t exist so, you know.

1. Technically the first of Steve’s siblings that Robin meets is Jason because he came into Scoops Ahoy to be an asshole. Robin liked to see King Steve knocked down a peg or two more than the next person but not by a forty year old (he’s 32) loser who has nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon. Robin sees him knock Steve’s hat off his head and then informs him that they had a zero tolerance harassment policy (they don’t) and they can and are denying him service. “So leave, now.”

2. The first time she is aware that she’s meeting one of Steve’s siblings is after Starcourt burns down. They were drugged, tired, and Russians took Steve’s car keys so it felt like a good idea to just lay back on the hood of the Beemer and watch the smoke swirl in the air until they come up with what to do.

They never think of anything, and she is startled awake the next morning hungover and dehydrated by someone laying on their horn. Robin looks at the car and then at Steve, and then asks, “Is that your dad?”

Steve - looking somehow worse than yesterday - just blinks in the direction of the car like, “Richie?”

“Get in the car,” Richie practically seethes, barely lets them get in before he starts asking questions like, what the fuck and are you high, right now?”

“I don’t dooo drugs, Dad,” Steve spat out annoyed and Robin, in the backseat, felt compelled to adds, “Drugs do me.”

They both start giggling and can’t stop even when Richie tries to lecture them.

3. Robin meets Jason again when he attacks her.

She doesn’t remember much about the car ride back to Loch Nora or how Steve convinced Richie not to take them to the hospital, but she remembers flopping face first onto Steve’s cloud of a bed. She remembers him taking her shoes off for her and pulling the covers up.

Then she is rudely woken up by a hand yanking her out of bed and big arms wrapping around her head. They’re barely there before Steve is shoving them off her like, “Fuck off, Jason.”

“Carver?” She asks but, no. It’s the dick from the mall. She is ignored while Jason prattles on about how it’s not his fault that Steve looks so much like a girl that he confused him with one. Then he’s whistling about how Steve has a girl in his bed and how surprising that is to them considering they all thought he was a queer.

Robin stiffens beside him. New queer ally, Steve Harrington, not wanting her to be uncomfortable, blurts out, “What if I am?”

And the room goes quiet. Steve’s quiet. Jason’s frozen. Richie, coming in through the door, wasn’t moving. This family doesn’t really paint a picture of unconditional love and acceptance so Robin throws her entire (unsuccessful) theater career into use and slugs Steve in the arm with a snort like, “Yeah, right. With all the girls you flirt with? Ha!”

And everything comes back to life. The hospital conversation comes up and morphs into an argument immediately. Robin is just happy to fade into the background and observe.

4. Robin probably should’ve met Claire that day too but the hospital was an apparent disaster. She actually meets Claire randomly at Family Video.

She sees a woman who’s kinda cute come in and peruse the shelves. She comes to the counter where Robin is on register and Steve is stocking candy right next to her.

She’s carrying The Muppet Movie and makes small talk about watching it with her kids, and never looks twice in Steve’s directly. She’s not in the system and just laughs, “It’s probably under my maiden name, Harrington.”

Robin gives her a tight smile and finishes the transaction. Claire leaves with barely a ‘bye’ to her brother and Robin decides right there that she hates them all.