#DOES HE EVER LEARN HIS LESSON
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everytime i watch secrets of the scroll i want to grab shifu by the shoulders and shake him like a fucking maraca
#DOES HE EVER LEARN HIS LESSON#shifu: i have made the perfect student#me: you fucked up a perfectly good daughter is what you did. look at her. she's got daddy issues#the bits in the series that feature tigress' reaction to people with openly loving parents kill me#viper @ sots 'oh father I'm going to make you proud' 'i have always been proud of you'#SHIFU WHEN I GET YOU SHIFU WHEN I GET YOU#kfp#GOD THIS APPLIES TO TAI LUNG TOO#i love shifu but like. rewatching tai lung's fight and all the heartache that comes with it#the heartache that is STILL THERE W TIGRESS#sometimes while watching the series i wonder how he sees her#as his daughter? his student? or his chance at redemption for what he did to tai lung?#either way. pain#agony even#tacking on an edit to this bc i don't think she's fundamentally 'bad' bc of shifu's bad parenting#i love tigress#its just the angst surrounding her relationship with shifu HURTS
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hm. i do not like chilshi 🤔
#sylph.txt#everyone likes to joke abt how much of an epic divorce man chilchuck is#but i dont think he ever even refers to her as his ex-wife. i could b wrong bc it's been a while since i read it tho#idk a lot of his arc is him learning to b more open w others (which is essentially what ended his relationship)#and u can see how much he's grown in the chapter where senshi goes into his past#to me it would b a lot sweeter for him to take on these lessons and go back to her and make things work#it's been 4 years but he's remained loyal to her depite their issues. idk to me it rlly does feel like he still loves her he's just a fool#it's made p clear that he's a coward and that he's quick to run away so actually committing to her would b a nice way to wrap things up#we don't get to see much of his wife so i get y ppl r quick to put him w the only other man in the party#but like senshi knows abt his wife too like i do not think he's gnna b making any moves here bc he has morals lmao#(*only other older man in the party. laios doesn't qualify for old man yaoi to most chilshi likers)#(even tho chilchuck isn't old either but shh they don't care abt that)#when it comes to senshi the changeling chapter def helped him w understanding how old the rest of the party is#but he clearly still views them as significantly younger than him#i don't think he views chil as a child anymore but for the majority of their time together he did#and so going from that to in a relationship is uhh rlly weird to me!#senshi has always taken a sort of parental role upon himself#w him romance is no where as interesting as the platonic bonds he has w the rest of the party#similar to how romance is entirely unimportant to izutsumi in the succubus chapter#idk i def don't hate the pairing and there r some takes on it that i find funny#but for me i just don't see anything between them i think ppl just want an m/m ship to play with#that ao3 gap is only gnna get bigger lmao
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Actually the implications of John also being bisexual are so fucking tasty to me because like. OG John has no support system and no protection against the world except his own perceived strength so he learns to ferret out anything that can possibly be seen as weakness to those around him and that includes any affection or attraction he might feel towards men because nothing screams "stay in your fucking closet" like spending all your time around a fringe subculture of serial killing doomsday preppers in the Midwest during the Reagan era.
By the time he notices Dean starting to look a little too long at boys his age, he's probably convinced himself that whatever he felt (still feels but ignores) was a temporary youthful indiscretion, and of course Dean can't afford those, doesn't get to have those, he's got to be a soldier. He's got to be a better soldier than John, even.
I dunno I've just had enough conversations with family members who are loudly but somehow also mildly homophobic and yet say or do things that make me *eyeballs emoji* not to think this is not only possible but arguably likely.
#supernatural#the winchesters#spn#spnwin#john winchester#shifting my headcanon of john to the type of person who doesn't think of himself as homophobic if he ever things about it at all#and would even probably try to stop a hate crime if he saw one happening right in front of him#(or likes to think he would)#but also views his own queer desire--and thus that of others--with suspicion and contempt#like something frivolous that he simply doesn't have the luxury to pursue as a Real Man in the Real World with Real Responsibilities#and when you live like that especially due to your own choices anything that seems like a luxury you view with a certain level of contempt#so he's like 'heh must be nice to have time for boyfriends' in the most condescending and degrading way imaginable#in the same way he probably treated sam's affinity for academia#in fact i'd argue a lot of what we see from dean with regards to the way he mocks sam for certain things is probably just echoes of john#and what's REALLY crazy-making is the way most of these things dean mocks sam for early on later prove to be things DEAN actually does enjo#dean likes to read and he loves chick flicks and he gets excited about tomatoes and enjoys dressing up nice#dean learned early on that certain things were not acceptable for a Real Man from john bullying him out of doing them#and he does the same to sam#and one of the things he consistently mocks sam for in the beginning is his perceived sexuality#and sure we could just chalk that up to stereotyping but EVEN THEN that jives with the idea that#john simply put his own queer desire in a box labeled 'weaknesses real men don't have' along with idk a love of reading and salads and bein#emotionally vulnerable and sincere with people you love#and then he told Dean 'this is the box of forbidden things'#and dean the ever-dutiful son learned his lesson well
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price overhears soap betting ghost to see who could hold a plank the longest and he knows he should say something because he’s seen ghost hold them for 10+ minutes at a time for fun and in no world does soap win his own bet, but in the end he keeps quiet because soap’s gotta learn a lesson somehow
#the lesson is that soap should never put money on the line if something involves ghost#he does not ever learn his lesson#john soap mactavish#simon ghost riley#john price#ghost mw2#soap mw2#modern warfare#call of duty
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it makes me SO sad that it’s hard to go through Samwise’s tags or find people for whom he is their favorite that don’t put down Frodo. I’m thankful that the number of those who truly understand him and love both him and who he struggles for is greater than it could be and has been in the past, but it’s still so heartbreaking to see, because I love Sam so dearly, and he’d never want this. It’s such a disrespect of Sam’s character to think that the only way to praise him is to undermine or insult Frodo. And it’s a disrespect to the narrative of Lord of the Rings as well. People constantly reference a cherry picked and out of context piece of a letter Tolkien wrote, desperately trying to claim that Sam is The Singular Hero of the story, when that wasn’t even remotely the context of the letter, yet its been used for years to undermine all the other characters of the series and erase the well rounded character Sam is to shave him into some one dimensional He-Man. Sam is undoubtedly one of the chief characters of the story, THE chief character of the story alongside Frodo. Without Sam the quest would not have been fulfilled. Yet Tolkien makes it clear that Sam could not have done Frodo’s job— especially not on his own. Just as the Ring broke down Frodo, it would have done for Sam— especially by the point of Mordor. That isn’t where Sam’s strength and value lies. It doesn’t lie in being the sacrifice. It lies in being the hope, the support, the utterly maddened loyalty and stubbornness and love that overcomes and strengthens. As I have come to say, Frodo carried the world, and Sam carried Frodo. People seem to think that as lesser, and I find that insulting. Would you find a friend that supported you in dark times lesser? Are they not your world in those moments? Do they not hold up the world for you yourself, as you struggle to carry the weight of it, and remind you that whatever suffering, you will never be abandoned or alone, even if both of you endure the fires of hell and no brightness shines through. It will not be alone. That is the beauty of Sam, and the people that treat that role as though it was not enough or that he should have had more on his plate show their lack of understanding of the very character they claim to praise.
#samwise gamgee#frodo baggins#I was just thinking this bc i realized I didn’t have as many Sam posts on my blog and I began to wonder why since he is one of my favorite#characters of all time#and then I remembered that I have learned to avoid diving directly into his tag without screening the poster first#because most of the content for Sam is just treating Frodo as a burden or useless or weak and Sam as though he had no weakness#and that always hurts because it’s such a disrespect and pity to two of the most wonderful characters ever written#to erase Sam’s struggles and faults and weakness is to reduce him and the very reason he is such an amazing person.#that Sam pushes through and becomes the hero he does despite his flaws and weakness is the very point#the fact that neither Frodo nor Sam could accomplish the quest without the other is the very point#putting down one over the other is such a gross simplification and misunderstanding of the text#and oh I am SO tired of the ‘Sam is the real hero Tolkien said so’ misinfo#I don’t know who started that whole thing but if I ever met them they would get a black eye or a lecture and maybe both#I’ve looked up that letter and it is not at all what people make it out to be.#the general group that spreads that shows they have zero critical thinking or reading comprehension or even media literacy.#it’s sad to see such a valuable story and lesson and narrative be bastardized and trampled on#I love Samwise so deeply. he is undoubtedly the reason Frodo makes it as far as he does#I am lucky to have friends like him. their worth cannot be measured.
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it's not imprisonment or torture alone that would break illario and truly teach him a lesson: it's illario hearing about all the new things happening in lucanis' life and the world going on just fine without him in it. then, it really feels like lucanis is dead; illario feels loss for real this time, even heavier than the time he'd genuinely mourned lucanis during the wake. this time, he doesn't have the confidence nor the plan behind his actions to make the grief easier to deal with or reassure him that he did the right thing—this time, he only has himself to blame. say what you want about illario, but he really does care for lucanis. he truly does consider him a brother. unfortunately, it was caterina pitting them against one another through her vastly different treatment of the two that made illario feel that his course of action was the only route available to him. what happened to lucanis was not something he wanted to do: it was something he felt he had to do. caterina wasn't going to look out for him or favor him in the way she did lucanis, so he had to look out for himself; he had to prove to her and to himself, whether caterina knew it or not, that he was fit for the role of first talon. if he could do this, if he could be rid of lucanis and do this incredibly hard thing, he deserved it. that is, after all, what a talon is supposed to do, isn't it? make the hard decisions whatever the cost? after lucanis' death, illario really does seem a little wiser, a little calmer, though still as seductive and slimy. anyone around him would justly blame his slight change in personality on the death of his cousin, but it's not as simple as that. and in the end, what illario did just isn't enough. illario never has been enough. only through imprisonment and being cut out of lucanis' life will illario realise that it was all for nothing. he hurt himself and lucanis for no gain at all, and only if lucanis shuts him out for long enough—months to years; it will not be a quick process because illario will truly believe lucanis will always crawl back to him, and it will take a long time for him to realise that's not the case—will he learn that. a lack of contact with lucanis that is lucanis' choice is the only way illario is capable changing into a different man.
#🐦⬛⠀ ── ��headcanon : illario dellamorte .#breaking news in the fact that i've unlocked the only way illario ever learns his lesson#i'm on the floor in tears (real) (there are real tears)#ask me how illario would change and what would happen because of it! i dare you!#ask me about illario and zara renata! i dare you!#also i haven't chosen to forgive him in game so i'm biased when i say this but#i do not think forgiving him will change him in the way imprisoning him will change him at ALL#he's scheming in his head even if those plans never go into action. there are always “what if tried x” in a forgiven illario situation#he does not learn lessons easily!
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new redeemed verse and a lil waffle of why i changed things below
i've been kinda. stuck? for a minute on rinns redeemed verse and what to do with it. bc it enables certain interactions she doesn't have in her main verse. but in it's current state of just following the redeemed durge path it...doesn't make sense for who she is as a person. rinn, unfortunately, will do anything it takes to survive. the only time she'll embrace death is if everyone else has been slaughtered.
one of the foundations of who she is, is how effectively she was broken before going to the temple. those years trying to reject the urge and failing, completely alone, broke her ability to resist. having the party and their support allows her to reject her father - but never to his face. until the temple, her father is just a ominous figure sceleritas tells her of, she has deniability of who he is, and therefore it's easy to reject his wishes. being in his temple / facing his avatar is...a fair bit different, and frankly she isn't strong enough to reject him to his face. she isn't strong enough to die.
tldr; rinn will never be strong enough to reject bhaal to his face, and so she will always accept becoming his chosen again. this time it's just out of fear rather than devotion. she's gonna suffer for it.
the redeemed durge path is the same up until the temple in act 3, so she doesn't kill isobel and discourages killing aylin / she supports shadowheart rejecting shar / resists the urge where possible / discourages astarion from ascending...still encourages wyll to break his contract though. idk she cares about her companions gaining freedom rather than gaining power in this verse.
still murdery though
when bhaal offers her to become his chosen again, she's unable to say no. afterwards she will express remorse and honestly tell the party that he would have killed her if she rejected him, and promises she's still in it to destroy the brain.
and she keeps that promise!! she doesn't hesitate to end the brain regardless of bhaals punishment.
this is where the major divergence happens. when they're in the clear, she gets a vision of her punishment. it won't be going mad.
she's more than bhaals child, she's a literal extension of him, and he's always been slightly more lenient with her. and this time it's no different, he lays down a path for her to earn his forgiveness while making her suffer.
he strips her of her place as his chosen, for one, and many of the gifts that came with it. exiling her from the temple until she proves herself again.
her true punishment comes in the form of taking her memories. that part doesn't happen immediately, the curse takes hold overnight, giving her long enough to tell the party some of whats to come.
she won't remember anything. not of the tadpoles, the absolute, or the things they've done together. unable to even recall snippets. and she won't remember what she is.
the nasty part of the curse is that even if she's told she's bhaalspawn, she'll forget immediately. she cannot retain that information. everything else, she can remember even if she feels nothing for the bonds they formed.
bhaals gone back to foundations. when he made her, he left her on the streets of city to make a home and then ruin it. he simply repeats; the urge is silent again, a ticking timebomb, and in months or years he'll set it off again. so whatever home she's able to make will die just like the first time.
rinn will get some years of freedom, but she's lost everything. literally. and that freedom will come to a violent end when he decides it, and without memories she'll never be able to prepare for it. then he'll wait for her to break under the weight of the urge and only when she's proven herself she'll get those memories back.
#this got so long#getting the best of both worlds: rinn learning to be a slightly nicer person. and rinn suffering so bad it woulda been kinder to kill her#listen guys it was just on my mind a lot last night that she'll never be able to directly reject bhaal bc shes just not built like that#the curse of literally being a part of him rather than his child ig. and thats a double edged sword bc yeah shes a part of him#he spent so long creating her for one purpose. why go back to the drawing board bc she misbehaved#when he can unmake her and remind her of her lessons from the first time#anyway she aint ever getting free i fear shes a tragedy of her own cowardice#𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖇𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖋𝖎𝖊𝖉 𝖔𝖓𝖊 / my guilt does not purify.
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Doodle of my boy
#keese draws#eternal gales#oc art#oc#fydd <3333333333#he is my bestie I need to get over my fear of drawing him so bad#grips bathroom sink I Will get better at drawing for fun and letting my art be messy and being proud of it anyways#but yeah look at him he is so cute and is so silly and he’s never gone through any traumatic events ever I would never#<- lying lier who lies and loves tormenting it’s ocs#but yeah he’s half alien half human but was raised entirely by his human mom#his alien mom is alas stuck in the cult the two met at rip#fydd doesn’t know abt any of that tho he just knows that he has another mom that his mom doesn’t like talking abt#he loves playing games of all kind but especially loves video games and will play them for hours#not that he has much else to do since he’s spent pretty much his entire life living by a garbage dump in the middle of nowhere#and he’s not allowed to go fuck around in the dump much since his mom doesn’t want him to be seen so he’s stuck at home most of the time#thankfully now he has an adopted sister to play with but he still has viddy game autism#his mom has done her best to introduce him to the various cultures she and his other mom came from but she struggles with it#she was quite disconnected from her own culture growing up and she knows limited amount about her girlfriends home planet#fydd doesn’t mind much rn cause he’s 12 but a certain other older fydd might care a smidge more#fydd does like 60% know both japanese and spanish tho so that’s pretty cool#his mom tried to do regular lessons when he was younger but wasn’t able to keep them up consistently and eventually gave up#mostly because she wasn’t anywhere near fluent in either herself and she had a hard time keeping up with how fast fydd would pick up on it#they still have some books from back then laying around that fydd will pick up and read aloud when he’s bored sometimes#he gets bored of speaking english all the time as his brain is built to pick apart different sounds and assign them linguistic meaning#so reading and speaking different languages is good enrichment for him#his mom doesn’t know this unfortunately otherwise she totally would have gotten him more stuff in different languages to chew on#he does get to learn the language the stalien cast speaks tho he has a lot of fun with that#he alas can’t properly experience most stalien video games though rip#I should rly get to redesigning his human mom again at some point she needs it sooo bad#I mean her whole squad needs it but she’s my favorite so like
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james somerton is just one of those people who wants to do whatever he wants and cannot stand the consequences of their own actions, which they willingly chose to do. entitled and self-absorbed motherfuckers. and that's the only way you can think to do the things he's done in the first place. having no base respect for the people you steal from and your audience, of course you think you can somehow do something to win them back. you can't. no one but an egomaniac would do what he's done in the first place, and only an egomaniac would think they can come back from that and still deserve to be praised and respected and have your cozy career like you did before you were exposed for what you've done. people like this cannot be worked with in the public eye.
#as a human i dont wish for his life to be ruined but as a 'professional' creator he absolutely does not deserve a career#he only had it because of theft. theft which he did because he felt he was owed riches and privilege that the ppl who stole from#apparently did not.#theft and lies! and his lies are another can of worms entirely#monstrous venomous worms#text post#he just needs to go away and his personal problems need to only affect himself and the ppl around him.#the online lgbtq/cultural commentary community should have nothing to do with him.#he's done nothing for anybody else in the digital space. he NEEDS. to LEAVE#nobody here should ever have to think about him again. as a human being w a drop of compassion.#bc he was never really in community with anybody in fact he's actively been hostile to the idea that he's not on an island#where he makes the most important and best queer content.#let him be a lesson and close the book on him#he should genuinely be banned from all platforms so he never has access to steal from or manipulate anyone ever again.#he should NOT BE A PUBLIC PROBLEM ANYMORE.#the only way he can exist in public after all he's done is as a menace. and that's his and his doing only. so goodbye james. go away#you learn how to live with those thoughts by yourself. it's not *our* issue
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my coloc complimented me on my pronunciation today and i'm like :"")
#he is also learning french so i'll take his compliment but ik my accent is still obviously foreign (imo at least) -_-'' :P#but tbh even when i speak in english my accent is v neutral so i guess it helps when i speak other languages?? idk#but he was like 'damn wait have you ever taken lessons before?'#and i said sorta yeah but none of them were very intense and i didn't see improvement solely from them NOR was speaking emphasised a lot#due to time restrictions#and he was like 'so how do you work on your pronunciation/accent??'#and i was like 'i just speak and if it sounds wrong i fix it' but like i listen to a lotta francophone music and watch a lotta french film#so i guess it does influence how i speak??#he was like 'wow if you're already like this in just six weeks of intense classes you'll advance so quickly'#i was like 🙈🙈🙈#ik it doesn't work like that for me but hey it was sweet of him to say <3 and hey maybe he is right! i should believe in myself a little#roacc
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cw: weed & smoking / teen wally
wally got caught because of joey i just fucking know it LMAO OKAY he’s playing out w his friends and sees smoke coming out of wally’s bedroom window. naturally, he yells “fire! there’s a fire!” and runs inside the house
leads to wally being caught red-handed (or red-eyed see i’m so funny) and getting the worst lecture of his life from his mother. i can see his dad laughing ts off tbh😭and joey swears he saved wally’s life that day (wally learned to only smoke late at night that day…)
i’m convinced that his mom sends him to one of those centers after that teach people about drugs and addiction. it’s literally a DARE class LMFAO
#he got a certificate when the class ended and thinks it’s the funniest shit ever#no he does not learn his lesson. duh#kuki also lectures him i’m sure of it#abby and hoagie talk about it ALL OF THE TIME#knd#codename kids next door#cknd#kids next door
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thinking about jamie's bisexuality tonight.
#specifically his internalized biphobia#we know he's not externally biphobic bc he knows keeley's bi and he still loves her and isn't disparaging to her in any way#but in regards to himself#he knows he's bi but the thought of just referring to himself in that way makes him want to be physically sick#he can and will acknowledge that he's attracted to men both in public and in private#see: he ain't my type he's too scratchy & i'm flattered#and people know he's bi#see: i'm flattered (again) & it's so nice to finally meet you both & rk6 always remains#but i think his whole childhood his dad was just. awful to him irt rk6 and even his estate friends who he thought were too close with jamie#he probably called him every slur and slur adjacent word in the book#i don't think jamie was ever the sort to use those slurs bc he probably immediately went home and asked georgie 'what does xyz mean'#and good mum georgie bolton would've been like. we do not call people those words#and if she ever found out he did he would've been in sooooo much trouble#'no rk6 for a week' and that would've made him learn his lesson LMAO#anyways#i genuinely think he could say 'this is my boyfriend xyz' before he could say 'i'm bisexual'#and he really needs a lot of long long long term therapy to feel secure in himself#like. he's not ashamed of who he is. he said the scratchy thing on national television. he's not keeping it a secret#but he can't come out and say it and he'd be almost nauseous if a boyfriend ever wanted to go public#both bc of his aforementioned Everything and bc of the environment that the prem just. is#it's incredibly homophobic and it's known that it's incredibly homophobic#i think it would take jamie a lot of talking with colin to feel comfortable going public before him#just bc he's more willing to be a spokesperson than colin is#like we know jamie he can take heat (see go back down south pretty boy and like. all of mom city in general)#and we know he likes a pedestal (see everything about jamie ever)#but. it's gonna take time. a lot of time.
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*grabs block of cheese*
"My liege, your lactose intolerance would make it Hell for your guests to go to the bathroom for today's Pride Party."
*puts cheese back*
"Good my liege..."
*grabs a pound of brie and milk*
"WAIT NO!"
i wish i had a floating evil skull to follow me around and when we went to the grocery store she would say something like my liege we must purchase the strawberry cream cheese for the coming days and i would be like oh fuck youre so right and put it in my cart and then we would walk down the next aisle together our beautiful life
#best sitcom premise ever#you inherent your estranged grandfather's house and now you have this floating skull#he still wants to take over the universe but you got bills to pay#its a fun little buddy buddy comedy until the midseason plot begins to unfold#your grandfather--the ancient warlock Balthazar the Wicked--is getting resurrected by cultists and the skull has recently been recruited#the skull is all in but then he starts to grow emotions towards the world and suddenly he doesn't want to be evil#there will be like twelve seasons of this#yes the skull will develop a romance with a headless mannequin golem#yes one of the side characters is the main character's father#they had a rough relationship but that was because his father--Balthazar the Wicked--was tough to be around#the father was kind of the chosen one but gave it all up to start a suburban family#didn't teach his kid magic because he wanted her to have a “normal life”#the show represents their struggles together#and Balthazar DOES get resurrected but because the main characters messed with the ritual he is actually reincarnated into the body of a ch#so now season two or three or four will have him as a side character trying to get his magic and stuff back and become old again#but he also learns the lesson of kindness#and this just feels like a really sweet show#can someone produce this?#queuety pie
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an eye for an eye | knight!ghost x f!reader
your husband bends to your will. men must learn from difficult lessons how far that bending goes.
type: a continuation of a hand for a hand, but can be read stand-alone (11.6k), AO3
cw: 1600s au, dark!ghost, reader described as curvier/plus-sized, graphic depictions of war + violence, possessive!ghost, war-criminal!ghost, inaccurate historical settings probably, unprotected piv, cumplay, breeding kink, size kink, simon "i'd do anything for my wife no matter the devasting consequences" riley (18+)
Your husband has an insatiable appetite. Such a big man he is; he towers over you, so much so that you must tip your head back always to look up at him. You had to make many arrangements in your house to accommodate his hunger–a pantry stocked full of eggs and less fabric for your skirts.
Your house isn’t like others. Neither you nor Ghost have ever lived in luxury. When he showed you your home for the first time, you had shaken your head–you didn’t believe that such a large place was supposed to be yours, and even now, sometimes you feel like a stranger, out of place when the maids ask you what you want for supper or where you’d like to take your afternoon tea. You don’t like the fuss, the asking, the women that curtsy when you come near, concentrated over the creases in your skirts or the loose thread of your sleeve or the wispy hairs that fall out of your braids. You are told all the time that you must behave like a duchess, that you must poise yourself with your new title and your new money, and you must do the things that duchesses do–but no one says the same to your husband.
He is still allowed to sleep in the barracks. Lick the blood off his gauntlets. Polish his sword in the dirt. He’s still allowed to be everything that you cannot be anymore, he still lives the life he had before.
He still kills; and he is still very, very good at it.
Your queen told you in a letter that the king is very pleased. Ever since your union, Ghost has been quite the conqueror. Bloodthirsty and very determined, your husband has been taking his men across the water. He is not any less impressive off land. Not even the pirates have tried to negotiate; they bend the knee or taste the salt water. You breathe shakily when you read your queen’s letters—her praise for your husband’s conquests, how blessed your family will be and how valuable you are to the crown, how grateful she is that Ghost is no longer a fiend in court but rather a little more polite and a little quieter.
All for your sake. Ghost’s name is now your own, and he refuses to embarrass you now that you have it.
You won’t lie; the bodies that Ghost has stacked since you’ve been wed do not scare you. He’s doing it for you. He has never said it out loud, never told you so, but you know it. He wants to show you what kind man that he is, what kind of soldier—you know he’s trying to prove himself worthy. If he killed a thousand men to have you, how many will he slaughter to keep you?
He sends you letters of his own. Not many, but he does send letters, and while Ghost seems to be ineloquent and entirely too brutish, he has quite the voice when he writes.
To my wife,
The sun falls quicker here. I’d like to come home. Tell me of your day, and I will tell you of mine. There were a fleet of ships that came to meet us at dawn. When we sank three, they begged for us to spare the rest.
I have you to think about now. So I burned them.
Simon
A poet, your beloved.
He signs his real name in his letters. Your eyes skim over most of it–you don’t even blink when he tells you what he does to them. Sometimes he writes in great detail about the screams of a hundred souls, the way burning flesh smells, the taste of dirt in a new place when you know it is finally yours. He doesn’t like having secrets. He tells you all his thoughts, even if they might scare you, because you are his wife, and he has discovered quite quickly that you have been cut from the same cloth.
Even when he is home, and he tells you these things all over again, he can’t help the way his cock hardens when you merely blink and ask him if he has added any scars to his collection.
Ravenous, naughty little duchess, and you are all his. He knows he picked well–he knows, he knows he wasn’t wrong when he saw you across the throne room hiding behind his queen, he knows now that he was right about what he saw in your eyes.
You do hate when he’s away. You’re not used to the maids helping you dress, and you secretly abhor the help. That is why when you hear the shuffle of your house early in the morning, your heart thuds in your chest knowing he’s home.
The staff get antsy when Simon is around. He is very good at keeping an estate for someone that has never had to or ever been taught to, but he leaves the responsibilities with you and only you every time he goes. He doesn’t trust anyone else to do it, and every time he comes back, he makes you sit on one big thigh as he teaches you something new that you need to remember for when he goes away. He demands much of those he employs, and they are eager to please him. Whether it is because they respect him or are afraid of him, you aren’t sure.
Perhaps it’s both.
You sit up as the bedroom door opens. You smile, big and wide and sleepy as he steps into the room. He shuts the door with his boot, slipping his hood off, and you sigh as he grips the clasp of his mask and unhooks it. He tosses it onto the floor, bare-faced, and as he makes his way towards the bed, he sheds the rest of his clothes until he’s completely naked.
You cannot stop yourself from the shaky breath you take. He is all muscle and fat, strong and entirely too scary, but it’s hard to focus on what he really is when he stands before you like this. He has fat thighs, big shoulders, carved muscle of intense labor around his middle and along his biceps. He has large hands with calloused palms and split knuckles, and your eyes meet his own as he comes closer. He’s so gorgeous, even with a face like that. He has a long scar that stretches from one brow to his lower jaw, another that cuts his nose and splits his lip, but those eyes are dark and lovely, and you can’t help the warmth that comes over you when he catches you staring at him, closer, right to his cock that hangs heavy between his legs.
Just as he begins to lower himself onto the bed, you hold out a hand, giggling.
“Simon, if you think you are getting into this bed without a proper bath, you’re mistaken!” You laugh, and he raises a brow.
“Mmm…” He smacks his lips together. “Tha’ right, my lady?” He clicks his tongue. “This is my bed. ’s oll mine. Every blanket…every pillow…” He grips your ankle from under the covers and yanks you towards him. “And every part of you.”
You giggle again, shaking your head, “Please, Simon!” You push him away with your toes. “They only changed the sheets yesterday. You’ll dirty them…” You flutter your lashes. “Will you bathe if I join you?”
He grins wide, licking over his teeth.
“Can’t refuse an offer like tha’.”
You hold out your hand for him, and he takes it gently. You watch as he brings your knuckles towards his mouth, and you bite back a smile when he decides to kiss each one, slow. He tugs finally, pulling you up, and you wrap your arms around his neck as he hoists you up into his arms. You would worry about your weight normally, but Simon holds you so easily, barely even a grunt as he wraps your legs around his middle. You don’t waste another second, cupping his cheeks in your hands and kissing him softly.
It’s never just a kiss with Simon. He slides one of his hands up your back, into your hair, and you whine as he tips your head back just enough to slip his tongue into your mouth. Simon doesn’t just kiss, he consumes. What he did to get back to you, the things he endured, the places he has seen and the bodies he has buried and burned and scattered across the places he now calls country, it’s always to get back to this place.
To you.
“How’s my boy?” He asks when you pull away. He carries you to another room, to where the tub sits, and he rings a bell by the door to call the maids in. You snatch a robe off a hook and cover him with it as he sits with you, but all he does is put a few fingers under your chin and make you look at him again. “Oi. Asked ya question, luv.”
Your lip wobbles a little, and you look away.
“I…” You wait until the maids have gone to fetch hot water to tell him. “I bled while you were gone. I…” You smooth your hands over the robe, distracting yourself. “I’m…I’m sorry, Simon.”
You close your eyes as he leans close, resting his forehead against yours, and you shake a little as he lets out a warm breath against your lips. He moves a warm hand over your soft stomach, cupping you there, and you lean your head back a little at the tender touch.
“It will happen,” he says finally, and your mouth opens to respond, but he sticks his thumb between your lips to shut you up. He doesn’t want to hear you blame yourself. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s his, for not being here with you, for not be able to take care of you. You give in, suckling on the salt of him, and he grits his teeth as he watches you. “I know. Seen it in m’dreams.”
Simon has dreams. Lots of dreams, but he tells you that they are not dreams, they are glimpses into something that has already happened. When you asked if he was some kind of seer, the kind that the king used to have at parties, Simon doesn’t laugh.
He says the dreams are why he knows he won’t die. Why he is never afraid, because he knows somewhere behind his eyes what’s to come even if he didn’t see the entire painting of it. It is why he knew he would marry you; it is why he paid you so much attention, why he knew he would win his battles, why he always knows whose blood it is in his mouth because he has tasted their death before and relishes in the knowing of it all, in the certainty.
It’s never I think, it is always I know, and Simon is nothing if he is not the most honest man that you know.
So if he says you will have his babe, it is as good as truth. As green as the grass grows beneath his feet, as blue as his sky, and as red as the blood that is caked underneath his nails.
When the tub is filled with water, you let Simon sink into it first. You kneel beside it, picking up a glass of oil, pouring it into your palms before sinking your hands into his hair. It’s gotten longer since he left, in need of a cut, but you smile when he leans his head back into your shoulder. You can feel his content as he relaxes into you, and you admire his physique as you use the warm water and scrub the mud and grime off of him.
“I missed you, husband,” you whisper, and he only lets you massage his hair for a few more moments before he grips you by the wrist and tugs you forward, right into the bath. “Simon!” you laugh, “my night dress—oh!—it’s ruined!”
“Too far away,” he mutters, practically ripping the silk off of you as he tosses it besides the bath. “Mmm…” He cups your breasts with two big hands, smoothing his thumbs over your nipples, and you whine a little as he pulls at them just enough to make them stiffen. “Y’should be naked when I come home,” he says lowly. “I’ll soil y’r bloody gown next time, m’lady.”
You giggle, and he smiles. A real smile. As real as he’ll ever give anyone, maybe the only one that anyone has ever even seen. He has never shown his face in court, and while it angers the women and irks the men, you revel in the fact that all of this is only for you.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
You kiss him softly. The water sloshes, warm and inviting, and sometimes you forget your life used to be anything but joy. A year ago, you would not believe that you would be here, titled, wealthy, in a stone room lit by candles bathing with a blood hungry ghost.
A year ago, you trembled whenever he looked at you. You cowered when you heard his footsteps. What a stupid little girl you had been. What a fool. She had no idea what she could have, the kinds of things she could hold in her hand.
Real power wasn’t being able to command a room with your words. Real power was being able to say anything and have it be believed as truth. Real power was making someone look in one direction and have them see what you see, even if what you see isn’t real.
He lays you down in your bed afterward and eats. Your wet hair soaks the sheets, but you can’t seem to be really bothered as he fits your legs over his shoulders and bends you at the waist, his mouth suctioned to your clit as he eats you slowly. One of his hands is spread out over your tummy, the other you can hear making a squelch as he fists his own cock. It’s slow and methodical, and he slides his tongue between your folds firm, catching what dribbles from you on the tip of his tongue before he swallows it and leans in for more.
He has eaten you in nearly every room in your house. Frightened the cooks tossing you onto the dining table, given a servant a scare as he ducked under your skirts in the library, had the gardeners fleeing as he dropped you onto the grass near the lake and disappeared with a frenzy to eat your cunt during sunrise. It’s maddening, the kind of need that Simon requires, but it’s hard to refuse when you feel so warm and bubbly and happy after he’s finished. A pampered princess you are, never lifting a finger, only awake long enough when he’s home to eat until you’re full and cum until you fall asleep again.
Maybe that’s why you’re not pregnant yet. Simon likes to be here, between your thighs, mouth fixed on your wet pussy until he’s practically exhausted himself with a sore jaw and lax tongue.
He kisses you sloppy after. Licking into your mouth, practically spitting onto your tongue, wanting you to taste—tastes so good, luvvie, don’t ya see, yeah?—wanting you to know why he’s so eager to be on his knees all the time.
You sniffle, a little dizzy, shaking your head.
“’s not what I really want,” is all you whimper, and he nods, because he knows, he always knows.
“I know, luv. I know wot ya really need.”
“I must be broken,” you sob, cradling his face in your hands, and he shakes his head.
“Not broken,” Simon assures you. He speaks so surely that it’s hard not to believe him. “It wasn’t time.”
“You can’t see the future, Simon! You don’t know!” You cry, and he snarls a little, shaking his head again.
“You listen t’me,” he growls. You shake a little as he grabs your face with one hand, fixing your jaw under his grip as he holds onto you firmly. “Wot I say goes. Y’r my wife, so listen t’me, and listen t’me good. Y’r not broken. Not time. Say it back t’me.”
Your lip trembles, and he rattles your head a little.
“Say it,” he snaps, and you hiccup.
“It’s not time,” you whisper, and he plants a fat kiss onto your tear-soaked lips.
“Just need my cock, luv,” he murmurs. “Tha’s oll. Just need me t’fuck it outta ya.”
You nod, pressing your face to his, and he tuts, reaching down and spreading your legs wide to accommodate him between them as he lays over you.
“’s oll y’need,” he repeats, and you nod again.
You have to take another bath in the same morning; and this time, you weren’t able to walk there.
You like when Simon is home because it’s quiet. The only one that dotes on you here is Simon. The maids do not dress you or do your hair or moisturize your skin. It’s always Simon.
You smile at him in the mirror as you sit at your vanity. He has a brush in one hand, and he’s using it delicately to detangle your hair how you like. His hands are practiced and gentle, and when he finishes, he leans over you as he starts to part your hair to braid it. He did not have sisters, but his mother had him always do her hair after she lost the use of her hands with age. You don’t know where his mother is, but you assume she is not here anymore, because he never invites you to meet her.
He oils your skin. He slips the robe off of you, revealing your damp skin from the bath, and he slathers oil in his hands before using it to soften your skin. He takes his time, smoothing those big hands over your shoulders, down your back, along your arms. You tilt your head back when he warms your breasts, squeezing and fondling your tits. He murmurs in your ear the entire time, and he has to fuck you with his fingers to quiet you when he stops because just his hands on your tits has you wet all over again.
He dresses you, too. Helps you slip into your undergarments, fastens the cage for your skirts over your hips. He ties them skillfully, and after he layers your skirts over the farthingale, he gets you into your corset. It’s intimate as he does this. Even with your wide skirt, he comes closer, over your shoulder, and he tugs at the laces at your back, pulling it tight with firm grunts. You sigh when he buries his face into the crook of your neck, his hand skimming over your breasts as they sit nice and perky between stiff fabric and whalebone.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Fuck, unnerving…the way ya look…”
You close your eyes, “S-Simon, please…I’m already dressed…”
He chuckles, “I know. I know.”
But when he has to leave again, you nearly come with him. You fasten his armor for him, help him slip each piece of leather on and click every piece of metal into place. You tie his cloak and slip his mask on, and you try and duck your head when you flip his hood up, but he catches you, tilting your chin up.
He huffs when he sees your face. Tears sliding down your cheeks, lips wet with them, eyes all glassy and red. He draws you up onto your toes, pressing his mouth to yours through the mask, and you hold onto him tightly, digging your nails into his chest armor and threatening to not let go.
“I want to go.“
“No.”
“Simon, let me go,” You gasp, begging, gripping his hood in firm fists and not caring that his armor is cutting into your front. “Let me go with you, I can’t do this anymore, I want to go, I can do it.”
You aren’t sure if Simon underestimates you. You think it’s more that he does not want you to see him in a place where he is most true. Where he wears the least of a disguise. He does not know he wears it the least with you, and that you have already seen his blood and how it curdles under his skin. You like it that way. You like him angry…and mean…and terrible. You like him when his sword is dirty and his armor needs polishing and his mind thinks of nothing else besides war. He should know this by now. He should know that you see him and see what he is even more than his king, more than his men.
He couldn’t scare you, even if he tried.
“War is not where women go,” Simon snaps. His tone is harsh, even for you, and you stiffen when he grips you by the jaw and rattles your head a little. “Especially not one like you, my love. War would eat ya, eat ya fuckin’ whole. Look at ya…” He huffs, deep, sliding that gloved hand down your throat to slip it beneath the neckline of your dress and fondle your breast with a firm grip. “Beautiful. Meant for my lips…for these dresses…meant to be held in my hands, not bleed from stray arrows, because tha’ is surely the least of wot they would do t’ya if they knew ya were my wife. Now ya will wipe these tears, ‘n see me off, and then ya will come back inside like a good girl, ‘n you will wait for me here until I come back.”
Your bottom lip trembles, and you scowl up at him. Not indifference, but frustration, and Simon doesn’t think it suits you.
“I’m sick of waiting for you, Simon,” you spit. “It’s all I ever do, wait. Wait for you to come back, alive or dead, I never know. And don’t say you do this for country, that is a lie.” You shove him backwards, but he barely budges when your hands touch his chest, a rigid wall that does not give. “You do it because you like it. You’re a bloodthirsty dog, and all you do is bend to our king’s will.”
A lie, but you tell it anyways, because you want something, and he will not give it to you.
“That is my duty.”
“Your duty is to me,” you snap. “Kings come and go, but I will not.” Simon stills. He glares down at you from behind his mask, and perhaps this might terrify his men, but that you are not. You are his wife, and you are protected by that title alone. The only man to ever lay a hand on you would not live to see another second, himself included. “Now you will let me join you, or so help me God, Simon, I will not be here when you return.”
You do not expect the full-bellied laugh that leaves him. His armor shakes with him, and you grind your teeth, narrowing your eyes. He uses his thumb to force his mask up, and then he cups the back of your head and draws you in for a sloppy kiss. You resist at first, but when he feeds you his tongue, you melt. You kiss him back, letting him draw you closer, and you sigh as he tangles his fingers into your hair and cradles you with those big hands.
There is nothing more to say. Simon neither confirms nor denies, but you taste it in his mouth, his devotion. Not wrong, not right, but just so–he has many responsibilities, but you are the only one that will remain the same. One day, his king will die, and he will serve another, but the space you have made beside him will never change. Even when you die, because he knows you will go before him, there will never be someone else to fill it. You and you only, the woman he found and made his, the one he demanded lest he kill his own country for it, it will always be you. Soft and sweet, you are, but the Lord knew Simon could only have one woman, and he made it be you; the one spitfire enough to defy her own king because she trusted his love enough for it.
Would you commit treason to save his life? Would you watch a king die if it meant your beloved lived?
Would he?
He thinks about what you have said when he takes his fleet across the water. He runs his tongue over his teeth behind his mask, breathing deep when he thinks about your proclamations of duty. Of change. Of what remains when other things move, of the kind of life that waits for him when he comes and goes with a king’s order. He thinks about how easily he is taken away from you, and he knows there is truth in what you feel. It is not really Simon that sacrifices, it is what he leaves behind, and that is you.
It’s never angered him before. He had accepted the fact, as early as your wedding day, that he would leave and come back, then leave again. It has always been the way of his life, come desire or not, so it bothers him that of all the things that surprised him in his life, it would be missing someone that shocked him the most.
Missing his wife. Missing the serene perfection of one woman, and the perfect place between her soft thighs. Every day that he finds himself between them is the best day of his life, he reckons, so now he feels bitter about staring at a freezing ocean amongst his men because he will go weeks without her.
Her. Her. Her.
He is bitter, yes, until he is not.
It comes in a letter from a messenger on horseback. They have been stationed in a foreign land for weeks now, watching slowly as the stone walls of a castle at their front crumples day after day from the stones filled with powder that ignite what is wood and break what is rock. The letter is sealed with wax, with the motif of a snake. It is given directly to Simon, whose name is scribbled in the letter, and when he reads it, he tastes ichor and smoke.
So the great phantom has come to seal my fate. I am not in the business of letting what is mine be taken. Even if you have brought your all, it won’t be taken from me.
I heard you have a beautiful new wife. I heard you paid for her in blood.
I shall do the same. I will hang your sword above our marriage bed.
Ghost is not someone that bends to the threats from foe he cannot look in the eye. Words are so empty. It is nothing like when he stands just a few meters apart from them, eyes fixed against one another, as they decide whether today they want to live or they want to die. The letter means nothing, but he’s surprised by the heat that bubbles under his ribs at the mention of his bride. He meant it when he said you were not meant for war, and that meant in this regard, too–nobody was allowed to talk about you, not like this, not ever.
When his king orders him home, Ghost crumples the note and tosses it into embers. He watches it burn, and then he orders his men to set to flame the ground around the stone walls.
So men like him can be goaded, it seems. His resolve is not as strong as he thought.
The weeks make you anxious. All you do is sit and collect dues and tell the maids which dress you want to wear and which you do not. It is peaceful and boring, and you wish Simon was here to make your days more exciting, but he is not.
His letters are the only things that keep you occupied, truly. He writes to you about war and loneliness, and you write to him about the mundane of domesticity and the ache he leaves behind. Sometimes, his letters come folded with pressed flowers he finds along the way, and you start to collect them, putting them away in small boxes or using them as bookmarks as you go through Simon’s library.
He has many books. His most loved books are those of war, of history, and you smooth your fingers over the pages he has dogeared and find comfort in reading the same words that he once did. You learn, as well. While in your studies as a girl, they made you learn arithmetic and the flowery bits of history and art, here in Simon’s house, you learn of strategy and weaponry and military tactic. Sometimes you disagree, and you write about these disagreements to Simon, and he writes back, pleased with your observations. He told you once that if you were a man, he would want you in that tent with him, beside him, deciding on which formations to take and when to strike. You responded saying that you could be that for him anyway. What did your sex have anything to do with whether you were right or wrong?
Simon agreed.
But I would never invite you here, dear wife. You have to understand that.
When your queen asks for your audience for dinner, you oblige easily; finally, you have something to do rather than add up numbers or sign a document on Simon’s behalf or read another fucking book.
You don’t want to wear all the costume your maids insist on, but you appease them after they repeatedly explain to you what your title means. With a drawn face, you let them tie your corset and layer your skirts, and you watch in the mirror as they braid your hair and drape large, obnoxious jewels over you. You grimace at the tiara they fit into your hair, and your elderly handmaid pinches your cheeks and tells you to put on a fair countenance, Your Grace, lest you make the Duke look ungrateful.
You bite your tongue from snapping at her. She should know that Simon would say nothing about your countenance; all he would do is fix whatever was bothering you until you smiled again.
You arrive early enough to have tea. Your queen is so excited to see you; she gushes when you meet her in the throne room, pulling you up from your curtsy so she can hug you tight, squealing. When you try to address her with a curt “Your Majesty,” she shakes her head, pressing her hands to your cheeks and giggling, “No need for formalities now. Call me Victoria.”
You hide your displeasure with a small smile. Now that you are no longer her lady-in-waiting, she allows you her name. Is it because she sees you more as equals, or because now you’re allowed to be somewhat of friends?
You must be some kind of friend. She sizes you up like you are one. She wears England’s colors this afternoon. A fire red dress adorned with gold accents, a dragon pin holding her shawl. She wears magnificent red and gold jewelry, but she’s looking at your dress, and you can see the slight twitch of her eye. You are wearing French lace, and she doesn’t like it. Or maybe she doesn’t like the color, the accents of navy blue and silver that you wear.
The skull motif that is woven into your tiara and printed on your coat and sewn into your dress. Does it insult her? That all your life, you wore nothing but browns and beiges and grays, were invisible to her, and now you represent your house, visit her as your guest, and bear an honorable name?
You were no one when you served her. Just a girl, no close family, no friends, just a distant uncle who gave you to the crown that hoped you could be of service. That was to be your duty for all your life–to serve the king’s wife until she wanted you no more or until she was gone. To cater to her every need and every wish, no matter the time of day or night.
Now you sit across her, more noble. Refined. Wearing a dress she despises, perhaps because she likes it more than her own.
Over tea, she gossips about the other ladies she has visit. You’ve heard this before, but you’ve never been included in the conversation. She talks to you, and she wants to hear your opinion, and you find yourself uneasy as you try to think of what to say. She is your queen, and you want her to like you. When you worked for her, you earned her favor by always warming up her jewels before she put them on, by making sure she had her tea ready in the morning at her bedside, by always holding the fan she so loved for when she inevitably had a hot flash. Now, as her friend, you weren’t exactly sure what to do. You suck in a soft breath and look at her, and then you purse your lips.
You think it best to agree with her. To be on her side. You might not be her direct servant any longer, but you still must fall under her favor. A queen’s favor can be just as powerful, especially if she occasionally has the ear of her husband.
“Well, that’s not very kind of her,” you say finally, and she laughs.
“No! She’s such a prude. I think her husband doesn’t sleep in her bed enough, if you know what I mean,” she winks at you. You giggle at that. “Speaking of husbands–” She pops another cake in her mouth. “How is yours?”
You reach up and tug at your necklace a bit, smiling nervously.
“Oh, uh…” You clear your throat, “He’s doing very well. I hear his latest campaign is quite the success. His majesty is very smart, heading for the east that way, I’m sure they will be victorious soon enough.”
Victoria smiles at the thought of her husband. His intelligence. She always used to talk to you about how many hours he worked, how she hated when he was away, how she wished he was home more so he could give her a son because she was so, so lonely.
“Wise words from the duchess, aye, my love?”
You jump a bit at the low voice from behind, and when you turn, you gasp, immediately standing and falling into a delicate curtsy. John Price waves his hand, coming further into the room, shaking his head.
“It’s alright,” he tells you. “Please, sit. You’re here as my guest.”
You stand and lift your head, trying to relax. You take a seat, smiling nervously, and Victoria smiles giddily at her husband. When he bends to kiss her cheek, she fawns, reaching for his hand and squeezing it before taking another piece of tart and eating it. John hums before motioning for one of the staff to fill your cup again with tea. He eyes you curiously, taking in your appearance. You sit up at that, performatively brushing off over the skull pattern on your corset. John runs his tongue over his teeth, smoothing a big palm down his wife’s long coils of hair.
“Since you’re here, I’d like a word, if that’s alright,” John says to you. His tone carries a little more authority now, and Victoria sighs, whining a little.
“John, please, she’s my friend. Can’t it wait–”
“That wasn’t a question, Victoria,” John bites. Her face falls a little. She swallows and tucks her hands into her lap. You’re reminded as you look at the slight wobble of her lip that there is no one truly above John Price, not even her. You keep your face neutral, but if you were invisible, you’d pity her.
What a shame her husband sees her as less than. How embarrassing. Your Simon would never. Your Simon waits until you finish speaking before speaking himself. Your husband kneels to take off your shoes, your husband tears your skirts to get a taste of you, your husband used his teeth to sever a man’s throat just to have your hand.
What did John Price do to get his wife? Who did John Price kill to have her hand? How many bruises did he earn around his knees on their wedding night from eating her out? As many as Simon, whose knees were black and blue by morning?
No, you suppose not. How unfortunate. How pathetic.
Victoria picks up her skirt and stands, pasting a big smile on her face. It doesn’t reach her eyes, and you can see the way her hands shake a little as she scurries off. She scowls as soon as she turns away from John, clearly annoyed.
“I’ll go check on dinner,” she says, but it is soft and unenthusiastic.
When she goes, the room falls quiet. At the nod of John’s head, the staff leave, and you keep still in your seat as John sits across from you, picking up one of the cakes in front of him and breaking off a piece to busy himself. He keeps his eyes on his task of cutting up the cake in small pieces, focused on his hands and how they work. You watch him carefully, steeling yourself.
You anticipate a conversation between man and woman, not a king and his lesser.
“Simon’s been away for some time. I bet that’s difficult for you.”
You straighten your posture, realizing what this conversation will be. By his tone, John seems to think you a bored, stupid housewife, perhaps. Uneducated. A woman, no thoughts in her head. You let your face relax, and you fold your hands in your lap. Maybe now is the time John should learn who you are and who you are not.
What you have become and what you no longer are.
“I do just fine, Your Majesty,” you say finally. You pick up a spoon and drop a cube of sugar into your tea, and you stir, picking it up to take a long sip. John is curious by your content. You have a quick tongue. “I could say the same to you, couldn’t I?”
John laughs. He narrows his eyes a bit at your clever response, taking a large bite of the cake and running a cloth over his beard. His eyes sparkle a little.
“So you know.”
“Know what, Your Majesty?”
“You know I gave Simon orders. And you know he didn’t listen to me.”
You purse your lips, but he sees the shine in your eyes. The lack of surprise. His face twitches a bit, and you shake your head. You blink slow, and it irks him to see you so calm. He is your king, and Simon answers to him, and you are his wife, so you must answer, too.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“I could have your husband’s head cut off for treason for that, you’re aware, aren’t you?”
You tilt your head to the side. What an odd thing for John to say. What an odd thing for John to contemplate, since it would never come to pass. “Don’t be daft, my king. You wouldn’t want to do that.”
John slams his fist on the table, making the plates and cups rattle with his frustration, but you do not even flinch. You blink, stone-faced, and it makes his nostrils flare. He recognizes that glare, he knows it well. He has seen it before, stared it down many times in rooms just like this. Only now, he is not fighting for land, he fights for control of the one man that he has always been able to rely on. Simon has followed him into battles outnumbered by a thousand men, and only now he ignores an order? Only now he chooses something different?
“Now, let’s be civil, Your Majesty,” you say softly. You smile at him, leaning your head in your hand. “Is there something that you need from me? I have a feeling you might have encouraged this dinner just so you could see me in passing, so why don’t you just ask me what you wanted to ask me?”
John lets out a deep breath, leaning his elbows on the table, lowering his voice. He leans towards you, and you admire how blue his eyes are. John is quite a handsome king, but he does not captivate you. It has been a long time since John has tasted blood, and he lacks the edge that you crave dearly.
“I need him back here, is what I need,” John murmurs.
“My king, I couldn’t get him back here any more than you could, even if I wanted to.”
“Now who’s being daft?”
You scoff, leaning back in your chair. John is not a stupid man. He created a beast of a man, and he is trying not to poke it too hard. You shift, brushing down your skirts, and you let out a low breath.
“Why did he refuse?” You ask finally.
“What?”
“Why does he ignore your order to come back?” You ask again. “I can’t think of a lot of reasons why he would stay. So why did he ignore you?”
John clicks his tongue, smoothing a few of his fingers over his beard. He averts his eyes, looking out the tall windows, frowning a little at the grim weather. The weather is always grim here, but it irks him at the moment, makes him scowl a little harder.
“I was…informed that there was some sort of letter,” John explains. “Some threat.”
“I don’t follow. He gets lots of threats. And terrible letters.”
“Was about you this time, Your Grace.”
You close your eyes at that, shaking your head. Simon would never be so foolish as to be baited by baseless threats. He barely bats an eye when someone even in front of him draws his sword. He is so comforted by his ability to win, by his dreams and his visions that have not yet happened.
“That’s absurd,” you breathe. “Simon wouldn’t…”
John chuckles, but there is no humor there. “Wouldn’t he?”
“I still don’t understand what you expect me to do,” you roll your eyes, looking away. “Simon is…he’s not…he doesn’t listen. It’s why he’s good at this, isn’t it? He doesn’t really take orders, he’s…I…”
John has never complained before about the way Simon chooses to lead. Oftentimes, it is an order ignored that has made it so that he delivered another crown at John’s feet. Simon asks for forgiveness, not permission, and John has barely batted at eye at it. He sees Simon as some kind of distant son, but this refusal bothers him so?
John leans forward. “You need to understand something here, Simon is a rabid dog,” he spits. “And sometimes I let him off his lead, but this isn’t like anything I’ve had to deal with. I need you to call him back here.” He scoots closer. “England needs you to call him back here. To me.”
You narrow your eyes a little. England needs you to call him back? What kind of sick sense of patriotism is he trying to instill in you? John is stupider than he looks, to think a woman like you would show loyalty to country. You are loyal to your husband, and nothing else, because what has king and country ever really done for a woman like you except for dispose of you?
You wear Simon’s colors, not John’s, and you will wear them to your deathbed.
“If I do this for you, my king, then you owe me,” you whisper. He laughs again, no humor, and he picks up a goblet and fills it to the brim with wine. He drinks half before slamming it down onto the table, spilling it over his hand.
“Kings do not owe their subjects.”
“Quite right, Your Majesty,” you agree, picking up your napkin and dropping it onto the table. You stand, giving him a polite curtsy. “But I am not doing this as your subject.”
“Everything you do is as my subject.”
“You put your entire right to the throne on the back of one man,” you say softly. You are not accusing him, you’re reminding him of a truth. “Simon is why…he’s why your counsel still listens to you. He’s why your people are free from famine, why…why your taxes get paid on time, why your kingdom is still standing, no thanks to your father who wasted this place’s fortune on women and liquor.” You shake your head. “You have an eye for conquest, Your Majesty, but you lack the execution of any plan you conjure.”
You are not wrong, and John knows this, and it’s why he hasn’t spoken up yet or interrupted you. The man before, his own father, was a drunkard who spent all their money. He drank himself into the grave, and the only reason John stands before you now is because of Simon. A man who he fought beside, who he commanded, who once John’s duty became reality took up the mantle and finished what his father never could.
John would be in the next history book you read because of Simon, and it’s Simon’s name that will never be written. They do not bestow legacy to men who serve other men.
“Where…Where did you learn to speak to men this way?” John scoffs. “I am your king.”
You must have hit a soft spot. John is defensive now, and men only deflect and insult when they are cornered with the truth. They don’t like being held in front of a mirror.
“You are king because my husband made it so,” you correct him gently. “And Simon is a loyal dog, and that is good for your sake, because if he had any desire for your seat, it would be his.” You come closer, your heels sounding, and John glares down at you; but you glare right back because you are protected by your name and what you can do with it. John knows this, and it angers him, but he seems to have difficulty facing the truths of his own making. “But he is not your dog anymore. He’s mine.”
Your pen on paper is aggressive. You can tell because the splotches of ink are deep, bleeding black sinking into white as you put angry word to parchment. Not even a fortnight later, you are playing cards with Victoria, and you see Simon’s silhouette standing in the doorway, hood shadowing his masked face as he observes. When you look over your shoulder where John sits, and you meet his eyes, he looks away from you with a grim understanding.
Simon answers your call. Always.
At dinner, John is in better spirits. He drinks with a big smile, eats more than one plate, and he picks Victoria up by the waist to make her dance with him when he asks for the music to be played louder. Simon sits, fidgety, gloved hands moving in and out of fists as he watches you cut into your food and eat it with a blank face. He huffs beside you, his armor stiffening as he sits up straight, and you let your fork clatter onto your plate as you turn to glare at him.
“You were thinking with your cock, Simon,” you spit. “That is how men like you get killed.”
“You ‘ave no idea how men like me get killed because there are no men like me,” Simon growls. You roll your eyes, standing, and he grips your wrist angrily, tugging you close until you fall into his lap. You sigh, shaking your head, putting your hands on his broad shoulders and making him look at you.
“Maybe,” you whisper. “But I’m not wrong. It is how you’ll lose. You know better than that, Simon. To fight someone because they taunted you in a letter, it’s playing the fool.” You cup his cheeks, keeping his eyes on yours. “You don’t need me to tell you that, and yet here we are.”
He breathes slow, closing his eyes for just a moment. He thinks he came for this, just a little. For clarity. Reason. It comes from you in waves, and it’s comforting to hear. It is something he knew, and yet it only makes sense now that you have said it.
“I know,” Simon mutters. “I know. Y’r right. I’m sorry, luv.”
You ask him to apologize when he undresses you. You ask him to apologize again when he sinks into a hot bath with you. You ask him a third time when he is in your bed, a heavy weight between your thighs as he licks and sucks at the soft skin of your tummy. He begs, lowly, let me ‘ave it, and you will, but he has to say he’s sorry again.
“‘m sorry,” he breathes, sucking on your inner thigh, and you close your thighs around his head, forcing his mouth against your cunt.
“Again, Simon,” you whisper. “I wanna hear it again.”
“‘m sorry,” he slides a rough tongue between your folds, breathing shakily when he tastes the oil that he smoothed over your skin only moments ago. You taste so good, you smell so lovely, coming off of you like fumes blinding his senses so that nothing else but you makes any sense at all. When you open your eyes, you think about where you are, and you nearly come thinking about what you have wrapped around your finger.
Not even your king tells your husband what to do. Not even your king commands his men, they won’t listen, he’s not who they turn to when things go belly-up, it’s your husband, and your husband answers to you.
You weren’t sure about it until today. Seeing him when you asked him to come, it flooded you with something that hurt. You could tell from even so far away that Simon was salivating under that mask. You knew the only thing separating his mouth from your cunt were the other people around him (and they were not privy to seeing you naked).
It is such a thing to observe. John needed a lead on Simon when he was his dog. You need no such mechanism. Simon never strays, not with you. He sits proper when you ask, and he speaks when spoken to. He tears at unwanted flesh, and he comes when you call.
John cannot give him all that he desires. Perhaps he thought what Simon truly wanted was fame and fortune. Legacy. But like most things men do, John does not observe. He takes in only what is right in front of him, and he makes assumptions. Simon is not like other men. Fame and fortune do not matter. He does not care about legacy. What matters to Simon is what he can hold in his hands. The ground under his feet. The steel in his hand. The woman underneath him, spreading her legs, inviting him in.
You love Simon. You love Simon more than anything in the entire world, but it would be a lie to say that you are not at some advantage here. Simon is all-consuming. He is the pinnacle of duty and honor and everything that a man is supposed to be, but Simon is also weak. There is something that he wanted more than anything in the world, and now that he has it, he will do anything to keep it, and that makes him vulnerable. Subject to all kinds of new things. Revenge. Retaliation. Pain.
Manipulation.
Maybe you should feel bad about it. Maybe you should feel guilty, but it’s hard to feel anything like it when there’s a big bear of a man between your thighs slobbering on your pussy like dessert. It’s hard to feel anything but bliss when he’s tracing the letters of his name into your cunt and making you see stars and fucking you into the silk sheets like it’s the last time he’ll ever have you.
It is men who govern your world, and if this is how you must move in it, then so be it. You will not feel bad. You will not be sorry for doing what anyone else would do. John thought he could keep his hand there, muzzle his mutt, but you like him this way, and you’re certain John doesn’t fuck the way you do.
He’s mine.
It isn’t John that commands an army, it’s you; or maybe your cunt, but that belongs to you, too, so it is you, isn’t it? You’re the one that lets him inside, that whispers in his ear, that tells him things you know he wants to hear to make things move in your favor, so it’s you, right?
Not John. Not Victoria. Not their counsel. You. They have stepped on you your entire life. They have made you small and inferior and sad for all of your existence, and they gave you something feral knowing it could eat you alive, and now you are the hand that feeds, and they are forgetting that if they bite too hard, you have something that will surely bite harder.
A collar would suit him, you think. He would look so pretty. He already is, the terrible beast, prettiest thing you’ve ever seen (the necklace your drape over him does just fine, a pendant with his motif that you hope reminds him of you). You don’t care if people would say his face is quite ugly. It is, very much so, but you never see him this way. Whenever that mask falls, your stomach flips. He takes your breath away. His intensity, his raw form of love, the look on his face–there is nothing else in the entire world that will love you the way he loves you.
“You came back for me?” You ask. You have a leg tangled between his, and his fingers are between your thighs, a shadow of a smirk on his face as he feels the mixture of your cum and his. He grunts a little, and you tilt your head to look up at him, your chin on his chest.
“‘f course,” Simon mutters, and you kiss his chest gently, keeping your eyes on his.
“But not for John.”
He turns his head, looking down at you more intently, and he scoffs. You know it’s true, but you want to hear it, anyways. You want to hear Simon admit, unknowingly, that you are the tether.
“John is afraid, and I don’t listen to ‘im when he’s afraid. Makes bad choices.”
It’s almost adorable that this is what Simon tells himself. That he comes back for his own sake, and not for yours, even though they are one and the same, intertwined and inseparable.
“Simon,” you say softly, and he sighs, his eyes closing briefly when you kiss him gently. “You have to listen to your king when he asks you to come back. Making a…rash decision about war strategy is one thing, but…” You cup his cheek gently. “Make things easier for me, husband. If he asks you to come back, you come back.”
This time, at least. Just this time.
Simon snarls a bit, but you swallow it when you kiss him. You maneuver yourself over him, straddling his hips, and he grunts as you sink down on him. He swells hard again very quickly, releasing a deep breath as you give a slow roll of your hips.
“Make things easy for me, my love,” you whisper, and he leans his head back, putting two big hands on your ass and moving you with ease. “Appease your king, yes? For me?”
“Can’t say no when y’r pussy squeezes me like tha’, sweet’eart,” Simon groans, and you giggle, planting your hands on his chest and starting to move a little faster. You lean your head back, your mouth falling open, and you gasp when you sink down completely, your ass touching his thick thighs as you tighten around him. “Fuckin’ Christ–”
“I hate when you go,” you whine, digging your nails into his chest. He hisses, planting his feet on the bed, and he fucks up into you with a renewed fervor. “Hate when you’re not here, Simon, I-I miss you, miss this–”
“Nghh…fuck, I know,” Simon pants. “Can feel it. Feel you.” You squeal when he grips you by the waist and turns you over. He makes it seem so easy, tossing your weight underneath him, and your arms circle around his neck as you draw him closer, hanging onto him. “Y’r so fuckin’ pretty…”
“Simon–”
He kisses to devour. His jaw hinges wide to kiss you sloppy, breathing in the moans that you can’t contain. Simon always fucks so well, stretching your thighs as wide as they will accommodate so he can make room for the goliath of himself that he is. He suffocates, in a good way, and his cock never fails to stretch you for all that you are worth. Simon holds your jaw in place as he grinds into you, relishing in the wet smack of his hips against yours. The fat of you satisfies him. It makes him growl with delight when he grabs onto wide hips, your fat arse, the body that you hold that tells him you are fed and warm and content. It draws his grin wider, and it makes him drool thinking about having you again and again and again, until you beg him for reprieve and his heir sits in your womb.
Simon fucks for sport. He wants to see how stupid he can make you. He wants to know how long you’ll cry for, how fat he can make your tears. He wants to know how loud you will cry, how many times he can make you cum before you’re incoherent, he wants to know the extent to which he can use you that you will still be awake enough to say his name just one more time. Simon is not satisfied until he pushes your limits.
It is what a Riley does. They endure, and they eat, and they consume, and they take pleasure in the all-encompassing indulgement of things they have never been allowed to have. You are a woman, so he knows this will come easy for you. So often, he knows, women are not allowed to indulge at all, so he wants you to. He wants you to cry and moan and eat, and he wants you to do it bearing his name so that no one will ever tell you no.
Simon says no to kings, and they placate, or they die. His wife will be offered the same respect, and he’ll stand behind her with a sword to make it law. When you bear his children, he will expect the same of them–to give their mother utter devotion, lest they answer to his hand. There is no one above you, not God, not country, and certainly not blood. They will know what their father did to have you, and they will spill the same amount of blood to keep it that way. They will do it for you, and then they will do it for their own lovers, and if they don’t have the same sentiments, that love is not true, and Simon will not give his blessing.
Everything else is trivial. He knows this, understands it, because history repeats itself. It is cyclical, and you are right. Kings come and go. Sons die to other sons, fathers make bad decisions, and crowns are passed to bastards and back again, until lineage is merely spectacle and power changes hands often enough to lose generational merit. There is one thing that remains, and it is what you do while you are on earth, while you are standing on the ground you were born on. Even faiths change; when men find it suitable, they change the rules, and then you worship a different God, so Simon sees no point in staying loyal to any of it.
Instead, he is true to what he knows. To what he can see and what he can feel. With John, he remembers being a young man, fighting alongside him. He follows John, to an extent, because he knows what it is like to share blood with him on a muddy hill and take an arrow for him.
With you, time stands still. He saw you in a room, and he had to have you, and he brought nations to ruin to make certain no one would bat an eye when he asked for your hand. He saw you in a dream, too–he saw you laying in his bed of furs, wearing nothing but a tiara of his making, wet between the thighs because that is how it’s meant to be. He recognized you when he saw you that first time, and he doesn’t know how, but saying no to you, really saying no, will change that vision, and he couldn’t bear that.
Your voice echoes. You’re moaning, overstimulated, but he doesn’t stop. The hair around his cock rubs your clit too many times, and when you come around him, you’re a shaking, withering thing, back bowed and nipples pebbled. Your toes curl as you cry from the starry-eyed, hot pleasure, but he keeps moving, chasing something in the distance that he can taste, so close.
Yes, Simon ignored his king. Yes, Simon did not ignore you. Yes, Simon admits, he came when you called, and he doesn’t feel bad about it, he doesn’t care how it seems. He would do it again if he had the chance. John could give him the same answer as you in every timeline, but he will only move if the command comes from you, and yes, Simon knows it makes him a liability, but crowns come with costs, and this is the one John must pay.
Simon will fight any of John’s enemies, but he won’t fight fate. He won’t fight what has already been seen, and he won’t fight what he already knows will happen.
With Simon’s cock in your mouth, you can make him deliver on promises. Sucking on the girth of him, you can make him an honest man. Taking inside of your mouth what you can swallow, you can make Simon do your bidding, and it is a hard lesson that John learns.
“Do this for me,” you slobber against the underside of his cock, and Simon relents.
“Make me happy,” you say, swirling your fingers against your puffy pussy, and Simon kneels with an open mouth.
“Just this once,” you whisper with his cum on your tongue, and Simon seals his choice with his hands on your tits and the taste of himself in his mouth.
When you make eyes with John across the low lights of the throne room, he can’t help the way he admires you. You stand beside Simon, looking the essence of nobility and reverence in another intricate silver and blue dress. The train of your skirt glitters with delicate jewels hand sewn into the fabric, and the headpiece you wear adorns a skull insignia. Your corset has been tied just right, thanks to Simon’s hand, and your own fingers are clasped between his. Your corset and jewels are of exquisite detail–one of the newest designs from Paris, structured and elegant and accentuating every curve of soft skin.
You glow in the room. His wife must be wearing a dress just as expensive, probably more, and yet his eyes (and everyone else’s) cannot help but follow you. Your own eyes won’t leave Simon; you flutter your lashes whenever he looks down at you, big smile on your face, and even when there are people curtsying and bowing to you and giving Simon their gratitude between bites of cake and glugs of wine, your attention never really strays.
John feels inadequate in his own fortress; suddenly, red and gold sicken him, and England tastes sour in his mouth.
In a few generations, John’s house will likely fall. He will make heirs that will fail him, he knows this. In a few centuries, his family will not sit in the same place, but a Riley will remain right where they are supposed to be. Banners of blue and silver will always fly. If Simon does not make sure of that, then you will.
It’s what happens when you force women like you to their knees. When they grow up invisible, always in the shadows, forgotten and sold to the next man who will pay a higher price, it’s what you learned to do. It’s all you’ve ever known, to make the best out of something terrible.
Simon is the same, in that sense. You understand him in a way his king will never be able to. Simon has nothing, and neither do you, and Simon was stepped on and berated and tortured to the point of no return. It is why blood does not scare him and why death doesn’t come knocking. Time will be the only thing capable of killing him, and everyone that stands up to him learns that when they eat his blade.
In the quiet of the evening, Simon undresses you. He sits behind you on the bed, fingers pinching the bows at your back and unraveling them. He traces your corset, thumb circling over the skull pattern of the belt around the small of your waist, and he tastes something warm in his mouth at the sight of it. You look so beautiful–more beautiful than he’s ever seen you maybe, decorated in his colors and wearing his motif and sitting so pretty.
“You wanna know something…funny?” You ask quietly. Simon finds the ties of your skirts and starts to undo them. He grunts in reply; he might sound standoffish, but you know he’s listening. “John…John made it…he makes it seem like you don’t really listen to him. He implied that…in the face of adversity, you might only listen to me.” You put your hands on the front of your corset to keep it from falling. “Isn’t that funny?”
“Wot’s so funny?”
You swallow, looking down. Your hands fidget, and you take a closer look at the ring you wear, the delicate gold band he gave you not so long ago.
“I…”
“Mmm…might be right, innit?” Simon snickers after a moment. You feel him stand, and you look over your shoulder as he peels his mask off and grins down at you. He tilts his head to the side, and you smile back at him a little. “Do anythin’ for ya. Disobeying a king…” Simon cackles, tearing your corset off, tossing it onto the floor as he walks you backwards. “Ignoring one…” He shrugs, “Oll in a day, love.”
“He can hang you for it,” you whisper. “Cut off your head. Cut off mine.”
Simon lays you back on the bed, spreading you out, climbing over you. You blink up at him, and he leans down, pressing his forehead to yours.
“I would ‘ave seen it. I would know.”
He would have seen it in a dream. It would have come to him in a reflection in a pool of blood on the battlefield. It would have come to him, the voices in his head, he would have heard them amongst screaming, or perhaps in the void that he finds his mind in when he’s between your plush thighs.
You can’t help the smile that graces your face when Simon kisses the curve where your jaw meets your neck. It is fun, you suppose. Fun to control the tides that set the courses of history. It is fun and almost unbelievable that a king bends to the will of one man’s wife just because it solidifies his name.
You wrap your hand around the twine that dangles from Simon’s neck. It twirls around your fingers, easy, solid. Simon’s eyes are dark, and they are yours, and when you smile, so does he, because this is where you are meant to be, forever and always.
“What if I want more?” You ask. Simon hums, low from within his chest, and you run your tongue over your teeth. “Did you see that in your dreams, Simon? Hmm? Do you know what I’m asking for? What it is that I really want?”
Simon smiles. A dark one, with teeth, and you know he hears it. What more means for a duke and his duchess. What more means when you have all the money you could ever want, all the land you could ever need.
What more means when you have climbed your way to the top and still desire more. More, more, more. There are not many steps left to climb. There are not many places left to take, not much more of the world that can really be yours, but Simon looks ravenous, and Simon looks hungry, and if you fuck him now, you’ll have him right where you want him.
When you tug on what hangs around his neck, Simon bends. Simon follows.
#simon ghost riley#simon riley#simon ghost riley x reader#simon riley x reader#simon riley x you#ghost mw2#ghost cod#ghost call of duty#ghost mwii#ghost x reader#cod#call of duty#simon riley smut#simon ghost riley smut#dark!ghost#dark!simon
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Bruce pulled off his sweaty shirt in Ma Kent's kitchen along with Clark and Hal, and began chugging a lemonade. The three men had been doing something that apparently constituted hard manual labor in the barn. Zatanna watched silently, then she noticed it.
A tattoo on Bruce's abs. Some foreign symbols engraved in calligraphic form.
It was possible the world was coming to an end.
She turned her head to try and read it. It was Kryptonian, if she had to take a guess.
Bruce noticed where her gaze was. "My eyes are up here," he said.
"I know," said Zatanna, rolling hers. "I just...since when do you have a tattoo?"
"Since I lost a bet to my kids," said Bruce.
"You let your kids do this to you?" Zatanna was incredulous.
"It's been five years, Zee," said Clark. "Are you seriously noticing it now?"
"Well, I don't make a habit of staring at Bruce's nude form," she replied, her sentence heavy with implication.
Clark blushed and dropped his spectacles.
"What's next," said Zatanna bitterly to Bruce. "I find out you're part of a biker gang?"
"You don't become a biker with just one tattoo," said Hal. "You need an entire sleeve of them."
"Don't give him any ideas," Zatanna cautioned.
"You're overreacting," said Clark.
"The world is in a delicate state of balance," said Zatanna. "The very foundations of my existence are being rocked. I'm questioning everything I've ever known."
"I should probably start paying rent for all the space I occupy in your head," said Bruce.
"The tattoo is actually a very sweet phrase," said Clark. "In Kryptonian."
"What does it mean?"
Bruce cleared his throat and shook his head warningly at Clark. Clark grinned.
"It means," Clark said, "My soul is in two halves, and one of them belongs to you."
Bruce buried his head in his hands. Clark laughed. "Like I said. A very sweet phrase."
"You're going to suffer for this," muttered Bruce to him. "I was okay with it, as long as no one knew what it fucking meant."
"Oh stop," said Hal, grinning without shame. "Stop with the toxic masculinity. Just because you have a soppy declaration of love on your abdomen doesn't make you any less of a man." He raised his glass to Bruce in a toast.
Bruce looked at him levelly, and narrowed his eyes. "One of these days, Jordan," he growled, "you will do something, and on that day—"
"Oh, I doubt it," Hal smirked. "I think you've set the bar pretty high."
"Well," said Clark, with a cheeky grin, "Bruce learned his lesson about betting against all of his kids simultaneously, but I would say the punishment was a bit disproportionate to the crime."
Bruce was putting on his t-shirt. "Enough," he said. "No one else finds out, or I will see that you all pay."
"No one else finds out what?" asked Diana from the kitchen door, where she had evidently just arrived. Her arms were crossed against her chest. Barry and Oliver were lined up behind her, with curious expressions.
Zatanna and Hal laughed maliciously. Clark did not look displeased in the slightest.
Bruce's mouth hardened and he stalked off, muttering something about contingency plans. But no one saw the small smile that tucked itself into the corner of his mouth afterwards, when he remembered Clark's face.
Kryptonians. His fingers brushed over the tattoo. And all the ways they love to claim you.
#batman#superman#Hal jordan#zatanna#dc comics#bruce wayne#crack fic#dc fanfiction#funny#humor#batfamily#crack post#original#justice league#jla#superbat#clark kent#green lantern#diana prince#wonder woman#barry allen#oliver queen#superman x batman#bruce wayne x clark kent#batkids#tattoos#zatanna zatara#dc universe#kryptonian#martha kent
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pop that cherry
a/n: woop woop! here's the little slutty story that you guys voted for when i asked what you wanted to see happen next in this au ৎ୭
summary: “hey, I get it,” he flashed you a comforting smile, “I’m a complete stranger. You just shook my hand two seconds ago and now we’re expected to bang in front of a bunch of other people you also don’t know,” his broad thumb swept over your knuckles, “you just have to decide if you wanna pack up your things, go home and chalk this up to just a fun experience, a lesson learned about what corners your sexuality and such does and does not stretch to,” he uttered with sincerity, “or you can come back inside and we can make some magic happen. It’s up to you.”
warnings: camgirl!reader x various, pornstar!ari levinson, roommate!bucky barnes, porn director!bruce banner, smut, porn au, college au, reader’s porn name is cherry blossom (UrLittleCherry), filming pornography, reader's first time doing professional porn, kissing, masturbation, toys, oral, fingering, voyeurism, exhibitionism, dirty talk, size kink (pornstar!ari is famous for his monster cock, you're welcome), belly bulge, manhandling, multiple orgasms, squirting, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, facial
word count: 3832
∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽
sugar & spice au masterlist | 101, intro to the au
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Curled up and melted on your mattress, you absentmindedly scrolled through your phone. Your puffy pussy, hidden between your still trembling thighs, clenched in dull soreness from the fuck machine frozen by your feet and still glistening from the show you’d put on only moments earlier.
“Hey, pretty girl,” a familiar voice emanated from your doorway, “I didn’t know you were done streaming.”
Lazily blinking up at Bucky as he leaned against the frame, “yeah, just signed off a few minutes ago,” you exhaled, “did you just get home?” the question flowed from your lips and he swiftly nodded in confirmation, “how was class?”
“Oh my god, don’t get me started,” your roommate let out a groan and pushed himself off the wall, his stride swiftly carrying him the short distance to where you laid and plopped himself down beside you.
A soft smile tugged at the corners of your lips as you felt him press a slow peck to your exposed shoulder.
“Do you need help lifting the toy back in the closet or–,” Bucky’s kind offer was then cut short by the shuttering gasp that suddenly crawled out of your lungs.
“Oh my god,” your eyes grew to the size of saucers as you stared down at the message you’d opened on your phone, “oh my god!”
“What? What is it?” he propped himself up on a forearm to peek over your shoulder.
“I–…” your eyes scanned the email wildly, “this can’t be real, right?” you cast a glance back at your friend.
“Let me have a look,” and you swiftly handed him your phone before hearing him skim through it, “dear miss Cherry Blossom, bla, bla, bla… we here at Smash Studios really love your vibe and were wondering if you would ever consider doing professional pornography, because if so, then we would love to work with you,” his blue eyes flickered a moment longer over the screen before they fluttered up to meet yours, “no, I think it’s legit.”
“Holy shit…” you breathed, an airy giggle then bubbled out of you as this was quite the news to take in, even when one wasn’t still hazy from haven fucked one silly in front of hundreds of people.
“You think you wanna do it?”
“Beautiful, gorgeous! And look right here, up there, yeah, that’s it…”
Sharp clicks shuttered the camera and shot throughout the massive house as a photographer snapped the last of the stills for the shoot. You were posed perched and kneeling on a bed with your right hand buried in the already tiny crop top, you’d brought as one of the outfit options, and held up high to reveal your tits.
The groan of floorboards creaking then found your ears and your gaze swiftly fluttered towards the door where the salt-and-pepper-haired man, who you’d come to learn was the head of the little porn studio, crossed over the threshold.
“How are we doing in here?” Bruce adjusted his glasses before stepping further into the room.
“I think we’re about done,” the photographer lowered the camera from his eye and cast a glance to his boss, “think we got the shot.”
“Great,” Bruce clapped his shoulder as the other man passed by and exited the room. As you tugged the short t-shirt back down into place, you met Bruce’s gaze before he asked you, “how are you doing? You ready?”
Though your mind was way too preoccupied to offer him an answer and instead blurted, “has he arrived?” as you scooted off the bed and felt the tiny shorts you wore ride up enough for your grasp to float down to adjust.
“Not yet, I’m sorry,” he tilted his head, “trust me when I say that he isn’t usually this late. He wouldn’t have the stellar reputation he does if he was. But we can still begin without him and just fix it in post if you’re–”
Someone then poked their head and announced, “hey Banner? He’s here. I just spotted his bike roll up the driveway.”
Feeling your heart thump in your chest, you heard Bruce clap his palms together, “great!” before you followed him out of the bedroom and through the pristine halls of the rented modern mansion.
Just before your bare feet began to conquer the long staircase, your absentminded grip tightened on the glass railing as you looked down at the open living room, clearly visible from the wide balcony, and spotted the figure that then sauntered in.
“So sorry I’m late, traffic was literal hell.”
Ari Levinson.
With sun-kissed brunette locks flowing from his head and a motorcycle helmet nuzzled under his burly arm, the infamous pornstar was not only blessed with a smile that could make anyone swoon, but also a dick so huge that any sane person would be downright terrified by the idea of having it split them apart.
Though that wasn’t what had stopped you in your tracks, what had made your palms embarrassingly clammy when he soon shook one of them once you’d somehow made your way down the stairs.
Why did your very first partner have to be someone you’d obsessively been getting off to for years?
You were barely listening to what the people around you were saying as you couldn’t rip yourself out of the trance you’d snapped into.
“I’m sorry, what?” you soon blinked, trying to avert your gaze.
“I asked if you were ready,” Bruce patiently repeated.
“…for?” you breathed, feeling as if you were inside of a giant ethereal cheese bell, making the entire world around you seem blurry.
“For the shoot,” Bruce’s words still flew straight over your head, “I said that I was thinking that I’d do the filming myself, if that could make you more comfortable since you’ve already met me. That way it’ll just be me, the two of you and then Sam in the corner doing audio.”
“O-okay…” you said quietly, feeling your cheeks heat up as Ari let his gaze linger over you, an observant brow soon twitching as he spoke up.
“Wait, actually,” he placed a palm on Bruce’s forearm, halting him as he reached for the bulky camera resting on the white couch, “do you mind if I grab a quick smoke break first?”
“Yeah, sure,” he nodded, “let’s just all take five before we begin.”
It caught you completely off guard when the object of your distraction walked by you and paused to murmur in your ear, “come with me outside for a second, will you?”
Shadowing him all the way out of the tall glass door and onto the terrace, you watched him lean his frame against the fence and tilt his body for you to slot in beside him.
“I don’t actually smoke,” you uttered softly as you let your fingers ghost over the railing.
“Oh, neither do I–, or well, that’s not completely true, I do, just didn’t need one right now.”
“So then why did you ask for a smoke break?” you cocked a brow.
Blowing out a swift breath, Ari then twisted to face you more and gazed directly down at you.
“You mind if I hold your hand?” he held out his own palm.
“Oh, uhm,” your glance flickered down to his upturned hand before you carefully placed your own atop of it, “okay.”
His warm fingers swiftly engulfed your own as his stare stayed fast upon you.
“So, this is your first time, huh?”
“Oh, no, I'm not a virgin, I–”
“I meant porn, sweetheart,” he tilted his head to be more at your level.
“Right,” you averted your gaze as butterflies soared in your stomach, “yeah, I haven’t really done this before… I mean, I’ve some stuff, I’ve cammed for a pretty long time now and even recorded custom videos for some people, but no, I haven’t really taken this step before…”
You were staring down at his large hand engulfing yours as he then said, “you know, it’s okay if you don’t wanna go through with it. This field isn’t for everyone, in fact, only very few thrive in this environment, and if it’s not for you, then it’s okay.”
“Oh, no,” your eyes flickered up to find his as you urged, “I wanna do this, I really do. I’m sorry, I guess I just kinda got a bit more nervous than I expected.”
“Hey, I get it,” he flashed you a comforting smile, “I’m a complete stranger. You just shook my hand two seconds ago and now we’re expected to bang in front of a bunch of other people you also don’t know,” his broad thumb swept over your knuckles, “you just have to decide if you wanna pack up your things, go home and chalk this up to just a fun experience, a lesson learned about what corners your sexuality and such does and does not stretch to,” he uttered with sincerity, “or you can come back inside and we can make some magic happen. It’s up to you.”
“So, Cherry,” Bruce purred behind the camera as he knelt on the floor beside where you sat at the foot of the bed, “I can’t believe we finally convinced you to come have some fun with us. I gotta tell you, you are just a fucking dream come true…”
“Oh, thank you,” you smiled, kicking your feet slightly as they dangled over the edge.
“But you must get that all the time, I mean, look at you.”
“It has been known to happen on occasion,” you chuckled, thinking back to all of the lewd compliments the viewers of your streams generously tossed at you.
“So, a little birdy told me that this is your very first time fucking on camera. Is that true?”
“Yeah, it is,” you bit down on your bottom lip, “I’m so ready to pop that cherry.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” he smirked, panning the bulky camera over your frame as you tilted your head in a nod, “you’re just ready to show the whole world what a perfect slut you are?”
“Think it’s about time,” you giggled in response.
“Well, then why don’t you do something for me and stand up?” he shifted back a bit as you got up from the bed, “and now, I’ve already seen it, but can you please turn around and show everyone how fucking perfect your ass is?” a grin stayed fast on your face as you slowly spun around. Your butt was barely covered in the tiny shorts that clung around your hips, so when you twisted and let the camera catch that part of you, Bruce quietly groaned, “wow…” and he shifted his grip to let one of his hands float up towards you, “can I touch you?”
“Sure,” you arched your back a bit to make his palm’s journey that much shorter.
“Damn… this has got to be one of the greatest booties I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” he offered your softness a brief squeeze. His fingers first dented one cheek, then the next, before his grip caught your waistband and tugged your shorts up just a tad bit more, making the fabric momentarily rub against your covered pussy.
His flat palm then scooped around your hips and guided you back to face the camera.
“Do you wanna see my boobs?” you smiled as you blinked down at him with big doe eyes, your hands gently grazing over the hem of your crop top.
“Oh, yes, please,” he virtually begged as he let his warm palm stay glued to your waist.
Peeking down, you slowly lifted the shirt up and let your tits quite literally spill out as they jiggled slightly from the release of how fiercely you let the cotton graze over your skin.
“Jesus christ…” you heard him utter as your palms fluttered down to play with them, squeezing the soft peaks gently before Bruce’s fingers sneaked up to pinch one of your nipples.
Once you’d put on a show and pushed the tiny shorts down your legs, the crotch of which had been slightly soaked since you weren’t wearing any panties underneath, you rested back down on the bed and spread your legs wide for the camera, grinning as the older man asked you to play with yourself.
“Oh my god… I gotta tell you, I am so hard right now,” you watched how intently he stared at the small monitor, getting a closeup of how your fingers rubbed your little clit, “you have no idea how tough it is not to just fuck you right now, it’s crazy…”
“Oh yeah?” you giggled, the melody of your want echoing throughout the room at every teasing touch you offered yourself, “how bad do you wanna fuck me?”
“So fucking bad…” he uttered in a nearly hypnotise tone.
Continuing to circle your puffy pearl, your fingers briefly dipped down to tease your entrance, only shyly slipping inside before you swept back up.
“You know what?” Bruce said as he then began to twist a bit to get the open door to the room into frame, “I have a little surprise for you,” and perfectly on queue, Ari appeared at the threshold, burly chest on show with just a pair of jeans hanging low on his hips.
His stride was slow as he only stayed in the doorway a moment before sauntering over to where you sat, melted back and resting against the one forearm that propped you up.
“Hey,” he smiled and plucked up your face as soon as it was within reach.
“Hi,” you managed to utter just before he bent down and pressed his lips to yours in an unhurried and gentle kiss.
He kissed you as if he had all the time in the world, like some dude wasn’t pressing a bulky camera closer to the intimate act, but like he was the lead in a PG romcom.
When Ari withdrew, he let himself linger in your warmth, ever so slightly nuzzling his nose against your own as your fingers kept up the dizzying pattern you drew between your parted thighs. Tilting his head, his touch traced the length of your arm till his reach came down to aid your efforts, making you gasp from the way he caressed you.
“You,” he nudged his nose gently against your own, “look like you’re in need of some cock in that little mouth of yours.”
Letting out a soft chuckle, you said, “you read my mind,” before popping the button of his jeans and tugging the zipper down. Even though you’d seen his famed cock numerous times on screen before, it truly was something else to witness it in person. A breathy, “holy shit,” left your lips as you tried to wrap your fingers around his girth, though he only let out a soft laugh at the way your eyes grew wide.
Ceasing the caress he drew between your thighs, he instead grabbed the base of his heavy length with his fingers still glossy from your arousal. As you stuck out your flat tongue, he tapped the weight against you for a second before you tilted your chin and wrapped your lips around the bulbous head.
As you disappeared into the meditative motion of slobbering all over his cock, gradually taking more and more of his intimidating length, your frame twisted to lay on your side and face him more.
Blinking up into his hooded eyes as the corners of your lips burned from the severe stretch, you felt his hips begin to move, rolling to meet your every bob, till his fingers tangled in your hair and he got to take over completely, fucking your face till slobber dribbled down your chest and rained down on your crop top, still tugged up and framing your tits.
His free hand then snaked its way back down your body and cracked your legs open wide for the camera to see as he plugged your pussy up with two of his fingers, making you moan around his girth as the tip of him bruised your throat.
When he yanked your mouth off of his cock, he did so with a gravelly growl, like he could have lived in your silky warmth and it pained him to say goodbye so soon.
“Come here,” he grabbed you and flipped you around for your frame to face him as his feet stayed planted on the side of the bed. Kicking his jeans the rest of the way off, you panted up at him as you scooted even closer, nearly letting your butt hang off the mattress’ edge as you laid already crumbled and folded before him, utterly bewitched by the anticipation of what his legendary size must feel like stretching your poor pussy out.
Shimmery spiderwebs of your nectar clung to him as he then let you feel the weight of him tap against your puffy pearl, briefly skimming through your folds before he found your eyes and tipped down, nudging to catch your weeping entrance.
“Oh my g-god…” you gasped, all of the air escaping your body to accommodate as he slowly pressed just the tip inside. Your cunt clung around his dick as he gave you a second to catch your breath. Your pulse throbbed in your pussy as your silky walls moulded around him and your thighs gently trembled from the intensity of it all.
“Fuck,” he groaned as he gave you another inch, “you feel so good,” gently stuffing more of his length inside.
His grip dented your trembling thighs as he held you open for the camera to see how you struggled to take his cock. Even when the tip of him kissed your cervix and made you feel as if he was all the way up in your fucking throat, when you hazily gazed down to see where he split you apart, there was still a generous inch of him that your little pussy just couldn’t take.
As your eyes lingered a little longer, you too caught sight of how a dull bulge formed in the lower part of your belly, perfectly timed with each of his mind-numbing thrusts.
When you then tumbled over the edge, nearly blind from the overwhelming pleasure, your pussy couldn’t help but accidentally gush around Ari’s girth, simply because of how mind-boggling he felt.
“Oh, shit,” you panted. Still in your orgasmic daze, you swiftly cast a worried glance up at Bruce steady behind the camera, “I’m sorry,” you briefly broke the scene as Ari too paused his movements as you breathlessly spoke, “I really tried not to squirt, I know that wasn’t part of today’s plan, but–, fuck…” your eyes fluttered up to find Ari’s, “your dick’s just so goddamn big,” you hazily giggled.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Bruce’s voice washed over you as you watched a smile tug at Ari’s lips, “that was just an unplanned bonus.”
“Wait, so you’re not mad?” your neck twisted to cast a glance at the director.
“No,” he swiftly shook his head and flashed you a reassuring smile to calm the obvious anxiety that had bubbled up inside of you.
“Oh, good,” you let out a sigh, “sorry, I just got nervous for a second. Okay, alright, we can keep going.”
“You good?” Ari checked before he cracked out of his frozen form.
“Yep, yep, I’m okay, I’m wonderful,” you chuckled and let the last bit of nerves wash away.
“Alright,” he dipped down to press a soft kiss to your lips, before his hands guided your arms around his neck, slinking them around him.
His grasp then scooped down under you and he effortlessly plucked you up off the bed, a shy yelp bubbling up from your lungs as he picked your frame up to cradle you in his arms, his massive cock still lodged inside of you, though when he settled you in his strong hold, it felt as if he found a mystical way to slide even deeper.
Moans flowed from your lips and vibrated against his skin as your neck soon gave up and lent your cheek to smoosh against his fuzzy chest.
“There you go,” he stood up tall and bounced you in his arms like you were a toy, just a cocksleeve for him to get off with, “there you fucking go…”
As he picked up the pace and truly gave you a taste of how a real pornstar pounded a pussy for the camera, your eyes screwed shut tight and you felt yourself float away on a cloud, curled up in Ari’s burly arms and surrounded in a storm of your collective moans. The existence of the video camera even faded from your reality as you peeled your eyes open and peeked up at Ari from the pillow of his pec, knowing full well that he too could feel how you began to clench around his cock once more.
“You gonna cum again?” he repeatedly lifted you up and down on his fat girth, “you gonna be a good girl and cream all over my cock, huh?”
Blinking up at him, your brows crinkled in pleasure as you nodded, “uh-huh.”
“You think you can squirt again for me?” his grip dug into the plush of your ass hard enough for it to leave marks.
“I-I don’t know–”
“Oh, I think you can,” he switched up his pattern, slowing down slightly and dragging you all the way up till his cock nearly slipped out of you, only to sink you back down in such a rough, yet intensely slow manner, that it made your eyes roll in your skull, “just listen to that,” he smirked at the soft sloshing sound that sinfully echoed as his fat girth repeatedly slid against your g-spot, virtually bullying it till you surrendered, “it’s like she’s begging me to just spend the rest of the day making her gush over and over again until you fucking pass out…”
A shrill cry escaped your form as you let go once more, shaking in Ari’s grasp as Bruce knelt down to capture your sinful drizzle.
You nearly felt drunk, like you were hours into the best party of your life, when you eventually found yourself planted on the floor, quaking legs unsteady beneath you as you blinked up at Ari, looming above you and furiously fucking his fist.
“You want me to cum all over that pretty little face?” he grunted as you hazily stuck out your tongue.
“Yes,” the corners of your lips blissfully curled up into a grin, “please–”
Even though your bones had turned into jelly and your pussy clenched in soreness, the drawn-out moan that rumbled in Ari’s chest as hot ropes of his cum then shot out and painted your features sent tingles throughout your body and filled you with a desire to just wrestle him back down onto the mattress, hit rewind and do it all over again.
© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble
#lea’s writing#sugar and spice au#ari levinson smut#bucky barnes smut#ari levinson x reader#chris evans smut#sebastian stan smut#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes au#bucky barnes series#chris evans x reader#bruce banner smut#ari levinson au#ari levinson x you#ari levinson series#sebastian stan x reader#marvel smut#mcu smut
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