#Ezra prospect fluff

[chronically-ghosted]

vivarium

rating: explicit 18+ pairing: ezra x f!reader word count: 8K summary: you request a vacation for your birthday. With the rain and a few drinks, you get a lot more than you asked for.  warnings: alcohol drinking, minor age gap (less than 10 years), oral (f!receiving), fingering, smut, possessive!Ezra, dom!Ezra, one booty smack, dirty talk for real, smut, pining, a bit of angst, referenced/implied orphanhood, made a religious sex pun and i'm so proud of myself a/n: so @morallyinept requested this and it turns out when I write for a boy for the first time, it can’t be less than 7K – whoops. i've gotten ezra requests from some moots before, so i hope this lives up to your expectations! **massive thanks to @toomanytookas for editing and providing the initial validation so i don't post in a mouth-frothy haze. I've never had a beta like you before and I genuinely feel like I've turned over a new chapter in my fic writing. thank you!

🤍Masterlist 🤍 Ezra Masterlist 🤍 AO3 Link

💜come see what else we've done to celebrate 1K followers

Your feet in the clear blue water, the humidity like a wet tongue on your skin, you scratch a nail under the tab of a mustard yellow can, crack it open, and drink. The bite of alcohol dulled by the carbonation, you take several pulls, drawing out the mid-afternoon buzz from two other cans and whetting your mouth in the heat of the jungle day. You lean back on your elbows into the sponge-soft grass, and let out a massive sigh. 

A few feet ahead of you, on a repurposed inflatable reentry tube, your long-time privateer partner chuckles, the sound deep in the back of his throat as he floats by. Thick fingers and exposed heels dragging along in the crystal water, he greets the yellow sun like an old friend – arms wide, chest out, a lazy smile on his face. A damp rag – supposedly clean – sits over what you know to be dark-earth eyes, every other inch of him relishing in the inevitable sun tan. 

“I see your aaahhh, pet, and I raise you a mhmm.” The rubber squeaks as he adjusts, tips his scarred chin up to the cloudless sky and rests his head back. “Kevva said there’d be days like this, but I think the old hag mighta left out a thing or two.” 

You grin, the wet heat of Banu 8’s lowlands drawing sweat droplets onto your hairline at the back of your neck, settling thick behind your ears where it co-mingles with the drunk haze loping around in your brain. You watch Ezra with his bare arms, hairy legs, and prominent nose turned towards the divinity he’s so fond of invoking and the thought crosses your mind – again:

Shit, he’s so fucking hot. 

Oh, bad thought.

You drop your gaze, pressing the cold aluminum lip of the can to your mouth, drinking quicker than you probably should, anything to distract you from your partner as he obliviously floats by. 

For our sake, you silently beg the hungry little creature that whines and snaps at the image of a shirtless Ezra, please fuck off. 

While Ezra whistles a vaguely familiar tune, terribly off-key, you scoop up the cool lagoon water and dribble it over your hot knees, then your thighs, dampening the rims of your make-shift shorts just enough to cool them without leaving them vulnerable to a permanent state of moisture due to the high humidity. You flick the last drops of the water onto your chest, your white cotton bra choked to your skin. A final effect, you press the cool can to the thrumming pulse on your neck, closing your eyes with a relieved grunt, taking the time to enjoy the sensation of the cold metal against the rapid beat in your throat. 

From the water, you hear an unsettled grunt and you open your eyes to find that same shirtless Ezra staring at you, the rag now curled in one hand against the rubber float. He swallows, looks at something past your ear, and again tries to adjust in the sticky rubber float without flipping himself over, his hands falling into his lap. 

“Neptune, dear, would you do us the favor of tossing over one of those cans? I’m parched. I think my lovely skin is drying out.”

Neptune. His favorite nickname for you. You never got any real explanation from him as to why you got that name, other than after you’d officially joined his crew, you told him you came from a blue planet in a far off system. But that was often the way of things: Ezra did something and you didn’t question why. From that simple truth, you learned about how to repair and rebuild the entire electrical system from a drop pod. You learned, in excruciating detail, the parts and mechanics of a thrower, so much so that you could almost identify the model number at a glance. You learned about which corporate dig sites to avoid, which made for easy marks, and which would draw the eye and ire of entities hardly worth the trouble. 

Being out on your own since you aged up out of the orphanage had not gone the way you hoped and life had not been so kind as to teach you any other way to survive. Ezra had found you in the back of a red spice market, cornered and slurping down the last few of your credits from a muck bowl that you had vastly overpaid for.

For whatever reason, he offered you a job on the spot, despite you having nothing to offer him. and no experience in anything except cleaning prophylaxiams and staying out of the way.

And yet, he has been far kinder than life, or anyone else, had ever been to you. 

As a result, loyalty was only a fraction of what you felt for him. What had begun as overwhelming adoration had grown hot to the touch, slippery between your fingers at night, and perhaps – what you feared most of all – obvious. 

Yet when Ezra looked at you with a smile on his face, it was only comradery he wished to share with you, certainly not his bed. He shared it with practically every other bi-pedal humanoid you came across, but not you. And this you had to accept. And you did. 

But being a little drunk made it that much harder to remember where to keep your hands to avoid being burned.

“Sure, Ez.” You tuck your legs out from the cool water and dig around in the canvas bag at the base of the white nut tree. Most of the ice had melted into the bright green grass around the lagoon, but a few of the cans were still cold. You’d probably tease Ezra later for skimping on the insulation bucket the provisions store the port offered, but he had been so eager to get to the camp ground after spending an “exceedingly exorbitant amount of time stacked up against human drivel on public transportation”. One lopsided grin, and you’d give him the world. 

“Ez–,”

He lifts the rag, glancing at you over his shoulder, hands cupped as the can flies through the air. The cold metal presses against the overheated skin on his chest and he hisses. Eyeing the can ruefully, he cracks it open and drinks deep. You busy yourself with sliding to the edge of the pool again to keep from watching his throat move. 

Ezra finally pulls back, smacking his lips, with a pleased groan. He wets the rag again and dramatically flops it over his eyes. Hidden from his view, you watch the roll of water down his temples, his neck, his chest. 

“Name anything better than this, Neptune, I beg you. Free from obligation or assignment on commission. Where my only moral imperative is to drink as many of these as I can and remind you how beautiful you are. Which . . .” he tilts the bottom of the can towards you, head still tilted back on the raft and dripping rag covering his vision, “fantastic, by the way.” 

Having stifled your blush while under his watchful gaze about three or four other times today, without him looking, you flush so hard and fast you go lightheaded. Beautiful, he said. You drink more carbonated alcohol to choke back your rising heart, your eyes skim over the curve of his nose, a drop of sweat as it peaks on his forehead. You can’t linger over him too long; he has a six-sense about you – unable to know what you’re thinking but that you’re overthinking all the same. 

“Was this worth the trip on public transportation, Ez?” Your ankles stir the water again. 

“I could do this all day,” he sighs contently, bringing a warm smile to your face. “And definitely all night.”

Maybe you’ll both be so sun-drunk later tonight, you’ll fall asleep together on the pallet on the floor. Of course, by nightfall, someone will have to come to their senses and you’ll be tucked back into your separate sleeping bags, but maybe, as a present you couldn’t possibly ask for, you can just nap together.

With the bottom plush of your lip stuck between your teeth, you rim the metallic edge of your can with your nail, ankles spinning slow circles in the water. 

“Thank you, Ezra,” you say quietly, “for the best birthday I’ve ever had.” 

It began as a sort of joke one night on the volcanic hotspring moon of Wulkan after a twelve hour shift hunting through the black ash in search of fire pearls. The job was rather rushed, and Ezra had his reservations going into it, but fire pearls were a near certainty and you both needed a boost after a jump exchange had gone a little cockeyed. Sweat dripping from his temples, the provided water packs in the harvest suits doing just enough to keep him from passing out from heat exhaustion, he extended the skein of hydro-electric towards you across the narrow lane between your cots and asked you if you could be anywhere right now, any system, where would you be.

“Somewhere so cold I freeze my tits clean off,” you said with a sigh and wiped your own sweat-drenched forehead. You could smell yourself after two days of sweating profusely, but your stench in comparison to the rest of the crew, including Ezra, barely registered any more. You took a sip as Ezra laughed.

“A grievous crime against humanity and all its luscious gifts, but I get your meaning. Anywhere else?”

“Water.” This was said with more conviction, so much so it turned Ezra’s head towards you. “The few memories I have of my home planet and my parents, we were always near or in water. An ocean, maybe. I’m not sure. But I remember being really, really happy and I think being near water . . . it would make me happy again.”

You handed the skein back to Ezra, something unreadable in his gaze. He took it back from you, his fingers dark from the ash that clings to everything. On the other side of the tent, the rest of your crew and other teams mill about, yelling, with cutlery clattering as the camp gets ready to slow for the night, a graveyard shift picking up in just a few hours. 

Ezra’s eyes are as dark as the ash you’ve been shifting through the past two days.

“Then you shall have it, Neptune.” He said, quietly. “I’d give you the fucking galaxy if I could.” 

Those words often came to you in the crevice between sleep and wakefulness, when your mind was idle and the reins that tightly bound your affection for him loosened without a conscious grip. When you thought you weren’t being watched. 

The flat of his foot hooking behind your ankle breaks you from your reverie. Cast into shadow by the wide, rubbery palm leaves above your head, he looks at you curiously. 

“That look of deep consternation is giving me a headache. Spill.” 

With a faint smile, you gently bump his knee with your own. “Nothing, Ez. I’m just glad we get to take a break from it all. I can’t remember the last time I . . . the last time we’ve just had nothing to do.” 

He cocks his head as his gaze crawls up your ankle, your shin, to your knee. You think it might linger on your thigh before it bounces to your face. You tighten your grip on the hot, expansive feeling behind your ribs and stare back at him.

“Then that’s a black mark against me, as the leader of this clan.” His mouth curls, eyebrow arching as he talks, knowing that statement has been a point of playful contention between you two for years. “A good overseer knows when to crack the bullwhip and when to let it rest.”

“Well, a better overseer knows when to demand that her team rests, because sometimes they have no idea what’s good for them.” 

His foot rotates behind your ankle, his toes brushing against your calf, bringing your attention to your own body part in the water. Your legs are hairy, nearly as much as Ezra’s, and you haven’t shaved your pits in possibly a decade. Ezra once brought home a professional nightwalker, one from the Upper City, to the derelict flat you’d been sharing for two weeks as you offloaded your haul to the under markets. You never forgot how smooth her skin had been, shaved clean and smelling of moon lilies. That scent permeated the small space for weeks afterward. Even now, just the sight of moon lilies makes you nauseous. 

His aversion to you runs much deeper than physical aesthetics, even if you can’t help but wonder sometimes if becoming as smooth and hairless as the nightwalker might change his mind.

“Observational to a fault as always, Neptune.” The ball of his foot rests briefly between your legs before he pushes off from the spongy lip of the lagoon’s edge. He floats back into the sun, his head shaking slightly, a smile drained of amusement on his lips. He inhales as the sun crests over his forehead and he glances up at the blue sky. “I have no idea what’s good for me.”

Something about his tone, the way he turns away from you, scratches a very raw place inside of you – a place that fears and obsesses over abandonment. You wouldn’t survive it if he abandoned you, if he left you to fend for yourself one day. Logically, you know he would never do that – he has sworn up and down to your face that that notion is fundamentally ludicrous to him – but the anguish of him silently rejecting you from his bed again and again and again makes that fragile place inside you bleed red. 

You stand up, swipe another can from the bag, and move towards the waterfall. 

“I’m taking a hike.”

You feel his eyes on the backs of your thighs as you march towards the gentle incline.

“Be safe, Neptune,” he calls softly.

For a fleeting second, you wish he had made you stay.

The first fat raindrop splashes against your cheek and wakes you from a humid, irritated nap. You’re scowling by the time you open your eyes to several more wet droplets as they splatter against your neck, your forehead and you sit up, even more frustrated than when you fell asleep. The last sticky tendrils of dreams snap and pop as you pull yourself onto your feet, back hunched and arm held high against the steamy sprinkle. A crack of lightning, then a growl of thunder, and the sky splits open, drenching you in seconds. With a snarl of your own, you snatch up the empty can from the grass next to you and make for your camp down the hill. As you crest the top, you see a figure standing outside the tent, back tense and hand raised as if searching through the twilight gray downpour. 

Normally, the thought of warming up beside Ezra in your yellow tent fills you with something inexplicable, the grime and load of the day melting from your shoulders, but your buzz from earlier has thickened, made worse by the heat, the emotions in your heart all gummed up and smashed together. The sight of him cranks up your irritation high in your ears. With a huff, you concentrate on a smooth slide down the hill without breaking your ankles and not the fire rising in your gut. 

But the rain and the distance apart has only stoked his own outrage.

“Where the hell were you?” He snaps as you yank back the velcroed tent flap. He is dripping from head to toe in jungle rain as he follows closely behind you into your small space. You ring the water from your hair into a corner and scowl up at him. 

“I fell asleep. The rain woke me up. I came back as soon as I could.” 

His eyes narrow, water rolling off his bare shoulders as if he still stood out in the downpour. The droplets pat pat pat against the tarp floor as he snatches up a fiber towel and dries himself off, scowling all the while. 

“I searched for you, calling your name up and down this fuckin’ jungle and I didn’t hear a peep. What if something had gone wrong? What if you’d been hurt?”

“Then I would have fucking dealt with it, Ezra.” You stomp to your feet, neck hot from his patronizing gaze. Hands on his hips, you feel like you’re being scolded. “I can take care of myself.” 

One dark eyebrow arches mockingly, the scar on his cheek twisting in his scowl.

“And you expect me to lay about, twiddling my thumbs, while I wait for you to return or until you deem it appropriate for me to fret over your corpse?” 

That patch of blonde hair is a shade darker, drenched and pressed flat against his forehead. His bare chest is littered with scars and divots where chunks of flesh had been torn away. His skin is a reflection of the hard life he lives. You doubt you’d look any different if you’d seen yourself in a mirror. 

“We are partners, Ez,” you grind out between locked teeth. “Equals, alright? I am not your little sister for you to fuss over and you are not my keeper.” 

At that, the indignant swell of his chest deflates and the anger in his eyes flickers before fading out. 

“You are beyond capture,” he mutters, eyebrows down but gaze distant. “I’d never dream of keeping you, Neptune.” 

Again, it’s his phrasing that hurts most of all. You glance away, the backs of your eyes growing hot and tight, drying out despite the sticky moisture warming the inside of the tent. But then his hand around your elbow startles away the tears forming in the corners of your eyes. 

“You are the most important thing to me in the entirety of this world and the next,” he says softly, earth eyes searching your face. “I came on too strong, I know that, but the idea that you’d ever be gone from my side for any amount of permanence . . . well, it’s been a lifetime since I’ve felt fear like that.” 

His frown goes belly-up, a hopeless smile on his face. “I wasn’t aware I even still could.” His calloused thumb brushes your skin, skin that nearly catches fire from the rough drag of scar tissue, before he lets his hand drop. Your own curls into a fist at your side, a tremor rattling the bones of your wrist in an effort to keep from reaching up and touching that moon-shaped scar you dream about at night.

“I’m not going anywhere, Ez. You taught me enough to survive in a world like this. But you’re going to have to trust me.”

That smile goes wan, sickly. “That’s the problem, dear heart, I trust you with my life.” 

He swallows, as if suddenly bashful to make direct eye contact with you. He clears his throat before rummaging around in his canvas bag for dry clothes. He yanks a black, sleeveless shirt on over his head before setting up the materials for a flameless pocket fire. 

“Since my dreams of showing you something called a barbeque have been quite literally rained out, we’ll finish off the rest of the dredge pack tonight. But come first light, I’ll fix you breakfast so succulent, the smell alone’ll make your mouth water. How does that sound, Neptune?”

He barely slows to breathe as he seamlessly switches topics from breakfast to another meal made at camp without looking up or stalling in his prep for dinner, hands almost disconnected from the humming of his mouth – one so methodical, the other like a channel rat on fire. 

“– and the thing was no one was really sure enough what a squatter egg looked like when it goes bad. But being out in a cramped hold-out for two weeks where it was so dark, your own ass and someone else’s had no demarcation, well, there wasn’t a single peep of dissimilitude . . .”

Words strung together so quick and so melodic, it was always incredibly easy to fall into a sort of easy trance around Ezra. Sounds and syllables just sounded right coming out of his mouth and after a while, that trance became a state of repose, Ezra’s own sense of calm filtered to whoever was also in the room. But not to you, not right now.

After spending immeasurable time with less than half a space between you in cramped tents and in claustrophobic dig sites, you could read the tension on the lines of his body as well as the lines on the palm of your hand. 

“Neptune? You with me?”

Ezra glances up at you, always aware of you and your movements like the twinge on a spider’s web, a signature smile that has always seemed to shine a bit brighter for you plastered over his face. The anger was the only thing holding you up and with it gone, you can feel your bruised heart twinge as it folds over itself. 

“Yeah, that sounds good. I’m gonna switch out of these wet clothes before we eat, okay?”

He hums, nodding, eyes fixating on the steadily boiling water in front of him as you turn away to the other side of the tent, by your pallet and traveler’s pack. As further evidence that he feels nothing but companionship for you, you feel his eyes remain nowhere near you as you strip off your shorts and bra for a sun-warm suit. Then again, you’d like to think it’s kind of scandalous to be changing in front of him, but you’d both seen each other naked more times than you could count – there is no modesty in foxholes. The space between your hips and your thighs feel sticky from sweat and the slick rain, the curve of your spine warm and flushed. The zipper is loud in the silence. 

You’re braiding your damp hair away from your face when he sighs and the noise makes you look back at him.

“Answer me honestly, if you’ve ever cared for me a tick. Do you regret it?”

His eyes are sorrowful, worried, brow fixed down. Ezra is not, and never has been, a man prone to melancholy. His wrists rest loosely over his knees, gaze deep in the bubbling bone broth. The rain outside taps insistently at the tarp. 

“Regret what?” 

“Coming with me and taking on this life. It’s not an easy one,” he says quietly. “I should have offered you another choice, that day in the market. But one look at you and I . . . I was willing to trust you with my life, Neptune – far, far too soon. Even at my best, you make me irrational.”

You watch him, his broad shoulders moving, as he scoops up the hot, dark liquid into two bowls, and joins you by the entrance to the tent. You pin back the flap as he settles, the scent of humid rain immediately flooding your mouth, the pattering sound now twice as loud. Wordlessly, he hands you a spoon before digging into his own bowl. 

The heat of the soup burns away all the silly, impossible things sitting on your tongue. You sit in silence, his presence never rushing you to answer before you are ready. As you eat, you stare out at the dark lagoon, where you had both been only hours ago, the clear water murky beneath the downpour. 

“No, Ezra, I don’t regret it.” He stills, as if surprised you’re answering him now, mid-meal. He lowers the bowl to his lap, eyes trained on you. “You saved my life, more times than I can count.” 

Your words loosen the rigid lock of his shoulders. He grins. “As you’ve said, you would have been just fine without me.”

Your vision goes blurry. You pin him with such a stare, you watch the blood rush from his face.

“But it would have been only half a life.”

“Don’t kid about that, Neptune, it’s not –,”

“I’m serious.” You put your bowl down and rub your eyes with your sleeves. Of all the ways he hasd seen you bare and naked, he’s never seen you this vulnerable. “I don’t wanna do any of this without you. I want you, Ezra.”

“You have me, dear heart, you have me.”

“Not like that and you know it.” You watch as understanding rolls across his face. His lips part, eyes wider. He swallows and you stare at the ceiling, cheeks suddenly wet and hot. He said he’d never leave you, but what if this is the thing that finally does it? Could he work with you, knowing just how deeply you love him, and not feel an ounce of disgust? “You told me once sex is just a way to pass the time, but never, not once, have you ever even tried to pass the time with me.” 

He swallows, deeper this time, jaw locked, his eyes fluttering with the force of it. He brings his knees to his chest.

“Because it wouldn’t just be passing time with you.” 

In that moment, you’re grateful for the rain, for the sound of something to fill the silence. 

You stare at him, cross-legged in front of the open corner of this yellow tent, abandoned bowls growing colder, but he sits with his leg up, knee to his chest, as if to ward you off. Ward off whatever is growing in your gaze, under the flat bone over your heart in your chest. But whatever is stifling the air in your lungs, is warming his eyes past the point of comfort, barrelling towards expletives and the crass, the lewd and depraved. You cannot go back to having him look at you any other way. 

That look loosens every line in his face when you crawl into his lap, your knees around his hips. The backs of your thighs go damp, even through the suit, pressing down onto his still-damp shorts, and you think his breathing has quickened.

His massive palm hovers near your cheek, unwilling or unable to pull you forward or push you back, his oak eyes searching your face for signs of discomfort as if he had somehow dragged you across the tarp floor. 

“Neptune,” he mumbles as he focuses on the curve of your bottom lip, “this is unwise. You don’t know what you’re asking for.” 

You can feel the hard curve of his shoulders as you follow the lines of his arms and settle them on his collarbone. Nothing has happened that can’t be undone – not yet. Your perfect, vicious Ezra hasn’t pressed you flat on your back like you thought he would at the hint of sex. You could return with your dignity tomorrow morning, this moment never spoken of again, and he’d let you have that. The shake of his elbow with his palm against the tarp is the only indication that something might be unsettling to him. 

But it is your birthday after all. Maybe he’d let you have this one thing. He doesn’t know you’ll die without it.

“If you don’t want this . . . if you don’t want m-me, then say something. Push me away and I’ll never bring it up again.” You cup the sides of his neck as your hips shift forward, closer to him. The air in your lungs tightens, breath coming in shallow pants. Only then does he drop your gaze and fixate on your encroaching heat. “At least then I’ll know.” 

There. Out loud. It’s been said, heard above the deluge of rain against the tent and the jungle outside. 

His palm finally settles on your cheek. It brings a sense of wholeness to you like you’ve never known. Your eyes flutter shut at the sensation, a breathy exhale pours out of your mouth. His thumb catches the plush curve of your bottom lip and he draws it towards your chin, his own mouth open, enraptured. 

“Sweet thing, how have you not always known?” 

His mouth is humid against yours, as if he swallowed the jungle while looking for you, his thumb releasing your lip to capture with his own. The tip of his pointer finger massages the hinge of your jaw, just below your ear, and he manipulates your head until your mouth parts like he wants.

His tongue skims your upper lip, a tentative exploration into the unknown rewarded with a low groan that is warmed by the heat coiling low in your hips. You taste his tongue, a hot glide inside your mouth, and you feel his arms slip around your lower back, his inhale of breath sharp across your face as he brings you closer. He bites your lips roughly, the spark of pain and pleasure crackling across your face as if you’d brushed a live wire. 

His fingers wrap around your wrist, prying you from the back of his neck, just for a moment, his eyes heat-soaked. You suck your teeth, mouth open and seeking, and the hand around your jaw drops to your collarbone, the breadth of his palm nearly suffocating your throat.

The briefest pressure – the slightest touch – at the pulse at the bottom of your neck and your hips rock forward into him as he flattens his other palm to your ass, clutching you to him and pinning you to the pallet.

His teeth scrape against the curve of your ear, pinching the cartilage between his incisors, while his hands frantically search up and down your waist. His weight smothers you, his stomach breathing into yours, the flat plane of his chest rubbing your nipples raw against your suit, an unfocused lurch to his hips every time you tug on his hair. With every breath, every time you try to savor his touch, the taste of his mouth is like a wave, dragging you forward, wrapping a dizzy chain around your throat and squeezing.

Ezra’s greatest weapon has always been his mouth, that silver string spinning faster the longer he captivates you, spell-bound. Now he uses to decimate you in entirely new ways. 

The suck of his lips against the moist flesh below your ear distantly distracts from the afterburn of his unkempt beard against your jaw, your cheek. His lips alternate patterns of reward with a plush kiss and punishment with a stern nip when you try and stifle a moan. The edge of his shirt is damp from resting against his shorts when you slip your fingers underneath to palm the small of his back. He stills when you run your fingers around to the front of his trunks. 

His hand curls around a clump of hair at the base of your skull, his eyes darker than volcanic ash. The steady heat of his groin against your thigh is a sensation you’ll chase for the rest of your life.

“You know what happens when you touch a man there, Neptune?” He’s breathing hard, you both are, and the way he snags your hair in his fist has your head twisted at an odd angle, but you’d be damned to a Kevva-forgotten corner of the cosmos before you drop his gaze. You nod and that moon-shaped scar on his cheek twitches. “I know I didn’t teach you that.”

“L-learned it – somewhere else – Ezra.” Your mouth isn’t working properly, your lips swollen from his kisses, the slight pain in your scalp making it difficult to focus, while your cunt tightens hungrily. “Had to.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because you wouldn’t give it to me.” 

He leans back, his forearm tense and corded where he has you by the hair, a seemingly disinterested scowl on his face. But by the throbbing length pressed up against you, so far from where you need him the most, he is anything but. 

“So you’re saying this is my fault?” Without breaking eye contact, his chest raised inches above yours, his fingers snag on the blue zipper by your collar and your breathing nearly stops. He hums to himself, eyes following the path of the zipper as the material separates, click by click by click. When it reaches your belly button, he stops. 

“Ezra –,” it’s a whine and you can’t even chastise yourself for it. And neither, it seems, can he. 

Head tilted as if curious about the label of a box beneath colorful wrapping, he dips his wide hand beneath the edge of your suit. The heat that radiates from his palm against the curve of your stomach has you writhing underneath him, your knees drawing up to his hips, trying to catch any relief. 

But he takes his self-satisfied time. Callouses of a hard-won life snag and drag over the soft paper-thin skin that covers your ribs as he maps you in one hand. When he cups your right breast in his palm, the noise you make is a sob of gratitude. 

“You let another man besides me do this to you?” 

The snarling pit of your own thoughts slows as some awareness realizes he’s speaking to you. 

You swallow, clutching his bicep, begging for forgiveness before even opening your mouth to answer. 

“It didn’t mean anything, Ez, it wasn’t you – it meant nothing to me–,”

“But you let someone else touch what’s mine, hm?” That lazy, slightly irritated look on his face, he rotates his hand, squeezing the cup of your tit again, before sharply pinching your nipple. 

“Ezra–,” you choke out and his thigh shifts between your legs, just close enough to feel the heat but nowhere near close enough to grind against. His thumb rotates the raised flesh slow enough to capture and catalog every sigh it draws from you, his eyes catching between his hand and your relaxed face. 

He wears the same expression he does when sitting in the backs of blackmarket tea shops and smoky alebins. When the prospect of striking gold becomes all he can think about.

“Strip.” He suddenly commands. He lifts off you just enough for you to wrench your arm through the armhole, all the while keeping a rough palm on one breast, and then the other. You watch him massage your flesh and your ribs tremble with an unsteady breath. Only when a slightly cool breeze meanders over your bare shoulders and chest do you realize that the tent flap is still open, your head inches from the edge. A perfect and unimpeded view to anyone who wants to watch him hungrily grope your tits. Embarrassment peaks sharply, despite his hand pressing you into the tarp, you wrench your neck back and look over your shoulder through the window of the open tent as if you need to confirm that you are giving the jungle a floor show.

“Ez– shit, the flap–,” 

He finds that the skin beneath your breast had grown sticky and slick from sweat, the humidity still oppressive even with a breeze. He bends his head and licks that same sweaty path and your attention snaps back to him, nails curling against his scalp, his warm breath a high-intensity balm to your roughly-played-with nipples. 

“Not a soul in sight, Neptune,” he murmurs lazily into your ribcage, his nose running up and down the valley between your tits. “And if there were, let them learn a thing or two.” 

His teeth nip the swell of your stomach as he crawls down your half-naked body. Without his heat and hands, the tenderness from his attention on your breasts ratchets up to an ache, a minor preoccupation before he hooks his fingers around the rest of the jumpsuit and tugs. 

You are naked beneath him, swollen chest rising and falling, your knuckles scraping against the pallet as you search for something to grip with all your might. You smell of lagoon water and hot jungle air, of muggy photosynthesis and algae. The smoky scent of the black ash of that distant planet never really left Ezra and the dampness of the rain seems to stir it up. He towers over you, dark and breathing heavy. Smoke and brimstone.

He gropes your ankles, then your calves, hands gliding over the thick hair there – now grown soft in length – as he slowly spreads your legs, with a light you’d never seen before in his eyes. 

“Neptune, I revolve around you.” 

A wave of anxiety lurches up your throat when he brings his mouth to your cunt, the cloying, imagined scent of moon lilies threatening to tear you out of the moment – he won’t want you wild like this – but it’s forcefully yanked back down with a single stripe of his tongue. His previously casual, authoritative persona cracks when he buries his face into your unkempt curls and lets out a deep, overly pleased moan.

Your back bends and he’s gathering up your limbs in his arms to pin them down, nearly resting his forehead on your pubic bone. A few more licks, some deeper than others into where you drip for him, and your thighs start to shake. His fingers around your thighs squeeze roughly against your flesh and pull you further apart. 

Between the flush of slick seeping from you at an embarrassing rate and the wiry hair kept natural out of a certainty no one would see it, he must be drowning or choking, his tongue flicking and sliding, nose prodding your clit just enough to spread the sparks of arousal up through your spine. Feeling as though you’re losing your grip on reality, you sink your hands into his hair, thumb rubbing back that blonde patch, and tug. The moan he shoots into your cunt as he rocks forward into your touch has you whining helplessly. The tarp squeaks where he rubs his hips into it. 

His arms curled around your thighs, your hips shake with restraint against every lap of his tongue until he flicks your clit and your hips grind up against his obliging mouth, a sunspot of pleasure flaring brightly. But all too soon, Ezra lifts up onto his elbows, his hands smoothing across your stomach and he pops his mouth up from your wet folds. With an irate gasp, the swell of bliss fading, your gaze snaps down to plead with him, but he shakes his head.

Wordlessly, he takes one hand from your thigh and wipes his mouth clean with a swipe of his fingers. Then, with his eyes wide, the skin around his mouth loose, he crooks two fingers at the top of your mound before sliding them down where his mouth was seconds ago and presses them inside of you. That simmering in your low belly roars back to life and you toss your head against the unforgiving pallet, eyes slamming shut. He growls at the obscene sucking noise your cunt makes as he plucks at you, in and out. 

“Oleaginous,” he hums, so quietly, it might have been for him. He tongues your clit lightly, pushing his fingers as deep as they can go, watching you thrash. “Mine. Understand?” You remember that tone of voice from when he had you dissecting throwers on a workbench in front of him. You nod, eyes fluttering open, balancing on the precarious edge of release. 

You want to obey his every word. 

His thumb twists up, opening your clit to him and within a whispered breath of “good girl” he sucks your bundle of nerves and launches you into orbit. 

Your entire body goes stiff from the force of it, only to crash back down into his waiting hands, your voice wavering on a high-pitched, girlish wail that shrieks above the sound of rain. Waves of bliss lap at every nerve ending and your vision goes fuzzy for a minute, the only sound you can register is the pounding of your blood in your ears.

And then you register the steady, wet plunge of his fingers still dragging in and out of your pussy.

“Was that mine?” 

Your clit tingles from overstimulation, but you’d rather die than have him stop – you want to answer, if only you could pick up the pieces of your voice. You can only nod, whining. He presses a wet kiss to your inner thigh, the skin there smeared with your release.

“You did a bad thing, letting someone else touch what’s mine.” He scolds, rubs that spot inside you that makes your eyes roll back in your head, holds his finger to it until it burns. You cry, his punishment evident. “Now you have to apologize, Neptune.” 

You nod again, mouth wrenched open as he drags you back and forth across pleasure and pain. 

“Y-y-yes, Ezra,” the words are bone dry, cracked between your teeth. “I’m sorry.” 

Pure wickedness strikes those earth eyes and scorches them a singed black. 

“Unfortunately, atonement is a fickle thing,” Ezra tuts, dragging his lips across your thigh in a mockery of a kiss, “and I’m not quite ready to offer absolution. Despite your offerings,” he wipes his mouth with a stroke of his palm, “this godhead remains rigid.” 

You whimper. He grins with a mouthful of teeth.

Ezra pulls back onto his knees and shuts your thighs, his hand palming your ass as he indicates that you should turn. Your entire lower half still feels like jelly – no one has ever made you come that hard with just their mouth before – but you obey. You stagger onto your hands and knees in front of him. 

His wide palm appears beneath your chin.

“Spit.”

You do.

That spit-wet hand cups your still wet cunt, middle finger rubbing briefly against your clit, before it disappears. You feel him move closer, hear his slick hand pump himself a few times with a grunt. Hot lips drag up your spine, interspersed with the nip of teeth, and when he lays across your back, his hands overtaking yours and threading your fingers together, his bare chest presses up against the skin of your back and you shudder. 

He noses your temple, his throbbing cock coated between your folds. He bites at your jaw and follows your line of sight through the open tent flap. 

“Breathtaking, isn’t it? All that moisture, dripping and running over smooth rock and fern. All that heat coagulating in spaces it shouldn’t fit. All that . . . open field, for anyone to just wander into. Take a look around and smell the air. Could they smell you like I can, Neptune? The way you leak for this cock?”

As he hums filth in your ear, his hand settles again at the base of your throat, thick fingers squeezing just enough to threaten, before sliding down to your swinging breasts, rough palms catching your swollen nipples, then arching down your stomach and between your legs. 

He plays slowly with your clit; barely enough stimulation and he knows it.

“Ask for forgiveness.” He croons in your ear. The breeze returns for a moment, and between the heat of him mounting you like a feral animal and the hesitant touch of outside air against your sweaty chest, you shudder with a groan. 

“I’m sorry, Ezra. I’m so–,” his middle finger increases its pressure slightly and the words shatter in your mouth, “sor-ry.” 

“And for what?”

He continues to rub between your folds and the minute hitch in his breath is more intoxicating than anything he’s done so far. This is affecting him just as much as it does you. He kisses your jaw then tugs on the skin with his teeth. 

“For letting a-anyone but you t-touch me.”

Ezra presses his damp forehead into your shoulder, panting, your correct answers soaking the neurons in his brain. Your reward is the faster stroke of his finger. 

“And why was that a reprehensible thing to do?” His hips rut into yours, the scrape and rub of his cock between your slick lips and thighs almost enough to set you off. 

“Because it’s yours – I’m yours – f-fuck, Ezra, I’m yours, I only wanna be yours,” you sob. 

He’s suddenly gone from above you and the loud crack of his hand against your ass cheek deafens you for a minute, the sting skittering up your back and down your thigh. 

“Good fuckin’ girl.”

Your elbows shudder, the weight of his tone, his hand nearly forcing you onto your chest with your ass still in the air. You wanna be so good for him. 

He’s breathing hard and his skin is warm and damp where you feel his thigh press against the back of yours. There’s a measure of restraint he’s showing and it makes your heart pound in anticipation. You swing your hips back at him, as if you could catch yourself on his cock. 

“I wanna show you I’m yours,” you cry, nails curling into the pallet. “Please, Ezra, please!”

His broad hand settling on your spine draws a hiccup out of you, a sob. 

“Breathe . . . Good girls get what they need.” 

On an exhale, his blunt tip spreads you apart and he shuffles closer as he thickens inside you. His loud, unabashed moan overwhelms yours, when you think you might just be devoured by him. His hand, the one at your hip, squeezes you, silent reassurance. You can feel the knuckles on his other hand against your slick lips as he feeds himself into you.

“Neptune, talk to me. How,” your cunt tightens around his girth at the sound of his voice coaching you along and he grunts, as if suddenly dizzy, “h-how do you feel?”

“Amazing, Ez. Please keep going don’t stop I can take it–,” 

He obliges; something’s reconnected the wires in his brain enough to tell him to move. He huffs before sinking deeper and your eyes roll back in your head. He bottoms out and waits again, letting you both catch your breath. 

“Spent a hundred moons thinking about this.” The puff of breath against your shoulder is the only warning you have before he presses his mouth to your skin. His hand free of your clutch, his thumb softly rubs the muscle of your neck. He kisses you and kisses you and kisses you, wherever he finds bare flesh. “Would wake up in the night, with you a few feet from me, looking like divinity made sin, made real, but I wasn’t worthy to touch you. You got me all tongue-tied, Neptune, all mucked up in the head. A silly boy,” he purrs.

You glance over your shoulder, unsure which Ezra is going to meet your eyes, but wanting all of them. The man you feel most safe with in this world and the next greets you and you reach back and squeeze his hand. He chuckles softly, and with it, comes a gentle roll of his hips. You gasp, airily, your gaze slipping from his face to his chest, to the steady breathing in his stomach, and then to the growth of hair that fades as it reaches up his low belly. How many times did you sit across the room from him with your fists in tight balls, watching as he regaled exploits of riches and wonder, all the while thinking about how thick his cock is outlined in his suit – you’re so blinded by breathy dreams of what the musky scent of his cock must taste like that you miss that he’s pulled out farther, halfway now, and you are completely knocked senseless when he thrusts back in, a beat faster. 

“Later, Neptune. I’ll let you suck my cock later, but right now I’ve gotta ride this pussy to oblivion.” 

Your thighs quake at his promise, cunt squeezing him, and he huffs, picking up speed.

“I felt that. You really like sucking cock that much?” 

All you can answer him with is a whine. Your knees are starting to ache from the barest cushion the tarp provides, the palms of your hands sore, but you can’t find it in you to remotely care. With every stroke, he fills you up to a breaking point before riding you back out. Moaning gratefully, you finally drop onto your elbows, your cheek scraping against the pallet with every forceful thrust behind you. He tilts your hips up higher, on one knee to fuck down into you; he’s searching with his cock for that spot that made your brain numb. 

Like a flood, you feel bliss roll down your spine, his hands on your lower back pulling you up another peak, and you gasp, at the edge of a very, very long drop, the sounds in the tent as sticky and wet as the rain outside.

But Ezra’s sounds are loudest of them all. Grunting. Hissing. Moaning like he’s fucking the best pussy of his life. You open one eye, glancing over your shoulder and the sight drops open your mouth. Hips pumping forward, skin dewy with sweat, he breathes like a freshly broken-in stallion, relieved that something finally bested him. Chest full and tight with muscle, flushed pink with roaring blood. Stomach torqued with tension. His rhythm is caught between his hands pulling you onto him and his cock thrusting into you. A frantic beat that bounces wet and hot, mouth agape and eyes rolling shut, his head drops back between his shoulders. You push back slightly and he stutters, the hand on your hip tightening. 

“Not gonna last, Neptune–” he grits, his jaw locked tight. The image of him actively staving off an orgasm for you to finish first has been imprinted on your brain for the rest of your life. 

“J-just a little harder, Ez.” 

He obeys, submitting as you had for him, sweat curling around his neck and down his chest. 

As release barrels down on you, those mahogany eyes catch and hold yours in a second that lasts through infinity. They promise you things that you didn’t know you asked for, those eyes, made vows only your soul could hear. You see, in that instant before you are swallowed whole, that he’d die at your feet, if you asked him to. He’d give up every worldly treasure he won through grit and his teeth if you needed it or wanted it. If it made you happy.

His Neptune – in the crushing grip of your gravity. Willingly caught in the trail of your comet as you fill up his night sky.    

“Yeah, that’s it, right there – Ez-ra!” 

His face blown out in near ecclesial bliss is the last thing you see before your vision goes white. Your heart pounds in your ears so loudly, it's the only thing that exists for an instant. And then you shatter with a perfectly soft cry, bliss breaking across you like a heavy wave, and you succumb to exhaustion. 

Behind you, he groans, fucking you faster through it, snarling something entirely incomprehensible. 

You think you might say his name, you don’t know what your mouth is doing, but whatever you say, it breaks him and you are dragged through another low shock, the flood of cum deep into your achy cunt enough to contract your walls again, his harsh groan stuffing your ears just as full. 

The rain is barely louder than your desperate attempts to breathe. 

The tarp crackles as you slump forward onto your stomach, Ezra dropping to his side with half his body over yours. Panting raggedly, his hand curls up to the base of your neck, a reassurance of his presence and commitment when words have failed him. 

You lay like that for a long time.

And then, when feeling starts to return to your limbs, you turn your head, your nose rubbing against his. When you breathe hotly across his face, he grins a satisfied grin that splits into a chuckle. You laugh with him too, curling up into his chest, his forearm is sticky across your spine, and he kisses your forehead.

Staring up at the tarp, together you listen to the rain. 

In the long drawn out, buzzy silence, his nails scratch the base of your skull. And then, like he remembered something vital, he picks his head up and looks at you.

“Do you want this to change things for us?” 

“Yes.” You cup the muscles of his thick neck. “Yes, Ezra. I want this to change everything between us. Please.” 

He smiles, unguarded and open. 

“Wild horses never stood a chance . . . especially against these tits.” He nips at the swell of your breast and you laugh. “I had no plans of letting you go in any case . . . but we are bound from this day forward. You know that, don’t you?”

You nod. A stroke of heat passes over his eyes and  Ezra leans forward to kiss you, his hand on your cheek pulling you in close, as close as you can be, two sticky bodies, cum-dried and tingling.

“And if we’re going to spend every year of our lives together, I have a question for you.” he pushes away a stray strand of hair stuck to your face, nose tip to nose tip, “did you have a good birthday, Neptune? Are you satisfied?”

With a giggle that has his eyebrow arching playfully, you kiss his cheek.

“I already told you. This was the best birthday I’ve ever had.” 

+

[crowandmousewritingco]

Drifting Through Space

Pairing: Ezra x gn!reader

Words: 793

Rating: G (just a cute little drabble)

Summary: Just spending some time with Ezra on his ship.

Author: Mod Mouse

Notes: I haven't written for our sweet wordy spaceman in awhile and thought a cute little drabble would fit the mood.

The gentle hum of the spaceship pulled you out of concentration with the task at hand. Ezra had asked you to tally up your bounty since you had the time before you arrived. The next stop was an aurelac trading post past the outer rings and the two of you were about to hit it big.

One day you were stumbling around the Green hoping to find a hint of aurelac, and you found more than a hint. The Queen’s Lair was real and untouched. That was until you and Ezra stumbled upon it one faithful day on the Green. The two of you celebrated for days as you cleared the mining surplus. With your findings you could live out your days in bliss. The only problem was finding a way off of this Kevva forsaken moon. That was soon answered when you were lucky enough to find some fellow prospectors who generously traded their spare ship for a part of the findings. 

You were more than happy to oblige, which was how you were where you were now. The stars lazily drifted past as the autopilot ship glided into the hazy mist of space dust. The dark hull lit up briefly as the rocket passed nearby giant suns from neighboring solar systems. Space was calm in many ways, and having your partner beside you was a wonderful way to pass the time as the ship flew closer to your future. Though you had been so excited that you stayed up for most of your sleep cycle imaging the next few years together. 

“Gem, how numerous is our bounty? Will we be able to retire to that sun-kissed beach like we’ve always dreamed?” Ezra asked over his shoulder from the cockpit. 

Your tired brain didn’t register that Ezra was speaking to you as you counted the same pile of aurelac for the third time. It took the sound of heavy boots pulling you from your weary counting. 

“Birdie, did you heed my question?” He asked and only then did your head peak up from the table. Your partner took in your tired face and his face softened. “Keeva did you give yourself any shut eye last night?” Ezra asked softly cupping his palm, rough from years of mining. 

“M’ no I was too excited about the bounty,” You admitted with a slightly tired slur to your words. 

Ezra chuckled and kissed your forehead. “I understand the allure of having a wonderful life, but you can’t go on and abandon the needs of your current life. Here follow me.” He took his hand in yours and gently led you to the pilot’s seat. Ezra sat down first and patted his lap for you to join him. 

Carefully you sat yourself down on one of his thighs and leaned against his chest. Ezra draped an arm around your waist. “Now can you identify those planets over there?” 

You gazed in the direction he was pointing. “I don’t think so. I’ve never seen those before.” 

“Those are the Twin Flames. Their gravitational pull keeps them spinning in an orbit all of their own. Almost like a lover’s embrace.” 

You smiled and kissed his blonde streak. “Those planets could be us.” 

“Birdie I think we’re already there,” He chuckled and pecked your lips. 

You giggled and gazed back into the vast expanse of space. “What about that?” You pointed to a particularly bright speck in the sky. 

“Oh that's the Seven Ice Giants. Said to have lost a war and as punishment was left to become planets.” 

You yawned and leaned your head on his shoulder. “That seems like a rather harsh punishment.” 

Ezra smiled kindly and kissed your forehead. “Just some long ago tales my gem,” He reassured you gently caressing your cheek. 

“Tell me another one,” You asked sleepily. 

“Well over there is the Blanket of Flowers. Legend states that the flowers are so abundant there that structures are often taken over by the verdant floods.” 

“That…sounds beautiful,” You yawned as your eyes began to droop. 

“It’s very different from The Green. Here the flora don’t want to suffocate you. They want to supply you with beauty and color. 

“Lo…vely,” You yawned as your eyes drifted shut, sending you into a much needed rest. 

“And that’s how the Blanket of Flowers’ sky is pink,” Ezra finished his story as he stared out into the darkness of space. “What did you think…gem?” He asked, looking down at you. A smile graced his lips as he saw you fast asleep on his shoulder. 

Gently he planted a kiss on your head. “Rest my gem. We have our whole future ahead of us,” He softly promised as the spaceship softly propelled itself into the vastness of the universe. 

All Works Taglist

@for-a-longlongtime @romanarose

Pedro Character Taglist

@littlemisspascal @burntheedges

@carusolikey @thebeldroramscal

@morallyinept @lady-bess

@pedrostories @rivnedell

@pascalsanctuary @readingiskeepingmegoing

Thanks to the lovely @djarrex for the dividers

[nerdieforpedro]

Part Eight of "The Lake Between Us"

Binary Stars

Ezra AU x Seraphina (Plus size OFC)

This blog is for readers 18+ MDNI

Word Count: 1264

Warnings: Domestic fluff (98% bruh) and implied public sex (a dash because we simmer here like Ezra's gumbo)

Summary: The end or a new beginning? That's for Ezra and Seraphina to decide.

Notes: Thank you to everyone who has kept with me and supported this series. 🥰 I'm kinda sad to end their journey but I enjoyed the pacing and that they're two mature adults navagating a relationship. Let me know what you thought of the series overall. ❤️

Main Masterlist/ Ezra Masterlist/ The Lake Between Us Series

The subsequent six months led to a few changes. 

Most nights now ended at Ezra’s home, as he often had food in addition to himself waiting for Seraphina. She felt welcome and safe in his home. It slowly changed to reflect a few brighter colors, though she did stick to his theme of green. Mainly dark greens, reminiscent of forests and secluded places one might see while skating across the water atop his airboat. 

Sera had talked him into giving her a private tour a month after their initial dinner with Cee and Zora. She’d worn a soft pink sleeveless dress to match the sunset displayed over the water’s surface. Listening to him go over the history of the unique creatures and flora that inhabit the bayou and its depths made her smile. There may have been a good bit of celebrating on the airboat. Sera indulged Ezra’s request of her calling him captain at different volumes during their heated jubilations. Once back ashore, they had dinner on the dock overlooking the twilight, the sky seemingly settling in for the evening. The small round table had a chair on each side as they ate dinner. Afterward, there were two large wooden chairs that Seraphina assumes Ezra set up closer to the edge of the dock facing the water. While they shared a bottle of rum, Ezra asked her if she ever wanted to leave. The question begged a curious look from Sera.

“Leave and go where Ezra? Are you talking of moving somewhere? I’m not sure if you’ll be able to have such a job that favors your gift of gab. My options are fairly open. What state are you considering?”

A small chuckle at her answer, he kissed her cheek and took her hand in his, interlacing their fingers.

“You appear to imply that you would be coming with me, Moonbeam. For that I am eternally grateful. I pose a different question then. Will you stay with me and not leave my bed?”

A grin creeps over Seraphina’s face, lifting her hand, she kisses the back of Ezra’s tasting the salty tang of his sweat once more. A sigh leaves her as she recalls events not too long ago in which she saw the yellows, pinks and oranges weave themselves along his chest, arms, back and face. “Is it limited to the bed, or can I actually step foot in the house? I’m fine with you carrying me but there’s going to be a few logistical issues with this.” She has his hand rest against the left side of her chest as her eyes roll from their hands, along his arm toward his face. Ezra has the same look he normally does at Seraphina: like she’s delicate, dear and meant to be adored. “I believe you were asking me to live with you my dear captain.”

It was Ezra’s turn to smirk for he was aware the effect her calling him his title had on him. He turned his body toward hers, “Would you give this old scoundrel of a captain the privilege of knowing you’ll make a home with him? Knowing that he’ll keep all your appetites fed?”

Seraphina nodded and swiftly made contact with Ezra’s lips, holding for a moment before placing her forehead against his, “Even if I were to enter from the rear my dear captain, my presence would be known no matter my status. I don’t mind if you feel the need to hide me, as long as I am allowed in. Correct?” She’d quoted back to him what’d told her when they agreed to their first date along this very dock, many months ago. Moonbean sits back in her chair and Ezra keeps his eyes focused on hers. The captain sees a playful mischief in her eyes, the same ones that regard him with constant warmth that give him comfort along with her reassuring touches. The quote has his free hand land on her knee and draw small circles around the bone. 

“There will be no hiding you Sera. Everyone in my life who’s important already knows about you. You can enter the house any way you choose.” They share another laugh before looking back at the night sky. The moonlight glowed without clouds blocking it across the water’s surface. 

It took two months to combine their homes, sorting through possessions and marking more room for each other. Once that was complete, there was the question of what to do with Seraphina’s home. 

By this time, Cee graduated with honors with her degree in business administration and Zora had hers in English with a minor in history. They asked if they could use Seraphina’s home to open a restaurant. Sera was fine with it, Ezra negotiated terms with Cee in a dinner table discussion that took two hours, three sheets of paper and five napkins to come to an agreement. Zora and Sera napped on the couch during the latter part of the exchange. Once the guardian and charge agreed, they looked to their partners with mild annoyance that they’d found them boring enough to doze off. 

The house was being modified into a restaurant but keeping most of its original structure intact. Despite the small spats Ezra and Cee would have, when it was time to create a menu, he’s written out most of his recipes with measurements. They also accounted for some allergies and vegan preferences. “To get you and Zora started Birdie.” With a hug and a kiss to her cheek, Ezra handed over the handwritten notebook and both women thanked him. They set to practicing the recipes.

A month ago, after finishing and afternoon tour, Ezra found a gray fuzzy dog hiding under one of the seats on his airboat. He was curious how it got there and even more so about the owner. Asking around at the dock yielded no answers, even after having the manager look after the dog for a few days. Seraphina suggested that maybe they could take the dog in, it wasn’t a puppy and so far according to the owner was potty trained. Flyers could stay up about the dog in the meantime. Ezra said he wasn’t sure, but then also wouldn’t put the dog down until he was in the house. They went shopping for different supplies and took it to the vet to get a clean bill of health. The dog, identified as a goldendoodle which Ezra found to be a ridiculous breed name to him, was named Pluto because the dog was a smaller size. 

Late nights into the early mornings were rare for Seraphina and Ezra outside of their home. Tonight, they were sitting on Ezra’s back porch, little Pluto warming their feet with a bottle of Jack Daniels. Seraphina wore the white nightgown that she first saw Ezra in, and he was shirtless in a loose pair of sleep shorts. Her head rested between his shoulder and his neck with his arm around her as the held hands. A single cloud graced the sky tonight and floated on by reflected on the lake’s surface. Neither of them thought that the other would end up across the lake quite like this - in each other's arms. 

There were few stars visible in the obsidian above them, save for small ones side by side.

Binary stars that had formed their own small circle relying on one another for support and to function. Together because one didn’t make sense without the other. Bound together by a profound sense of need with love filling them both. 

Merging the Star Clusters

Glimmers of moonlight on the lake 🌕: @rav3n-pascal22 @maggiemayhemnj @morallyinept @survivingandenduring @bonezone44

@magpiepills @yorksgirl @gemmahale @missredherring @missladym1981

@alltheglitterandtheroar @megamindsecretlair @readingiskeepingmegoing @pedroshotwifey @tinytinymenace

@inept-the-magnificent @vivian-pascal @jessthebaker @pascalsanctuary

[guess-my-next-obsession]

Starlight, Chapter Three:

pairing: fae!ezra prospect x princess!oc (Marigold)

rating: M (my blog is 18+ only, minors dni, dual/alternating POV, depression, magic/fantasy elements, ezra's got a plan but mari's got no fuckin clue)

wc: 5.2k

series masterlist

EZRA

Though I awoke most mornings to a familiar bit of shame blossoming inside my chest like a rotted flower straight from Hel, this morning was accompanied by a horrible guilt that only took two seconds of consciousness to place. 

Marigold. 

Thinking of her face—her perfect, heartbreaking, soul-consuming face—when she came down the staircase after…

I didn’t want to think of what she must’ve endured at the hands of her new husband. Another thing to repent for. But it was more than that that plagued me, forcing me into sending a very angry and jealous Emita away last night. It was the look of betrayal written in Mari’s eyes as she saw Emita and I together, as if it had been the final straw to break her. 

I wanted to console her, to assure her that what Emita and I shared was nothing more than a friendly service to one another—at least on my part—but she wouldn’t let me. I didn’t blame her then and I don’t blame her now as I lay in my all-too cold bed, staring up at the dark green curtains draped above the four-poster frame. The only thing to remind me of home, of my purpose for being here.

It had been my fault—all of it. I was the one who selfishly arranged all of this. The one who had secrets to hide. The one to ignore all of my well thought out plans in favor of more time with her, more of her trust, more of that sunbaked light that would have radiated from her even if I wasn’t born to spot it. 

The light to my dark. The reason this all started, and the reason it all could come crumbling down before me. 

MARIGOLD

I didn’t leave my suite for three days following my wedding night. 

I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Kaius, and it seemed he felt the same way about me. I hadn’t received any visits from guards informing me that the King requested my presence, and though I felt relieved at the thought of not having to lay beneath him again, I couldn’t shake the feeling of insecurity that followed. 

I longed to have some older, seasoned, trustworthy woman around me to offer advice, to rid me of my insecurity and assure me that I’d done nothing wrong. But all I had was Drusilla, and she was only a girl. It didn’t feel right placing my adult issues on her shoulders, and so, I kept to myself. 

She only visited twice a day, once in the morning to dress me and style my hair, and once in the evening to bathe and dress me for bed. I urged her to talk, even when I kept silent, just to hear her voice that sounded so much like my eldest sister’s did when I was just a little girl and she was Drusilla’s age. Drusilla didn’t seem to mind, even though her eyes told me she yearned to hear me speak instead, if only just to be sure I was still capable. 

Tonight, I was more quiet than usual as I sat in the front of the fireplace in my suite’s sitting room, staring at myself in the reflection of the large window leading out into pure blank night. My golden brown skin had faded into dullness even with the glow of the fire, my eyes both swollen and darkened by my tears and lack of sleep. My lips were cracked, my cheeks hollow. I looked nothing like myself and exactly like I felt. 

Knocks rang on the main door, but I didn’t welcome anyone in. I couldn’t. My voice wouldn’t come even if I tried to muster the energy to speak. My guest must’ve either realized that or disregarded their manners entirely because within a minute, the door opened and two sets of footsteps along with the squeak of a rolling cart began to fill the crushing silence all around me. 

“Mari,” Drusilla’s young voice sounded, a warm and familiar balm to the icy ache in my chest. “I’ve brought your dinner.”

I turned, planning to give her a nod and the closest thing to a smile I could muster, but Ezra’s presence behind her wiped all tenderness from me. I gave him a disapproving look that I hope conveyed my disinterest in his company before turning back to the fire. 

“We thought we’d eat with you,” Drusilla persisted, the clatter of plates being laid on the table in the dining room beside me forcing my eyes to close in defeat. “The Great Hall is packed with soldiers and noblemen. Not exactly the place for a girl. At least this girl.”

I made myself nod, my head slightly turning in the direction of the armchair beside the one I was seated in. Ezra’s presence was unbearable. Suffocating. Yet still as intoxicating as it had been before my world shifted on its axis when I caught him and Lady Emita in the hall. 

“I wanted to check in on you,” he began, his voice low enough that Drusilla wouldn’t overhear it in the next room. “And I apologize for it taking so long for me to do so. I’ve been…occupied.”

“There was no need.” I surprised myself with my own voice after not hearing it for so long. 

“Regardless,” he managed, though I could see he was struggling with his own shock. “It’s my duty to ensure your welfare.”

I scoffed—or perhaps it was more of a laugh—and shook my head. 

“I’m perfectly well,” I assured, however much of a lie it had been. 

“You don’t look well,” he noted, his eyes darting across each of my dull, lifeless features. “You look…broken.”

I didn’t mask my rage, those same features sharpening as I stood up and faced him. He looked rattled, perhaps even a bit fearful, but remained seated. 

“I wasn’t his to break and I am not yours to fix,” I seethed. “Find somewhere else to eat your dinner.”

“Marigold,” he pleaded, soft and gentle, but no less desperate. 

“Leave me.” I ordered him away like a peasant, causing his eyes to sharpen a bit. “I am your Queen, and I am ordering you to leave me. So leave.”

Ezra stood, his jaw settling with a grind that told me he had many things he wished to say in retort but refrained. I watched him walk away with a look of pure hatred while fighting the feeling of pure longing swelling inside me, ready to suffocate me. 

“Mari,” Drusilla scolded, her purple eyes fixing on mine as she lingered in the archway of the dining room. “I like the Hand. He’s kind.”

“Kind men don’t work for men like Kaius,” I replied, dry and cold. The tone shocked her into silence, and I immediately felt sick with regret. 

She deserved none of my anger, and yet, here I was doling it out. 

“I’m sorry,” I sighed, crumbling back into my chair. “I’m just…tired.”

“You’ve been tired ever since your wedding,” she noted, quietly creeping into the spot Ezra had sat in just moments before. “It’s worrying, not only to me but…the Hand. The two of you seemed to behave like friends before. What happened?”

“Adult things, Dru,” I managed. “Things that I don’t want you having to shoulder.”

“Did he…did he hurt you?” she asked, careful but concerned. I turned to her, my eyes softened. 

“The Hand did not physically hurt me,” I replied, my words chosen carefully. 

No, he didn’t physically hurt me, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover from the wounds caused by the sight of him with another woman. No, he didn’t hurt me, but wasn’t it worth mentioning that I hadn’t once thought of what Kaius did to me? That the thought of Ezra with another person took precedence over that?

“Then why—“

“The food is getting cold,” I said, deciding that even though the thought of eating with this pit inside my chest made my stomach turn, I would do it just to avoid more questions. 

Drusilla took the seat beside me at the table and eagerly began on her plate, the silence pouring over us more comfortable than all the questions for the time being. But given the curious and persistent young woman she was, it didn’t last long. 

“I know you hate him, but I like him,” she offered in between bites. “And I trust him.”

“Why?” I didn’t know why I asked, or why it was so important to me that he’d earned her trust. Trust that was not easily given over given her background. 

“He could have thrown me into a room no bigger than a dungeon like all the other servants, but he didn’t. He set me up in a real bedroom, with a giant bed and books to read. When I made a comment about the lack of female servants and the unease I felt because of the male servant’s gazes, he could have ignored me, or told me to get over it, but he didn’t. He went out and hired a whole team of women from the shelters in town, and then he went and got rid of all the men I’d said had lingering eyes.” I focused my eyes on my plate, pushing around peas to arrange them into different shapes. Anything to distract myself from the fact that Ezra, however uninterested in me, might actually be a decent man. “And with you—“ My eyes shot to hers. A warning, and an invitation. “I’m no expert when it comes to royal protocol, but I can’t imagine it’s customary for the King’s Hand to take such care of his Queen. He has duties, an entire army to oversee, and yet, he’s stopped me in the halls morning, noon, and night to ask about you. To ask if you’re eating, to ask if you’re sleeping, to…ask. He cares for you, Mari, in a way I’m not quite capable of understanding yet. But even in my inexperience and naivety, I can see that you care too.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes, my shoulders shrugging instead. 

“I don’t care, and neither does he,” I managed, soft but firm. “That is how it’s supposed to be and how it will remain.”

“Mari—“

“Finish your sprouts,” I scolded, tapping the rim of her plate with my fork. She gave me a look that screamed pure adolescent disdain, but obeyed, stabbing into the sprout like she had a vendetta. I watched as she lifted it to her mouth and made a face as she chewed, a smile creeping its way onto my face at the simplicity of this moment. 

No awful husbands, no infuriating Hand’s, just two girls having a meal together, doing all they can to make the other feel better. 

“I’m sorry for my mood lately,” I said, helping her clear the table after our dinner was finished. “I’m still adjusting to this new life, but…having you in it has been a bright light to all this darkness. I just needed you to know that.”

Drusilla frowned, but there was no sadness in her eyes. Instead, she looked…well, she looked happy. As if she had been waiting for this reassurance. 

“Sisters,” she smiled, offering me her pinky. I chuckled, once again shocked at the sound, and coiled my own pinky around hers. A promise, one that neither of us took lightly. 

“Sisters.” 

After two more days of total isolation, I began to go stir crazy. I read myself into slump of boredom, then played the pianoforte until the music began to sound like nails raking across stone, before finally resorting to a bit of physical labor by rearranging my sitting room not once, not twice, but three times until Drusilla was begging me to go out and expel some of my energy on Ezra’s soldiers. That I declined, but agreed to give her some reprieve from my company by going for a long, hopefully draining, walk. 

I decided to stay in the castle to avoid unnecessary stares from the men training out in the snowy courtyard, even if these stone walls reminded me of my helplessness. My prison sentence. 

Kaius’s quarters took up the entirety of the West Wing of the castle, all five floors reserved for him and whoever was unfortunate enough to be invited. I had no interest in exploring his multiple council rooms, private suites, and torture chambers anyway. 

As I walked through the first floor of the East Wing, I managed to lose all sense of direction, the dark, lamplit stone walls all blending in together until I found myself in a narrow corridor, lit by only a few torches. The hair on my arms stood, a sense of dread and unease curdling my stomach until I was sure my lunch would find its way onto the stone beneath my slippers. 

I reached a corner in the hall, the corridor to my left shrouded in darkness so black I swore I had stumbled upon hell itself, but it was the giant stone door on my right that wrought the most fear. It wasn’t particularly menacing, it’s stone the same as the one leading into my suite, but it was the lock hanging by the doorknob that startled me.

What was so dangerous in this castle that it had to be locked inside? And more importantly, who held the key to unlocking this monster?

“I wouldn’t go adventuring in there,” a familiar voice, Ezra’s voice, spoke from around the shadowy corner. I gasped, clutching my chest to soothe the hard thump of my heart. When the fear subsided and irritation set in, I glared at him, watching as he came closer into the faint torchlight. He was dressed in his leathers—he must have been outside training with his men. 

“Do you just stand and wait in the shadows praying that you’ll stumble across someone you can pester?” I spat, not failing to notice the slight lift of one of his brows. 

“No,” he said, fighting back a smirk. “Just you, Your Majesty.”

I didn’t bother fighting back an eye roll. 

“What’s in there?” I finally caved, pointing at the door to my right. 

“I’d tell you, but I doubt you’ll be able to sleep knowing what lies under the same roof as you,” he said, sincerity thick in his tone. I shivered and took him for his word. “If you’re looking to explore, though, I could show you other, less haunting parts of the estate.”

I fought a sneer away at his offer. Given the way my heart still pounded in his presence, I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with him for an entire afternoon. 

“I’m sure I can see myself around,” I said, trying to be as polite as I could, all things considered. “Is it just the one dungeon, then?”

Ezra laughed. Something small and airy, but a laugh. 

“Perhaps I should draw you a map,” he said, not fighting his smile any longer. “Err on the side of caution.”

I gave him a condescending smile and said, “Perhaps.”

“I can see you’re still angry with me,” he said, following me down the hall as I made my way back from where I came. 

“I feel nothing towards you,” I spat, crossing my arms over my chest. 

“Have you forgotten my gift?” he said, and though I couldn’t see his face, I could hear his amusement. It was enough to earn him a glare from over my shoulder. “You’re angry, and you’re…I don’t know what it is. But it’s heavy. It’s…raw.”

“Irritation, likely,” I chided, reaching a dead end in the corridor. “Since you insist on joining me, can you please be of some use and guide me out of this awful maze of a prison.”

“I can be useful in many ways,” he returned, his eyes locked on mine as I turned to him. “Ways I’d love to show you one day.”

I gave him another roll of my eyes, an exasperated chuckle slipping from my lips as I shook my head and gestured at the stone wall in front of us. “Let’s start with getting out of this maze first, perhaps?”

Ezra didn’t seem to take my tone or scowl to heart—he actually seemed to rather enjoy the look of me rolling my eyes given the wide grin he wore as he lifted his palm flat to the stone. My gaze flickered between his good hand pressed against the wall and the golden glow of his irises, so molten I was sure if I looked too long at them I’d start to melt. 

“Wh—“

“I’m trying to focus on building a portal for you, Your Majesty,” Ezra cut in, though no true frustration could be found in his tone. “Or would you rather we exit through one of those dark corridors you nearly sprinted past?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, half tempted to overcome my fear of the dark—or rather, what lurked in it—and leave him here just to prove him wrong. 

But that would only end up with my lost down another corridor, wishing I’d set my pride aside and let him work. So, I did. 

It only took a minute longer for the stone to fade into sheer darkness, a black so black my eyes almost couldn’t process the color. I stumbled back, though instinct told me there was no reason to worry—my instinct, it seemed, was a fan of the man beside me, smirking proudly. 

“See what a little ounce of patience can achieve, my dear Mari?” he tipped his chin towards the void in front of me, distracting me from bringing up the fact that he’d used a nickname that only the closest to me used. I couldn’t deny that it sounded good coming from his lips. “It’s only dark for a moment.”

“Where does it lead?” I prodded, my tone still sharp from fear. 

“That depends,” he shrugged. “Where would you like it to lead?”

“That seems like something one might have considered before opening a portal,” I chided.  

“It leads anywhere,” he corrected. “Anywhere your heart desires. Although, I wouldn’t venture too far without a way back.”

“Meaning, if I were to choose to run back home, or to my sisters, I’d have to bring you to ensure—“

“To ensure your husband doesn’t come hunting after you like one of his poor beasts,” he cut in, his tone dry and serious despite his previously light mood. 

“Worry not, dear Hand, I have no intentions of making a great escape. I doubt my father would welcome me back in Solis even if I tried.” 

Ezra’s eyes softened, his jaw ticking as he continued to stare at me as I continued to stare at the void, neither one of us willing to break first. 

“Do you trust me?” he spoke after a beat of tense silence, my eyes gliding over to meet his as my brows furrowed with confusion. 

“Today?” He gave me an unimpressed look. “Yes, Ezra, I trust you. Mostly.”

“Then take my hand,” he said, his voice low and raw and…desperate? What reason did he have to be so desperate for my trust? For my touch?

“Where?” I asked, hovering my hand above his. 

“My favorite place in the entire world,” he smiled. “Where it’s green and happy, where there are no worries. Only nature. Only peace.”

I swallowed, suddenly aware that taking this step was pushing the line I had drawn between us. I’d learn more about him, what makes him happy, what makes him feel at ease. He and I would go off together without a single person aware that we were even missing. The possibilities of stupidity had multiplied in the mere seconds it took for him to make the offer. 

“I…” 

My hand trembled as I tugged it back to my side, reason winning out over curiosity. This time, at least. 

“I think I’ll just head back to my suite,” I said hurriedly, lifting the hem of my dress as I approached the void. I swore I could hear a sigh slip from his lips as I took the first step into the portal, though that could have been the sound of me gasping for air as the darkness washed over me. 

It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, being in the space between all things, however fleeting it was. One second I was nowhere, darkness and nothingness threatening to consume my very soul, and the next I was tripping over the rug in my sitting room, my knees screaming at me as I hit the hard floor with a yelp. My head whipped around, desperate to shout at Ezra for my own clumsiness, but there was no more portal, and certainly no Ezra. 

I was surprised by the guilt that rotted my stomach as I sat on the floor in the middle of the room, knees scraped and head aching. He’d offered up a piece of himself with me to share, something I was sure not just anyone received, and I turned him down without so much as a thank you. 

I hadn’t even looked him in the eye. 

EZRA 

An entire day had passed since the interaction in the corridor. Since Mari drew a clear line right between where she and I stood. Though the rejection stung, I couldn’t find it in myself to blame her for it. I was not a part of her plan—a plan I had carefully conceived and executed without her knowledge. All to get her here. To use her for her light, for the half of me that was missing. The half that would give me enough power to set things right in this Kingdom and give retribution to my people. 

But that plan was cracking under the weight of my feelings for her, feelings I knew were born not out of something as temporary as lust or love, but belonging. She was the missing part of my soul that I was meant to find by birth, destined to fit together like the final pieces of a puzzle. And she had no clue. 

“Is there any particular reason you called for this little meeting, Your Highness?” Emita purred at me, half-bent over my desk in the conservatory above my suite. The entirety of both rooms were warded with magic, hiding everything spoken, everything done inside these walls from the likes of Kaius and his crones. 

“That’s all over, Emita,” I sighed, rubbing my temples. “This is a business matter.”

“Which explains why I got an invite.” 

My eyes lifted to my dearest friend since childhood, a Fae noble serving as a Captain of Kaius’s army, Cassander. Standing half an inch taller than me—a fact he loved to throw in my face—with golden, shoulder length waves, and dark blue eyes, he was always what I imagined a King to be. His temperament was fair and light, and yet his determination and loyalty was as fierce as a lion, a balance that is not often stumbled upon. 

“Hello, lovely Emita,” he purred, smirking at her as she stomped away from my desk to her favorite chair overlooking the dark, snowy grounds. “In a mood again?”

“I’m always in a mood when you’re around, loathsome Cassander,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Children,” I sighed, gesturing at the seat next to where Cassander stood, urging him to sit and listen rather than continue to pick on Emita. “We need a new plan.”

“No, we don’t,” Emita hissed. “The plan was perfect—“

“The plan requires us to take a woman hostage and possibly incapacitate her by literally pulling the light out of her,” Cassander interjected. “I’ve always been against the plan.”

“There’s no other way to set things right without that power, Ez,” Emita persisted. “I’d like for my Kingdom to not turn into ice. I’d like this Kingdom to not succumb to the dark. I’d like—“

“There’s another way,” I cut in, rubbing two fingers along the hair on my jawline. 

“Oh, Gods,” Cass smirked. “The way I originally suggested, you mean?”

Emita jumped to her feet and bounded over to where I sat, still calmly stroking my chin. 

“Please tell me how you plan to seduce and mate with a woman who’s already married? A human, might I add.” My eyes slowly lifted to meet hers, taking in the equal amounts of shock, disbelief, and betrayal hidden in her stare. “You cannot fool the Gods, Ezra. They know what’s true and what’s a fallacy—“

“There is no fallacy,” I said, my voice low even with the wards in place. I had no desire for anyone to overhear the words that came out of my mouth next. “It’s true, Mari and I, and the Gods will agree.”

She stumbled back as if I had struck her. The look in her eyes was enough to make me feel as guilty as if I had. 

“How can you be sure?” Cass chimed in, ever the levelheaded one. 

“I can feel it in my bones. In my soul,” I said, standing from my chair. “She is the light to my dark, and I—whether she realizes it or not—am the dark to her light. It calls to me every time I see her. That taunting glow. My shadows sing for her when she’s near, as if they…as if they’ve found home after a long journey.”

“I might cry,” Cass teased, earning an eye roll as I seated myself on the edge of my desk, still lost in thought. 

“That still does not promise a single thing,” Emita spoke through clenched teeth. “She could fall in love with her husband, or she could betray us, or she could refuse the power exchange altogether.”

“She won’t fall in love with her husband, she won’t betray us, but you’re right,” I nodded. “There’s no way of knowing whether she’ll agree to the exchange. But seeing as the alternative means that I will have to kidnap, imprison, and possibly kill her, I’ll take my chances.”

“Ezra, do you have any idea—“

“Oh, shut up, Emita,” Cass groaned, rolling his eyes. “You’re just upset because this means no more secret visits to the conservatory.”

“Cass,” I warned, glaring at him. “This isn’t about us, it never has been—“

“Until you found your mate, right?” Emita spat. “Then it became about what you want. If it was about the greater good, about our cause, you would do what we agreed on. But you want this. Selfishly, you want her.”

“So what if I do?” I hissed back, stepping towards where she stood without a trace of fear on her face. “This is the new plan. You can either get on board or find another Fae Prince to align yourself with. But I am not going to hurt her if I do not have to. More than that, I want what’s promised to me. All of it.”

“And you’re going to get all of us killed in the process, Your Highness,” she spat back before turning away, her heels clicking on the stone floor as she stomped her way to the door and saw herself out. 

“Well, I’m happy for you, Ez,” Cass smiled, standing up and walking over to give me a squeeze on the shoulder. “Even if it means the lovely Lady Emita will no longer be a member of ours.”

“She will,” I insisted. “She wants her husband dead too much to give up now.”

“Such pure intentions,” he chided, making himself comfortable at my desk as I remained standing in the center of the room, staring out of the floor-to-ceiling windows to the night sky. “When can I meet your mate?”

“You haven’t yet?” I asked half heartedly, turning away from the sky that had an alarmingly fewer amount of stars in it. Soon, there would be none. Just complete darkness to rule over the land of Nox. 

“As if you don’t already know that,” he chuckled. “C’mon, I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Why do you want to meet her?” I prodded, that biological instinct to protect my mate taking over all reason. Cassander was the most trustworthy man I’d ever known, far more so than myself. 

“I’m curious,” he shrugged. “It’s not often that someone comes along and changes the entire world.”

I leveled a disbelieving look at him, making him laugh. 

“Does she have a sister?”

“And there it is,” I laughed despite the stress weighing down my shoulders. “They’re all spoken for, I believe.”

“Back to pining for Emita it is,” he sighed. “Don’t you think our testy back and forth would make for a passionate coupling?”

“I think she’d kill you in your sleep,” I returned with a half smile. “And that would make me inconsolable, seeing as you’re the closest thing to family I have anymore.”

“You’d still have Gail,” he shrugged, though I knew the thought of leaving his younger brother behind in this world plagued him each and every day. 

“Speaking of,” I smiled. “I happen to know a lovely girl who’d do well with a friend.”

“Are you trying to set my brother up with Emita? He’s only sixteen!”

“I meant a girl his age,” I replied. “Drusilla, she’s the handmaiden for Mari.”

“Mari,” he teased, and I chose to ignore it. 

“She’s become something like a sister to Marigold,” I gave him a pointed glare. “I doubt she’ll leave her behind, nor should she. Perhaps if she becomes attached to Gail, it would help convince Marigold to join us when we finally make our move.”

“You mean to use my brother as a tool?” he asked, his voice flattening into something resembling anger, though I couldn’t be sure as I’d never actually seen Cass angry. 

“I mean to introduce Gail to a new friend,” I shrugged. “The result of that friendship is just a bonus.”

“Is the girl kind, at least? Smart?” 

“She’s exceptionally bright,” I declared. “She’s visited me a few times to use the telescope and borrow books on astronomy, which Gail has an affinity for. And yes, she is kind. Nothing like the world she was born into.”

Cass seemed to deliberate, his knee bouncing as he sat in my chair with his hands folded over his lap. 

“Fine, arrange a meeting,” he conceded. “But I will be there as a chaperone.”

“As will Mari, no doubt,” I added. “Try not to scare her off, will you?”

“I’m not the one you need to worry about,” he assured. “Emita is likely working on acquiring some sort of poison to slip into her meal as we speak.”

“If she’s to poison anyone, it’ll be you and I, dear brother.”

At least, I hoped it would.

[galaxyedging]

Fairytale

New Year's Eve Drabbles

[pedroshotwifey]

One Condition

This is actually a requested fic from the lovely @survivingandenduring! You can view the request here if you'd like!

Pairing: Marcus Pike x fem!reader x Ezra (Prospect)

Word count: 4.9k

Tags/warnings: unprotected piv sex, sex pollen trope, dubcon, unprotected anal sex, double penetration, oral sex, cum eating, so much cum like its kinda scary, Ezra being a nasty little freak, anal fingering, pain kink, big fat juicy plot twist, this is absolutely nasty shit, stuff I'm probably forgetting, I'm actually not sorry at all for this

Summary: You and your partner, Marcus Pike, get stranded on an inhabited planet and run into problem after problem. You find yourselves in a compromising position that requires help from a strange man, who comes to you with one condition.

A/N: Uhhh. don't look at me 🫣

*****

“Um, Marcus?” 

You look at your partner, who has the same worried expression on his face as you. 

“Yup.” 

It’s not a question. You’re both thinking the same thing; you’re in the wrong place. 

It looks similar to the planet you were supposed to be landing on, but most of the scenery here is a lush green instead of the blue hues you’d been expecting. It’d looked the exact same from above the atmosphere, but there is a clear difference now that you’re on the surface. 

Marcus mutters a curse under his breath but begins the landing sequence anyway. That’s probably for the best; that way the two of you can figure out where you really were, and then where you actually need to be going. 

Dust comes up around your shuttle as you touch ground, the greenery around you rustling a bit as the jets power down. You get up from your seat when you feel the craft settle enough for the floor to be stable. 

Marcus follows, shutting everything down and then unbuckling himself from the pilot’s chair. You’re already on the other side of the small contraption, looking through the maps you have stored in the tiny compartment of the far wall. He comes up next to you and pulls up the planet encyclopedias, trying to find a description that matches the world you’ve landed in. 

You spend the next few minutes flipping through various books and maps until Marcus comes across a planet that matches. He hands the book over and points at the section. 

“Here,” he points. “It looks like we're on a sister planet to the one we’re supposed to be on.” 

You hum in agreement, reading the small passage provided next to the picture.

“Alright, well, let’s get her powered back up.” 

Your partner sighs, running a hand over his face. You furrow your brows. His face has paled a bit and he seems a bit reluctant to follow your request. 

“Is there a problem?” 

“Yeah, actually. We’re out of fuel,” he admits, trying and failing miserably to maintain eye contact. 

You gape at him. 

“Marcus! You were supposed to fill her up before we fucking left! It says here that there’s no civilization!” 

He nods along as you scold him, knowing it’s well deserved. 

“Yeah, I know. I forgot until we were halfway here, but I knew it would take just enough to get us on planet, and we could get more from there. It’s not like I knew that we would be landing on the wrong planet” He spews it out, not defensive exactly, but regretful. 

You groan and walk back to the front of the ship, checking the fuel gauge. 

“We’re running on fumes right now, I don’t know if it’s going to be enough to get us to the neighboring planet.” 

You look at him, trying to keep your anger from showing up because you know that it was genuinely an accident, and Marcus isn’t usually one to mess up like this. But of course when he does, you get stranded on an unknown planet.  

Rubbing your eyes, you walk in a circle around the floor, trying to think of a plan. You can feel Marcus’s guilty eyes following you until you come to a stop. 

“Okay,” you start. “The book said that this planet is typically only used for mining aurelac, right?” 

Marcus nods slowly, obviously confused as to where you’re going with this. 

“Well then there should be at least a few miners on planet in that case, right?” 

He nods again, furrowing his brows in thought. 

“So we should go out and try to find someone to borrow some fuel from?” he asks. 

“Yes. Either that or see if there’s someone who can hitch us a ride.” 

He sighs and puts his hands on his hips, his gaze downcast to the floor as he thinks through the options.

“Yeah, seems like our best bet,” he agrees after a minute. 

Within a few minutes, you both pack small bags and suit up to withstand the harsh environment of the planet. According to the book, the air is extremely thin and can sometimes hold toxic chemicals depending on other factors. You follow Marcus out of the craft and watch as he makes sure everything’s sealed correctly, before you both start walking into the woods. 

“Do you know where you’re going?” you ask after you’ve been walking for a while.” 

Marcus looks at you, his expression still holding hints of guilt. 

“Not exactly. I think most of the mines are located in the forest though, so we’ll just have to keep walking and hope we come across—” 

“Shit, Marcus!” 

You yell for him as he stumbles across a root and tumbles down into a pit. It’s not super deep, but just enough so that he could have seriously hurt himself with that fall. You carefully slide down the side of it to join him. 

“Are you okay?”

He looks up at you from where he’s planted on his back and groans a bit. He opens his mouth to reply and that’s when you see that his mask is on the ground next to him, crushed into several pieces. 

“Shit,” he croaks, already feeling the effects of the thin air. 

You crouch down beside him, feeling him up for any injuries. 

“Does anything hurt?” 

“Just my head. It’s fucking pounding.” 

You sigh. “Probably from lack of airflow.” 

“C’mon,” you grunt, threading your arms under his. “Let’s get you back and hope that you don’t die.” 

He glares at you but allows you to help him into a sitting position.

“Well, isn’t this unfortunate? Two little birds trapped in a cage.” 

You both jolt at the sound of an unfamiliar voice. You peer up to the top of the pit and find a man standing near the ledge, a blaster aimed directly at your head. He wears a shabby, brown suit with a bulbous helmet that would be almost funny looking if not for the imminent threat he poses. You slowly raise your hands and start to stand back up, a rush of fear creeping up your spine. 

“We’re not armed,” you start. “My friend’s mask just broke; we need help.” You try not to sound too panicked as you explain your situation to the stranger, praying to whoever may be listening that he’s not planning to shoot both of you.

“Don’t worry gem, I don’t want to kill you. I simply would like to assure myself that neither of you had plans of my own execution.” 

You furrow your brows at his choice of wording, his strange drawl only adding to your confusion. 

“I, uh. No.” What else can you really say to that?

You glance down at Marcus and see the same befuddled expression on his face. 

“I will warn you that your…friend”—he cocks a brow at you as he says it—”has chosen a rather unfortunate time to lose his filtration system. Assuming, of course,  you haven’t already discovered the effects of the tainted oxygen.” 

You shake your head as your mouth goes dry. 

“Is—is he going to be okay?” 

The stranger pauses for a moment as if in thought. He cocks his head and then looks back at you. 

“He should be as long as he receives the assistance he should require.” 

“What do you mean by that?” This comes from Marcus. 

The stranger frowns and lowers his gun, which he seems to have just remembered he was still holding up. 

“Are you not familiar with this planet’s cycles?” 

You both shake your heads.

The man sighs and kneels on the ledge extending a hand. You stare at it, neither of you making a move toward him. 

“Do you want to stay in this pit? I think it would be rather unsanitary to do so under your current circumstance.” 

You flash another glance at Marcus, who nods slightly toward you, encouraging you to take the other man’s hand. You step forward and place your palm in his, allowing him to pull you up, and then you kneel to help him hoist Marcus up as well. 

“I’m Ezra,” the man says once the three of you are standing. You introduce the two of you as well, figuring at this point that the stranger has to be at least mostly harmless. 

“Alright, well tell me, little bird; are you and Marcus of the romantic type?” 

You just stare at him, unsure of how to answer that, nor of why he would feel the need to ask in the first place. You can feel Marcus’s eyes on you as your cheeks begin to burn. 

“I–uh…” 

You let your eyes meet your partner’s, a silent conversation transpiring. You’ve engaged in some less than appropriate activities throughout your travels, but it’s always been strictly for stress release or simply a product of boredom. The last few months, it’s been more of an unspoken thing. 

The two of you care for each other and behave as most couples would, but you’ve never actually given each other the labels. You definitely never thought that the deciding conversation would be in the presence of a strange man who seems to be about to deliver some bad news. You’re about to answer when Marcus gives you a short nod, lifting the burden off of your shoulders. 

“Yeah, we are.” 

The man nods, though he’s clearly amused. You’re sure he can see what just happened and must have used context clues to figure the rest out out. 

“That’s fortunate for you. What’s circulating in the air currently is what could be described as an aphrodisiac. I’m sure you’re familiar with such?” 

You and Marcus exchange yet another glance. 

“Yes, we’ve heard of them,” you say. 

“Do you have a craft nearby?” Ezra asks, peering behind you as if he could spot one he missed before. 

You hesitate before answering. Even if he’s seemed to be helpful so far, can you really be sure it isn’t a trap? 

“We have a shuttle,” you decide on just to be on the safe side. “We’re out of fuel though. That’s why we're out here in the first place,” you add just in case the man has some extra laying around for some miraculous reason.

Just then, you near a heavy thud and a groan. You spin on your heel to find Marcus keeled over, his hands over his groin and his exposed skin covered in a layer of sweat more intense than what’s normal for this climate. You’re on your knees beside him within a second, your hands running over him until he flinches away as if you’d burned him. 

“Marcus! What’s happening?” You aim your question at Ezra, who’s still standing above the two of you with an almost pitying expression. 

“The effects are getting to him, little dove. I’m afraid you’re going to need to help him in a timely manner.” 

You think for a moment, knowing getting your partner all the way back to your shuttle is going to be a difficult task in the state that he’s in. 

“I have a camp not too far from our current location, I’m willing to offer up the space on one condition. And before you protest, we both know it’s not safe to engage in life saving activities out here in the open.” 

You stiffen at this. Of course there’s a catch; it’s not common to receive help from a random stranger without them expecting anything in return. You glance down to make sure his gun is still in its holster before narrowing your eyes at his face, not liking the way his smile has turned a bit wolfish. 

“What do you want? We don’t have any coin.” 

“Oh, no, gem. I don’t want your profits. I simply desire to join you and your handsome partner. It’s been a long time since I had something other than my own fist to keep me company.” 

“What?” you bark, slightly humiliated that he would suggest something like that, regardless of how handsome he may be. “No, I’m sleeping with a stranger in exchange for shelter!” 

“Now don’t get feisty, dove. I didn’t say it had to be you,” he says, watching Marcus with a newfound hunger. “Though it would probably be fortunate for your friend here that it was, assuming he is of the hetero kind.” 

“Don’t,” Marcus croaks, looking up at you the best he’s able to. 

You’re torn, knowing that Marcus needs help quick, but not wanting to give either of you up to this man. When it comes down to it though, you’re always going to choose what’s best for your partner. You look up at the man with disdain, knowing that you’re not going to have much of a choice here. 

“Fine. But not him.” 

Ezra’s smile broadens. 

“Very well, gem. Right this way.” 

He turns around and waits for you to get a near-delirious Marcus about halfway up so he’s propped by one of your shoulders. Noticing your struggle, Ezra comes to his other side and mirrors your position, one hand supporting around his waist. 

As you walk, Marcus’s temperature keeps rising and his groans get worse. Fortunately, the man wasn’t lying when he said he had a camp nearby; you only have to walk for about a minute before coming across it. 

He opens up the flap as you get closer, taking the zipper all the way down and helping you ease Marcus in. As you lay him down, you can see the bulge in his flight suit; almost twice what is normal. You hear Ezra zip the opening back up and then step in behind you. 

“F-fuck, I’m sorry, I can’t–” 

Marcus cuts himself off as he shakily pulls down the zipper on his suit, revealing his undershirt and boxers. His hand goes down the latter not a second later, a pornographic moan coming from him as his hand makes contact with his engorged cock. He starts stroking himself under the fabric, panting heavily, and it makes your mouth go dry despite the circumstances. 

“Shit, I-it’s not enough,” he grits out, pumping furiously. There are tears in his eyes as he looks at you, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. 

“Better help him quick, little bird,” Ezra quips from behind you, already removing his attire as well. You comply, though for which man you’re not sure. 

You strip quickly, the three of you tearing your own clothes off at the same time, each of you stark naked at the end. You feel so exposed between the two of them, especially with Ezra, who doesn’t help at all by giving a lewd whistle at the sight of your bare body. 

You give him a look so nasty that you’re surprised he doesn’t drop dead. He raises his hands in defense. 

“Woah, little bird, I meant it only as a praise.” 

You ignore him and turn to Marcus, who’s just now shoving his boxers off. You gasp when his dick springs up, heavy, red, throbbing, and leaking an obscene amount of precum. It’s swollen to a point that looks almost painful. 

You swallow your nerves and try your best to ignore Ezra as you instruct Marcus to lay down on the cot. He tugs you with him, feral to get to you at this point. You fall over him and he immediately starts sucking and licking all the skin he can get to, his hips thrusting up into nothing. 

You see Ezra move out of the corner of your eye, taking a seat in the single chair inside the small tent. You lift your head as much as you can to make sure he’s not going to try anything. 

“Carry on, gem. I’m a patient man; I can wait my turn.” 

If you’re being honest, he looks a little too smug.

Suddenly Marcus is flipping you over, shoving you down to the bed on your back, whispering something you can’t quite catch. He doesn’t wait another second before you feel his cock at your underprepared cunt, and your eyes barely have a chance to go wide before he’s forcing himself into you, groaning wildly as he tugs you down onto him. 

It’s only then that you realize he had been whispering “sorry”. 

You scream and your hands come up to reflexively try to get him off. There are tears as he keeps shoving himself in, stretching you to your limit. Through your blurry vision, you can see tears in his as well, more of shame than of pleasure by his sympathetic expression. 

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“N-no,” you squeak even as your hands claw at his back from the discomfort. “It’s okay. Don’t stop. Even if I beg you to.”

You close your eyes and try not to focus on the uncomfortable feeling between your legs as Marcus begins to unrelentingly slam his hip into yours. You hear a sound coming from beside you, and turn to see Ezra pumping himself through your blurry vision. It’s a sight that really shouldn't turn you on as much as it does.

You moan despite yourself as the pain coming from your sore cunt turns into pleasure. You’re getting wetter and wetter as the seconds tick by, the glide of your partner’s cock becoming easier and more toe-curling. Your eyes roll to the back of your head as he starts to punch that spot deep inside you. You’re getting hot fast, sweat building up in every crease and crevice as your pussy seems to get more hungry for what Marcus is feeding it. 

Each thrust sends you up the bed, but Marcus holds onto you so that you don’t go too far. He’s grunting like a feral animal, his body maneuvering every which way until he finds the position that provides him with the most momentum.  

“Ohh that feels so fucking good, baby,” he hisses through his teeth. “Gods, you always take me so f-fucking well.”

You’ve never heard him talk like this before—with this level of vulgarity. You whimper, making eye contact with Ezra as Marcus nails something even more delicious within you. His gaze is heavy and on your face rather than on your body, which surprises you as much as it flatters you. 

“Does she suck cock just as well?” Ezra’s deepened voice comes from the chair, his eyes still on you as he asks the question. 

Marcus looks down at you, albeit with heavy lids, for your consent. You nod, already fucked out beyond thinking clearly. 

“Better,” comes Marcus’s reply, his stare just as heavy as Ezra’s. “Why don’t you come see for yourself?” 

You moan at the thought of being taken from both ends, one of the domineering men on each side. This is going much better than anticipated, both your mind and body opening to the stranger despite your earlier protest. 

Ezra doesn’t have to be asked twice, already getting up to hover his thick cock over your face, slapping it gently against your lips. The cot is the perfect height for him to stick it into your mouth, though he waits. 

“You want this, gem?” 

You almost find it funny that he’s asking, considering he didn’t give you much of a choice earlier. You nod anyway, because you honestly do, your gaze is trained on it as your mouth waters. He threads one hand through your hair, pulling you into the right position, and then uses his tip to part your lips. 

He moans as he sinks in, his eyes fluttering shut as you immediately wrap your tongue around him. You find yourself groaning at his salty taste, savoring the weight of him as you start to pull him in. Your cunt throbs as he and Marcus both moan out at the same time, Marcus doubling over while Ezra bottoms out. 

Marcus brings one hand to your clit and begins rubbing up and down at a furious pace that would have made you scream if not for the other man’s cock in the way. Tears leak from your eyes as Ezra begins to pump in and out of you, his hips thrusting as he uses the hand in your hair to hold you where he wants. 

“Oh you feel devine, little gem,” he moans, his eyes still closed and his lips parted as he picks up the pace. You can feel him hitting deep inside your throat, making you resist the urge to choke. It’s overwhelming but in the best way. 

“Oh, fuck!” Marcus nearly shouts the curse as his hips stutter. “Come with me baby, come on,” he urges, moving his hand quicker. 

Your back arches up at the feeling, though you’re still pinned by both men. Suddenly, everything flashes white, your hearing going dull as your entire body convulses with the power of your orgasm. You have just enough brain capacity to think that this has got to be the highest level of pleasure attainable. 

It goes on forever, your pussy pulsing as you sob and moan around Ezra’s cock. You faintly hear Marcus’s own moans and feel his dick twitch and throb within you, coating your walls in his creamy white spend.

You don’t even realize you had closed your eyes until you open them again upon feeling your own drool dribbling down your cheeks to mix with your tears. Ezra coos down at you, wiping away the saliva though he doesn’t dare slow his pace. 

“M-messy little bird,” he laughs.

You glance back down at Marcus the best you can just to realize that he’s still hard as a fucking rock. He’s still riding out his own high, rocking slowly to prolong it as much as possible. His eyes flick back up to yours after a moment, and then to Ezra’s who watches him intently as he continues to defile your throat. 

The gurgling sounds coming from you should be downright disgusting, but they only add to the eroticness of what the three of you are doing right now. The tent seems to have filled with the thick scent and humidity of sex, making your head even more foggy than provided by your orgasm. 

Ezra’s not far after the two of you, grunting heavily and pulling on your hair to a painful level. He pulls out and strokes himself over your face, letting his cum splatter across your features right after you close your eyes. His thumb comes to your lips, making you open your mouth as he moans aloud. 

Some of his seed falls on your tongue, and you swallow it down as Ezra finishes the last few spurts. You open your eyes when you’re sure he’s done, panting and gasping despite your sore throat. 

It’s at the same time that the two men pull away from you, and you’re extremely confused until you see that they’re maintaining eye contact, seeming to have had a silent conversation while you’d been distracted. 

Suddenly, you’re being lifted by the both of them, your body being rearranged to their preference. You’re so fucking tired, but you do your best to comply with their actions. You’re being lifted onto Ezra’s lap when you finally understand their plan. 

His cock is only half-hard after his orgasm, but he begins rutting himself against you regardless as Marcus disappears from your line of sight. You half-collapse on Ezra, moaning as your clit gets stimulated thanks to his thrusts. 

“Second drawer, pretty boy,” he pants. You hear shuffling and then Marcus returning behind you before you get the chance to ask what he was doing. There’s a pop from behind you, and then a cold substance at your ass. 

You yelp at the unexpected feeling, only to be shushed by Ezra. 

“Hush now, gem. I’ve heard you have experience in this area.” 

He smirks at you as your cheeks heat. 

You moan suddenly as Marcus slips a finger past your tight ring of muscle, pumping a good few times before adding a second. He leans close and whispers praise into your ear, telling you how good you’re being for them, how well you’re taking it all. 

He works you up to three fingers before he pulls his hand from you and helps lift you up, propping you up enough for Ezra to notch his tip at your thoroughly soaked cunt. You help the slow descent down his shaft, your lips parting and eyes pinching shut at the sensation. 

Ezra chokes on a groan, squeezing both of your ass cheeks as you bottom out. 

“Fuck, little birdy, your heavenly cunt should be reserved for those of immortal status.” 

You don’t even have the energy to cringe at his wording, instead savoring the way he fills you so nicely, not as long as Marcus, but a good bit thicker. The coarse hairs above his cock rub against your oversensitive clit nicely, making you want to rut against him. Just then, you feel Marcus settle in behind you again, dragging you partially onto his lap so you’re over his cock. 

“Ready, sweetheart?” He asks, clearly having regained some of his gentlemanly status after quelling his lust a bit. You whimper and nod at him, and he starts to push inside of you. 

“Oh, Gods,” you moan, wrapping your arms around Ezra’s back and digging your nails in for stability. He hisses and increases his grip on your ass, keeping you spread for Marcus as his hips come flush against you. 

You’re already so full it’s dizzying, so when the two men start to move, you think you may come on the spot. Ezra goes first, pulling out a bit and then sinking back in, which is when Marcus makes his move, repeating the other man’s actions. Your knees are planted on the cot, giving you the opportunity to move with them. 

The three of you are panting, moaning messes, hot breaths fanning across each other’s skin as you nuzzle together. The pace starts out slow, but quickly picks up, increasing your combined noises. Both of the men start to grab at you, moving their hands and groping anything and everything they’re able to. 

You can feel their cocks rubbing against your middle wall, creating an intoxicating feeling that you know you’ll miss when this is over. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before, being so full you can feel them in your stomach. 

Small whimpers begin to spill from your mouth, but are quickly caught by Ezra, who captures your lips in a sloppy kiss, his spend from earlier mixed between your tongues. It’s difficult to keep it up with how much you’re being jostled, so he gives up after a moment and instead opts to lick his cum off of your sweaty cheek. You’re pleasantly surprised when you feel Marcus’s hand come up to grasp at your chin, tilting your face so that he’s able to do the same on the opposite side. 

The two of you clean your face with their tongues as they thrust into you at a punishing pace, somehow hitting spots you didn’t even know existed. You let out a raspy groan, your hands scrambling over both of their bodies for purchase. 

A heat is beginning to build once again in your abdomen, pleasure licking up your spine. It only takes a few more alternating thrusts before you’re coming around their cocks with a scream. You tighten around both of their throbbing cocks, getting them closer to their own ends. 

Marcus comes first once again, still slightly affected by the drug from earlier. He bites onto your shoulder as he busts inside of you, slamming his hips up and locking in place, his hands coming up to squeeze your tits as his balls empty into your ass. 

Ezra follows right after, seemingly liking Marcus’s idea of a gag, and biting into your other shoulder. You scream again at the pressure of both men’s teeth, your arms raising so you can grasp both of their hair, holding them close. 

Your orgasm lingers for as long as theirs do, the three of you coming completely down at the same time. You stay in a sweaty heap for a long time, just trying to catch your breath and make sense of what’s real and what’s not. 

You all fall apart after a few minutes, exhaustion officially taking over you. You can feel both of the men’s cum leaking from your holes as they pull out and help you lay comfortable on the cot. They get situated next to you, and you’re all out like lights within the next minute. 

The next morning, Ezra’s waiting for the two of you with a portable can of fuel and an extra mask. Your departure is swift and unawkward, Ezra walking with the two of you back to your ship like you’ve known each other for years. It takes a bit longer than it should due to your body being practically fucking wrecked from last night, but both of the men help you get along. 

When you reach your craft, you all say your goodbyes, knowing this will more than likely be the last time you’ll come across this strange man. To be frank, you’re still a bit confused about what exactly transpired last night, but you choose to ignore it. Your head is pounding with what feels like the worst hangover you’ve ever had, and you’re just eager to get off of this nightmare planet. 

Ezra watches you fuel up your craft and then take off, smiling and honestly quite satisfied with himself. Neither of you even figured it out that he was the one who planted the trap and laced the dirt pit with the drug, nor that he may have let a bit more slip inside his tent.

***** I mean really, do we really expect anything less from Ezra?

Please consider interacting if you enjoyed this fic!!

[pidgeispunk]

Pedro Pascal Character Headcannons — Cuddles Pt. 2

you can find part one here.

Oberyn Martell:

Oberyn’s a lazy sleeper, but he likes to make sure he’s close to you. Most nights — if not all — he’ll let you chose the position, meaning it sometimes varies night to night. Usually at least one arm is around your body, whether it’s around your waste or holding your thigh, his hands will always find you. He likes the way you seek out his arms in the night, sometimes not even realising you’re doing it. The way your hand laces with his, and you’re pulling his arm up and over yourself. Usually you’ll wake up in a completely different position that you fell asleep in, and most times Oberyn will have moved himself much closer to you.

Pero Tovar:

Tovar almost always sleeps on his back, he struggles to get to sleep any other way. He also can’t not have you cuddled up to him, any time you try and wriggle out of his hold he’ll whine something and pull you closer. Both arms stay tight around you, fully engulfing you as his hands splay across your back. He’s a little insecure that you might up and leave him at any moment, so he takes the advantage of the night to hold you as close to him as he can. It’s like he’s trying to merge your bodies the way he bear hugs you. He doesn’t care if you’re facing him, spooning, or completely on top, he just has to be hugging you.

Agent Whiskey:

It took Jack a while to admit it, but he adores being the little spoon. He’s always so protective over you during the days, especially given his line of work, so when it comes to sleeping, he loves just being held by you. He feels so safe with your arms around him, head tucked over his shoulder as you press kisses to his temple. His larger hands find yours, lacing his fingers with yours and smiling at the way you absentmindedly fiddle with his. He’ll make sure he’s pressed back against you completely, sighing when he feels you draping a leg over his waist. Some nights he’ll turn around in his sleep, getting even closer if that was possible.

Ezra:

Ezra hates how he has to be so on guard during the night. When he first arrived on the planet he barely slept, he would try and guard as much as possible. But now you’ve convinced him to actually get some sleep, you’ve got enough reinforcement on your ship. He keeps his gun on the floor beside the bed, force of habit you could say. But when it comes to cuddles, he’s more than happy to let you curl up on top of him, you aren’t exactly heavy. He lets his fingers run through your hair as a way of calming him down, knowing it’ll also send you straight to sleep. He likes to be sitting up a little, just in case.

Max Phillips:

Max’s is possessive, despite nobody being around it’s like he’s trying to make sure nobody can get to you. He keeps a hand on your thigh at all times, on the leg that’s bent and draped over his legs. He’ll pull your leg higher if he can, just so he can get his hand higher on your thigh. Considering max doesn’t actually sleep, he’s more than happy to spend the 10 or so hours just watching you. He likes the way you curl up at his side, making sure your head’s comfortable on his chest as a hand lays flat beside your head. Sometimes he’ll slip a hand beneath your head, letting you rest on it just because he knows how much you love it.

Javi Gutierrez:

Javi has a habit of fidgeting. You will most likely not wake up in the position you fell asleep in, and half the time the duvet’s been yanked over to his side. He doesn’t intend on doing in, and sometimes he feels quite bad the way he’s left you with almost no cover and very little room. If he hasn’t starfished and almost knocked you off the bed, he’s taken you with him. If he rolls over, he’ll drag you with him. When he moves an arm, it stays around you.

[jennaispunk]

Amid the Falling Snow

Pairing: Ezra x f!reader

Rating: T

Word Count: 2.9 k

Tags/Warnings: fluff, a hint of smut, allusions to smut, oral (f receiving), Ezra being Ezra, soft!Ezra, established relationship, two people madly in love. Reader has several nicknames (my love, love, little dove, sweet girl) Reader has hair that can be tucked behind her ear, but no other physical description is given. Photos in the moodboard are for aesthetic only and do not represent reader.

A/N: This fic was written for @sixhours. Hey!! I'm your Secret Santa. Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoy this little snow day with our lovable scoundrel. (P.S. This is my first Ezra fic😬) Thanks to @whocaresstillthelouvre for organizing the event. The title comes from a song of the same name by Enya. It just seemed to fit.

Moodboard by me. dividers and banner by @saradika-graphics

A million feathers falling down, A million stars that touch the ground, So many secrets to be found Amid the falling snow.

The hum of the ship drones in the background but all you can focus on is the dark-haired man between your legs, the little blonde patch that you’ve grown so fond of appearing every now and then as he moves. You never would have thought you’d find yourself here, traveling the galaxy with a loquacious Aurelac miner, but here you are, and you couldn’t be happier.

Your hips twitch as his lush lips suction over your sensitive bundle of nerves. The sensation zings through your body and you know your second orgasm is only seconds away. The delicious tension in your lower abdomen is enough to make your eyes water. He draws his tongue in tight circles, and waves of pleasure wash over you as you cry out his name.  

He lifts his head with a throaty chuckle. You can tell just how pleased he is with his ability to make you come undone.

“You were magnificent, my love.”

His raspy southern drawl floats to your ears. It's one of the things that initially drew you to him; that and the curious shock of blonde hair in his otherwise dark locks. All you can manage is a soft mewl; You’re too blissed out to form words, too lost in the way he makes you feel.

His nimble lips brush against the silky skin of your inner thigh, tongue occasionally peeking out to taste the saltiness of your skin. Kevva, he loved the sounds you made for him, like the sweetest symphony he’s ever heard. He never thought he would find anyone like you: a wonderful combination of patience, compassion and sass. No one else listened to him the way you did. Some people found him verbose and a bit pretentious, but not you. You always knew when to listen and when to call him on his bullshit. It was time he repaid you for your affection. He was going to make it his mission to make you happy.

“Tell me, little dove…What does your lovely little heart desire? Name it and I will endeavor to make it a reality.”

The whispers of his dulcet tones tickled your skin as his lips continued their lazy path up your thigh.

Your brow furrows. Material possessions never interested you. Growing up with next to nothing taught you the value of the things that money couldn’t buy. The first thing that pops into your mind is so silly that you giggle out loud. Your hand slaps across your mouth to muffle the sound, but it’s too late.

His head jerks up and his mocha eyes meet yours. A roguish smirk graces his lips and his right eyebrow arches to the sky, silently imploring you to let him in on the joke.

“Don’t be shy. No thought is too preposterous, love.”

Your chest heaves as you swallow your giggles. This really was something you’ve always wanted. It shouldn’t be that hard to say out loud, but it is.

“I’d like to see snow.”

Teeth dig into your bottom lip as you wait for him to respond. Your fingers fist the sheets as you prepare for the worst, for him to laugh at you and tell you how childish you sound. Instead, you’re met with a smile.

“My precious little dove wishes to see the snow?”

There’s not a hint of admonishment in his tone. He sounds curious, like he’s willing to indulge you.

“Um, yeah. I’ve always wanted to see snow. It looks so beautiful in pictures.”

He nods. If that’s what you want, he’ll make sure you get it.

“It is indeed beautiful…though it pales in comparison to the beauty displayed so deliciously before me.”

“Ez…”

Your cheeks burn; you could never resist when he talked to you like that. If any other man said the things he said to you, you’d laugh in their face. He was a silver-tongued devil, but he always made you feel so beautiful, so desired; like you were the only woman in the world.

“Shhh” he coos, continuing to kiss a path up your body and over your stomach.

“You would look devine in the snow, like a goddess with those flakes in your silken tresses.”

Plush lips slowly move higher to the valley between your breasts. Your need for him reignites once again and he lifts his head enough for his mocha brown eyes to meet yours as you mewl softly.

“I will make it happen for you, little dove. You have my promise that one day soon, you and I will dance amid the falling snow.”

Your eyes flutter closed as he resumes his teasing kisses. How did you get so lucky?

“But first…” he murmurs as his lips hover over yours.

“I need to hear my little bird sing for me one more time.”

Ezra propped himself up on an elbow and watched you as you slept. You looked like an angel all tangled up in the sheets and your hair spilling over the pillow. The dim runner lights of the ship illuminated your perfect features. You were the best thing that ever happened to a scoundrel like him. He wanted to make all your dreams come true, starting with showing you the beauty of a snowfall.

There was a planet he’d been to where it snowed all year. It would take some planning on his part, but he could take you there before his next mining stop.

He slowly sneaks out of bed and softly pads to the cockpit. He pulls out the maps and found what he was looking for. This was perfect; the snowy paradise you wished to experience was along the route to his next stop. A late start on grabbing his next haul was worth it to see you light up with joy.

The next morning Ezra made his scheduled supply stop. Once all the needed supplies were stored away on the ship, he set his course for the surprise.

“We have one more stop to make. Hope you don’t mind, sweet girl.”

The tone of mischief in his voice makes your brows go up. Crawling into the co-pilot seat, you can hardly sit still with anticipation and your curiosity gets the better of you.

“Where are we stopping?”

He’s not going to tell you, he never does. Although he loves to talk, Ezra is a master at keeping secrets and no amount of pouting or begging on your part gets him to budge. He’s impossibly tight lipped when he wants to be and it’s infuriating.

He chuckles softly at your prodding. It always tickles him that you still try to wrangle surprises out of him with childlike enthusiasm, despite knowing that you’ll never break him.

“Patience, little dove. You’ll see soon enough.”

He punches a sequence in the computer and looks at you. He’s so excited to do this for you his chest hurts. He heard you murmuring about snow in your sleep last night and he knows you’re going to be over the moon when you see the snow for the first time.

He patiently waits for you to buckle your harness in the co-pilot seat. You’ve done it a thousand times, but he has to watch to make sure it’s secure; he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened to you.

He looks at you, his mocha eyes filled with affection. One corner of his mouth lifts into a crooked smile.

“Now little dove, I need to blindfold you while we land.”

Your brow furrows and he tucks a stray strand of your hair behind your ear before cupping your cheek with his large hand. The calloused pad of his thumb swipes the apple of your cheek to soothe you.  He knows you’ve had bad experiences with being blindfolded before, but he hopes that you’ll trust him enough to go along with him.

“It won’t be for long, I promise.” he assures you. “It’s only so you’ll get the full effect of what you are about to experience.”

You bite your lip and nod your head. You trust him, he’s proven himself to you time and again and you know you’re safe.

He ties the scarf around your eyes, plunging you into blackness.  Your fingers curl around the armrests as the ship rumbles around you. Little beads of sweat form at your hairline as you concentrate on the breathing exercises you learned. There’s nothing to panic over, whatever is waiting for you on the other side of this will be worth it.

The whine of the landing gear fills your ears, and the slight jostle lets you know the ship is on the ground. You exhale softly, slowly flex your aching digits. It won’t be long now; you’ll have your sight back soon.

Ezra unfastens your harness and takes your hands in his, helping you to your feet. He’s grinning like a fool; you have no idea what awaits you. He leads you to the ship’s door, his steps careful and measured to make sure you don’t trip.

Boots clack along the floor then a chill brushes against your cheeks. Your chin tilts up as an unfamiliar scent fills your nostrils. It’s a crisp, clean, almost earthy smell, one your certain you’ve never smelled before.

His boots clack again as he moves behind you. His broad chest presses firmly against your back as he reaches for the blindfold.

“Keep those beautiful eyes closed for me, little dove.”  he croons in your ear.

The lines between your brow deepens as you squeeze your eyelids closed. You can’t ruin this for him. The anticipation makes you shift your weight from one foot to the other.

He chuckles softly as his large hands come to rest on your shoulders. You look adorable as you wait for him to let you open your eyes. He gently squeezes you and lets out a breath.

“You can open your eyes now.” he whispers.

Your lids flutter open to behold a woodsy landscape blanketed in white. Tiny crystalline shapes floated to the ground. Snow. Your jaw falls open as you take it all in. It was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

You turn to him, eyes wide and sparkling with unshed tears. This was the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for you. You almost believe this is just a dream, but the tingle of your skin tells you it’s very real.

He takes his hands in his and holds them tightly. The look of disbelief on your face is priceless.

“Go on, little dove…”

He gestures toward the snow and smiles softly.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

You walk down the ramp as calmly as your stiff legs will carry you. The urge to run like a little girl is overwhelming but you reign it in. The blanket of undisturbed white goes as far as your eyes can see in all directions.

The snow squeaks under your boots, making you gasp at the curious noise. You take a few more tentative steps out into the meadow, looking around. The pines at the edge of the clearing look like they’ve been covered in marshmallow fluff, and you smile at the thought. Staring at the picture-perfect scene before you, you will your brain to burn it into your memory, so you won’t forget a single detail.

The quiet hugs you like an old friend. It’s just you and your thoughts here. Peaceful feelings envelope you, making you feel warm and cozy despite the cold. Your dreams paled in comparison to the reality, something that could only You never imagined this would make you feel so happy. Snowflakes land on your eyelashes, and you giggle softly. Spreading your arms wide, you tilt your chin to the sky. It feels like a thousand frozen butterflies kissing your face. You slowly spin around in circles until you’re dizzy, biting your lip so you don’t giggle. You sway slightly as you come to a stop, watching the steam of your breath dance among the flakes and disappear.

Ezra watches you, a smile plastered to his face. Your reaction is everything he’d hoped for. He wanted to see you happy; your smile was everything to him. Your little giggles made his heart feel like it could beat out of his chest. That was a sound he could never get enough of. The snow in your hair made you look ethereal, like a goddess come to life.

“Is it all you thought it would be, my love?”

His breath ghosts against your ear, the warmth amplified by your chilled skin. A thick blanket wraps around your shoulders. His arms hold the blanket in place, shielding you from the elements.

“It’s even better than I imagined.” you whisper.

Standing in the snow, wrapped in your lovers' arms was the most perfect thing you could have imagined. All your life you searched for someone who would accept all the love you had to give without reservation, and you’d found it in Ezra. He accepted your quirks and your flaws without hesitation, just as you had accepted his. The two of you were two puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly.

His warm lips brush against your frozen cheek and he hugs you just a bit tighter. He truly was the luckiest man alive. If anyone would have told him he’d find someone like you, he would have laughed in their faces. He had resigned himself to being a lone wolf, destined to be alone but you walked into his life and changed everything. You made his world brighter, gave him a purpose, a reason to be a better man.

“I believe I promised my lady a dance.”

He turns you in his arms to face him, pulling you tight to his chest. You instantly wrap your arms around his waist, the blanket now cocooning the two of you in its warmth.

Your head rests against his shoulder as you gently sway to the music in his head. He softly hums a melody, slightly off-key. The vibrations tickle your cheek, and you hug him just a bit tighter.

Despite the cold, you could stay here forever. There’s nowhere else you’d rather be. This is your own little piece of heaven, a place where nothing else matters but the two of you. The rest of the world and all the hardships the two of you have faced are miles away.

You lift your head to look at him and he lowers his lips to meet yours. It’s not hurried or overly passionate, it’s slow and real; the kind of kiss you give someone that means the world to you.

“This was the best day of my life.” you whisper against his lips.

His face contorts in mock offense.

“I beg to differ, little dove. The best day of your life was the day you met me.”

Your lilting laugh dies among the flakes. Of course he would think that was the best day of your life; Ezra’s confidence never faltered. Your brow arches and you tilt your head to the side.

“So cocky.” you tease.

His laugh echoes through the open meadow. He rolls his hips against yours and smirks.

“In more ways than one, it would seem. But my statement still rings true.”

What he said about the day you met was more true than he knew. That was the day your life changed for the better and you couldn’t be happier.

“You’re right. The day we met was the best day of my life…but this one is definitely in the top 3.”

He kisses the tip of your frozen nose. His stomach flipped a bit as he realized how cold you were. He should have known better than to keep you out in these conditions for so long without adequate clothing.

“I loathe to break up this magical scene, my little snow angel, but I’m afraid we need to get you inside before you freeze to death.”

A trickle of icy water drips down your shirt causing a little shiver to run the length of your back. It seems the elements are finally taking their toll on you. You’re not exactly properly dressed for the weather, and you can only hold out for so long.

You know he’s right; you can’t stay out here much longer but it’s hard to hide your disappointment at having to leave this wintry paradise.

“This isn’t the last you’ll see of this place, I swear it.”

The conviction in his voice goes straight to your heart. You’re the one person he never lies to.

“Thank you for today.” you murmur.

Another soft kiss, this time to your forehead.

“Anything to make you smile, my love.”

He disentangles himself from your embrace and guides you back toward the ship. You glance back one last time, a final snapshot of the most wonderful day.  

He hums softly and stops at the top of the ramp. He lifts you into his arms like you weigh nothing.

 “I feel a proper display of gratitude is in order, don’t you agree?”

You squeak as he lifts you off the ground. Your arms immediately wrap around his neck as he carries you bridal style onto the ship. He lays you gently on the bed and looks down at you with his mocha eyes locked on yours and his heartbeat thrumming against your chest.

“I’m sure I could think of some way to thank you properly...” you purr, “and maybe warm up at the same time.”

He runs his chilly nose up the length of your neck, stopping at your ear. Warm breath ghosts over your ear as he speaks.

“I have complete confidence in your abilities, little dove.” he whispered huskily, “Now, let’s get out of these damp clothes.”

[joelalorian]

Masterlist

Welcome to the madness that is my medicated mind! Hope you find something you enjoy. 18+ MDNI, warnings/tags included on each individual fic. No use of y/n, ever.

Series

Tides of Desire: TLOU no outbreak AU. Joel Miller is a luxury yacht captain running charters in the Caribbean. You join the crew as a deckhand and unexpectedly complicate Joel's peaceful existence. Basically the TLOU bunch on a Below Deck yacht. Complete.

Fall Into Me: dbf!Joel x f!reader. Joel is hanging on by a thread as a single father to a tenacious 10-year-old Sarah. Feeling like he's drowning, like the world is about to spit him out, he needs some help before he breaks in half. At your dad's insistence, you show up in his life and change everything. Complete.

Petals of Affection: A cozy, floral mystery in three parts featuring Jackson!Joel x f!reader. A secret admirer gifts you a different flower and a riddle ten times before you put the clues together and discover that he's been right in front of your face the whole time. Complete.

Wonder in Winterland: You, a city girl on a cross-country road trip a week before Christmas, find yourself stranded in a whimsical Christmas town. You soon discover there is more to life than big city dreams. Based on the Hallmark movie Love You Like Christmas. Complete.

One-Shots

Lost Cause: Joel thinks you shouldn’t waste your time on him. You disagree. Inspired by the song Save Me by Jelly Roll. Some of the lyrics have been woven into the story.

One-Shots

Fevered Flame: Marcus Pike x f!reader. When Marcus Pike lost himself in work after that debacle with Teresa, he didn’t expect to take on a sizzling new case in the quirky town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Nor did he expect to meet you, an up-and-coming agent also looking for a fresh start. An unprecedented heatwave, mind-boggling art thefts, ancient Aztec legends, this case had the works. How would he ever solve the case with the temperature rising between you both?

Series

Lycoris Radiata - Coming Soon!

Stepdad!Dave x f!reader - Coming January 2025!

One-Shots

Blown Away: How were you to know that Dave York blowing you a kiss in a quaint coffee shop one morning would change your life?

Whisked Away: Dave York is full of surprises. A secret getaway leads to the next step in your life with Dave. A follow-up to Blown Away, but could be read as a standalone.

One-Shots

beneath the silent boughs, whispers of danger flow: An adventure planned to impress you goes sideways, leaving Frankie scrambling to get you both out alive. Summer Lovin 2024 challenge fic.

Beacon of Hope: Rough weather leads to a helicopter crash. Is it real or all delirium? Written for @/almostfoxglove's angst challenge.

neighborhood watch: When someone - or something - starts causing mischief around your new neighborhood, you and your neighbor Frankie are paired up for the new neighborhood watch.

my skin in your teeth: Seems like everyone in the house wants to sink their teeth into Frankie in one way or another. A neighborhood watch sequel for #fucktober.

Sweetness in the Stars: While prospecting on a recently colonized moon, Ezra discovered a strawberry patch amidst the lush forests. Knowing how you missed the sweet fruit and longing for a way to get closer to you, he took you back to the grove to harvest the juicy, plump berries. Afterwards, Ezra treats you to an unexpected, sweet treat. Happy Pedro Hours charcuterie challenge fic.

a hero's blessing: The Norse goddess Frith weaves the fabric of destiny for every living being. A Norwegian gift of a thousand thanks unlocks a destiny which Marcus did not see coming. An Offering of Frith challenge fic.

Through Every Lifetime: Two souls find each other through every lifetime when love refuses to give up. A Roll-A-Trope challenge fic.

[pimosworld]

I’m coming in late @swiftiscruff but I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to say how much I Love the people I’ve met on this blog because of this man.

This is the way I’m eating up all your fics because I love you so much. If I didn’t tag you please don’t be offended, I would tag my whole follow list if I could.

Taglist- @swiftispunk @joelscruff @joelsgreys @goodwithcheese @punkshort @survivingandenduring @for-a-longlongtime @connectioneverywhere @mountainsandmayhem @mermaidgirl30 @morallyinept @modernperplexity @pedge-page @gasolinerainbowpuddles @beefrobeefcal @ghostslillady @the-fox-den @syd-djarin @sawymredfox @tightjeansjavi @javierpena-inatacvest @ohforficsake @endlessthxxghts @romanarose @casa-boiardi @netherfeildren @luxurychristmaspudding @auteurdelabre @fuckyeahdindjarin @secretelephanttattoo @undercoverpena @underwood0723 @joelsgreys @pedgito @milla-frenchy @oliveksmoked @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @thetriumphantpanda @kiwisbell @stargirlfics @beardedjoel

[tightjeansjavi]

party trick

A/N: this silly little fic is directly inspired by this hilarious post by @pedge-page 😝 this fic is meant to be silly, a little unrealistic, and fun! If that ain’t your thing, no worries! Just scroll on by, gem. Also, big thanks to @itsokbbygrl for betaing and @morallyinept for encouraging me with my shenanigans! hehe.

~word count: 1.9k~

Summary: your boyfriend Dieter wants to show you his new party trick that he learned from a pornstar named Ezra

Pairing | Dieter Bravo x pornstar!Ezra x f!reader

Warnings: fluff, smut, established relationship, mentions of drugs and eating, dieter and the reader are openly bi, implied open relationship (not described) Ezra is a bi male pornstar (definition of bi panic) (very light dubious consent as reader and dieter smoke before fucking but it is not described) male masturbation, self sucking??, reader is able bodied with no physical descriptions, readers nickname is gumdrop, no age gap, +18, minors dni!

Your first date with the ever-so eccentric, Dieter Bravo, was a success! Sure, he was a bit clumsy, and maybe even a bit of a blubbering idiot, but you had an incredible time. Did you kiss? Well—maybe! There’s a tell-tale sign when he admires the color of your lipstick against the heart shaped patch in his beard.

After that first date, he washes his face, but is careful to not remove the residue of your lipstick. Not even a week goes by and he’s asking you out on a second date.

Two dates turns to ten and somewhere down the line…you’re Dieter Bravo’s girlfriend, and you couldn’t be happier. (And neither could he)

-

Dieters plan for the evening was to throw a party with some of his friends: not necessarily a rager, per se, just an intimate get-together. Pop a few bottles, skinny dip in his inground pool, and dance under the California night sky.

He canceled his plans last minute because the only person he wanted to spend his evening with was you, his gumdrop.

Hiya, gumdrop baby! 💗

Dee! Hey, baby boy 🥰 having fun at your party?

He cheeses a smile down at his phone, dimples on display, fingers typing fast on the tiny screen, little tap tap taps echoing through the cooling evening air.

Good golly, I’m blushing 🤭 actually…I canceled the party! Just wasn’t feeling the vibes for it! Wanna come over?

Yes! I’d love to! I was just about to order some takeout. Want me to pick something up on the way?

Yes! How about veggie grill? I was just about to smoke, want me to wait up for ya? Oh! Also, I got something I wanna show you later 😉

Being in a relationship with Dieter meant that nothing he could possibly say or do surprised you anymore, but his vibrance, care-free, goofy, eccentric attitude, made him even more attractive to you. That and the fact that he was the literal definition of a trash panda. Your trash panda specifically.

Sounds good to me! 💗 did you want your usual or something different? You don’t have to wait for me, Dee! I’ll have some when I come over. Oh? What is it that you want to show me? 👀

Okie doke! Hey, how about you just order the whole menu? My treat! See ya soon, gumdrop xx. And you’ll see! It’s a surprise. Hehe.

God, Bravo. You sure know how to spoil a gal rotten! Looking forward to the surprise!

He hearted your messages before he reached behind his ear and grabbed his perfectly rolled joint and reached for his lighter that was resting on the table next to the poolside chair he was spread out on.

He couldn’t wait to see you and show you his new party trick.

-

Hours earlier in the day, Dieter found himself in his bed, boxers discarded on the floor and his fist languidly wrapped around his half-hard cock.

His freehand was scrolling through Pornhub, trying to find something to get off to. Usually it didn’t take him very long to settle on a video, but today he was finding it to be a bit of an annoying struggle.

He scrolled and scrolled till he stumbled upon something he had never seen before, self sucking?

He spit into his palm, using his saliva as a natural lubricant because he was too lazy to reach across his nightstand to grab his favorite bottle of lotion (ain’t nobody got time for that!).

Holy shit! He’s sucking himself off??

Christ, his cock is taking up the entire screen!

Dieter's private thoughts ran rabid as he watched the pornstar, Ezra, easily bend over and suck the head of his cock (which was massive, by the way) into his mouth.

“Holy fuck! How is that even possible?!” Dieter announced in disbelief.

He paused the video, and went to Ezra’s page and scrolled till he found the contact button and a direct link to Ezra’s instagram. He sent him a message:

Hey! I hope this doesn’t come off as weird or creepy (feel free to ignore) but I watched one of your videos just now…the self sucking one and DUDE, nice cock! How the hell do I do that? 🫣

Ezra responds seconds later after hearting the message,

HOLY SHIT! THEE DIETER BRAVO GOT OFF TO MY COCK? 🥵 (sorry, huge fan!) anyway, gem, I’d be happy to show you the art of self sucking, and then you too can be a pro like me. xx

Dudeee you’re a fan of me?? I’m blushing! 😉 okay, okay, I have to ask…is it all natural?

I am, indeed! You have quite the eccentric presence, gem. Oh, it’s natural alright. The gods have certainly laid their blessing upon my loins x.

Ohhh, I get it! You’re like Shakespeare? 🤣 damn, you sure know how to swing that thing around! Anyway, I will take you up on that offer! Here’s my number:

Lawl. You’re a funny one huh, gem? I suppose I am a bit like Shakespeare both with my verbiage, and my cock. You free right now?

The funniest guy around! Well, Romeo, got my cock out and everything, let’s boogie?

Boogie we shall.

And so that’s how Dieter ended up FaceTiming with Ezra: who coincidentally, also had his cock out.

“Not to be a total massive fucking flirt, but you’re gorgeous, and my girlfriend would probably eat you right up!” Dieter preened, leaning in close so he could get a better look at Ezra’s third limb, er, cock.

“Oh?” Ezra smirks, “would she now? Well, gem, perhaps the three of us should get together sometime?”

“Yes! You can be like the skunk to my raccoon!” Dieter said with a giggle.

“I beg your finest pardon? Your—what?”

“Oh! Sorry, sorry. Probably should have provided some context, huh?” Dieter blushes.

“Naturally, gem. Go on.” Ezra sits back on his elbows, listening,

“So, my girlfriend calls me a trash panda! It’s endearing, really. And well, you got that blonde streak in your hair…so you can be the skunk?”

Ezra chuckles in pure amusement, eyebrows raising, heavy cock bobbing between his thighs.

“A skunk, huh? You’re lucky I think you’re cute, gem.”

Dieter fanned his face like the little slut that he was, and giggling, “You think I’m cute?”

“Cute as a button, gem. Now, let’s see what we’re working with so that you can show your girlfriend what I taught you.”

“Yes sir.”

Ezra is a wonderful teacher and by the end of it, Dieter is almost able to suck the head of his cock into his mouth. There’s a slight strain in his lower back, but fuck it! You only live once.

“Well, gem, I think you just have to remember to relax your muscles. Pretend you’re floating on a babbling brook, or napping on a fluffy cloud, and then you’ll be sucking yourself off in no time. I gotta run, but let me know how it goes!”

“Ahh! Okay, I think I can manage that! Thanks for all the help, Ezra.”

“Anytime, gem. Anytime.”

-

After passing the joint back and forth together, fucking (a few times) and devouring the veggie grill you brought over, Dieter brings you upstairs to his bedroom, nearly stumbling over his two feet because he’s so excited to show you his new party trick!

“Sit that cute ass on the bed, gumdrop.” He’s not being domineering at all, quite the opposite actually.

You’re both naked, naturally because in Dieter’s home, clothes are always optional!

You wrap your arms around him from behind, kissing his jawline, pecking at the heart patch in his beard. “Are you gonna show me the surprise now, Dieter?”

He leans back into your embrace with a pleasant sigh, “Yes, gumdrop. But c’mon, bed. Now.”

You press one last kiss to his face before detaching yourself from around him, walking over to the bed and plopping down with a soft, oof.

He joins you moments later, laying on his elbow facing you while you reach across and card your fingers through the soft curly hairs on his chest.

“So I was watching this porno earlier, right? I did a deep scroll, and stumbled across this video of this dude…with literally the biggest fucking cock that my two eyes have ever seen!” He speaks animatedly, throwing his hands up as he leans in.

“It literally took up the entire fucking screen, gumdrop! Anyway, that wasn’t the craziest part! His cock was so big, and long, that the motherfucker was able to suck himself off! Dude barely even had to bend over, just popped that sucker right in and got to suckin’!”

You twirl a strand of his chest hair between your fingers, giggling as you listen to his dramatic retelling of the massive cock he saw.

“Shit, it really took up the whole screen? That’s insane, Dee!”

“YEAH! Like…the guy was packing a literal BAZOOKA down there!” He chuckles, leaning in so he can nuzzle his face against yours.

“Anyway, I found the guy's instagram and sent him a message because I thought to myself, ‘Damn! Imagine if I could also suck my own cock?’”

“Let me guess, you asked this pornstar fellow how you can suck your own cock like him?”

“Yes! How did you know?” He chuckled and stole a quick kiss, melting against you like the soft man that he was.

“Lucky guess?” You tease, dragging your finger down lower, skating it across one of his nipples. “So, was it a success? Did he teach you how to properly suck your own cock, Dee?”

“Well, I was actually able to barely get the tip in my mouth! Wanna see, gumdrop? S’gonna be my new party trick!”

“Show me, Dee.” You giggle, encouraging him as he quickly sits up, remembering how Ezra told him the way to curve his spine, and relax his muscles so that he can bend over just enough—

Dieter is hunched over, using one hand to hold the base of his cock, and the other is resting against his lower back for support. He’s so fucking close to wrapping his lips around the head of his cock when–pinch!

He yelps in surprise, immediately rolling over and yowling like a cat.

Ow. Ow. Ow! Fuck! Fuck me! Ow!

You're at his side in an instant, comforting him and reaching for your phone to either call 911, or look up an immediate remedy for his pain.

“Fucking pulled a goddamn muscle!” He whimpers, burying his face into your chest.

“Dee, it’s okay! You’re not dying, baby. Okay? Look! Google says that we have to treat the area with ice and then a heating pad!”

“I’M DYING, GUMDROP! I SEE THE LIGHT!” Your boyfriend dramatically groans, “I'M FADING FAST!”

After icing Dieter’s lower back for a good hour or so, you placed a heating pad against the sore spot while spooning him for extra body heat.

He was typing a message to Ezra, a deep frown set between his eyebrows because he really just wanted to know what it was like to suck himself off! (Who wouldn’t)

Hey, Ez. I pulled a fucking muscle in my back!

☹ gf is spooning me with a heating pad now, but I was really hoping that I would be able to suck myself off!

From Ezra: (Shakespeare-BAZOOKA 🍆)

Aw, I’m terribly broken to hear that, gem. Better luck next time, Birdie!

-

The next time Dieter announced to you that he wanted to try and suck his cock again, you came prepared with two yoga mats and a beginner yoga flow video (thrifted, of course).

He gives you a funny look as you set the yoga mats down in the sunroom.

“What?” You laugh, placing your hands on your hips. “It would be a cool party trick, Dee! Just gotta get you a little more flexible and bendy before we try again.”

Ohhh. He grins, dimples peeking out, “Well, let’s yogi, gumdrop.”

banners made by the lovely @saradika-graphics 💗

Please follow @tightjeansjaviupdates for fic notifications and updates!

[chronically-ghosted]

Taylor! 🎉🎉🎉Congrats on your milestone, lovely! 🎉🎉🎉 How wonderful! You amazing human, you! 🖤

To celebrate, I'd like to request 💫 with Ezra and prompt 14 from the smutty list please if I may - excited to see what you'll conjure up with him! 🤗

Congrats again! Love you millions! 🖤

Thaaank you Jett! It's so wonderful to share this weird little corner of the internet with you!

And, for you, request and ye shall receive!

Vivarium summary: you request a vacation for your birthday. With the rain and a few drinks, you get a lot more than you asked for. 

[penvisions]

plumage {ezra x reader drabble}

Fandom: Prospect

Pairing: Ezra x F! Reader

Summary: You recall the courtship between you and the man you love.

Word Count: 520

Warnings: allusions to adult content, allusions to smut

A/N: the lovely @morallyinept requested this as part of my follower celebration! i hope it's a good lil blurb for fluffy ezra, he deserves good things. thank you so much for your kind words, ilysm! had a lot of fun writing this ♡

He hadn’t looked like much at first glance. His suit dirty and worn, the glass of it dirty and smudged.

But the second he had opened his plush lips, quirked up in a captivating smirk. You knew you wouldn’t have stood a chance.

He had a way with words, so uncommon for those who subjected themselves to harvesting. He had a grace about him so alluring for someone lacking a vital extremity. He had a yearning in his eyes as he regarded you, lighting up the muddy brown of them every time you found them aimed at you. Facets coming into play as they caught the light, caught the sun, caught the very emotions brimming from him.

The dance of offers, of equal work for equal pay, of time spent together. Letting you see all he had to give, to share, was willing to. Even if the reality of harvesting had been so different before meeting him, a dark spot of brown amidst the lush green of the planet. Time allowed for his colors to show, for his dance to feel intentional and specific to you.

His colors reveal soft lingering gazes, teasing smirks, melodious laughter. His colors reveal intentional touches, a mouth that was capable of winding you around his finger as he showed how his words weren’t empty platitudes. That he craved you in more ways than just one. With burning kisses that lit you up from the inside out, tracing fingers that held you reverently, the rocking of his strong body against your own.

His colors revealed a heart of good intentions, a mind quick and smart, a desire in him to work hard and earn his share of things.

From that endearing patch of blonde amid his dark curls, that smile he flashed, the glitter of his eyes to the admittance of being skilled in this line of work and having been saved previously by a child he had taken in as his own. Cared for and provided for, not allowing her to get into the same life as he had, to ensure she had the opportunity to have a childhood, even if it was a little late.

For all the man’s plumage, he certainly had captured your attention.

And while neither of you had a nest to return to, that didn’t stop you from creating one together.

Equal time and funds and effort from you both that had you opting out of a return to the green that you found each other in. The dangers of which didn’t seem so acceptable now that there was something to be lost…someone to be lost. Opting not to stray too far from each other now that your bond was so complete.

You recalled his first words to you, and you smiled over the twin mugs as you returned to your shared bed to find him sprawled out and tangled within the sheets. His eyes glittered as they spotted you, not yet clear of sleep. A lazy smile taking over his handsome features that were now all yours. He repeated them to you now, bringing forth a smile of your own.

“Well, hey there, pretty bird.”

[nerdieforpedro]

Part Seven of "The Lake Between Us"

Merging Star Clusters

Ezra AU x Seraphina (plus size OFC)

Word Count: 1252

Warnings: surprisingly none! 😄

Summary: Ezra's got all his favorite ladies in one place. Seraphina and Cee finally meet.

Notes: Usually, Nerdie brings the family drama, but for Ezra (and my last slivers of sanity), I left that alone this time. This fic is easy, like Sunday morning or whenever you happen to read this.

Main Masterlist/ Ezra Masterlist/ The Lake between Us Series

Cee noted that something was different about her guardian when he stood next to his truck to pick her and Zoe up. He of course took their suitcases like always and brought them in for hugs, never judging her for her choice of partner. Some days, she thought he preferred she was with a woman, she remembered him always telling her “never fully trust anyone even me, but especially men. Leave them alone as long as possible.” She’d been pretty sure he was saying that because he was her father figure as most of them seemed to she heard from her friends. That said, he looked brighter, like he actually slept and put a bit of his weight back on. Cee would never be foolish enough to tell him that last part. Ezra tended to gather it around his belly which despite never mentioning it, she knew he was sensitive about it. She was waiting for him to mention it first. The reason for his positive change. They had spoken about the person in question for the first time a few months ago but only in depth a few weeks ago.

Zora, Cee’s girlfriend of the past year, was never one to mince words or be delicate. Cee appreciated her directness but also her kindness as she was never rude with questions of comments. “So Mr. Wordsmith, this lady friend of yours, is she just that or your partner in you looking like a million dollars?” Ezra had grown accustomed to Zora’s nicknames for his expansive vocabulary and he chuckled at her question as he turned down the main road that led to his home. About twenty more minutes now. 

“She has become an essential fixture in my days and nights, so yes my partner.” Answering in a matter of fact manner without a full paragraph had Cee and Zora look at each other through his rear view mirror as Cee was sitting upfront. 

“I’m still in shock. She’s got to be an angel or something.” Zora exclaimed, patting Ezra’s shoulders to which he continued to smile. 

“Did you not tell Zora her name Cee?” Ezra asked with a raised eyebrow. Zora furrowed her brow at the blonde who appeared in thought.

“Wait, I thought I had. Her name is-“

“Seraphina. My lovely lady’s name is Seraphina.” Ezra hummed. Both women shivered.

“Please don’t say her name like that in front of us like that again. Save that for her.” Cee looked out the window, grinning. He’s smitten, the man who told her never to trust anyone is smitten.

“Never expected you to find an actual angel Mr. Ezra. Though I guess if anyone was, it would be you. You did find that 1st edition copy of ‘Love Poems’ by Nikki Giovanni for my twentieth birthday. Didn’t think one existed anymore.” Zora leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek as they pulled into the driveway and parked his truck. She hopped out along with Cee. Ezra went to grab their suitcases as the front door opened.

A woman clad in a yellow sundress with a bright smile and coiled hair up in a ponytail atop her head her copper skin shimmered from the humidity forming on her skin. She was wearing a bright fuschia lipstick on her full lips and wore blue rimmed glasses. She gave a small wave to which Cee and Zora matched. Ezra climbed the stairs and set the bags down to peck her lips then embrace her. The two young women collectively made an “ooo!” 

“These two uncouth creatins are Zora and Cee. Despite their teasing, they are excited to meet you. They’re mainly having fun at my expense, not yours Sundrop.” His smile nearly hurt, it was from ear to ear. The women that made his life brighter were all gathered here under one roof. Was it alright that he felt this happy? That his nightmares weren’t as frequent? With everyone making their way into his home, he watched as Cee went to the kitchen with Sera and they hugged, rocking back and forth as Sera often did with her own family. Did that mean Seraphina saw Cee as part of her family? Wait…were the two of them family now? Shaking his head, he felt he may be getting ahead of himself. 

Sundrop had already set the table while Ezra had been out. They just poured water and sweet tea and sat down together at the table. Eating and laughing all night, they asked each other questions. Eventually, Cee and Seraphina ended up outside on the porch to chat. They sat side by side, chuckling at how enamored both Zora and Ezra were with the books on the shelves. 

“I sometimes think she’s more of his charge than I am.” Cee laughs as Ezra and Zora are seen through the window exchanging some heightened words over a hardcover book. Their hands are moving back and forth, both excited and likely talking a mile a minute.

“I can see why he took a liking to her. They’re discussing those volumes with quite the fervor.” Sera commenced and Cee nodded. She smiled at Sera.

“I can also see why he’s taken a liking to you. Just sitting with you is pretty relaxing. He looks a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw him.” Seraphina laughed and Cee gasped, “Ah sorry. I sometimes-”

“I know. Ezra told me. I don’t mind. I know he doesn’t like it. He’s not out here is he?” Sera chuckled and Cee relaxed again. Thankfully she was the same as she had been around the dinner table. Personable and kind. “We’ve helped each other. He’s got quite a few layers but they’re warm.” Seraphina then looked out over the water. Cee followed her eyes and peered at the lake too.

“I’ve never heard him described like that, but also you’re the only woman I’ve seen him bring to his house to meet me.”

“That’s…” Sera pressed her hands together and looked over at Cee. She knew things had become more serious between the two of them. The significance wasn’t lost on her. It fell in line with Ezra meeting her mother and subsequently her brothers at a family dinner. Her father met Ezra later that night after his part time job. “I suppose a lot has happened between us.

“In any case, it’s good for him. He doesn’t do well when he’s idle. He’ll say he’s just fine but-”

“That’s when the very bad ideas start and even longer than normal prose starts and never stops?” Seraphina and Cee laugh on that one as Zora exits the back door with Ezra holding a book of poems by Robert Frost. 

“Can you believe he won’t let me borrow this?” Zora appears to be distraught, while Ezra’s arms are crossed defensively. 

“The condition of the Langston Hughes poems speaks volumes to your treatment and care of books. I’ll not have the pages of my collection bent, ripped or stained.” Ezra argued. Cee and Seraphina watched as they bickered a bit more and ushered them inside the house. 

Eventually, they simmered down and agreed that Zora could read it while staying at Ezra’s home and wouldn’t need to be supervised. Cee and Zora slept in Birdie’s old bedroom while Sera and Ezra retired to his. The soft taps of the wind on the sides of the house and the croaks of the crickets lulled them all to sleep for the night.

Interlude 2 Chapter eight

Chapter six

Taste-testers of Ezra’s gumbo 🍤: @rav3n-pascal22 @maggiemayhemnj @morallyinept @survivingandenduring @bonezone44 @magpiepillsjunior-deactivated20 @yorksgirl @gemmahale @missredherring @missladym1981 @alltheglitterandtheroar @megamindsecretlair @readingiskeepingmegoing @pedroshotwifey @tinytinymenace @inept-the-magnificent @vivian-pascal @jessthebaker

[guess-my-next-obsession]

Starlight, Masterlist:

pairing: fae!ezra x princess!ofc (Marigold)

rating: explicit (18+ only, minors dni, arranged marriage, infidelity, fantasy elements, mild dark vibes, magic that definitely defies the laws of nature, written in first-person/dual POV)

summary: When Marigold, the youngest of five princesses from the land of eternal summer, Solis, is sent off to marry Kaius, the King of Nox—the land of eternal midnight—she finds herself alone in a world that looked nothing like her own. She soon realizes her husband-to-be is not quite the man she dreamed, but his second in command, a cunning and clever faerie named Ezra, just might be.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

{all other chapters will be listed as they’re posted}

character inspo

[alwaysmicado]

incomplete

2.2k | Ezra x gn!reader | one-shot

established relationship, negative body image, anxiety attack, emotional support Summary: Ezra has not been the same since losing his arm in the Green. When he suffers an anxiety attack, he reveals his biggest fear — not being enough for you. A/N: I love Ezra with all my heart and I can only imagine how difficult it must be to navigate life after losing an arm, especially in “ordinary” situations such as hugging the person he loves. I just had to give him reassurance and comfort. 🤍 masterlist | AO3

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

The dim glow of the moonlight casts a soft illumination across the room, highlighting shadows that dance on the walls. The silence of the night is broken by a subtle sound — a muffled sob that echoes through the otherwise quiet hut. You lie on your cot, eyes wide open, unable to ignore the pattern that has emerged over the past few nights any longer.

Ezra, the enigmatic prospector you’ve come to recognize and admire for his strength and composure over the past year of your partnership, is struggling.

You can hear him pacing in the living area, a restless energy evident in each step. Occasionally, a stifled whimper escapes him, the weight of his emotions too much to contain. It’s a painful symphony of anxiety that unfolds behind the closed door.

As much as you want to respect his privacy, the concern gnaws at you, urging you to offer support. You slip out of your covers and put on your sweater, guided by the muted sounds emanating from your partner. The door creaks softly as you open it, revealing Ezra standing near the window, his silhouette framed by the moonlight. 

His gaze is fixed on the distant moon, his shoulders are hunched, and his hand grips the edge of the windowsill as if anchoring himself in a storm. His breathing is rapid, shallow, and you can see the distress in his eyes.

It’s clear that he’s in the midst of an anxiety attack.

You immediately move towards him, concern etching your features. “Ezra, hey, what’s going on?” Your voice is soft, trying to cut through the chaotic thoughts that might be racing through his mind.

He looks up at you, his eyes wide with panic, and it takes a moment for him to register your presence. “I–I don’t know,” he stammers, his words coming out in fragments. “It just–it hit me.”

You move to stand beside him, giving him some space while remaining close enough to offer comfort. “It’s okay, Ezra. I’m here. Take deep breaths with me, alright?” You model the slow, deliberate inhales and exhales, hoping he’ll follow suit.

He tries to mimic your breathing, but it’s clear that the anxiety has a tight grip on him. His chest rises and falls rapidly, and his attempts to regulate his breath are met with resistance.

“Focus on me, Ezra,” you encourage, gently placing a hand on his back to rub soothing circles into his strained muscles. “You’re safe here. Let’s try it together. In…and out.”

It takes a while, but gradually, his breathing starts to sync with yours. The rhythm becomes steadier, and you can feel some of the tension beginning to dissipate. Still, his eyes are wide with residual fear.

“Do you think you can tell me what triggered this?” you ask, your voice soft and understanding, sympathy evident in your eyes.

Ezra shakes his head and lifts his gaze to meet yours, struggling to find the words to properly convey the inner turmoil he is facing. “I don’t know,” he admits, his voice breaking. 

“Everything just felt...overwhelming. I couldn’t catch my breath for the life of me, and my mind started racing like a runaway train — thoughts careening in every direction. Images, memories, and possibilities colliding, creating a chaotic symphony of ideas that I struggled to make sense of.” 

You nod, recognizing the unpredictable nature of anxiety. “It’s alright, Ezra,” you coo. “Sometimes, our minds can play tricks on us and cause us to feel everything at once.” You continue tenderly rubbing his back. “What’s important is that you’re not alone, and I need you to know that you’re not alone.” 

Ezra takes another deep breath and nods weakly, the color slowly returning to his face. “I am truly sorry for disturbing your peace, sugar plum,” he mumbles, apologizing for something beyond his control.

“You don’t need to apologize,” you reassure him, a comforting smile gracing your lips. 

When you feel his muscles tense again, you can’t help but furrow your brow with worry. “Look at me, Ezra,” you prompt quietly, reaching out to gently place a hand on his arm. “Will you tell me what’s going on? I might be able to help, you know.”

You search his dark eyes and softly rub the skin beneath his shirt’s short sleeve. “But I need you to let me in.”

He looks out of the window again, avoiding your gaze, and you can see the remnants of dread in his eyes, vulnerability evident in the set of his shoulders.

“There’s nothing going on that needs to trouble that beautiful mind of yours, sugar plum. Just a rough night.” He shakes his head and glances at you, sensing that his attempt at deception, in this case for your own good, is not having its desired effect.

You know him too well, know the man behind the rugged, sly persona he’s been cultivating as a survival tactic. You know what’s hidden beneath, shielded from prying eyes, only revealed to the people who are worthy of his love and devotion — first Cee, now you. 

“Ezra, I’ve heard you. I’ve heard you pacing, and I’ve heard the tears. It’s not ‘nothing’.” You cup his cheek with your hand, your eyes boring into his. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

He takes a deep breath, the facade slipping away as he meets your eyes, his shoulders trembling slightly. He hesitates for a moment, as if searching for the right words. “I just–I cannot seem to shake this feeling, this overwhelming feeling of grief and hopelessness that is threatening to pull me down into the depths of darkness every time I am alone with my thoughts.”

You see the tears welling up in his eyes and feel your heart break in your chest. 

Ezra looks away, trying to contain the flood of emotions threatening to spill over. “I thought I could handle the memories floating around in my mind, memories of death, destruction, greed, loss. I honestly, truly thought I could move on with my life, be a better man for you and Cee, and lead an honorable life here in our community. On this stunning piece of land I am so fortunate to find myself on.”

He clenches his fist, and closes his eyes.

“But it is always there, always, always there. No matter what I do. No matter how hard I try. It is always lurking in the shadows of my existence, following me, holding me back.” He sighs deeply and opens his eyes to look at you, his brow furrowed. “I am haunted by the absence of my arm. I miss him deeply, in everything I do. And at night, when darkness takes over, when everything is quiet, it is all I can think about.

It’s a pain that goes beyond the physical, a yearning for a wholeness that seems elusive.”

He turns to face you fully, gently tracing your cheek with the back of his fingers. Your heart aches for him, understanding the weight of his words.

“I am broken beyond repair, my darling, and I cannot help but feel that you would be better off if I was go–”

Without a word, you wrap your arms around him, pulling him into a warm and reassuring embrace. Ezra hesitates for a moment, surprised by the sudden contact, but then he leans into the hug, allowing himself to be enveloped by the comfort you offer.

The room around you is silent, and all that can be heard is the subtle sound of his breath.

You can feel the tension in Ezra’s body as he wraps his arm around you, the heavy burden, the weight of his grief he’s been carrying alone all this time. Slowly, you start to sway gently, a rhythm that seems to soothe the troubled thoughts that linger in his mind. The embrace is tight but gentle, a silent reassurance that he’s not alone — and that you’re not going anywhere.

As you hold him, you sense a subtle shift in his demeanor. A quiver runs through his body, and you realize he’s starting to cry. It’s a quiet, almost imperceptible release of emotions that he's been holding back for too long. You tighten your grip, offering him a safe space to let go.

“You’re not alone in this, Ezra,” you whisper. “Losing a part of yourself is a profound loss and it’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to grieve. And you don’t have to be silent about it. I’m here for you.”

After a while, the tears subside, and you loosen your embrace just enough to look into his eyes with sincerity, keeping your hands on his shoulders. 

Ezra’s eyes glisten with hurt and uncertainty, something you’ve never seen in them before. You brush away a stray tear from his cheek, your touch gentle and calming. 

“I cannot adequately describe how much I despise myself for not being able to do this properly — the way you deserve, my precious sugar plum,” he murmurs, pain straining his voice. 

You tilt your head in confusion, unable to decipher what exactly he’s talking about. “What do you mean?” you ask softly, a reassuring smile prompting him to answer you.

“This,” he whispers as he pulls you closer, resting his forehead against yours with closed eyes. “I cannot help but think about how my missing arm, my incompleteness, prevents me from embracing you properly. You deserve the world, my darling, and I can’t even present you with a hug. You deserve a man who can hold you close and show you the love and affection you deserve, and I am truly sorry for having deprived you for so long.”

You pull away enough to look into his eyes again, anger now simmering beneath your skin. 

How dare this capable, intelligent, and loyal man entertain the notion that he deprived you of anything. Throughout your time together, all he’s done is take care of you, offering you a life teeming with adventure and love. It’s unfathomable that, even for a fleeting moment, he would think you’d be better off without him.

“I love you, Ezra, and I understand what you’re trying to say, I really do,” you say as calmly as possible, taking deep breaths. “But I need you to listen to me very carefully now because I need you to hear and understand every word. Can you do that?”

“Of course, my darling,” he answers with a nod. “You have my undivided attention.”

Your features soften as you witness the sad admiration in his gaze. “I can’t imagine how unimaginably traumatizing it must have been to lose your arm, having to adapt and relearn everything you knew how to do before. But you did it, you persevered. Because you are strong.”

You lift your hand to cup his cheek, causing him to lean into your touch immediately. “I have seen the incredible progress you’ve made since you and Cee arrived here and, Ezra, I’m so fucking proud of you.”

He looks at you, a mix of gratitude and disbelief in his eyes, a single tear making its way down his cheek.

“But I can’t even hug you. I can’t hold you like I want to, like I should be able to.”

You smile, reaching up to wipe away the tear. “Ezra, a hug is not just about arms. It’s about connection, about being close to someone. And in case you haven’t noticed, our hug right now is pretty perfect to me.”

He chuckles through a tear-streaked smile, a flicker of relief in his eyes. “You really think so, sugar plum?”

“I know so,” you affirm with a genuine smile on your lips. “Your worth isn’t determined by the number of limbs you have. It’s about the person you are, the heart you have, and the way you make people feel — what matters is this.”

You gently take his hand and guide it to your chest, so he can feel the steady rhythm of your heart beneath the fabric of your sweater. “You feel this?” He nods slowly as you put your hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat.

“You aren’t broken, my love. You’re human.”

Ezra takes a moment to absorb your words, and you can see a shift in his demeanor. The weight on his shoulders seems to lighten and you can see the spark in his beautiful, dark eyes return.

“You’re perfect just the way you are, Ezra,” you coo. “And if you ever feel the darkness pull at you again, try to remember that you have someone here who sees you, all of you, and thinks the absolute world of you.” 

He nods, his signature smile spreading across his face. “Thank you, my darling,” he says, his voice filled with gratitude.

You pull him back into your arms, holding him close once more.

In that moment, you both find solace in the simple act of being together. The room is filled with the quiet understanding that perfection isn’t about the absence of flaws but about embracing every part of oneself — scars and all.

“After all my time floating through this forsaken universe, searching for meaning,” he murmurs into your ear, a soft smile gracing his lips, “it turns out that love is the answer. Quite poetic, don’t you think?” —