#I WANT THEM ALL DEAD AT MY DOORSTEP | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

grugruel · 23 days ago

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Sleeping With the Enemy

Pairings: Silco x f!reader

MDNI/NSFW

Masterlist

Summary: You're a councillors daughter secretly working with the Eye of Zaun, fulfilling each other's needs.

Political needs, of course. It's purely business. They would never be stupid enough to start an affair . . . Unless?

Wordcount: ca 3.5k

Warnings: enemies AND lovers, hate-fucking, toxic, Silco being evil, angsty, pinv sex, rough sex, power imbalance, fighting for control, complicated feelings, twisted love, forbidden relationship, dacryphilia ish, cockwarming, blowjob, fingering, edging, overstimulation, choking, cum eating, creampie, petnames (girl, princess, devil, Sil)

AN: yet to be proofread. This might be one of my favourite works, he's insane . . . I need him.

"Let go off me," she snarls, yanking mirthlessly against the strong womans grip. "Release me Sevika, or-"

"Or what?" She cuts the girl off with a sneer, metallic fingers sinching around her bicep. Sevika holds her close enough to force the girl to stare up through her eyebrows if she wants to achieve any semblance of eye contact.

"Or she tells her precious father," the man cuts in, a nonchalant smile to his tone.

"He doesn't know I'm here," the girl snaps, defiantly locking eyes with the industrialist. Clad in shadow, he's a mere silhouette backlit by Zaun's streets. "He doesn't know anything."

Picking up a brand new cigar, he clips the end and flicks a lighter open, toying with the flame. All in due time, he's not rushing to spoil such a favored treat.

"Good," he says and gestures dismissively, signaling his trusty henchman to leave.

Sevika releases the girl with a displeased huff and slams the door behind her. The only thing she likes less than piltovians, is them wandering too far from their fabricated safety and ending up on her doorstep.

She watches the muscular woman leave, staring at the closed door in contemplation as she once again finds herself alone with the eye of Zaun.

Something clatters behind her, a lighter discarded on a desk. "You're late," he mutters, bringing the smoking cigar to his lips.

Anger begins to blaze inside her. That's it? That's all he has to say? "Six enforcers are dead," she snaps, nose scrunching. Disgusted by the mere thought of that demon's violence. "She's a loose canon, Silco. She blew them up for the hell of it."

From the dark, a red orb slips her way. He leans forward, having the rooms gloomy light illuminate his face only to throw the girl a disapproving look, barely deeming it worthy to look her in the eyes. "You forget yourself, girl."

Swallowing, she forces herself to calm down. Aggrivating such a volatile man never proved a good idea, and displaying anger against his daughter proved even worse.

Carefully, she ventures closer. Testing the waters and finding them thick as mud. The very air around him emenates danger, and her body slows down, relucant to put itself in such unpredictable environments. "You broke our deal," she announciates, finding it safer to put the blame on him rather than the blue haired demon he protects so ferociously.

"You disrupted our shipment," he repeats her ridiculous attempt. "It's simple business. Collateral," he shrugs and gestures toward her, vaguely implying the deaths should be on the girls consience. He doesn't say it outright because he doesn't need to, because he doesn't care if it hurts her feelings. Because, he doesn't care about the lost lives of a few topsiders, lives of enforcers even less. In true rebel spirit.

Massively unimpressed, he sizes her up when she places herself on the other side of the desk. Gripping the edge, the wood is tough beneath her fingers as she strains to keep herself in check. Blue and green light his back, lining the countours around his body. It softens him in some ways, as if the light hasn't completely shunned him yet.

Suddenly smirking, Silco's gaze drifts over her. Studying her tense disposition with spiteful glee as he enjoys the irony of a murderous piltovian. "Contemplating violence wont relieve you of this predicament."

"Killing you would."

"Threatening me so early in the morning?" He tsks, taking a deep drag of the cigar to then blow a ring of smoke in her direction. "Perhaps I should have approached your father instead, the councilor would've been easier to handle . . . More willing to please."

Keeping eye contact, she doesn't react, and a glint of cuiosity to sparks in his gaze. "He has nothing to do with this, and you know it," she tries again. "But Jin-"

Silco's smirk falls. "Hold your tongue, girl." Pinching the bridge of his tall nose, he releases a heavy sigh. "Lock the door," he orders, looking at her through his eyebrows.

Menacing, haunting. She could describe him with a hundred different horrific words. Yet, he doesn't scare her. They both know she's right.

Breathing relief, she does as she's told. When asking her to create a boundary between the world and this room, he shows her nothing has changed. Whatever they have remains within the confines of his office and her bedroom. It takes the edge off, and she lets the inhabiting worry slip away.

Upon her return, she softly stalks around the desk until sidled up against the short side. "Shoving clever words down my throat won't shut me up, Sil."

Rubbing his face, he looks at her through his fingers. Heavily disapproving of the nickname. "Dont tempt me," he warns. "I'll find other ways to shut you up."

She swallows, a single pulse throbs in her core. Moving around the desk, she slides a finger along it's edge and places herself infront of him, bathing her in the very same darkness that Silco finds himself in.

A small smirk flicker on his lips. But even though it dissolves, turning back into its usual serious mask, the satisfaction of the expression linger on his features.

"It cant happen again," he warns a third time, he must going soft on her. His hands move, trading the cigar for the the ability to touch her. One hand reaches for her thigh, sliding beneath her skirt. While the other reaches up, grabbing her chin to stare into her eyes. "The shipments are important." Silco applies just enough pressure on her chin to keep it stinging, just enough to understand that he didn't take the loss lightly. While the thumb beneath her skirt brushes lightly over her hipbone.

Inspite their predicaments, their relationship was business from the beginning and the majority still is. He tells her this through the contrasting touches.

She nods.

"Use your words, girl. Tell me you understand. This cant happen again."

But she won't concede, not yet. "No more attacks," she murmurs, placing her hands on his thighs. "No more deaths." The girl sinks to her knees, slowly, and making sure he keeps his gaze glued to hers. Being so close to him, she gets a whiff of his cologne. He smells of musk and wood, Smoke and whiskey. He smells of man.

They know what buttons to press when it comes to one another, and right now, she needs safety for her people in much the same way he needs independence for his. The difference laying within their methods of accomplishment. But looking at them now, it's clear they've got more in common than she's previously thought.

Silco spreads his legs further apart, welcoming her advancements. "I wonder what daddy dearest would say if he saw you now; that pretty princess of his . . . Negotiating on her knees." He slides a hand beneath hers, lacing their fingers together before leaning back in his chair to enjoy the show.

It's a small sign of fondness, one he confidently gives. Showing his inclination toward her means little, for they already know where they have each other. Unwilling to put it into words, they feel them silently.

Truth is, they enjoy the power imbalance, they enjoy the hatred their respective people share. Peculiarly, it unites them, and simultaneously fuel their polarity. They're a strange equation, two variables with a common sum.

Helping each other with free hands, they unbutton his pants. "Im sure he'd be proud of your devotion," he mocks, exhaling that infamous low chuckle.

Spitting into her hand, she reaches into his pants. "He'd share the pride with your people," she smiles and looks up at him innocently, pulling his member out. "–when they find out your working with a councilor's daughter . . . Fucking her no less." She leans in, teasing his tip with a slow circling lick, gathering the pre-cum on her tongue. With a corner curving upward, his lips part, and there's a silent intake of breath. Brushing his hand along her cheek, he collects stray hair covering her face and gathers it at her neck, twirling it around his fingers. "Go on," he urges.

And so, she finally closes the distance and takes him in her mouth.

With a hiss, he squeezes the hand laced with his. Slender fingertips dig into the back of her hand. "Little devil," he groans, hand burrying deeper into her hair and balling into a fist, coincidentally pulling on her scalp.

Clasping her still spit-wet hand around his shaft, she strokes him, adding on to the bobbing of her head.

"Yes," he moans, reclining his head against the back of the chair. "Carry on, girl."

Im sync with her hand, she works him until he's close to squirming, trying his very best to keep a semblance of composure. Never did she think such a powerful man would tremble beneath her touch or the pressure of her lips. But here he was, his usual neat combed back hair fallen over his forehead, beads of sweat gathering on his temples.

He'd started using his hand to guide her head, helping her find the perfect path toward his climax. Chest heaving and teeth bared, he chuckles breathlessly as the squelching of their actions reach his ears. Pushing her too far, she makes half-choking noises when she takes his entire length down her throat. Causing saliva to spill out of her mouth and roll down his length.

"Sloppy," he snarls, manicured nails digging into her hand. "-used to sucking cock."

She whines from the rare usage of crude words, making her core purr. His inches twitch in her mouth, sensing how close he is. "Please me," he supresses a groan, calling her name. "Swallow."

It happens quickly. His breathing turns rapid, his hips arching as he spills into her mouth. Tasting of rich salt as she swallows.

Smirking devilishly, he catches his breath. "Thats it . . . Well done." He brushes his thumb along her index finger.

Joy trickles into her heart at the praise, but there is little room as her body is already filled to the brim by need. With heavy eyes and glistening lips, she stands up on her knees. "Kiss me," she whispers.

Unlacing their fingers, he moves to slide a thumb across her lips, gathering some of the milky seed she'd yet to swallow. "Open up, princess." He pulls on her hair to tilt her head back.

Her lips part automatically, a knife slicing through her pride at the irony of the name. Silco slips his thumb into her mouth and wipes it clean on her tongue. He watches with fascination as her lips close around the digit, volunteering to suck it off as he pulls it out. "Kiss me," she repeats.

The fingers still burried in her hair twitches at the sight. Acting on impulse, they bunch her waves, pulling her close enough for their lips to play ghost. He tilts his head to the side, bringing them impossibly closer. "Tell me you understand," he murmurs, watching her reaction as the featherlight touch tickles her lips.

Her expectations for the night and the soft shell of intimacy around them shatters, but she'll never give him the satisfaction. The kiss was a wish from her own selfish needs, but giving him what he wants without the safety she require for her people is not. "No."

With a harrowing glance, he releases her. "I have work to do, you know where the door is," Silco says, nodding toward the exit. He then runs his hand through his hair, combing it back into place.

So quickly is the mood ruined and the rush of lust diminishes, settling her nerves. Instead it is the annoyance and the anger she arrived with that begins to rebuild.

The girl scoffs. "Petty, man-child," she mumbles, keeping her voice beneath her breath. But she wants something from him too, anything. She's derserves it, it just the matter of taking it.

Then, something just clicks in her mind and an irruption takes control of her body. Narrowing her eyes in quick to non-existent contemplation, she grabs his collar and pulls him in for a kiss. It only lasts for a second before she pushes herself away and stands up, not planning to stick around to deal with the consequences.

But before she gets a chance to move too far, a hand grabs her forearm and yanks her back. "You stubborn girl," he whispers in her ear, an arm slung around her torso as Silco holds her against his chest. She feels her panties being pulled to the side, and the head of his member lining up with her core. "Bleeding your integrity dry for those imperious, self-important cretins." He teases her entrance, sliding the tip up and down her folds.

"I am one of them, or do you forget?" She snaps.

Without warning, he lowers her onto his inches, fitting them inside her like they've been molded. The girl gasps at the feeling and Silco's fingers curl, releasing a groan as his fingers rouch the fabric at her ribs. "Even now?" He adjusts the girl in his lap. "Would they deign to descend from their thrones as you? Stooping to my level, manipulating on a whim to fullfill your needs." He pulls her closer, nudging her profile with his. All the while he's got his still hard member pushed up inside her, soft walls of flesh welcoming him eagerly. "Would they still accept you when found-out, or will they throw you to the wolves as the rumours spread? When they find out Zaun's villainous crime lord is fucking Pimtover's princess," he laces the words with venom, hands slipping upward. One stops at her breast to squeeze while the other clasps around her throat. "When they whisper of the ways he uses her. How he puts her on her back, or makes her kneel . . . How he bends her over," he murmurs, sending shivers down her spine.

She grows dizzy, a mix of worry and pleasure clouding her senses. His words hit home, drawing her lips into a thin line. "They are still my people," she breathes, voice close to breaking, sunding more like she's trying to convince herself.

"They will be your downfall." He puts pressure on her throat. "We've made sure of that, you and I."

"No . . . Silco, that's not true."

The hand holding her breast slips beneath her skirt. "We've made our beds-" slender fingers find her clit. "And we will sleep with the consequences."

Head lulling back against his shoulder, back arching, pleasure spikes as he stimulates her thrice fold. Circling her clit while throbbing inside her, and acting catalyst is the experienced hand around her throat. It limits the bloodflow and multiplies her pleasure. "Fuck," she whimpers, hips squirming, flesh randomly spasming around him.

Silco groans at the sensation, gaining his own pleasure from the whole ordeal. But that is not his goal. "Be still," he warns.

The collossall amounts of pleasure blinds her, it grabs hold of her senses and refuses to let go. Her nerves burn and fingers curl. Its all too much, yet not enough. Tears of gather in her eyes, slowly spilling over to roll down her face. "A-almost . . ."

Silco adjusts his grip around her throat so uses his thumb to tilt her face toward him, then watches how the tears streak her makeup, leaving watered down mascara in their wake. He places his lips on her skin, kissing the tears away while enjoying their salty taste. He studies her rosy cheeks and knitted expression, memorising the small whimpers she breathes.

The girl can no longer keep still and her back prepares to arch, limbs preparing to surge with blinding hot pleasure. "Im-- nmgh, I-" She mewls, and the knot releases.

. . .

Until it isn't. She feels Silco retract his hands, causing oxygen flood her brain and irritation to anchor her mind. The knot in her stumach re-ties, loosely adjusting until the pressure completely dies down. "I see callousness runs in the family," she complains, almost in pain from the sudden lack of stimulation.

Silco circles an arm around her waist. "It's essential to survive," he says and stands up, still swollen member slipping out of her. Supporting the girl as her knees wobble, she's unable to stand on her own due to the afflictions he's caused her. Turning her around, he helps her onto the desk. Chest to chest, he braces against the wood, one hand on either side of her, effectively boxing her in.

She lays a finger beneath his chin, and he looks up at her through his eyebrows. Exhaling, he moves between her thighs. Silco reaches out to her, loosely cupping her face as his thumb smears the streaked mascara. "There is no white knight," he says, pushing reality on her, weather she's willing to listen or not.

She nods. "I know." Tainted by the impure air of Zaun, branded by the touch of it's Eye. If she ever is to be saved, it must be by her own hand. Her smile is faint as her eyes fall from his.

He grabs her face and squeezes her cheeks. "Look at me," he tells her with a gravely tone. Their eyes lock. Dissappering between them, his other hand lines himself up with her core.

Taking a gamble, she grabs his tie and pulls him in, properly locking lips for the first time. Because he doesn't pull away, and neither does she. Her bottom lips begins to tremble, surprised he ever let it go this far. Their initial moment passes, evolving into seconds until they realise neither is breathing and they tear apart for much needed air, not straying far. Their lips hover, ghosting as previously. "You steal whats not your's to take."

She nudged his nose with her own. "Does survival not apply here? I never took you for a hypocrite."

His top lip twitches, and she feels him bare his teeth in a silent snarl as his fingers apply pressure to her cheeks. "How clever," he murmurs, and pushes inside her once again, catching her off guard.

They share a reflexive gasp, and as he starts to move, every thrust exchanges breaths between them. The girl's lips curve, heavily enjoying the tiny sliver of emotional intimacy he's finally giving her.

Her legs circle around his hips as he grabs her waist one handed, adding further levrage as his fingers dent her flesh. Silco starts a heavy pace and their lips reconnect, mirroring their bodies, it reflects their feelings. The kiss growing needy and rough.

"Get on your back for me," he mocks and releases her face. "Prove them right."

She bites his lip, tugging on it as she lies back against the desk and pulls him with her.

Hand suddenly free, he hooks it beneath her knee and pulls it up against his side to gai better access. Slowing down the pace, he manages to take her deeper, harder. She groans, head lulling to the side as her climax begins to build. "Dont stop." Not again.

"Look at me," he breathes, warning in his tone as he's inclined to watch her topple over the edge. Her brows knit together, but her gaze finds his. The knot closing as his thrusts begin to grow erratic.

Pleasure burns her fingers and quickens her pulse. "Close, c-" she begins, but he cuts her off with another kiss, tongue slipping between their lips to explore her mouth.

And just like that, she bursts. Traveling through her from top to toe. Silco following short thereafter. "It's alright . . . Good, girl," he whispers.

Once they've caught up with their breaths, Silco straightens out, and rearranges his clothes before helping her to her feet.

"I understand," she says, halting by the door.

He looks up from his seat but is quick to stand, slowly stalking toward her. Stopping just short of her smaller frame, he reaches behind her back to grab the door handle. "I don't control her. She is my daughter like you are your father's," he says and meets her eyes. "But I will speak to Jinx." Leaning down, he kisses her cheek, catching her off guard. Affection is newly discovered territory between them, but from him to give it so freely after battling it out is a very big surprise. But as quick as ot started, it's over. His soft expression morphing into his usual stern disposition. "Dont be late again girl," he says and opens the door.

Somehow, they've become entangled. Silently sharing affection their respective people would deem unfit. Silco wont hurt her, if he can help it. But such is nature. They'll stand on opposite sides, prioritising their own families, cities. But not without a thought of the other, wishing it could be different. It probably never will be, for such is faith and such is time. If only it could rewind.

#silco #silco arcane #silco smut #silco x reader #silco x you #silco x female reader #arcane smut #silco imagine #silco fanfiction #arcane x reader #silco fanfic

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thedarkestrivernymph · 11 days ago

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Yandere! Kidnapper

warnings: captivity, forced infantilization, nonconsensual themes, physical violence, drugging, collaring, stalking, dead dove: do not eat

—becomes increasingly more unhinged, lowkey inspired by a disturbing manga I accidentally read twice, so take that as you will.., so yeah that's my last post of 2024, happy 2025 people!

Y! Kidnapper that hunts you through the forest and tackles you to the ground after an escape attempt only to scold and berate you for every little scrape on your body, as if it wasn't his fault in the first place, as if you're just too clumsy for your own good.

Y! Kidnapper that never would do anything sexual without consent, but doesn't take no for an answer when you tell him you don't want him to bathe you—you are his, so of course he will rub you clean, even the spot between your legs.

Y! Kidnapper who tells you his entire day, everything, as if you're his lifeless oversized doll, only to pinch your nipples whenever he asks a question, daring you to answer and enjoys your torment in staying quiet and pliant for him

Y! Kidnapper who sits you down, clips even your toenails for you, kneads your sore muscles from doing nothing all day, carries you everywhere, doesn't even let your feet catch callous from walking on them, only to treat you absolutely diabolical in bed, branding each inch of skin he took such good care of either with his hand, a belt or whatever he gets his hands on..

Y! Kidnapper who's obsessed with providing warm meals for you, the highest quality ingredients are used—everything to accommodate your sensitive gut, only to drug you out of your mind and giggle while doing nothing else but cuddle you while watching TV and popping chips in his mouth, all while commenting on the script of the particular horror movie he’s watching and listing thousand of things he would've done better than the director

Y! Kidnapper who before capturing you was the weirdest fucking stalker in existence— openly groping you, offering you food with a smile (mind you he’s a complete stranger???), appearing in front of your doorstep at night to holler at you, banging his fists on your door and actively breaking in only to stare at your sleeping form while jacking off. Did I also mention he would email you like you're his secret rendezvous? Oh and he went along and introduced himself to your whole family with a fake identity over email (like—wtf is whatsapp?), hahaha..

Y! Kidnapper who wants to control every single aspect of your life—from how you pluck your brows to when you're allowed to use the restroom. Will literally stare you down with a hand on the chain connected to your collar, that he forced on you after your latest escape attempt, while you're pants are pooling at your feet and you’re trying to pee. (Why? Because the window is a few feet away..)

Y! Kidnapper from who, let's be honest here, you will only ever escape in death and that will probably be in old age, with how well he takes care of you, having baby proofed his home enough to ensure that you couldn't hurt yourself even on accident and don't even think about using a razor! he will do that for you, just sit down in the bathtub, all drugged out of your mind, dumb and drooling, losing touch with reality, while he does everything for you

—just be his passive little kitten he declawed, and that's enough for him, just dependent on him and he will paint your cage gold, even if the paint will chip away one day

#yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere story #yandere drabble #yandere drabbles #yandere kidnapper #dark themes #yandere horror #yandere x reader #yandere x you #cw: stalking #yandere imagines #yandere thoughts

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moonlight-prose · 3 months ago

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WONDERING WHY

a/n: this is for the logan promptober hosted by the lovely @silverskyeline! i'm not gonna do the whole list cause i would stress myself out to an insane degree. but a few caught my eye. so i've thrown together some small fics for the man himself in the hopes of scattering them throughout october. this is also late one day cause of well me having a shitty time in life rn. but i hope y'all enjoy!

logan promptober: day six - cowboy

summary: loving logan howlett felt like loving a ghost. he returned when the moon hung low in the sky and his time gave way for freedom. but when you needed him most, he arrived on your doorstep with the promise of giving you exactly what you want.

word count: 3.5k+

pairing: cowboy!old man!logan x f!reader

warnings: EXPLICIT SO MDNI IT'S 18+ ONLY, romance, love, angst, longing, pining, they're obsessed with each other, filthy kissing, p in v sex, rough sex, spit, choking (sorta), calling the pussy her/she, he's an old man who fucks insanely well, feral old man logan.

Pale moonlight brushed across the Earth with strokes of paint. Stars were sprinkled along the night sky, glimmering in darkness as you leaned against the doorway of your home. The lantern flame flickered with each waft of cool air that breezed past you. Pooling inside where a fire cracked and sparked—offering enough warmth to keep you sated for the remainder of time.

At least until he returned home.

You listened for the familiar clop of hooves, the click of his tongue guiding the horse where to go. Hoping that eventually he’d turn the bend in the dirt road and find his way back to the safety of your shared bed.

This was a routine you knew well—one you found solace in as the days grew short and sunlight became sparse. In summer he often returned when the clock struck midnight; the weariness of a long day spent riding through towns and hunting with others was normal. If a little grueling. Although you never complained. You knew who he was when you met him—understood the ups and downs of what this relationship would be.

Logan wasn’t anything if true to his word right at the start. I’m not gonna be here every day sugar, but I’ll be here when you need me.

Eventually you’d have to blow out the lantern and amble back indoors. Calling it quits on yet another night spent alone. He didn’t like it when you were out past a certain time—raiders and hunters alike were more than willing to break in without remorse. Especially if they didn’t know who resided inside, who shared your bed on nights like tonight.

“I need you,” you sighed, shutting your eyes to the sight of an empty road.

They were empty words of hope strung together to make a wish on whatever star caught your eye. Rarely did they work. Although some nights you wondered if magic twined with your solemn prayer—summoning the man you so desperately wanted. It was wishful thinking, a well full of reverie you continuously drank from. Although maybe it was the poison that would one day cause you to drop dead. Maybe…Logan was a figment of all that you could never have.

He might not even exist.

Your eyes fluttered open, glancing up at the sky with anticipation of a falling star. The echo of hooves along dirt drew your attention from your nightly ritual—curiosity pulling you close and whispering promises of giving you everything you wanted. It was probably a stranger. Someone looking for an easy place to spend the night. Logan always told you to say no with a shotgun in your hands, and your body tensed in preparation to grab for the gun propped near the doorway.

Relief flooded your veins at the sight of a familiar dark brown leather coat, his hat tipped low enough to hide the eyes that loomed beneath—glinting with a darkness you'd only seen once or twice in your time together. Calloused and scarred hands gripped loosley at the reins as the horse trotted up the path—finding it's way home with ease.

There was a pull between the two of you. Insatiable and feral and strong enough to have him searching for you the second he drew closer to the house. Hazel eyes fatigued by the long trip back locked onto your form. Plush skin and curves hidden beneath layers of a dress you had yet to strip off.

You would leave that to him, knowing how much he enjoyed tugging at the strings of your corset—undoing the buttons to set you free.

"Gonna catch your fuckin' death," he muttered, his boots hitting the ground with a dull thud. You relished the sound, unable to stop your smile.

"I was waiting for you."

He huffed, wrapped the reins around the wooden fence he built steadily over the years—the leather bag on his saddle now strapped over his wide shoulder. "Shouldn't be waitin' on a man like me sugar."

"You always say that."

"And I'm always right."

"Would you prefer I wait on someone else?" you inquired, a challenge glinting in your eyes.

He bit back a growl, hand settling on your hip to drag you to the edge of the front step as he stepped to the one below. "Are you tryin' to tell me somethin'?"

The possession in his eyes made your heart race, your fingers digging into the soft leather permeated by the scent of cigars smoked in various saloons. He felt familiar, a home you didn't know could exist within another person. The house you two built resided in his heart; the missing piece you searched for on nights spent without him. But now you had it in your grasp—fitting it back into place with a sigh of bliss.

The picture of peace finally pressed itself to your soul, caressing a part of your love that left each time he mounted his horse—the promise of coming home on the tip of his tongue.

"I haven't found someone else yet, but I very well could-"

The rumble in his chest was layered with everything he'd never say with words. "Try it," he growled. "And I'll have to make a fuckin' graveyard out back."

Heat pooled rapidly into your stomach, elation fluttering through your heart. You knew an animal hid in the depths of his chest. Feral with claws and teeth that snapped at the thought of someone taking what was his. You'd never belong to someone else. You'd never want to. The echo of his words seared into your mind, a vow of forever etched into each vowel and consonant.

He was home. He was here. He was real.

"There's no one else," you murmured, leaning your forehead against his—lips brushing against his with each soft admission. "There could never be anyone else."

All that would go unspoken, all neither of you could say.

I love you. I'll love you forever. Whatever this is…it will only end when we're buried six feet under.

"Good," he replied gruffly. "Now give your old man a proper fuckin' welcome."

The smile you wore deepened as his warm hand cupped your cheek. His skin was dry from the leather and a few cuts were scattered here and there, but nothing could resemble this. The blooming heat that spread across your chest like the roots of an ancient tree. He held you with a tenderness that might have shocked you at first—the fear of harming you burning hot in his stomach.

But this was how he always touched you. With a love that couldn't be replaced. A promise soldified in the lines of his palm, fate driven and earthly bound, and yours forevermore.

Finding his lips beneath his hat, you let go of the breath held deep in your lungs. The taste of his cigars spread on your tongue. A familiar morsel of home you gravitated towards. Later in the evening—when you were both lethargic and naked and covered in all sorts of fluids—he'd puff on a brand new cigar. Giving you taste with lazy kisses and smiles traded in the dark of night.

"Missed you Logan," you mumbled, tongue sliding against his with a breathy moan. "I always miss you."

He chuckled, deep enough to vibrate against your chest—his hands sliding down to grip your waist. "You wanna show me how much?"

"You'd like that huh." Smiling into the kiss, you felt his teeth dig into your lips. He sucked it with a groan, fingers digging harshly into the layers of fabric.

"Mhm." His breath was harsh against your cheek, each kiss filled with a need to ravage what belonged to him. To prove he still held space in your heart. "Missed you every fuckin' day sugar."

You laughed, toying with the hair at the base of his skull—curling your fingers around it to tug him back. The moan he rewarded you with made saliva pool in your mouth. His eyes watched you, dazed with want, mouth parted and swollen from your kisses. And you burned the image of him in your mind.

"You wanna show me how much baby?" you breathed, brushing your lips to his with a teasing laugh.

A biting growl ripped from his throat. "Get inside before I take you out here."

"There's an idea."

The harsh slap to your hip dragged a peal of laughter out of your chest. Stumbling back, your hands yanking the hat off his heat and working the jacket down his arms, you kissed him as if you'd never get the chance to again. Wet and spit slicked. Until your teeth clashed together and his tongue was halfway down your throat. Each moan that dripped from his mouth into yours felt like a fucking reward.

A blissful reminder that you weren't alone; he stood before you, frenzied and aching to feel your skin on his.

Logan couldn't figure out how he wound up in this haven. A home, a lover that stole his breath with each look, and forever right on the horizon. Years spent alone only offered the promise of torment, of a life overflowing with an endless amount of pain.

But for some unknown reason, the sun that used to sear his skin now stood before him lighting the pathway home. The brilliance of you blinded him—warmed every cold aspect that resided in the depths of his chest. Yet he'd rather spend the rest of his life in your fierce heat than suffer in the biting cold again.

Oh how lucky he felt just getting the chance to burn.

Desire simmered sharply in the base of your stomach the further you got into the house—his teeth biting down to the column of your throat, fingers toying with the laces of your corest. He devoured you like a sweet thing to be had. A treat he rarely got to partake in tasting. And fuck if he wasn't going to take his time. You clawed at his shirt, pulling it up and off his body with a hoarse shout of glee—nails piercing the flesh of his shoulders as he yanked your leg around his hip.

He practically dragged you to the small bedroom, tearing off the clothing as he went with harsh snarls of want. You'd worry about mending the fabric later in the morning. Or perhaps the day after that. Given how you could feel the heft of his cock through his pants, pressing to your stomach with each small shift of your body.

"On the bed." The command was punctuated with a slap to your ass—a sharp bite against the skin of your collarbone drew a soft moan to the surface.

He tugged the front of your corset down, dropping to the ground with the remainder of your skirts. Baring yourself to Logan with a smile, you felt the emptiness slip down onto the wood of the bedroom floor. Expelling from your body with each panted breath and soft carress. He turned you inside out with the smallest of actions—the barest of touches.

The time he spent alone and wrapped in thoughts of you became all he lived off of. Your memory turned into the reason he stayed alive.

Unlike so much of his life he now held an answer to why he dragged himself home. Why he forced himself to keep going.

"Lemme see her." His hand wrapped around your leg, pulling open your thighs for him to catch a glimpse of what lay between.

You'd been dripping since he arrived. A sticky wet mess that begged for his attention. Logan salivated at the sight, his eyes zeroing in on the way you glistened for him. On any other night he'd sit you on his face in a quick attempt at gaining the close proximity he longed for when he was gone. Tonight served for a different want—a biting need that dug its teeth into his skin.

"She missed me huh," he mumbled, thumb sliding through your wet folds.

You moaned, breathy and restless. "She did baby."

"'M gonna give her what she needs."

"Logan," you sighed, hand outstretched for him to take. "Need you close."

Every nerve lit like a fuse when he gifted you with a full smile. "I will sugar. Lemme just look at ya first huh?"

With a nod you let your legs spread apart, arms draped above your head. The sight of you stole his breath, but you didn't fare any better. His skin scattered with scars you kissed a thousand times over still rendered you incapable of speaking. Hell you weren't even sure you'd taken a breath since he walked through the door.

Though his body was worn and his hair was graying, you couldn't deny he remained the most beautiful man you ever set your eyes on.

"Like what you're lookin' at?"

Your grin was lazy, eyes overflowing with a language Logan once thought he'd never learn yet now could be considered fluent in. Love.

"I really do," you whispered, sharing the secret with him. The words rarely spoken were shouted at the top of your lungs in each loving praise.

He shook them off when you first met him. Claimed they were false words to make yourself feel better about loving an animal who walked and talked like a human. Although, over time he allowed them to sink into his skin, bathe over his broken and weary soul.

They held him together like a ribbon tied through his soul, placed neatly in a bow on his heart.

His hand was swift in undoing his belt, pushing the remainder of his clothes off to join yours heaped on the floor. And you drank in the sight of the man you adored climbing over your body with a hungry gaze. Your heart flipped, grip sliding along his back as you welcomed him in between your legs—the heavy weight of his cock a warm press against your thigh.

"Welcome home." The smile melded into the kiss he placed on your lips, tongue sliding in the curve along your teeth, to taste every bit of you he could reach.

Bucking your hips into his, you dug your nails into his lower back in the hopes that he'd move. He swallowed your whine, spit trailing down your chin when he pulled back to catch his breath. Moving slowly never worked for you—entirely used to the man who broke you with the intent of putting you back together—and right now was no exception. The torment of not having him tore at your heart, put a splinter in the longing simply to crack you in two even further.

"Hold still," he grunted, his hand shoving your hips back onto the bed. "Movin' so fuckin' much I'm gonna have to tie you down."

Your gasp was wet—needy. "Please. Fuck please-"

"Right." His other hand slid up your torso to rest against the base of your throat—thumb running along the smooth skin that covered your racing pulse. "I forgot who you are, sugar. You'd like that huh?"

Teeth tore at your bottom lip, eyes glazed and pupils blown wide the longer he held you there. Anticipation fried your nerves with each second that passed. But Logan wasn't a cruel man. He knew what you ached for—what you'd give up everything for. The closeness of the man you loved; a chance to have his body, heart, and soul.

Gripping himself, he tapped his cock against your clit, sliding through your slick with a stunted moan. A smile bloomed across his lips at your responding moan—fire streaking down your spine, curling along your limbs. He could drive you to madness and yet you'd thank him each time.

You would be grateful for anything he gave you.

"Don't get quiet on me now." His lips trailed along your cheek as he notched himself at your entrance. "Go on and sing for me sweetheart."

He sunk in with a smooth thrust, stretching you with slickened pain and a hoarse moan against the shell of your ear. And you forgot how to breathe. The pinch of pain quickly dampened with the roll of his hips—the head of his cock pressing snugly against your walls. This is what you missed, what your body screamed for.

The potent euphoria that drowned you under its vicious waves.

"So tight," he grunted. "Guess she really did miss me."

"Logan-" Your head tipped back into the pillows, a loud moan breaking the silence that curled over your bodies like a blanket.

"There she is." Pulling back slightly, he slammed back into you, nearly shoving you up the bed. "My pretty little songbird."

Nothing held you back from the sounds he drew out of your mouth. Each one louder than the last. Until the room was filled with a symphony of your combined pleasure, the vulgar echo of skin slapping against skin and your slick dripping down onto the bed, became all you could think about.

He thrived off it. The sight of you whittled down to nothing but a needy mess, begging for a small hint of his love. Maybe that made him an old man far too fucking dirty to be with someone as prescious at you. But he'd let the guilt eat him alive later. He'd worry about stealing your youth out from under you in the afterglow of feeling you cum.

A harsh thrust that struck against the sensitive spongy part of your walls had your knees clamping around his hips—your fingers scratching at his back to get him to slow down. You needed a chance to breathe, to regain some sense. Logan merely smiled, his fingers tightening around your throat to drag your head up. His lips slotting against yours in a messy kiss.

"Where do ya think you're goin'?" he growled, repeating the move with a bitten out groan. "Thought you wanted me to fuck you. Now you're running?"

"T-Too much-"

The angle changed sharply and suddenly he was no longer grinding into you but fucking right on that spot. A sharp sob of his name only added fuel to the quickly forming flame, quickening his movements until you felt your entire body begin to grow taut.

Slick smeared on the inside of your thighs, sticky and warm and loud enough to make you dizzy each time you heard it. He panted into your mouth, using the hold on your throat as leverage to fuck you back onto his cock.

Logan didn't love softly. He couldn't. Brutality was all he was capable of giving you and like the sweetest angel you took it with a smile. You let him use you up until his name was all you could comprehend. The heady scent of his sweat filled your senses, the salty tang of his skin spread along your tongue as you bit into his shoulder—your teeth marring his already marked skin.

Eventually it would turn purple, fading quicker than usual, but he'd wear it with pride. His own trophy after tearing you apart beneath him.

"Gonna cum?" he asked, mouthing at your breast, moaning at the taste of your skin. "I can feel it."

You nodded frantically, body going taut with each slap of his hips on yours. "C-Can I?"

"So fuckin' polite," he groaned, sucking on your nipple before letting it loose with a pop. Spit dripping down to your stomach. "'Course you can sugar."

Tugging at his hair, you felt the tremble in your thighs spread to the rest of your body. His other hand slipped between your bodies, thumbing at your throbbing clit with a soft moan, dragging you right to the edge of a cliff. A sharp grind of his hips broke the dam within you, flooding you with a mind numbing bliss that scorched your skin.

You cried his name until your throat went raw, tears spilling hotly down your cheeks that he licked up with a smile. The fluttering of your walls dragged a hoarse shout from his chest, his teeth clamping down onto any part of he could reach. He followed you instantly, shoving his cock deep enough to hurt as he filled you with enough cum to spill out.

The echo of your breaths resounded off the wooden walls, his hand dipping down to smear his cum along the inside of your thighs. Coating you in his essence; claiming you with his scent that burned the inside of his nose.

"I did you know," you mumbled, kissing the newly formed bruise on his skin. "Miss you."

He sighed, his forehead dropping to yours. "I know sugar. I missed you too."

"Will you stay this time?"

A grin pulled at the corners of his lips, hips rolling into yours to pull another weak moan from those pretty lips he longed to kiss. "As long as ya want me."

The hesitancy clamped around your heart, filling your stomach with anxiety. You wanted to beg him to never leave again, to spend each moment in the safety of this house. But Logan had always been a ramblin man. He'd never stay in one place too long. Even if eventually he found his way back here, back in the safety of your home.

"Forever?" you breathed, eyes glistening with unshed tears.

Logan's heart twisted at the sight. "Yeah sugar," he replied, dipping down to drag his lips along yours. "I like the sound of that.”

#logan howlett x f!reader #logan howlett x reader #logan howlett x you #logan howlett x y/n #logan howlett smut #logan howlett #my writing #logan promptober

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wwandaslover · 4 months ago

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STRANGERS | W.M

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x F! Reader

Warnings: A bit angsty, swearing, fighting, short little fic bc I’ve been gone too long

Summary: Wanda’s trying to get her boys back and Doctor Strange comes to you for help, trying to get you to kill your ex wife. Wanda’s not happy that you’re in the way.

You had been living your life as peacefully as you could ever since Thanos. You quit using magic, you moved across the country to Oregon. It was lonely.. but it was calm. You appreciated no longer having to put yourself under such immense stress, no longer fighting people and aliens, no longer worrying about stupid diets, no longer constantly feeling like you were going to die. It was amazing to be alone despite how boring it was.

You had heard about Westview from the news not long after moving to Oregon, and though it worried you to hear that Wanda was getting to such a horrible point, you couldn’t get involved and part of you didn’t want to. You and Wanda did not end on good terms, Wanda broke your heart. You were staying out of all of that shit, you were finally getting your well deserved lull.

It grew harder to not try and help Wanda the more you heard about her, you were constantly worrying about her wellbeing. Then to your luck, Doctor Strange showed up at your doorstep asking for help and disrupting your peace, telling you he had gone to Wanda and found out she’d been corrupted by the Darkhold, trying to kill America Chavez to go to her sons in another universe. It took him very little time to convince you to help.

He needed your help since you were one of the most powerful magic wielders, yet still not anywhere near Wanda’s level. Despite being stronger than you, Wanda couldn’t absorb your magic when used on her or it could kill her, you were a Green Witch. You wielded earthly magic while Wanda wielded chaos magic, and Strange wanted you to trick her into trying to absorb your magic.

You refused to kill the woman you had loved so dearly, instead you promised to help her. You wanted her to be happy and no longer hurt so much, despite how much you hated her for what she did to you.

Standing at Kamar Taj, seeing the dead bodies of sorcerers lying on the ground after Wanda used her magic to kill them all, seeing her walk over them like nothing.. it hurt you to see her now a shell of the woman she once was. Wanda stared at you with an icy glare as she stepped closer, annoyed that you were blocking her path to America.

Wanda laughed dryly “Of course, you’re the one they bring to stop me.”

You took a deep breath, swallowing thickly. Part of you wanted to hug her and the other wanted to punch her as hard as possible. You spoke calmly, “Wanda, I’m here to help you end this madness. I don’t want to fight you.”

Wanda hummed “I’m sure you don’t. You’d rather not die, I’m sure.”

You scoffed softly “I doubt you want to either.”

Wanda sighed in annoyance “You’re right, what I want is my sons. Now get out of my way.” She began stepping closer and you used your powers to push her back.

Wanda snarled and threw blasts of energy at you which you managed to dodge by a hair. Wanda lunged at you and grabbed you by the throat, squeezing your airways shut. You gasped and coughed, gripping her wrist, your eyes wide and full of shock. You kicked her harshly and Wanda instinctively let go.

Wanda stumbled back and shouted at you, “You little bitch, get out of my way!”

You coughed into your arm, glaring at her. Once your throat hurt a little less you shouted back, your voice slightly hoarse “Fuck you! You’re the one acting like a bitch!”

Wanda scoffed “You sound like a petulant child.”

You rolled your eyes at that, annoyed by Wanda’s comments “I have no idea how I put up with you for half a decade.”

Wanda raised a brow “You never complained about me when we were together, so I must’ve been alright.” Wanda pushed you aside and began walking inside the temple.

You caught her wrist and tried to pull her back but it didn’t quite work how you wanted it to, instead she simply dragged you along with her. After a few seconds Wanda looked back at you in annoyance. “Wh- are you seriously not going to let go of me? You know I’m just going to keep dragging you with me.”

You shrugged and tightened your grip on her wrist, trying to plant your feet on the ground but they simply slid over the stones as she dragged you. You got irritated by how your efforts fell flat, so you opted for tackling her. The two of you fell together and Wanda shouted, looking up at you “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you held her down and Wanda was distraught by the sweet sound. It had been a long time since you laughed like that around her. Wanda swallowed thickly and tried to speak angrily, but sounded more nervous than anything, “Quit laughing! What’s so funny?”

You shook your head, still laughing softly at the situation. “This is all so stupid..”

Wanda’s jaw clenched and she quickly became angry again, mad that you had called it all stupid when she was struggling “I’m trying to get my sons back, how is that stupid?”

You furrowed your eyebrows, your laughter dying out. “I’m not saying that you losing your kids is stupid, I’m saying us fighting is stupid. I also think you’re stupid for believing this’ll work, for believing those boys would just accept you as their mother when they already have one. I mean seriously, you can’t truly believe that they’ll immediately love you, or ever love you for that matter. This won’t go your way.”

Wanda roughly pushed you off and stood up, glaring down at you “Stay out of my way. I don’t want to hurt you.” She began walking away but you used your powers to throw her back to the ground, walking over to her.

“You are not killing that innocent girl! You have no right! She’s just a child, she doesn’t deserve to die, or to go through any of this! Think of how terrified she is!” You yelled at her, angered by her lack of humanity and remorse.

“I need my boys, you don’t understand! You aren’t going to stop me!” Wanda sat up and yelled back, her eyes tearing up. She didn’t want to kill anyone, or hurt anyone.. she just needed her boys.

You stared down at her, wide eyed and in disbelief of how she was acting. “Wanda, you can still have a family in this universe!”

Wanda scoffed and stood up, stepping closer to you “And how on earth would I do that? I lost Vision, I lost my boys, I lost everything!”

Your heart ached when Wanda brought up Vision but not you. You were her first love, and apparently the least important. You ignored your own feelings and spoke, “There’s still someone out there in the world for you, somebody you can love and have a family with.”

Wanda shook her head, wiping away her tears away with a scoff. “I don’t want anybody else, I don’t want other children. I can’t just replace Vision and my boys.”

God, you wanted to strangle her for acting like this. You wanted to be understanding, but she was making it so much harder than it needed to be.

You snapped at her “I’m trying to help you find happiness somewhere in this universe instead of giving up on a life here and ruining a different version of yourself’s life, so quit acting like a fucking idiot!”

Wanda stared at you with widened eyes, surprised that you had actually gotten angry at her. You were usually not the type to get mad, but when you did it was always hard to ignore.

Wanda muttered “Calm down, there’s no need to get so-“

You cut her off by yelling at her “You’re so goddamn selfish! You are condescending, controlling, possessive, overly protective, you are so infuriating and yet here I am trying to help you all because I care about you, and I still love you, but I also fucking hate you at the same time!”

Wanda sputtered slightly, her eyes still wide. Her expression was a mix of concern and shock, concerned because you were so upset, and shocked by what you had just said. You still loved her after four years of being apart.

“Are you serious?” Wanda scoffed. It had been years, you had to be over her. She didn’t want you to keep loving her, especially not after what she had done both to you and other people. She wasn’t a good person and you were.

You scoffed back, mocking her “Yes, obviously, I’m being serious. Can you quit being such a dick now?”

Wanda hated that you were still in love with her, she wanted you to move on and she wanted to move on as well. No matter how much she loved Vision he couldn’t fill the hole in her heart from leaving you. She didn’t feel worthy of your love, or your help, not after what she did. How she left you so heartbroken and then she just went and got together with Vision. She felt horrible for what she had done to you back then, and she felt horrible for leaving you again now, knowing she should immediately go back to you and mend your broken relationship, she could experience happiness for the first time in months, but she wouldn’t.

Wanda thought for a moment and decided to just ignore the whole situation, turning away and continuing to walk. “I’m going to get my boys back.” she muttered.

You watched her with now tearful eyes, your jaw clenched and your breathing turning shaky. You were done trying to help her. You shouted after her, “I’m going to finish this whether you come out dead or alive, Wanda!”

Wanda’s heart hurt from your words, but she kept walking. She still felt great love for you, but she needed Tommy and Billy. She needed them more than she needed anything else, even you. You knew that, and watching her disappear into the temple made your heart squeeze in your chest, you knew you had lost her but you weren’t going to give up on saving America from Wanda.

a decent amount of people have asked for part two and I kinda have an idea for part two, soo, go to my requests and ask to be put on the tag list, or ask in the comments.

#wlw #gxg #lesbian #wlw post #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff x fem reader #wanda mcu #wanda x reader #mommy wanda #wanda marvel #wlw angst #wwandaslover

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pressureplus · 5 months ago

Note

I actually have this request in my head for a while now... but I'm not sure if you be up to do it so thank to let me know if you will do it or not. Fem! Reader who is happily married and live together with Sebastian (when he still human). Until, Sebastian was arrested and sentence to dead. Reader found no long after his dead that she was pregnant. Years later, Sebastian manage to escape Hadal Blacksite probably very injured in the process. He was soon spotted by the kid that look similar to his human self (the kid probably be now close to be a teenager now), as the kid call up their mother. Sebastian was shocked to see his wife come to view.

I'm looking 👀

Love this dramatic shit, I'm SO here for it!

I'm going to be referring to your son as S/N, so y'all can name your boy yourselves! (I'm real interested in the stuff you might choose, so if you wanna put them in the replies, I'd love to see your baby names!)

Smaller Hands

Pairing: Sebastian Solace x Fem!Reader

Au: [Unnamed]

Warnings: Mentions of Pregnancy, an Absent Father, injury, and Imprisonment

◞꒷◟ ͜ ͜ ◞ྀི◟୨୧◞ྀི◟ ͜ ͜ ◞꒷◟◞꒷◟ ͜ ͜ ◞ྀི◟୨୧◞ྀི◟ ͜ ͜ ◞꒷◟

He had been running a very long time before he got to where he was now.

Escaping the Blacksite was only the beginning of his long, long journey home. He had wrestled himself from the depths of the deep ocean and fought his way all the way up to the light far, far above him.

Breaking through the surface of the water had provided him with a hope he never thought he'd see truly grow into something he could really hold. Sunlight and open air and a horizon that stretched endlessly in every direction... Sebastian hadn't known freedom in over 10 years, but there it was.

The way the natural light caught the glint of his wedding ring had him already tearing through the water with a grin, energy back in his tired body. It certainly wasn't his original ring, no, that one wouldn't fit on his new, much larger hand anymore, but the replacement that he got so he could wear a ring on his hand and not just as a pendant was enough of a visual reminder of his love, sending him treading the water the way this body was made to do. He had to get to his wife.

He had to see his Y/N again. That's always what his efforts were for.

It was days before he even reached a beach, and weeks of dragging himself through the shadows and the alleyways, keeping himself out of sight. He would squint at road maps and try to figure out how he was going to get himself home, not very well able to get on the public transport or drive himself there with a body like this. He had to be more than a little creative with how he was going to cross the countless miles between his lover and himself if he wanted to make it there at all. He'd spend his seemingly endless days hopping trains and swimming rivers just to close the distance faster, like it may wash away the last decade he's had to go without her.

Sebastian could only hope she waited for him, though those chances were next to none. She had been there the day he was 'executed', watching him get taken back to the chair that was supposed to put his story to its end. She has every right and reason to think he died that day, and he could never be angry or upset if she decided she still needed to be held the way his other hands used to hold her... Would these hands even fit her anymore? They'd outgrown his first ring... Would they be too big to hold hers anymore? The painful thought was a reoccurring one, and it plagued every dream he had in the moments he would manage to rest.

He's nearing his old cottage now, beaten and scarred from the long trip home, more than a little bit tired and definitely hungry. He's barely going to make it if he manages to get to the doorstep at all, but more thankful than ever he'd made his home with her outside of the city and out into the woods so he might have a moment to his thoughts. He could very well find her with another man, or he could find a completely new family, or even find nothing but flowers and trees- The life that he made with her could be all but ashes on a breeze that swept this place years ago. She could be a memory and this could all be for nothing just as easily as anything else. He wouldn't even have a right to be angry... He wouldn't even feel a right to cry if she's decided to move on.

"SNAKE MAN! SNAKE MAN!!!"

He's shaken from his pondering by an unfamiliar voice, a starry eyed child fumbling out of the bushes like a little animal.

He nearly panics and flees before the brave, feral little boy reaches out for his hand and looks up at him like something right out of a story book- Which, he supposed may be fair given the way that he looks now.

"Are you a forest monster!? Do you grant wishes and eat people and stuff?!" It's clear the boy doesn't know fear, young and small still, with new eyes... But familiar ones.

Sebastian's heart drops into his stomach when he begins to recognize the thick, dark hair and deep brown eyes. This boy is the spitting image of the way he looked when he was around 10 or 11... It's like he's been pulled right from Sebastian's old childhood photos.

Too dumbfounded to speak, Sebastian stands there, every muscle in his body tense while his eyes flick around the boy's face trying to figure out how this could be.

"S/N! What are you doing talking to strangers, you were supposed to be at least playing in the yard and not the woods before the sun started setting." Y/N rounds the trees with a stubborn look on her face and immediately freezes when her gaze meets Sebastian's.

The air is knocked out of the both of them, leaving them only able to stare, and he notes the way she's remained nearly the same as the day that he was forced to leave her behind. Like a flower that never wilts, she stands as beautiful and as amazing as she was when he had first met her. Frozen with an expression he can't place, she makes no motion to do anything at all. The larger man acts first at the realization she must be frightened of him, going to put his two unheld hands up and open his mouth to explain himself-

"You said not to talk to strangers, this is CLEARLY a forest monster." Little S/N beats both of them to the punch and confirms to Sebastian all at once that his attitude is as strong in his blood as that unruly dark hair is.

"Heed your mother, would you? I could very well eat you." Sebastian ushers the child forward with a playful threat, the boy in reference pouting and looking back up at him.

"Come on, I'm only out a little bit late! It's not dark yet! Monsters only eat people in the dark." The boy argues, unfamiliar with the idea of real danger, it seems, but certain of himself the way only children really can be.

"Sebastian I can't believe it... Is it you? Am I losing my mind?" Putting the scolding and corrections on her son's statements off for a better time, Y/N looks up at the mutated form of her lover, hoping she might be right. When Y/N speaks, it's soft and uncertain, a hand going to rest on her child's shoulder so as not to lose him while she's distracted.

"You recognize me?" His heart practically jumps into his throat and he struggles to cope with how quickly she's guessed it was him.

"If not for the way one soul knows another, then for your voice and... Our ring." Unafraid just as well, she walks right up to the towering creature and brings her hand up to the necklace it's strung onto around his neck.

"Am I too late?" Sebastian asks, still scared.

"You're late, but never too much. You had better come home now though." She gets firm near the end and he laughs, melting.

"Awe that's no fair! I'm in trouble for being a few minutes late and he gets to be gone forever!" The boy whines and Y/N seems to laugh when she ruffles his hair.

"You can be out of trouble because it's a special day. Now, let's go home and get you to bed." Y/N's eyes stray back up to her husband, the fondness that was there in those beautiful eyes he fell in love with was something that had grown blurry and hard to recall until now. The way her gaze rested on him so softly brought him back like he'd never left in the first place.

"I think I have some things to talk about with your monster, here." She smiles at him and goes to slide her hand into his, the cold feeling against his palm of her own ring -the matching one to his from the promise that they'd made at that altar a long time ago- made him feel warm again, and made him feel alive.

"Yes, I've got a lot of things I've been waiting to tell her for these years we've spent apart."

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reidology13 · 2 months ago

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we could make it better (breaking every habit)

Spencer Reid x fem ex-famous!reader

Summary: After Spencer overcomes his addiction, he seeks out the company and forgiveness of an old flame. cw: talk of addiction, a little sad? mostly fluffy though a/n: technically a part 2 of my fic based off making the bed by olivia rodrigo, but it can definitely be read as a oneshot. maybe they are a bit unhealthy, but they're cute and that's all that matters. also this was so incredibly delayed cause my phone drowned so I'm posting this from my dad's computer

Part 1

They say time heals all wounds, and standing at the door of his past mistake, Spencer hoped it had healed hers the way it had his. It had taken him too long to find her, for his pride to break down enough to ask Garcia to search for her. A few years ago it would have been all too easy, a few years ago she was on the cover of every magazine. Now she was the public's favourite conspiracy theory, the biggest where did she go? post made on some website full of self important nobodies.

Where did she go? A small house in a small town, a few hours from D.C, just close enough that Spencer had gotten in his car without a second thought the moment he had her address. Maybe it was a slight invasion of privacy, but Spencer had seen much more of her than the house she lived in.

As he lifted his fist to knock, doubt crept in for the first time since the beginning of his endeavour. Was he right to apologise, to show up at the doorstep of the person he hurt worse than anyone else in his life, and say sorry? Sorry. ‘Sorry’ was a puny word that could never hope to mean anything compared to what he had done, how he had used her. But it would have to do, because he had not come all that way to turn back at the flashing neon sign that said ‘CLOSURE’.

Knock, knock, knock. Was three knocks not enough? Knock. God four was too many and the last one had been so separate from the others it was clearly an afterthought that she would think was weird before she even knew it was him on the other side of-

“Spencer?” The door opened, just enough for her face to be visible through the small opening. She was so much more beautiful than he remembered, although he really didn’t remember much from back then.

“I’m sorry.” Well that was one way to get to the point. He smacked himself internally, scolding himself for being so stupid and inconsiderate, not even saying hello or asking her how she was doing.

“Do you wanna come in? You look like you need to sit down.” She pulled the door open, stepping back to let him in, and Spencer froze. She was allowing him into her home, her space, he who had squeezed her dry, used her up and tossed her aside when he didn’t need her anymore.

Unsure what else to do, Spencer found himself sitting on her couch, the awkward tension between them palpable as he sat silently in regret of every decision he had made in the last week.

“So,” She prompted, gesturing vaguely in his direction, “How are you?”

“Good, yeah, better. You?” He looked around the room, trying to find something that would tell him anything about her life, about her. She was a stranger, really, a stranger that used to be someone he knew. He wanted to know who she was then, on that day, in her house sitting across from him.

“I’m good too. You look better.” He knew what she meant – he didn’t look high out of his mind. The far wall of the room was covered in framed pictures of her and what he assumed were her family and friends. Some were from her childhood, some were taken in front of the very house he was sitting in.

What surprised Spencer were the photos, though few and far between, where he made an appearance. The Fourth of July party, a bright, sunny photo full of smiling faces. The poor quality of the picture did nothing to disguise the bags under his eyes, nor the dead look in hers. Her birthday, a photo of her blowing out the candles on her cake, blurred from his shaky grip on the camera.

“I don’t remember that one.” He pointed to a picture of the two of them, a dark photo that he nearly hadn’t recognised as himself. The ability to not remember had been his favourite thing back then, now the haze left him with a pit in his stomach.

“Makes sense, you were… you were bad. It was taken right near the end.”

“I am sorry, really.” Neither of them spoke after that, the silence a warm blanket rather than a thick smog. The apology wrapped around them in a warm embrace, they did not choke on it.

She moved first, after what felt like the most peaceful eternity, slipping her hand around his, holding it in the space between them. He looked down at their joined hands, his gaze slowly drifting up until it landed on the soft smile spread across her face.

“I missed you.” She squeezed his hand gently, although it felt like she squeezed his heart instead, “I missed you from the moment I met you. It’s nice to get you back.”

“I missed you too.” He didn’t know how to explain the way it had taken him a month to get sober enough that reality hit and he realised what he’d lost. At least, he didn’t know how to explain it without having to actually say something about his addiction. He’d always been good at avoiding the topic, skirting around it with suggestions and subtle confirmations. The word ‘addiction’ made him feel weak, like he’d been defeated. He’d talked about his problem once, in a room full of people who had been through the same thing, and even then he hadn’t been able to say it.

“You’re so strong, Spencer. You’ve come so far.” It was like she could read his mind, see every fear that haunted him and soothe it accordingly.

“So are you, I mean, you got out of everything.” His eyes dropped to his lap in shame of everything that he hadn’t noticed, all of the obvious signs of just how not okay she had been. All that she must have been going through, that he had been too far from reality to know existed, even when it was staring him in the face.

“You say that like you didn’t.” It was a simple sentiment, but maybe that was what hit him like a freight train. It wasn’t some mantra he’d heard hundreds of times, or a complicated conversation with his friends where they tried to talk to him without saying anything that actually mattered.

He got out of it.

“You’re perfect, you know that right?” The way he looked at her in that moment could only be described as reverential, she was the brightest star in a sky that he had never truly seen before.

“No I’m not.” The way she said it like a definite fact made Spencer’s heart start to crack, “Do you know why I have those pictures up?”

Spencer shook his head, “Tell me,” he said the words under his breath, as if they were surrounded by people in the empty room, “I’m not going to find you any less perfect.”

“Hope. I could never get the thought out of my head that you would come back.” She shook her head, gaze locked on the ground like she couldn’t bear to look at him as she spoke. “It was stupid, and then you actually did, and that’s stupid all over again.”

“You’re even more perfect than I thought.” Spencer laughed, tears pricking in the corners of his eyes, happy and sad and something he couldn’t put a name to. She was still holding his hand, he realised, and he used that information to interlace their fingers, placing their joined hands in his spare palm.

“I’m stupid and lucky, that’s what I am.” She snorted, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

“No, not stupid.” Spencer drew circles with his thumb on her palm as he spoke, “Lucky, maybe.”

“We’re gonna have to talk about this, us, you know that.”

“Eventually, yes. Not right now.”

“Not right now.” She confirmed, nodding slowly. They were both there, and that would have to be enough, at least for the moment.

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fairyysoup · 18 days ago

Text

sever the blight

(steve's version) (repost)

pairing(s): werewolf!steve harrington x fem!aristocrat!reader

summary: Steve is your bodyguard. You are engaged to another man. It all seems very cut and dry until a fatal accident traps you alone with him on a full moon.

word count: 11.2k

cw: explicit, smut, monsterfucking!!!, loss of virginity, graphic depictions of violence, blood, gore, minor character death, animal death, horror elements, dark themes, historical au, fairy tale au, some sort of historical fantasy period, idk which one you tell me, forbidden romance, mutual pining, possessive behavior, misogynistic views on sex and marriage, animalistic behavior, marking, scenting, knotting, breeding kink, werewolf transformation, werewolf bites, again steve is a werewolf the reader is fucking a werewolf and all that entails, dead dove: do not eat

a/n: hiiiii this was originally posted in two separate parts, but as it was actually meant to be a one-shot when I started writing it, i've reposted it as one here. I'm sorry lol

ALL MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI

"Fear and flee the wolf; for, worst of all, the wolf may be more than he seems." -Angela Carter, The Company of Wolves

“Please, don’t do this.”

The hum of crickets at twilight surrounds you as you step out of the inn, into warm summer air. The soft muslin of your underskirts turn heavy with the humidity, as you watch your governess, Miss Fontaine, charge ahead toward the carriage. Already prepared for your departure, the driver twitches his thumbs in anticipation.

You watch her turn to face the only other member of your traveling party with a perturbed sigh. “And lose more time? If we ride through the night we can make Kensworth by morning.”

You feel a heat on the back of your neck before you turn to see him emerge from the shadows, the deep green of his coat highlighting the little bit of jade in his hazel eyes. Steven. Steve. The huntsman. Your guard. You don’t know much about him, aside from that he’s from this region. He’d made his living as a huntsman before your father, favoring Steve for his discretion and propriety, hired him as a personal bodyguard. Your very own knight in shining armor, if you wanted to be romantic about it.

He’s the only man you’ve ever met who manages to make you nervous while simultaneously making you feel invariably safe. Like, as long as he’s around, you know that nothing will dare to hurt you. And nothing will make your heart race beneath your bodice quite the same as he does.

Still, months of his protection haven’t taught you anything about who he is, and it seems like he wants it that way. You know only the things that you’ve picked up by being around him- he prefers ale over wine, fiddles with his hair when he’s nervous, and he enjoys doing people favors. He has a goofy sense of humor. He’s kind, and gentle when he speaks.

Unless he’s arguing with your domineering governess. Like now, for instance.

“You don’t know these woods like I do,” he insists, his voice unnaturally low, nearly a growl as he looms over you on the doorstep of the inn. He stands too close to you, his eyes burning fire as he peers at Miss Fontaine, and then down at you, making your hands shake behind your skirts. His tone softens, “My lady, listen to me and wait for the night. Let the moon wane before we leave.”

You open and close your mouth, looking from Steve to Miss Fontaine. To his obvious annoyance, your governess is already shaking her head at you before he finishes talking. God, you wish you knew what to say to assuage them both. But, ultimately, the choice isn’t up to you. It never is.

“I can’t spare the time. The Duke will already be upset that I’m arriving late to my own wedding.” The words feel flat in your mouth, like a script written by someone else. Truly, you’re running late as it is, days late, all because an avalanche laid waste to the only route out of town, keeping you at your latest stop and delaying your journey beyond repair.

“Your fiancé won’t be happy to know you’re putting yourself at risk to make up for lost time.” Steve spits the word fiancé like a curse, like he’d rather not acknowledge the man’s existence at all. You let it slide; after all, you’re not particularly taken with the idea, either.

You haven’t met him- your fiancé. You know him even less than you know your faithful bodyguard. You only know his face from a painting you were gifted, and his name- not from any sort of correspondence, mind you, but because the betrothal is a big deal, considering he’s a duke. And that would make you, of a sort, a future duchess. Or so Miss Fontaine keeps reminding you.

She raises one petulant eyebrow, now, at your protector. “You’d have us force the Duke to wait at the altar?”

Steve’s eyes darken. “If he cares for the lady at all, he’ll be relieved to know that you did the pragmatic thing and waited to travel-”

“Don’t lecture me about pragmatism-”

“I’m trying to protect her!”

“Protect her, then!” Short of stamping your foot, there’s nothing you can do but stand by as they argue back and forth. “That is your job. Not presuming to call orders. You are a guard, not an advisor.”

Steve glowers at her, his big eyes glinting dangerously in the lamplight from the carriage. “You don’t know-”

“But you do, correct?” You stare up at Steve with wide eyes, while he cocks his head, looking at Miss Fontaine as if trying to find the best and fastest way to get rid of her. She snaps, “I’d expect a huntsman to know a thing or two about traveling in the woods at night.”

She doesn’t wait for his reply. She lifts her skirts and steps into the carriage without waiting for the driver’s hand, all but slamming the door behind her. That’s the end of that.

You move to follow her, but a hand brushes your own, behind your back. You nearly jump out of your own skin at the touch- your blood boils, and your stays grow heavy on your chest as your breath quickens. You rapidly turn to face him, before Miss Fontaine can look out the carriage window.

“Steven-”

“Miss, please, just listen to me.”

You’re struck by how soft Steve’s voice is when directed at you, compared to his snarling at Miss Fontaine. His hazel eyes are enough to make you melt, searching your face for understanding.

“The things that happen in these woods, on a full moon, it’s-” he drops his gaze to your clasped hands, and for a moment, you think he’s going to reach out and grab them. But he simply takes a deep breath, the red flush on his cheeks brightening as he looks back up to your face. His voice drops in register, so that only you can hear him say, “Please, honey, I’m begging- talk some sense to your governess. Going out there tonight, when the moon is full… it’s too dangerous. Believe me. Trust me.”

You take the opportunity to gaze up at him openly, like you’ve wanted to for all the months you’ve known him, but never got the chance to. It occurs to you to correct him on his impropriety, and to remind him that you’re betrothed. To a duke that you don’t want to marry.

You don’t correct him. Instead, you whisper, “I trust you, honey.” And when he blinks, his lashes kissing his cheeks like you so desperately want to, you add, “But you and I both know that if anyone actually listened to me, we wouldn’t be traveling at all. I’m sorry, Mr. Harrington. My hands are tied.”

Steve swallows, and you swear he looks like he’s going to cry, or do something desperate like drag you back inside with him. But he just nods, and when you turn to climb into the carriage, he nearly pushes the driver aside to offer you his hand, instead.

Your mind lingers on the touch of his hand even after you’ve settled into your seat, your fingers smoothing over your tingling palm distractedly. You watch through the window as Steve’s trousers tighten across his thighs when he mounts his horse. He gives the driver a furious look as the carriage kicks off.

And Miss Fontaine glares at you when you pretend you weren’t staring at the young huntsman.

“The Duke will be pleased to know that you’re doing everything you can to reach the destination promptly.”

You sigh, your elbow resting heavily against the windowsill of the carriage. The Duke, the Duke. Your future husband already has his clutches wrapped around you, squeezing until you can feel your ribs cracking and blood spilling from your mouth. Miss Fontaine seems to have no qualms about singing his praises for the entire duration of your midnight commute, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You’ve never been able to sleep while traveling, the rocking of the carriage jostling you awake no matter how hard you try.

Your eyes fix outside, on the white mare keeping stride with the carriage. Steve’s face is partially lamplit from the lanterns beside the driver’s seat, a deep furrow to his brow as he stares off into the dark. He worries his bottom lip with his teeth, lost in thought.

You’d kill to know what’s going on inside his head. There have been times when you’ve thought of asking him what he thinks about this marriage- it’s entirely out of his place to voice his opinion, of course, but nights spent with him standing guard outside your bedchamber have made you curious. What he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, when your future is being decided for you. When you’re helpless to stop any of it, and the only thing he’s able to do is throw himself in front of any physical danger coming your way.

Your curiosity doesn’t form in a void, you know. You aren’t completely blind to his affections. Steve is protective of you to the point of possessiveness, always hovering close, intimidating anyone who so much as looks your way. Would-be suitors were chased off by your guard’s heavy, unblinking stare before the Duke wrote to your parents and asked for your hand. You think the only reason this marriage is happening at all is because your fiancé never had to be subject to Steve’s frightening scrutiny.

You don’t miss the way Steve brightens whenever you’re around, either. The way he smiles and indulges your conversation whenever he’s afforded it, going out of his way to make you laugh. Presenting you with bouquets of your favorite flowers, just because he saw them in the garden and knew you’d love them. He’s so sweet to you, and to no one else. At least, not in the same way. Not in a way that makes you doubt his affection for you, however subtle.

You wonder if he doubts your affection for him. You wonder if he can see it as easily as he can see a fawn meandering through the trees, in the path of one of his arrows. You’ve thought about it so often that it’s kept you up at night, when there’s no distraction that comes to make the thoughts of him disappear. When all you have are your own hands, and the knowledge of his presence just on the other side of your chamber door. If he listens very closely, Steve may be able to hear the wetness of your fingers as they slide between your legs, while you pretend that they’re his.

You wonder if he has heard it; there have been a few times when you weren’t certain, when he wouldn’t meet your eye in the morning after a particularly strong orgasm made you whimper a little too loudly. Maybe he knows, and he’s just more proper than you have the decency to be anymore.

But Steve couldn’t know about your dreams, when you’ve shut your eyes and fallen asleep - ones where your unconscious mind doesn’t fail to give you the closeness you crave from him. Ones where his forehead rests against yours lovingly, his breath ghosting across your lips as he rocks the bed with his thrusts. You aren’t making much noise in these dreams, but why would you, when the noises that he’s making are more beautiful than any you could come out with?

And what a pretty thing you are, whimpering Steve’s name as your hand scratches along the mattress to keep you anchored, the fingers of your other hand threaded in his hair, relief flooding your soul at being able to feel it in your grasp. You shiver, either from the intimacy of it or from the caresses of his tongue against your pulse, but it doesn’t make an ounce of a difference when you come apart on his cock, your head tilted back and exposing the column of your throat for his mouth as you thrash against him.

When his hips stutter, when he pulls you against his chest as the heat of his release blooms deep in your core, it’s with a groan of your true name onto your own tongue, to make sure you know how he’s made himself in the bed of your body. “You are mine now. My lady, not his. Never his.”

Waking from those dreams, after a while, hurts more than the idea of having them in the first place. Because you step out of your bedchamber to find Steve standing guard, smiling at you politely, properly, as the arbitrary rules that keep you apart dictate he should, and the cycle starts anew.

“Are you even listening?”

Your attention snaps back to Miss Fontaine, and her pinched, stony face. You were not, your mind tending to wander to him at the worst times. “I’m sorry?”

Miss Fontaine tsks, and you already know what’s coming. You take a deep breath in. “How do you expect to please a husband when you can’t even listen to me for more than a minute? Stop slouching, child.”

You straighten your spine even as you seethe. You’re a lady when it suits them to burden you with responsibility, and then you’re a child to be ordered around when you don’t please them. “I’m not a child.”

“Quite right, and you’re nearly too old to be a debutante. You’re well on your way to becoming a spinster if you don’t behave. Lord knows the Duke has his work cut out for him.”

It takes all your strength not to roll your eyes. Of course, you should be thankful that you’re being sold off like cattle to the highest bidder. No, the only bidder. It just so happens that he’s a higher ranking aristocrat than you. And, as Miss Fontaine loves to remind you, you should count yourself lucky that anyone showed interest in you at all.

Never mind that you could never have the one that matters most to you. He has to stand by and watch it happen.

Poor, stupid thing. You always want what you can’t have, don’t you?

You’re snapped out of your thoughts by the carriage lurching to a stop, the calls of ‘whoa!’ from the driver reaching you through the carved wood of the cabin. Miss Fontaine sighs and moves to open the window latch before Steve’s hand slams down abruptly on the glass.

“Stay,” he snarls at her, his eyes seeming to glow from the inside with a reflective green. Your breath stutters in your chest when he looks at you. The reflective pale green of a nocturnal creature seems to encompass his pupils for just a moment. “Don’t leave the carriage.”

You watch him dismount his horse. You’re craning your neck to try to keep your eye on him out the window, when Miss Fontaine grumbles, “That boy needs to learn some manner-”

You gasp loudly when something lurches the carriage sideways. You grab onto the edge of the seat as it lurches again, keeping your balance as the carriage threatens to topple. Miss Fontaine shrieks, thrown sideways towards the door.

You hear the cries of the driver, just past the wooden walls of the cabin, and you don’t have to have much imagination to conclude what’s happening to him. Your heart plummets, immediately thinking of Steve, out there doing who knows what, with whatever it is that’s making the noise.

“What on earth-” Miss Fontaine grabs onto the door handle as soon as you hear an infernal growling coming from outside.

“Don’t leave the carriage!” You yell, just as she throws open the door to do exactly that.

With one final jolt, the carriage flips.

Breathe in. Breathe out. When you open your eyes, you don’t know how much time has passed, if any at all. You think you may have fainted in the commotion- your head doesn’t feel hurt, but your hip has been bruised. It smarts as you try to push yourself up, where your legs are crushed up against the wall of the carriage. Groggily, you turn your head, and scream.

Miss Fontaine’s unblinking, glassy eyes stare lifelessly back at you. Half of her body has been crushed beneath the toppled carriage, having fallen as she tried to leave the carriage. Blood oozes slowly from her hairline, down across her cooling forehead.

Heaving unmeasured breaths, you raise your hand and push her face away from you. Her head bobs limply to the other side. You don’t want her staring at you still, in death, with that judgemental sneer etched on her face.

With a sob stuck in your throat, you turn your head and stare up at the window above you in the capsized carriage. You manage to sit up and unlatch the door above you, throwing it open like a trap door. Heaving yourself up through the opening is another challenge- even though your summer dress is comparatively light, pulling your skirts upwards and over the edge is difficult, and you end up barrel-rolling out of the opening more than anything.

You come crashing down on the opposite side of the carriage wall, the wheels bracketing you where you sit. The lanterns on the driver’s end have broken, oil pooling and creating a fire that’s rapidly growing the longer it sits. Beside you, Miss Fontaine’s legs stick out comically from beneath the structure like a pair of sticks. You reach over and throw her skirts back over them. For propriety, of course.

You hear rustling off to your left. Scrambling along the ground, dirt and pebbles press into your palms and scrape your knees. You peek around the carriage wheel to see what the cause of the commotion is.

In a ditch beside the road, Steve is wrestling with a… well. In the darkness it’s hard to make it out, but it’s some sort of wild cat. A cougar or a mountain lion, by the looks of it, and monstrously huge. No wonder why the carriage toppled; it has your guard pinned, dwarfing him and trying hard to bite at his throat.

You go to scream to draw the cat’s attention away from Steve, but before you can, Steve already has the cat by the jaws. His two big hands wrap around the wild cat’s upper and lower teeth, prying them open before they can bite down.

And he keeps prying, until the damned thing’s head rips apart in his hands.

You shriek. You can’t wrap your head around all the blood, pouring across his chest and face. Two pieces of a fleshy, gorey skull drop from his hands as he pushes himself up and flings the dead creature off of him. It flops limply to the ground, a pool of blood spilling from the torn remains of its head.

Steve stands tall, hulking and godly against the backdrop of night, and in the flickering light of the growing fire from the carriage, the blood on his mouth and chest glints wet and dark against his tan skin. You don’t know what happened to his riding coat- his white blouse is pasted to his skin, torn in places and gaping at the collar.

You remain, frozen in place, half-cowering behind the overturned carriage. The fire creeps ever closer to you, but you can’t find it in you to move.

You’re glad that he’s okay. At least, you think he is. He’s moving quickly and doesn’t seem to be injured, just… mad. His teeth look a lot sharper than they were before when he bares them. Your heart thuds in your chest, your hands clutching desperately at the corner of the carriage, and the most off-putting part of it all is that you’re not sure that it’s because you’re scared.

He could never scare you. Not your Steve.

“Steven?” Your voice sounds too small, high and girlish in your throat when you want to pretend that you’re being brave. That you’re unaffected by any of this. That you’re not… relieved that Miss Fontaine is unable to voice her disdain of everything you do, and of him.

The guilt you feel at that revelation is outweighed by the instant comfort of Steve’s eyes on you.

He lumbers toward you, eerily quiet and agile for how big he looks, how much of a beating he’d obviously taken. Dripping with blood that isn’t his, flesh from the creature he’d torn apart with his bare hands still clinging to his forearms and clothes.

“My lady, are you hurt?” He crouches before you with his palms upturned, allowing you to keep the carriage between you, as if you’re a prey animal capable of being frightened off.

“No.” Your battered hip throbs like it knows your lie and plans to expose it. “The driver-?”

“His wounds were too deep,” Steve says apprehensively, as if he’s worried he’ll scare you now. “Your governess?”

“Dead.” The word slams out of your throat and falls hard into the air between you. Steve’s brow furrows in a reluctant show of grief. Perhaps you should feel aggrieved as well, but as you search yourself for a show of tears, nothing comes. You don’t know why- perhaps from the shock of it. You weren’t particularly fond of your governess, but you never thought she’d die beside you. “The carriage… she didn’t listen to you.”

He couldn’t stop the scoff falling from his mouth if he tried. “Of course not.”

In the aftermath, everything is too quiet. There are no crickets chirping, no huffs of horses waiting to get on with the journey. The oil fire crackles dangerously behind you, but you’re too busy staring at him to care.

Your Steve. Your bodyguard, your huntsman, who can rip a wild animal in half with his bare hands. The light of the fire flickers in his eyes, a hint of that reflective green still glowing behind his pupils. You open your mouth to ask him about it, but before you can, he shuts his eyes and winces.

“I should go,” he grits out through clenched teeth, shaking his head roughly as if trying to rid himself of his thoughts- whatever they may be. “I should- I should go get help-”

“Are you- have you been hurt?”

“No- I-” he pauses distractedly, looking down at his hands. He clenches them quickly into fists, swallowing against a dry throat as he gets impossibly more agitated. “Not hurt, exactly… I shouldn’t- I need to go-”

“Steve,” you implore, and he whips his head up to give you a startled look when you lay your hand on his shoulder. You don’t know if it’s because of your touch, or if it’s because you didn’t call him Steven, as you usually have under the watchful eye of others. His skin burns feverishly through the thin linen of his blouse. “My god, you’re burning up-”

He flinches away like he’s frightened of your hand on him. “I’m not, I’m fine-”

“You are not fine-”

“You can’t come with me,” Steve snarls, his bloody hands wrapping around your wrists in a vise-like grip. You gasp when you feel his sharp nails dig into your skin, and he instantly softens- both his grip, and his expression. His beautiful eyes bore into yours with a new kind of urgency. “You need to stay here, with the carriage. And I- I’ll find someone-”

“You really think that’s wise?” you ask, staring levelly at him while he blinks dazedly down at your hands. His own completely encircle your wrists, his fingernails far longer and sharper than they ought to be.

You suck in a sharp breath when you see them, but you pull your eyes back to his face and ask him, “Do you really want to leave me alone here? After everything that’s happened?”

Steve’s chest puffs up with the ragged breath he takes, and his hands tighten possessively around your wrists. “No.”

“Right,” you say gently, twisting your wrists so that he loosens his hold. Your hands slip down into his, sticky blood transferring onto your skin all the way. You hardly feel it, with how badly his hands burn to the touch. “We stay together, now. Who knows how many more wildcats there might be?”

“I don’t think it’s them you need to worry about. I’m…” Steve trails off, staring into your eyes. Underneath the rage and the frustration he obviously has, he looks scared.

“You’re what, Steve?” You tilt your head, probably looking much coyer than you feel, with your heart beating loud in your chest. You try your best to be soothing, to be gentle with him even though you’ve seen how strong and violent he’s capable of being- you feel it drying on your own hands.

“I’m going to protect you. I would sooner kill anything that comes near you than see you harmed.” Steve clenches his jaw, his face contorting into a grimace. “My lady.”

“I know you will, honey.” Your thumb traces a little circle around the sharp tip of one of his pointed claws, glinting dangerously in the moonlight. Even if you can’t quite explain how, you know what they imply about your huntsman.

And yet, you like everything about them.

In the darkness, wild things stir. Every crackle of the leaves, every snap of a twig beyond the trees makes you jump. Your eyes search in the dark for the cause, and see nothing.

“What’s that?” you whisper, a frantic edge to your voice.

The forest quiets around you, until all you can hear is Steve’s breath against your ear.

“You have nothing to fear, my lady. Nothing in these woods will harm you while I’m here.” Still, your bodyguard’s hand on your waist tightens, pulling you further against the impossibly warm body beside you. The boldness of his touch makes you shiver.

You want to tell yourself that that’s true, but the longer you walk, the more it becomes clear that Steve is not doing well. The arm that isn’t wrapped around you clutches protectively across his middle, as though he’s trying to apply pressure to some unseen wound. Every so often, he hisses and doubles over in pain- and when you dig your heels into the ground and say, “Steven, you need to rest,” he snaps back, “No, I do not.”

You bicker like an old married couple until you inevitably throw your hands up in defeat. He’s not going to stop trailing through the woods, and you can’t stop him, nor will you turn back and leave him. You trust that he knows where he’s going, because he’s intimately familiar with this forest.

In spite of your frustration with him, you still cling to him, and he still holds you close. His body heat still burns you to your core. There’s a gaping hole within you that he needs to fill, if only he’d allow himself.

If your fiancé has coiled around you to squeeze your life from you, you think that Steve has managed to burrow deep into your chest, to keep you alive and warm. You’d like it if he stays there forever- even if he eats your heart in the process.

In the corner of your eye, you see Steve’s head tilt up, surveying the moon peeking out from behind the clouds. “We have two hours to get back to Havensfield.”

“What happens in two hours?”

Steve’s eyes flicker upwards again. Piercing green reflecting the light, shining like two iridescent jewels. You wonder if that’s why they’re hazel during the daylight. “The moon peaks in the sky.”

Your hand tightens where it rests on his waist, and you swear he gasps. “And then?”

Steve is quiet. His breathing is hard and labored as he stares directly forward. His skin shines with perspiration and blood from the creature that he killed in self defense. Though he’d wiped it from his face, it’s still fresh on his collar and chest, saturating his ripped blouse. You haven’t shown any disgust over it, merely acceptance, with your small hand curled around his damp sleeve. Your fingertips dig into his forearm and make him wince, considering how his mind is honing in on every small touch of your body to his.

You’re a lot easier to read than you think you are. Steve knows that you can tell what he is- to some extent, at least. You know that there’s some sort of transformation taking place, but you don’t seem to understand the real gravity of it. You don't seem scared about it.

That’s what worries Steve the most. You should be scared of him. You shouldn’t be holding onto him like you are, knowing what the raging animal writhing just below his skin wants to do to you. He wants to tell you to run; but then you won’t know where to go, and every beast loves a chase. It’s only a matter of time before his human faculties give out and his primal urges take over.

Sometimes Steve can manage to give into it, when he isn’t stressed. When there’s no real fear, aside from needing to be away from people for a few hours. Usually, by this time, he is alone in the trees, able to tear his clothes off and let his beast control him for however long it takes before the moon hits its peak. And then…

“How much do you know about lycanthropes?”

Steve sounds a lot calmer than he is. There’s a surging in his head, a mad rush to just let go. Stop fighting it. It’ll only be more painful if you do.

“Wolf-men?” There’s a smirk on your lips that makes the human part of him want to kiss the living daylights out of you. “Only what they tell you as a child. They look like men, but they’re not. Their life span is seven years, and if you burn their clothes it makes them stay a wolf forever. They can only be killed with silver. Once they get a taste for flesh, they eat nothing else.”

“Old wives’ tales,” he grunts. Mostly. “The clothes don’t make a difference. And we live just as long as any normal person.”

You blink at him. “We?”

“C’mon, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs as another wave of pain slices through his gut, making him stagger. He loses his grip on you, collapsing clumsily to his knees as he rasps, “You’re smarter than that.”

“Steve!” Your hands wrap around his biceps as he gasps, and there’s a battle raging within him- to fling you away or to tackle you to the ground. He finds a midway point between the two where he pushes himself backwards to cling to the trunk of a tree.

“You need to get to town.” He doesn’t wait for you to object. He points a shaking hand in the direction of town. The sight of his own clawed finger aloft in the air makes him flush in embarrassment. You shouldn’t have to see him like this. “If you keep going straight through the trees you’ll reach Havensfield within the hour.”

“I’m not going,” you argue. He heaves a sigh through his nose, and you actually do stomp your foot this time. “Damn it, Steve, I’m not leaving you here!”

“You have to!” He shouts, pushing himself up to stand against the tree as he does. He looks defeated, agonized as he gazes at you pleadingly. “If you stay, you have no idea what I’ll do to you.”

“Will you kill me?”

“No.” He says it so quickly, he doesn’t even have to think about it. Because, you realize, he already has.

“Then I’m staying,” you tell him firmly. Steve opens his mouth to argue with you, and you shake your head at him. “That’s it, Steve. I’m staying here, and I’m not going.”

His voice cracks as he says, “I can’t fight it, honey.”

“Is that why it’s hurting you?” You ask him as it occurs to you. “Because you’re… you’re fighting it?”

Steve trembles when you touch him, a gentle hand on his arm that sends shivers up his spine. He nods. “It’s easier when I don’t.”

“Then don’t.”

He swallows loudly. “It’s- you don’t know what you’re asking-”

“Explain it to me,” you tell him quietly, as soothingly as you can. “Will it- is it not you? Is it something else that takes over? Is it going to harm you-”

“No,” Steve shakes his head vehemently, blinking fast. He’s sorting through his thoughts, finding it harder to cling to anything other than base desire the longer this goes on. “It’s… it’s me. I’m always here, always present. But the part of me that acts on morality is gone. There are no morals. I just act on impulse, for a while. And then… I transform. Physically.”

You nod slowly. “And that’s what happens at midnight.”

“That’s what happens,” he says, and cringes in pain. “Now you see why I didn’t want- why you should have stayed through the night. I would have- I’d be alone. I’d be back by morning. I always am.”

Your heart feels heavy with how much it aches for him. You recall the months that Steve has been employed by your father, and how he had conveniently been absent the night of the full moon. And you had never noticed, never made any sort of connection. There had never been anything to make you suspicious.

But after every night he was gone, he was always there in the morning. Punctual as anything, you could set a clock by him. You could open the door, and where once was a lady’s maid sitting outside your bedchamber, there would be Steve, holding a bouquet of flowers for you with an apologetic smile. You couldn’t place what the apology was for until now.

“Does my father know?”

“Only that I needed the night,” Steve says, panting. “Nothing more.”

“Did Miss Fontaine know?”

He laughs, and it sounds feeble in his chest. “You think she would have let me near you if she did?”

Your lips quirk up at the edges. “You’ve been keeping your tracks covered, Mr. Harrington.”

“Just trying to be careful.” Steve chuckles, sounding strained as his nails dig into the bark of the tree he clings to. “Always have to be careful with you, you have no idea…”

“And you’re afraid,” you inquire, “that if you act on your impulses, you’ll… hurt me?”

“Hurt you?” he echoes. The mere notion of it wounds him- he’s sure he looks offended when he faces you. “No, I’d sooner die. Harm you, yes. Defile you, absolutely. You’d be a wreck when I'm finished with you.”

Your face burns as you watch him double over again, clutching onto the tree like it’s his lifeline, and the sight of him in so much pain hurts you more than anything. More than the loss of your governess, and more than the invisible hold your fiancé has on you. “Stop fighting it.”

“I won’t- my lady, if I don’t try to fight it, I’ll-” Steve squeezes his eyes shut, resting his forehead against the trunk of the tree with a pathetic whimper. He murmurs weakly, “I can’t sacrifice your virtue for my own comfort.”

“My virtue?” You tilt your head with a teasing smile. “I’m not nearly as virtuous as I seem.”

“Yes, you love to test my will.” Steve’s dark eyes lock on yours as he turns his head. There’s a flash of warning in them. “It must be one of your favorite hobbies. My hearing is much better than you think.”

You stare at each other heavily. Shallow breaths get stuck in your throat, now that he’s confirmed what you expected all along. He heard you all those times, standing guard on the other side of the door as you lay alone in your room and touched yourself to the thought of him. The knowledge sets a blaze alight within you.

He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows.

So, you’re at an impasse. He won’t set aside his chivalry. You won’t leave him here alone. All that’s left is to push and pull at each other until one of you gives, and you’ll be damned if it’s going to be you.

Steven: your huntsman, your bodyguard, your… lover. All these can be true if you just let it be.

You have nowhere left to go. No one else you want to turn to. If you make it to the town you’ll simply be foisted off to your fiancé, or returned to your parents, who will then turn around and give you over to the Duke. All roads lead to him, an inescapable fate that you’d been wishing for a chance to get away from.

So, you make a snap decision without considering the consequences- but really, what’s there to consider? This is the death of your previous life, one way or another.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, even though he knows the answer, as he watches you begin to remove the pins that hold the bodice of your dress shut.

“I’m testing your will,” you tell him flatly.

“You can’t, you’re- you’re engaged.”

“You expect me to believe you really care about that?” Your linen bodice slides off of your shoulders to the ground, revealing your stays and the sleeves of your chemise. “Or am I so undesirable that you can’t bear the thought of seeing me naked?”

As you begin untying your skirts, Steve growls, “Stop it.”

“Or what?” Your overskirt falls to the ground, your petticoat standing out stark white against the backdrop of the forest. “It’s not like there’s anyone here to make me. Except for you.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for-”

“Oh, but I do.” You grin at him as your soft muslin petticoat flutters to the ground, and you stand before him in nothing but your undergarments. Stocking-clad legs disappear beneath your linen chemise, your stays pushing your breasts up and over your neckline with each passing breath. You watch Steve’s eyes predictably fall to them, wide with hunger. “Tick tock, Mr. Harrington. We have two hours, and I can’t undo these stays by mysel- OOMF-”

The wind knocks out of your lungs as you fall back onto the damp earth, pinned beneath an enormous body and held tight by sharp claws. You instinctively wriggle beneath him, but Steve’s large hands hold yours fast against the ground over your head.

A whimper leaves your throat, echoing the ones he’d been hearing all along from just beyond your door. You stare up into his eyes and they’re dark, no longer glowing but eclipsed by black pupils that seem to grow bigger as he watches you squirm beneath him. His face is so close, his breath tickles your skin, and you try to hold still even though every muscle in your body is screaming at you to roll your hips up into his.

“You are such. A fucking. Brat. You- you don’t know how much I have to hold myself back with you. If I don’t, I’ll destroy you. Do you understand?” His voice is at such a low register that it practically rumbles from his chest directly into yours, vibrating in your ribs. Your heart pounds, your thighs clamping down tight on either side of his hips because you don’t want him to move away. “I’m sworn to protect you. I’m trying to do the right thing.”

Between your legs, your muscles tense and release like they’re searching for something to grip onto. “So protect me,” you whisper. “Do us both a favor. Don’t let me go to him. Make me yours.”

He shakes his head, and his nose bumps against yours. “That wouldn’t be protecting you. They’d kill us.”

“Not if we’re already dead. They’ll never find us, they’ll think we died in the crash, or- or…” Frustrated, your hips squirm up against his, and he hisses when you brush the tent in his trousers. “Be selfish for once. Do what you will to me, Steve. Damn it, I want you to…”

You trail off, because Steve is already dipping his head to breathe in your scent, just along your pulse point. A gasp hitches in your throat as he moves downward, his lips dragging gently over the soft skin. The vibration of your moan rumbles against his mouth.

“This… this is a bad idea,” he mumbles, but his mind is already going fuzzy, reason becoming harder to grasp while instinct and desire takes over. He can feel himself drooling onto your skin. Your heaving chest becomes wet with his saliva the longer he lingers over it, mesmerized by the feel of your warmth on his lips.

“Do it. Take me, Steve,” you whine, lifting your leg until the linen of your chemise falls back to reveal soft skin, your inner thigh brushing his hip. “I want you. Please. Please, please.”

The scent of your arousal fills the air, earthy and sweet, and Steve’s will flounders and dissipates. There’s nothing that can stop him now. He’s done for. He sinks his claws into the quilting and linen at your chest, and he rips through your stays without warning.

A rush of breath fills your lungs at the sudden jolt of your stays snapping apart, and turns into a weak noise the moment his wet mouth closes over your exposed nipple. The warm summer night air hangs humid around you, making your skin stickier, sweatier. Steve inhales the natural perfume of your body, more powerful of an aphrodisiac than he’s ever experienced.

“You’re so soft,” Steve croons when you mewl at the scratch of his pointed canines. “My sweet girl, never had anyone kiss you like this, have you?”

“N-no, Steve.” You choke on your breath, your eyes rolling back in your skull as his large hand cups your breast and his claws prick at your skin. The pain and pleasure combine into an entirely new, indescribable feeling that swells beneath your ribs. “Only you.”

His tongue drags over your chest, tasting, savoring the exposed flesh that no one else has dared to touch. The feeling is warm and sweet, melted gold that drips through your skin down to the bone. “Is this what you wanted?”

“I- yes.” You give a muffled mewl in return when he sinks his teeth in, leaving an indent over your heart in the shape of his mouth. “God- you have such sharp teeth.”

“All the better to eat you with,” Steve rasps in reply, his breath fanning over your damp skin and making you struggle against his hold. He releases your wrists, claws digging into the earth instead as he moves down your body. “Always make such pretty sounds f’me- you don’t have to hide them now, you know. I want to hear them. Wanna hear what I do to you.”

Your hands lift to sink into his hair. Feather-soft locks spill over your knuckles, and it’s so tempting to just grab them and pull when he bites again, like he might try to leave a permanent mark there on your ribs for you to come back to later. You don’t think you’d mind it if he did. A possessive part of you wants him to leave his mark on you, so that no one else can doubt who you belong to.

Your hips lurch up to collide with his stomach. There’s nothing there to give you the friction you want, just a solid, hot body that in itself is an entirely new and erotic experience for you. If he notices how flustered it makes you, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps mouthing over your skin, your ribs and your stomach tenderized with love bites that ache the longer he lingers on them.

“I wanted this, too,” Steve says now, while his hands drift over the plane of your stomach and grab the tattered scraps of your clothes to rip them further. A perfect line splits down the weave of the fabric until you’re laid entirely bare before him. “You’ve no idea- whenever I hear you, whenever you taunt me. Want to tear you apart.”

His nose dips over your navel, down to the matted curls that he’s dreamed of, shrouding your sex and wet with your arousal. He breathes in deep. His mind is unable to sort through the waves of desire spinning through it, washing over him in burning rivulets that coalesce deep in his core.

Spit dribbles from his parted lips down to the folds of your pussy, making you flinch as the hot liquid drips across your sensitive flesh. Your hips buck, your cunt pulsing hotly in earnest for him to touch you, but he won’t. Or, he hasn’t. He’s lingering there with his nose pressed to your pubic bone, breathing in long, deep gulps of air that rattle in his throat. Pheromones and sex filling his lungs, clouding his mind.

“What’re you- oh.” Your lashes flutter as he nuzzles his head against your stomach, and slowly drags his cheek over your pelvis, your hip, your thigh. He nudges the top of your stockings with his nose, pulling the fabric back to reach more of your skin. You don’t even think he’s paying attention to the effect that it has on you. He’s somewhere else, lost in his own world as he marks you with his scent. Your cheeks burn at the thought.

“You’re mine now. Mine,” Steve states roughly, nipping at your inner thigh with his teeth as he echoes your dreams of him- the ones you’re sure he couldn’t know, unless being a lycanthrope also constitutes being a psychic. It makes you shudder. “You belong to me, yeah? It’s just you and me from now on. You and me.”

“Yours, Steve,” you repeat, and it makes your head spin. Your fingers sift through his hair, your bloodstained hands mirroring his own against your thighs in the dark. “I’ve always been yours.”

The warm brush of his tongue between your legs is enough to make you jump. Your moan sounds too loud, even to your own ears- so many nights you spent quietly whimpering into your own palm, and now you can’t be bothered to quiet the howl that breaks out of your throat. He takes to your cunt with long, wide strokes that practically burn with their heat.

“Oh- oh, Stevie, I-” you gasp when he growls against you, the vibration shocking you like lightning. “That’s so good.”

Some things you simply can’t replicate with your fingers, and the feeling of Steve’s mouth on you is one of them. He’s messy, drenching you in his saliva, and he’s wild, his tongue broad enough to somehow reach every bit of you.

You open your eyes long enough to glimpse his, and they’re black as the night around you, seeming to get darker the further he indulges his impulses. He squints, as though he’s teasing you, daring you to do something to make him stop.

“Don’t stop,” you whimper softly, letting your head fall back onto the damp earth.

It’s sinful, this feeling of flesh on flesh that should never rightfully meet. Everything is swollen and wet, relaxed and yet drawn so tight you could snap apart. Steve’s enormous hands grip into the fat at the top of your thighs, holding you apart no matter how much your legs try to close around his head. The wool of your stockings scrape blindly along his back when your feet kick and squirm, your calves thrown over his broad shoulders.

His tongue touches your clit, and you jolt. He hadn’t really been focusing on it, more interested in getting as much of your taste in his mouth as possible. But now he zeroes in on it, his tongue going hard and then soft, lapping over it in a soft back-and-forth. You chase him with your hips, riding his tongue and adding an extra layer of pleasure to what’s overloading your mind.

And there’s nothing in his head but primal lust, and the strength to take what he pleases. He wants everything that you can give. But Steve knows, back in the recesses of his mind where his morality has retreated to, that he’s still holding himself back. That he’s madly in love with you, so even the most animalistic part of him wants to taste every part of you, stake a claim to you, even if it means he has to take his time.

So, he licks long and slow through your folds, and you keen up towards the stars because nothing in this world feels quite like it. And it’s the most wretched and awful thing, the pride that swells in his chest when you cum, with your back arched and loud cries falling from your lips. Cries of Steve’s name.

You taste like heaven. He’d stay between your legs for eternity just to have you on his tongue. He comes up panting, mumbling praises that can hardly be made out over the purring in his throat.

“God, you’re lovely,” he says, climbing up your body and marking it with his dripping mouth. Steve aches for you- it’s not enough, not even close to what he wants to do to you. “So agreeable for me. Sweet little lamb. I’m going to fucking ruin you.”

A feeble whimper catches in your throat while your nails scratch at the fabric against his shoulders. Here you lay, completely naked for him, and he hasn’t even removed the tattered remains of his blouse. You don’t have it in you to ask him to, you just tear at the thin linen like it’ll magically disappear on its own.

He dips his head and lets you grip it in your fists, pulling the torn garment off so you can throw it as far away as you can. Steve’s skin burns to the touch, his freckled shoulders searing your fingers when you grab for him. The pelt of hair on his chest tickles your stomach, and you instinctively press further into him, wrapping your arms around his torso when his mouth reaches your throat.

You cling to him, shaking like a leaf. He warms you better than any fire could, laying his weight upon you. Your hands creep lower, stroking down the length of his spine to feel him shudder, his teeth grazing your pulse. He groans when your fingers dance across his lower back and beneath the waist of his trousers.

“Ohhhh god, I wanna do everything with you. Please.” You plant kisses along the side of his face, “God, I’m in love with you. I’m so in love with you, Steve, I-”

Steve turns his head and catches your lips with his, his tongue dipping into your mouth to taste you there, too. It’s a slow kiss, sensual, tender rather than fiery and rabid. You chase him when he pulls back to say, “I’m in love with you too, sweet girl. I’ll give you what you want.”

“I’m tired of waiting, Stevie,” you urge him gently, coaxing his trousers down over the curve of his ass. He snarls when you squeeze at the exposed flesh, his hips snapping forward to ram blindly into yours, his teeth nipping at your jaw. You’re becoming accustomed to the feeling of them on your skin. It delights you. “Let me have you or let me die, but do it now.”

Steve rears back, his bright white grin flashing in the moonlight. He stares you down with big eyes, glowing like cinders while he undresses himself indelicately- he tears through the buttons at his waist, rather than taking the time to undo them properly. Your eyes trace the stripe of hair running down the middle of his stomach, widening into the unruly patch that surrounds his cock.

A moment’s hesitation strikes into your limbs; you don’t see how it could possibly fit inside you. Steve is big all over, and you don’t know if it’s just a trick of the magic on this night or if he’s always like this, a permanent reflection of the beast within him. But his cock curves up toward his navel, thicker at the base than anywhere else, glistening velvety flesh appearing incredibly massive in the dark and blue moonglow. In spite of everything, your cunt pulses. Your body knows better than you, now.

You widen your legs for him.

You satisfy yourself that your work is done, it’ll take no more well-placed temptation and pleading to get him to use you how he wants- how you both want. Maybe in the morning he’ll regret it, when he has the mind to be a gentleman again, but you know with a thrill in the pit of your stomach that you won’t.

Steve’s clawed hands dig selfishly into your thighs, the points of them breaking the skin, and you yelp as he yanks you into his lap. Bent backwards over the thick, hairy expanses of his own thighs, your shoulders crush dead leaves on the ground.

“Feel that, sweet thing?” He asks, his voice resonating deep in his chest as the length of his cock drags heavily through your folds, the same path that his tongue had taken. You feel your pussy lips part around him. His cock gathers up the slickness of your arousal, his swollen head catching on your clit as he does. The lewd, sticky noise of it has your blood rushing hot beneath your skin. Your cunt pulses in warning, like you might cum just from this.

He hums deep within his chest. “Such a good girl, so wet for me. So desperate for my cock.”

The stretch sears when he enters you. You thrash in his hold, your hands clawing at the damp soil beneath you, but all you do is push him further in. Beyond the fullness, the pulsating ache and the pain of the intrusion, he hits something deep within you that makes you cry out, your muscles locking down tight around him.

“There you go, that’s it,” Steve coos, but there’s nothing gentle in his voice. He doesn’t know how to be sweet anymore. He rocks back and then pulls you down against his hips again, making you repeat that same feral cry. “Now you know how it feels to have a monster inside you.”

You don’t know how many minutes he spends there, just taking in your warmth and your wetness, tighter than sin as he rolls his hips. The sting soon fades into an aching pleasure that has you relishing the slow drag of his cock as it slides out of you and back in. It meets its end with the flush press of his hip bones to yours.

There’s a deep roiling in your gut that makes you keen loudly into the night, the sounds coming from your mouth entirely less than human. You find yourself meeting his thrusts with a desperate rock of your own hips, chasing that stirring within you.

“S-stevie-” you whine, your muddy hand reaching forward and clamping around his hairy forearm as he rolls his cock into you with a wild growl. You don’t really know what you were about to say- all rational thought escapes you when he picks up speed.

Steve chuckles above you, his dark eyes raptly watching your face as you lose more of your composure. He watches your jaw go slack, your brows tilted up in quiet desperation. Even if you can’t articulate it, he knows. “Feeling good, sweetheart?”

Your body feels like it’s on fire and he’s no better, scorching you from the inside out. Each push of his cock hits sharp heaven inside you, something you didn’t even know was possible and yet you craved it all the same.

“Mmm- I know you do,” he purrs, far too soft and quiet for the way that he’s fucking you, hard and fast, jolting you across the ground. He runs his nails slowly across your sensitive skin, letting your nipples catch on them with just enough pressure to make you squeal.

You gasp when he snatches you by the waist and yanks you up into his lap in one easy move. A loud moan punches from your lungs when he sits you fully down onto his cock. You take all of it at once, every last pulsating inch, while his mouth hovers a hair’s breadth away from yours.

Steve groans when he kisses you, soft lips to offset his sharp teeth, his strong arms pulling you against his body. The hair on his chest scrapes against your sensitive nipples, making you whimper into his mouth.

Your hands settle onto his shoulders, squeezing the hard muscle when you instinctively rock your hips against his. On shaky legs, you pick yourself up and roll your hips back down, delighting in the deep growl that comes from his chest.

“There you go- such a good fucking girl, ridin’ me like that.” A wide grin splits his handsome face as he guides you against him, his hands draped over your ass to drag you closer. “Just can’t help yourself, can you? Just wanna be full of me, is that it?”

Beyond able to answer him properly, you just nod. Your cunt throbs, tightening around him as you try to draw back- he groans so pretty, you slam yourself down onto him in desperation.

“FUCK!” He snarls rabidly, gripping you by the back of the neck. Steve gives in, jerking his hips to fuck up into you as hard as he can. Your head drops back, cradled by the curve of his forefinger and thumb as you cry out into the trees. His mouth finds your throat, bitten raw but still so pristine- more than the beast in him likes it to be.

He sucks hard on your pulse point, and you clamp down around his cock even harder. There’s a resounding wet noise kicking up from where you meet, loud and slick as it echoes between your sweaty bodies. With a broken noise in your throat, your weak hands squeeze at his shoulders for something to stabilize yourself with.

“Baby,” he warns, “you’re gonna make me cum if you keep-”

“I want it.” You don’t even let him finish his sentence, you’re so worked up. Your hips keep moving, desperately chasing your release even when his hands are tightening on you so hard they make you whine. “Give it to me, Stevie, please.”

You two create a vicious cycle- the harder you bring yourself down on him, the harder and faster he fucks up into you in retaliation. Your orgasm is so close that you can practically taste it. You don’t know which one of you is going to break first, but you know it’ll be devastating.

“M’gonna give it to you- shit- gonna fill this pretty pussy, you’ll be dripping my cum for days.” He curses furiously, a loud moan cutting from his lungs. His hair hangs over his eyes as he stares up into your face. A muscle in his jaw jumps. “Gonna fuck you so full of my kids, you’ll be so round- gonna give you my babies-”

You sob his name, drowning between the legs as your pussy clenches down around him. God, you don’t want it to end, but you can already feel it rearing up within you. You have to bite your lip against that simmering, violent ecstasy that’s welling up deep inside of you. His forehead drops to your shoulder.

“Fffffuck- M’gonna make you mine,” he pants into your skin again, his tongue laving across your pulse. This time, there’s an added weight to his words. “Want that, hm? Wanna be with me forever? Just like me?”

“Yes, Steve,” you cry, clinging onto him as you grind down on his cock, searing pleasure kicking up inside you at the thought. Your pussy pulses, and you give him a garbled noise of warning.

He nuzzles your jaw, and kisses you so sweetly beneath your ear that you think you imagine it. “It’ll hurt. Just for a minute. And then we can be together…”

Then, two things happen at once. Steve’s teeth sink into your shoulder hard, harder than he has yet. And that mounting ecstasy unleashes all its fury within you.

You cum screaming, from the pleasure tearing through you, and the pain only seeming to build into it- wild, animalistic sounds coming from your own throat. Your blood is in Steve’s mouth, your flesh torn against his teeth. He’s released something into your body that writhes and squirms, just below the surface. Just like what lives in him.

You claw at his back- your nails aren’t nearly as sharp as his, but you still manage to raise welts as your spasming cunt drenches his cock. It burns you alive. It eats away at you until there’s nothing left of you or your soul- just the feeble part of your brain that loves and feels him.

There’s a swelling deep within you, an anguished cry against your torn skin that you hardly register as his before you feel him cum, his cock pulsing hard within you. Steve presses up into you, slow and easy, holding you there against his hips with all the strength in his adrenaline pumped body.

Your head is spinning. You feel dizzy, and even then you can tell when you’re stuffed to the brim, the swelling becoming an overwhelming stretch again. You whimper into his neck, hoping that the inquisitive noise will convey your question, because you don’t trust yourself to be able to come up with the words to articulate it.

“Fuck- this is going to take a minute-” he groans when you squirm, his hands trying to hold you still. “It’s- it’s meant to keep you there- keep my cum in you.”

You harumph against his skin, your eyes rolling back into your head. You’re still twitching, still pulsing from the aftershocks of your orgasm. Even though the swelling of the knot at the base of his cock is bordering on overstimulating, you relish the closeness that it forces you to have with him now. That he has to stay here, inside you. That he has to hold you for a while, as his body readjusts to normalcy.

As you accept that there’s no going back now.

“I want to say that I’m sorry,” Steve murmurs, his voice rough and gravelly, still fussing over the bite on your shoulder. He runs his tongue over it- not necessarily trying to be erotic, but you think anything he does to your body comes off that way now. “But I wouldn’t mean it if I did.”

You hiss a little as the wound stings. “I’m not sorry.”

“You can’t get married to the Duke now, you know.” Steve pauses. “And, I suppose you can’t go back to your family either, so… I think it’s time you meet mine. Now that we’re mated.”

That makes you smile, a half-giggle falling from your lips. That’s probably as close to a proposal of marriage as you could hope for, right now. Your eyes fall shut, the slow stroking of his tongue over your wound and the strong heat of his body lulling you. “Am I gonna turn tonight?”

“No.” He shakes his head, nuzzling his nose against your neck. “Next month. It has to take, first. Get into your veins, make you suffer. Just the good stuff.”

“But you…”

“I’ve got an hour,” he says, and you feel him tilt his head up toward the sky.

You hum sleepily, letting yourself relax in his arms. They’re covered in more hair than they had been before- pretty much all of him is. Wherever it grows, it’s getting thicker and denser the closer it gets to midnight. “Stay with me.”

“I’ll be here,” Steve assures you, soothing your skin with kisses. “I’ll always be here. Forever.”

Things lose their clarity, your surroundings slowly slip away with your consciousness. You fall asleep against him, soothed by his warmth and the pace of his breath on your neck.

At some point, well after midnight, you rouse sleepily to find yourself curled up on a heap of torn clothes, between the paws of an enormous, brown-haired wolf.

You wake in the morning at the impact of a pile of cloth hitting you squarely in the chest.

You startle, coming up with a screech. Steve’s arm is around you- strong, muscular, and a lot less covered in hair than it had been the last time you’d seen it. He makes an inquisitive noise and sits up, naked as the day he was born, with leaves sticking out of his hair. He resembles Shakespeare’s Puck- streaked with dirt and grime, a bit of blood still matted in his chest hair, but the morning sun creates a golden halo around his head.

“Morning, lovebirds.”

You don’t know what comes over you at the sound of the strange man’s voice, but you scramble so quickly that you practically barrel roll over Steve’s body. He grunts and moves to grab you, but you’re already plopping down on the other side of him and using his body as a shield.

Steve blinks hard against the white light of morning, and squints at the strange man who had thrown a stack of folded clothes at you. “Eddie?”

“In the flesh.” The man stands proudly, clad in a mishmash of old and new, very new, clothes. His dark hair hangs loose and unkempt around his face, which smiles prettily at Steve with a pair of enormous, pointed canines.

“What’re you doing here?”

Eddie snorts. “Did you somehow forget that we turn in these woods, too?” He shakes his head, tutting condescendingly. “Stevie boy, you’ve been away from home for too long.”

“No, I-” Steve stops. “Where’s Robin?”

“Still getting dressed. Which you should do, too. Glad I’m the one who found you, there’s some kind of uproar about the Duke of Hargrove’s lady-love going missing, and- oh. Wait.” Eddie crouches, his eyes peering over Steve’s shoulder at you. He grins in a way that tells you he already knows the answer when he asks, “That couldn’t have been you, could it?”

“Eddie, watch it,” Steve growls territorially, throwing his hand backwards as if to shield you further from him.

The man- Eddie- chuckles, and stands. “Well, I figured you’d want to introduce us. Seeing as how that pretty mark on her shoulder tells me she’s, ah…” he twirls his finger, clad in a large, silver ring in the air, “a part of the pack, now.”

Steve huffs a sigh, and lifts his hand. “My lady, allow me to introduce you to Edward Munson.” Eddie bows dramatically, smirking at you as Steve says, “He’s a member of my family.”

“The best member.”

“Debatable.”

“Wait-” you start, sitting up further, your gaze still trained on Eddie’s hand, and the ring he wears. “Is that… Miss Fontaine’s ring?”

Eddie pauses. “Oh, was that your carriage back there?”

Steve snarls, moving to jump up. You yank him back into place to shield your naked body as he growls, “Eddie I’m going to fucking kill you-”

You’re not that far ahead yet. “Does that mean the thing about silver killing us is an old wive’s tale, too?”

Eddie and Steve both pause, and look at you blankly. Then, Eddie laughs- a bone-deep, guttural laugh that sounds like a wolf’s howl.

“Better watch out, Harrington, she’s way quicker on the uptake than you were,” he chuckles. “She’s gonna fit right in.”

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #werewolf!steve harrington #stranger things #steve harrington fanfic #roses*

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comfortless · 11 months ago

Note

The way you write König makes me cry and dry heave cuz you balance his loser unhingeness and his heartbreaking tenderness is✨ ART✨

Now I feel like you would be able to EAT this prompt up but imagine König as Frankenstein’s creature that is this big ass hulking mass of body that immediately makes the town grab their pitchforks but he can DESTROY them in seconds. But inside he is just a little guy who just wants somebody to hold and love (and other activities if ya know what I mean

Keep doing what you do❤️

A Place For Us

Frankenstein’s creature! König x fem! horologist reader

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. discrepancies!, reader is implied to have anxiety, angst & fluff, non-malicious stalking?, loner/loner dynamic my beloved.., brief mentions of previous murders and religious imagery, codependency, smut; masturbation, unprotected piv.

notes: receiving this ask was so funny to me because @melancholic-thing and i have been bouncing this idea around forever (i simply could not have brought this any justice without ghost’s input— if you see this please know that ily dearly). thank you, anon for your kind words and finally giving me the push that i needed to write it! 💘

wc: 10.6k

You’re good at fixing broken things; tinkering with them with a set of well-polished tools until they begin to tick, or chime, or cuckoo.

Some take longer than an afternoon sat before the wooden desk, weeks or months— a year, once. Oiled parts and small cogs, the three arms that jerk and glide over a face riddled with numbers that all lull you into feeling that your work is not just some monotonous service only the rich buzzards could afford, but as if you were a healer of sorts; a little cleric stationed to bring life into whichever jagged, broken thing has been dropped or kicked at her doorstep.

This one, however… you’re convinced it’s as good as dead.

No matter how many times you take apart the little, gray pocket watch, the arms refuse to move. Its ticking sounds less like that of the beating of the heart and more like the grinding of dry teeth, a corpse begging, pleading to let this attempted resurrection come to an end.

Your tweezers wrench the face free, and all at once it proves too much— bending and warping beneath the metal grip until it cracks, a split right through it, down to its very center.

“How…” Your voice fills the void of ticking, pseudo-silence surrounding you. A word slipped out in frustration and unknowing before you finally toss the wretched little thing onto the desk with a clatter and step aside.

The house is as dark and brooding as always, too large for a woman on her own and a workshop that hardly counts as a proper business. Shelves of broken clocks serve as decor where potted plants and well-loved photographs should sit in their stead. Books of study for modern devices such as these in place of the poetry and worn love letters other women seemed to have in abundance.

This place was starved out of light, even with the flickering glow of candles and the electric humming of the unnatural yellow one above.

The sun is no stranger, either, your curtains neatly pulled aside to allow for it to filter through like an invited guest. Only it doesn’t, not on such a melancholic gray day.

You need a walk, a distraction, or this hungry home would be certain to rip away your work from the shelves and swallow you whole instead.

Isn’t it such a tragedy that, someone who pours her creativity and all of her love into time, all she seems to do is waste it?, the gaudy wallpaper seems to taunt, all the colors of filthy maroon and darkened blue flowers seeming to make it feel more imposing and less of a comfort.

Your hand curls around the handle of your umbrella, a sturdy thing, but just as drab as the rest of the home. Then, the package you’ve been putting off delivering to the elderly woman in town. Best to get it done with now, maybe upon your return the hands that fix could do so once again.

Shame about the clock face though. You would certainly have to patch together another and pray the pocket watch’s owner wouldn’t notice.

The wind is not what you had anticipated.

Outside is different. The howling of it past the windows and shuddering through the attic felt perfectly at home in your shoddy little house, but as the door swings shut behind you, it feels entirely alive. Cold and bitter and angry— the things you keep repressed that nature lacks the tact to.

The trees bend and sway from its invisible yet incessant pushing. The hand containing the package falls down to the lap of your skirt to keep it from flying up just as your other clutches the umbrella ever tighter to keep it from billowing out into the air to be left discarded miles away.

It isn’t a short walk to town, but with the wind and the drizzling rain, it almost seems as though you’re in more tender company than the lumber and the ticking clocks.

The path through the forest is overgrown as always, branches are pushed aside and your skirt is lifted to avoid burrs and thorns.

You should have had the sense to bring along a coat, because when the thunder does strike up and the rain finally begins to fall in heavy, hurried drops, you find yourself shivering terribly with the package guarded against your chest.

Lamplight would have done well, too.

You would have almost happily allowed yourself to toss aside the umbrella and be battered by the rain if you could only see. The forest is dark on days like this, with the canopy of thick branches and their dense leaves blocking out any sliver of light cast down from overhead.

It’s only by sheer luck that you don’t manage to trip, toss your delivery into the shadow of a tree and lose it entirely before you do make it out. When the trees finally part to the barren hill overlooking town you breathe a sigh of relief, a quiet thanks for the grayed light above.

Your steps are hurried as you make your way through the quiet town. The shop windows are all lit aglow with the silhouettes of people inside, strangely dancing like shadows through a fog. A place you can not be, can not touch.

The stares the townsfolk give you make your skin crawl, as though they are so close to being what you are but not, only tied down to your world when they think themselves lofty. Their eyes always seem to question, scrape under your skin with sharpened arms, ticking and flaying, always asking: Why?

You face forward as your skin begins to prickle, not from the wet or the chill but a subdued sort of fear that nestles burning into your chest, sets your heart rushing like a rabbit.

The streets are silent enough, a small blessing; any passing strangers are hurriedly skittering through the rain and muck to hide away in their homes, children ushered with a hand to their back by flustered looking mothers, complaining in hushed voices about the rain. You only smile at them and step aside when your paths cross.

They never smile for you.

It’s why the broken clocks are delivered to your doorstep rather than brought inside, addresses and names from muffled voices calling out beyond your thick wooden door, coins and bills pushed through the mail slot to lie cold on the welcome mat. The bell above the door never chimes, and you only make your deliveries on days like this, when the rain or the dark blanket you up to keep you safe and eternally somber.

You leave the package on the doorstep, covered from the rain by a small, vermillion awning. One sharp knock is given and you’re back on your way, back to the old house, to the simplicity of the ticking, the comfort of the old cobweb on the vaulted ceiling and the drab gray of the bleakness.

There are puddles now, glistening with any light they can suck into their depths, threatening and taunting as the dull stares and that rickety old desk you really should fix. You think for a moment, that perhaps no one would even notice if one of those dark pits of rain water pulled you in entirely, only to splash through it with ease, dirtying the ends of your skirt.

The rain lessens when you crest the hill, the forest less a tangle of clattering limbs and now only a gentle sway reaches the tops of the trees, light filtering through them, as if to guide you on your way. It doesn’t lessen the bushels of thorns, the tree limbs downed and scattered over the path. In some small blessing, you’re able to scramble over them without having to plan a visit to a tailor to repair a ripped gown; scrubbing the mud from it would surely be tedious enough.

The droplets splatter against the dirt and fallen leaves in hushed bursts, the forest alive as always with the cooing of nesting birds in spite of the rain. The only thing that seems out of place is a sudden, soft thud, the snap of a branch underfoot. Just one footfall, and things return to a placid state amidst the sky’s tears.

You raise your head to glimpse in the direction, gaze sweeping over the figure of a man some paces off to your left. Beneath the shadow of a broad, twisting pine layered in thick branches, his details are mostly obscured, a thin trail of silver light only casting aglow the glimpse of a blue eye.

He’s only large enough to notice, shoulders slumped and chest rapidly rising to fall like a frightened animal; as his silhouette shifts just so you even consider that he’s shivering.

There’s something in that stare of somber blue that splinters at the wall of discomfort; it is not accusing, not bitter, worn and cold. Curious. Something akin to your own.

Damn your sweetness, your inability to simply let things be even as that ache twists around in your chest, clawing at a cage of bone and hissing that you keep silent. Be on your way. Don’t look back.

Instead, you extend your umbrella outward, toward him.

“Awful rain, hm?,” you chime.

The figure visibly tenses, seems to shrink into himself for a moment before straightening and giving one solemn nod.

“You can take my umbrella. I’m almost home, anyway.”

That seems to spark something, not much, but the stranger does take a step forward. Your eyes catch on the wet, matted hair clinging to his head, cascading down to shroud a face you still can’t quite make out.

The poor thing stirs something in you, a deep sympathy that clouds even the judgment of that flighty, skittish thing resting deep inside.

Even from such a distance it’s clear that he’s been neglected, likely cast off by the town even less favorably than you have. His scent carries on the breeze, like dirt and wood and misery.

You extend the umbrella again before realizing he won’t come any closer with you being there. So, you lower it to the ground, avoiding the mud as best you could and leave it. If he took it, fine. If not, you travel this path so often it would be collected in time.

The figure mutters something as you rise, a low string of foreign words that you can only interpret as being spoken out of surprise, perhaps even gratitude.

You smile toward him as you wipe fat, slithering raindrops from your brow.

“You don’t want to catch a fever.”

With that, you’re back on your way, thoughts of the rugged stranger weigh heavy on your mind as the roof of your home comes into view, stilted and in the same drab navy as the flowers on the wallpaper.

You could have done more. It had been instilled into you to not to open the door for someone you did not quite know, yet a part of you longed to take care of something not simply fed by oil, something only capable of telling you how much time you’ve sat alone as thanks.

Surely it was best not to let it distract you.

This was good enough.

The key is produced, the door opened, and just like the many times before that you have forced yourself from this place, the house seems less unsettling upon your return.

As what little daylight remains fades away into night, you find yourself seated, toying with the old pocket watch once more. It’s the only one that doesn’t make a lick of sense, a puzzle that can not be solved. For all the polished parts and meticulous tinkering, it still won’t work properly.

It grates and growls as though rusted, the cogs shifting inside with each movement of the arms are well-polished yet seem to do little but hiss and spit.

This is the fourth time you have taken it apart only to put it back together with no improvement.

There was little to be known about the man who owned it, some pompous, arrogant creature that you had only seen in passing. He had turned his nose up to you, you were sure of that, only to deliver this dying thing to your door the following day.

Your work had always been compared to your father’s. Though you possessed a similarity in skill, you were not what the townsfolk had deemed to be respectable. An unwed lady out on her own, biding her time repairing what they had broken rather than feeding hungry mouths delivered from her very womb, how terribly scandalous.

The pocket watch is set aside as you busy yourself tailoring a small sheet of metal for it. The graduations are carved in with a sharp razor, impeccably angled. Then, the Roman numerals, just before it’s slotted back into place.

The likeness to the former face is nearly uncanny, it’s only sturdier and less susceptible to ripping from the mere touch of tweezers. The rust s gone from the casing, and at long last— it ticks; no grinding growl as the second hand begins its revolution. The fickle thing just needed a touch up, you supposed as you flick off the desk lamp and rise to your feet.

The curtains are drawn as they always were when you step into the bedroom. The muddy dress is finally peeled away as you change and slink into the covers, and just for a moment, you almost think that you feel the animal between your breasts begin to settle too.

———

There’s a letter stuffed into the mail slot: crumpled with no postage stamp, scrawled across some scrap of paper that surely was plucked from a garbage bin.

You marvel at the lack of care for a moment before your fingers do find themselves pawing at it, unfurling the worn edges to find the words: Thank you.

Written in thick black ink, there’s a clumsiness to it, the dance of a quivering hand holding pen. You think back to the elderly woman you had made that delivery to only yesterday; had she trudged through the mud and muck just to bring you this?

Her thanks was only needed in the blessing of payment, and she had already generously done just that when she left her little humming wall clock at the door.

You flip the note over, inspecting it carefully. There’s a line there, too, hastily scratched out in the same black ink, the lines crossing and digging leaving little pinprick holes in the paper.

Holding it to the light, you can just barely make out the words: I have been alone.

Your mouth dries at the sentiment, tongue flicking out to try and force a wetness to your lips. The animal begins its keening howl, a chain rattling as claws sink into your innards; the very same agitated fear that starved you out of comfort day in and out.

The man in the forest, perhaps. You were sure that you would have remembered seeing someone so disheveled and tall about town, and if not for a certainty that he had not followed you home, you would have assumed it was him. Gratitude finally said, and well on his way to someplace else.

There’s nothing here for him or anyone else, surely he could see that. Even you could.

The walls around you seem to bulge, the room shrinking once again as every little thing held within begins to taunt and yowl. Safety was only a temporary luxury, it always has been.

The letter is discarded onto a table, as you opt to hazard a peek out of your curtains instead. The gray from yesterday remains as thick clouds crowd above, threatening another storm. The treetops and tall grass dance in the breeze, freeing leaves and breaking flower stems. There’s no one standing there to greet you, to explain themselves for the strange message that they had left.

The town had probably already driven you to madness, picturing things that were not there while old fools jab you with ominous letters and jeering stares to see just how long it would take to watch you fall apart.

Another delivery day it would be, then; best to get it out of the way before the rain begins to fall.

Maybe you could even retrieve the umbrella along the path, discarded, battered from the rain and likely unused.

You don’t bother packaging the pocket watch, choosing to hastily stuff it into the pocket of your coat instead. Courtesies be damned. Tea and a warm bath would do well when the house was sated by your absence, when you were finally given time to breathe.

In your haste, you nearly kick over what’s been left on the uppermost stair leading to your door.

You find a table clock covered in a thick black fabric, a little note attached to it giving the owner’s name and address, and a small bag containing payment.

It’s all securely placed inside, next to the ugly letter on the table.

Your umbrella doesn’t wait on the path, but you’ve hardly the mind to care. Your hand tightens around the pocket watch as you cord your way down the path and back into town, rushing amidst the foliage until the sounds of your footfalls are dulled by the street.

Reaching the house, a towering narrow building that smells like tobacco even from outside, your hand curls to knock at the door in the same breath taken as the chain is plucked to place it on the knob, intent on scurrying away immediately to avoid the disgusted gaze of the man that waits inside.

You don’t quite make it far enough before the door swings open and you’re greeted by a round face, nose upturned and lip curled into a sneer.

That isn’t imagination.

There’s a genuine hate in this man, seeping down into his bones that makes him almost seem to reek like sulfur through the cloud of cigarette smoke that wafts around him. It’s the face of someone who would love nothing more than to see your own damnation, watch the earth suck you in until your wails fall silent and a fire roars upward in your wake.

“This isn’t my watch, dear.”

“Parts needed to be replaced,” you explain, voice tight and keening like a wolf in a trap, “I assure you that I—“

“It’s shoddy work. Any clocksmith up north would have done better for half the price..”

It goes on like this for what feels like at minimum thirty revolutions, but it must have only been five or so. His droning voice makes it hard to keep track, buzzing as he examines your work, hours wasted upon aiding such an awful creature.

He only seems to grow bored of his chiding when you fall to silence. He wants a reaction, not a wide-eyed fretful stare and pursed lips caging in any sound that may bubble up from your throat.

In one final act of detestation, the watch is tossed to the ground, stomped in repetition until the hands snap, the ticking quiets, and you see months of your work brought to ruin in a mere seven seconds.

He storms back inside and slams the door shut as you stoop to collect the little, broken thing, cradling it in your palms. Maybe it wouldn’t be fixed again, but you’ve hardly the mind to let anything be left abandoned like this.

Though the anger builds, white bitter smoke billowing through your veins, it remains tucked away inside eventually communing with the animal, all but entirely snuffed out when your steps lead you to the front door of the house.

The window to the right is open, not broken. The curtains were pushed aside as though to allow a breeze to enter. A muddy footprint, vast and long scales the siding, but there’s no exiting one to join it.

You stare and listen, taking one quiet step towards the open window to strain your hearing. Nothing. Inside, it’s quiet, only the sound of the breeze rattling that note left on the table, the ticking and the familiar creaks and groans of the house settling.

So, you enter.

With the poker from the hearth in tow, the rooms are investigated one by one. Each and every one of them clear of any intruder. Even the attic, for all of it’s imagined ghosts sits empty, stale and silent. There’s no one here, nothing out of place or broken that hadn’t already been cast out from the world and delivered into your hands.

Strangely enough, it’s more peaceful like this; the leaves could be heard rustling outside, birds calling, even the chirps and strumming of crickets too late to flee the onset of chill seeping through this purgatory, filling the mundane void with sounds of life and peace.

You leave the window open.

The pocket watch is left on the desk, the kettle filled with water and placed upon the stove to heat, all before your eyes trail over to that little table beside the front door.

The only thing amiss is there, your intuition roars at you: “Look, look. Just look.”

The table clock from this morning sits there, the wood casing dusty and the hands perpetually stuck to sit at six o’clock, easy to enough to break, and easier still to fix. An overworked battery and a little oil would be its saving grace; if only things could be so simple for yourself, for the thousand or so others that surely must feel the same— clawed, fretful little rabbits.

Your eyes narrow momentarily, vaguely recalling that the damned thing had been covered when it was dragged inside. Something sable and thick, a scrap of a heavy dress shirt perhaps, verily stained. Odd that someone would have broken in merely to steal something so useless, but stranger tales have been told. For all you cared, the perpetrator could keep it.

You entertain the idea of the wild man in the trees, thick and sturdy as one. Perhaps he left the note, stole warmth from your home and found comfort in that useless old shirt after leaving that roughly scrawled note. Though the idea would horrify others, it only sets your ceaselessly racing pulse at ease.

Toying with the idea that someone so very much like you lurks the hills, found a home in your eyes and paid a visit, kind enough to wait until you were in town as to not scare you… and the kettle begins to whistle.

———

You had forgotten to close the window last night. Or maybe it was left as an invitation, a silent offer of your companionship for the unknown thing that occupies your already haunted mind these days. Something in your subconscious dared you to simply forget, see what happens, and you’re not entirely disappointed to find out that yes, something has happened.

There are three flowers laid out there in a row, smushed by the weight of a heavy palm: a daffodil left golden and proud despite the way her petals fray and wither, and two others wild and unnamed with blue and white colors leading to vibrant green stems. And roots. He hadn’t the time to pluck them proper, nor had a sense of gentleness to his touch in doing so.

It’s the first time you’ve laughed in months, a giggling that makes your chest ache from a sudden mirth through all of this wretchedness. Who knew it would only take three flowers and the appearance of someone so disconnected? You take them and place them in a vase in the same spot, careful to add just the right amount of water to keep them living for a time.

Someone brought you flowers— actually brought you a gift, not a job. You remember those eyes, too. His hands may not have been gentle, but that look was.

Though darkness still creeps internally, you’re resolute in what you must do when you prepare for the day. You’ve never really worn this dress— a soft, white thing with billowing sleeves and tight cuffs that brings a swell to your breasts and cinches your waist. One of the women about town had given it to you in lieu of payment for repairing her husband's watch, left a note prattling onward for three pages about how a woman should dress to find a man. Three!

You’ll find him, thank him for the flowers, bat your eyelashes just a little and retrieve your umbrella. That’s all. The rain would be back, more deliveries would have to be made, and if you could manage a friend from all of this well… surely things could work out for you, just this once.

Your steps are less hurried and more tentative this time around. You don’t barrel through the woods like a galloping mare, mindful of your dress as you lift the fabric at the hips to avoid thick, slickened mire. There isn’t much to do about the thorns nipping at your ankles, leaving little scratches like cat’s claws in their wake.

The thought that maybe this was a ridiculous idea only settles in your mind after an hour of searching. You don’t even have a name to call him by, not an idea on just where he may be or what his intentions truly were, all further punctuated by the fact that you’ve found yourself in the midst of a wild orchard, the yellowing grass nearly reaching your knees as you reluctantly allow your dress to flow free. Thick clusters of apples hang above your head, each nearly ripe, some even fallen to leave a fragrant sweet smell in the wake of their rot.

Thunder roars above, distant but loud, cruelly threatening the wake of a downpour that would so easily sully the delicate thing you wear. Your chest aches from exertion, from whichever horrid fear it's settled on today, and you’re nearly fully convinced of your own madness when something does finally catch your eye.

There’s a cabin, nestled between the trees, old and lacking glass panes for the windows. The roof is covered in moss, walls creeping with the old green of vines and nearly hidden away entirely by the tall grass that rises above its face.

You could wait out the storm in the dark there, rethink your steps until you find a way back home and the prospect of actually entering a building that wasn’t the very picture of your own agony stirs something within you.

You don’t bother to knock, only waltz right in and let the door shut softly behind you. It creaks as it goes, whining from the rust laden over its hinges. As expected, the cabin is mostly barren; a set of dust laden chairs sits on opposite ends of a table missing a leg, a large bookshelf housing only a torn copy of Paradise Lost and a journal, a few dirtied dishes are left on the floor, and in the corner…

There are a lot of things that make you feel small.

You couldn’t live up to your father’s name in town. The thought that you were not an equal to the other ladies with their fine jewelry and dresses, rings wrapped around their fingers, that was a sore spot despite the way you refused to admit to it. Even the hounds lurking about the butcher’s shop on lonely night deliveries, baying and growling when your feet carried you too close.

None of those things could even compare to how you felt now.

The rug he lies beneath is large on its own, but your flower-giving, grateful titan seems even more so. It’s as though walking into a bear’s den and expecting a mere squirrel. Even curled into himself in sleep, he seems impossibly huge.

You couldn’t see much of him that first night, but now… where the rags that make up his clothes reveal a series of long scars along his legs, the hairy arms that seem far too thick: all of him, all of him is massive.

Your rabbit heart does not claw or fight you now, it only flutters, placated by the sight of something so… was there really a word for it? The idea that someone so imposing could strike the match of attraction within you. Feelings were strange, each comes sharp and new like the deliberate twist of a knife through a body, soft like warm bread.

You smile as you wander to his side, recognizing the cloth he wears over his head immediately as the one stolen from your house. Your dress is smoothed at your rear as you lower yourself to sit on your knees at his side, quiet and slow.

“Hello,” you whisper, placing a hand on a shoulder that dwarfs it entirely, feeling the bulge of muscle beneath the ripped shirt, the ridge of keloid scars from deep cuts laid into his skin.

The titan’s eyelids flutter for a moment as he begins to stir, staring up at the ceiling, teetering on the edge between waking and dreaming. Then, those cold blue eyes lock onto you. A flash of disbelief crosses them, just for a moment before something flips and from the holes ripped into that makeshift hood you see an expression that seems almost agonized.

“Hello,” he rasps after a long moment, shifting onto his side to prop himself up and raise his head to level with your own.

His breathing is shallow, almost panicked and you finally think to bring your hands to your lap instead, avoid touching him and potentially startling the poor man further.

“I wanted to thank you… for the flowers. They’re beautiful.” You pause as you study what little of his expression you can make out through the mask, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners only giving a glimpse of a smile. All teeth, probably, an excited one that even the imagination of warms your heart. “I put them in a vase. I didn’t want them to die.”

“I should not have…” His voice is softer than you ever imagined that it could be, well-spoken as the words are pulled from his throat. You find yourself transfixed, almost, praying that he continues if only to hear the delicate strumming of his tone, the soft sigh of breath that leaves him afterward.

“Es tut mir leid.”

The apology is followed by a low sweep of his gaze, slowly crawling from the peek of your cleavage to your hips to rest where your hands lay clasped in your lap.

He hardly seems to know what to do with himself, what to say, and all at once the realization dawns on you that no, he isn’t merely paying his thanks and seeking conversation. Perhaps that was part of it then, but now… he seems almost entranced.

You recognize those looks, from men in passing when they leered, but from him… from this weary, haunted stranger. It only seems a silent sort of reverence; as though longing for something he’s been deprived of.

“No, it’s fine, it made me happy.”

“Happy?”

“Yes, it was sweet.”

He falls silent at that, conflicted if the pinch of his brow were anything to go by. Then, sudden, he takes your wrist and jerks your hand toward his face, thumb brushing over the small calluses over each pad of your fingers. There’s dirt beneath his fingernails, even more scaring along those massive hands and you shiver. It’s not fear it’s… something akin to it, opposite by the way it dances and writhes in warmth rather than the cold.

“You have the hands of a maker.”

Strange, sweet Goliath.

His words are spoken somberly, as if there is more to say that he holds back. A part of you warns that you’re not prepared for it anyhow, so you let him continue that motion, brushing over your palm with a featherlight touch until it begins to tickle.

Your giggle prompts him to raise his head, watery eyes threatening tears when he hears that sweet sound bubble up from within you. His hand curls over your own, trapping you in his grasp as though little else matters to him more than the need to touch you in some way.

“You have kind eyes.”

“I am not kind.”

You shake your head at that, flicking your thumb across the top of his burly hand, marveling at the smooth skin of his scars and the rough texture of the hair that dots his knuckles.

“You’re sweet to me, and that’s all that matters.”

It could have been a mistake, how easily you’ve taken to this bizarre titan. Any lady with proper regard for her standing and womanhood assuredly wouldn’t have said something like that to a beast that has the stature and the scent of something wild.

Still, the words leave your lips far too quickly to draw back; he responds with an urgency.

You find yourself pulled ever closer by the iron grip on your hand, tugged into the rug-turned-mattress by this man as he cages you in to meld against his chest. He’s everywhere, warm and burning against the chill of your skin with flesh touched by hellfire.

You only sigh pitifully when his arm wraps around your waist. When was the last time you had even felt an embrace? You couldn’t recall, and even if you had, it would have paled in comparison to one such as this. You breathe him in like a summer’s breeze, tasting a hint of the apple orchard beyond on your tongue when you open your mouth to speak once again.

“See..?”

The tension in his muscles seems to melt away; if your heart is like a hare then surely his must be more akin to a bull. It takes some time before he softens entirely against you, despite his initiation. His breath is almost a pant when his hand trails upward along your back, feeling every ridge and dip and curve, breath catching in wonder as you allow it.

“You are soft like…”

His head dips to press into your shoulder, breathing you in, humming his approval at the mingling scent of clock oil and tea leaves that lingers on your skin. Even from beneath the hood, you can feel the way his lips brush over you, his mouth parted in a voiceless plea.

“… like one of the flowers.”

It’s almost torture really, how someone could be so comforting, so endearing.

His hand trails further, drifting over the backside of your dress to curl against your thigh threatening something if you don’t conjure the sense to stop him. It stokes the fire within you, glowing ember in place of a brain, it seemed. You feel weak, lost in a foreign touch and sweet, clumsily spoken words.

If the townsfolk could see you now, herded up in this stranger’s arms, surely they wouldn’t dare to cast any disapproval your way. Not one of those meek little devils would have a word to say… not now or ever again.

“You’re like… a tree then,” you whisper as you finally will yourself to twist away from the grip, already mourning the loss of warmth as a cold wind filters through the openings in the cabin.

He doesn’t sulk as you pull away, only seems content to have been blessed with that much. That mist remains in his eyes before they shut again, willing himself to rise to sit up just as you do.

“Will you stay?”

You glance over the cabin again, with all of its dust and cobwebs. Your umbrella sits in the corner, propped upright with its handle leant against the wall, out of place amidst the dilapidation prevalent here.

This wasn’t a home at all, just a quiet, cold purgatory. Though the halls of your own may mock your solitude, this place seems to echo his very being: alone, broken, rotting and so, so very cold.

Your heart bleeds as you weigh your options, expression growing sullen and torn. He notices, tentatively takes your hand again in an almost practiced way of providing comfort. Had he ever even…

Your thoughts begin to drift again, and you force yourself to settle on a choice. It’s not your heart that should be damned, but that horrid seed of doubt constantly burdening, stealing from, and clawing at you.

“I should get home, before the rain.”

“Verstanden.”

“You can come too.”

There’s an audible hiss of breath through his teeth, that peculiar look of agony crosses his face again… and finally, he weeps.

———

König, you think to call him.

He teaches you German from time to time, in turn for you allowing him to watch as you work away at the clocks. It feels fitting in a way. Not because he harbors the self-importance of a noble figure, nor his stature; he’s simply become something impossibly important in the week long span you’ve spent together now.

You’ve decorated the guest room properly for him, and in turn he’s brought you firewood, foraged and hunted so that neither of you have had to bother with the town. The fire raged in the hearth as the cold continues to set in, and your walks to town have been enjoyable now. He accompanies you to the hill on some nights, draws you a bath when you come home, even cooks.

So… maybe a king was not entirely appropriate, but calling him a servant certainly wasn’t either. Even with the way he seems to melt and become docile at the slightest brush of your hand, the way you know with a certainty he would die for you if you spoke the word.

And still, you call him König: the king of your heart.

There are flowers at your windowsill each morning, still clinging to their roots. You bake the bread while he cooks stew with herbs gathered from the little garden just beyond the walls of the home, one he’s graciously told you he’s wanted to expand for you. Books you’ve overlooked for years have been read end to end by him, and he especially seems to like those with art of flowers drawn into their pages, always seeking you out to show you, explain their meanings, expressing the beauty that he sees in them and within you.

You don’t know where he’s come from, what his life was like before this, and with the same respect that he gives to you… you don’t ask.

“We’re starting a new story,” you had said the first morning over a breakfast of hastily made apple dumplings. To which he had agreed, with a somber hum, nodding his hooded head.

Though you do wonder about his secrets, his face. Seeing him now is all it really takes to make you smile.

He comes through the door, hauling in the massive grandfather clock that a carriage had left only this morning. The bob and the lyre both appeared broken at a glance, but your heart sinks when you read the name on the note left attached to it.

The same petulant little man that had stomped that poor watch to pieces right in front of you, no doubt he had broken this one too in some sort of tantrum. What was it now? Had the poor clock chimes a bit too loudly during the night? Was that deserving of a foot lodged right into its heart?

“König, do you mind just leaving it there?” You gesture toward the middle of the room, watching as the muscles beneath his shirt don’t even seem to ripple from exertion.

“Natürlich.”

As you set to work, pulling away parts, straightening out bends and replacing what’s broken, he kneels at your side watching with rapt attention. There’s no fixing the pendulum bob entirely, it’s far too bent and scraped, but you wouldn’t be replacing that with work of your own either. The bastard gets what he gets and that will do.

In truth, your work since having König here has only improved, and perhaps you’re showing off a bit, but the way he watches you tinker with the dusty old things as if mesmerized fills you with pride. You could fix anything, yes, with him at your side you wanted to.

The house doesn’t echo wasted time anymore, only that crowding feeling of something buzzing and chirping, budding up in the spaces where shadows should crawl: love. You wouldn’t trade it for the loneliness to return, not ever. A new sort of fear that stings just as much as it does caress.

So you work in silence, only breaking it to answer the sparse questions that he throws out.

When the clock is shoddily finished, you wipe the oil from your hands on a rag, and take König’s own large arm as it’s offered out to you to stand.

“I will carry it for you tonight,” he suggests, delicately brushing a bit of dust from your sleeve. His touch does linger, always lingers, trailing up to massage at your shoulder and cup at your neck. The swell of heat that arrives at your face then, the press of your thighs beneath your skirt… it’s always the same.

“I thought that you didn’t want to go into town?”

Your shoulder meets his chest as you press against him, doing very little to calm your body’s frustrations. The blood within you stirs like a violent wave feeling him this near— cleaned up and dressed in some patchwork conglomerate of your father’s old clothes. He smells like a union between the earth and sea, salt and alder leaf, a hint of thyme and lavender.

His eyes glitter when his gaze roves from your face to chest, hand skittering down to curl at the small of your back. To anyone else, you would look the picture of husband and wife perhaps.

“I would go anywhere with you.”

A fresh normal, like the rise of spring, those words and touches that suggest more: threatening while you plead in silence for him to just give you a push, unlace your dress and finally feel and see him properly.

“Then… yes, let’s get the cursed thing out of here tonight.”

His grip tightens around you just for a moment, fingers curling and flexing into the soft linen covering you, bunching it up just so at your back before he relents, draws away.

“You dislike this one?” König sounds almost hurt, perhaps he favored it, being tall and similar to him in some way. Another odd thing, hard to place, but he’s never seemed to like you talking down about your own work, a habit that needed breaking.

“No,” you begin to explain, curling your arms around his middle as you both stare at the thing, ticking quietly before you, “its owner is just a pain.”

“I can tell. You seem nervous, meine geliebte.”

“You haven’t taught me that one yet,” you point out, not playing coy, despite the look he gives you that suggests you know.

There’s always that ache when his eyes narrow and that playful glint reaches them. How someone could look as though they’ve suffered dozens of lifetimes of pain and still have that look, you did not know, but it excites you. A furious, needy excitement.

“Beloved,” is all that he says.

The stare relents as he heads back out into the garden, leaving you to sort yourself out.

———

“You’re sure that you can carry it the entire way?”

It’s not that you could help, really. The thing must have weighed as much as yourself, strung up over König’s back with a rope he had found lying someplace in the garden.

“Ja, it’s fine.” He’s not out of breath in the slightest either. You realize then that if you put on all your charms bending, arching and delicately maneuvering your hands to fix the clocks, the assuredly this was his way of doing the same. You try to reign yourself in from staring at the damp spot on his shirt, clinging to his broad expanse of chest, the way that his thighs seem to tense with each step forward.

You can’t— you merely trail behind him until you take the lead to bring him right to the other man’s doorstep. Your hands find the ropes that keep the clock saddled to König’s back, carefully untying them as he stoops down to let its wooden legs rest against the ground below. It scrapes, the consequence of being so heavy and forced to stand on those four tiny legs, and only then does it decide to make a cacophony of noise signaling the new hour, a trilling sort of bong that makes even your ears ring as it breaks up the silence of the night.

You don’t even need to knock, because the door flies open immediately. The man stands proud, unperturbed by your giant companion as he shoves past you to inspect his clock. There are no greetings, no pleasantries, and if you were just a bit more careless with your reputation, smacking him would have only brought you satisfaction.

“Not good, but it will do,” the little man huffs, knocking at the glass casing over the clock’s face with his knuckle. “Be a dear and have your friend bring it in for me.”

You’ve no doubt that König senses your annoyance as he cocks his head at you, but when you give a curt nod in response, he does what’s requested. The clock is set in a large den. It’s not as opulent and gilded as you had expected, just a simple home housing a very infuriating man. You watch from the doorway, swaying on your feet as König rights the clock and pushes it where he’s directed. Just a few more seconds and the two of you would be well on your way, and perhaps he would even teach you a new curse for a man like that.

He comes uncomfortably close to König’s side, a smug look plastered over his face that only seems to exaggerate just how greasy and mousy that you know him to be. Something is whispered that you can’t quite make out, a dare, a mocking taunt, something that pisses you off even without the knowledge.

The hood is pulled off by thin fingers, cast aside to the floor beyond the pair.

The man’s face goes pale before you even get a glimpse of König at all. He backs away, mouth gaping as König calmly moves to retrieve the cloth. You think you hear the word “monster” mumbled amidst a slew of incoherent babbling, but when your companion turns to face you, you feel no fear.

König’s face is like patchwork, scars connecting all together. They run like small streams up from his jaw and over his chin, splitting his lip at the corner of his mouth and dancing up to his eye. The nose is broken in places, several times over likely, crooked with a bump that only seems strangely cute. The unkempt hair lining his jaw should be trimmed, but… there’s no monster here. Only a man who has seen and felt pains that you could not bring yourself to imagine.

His head dips when he notices your wide-eyes stare, a sort of shame hidden away behind strands of long, black hair. He shuffles out of the house and shuts the door behind him, standing rigid as he expects the worst, for you to wail and sob and gather a group of townsfolk to herd him far away with fire and stones.

You only take his hand.

“Let’s go home.”

He doesn’t bother to hide himself away again during the walk back, his hand remains in your hold, trembling every now and then and gripping you tighter as he struggles with the thoughts no doubt raging in his skull like a storm. You offer your comfort as you lean toward him, head pressed against his arm even as you turn the knob and step inside.

You warm a bath for him then, a task that is no easy feat. König does not offer his help, resigned to some belief that this is only a temporary pity.

He allows you to peel away his clothes, graze your fingers over his body, over the scars all with a barely contained creature scraping out from inside: the untamed bull that you can not see. You press a kiss there, over his heart, feel it’s beating against your lips, pulling away only when his thumb strokes your cheek.

Each new sight of him is just as wonderful as they have always been. It’s not that you take pleasure in seeing the way he must have suffered; the now healed bullet wound over his abdomen speaks volumes of just what people are capable of when met with the sight of something that they do not understand.

The questions burn at the back of your skull, bitten back as your jaw tightens.

You help him wash with soap and a soft cloth, carefully removing any patches of dirt and dust that have lingered despite his near-daily bathing since living beneath your roof. The rough beard is trimmed in full, until all that’s left is a trail of dark stubble lingering along his jaw, broken up by scars like thin spider silk that make up the entirety of his body.

His hair is a mess, too, matted and clinging to his skull in wild clumps. You’re gentle with the brush as you free the tangles, clipping at what can not be saved with sharpened scissors, and massaging at his scalp as he murmurs his approval. It’s such a subdued, gentle cooing from his chest, a purr almost that shatters your heart and forces it back into place instantly.

Whatever he was or was not, you were certain this stray had never felt a touch like your own, if he had ever been touched by human hands at all.

König seems to settle greatly once you’ve tended to him and it does seem to finally dawn on him that you’re not repulsed, you’ve touched most of his damaged body, and have only brought him the gentleness that should have been commonplace by now. This isn’t some elaborate torture method— it’s only tender.

“Your turn, hm?”

That, however, brings you pause. Your hands rest on his shoulder, carefully trying to loosen a stubborn knot when you abruptly still. As if that were all he needed for encouragement, his hands cinch your waist, pulling you up and over the rim of the tub as you whine your protests in hushed little hisses. All for naught, as you find yourself submerged below the waist.

“I’m still dressed,” you sulk as the water dampens your dress, now seated between his parted thighs.

König only gives a laugh in response as his arms encase you in another embrace, his head resting against the dip between your shoulder and neck as his chest is brought to press against your back.

“And you’re still mine.”

His fingers trail further down to the wet fabric billowing amidst the soft, lapping waves of the water, pulling it up until it rests just above your hips. There’s no tact, only a clumsy sort of desperation rarely seen upon men, especially not of his stature.

You allow him to loosen the strands of lace at your back, bring your clothing up and over your head to leave it resting and dripping over the rim, pooling below onto the boards of the wooden floor. Your undergarments follow to join the flooding pile of soaked linen and lace.

You’re flustered certainly, grateful for the water surrounding that conceals the warmth that echoes your fondness for this titan between your legs.

You even considered that he would be more shy, not… as eager to begin to wash you, and not with the cloth but with his own hands, nimbly moving over every dip and curve coating you in the slick residue of soap, leaving suds in its wake. He starts at your shoulders, breath growing heavy the more you soften and relax against his chest.

It’s only a matter of time before his hands find and cup your breasts, and you swear that you can feel the grin that splits his face as you melt further against him. König gropes at and massages you there, eager fingers deliberately stroking at your hardened nipples until you quiver and sigh.

You find purchase moving your arms to your sides to grasp at his biceps, muscles flexing as he works his way down your trembling abdomen to your mound, kissing at your shoulder as you purr your encouragement.

The praises that leave your lips come tight and barely restrained as a finger trails against your slit, moving up to circle your clit before diving back down to prod at you.

Your head is gently tilted back by his free hand, your face peppered in clumsy, messy kisses as a digit sinks into you. It’s lazy work, trying to find a rhythm with your squirming. He only seems satisfied when it presses further, curling against the spot that makes you mewl sweetest, and finally, he kisses you full on.

It’s delivered as sloppily as his fingering, any trailing thought left in your skull dims, fuzzy with sheer bliss as his thumb begins to pet at your clit in tandem with each push and drag of his index. It doesn’t help that you feel his own growing need, hard and hot against your lower back, throbbing with each sound pulled from your mouth, his hips jerking on occasion to drag his shaft against your backside.

“König, we should get out,” you murmur through a flood of heat that curls and urges and presses at your lower half to seek some satisfaction, have him bed you proper. “We can go to—“

His mouth meets yours again, hungrier and more determined than before, the water rolling with each flick of his thumb. In a mere moment you feel that heat stoke to an inferno, blazing from your stomach to cause your feet to kick out, water sloshing over the side of the tub as you ride out each passing wave of paradise crying openly into his mouth.

When your trembling does subside, he kisses your cheek and pulls you up from the water, wrapping you up in his arms. His stare remains ever burning, pupils blown to a coal black, dreamy in the way he slinks back just to drink you in further. You can’t keep track of all of the places his eyes seem to dart, which touch to settle on and relish as he paws at you from chest to rear, as if mesmerized that you are no mere illusion.

You’re giving him everything; no longer the king of simply a beating organ tucked beneath your breast, but your body, bed, wherever he chooses to conquer next, of all the things that he’s been deprived of.

“We will go to bed, beloved,” he rasps, sounding more present than ever. The nightmares lurking behind his eyes have long past now: all focus is turned to you. You’re the only thing that’s ever loved him in return. “We will… become one.”

“Have you ever…” Your own voice fails you now, the evident want between you two incapable of making this any less… tedious. It was tedious, a flighty feathered thing that seems keen on slipping out of your grasp at any moment. If it were to be his first, surely it should be special, somehow, someway. If it were not… you dreaded that thought, a bitter envy sours on your tongue until it’s shaken off.

“No,” he states simply, shrugging.

Though a sense of relief seems to flood you at that, you dare not show it. You will take him to your bed, climb atop him and show him how these things work, a slow sort of love and the rest could wait.

It was foolish to believe that König would settle for such a thing, wild and only temporarily tamed by your sweetness: he is entirely different the moment you’re herded into the bedroom. The desperation of his touches has faded out entirely, replaced with what feels almost like a rage.

He wouldn’t take out humanities sins on you, no, but he would years of brutal neglect have left him starved and it just so happens that you’re an outlet for it, something to feed from by way of spilling his soul and his seed all into you, taken back with the kisses and praises that would surely come after this union.

You’re unceremoniously pushed onto the bed, lying at your side as he climbs in behind you. He whispers his requests into your hair, even as his hand wraps to pull your thigh up before you can bless him with a nod in response. He struggles for a moment, parting your labia with the obscene, ridiculous thing that hangs between his legs. It drags over you in repetition, oiled like the clock cogs before the head of his cock finally finds the opening his finger explored only minutes earlier.

You almost expect him to break you right then, force you to take what your body— no body- had surely been made for, but he only thrusts the tip inside and gives you some time to adjust, roll your hips down centimeter by agonizing centimeter.

“You are… Does it hurt you..?” His voice is a breathless pant, trying to hold himself together despite the daze he’s found himself in, buried not even three inches into your cunt.

“No… you can move,” you breathe out, eyelids fluttering as you tilt you head to look at him over your shoulder.

König clings to you as he sinks further, grasping at your waist to pull your further down, sharp breaths hissed between gritting teeth as he delights in the way your womanhood grips at his shaft.

Just as before, there’s no rhythm to him, he takes the sounds that leave you as a direction, huffing into your ear words that your mind could not hope to translate. There’s an indulgence to it, shared between you both as his hand curls tighter against your thigh, spread open and accepting of the brutal pace he takes to have just a taste of what it feels to be a normal man.

His words falter at a point, when you feel your body tightening around him, sucking him in, closer, nearer as your head lolls back. The inferno from before pales in comparison to the blaze that overtakes you now, his voice strained with bliss as you begin to moan for him. With each drag and soar of his cock spearing you open, you’re only brought further to a glimpse of Eden. If this were the fall of man, you find you couldn’t question Eve for relishing in it.

“… you gave me a name,” he rasps, “A home…”

All at once that glimmer of heaven crashes down around you, bathes you in the glow of something lofty and holy as he pulls you close and drives himself to the hilt within you. The throbbing and pulsing of his length pulls you over just as his seed spills within, drips thick and flooding as your own sex drools in tandem, sharing a perfect rapture both clandestine and sacred. He gives you another generous thrust, ensuring that he’s carved a space inside no other man could ever hope to fill.

You fret when you find him weeping, quiet tears rolling down his pale cheeks to spill over your shoulder, but the gentle smile on his face is pacifying as you twist around to face him. “And now you have my love.”

“I’ll cherish it,” he murmurs, voice broken and pitiful as you’re maneuvered upward to rest against the feather-stuffed pillows against the headboard.

You curl against him, head resting on his chest, an arm draped over his waist. He takes your hand into his own, appraising it like the first time you properly met. Hands of a maker. Your mind wanders to significance in that statement, the things that needn’t be told are finding ways to curtain you anyhow when he speaks again.

“Could you fix me?” He asks, tracing over the calluses on your fingertips, still bathing in the afterglow.

The question, though you felt it coming, still hurts to hear him speak it: breathing life into a thought that should have never existed to begin with.

“There’s nothing to fix.” Though you speak true, though you know he feels your sincerity, his eyes are heavy when he looks to you again. “Why would you ask me that?”

The story that he tells you then is one of horror. From his maker down to the things he’s done, seen, felt: hated from the moment he woke into this strange world, the horrible loneliness that pushed and bedded down inside of him like acceptance never would. The people that he’s throttled in some desire to finally have someone like him; men, women, it made no difference. All of it is bared with only one message eternally prevalent: he has only ever wanted to be loved.

In truth, he was a monster. Not because he was given the instinctual urge to be, but because it was all he knew. Gnashing teeth from demons hurling that word out with every stone they threw, every shot and stab at his heart.

You listen, despite the way it hurts, pull him a little closer when he ends his tale with your meeting, how he knew you were the only blessing he would ever receive in his lifetime— however long that may be.

You were good at fixing broken things, but König never needed to be fixed. Only found.

———

“Now you’re supposed to say it,” you hum, as his hands reach to the hem of the hood— his- covering your face. They rove beneath the fabric, curling against the skin of your cheeks, tracing small patterns there, some rotations like the clocks, others the childish hearts scribbled into books.

“I vow to take you as my wife.”

“You’re bad at this.” You giggle when he does finally push the cloth up past your nose, above your eyes and further until it’s pulled back like a veil.

“I will love you endlessly,” he continues, returning your noise of elation with a huffed laugh of his own. “I already do.”

“I love you, too.”

No one in town would ever properly marry you two, not if one look could make a weak man fall to his knees in horror, but here, beneath the roof of a home once echoing the same voice that haunts him… it was good enough. The moon seems to echo your vows with dancing rays, stars twinkling in approval as the calls of night birds carry through the open window.

There are no rings, no written formalities to be stored away with dust-ridden papers, preyed upon by mites. It’s far more sacred, genuine than the flippant affairs and arrangements that go on with those that would so readily cast the both of you aside. In truth— the thought of them rarely comes; doesn’t even rile up that intense fear inside of you any longer.

Everything only seems easier with the blooming garden outdoors, and the man who gazes upon you like he sees divinity itself behind your eyes, in the softness of your flesh.

When you kiss, it’s something from a fairytale, flowers strewn at your feet and the veil removed from your hair by a gentle hand.

Eden doesn’t seem so much like a memory lost to time, after all.

#könig x reader #könig x you #konig x reader #konig x you #könig #konig #cod fanfiction

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lunavelha · 9 months ago

Text

Come Back, be here.

Paring : Laxus Dreyar x f!reader.

Word Count : 3381.

Contains : Explicit content, beginning of smut, thigh riding. Minors DNI.

My note : English is not my main tongue, and i do not have any beta reader, so sorry if I have made any mistake ! Also, it was supposed to be longer, but I didn’t wrote a smut for such a long time that I stopped it before. I hope you can still enjoy it tho’ !

Be careful spoiler of tenor arc /!\

⋆.ೃ࿔⛈ ݁ ˖*༄⋆.ೃ࿔⛈ ݁ ˖*༄⋆.ೃ࿔⛈ ݁ ˖*༄⋆.ೃ࿔⛈ ݁ ˖*༄⋆.ೃ࿔⛈ ݁ ˖*༄⋆.ೃ࿔⛈ ݁ ˖*༄

7 years. 7 long years had passed, so much pain had been caused by the disappearance of her friends, since he had disappeared. She hadn't had a chance to speak with him after he'd been exiled from the guild, and unfortunately, the last words they'd exchanged had been words of anger. It had started out as a small argument, but in just a few minutes it had grown into something much bigger.

Ever since that day, (y/n) had been replaying her own words over and over in her mind. She told herself that she could have understood his point of view better, that she shouldn't have been so mean or defensive, that she could have asked him to talk, to sit down, or at least to separate for a few minutes until he calmed down. (Y/n) now had to carry the guilt on her shoulders, now that he was gone, she would never have the chance to make amends.

She had needed to get as far away from the guild as possible, everything reminded her of Laxus, his place at the bar, the table where he usually sat with the Thunder God Tribe, or even just her house. His scent was still in the sheets, his clothes were still in the wardrobe. She'd never found the courage to take them off, she didn't want to lose him again. (Y/n) still had a small part of hope inside her that he wasn't dead after all, that he'd turn up on her doorstep and everything would go back to the way it was before. But she knew it was a lost cause, something she dreamt about every night.

And then one fine morning, Lamia Scale was there, saying that at last there might still be some realistic hope. The energy at the island hadn't completely disappeared, and was slowly building up again after all these years. (Y/n) had simply let her gaze wander to the horizon, but what if it wasn't true? Perhaps the magic really was returning to this place, but without giving their friends a chance of survival. The young woman had refused to go on an adventure with the others, but she could see that some of them were terribly happy, especially the members of Shadow Gear. She had no right to let her feelings get the better of her too, she had to keep a cold head, keep her hopes deep in her heart, and above all, not let anyone see it.

"-You can go home, it's possible they'll be back tomorrow, there's no real point in spending the night here. When they're back, don't worry, you'll know." Macao said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"-I...I don't even know why I'm still here. Every time they leave, we end up disappointed... If you only knew how much I want it to be the right one, for them to suddenly walk through the door, for Gray to strip, for Natsu to start fighting him, for Erza to try and separate them so that her cake gets destroyed, and for her to finally join in the fight too. And Laxus... Even if he came back, could he come back to the guild? Would he want to talk to me..." She looked at the guild leader, before shaking her head. "-I'm just at my breaking point sometimes."

"-Go get some rest, you're back from a mission. But we're here, we can support you, okay? Whether it's tomorrow, or even for years, we're with you. One day we'll understand, one day I'm sure we'll find them." He nodded to her towards the door. "-I'll walk you out, Romeo's still outside, you know how he's been since..."

"-He lost Natsu, we all know how much he admires him. He's like me on this one, too much hope ends up hurting, he's protecting himself."

Macao and (y/n) left the guild, walking through the streets of Magnolia. The young woman looked around, trying to find Romeo, it was a way for her not to think about what was going to happen in the next few hours at least. Once at Magnolia South Park, (y/n) noticed Romeo sitting against the tree, looking around. He too didn't want to get his hopes up. Telling Macao that she could finish on her own, she left him to go and talk to his son.

The young woman arrived home a few minutes later, and sat down on her sofa, looking in front of her, where on the small table was a drawing of the Thunder God Tribe, a gift from Reader.

The only thing she could do now was wait, and above all, hope to see her lifelong love alive again.

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Hours had passed without any real news. (y/n) finally got up and stood in front of the window, trying to see someone from the guild approaching. But no one came. When there was a sudden knock on the door, she frowned, wondering who it could be, and went straight to open it.

Behind her was Bisca, a slight smile on her face. It was surprising, since she hadn't seen her coming from the guild, perhaps she came here from the boat?

"-I figured you'd be here." She smiled at him, "-Come on, let's get back to the guild."

"-If you're here it's to say something, no need to leave to do so."

"-I'm not saying anything until we get back to the guild. Take your jacket or don't, but I'm not waiting for you."

The woman leaves her house, letting (y/n) stand here for a few seconds, wondering what she should do. She knew that she would be disappointed at the end, that they didn’t find anyone. But… what if ? What if he has come back ? Having finally made her decision, she left her house, barely taking the time to lock her front door. Bisca hadn't waited for her, and had already started on her way to the guild. (Y/n) had to run to catch up with her, coming to her side without saying a word.

A lump of anxiety had filled her stomach, and she could feel it growing as they walked.

After a few minutes, she stopped, hearing much more noise than usual coming from the guild. (Y/n) looked at Bisca, as if to ask if she was dreaming. So much noise could only mean one thing. A Fairy Tail party. A celebration. And so, the return of their companions, their friends, their family. The woman smiled gently at her, nodding. That was enough for (y/n) to start running, her heart beating so fast she could hear it in her ears. She didn't waste a second opening the door of the guild, discovering all those they had lost 7 years ago, all those they had mourned, cried.

And suddenly, in front of his eyes, was Natsu ruffling Romeo's hair, like a big brother would. Macao with Mirajane and Makarov chatting at the bar, probably making up for lost time. Erza with a slice of strawberry cake, while being with Alzack. Levy surrounded by Jet and Droy, crying non-stop as she tries to reassure them. Gildarts and Cana were at a table, a beer in front of each of them. Lisanna, Elfman, Lucy, Wendy, Gray, Juvia, Gajeel... Everyone was finally back.

She entered the room, attracting stares from her friends, but each of them said nothing - they knew who she was looking for. She too had the right to find him without being interrupted. Her gaze fell on his blond hair, and her eyes softened as tears quickly filled her eyes. Laxus turned around after Fried nudged him lightly, pointing to the young woman with a shake of his head.

Laxus rose from the bar, his gaze meeting the eyes of the woman he loved, the woman who had never really left his thoughts, the woman he had thought of directly when he woke up on this island. He was the first to move forward, realising that she must still be in a state of shock.

When he reached her level, he looked her up and down, realising that he had not kept his promise to always be there for her. For years she had been alone, she had suffered, she had probably had to fight. And he had simply disappeared from the face of the earth thanks to the Fairy Sphere. It was their only means of survival, and yet he blamed himself. Of course, Acnologia's arrival was not his fault, or that of anyone else in the guild, but he regretted his past actions. He'd been so blinded by it that he'd forgotten that behind it all, once the doors were closed, there was someone who loved him.

His hand rose to rest tenderly on her cheek, never taking his eyes off her for a second. He was trying to communicate his endless love for her, words had never really been his forte, but at this moment, he promised himself he would make an effort. She deserved it, she deserved all the happiness in the world, and Laxus wanted to be part of her happiness, he wanted to make her smile every morning when he kissed her, when he told her he loved her.

“-Laxus…” She whispers in a trembling voice.

“-I’m here now my love, I will never leave you again. I swear.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb, smiling. “-I’m sorry for everything that happened in the past, I will make up to you, we will be happy if you still want us to be together.”

“-Of course I want us, I never even thought about leaving you. Now that you are here again, you are stuck with me.” She let out a small laugh, although you could hear the emotion in her voice.

The blond smiled at her tenderly, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head, holding her against him as a few tears escaped from her eyes. The guild members around them looked on in delight. Makarov, the master, well, the former master, was happy to see his grandson reunited with the woman who loved him. Of course, he still couldn't understand how Laxus could have strayed from the straight and narrow by having someone like (y/n) by his side, but the main thing was that now, he wasn't just interested in possessing power.

Surprisingly, even Natsu hadn't said anything, he hadn't intervened to ask (y/n) to fight him, or Laxus. He'd realised that this wasn't the time, and it was one of the rare occasions when he finally understood the need not to be interrupted. Gray had done the same, not yet trying to provoke the pink-haired one, after all he could wait.

Once the reunion at the guild centre was over, (y/n) and Laxus headed towards the Thunder God Tribe to have a little more privacy. The young woman smiled at Freed, Bickslow and Evergreen; she'd had time to really get to know them since she was a child, but also in a different way as Laxus's girlfriend. Once the blond was seated, he pulled her closer to him, making her sit on his lap, putting a firm arm around her waist to hold her against his body.

“-You’re coming back to the guild right ?” She whispers to his only attention, looking at him expectantly.

“-I don’t know yet baby, for the moment I’m just happy to be here. I will speak to gramps later.”

“-Then you’re still living with me, I have your stuff in my closet.”

“-Of course, even if I didn’t want to, you would have kidnapped me, you little minx.”

The couple started to laugh, happy to finally be back together after so many years. She did not let him go, keeping her arms around him.

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For the rest of the night, (y/n) stayed with Laxus, her face against his chest, finally complete again. The guild had slowly begun to empty, with those who had lodgings outside leaving to join him. The young woman couldn't help but feel sorry for her friends, as when they had disappeared, the guild had managed to pay some of the rent so that their debts weren't too high, but over the last 4 years, this had become totally impossible. Missions had become rarer and rarer, guide members were leaving, and the worst was during the Grand Magic Games. The guild's reputation had been destroyed in such a short space of time.

Laxus drew her attention by gently kissing her cheek, making her lift her face towards him so that she could meet his gaze. There was so much love in his eyes that (y/n) thought she might start crying again just from that.

"I love you.” She said softly, placing a hand on his jaw. "And I missed you terribly."

"I love you too". He grabs her hand and places a kiss on it. "Let's go home, shall we? I need to be forgiven.”

There was something in his gaze that instantly lit a flame in (y/n). It was a look she could recognise at any moment, something she could never forget. And it told her that her night was not about to end. The woman agreed, rising first, followed by Laxus, who wasted no time in taking her hand and pulling her out of the guild.

The walk to their shared flat seemed to last an eternity, with Laxus's firm hand still in hers, leading the way at a quick pace. He didn't even take a second to look around, the only thing that mattered to him at the moment was (y/n). He had never felt the need to be close to her so strongly, the need to kiss her, to show her his love, to prove to her that he had come back and that he would never leave her alone again.

No sooner had they entered their flat than Laxus pushed her against the door, pressing his lips directly against hers in a passionate, fiery kiss. The couple knew that if they had kissed in the guild, they would have ended up putting on a show that their friends would not have wanted to see. And all that tension was being released as the two came to lose themselves in each other's arms.

"-If you only knew how much I'd missed your lips." He said between kisses, his voice having suddenly become deeper, his hands had begun to venture down her body, reaching under her T-shirt to caress the soft skin of her stomach. "-I missed your body, your skin, your voice, everything about you."

"-Laxus..." She intervenes in a low voice, meeting his gaze. "-I need you so much, please." Her voice became more plaintive, almost begging.

“-I know baby, but you gotta wait.” He replied softly, continuing to kiss her.

They kissed again, Laxus gently running his tongue over her lips before nibbling her bottom lip. At his movement, (y/n) let out a plaintive moan. Between her thighs, she could already feel the moisture building up, and only the desire to see the blond man take care of it filled her mind. However, he seemed determined to discover her body again, as if it were their first time. (Y/n) came and put his arms around her shoulders, bringing him even closer to her. She could feel a lump forming against her, but knew better than to say anything to him, the tension had to be built up, they both had to get closer to the edge, the better they would fall.

The blonde only broke the kiss for a few seconds, just long enough to look at his girlfriend, her eyes slightly moist, filled with passion and desire. A desire that only he was capable of satisfying. This thought only excited him even more, and he came back to kiss her fiercely, removing his own jacket at the same time and letting it fall to their feet. (y/n)'s jacket joined it only moments later.

Their body temperature seemed to have risen a hundred degrees in just a few minutes, and all it took was one kiss to fill them with excitement.

The couple began to explore each other's bodies over the top of their clothes, and Laxus was the first to put his hands under her top again to touch her body. Sensing (y/n)'s curves, he broke the kiss they were sharing, nibbling her neck to put a few love marks on it, leaving his mark, showing everyone that she was his, and his alone.

“-Such a good girl for me, so sweet, so soft.” His deep voice sent shivers down (y/n)'s spine, making her close her eyes as she looked forward to the next step.

“-Please, please, I’ll be good for you, but please, just touch me already.”

He clicked his tongue lightly, shaking his head as he looked at her disapprovingly. Slowly, he raised a hand, catching her jaw.

"I taught you to be patient, have you forgotten everything already? It's all right, we'll start again from the beginning."

Laxus looked at her, placing a gentle kiss on her lips. He intended to take his time, of course, but he could only understand her desire, her needs. The blond was going to tease her, but in the end, she would be the one to have the last word.

(Y/n) smiled softly, she could feel that he wanted to touch her as much as she did, and yet he held back. The blond returned to kiss her neck just after he had removed her T-shirt, revealing her bra, and using one of his hands, he untied the last piece of clothing, leaving her breasts for him to see alone. Laxus turned his gaze to it, placing one of her breasts in his hand, taking her nipple between two fingers and beginning to touch it. As for the second, he took it into his mouth, sucking gently. The young woman quickly began to moan, throwing her head back against the front door.

She had waited so long to feel his touch, to feel the pleasure that only he could make her feel for 7 years, 7 long years. Laxus was a desperate man, he wanted to see her face contort with pleasure, so he came to torture her chest, coming to knead her breasts one after the other.

(y/n) felt her body getting hotter and hotter, the fire completely overwhelming her at the sensation Laxus was making her feel. The blond looked up at her, before slowly moving his second hand down to his trousers, unzipping them. She didn't waste another second sliding them down his legs. He pulled his mouth away from her, putting his arms around her waist to carry her.

Quickly, he took the common path to the bedroom, before sitting on the edge of the bed, leaving her on his lap. She came to kiss him, putting her arms around his neck, her breasts pressed against his chest.

Laxus's hands came to rest on her buttocks as he quickly devoured her lips. Their tongues began a dance together, both with their eyes closed, and both craving each other more and more. The blond came to move her against him, and the young woman moaned into his mouth as she felt her humidity rub against the blond's trousers, giving him a much-needed rub for his crotch.

“-Go ahead baby, come on, use me.”

(y/n) didn't hesitate, starting to accelerate against him. Laxus's fingers became firmer on her buttocks, helping her with her movements. He didn't waste a second of the show, his face concentrated on hers, watching her eyebrows furrow with pleasure, her eyes close as soon as one of the rubbing strokes touched her clitoris particularly well, her half-open mouth letting out moans of pleasure.

“-I know you’re getting closer, baby girl. Does it feel good ? Do you like using my legs for your little pleasure ? We have the entire night for it, you have no idea of how much orgasm I will give you.”

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©Lunavelha

Do not repost somewhere else, do not translate, or use in any way.

#fairy tail #fairy tail laxus #laxus dreyar #fairy tail x reader #laxus x reader #laxus smut #laxus dreyar x reader

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theresattrpgforthat · 2 months ago

Text

Mint Plays Games: Changelings, Trauma & Gaming

Over the course of October and November, I returned to one of my favourite ttrpgs of all time with @thydungeongal and my girlfriend: Changeling the Lost. About once or twice a year, I get the itch to run the 1st edition of this lovely, lore-heavy game, and every year I come away from it thinking about its potential. This is meant to be a quick break-down of my latest Changeling session, as well as a reflection on the parts of Changeling that really touch my heart.

The Game.

This game happened over three sessions, involving a character creation session, and two sessions of play. We had one character who was a Darkling Gravewright - folks who dealt with the dead in their time in Faerie (and can also see ghosts), and another who was a Fairest Flamesiren, whose entire deal is about burning bright, but also burning out quickly.

I decided to give these girls a murder mystery, with a mortal body found just outside a gate to a Goblin Market, and a missing changeling to track down. We’d talked about themes of grief and addiction prior to my planning stage, so I figured dealing with both a death and a place that offers your wildest dreams (for a price) might be a good place to start.

I don’t like planning out specific plot beats in my games, so instead I tried designing the Market like an adventure location, with various vendors to tempt the players with their wares, while dotting the landscape with NPCs in various states of distress. I figured the Changelings would pick something that resonated with them, and we could go from there. This process also generated a few different villainous characters who could be responsible for the murder, which I’m glad I did, because as usual, what the players decide to do always falls outside the bounds of what the GM plans for.

The story ended up being about saving a kidnapped changeling from a hungry Fae, and bluffing through a group of Privateers (read: mercenaries) and bringing the victim to safety. However, they didn't escape completely unscathed - coming face to face with a True Fae caused a cascade of terrible memories coming back to visit one of our characters right after she thought she'd made it to safety.

Our session was an introduction to the world and lore of Changeling, and I feel like I did a pretty good job on that front. On the other hand, I felt like it was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the things I think Changeling can be about.

The Potential

When it comes to the World of Darkness in general, I think Changeling: the Lost has a relatively sleek amount of lore regarding the various Courts, Seemings, and faerie characters. Each Changeling’s durance can be typified, but ultimately what they went through can be up to the player who designs them, and the Hedge is limitless in its weird and strange creatures, which gives the GM license to create all kinds of goblins and monsters to fit what they want their game to be about - and the players aren’t really expected to know what’s going on in there anyways. Most Freehold history exists in rumour, because talking too openly about it feels like you’re inviting the Fae to your front doorstep, and in the same way, the true nature of the Fae is left up to rumour and superstition, allowing your group to decide what they really are, or leave their nature forever a mystery.

That being said, the toys that you can play with are still more numerous than anything that you can fit into any one campaign, even if you’re playing that campaign for 4+ years. You can very easily play Changeling as a magical urban fantasy game (and I’ve done this fairly regularly with my group), but C:tL also has a lot of poignant themes that can delve into themes about trauma, addiction, and mental health.

Disclaimer: CtL is not always graceful in the way it represents mental health. There are antagonists presented in the books that come across as “madmen”, some pretty gross Merits you can take that can feel bad to play at most tables, and characters that have lost what makes them human, becoming threats to the players. However, I think that the Clarity system does have some interesting ideas in it that, if treated with care, can still provide some interesting depth to the game.

Clarity

Clarity is meant to be a measure of how well your character can tell truth from Fiction - a high enough Clarity score, and you can sniff out a Fae even if they’re trying to hide themselves; a low enough Clarity Score, and you have a hard time differentiating colour and smell, and might even start seeing an overlay of your Durance infiltrating your weekly grocery trip.

Your Changeling moves up in Clarity if they’re able to keep a stable life with elements that help you ground yourself and give you a sense of identity - and mechanically, once you spend Experience points. Your Changeling moves down in Clarity when they suffer “sins” - moments that disrupt that hard-won stability. This sins could be something we’d consider morally fraught, such as stealing, assaulting someone, or murder - but they could also be significant life changes, like losing your job, buying a house, losing a friend or getting married. You also always suffer a Clarity sin when you come in contact with a reminder of your durance - particularly a True Fae.

The higher your Clarity score is, the harder it is to keep yourself there. Smaller and smaller things can trigger a Breaking point, like going a day without human contact, starting a new college course, or using a Faerie token. Furthermore, the lower your Clarity score, the more difficult it is for you to tell truth from fiction - think of the scenes in Mockingjay where Peeta has to ask Katniss “real or not real” and try to trust her answers.

It doesn’t help that so many pieces of the Changeling experience after getting out of the Hedge seems designed to Fuck You Up - like the doppelgänger that’s been living your life ever since you left, or the fact that mortals can’t seem to notice the ways that Faerie has changed you: you can feel the horns on your head, but all they touch is a well-coiffed hairstyle. In many ways it feels like your whole experience with Faerie is invisible - and you’re fairly certain that even if you told a mortal the truth, they’d never believe you. If they did believe you, they would never treat you the same again.

I like this system because it doesn't really measure how "good" or "bad" your character is - instead it's a representation of how your lived experiences can often trigger symptoms even if others get lucky enough to survive those events with their mental health intact. I'm not a bit fan of derangements - but I think dropping in Clarity is an excellent time to ask characters about pieces of their time in Faerie that haunt them, and perhaps saddle them with Frailties instead - what personal rules do you have to follow in order to navigate the world when you have a hard time telling friend from foe?

Other Themes & Metaphors

The Fae themselves are also exquisite boogeymen, mercurial abusers without the familiar human emotions that we might feel more equipped to understand. They act on their whims and follow their appetites - and while real-life abusers often have very human reasons for being that way, we need not feel such compunctions from the Fae.

We might have to feel some compunctions about their right-hand Loyalists however, changelings who have agreed to work for their Fae Masters in exchange for some semblance of freedom. These are enablers: giving the Fae a step into the mortal realm and throwing mortals and other Lost under the bus, just so the True Fae won't turn their abuses back onto them.

Much of the ethos of the seasonal courts in the first edition has to do with different strategies for preventing a day where you find yourself back under your abuser’s control. Do you pretend that everything is fine, because they won’t recognize their victims if they’re happy? Make yourself physically stronger so you can tell yourself that you’ll win next time? Amass magic rituals in the hopes that learning just the right order of steps will keep you safe? Or do you make yourself as un-interesting as possible in the hopes that they give up on you for other prey? (Yes, I think the Winter Court could totally be all about grey-rocking).

On top of that, the Changelings that your characters embody (and interact with) are far from perfect. They have vices, fears and trauma responses that pull and push them into a dance of backstabbing, power-grabbing politics, full of seeking the upper hand and possibly even selling out their fellows in a gambit meant to keep the Fae focused on someone other than them. (A political game or LARP with these themes in mind feels so juicy to me.)

Next is the metaphors of power and/or addiction. The higher your Wyrd is, the more Glamour you can hold, and the more powerful your magic is. At the same time, the more Glamour you can hold, the more you need to hold it: what starts as a fun magical resource can grow into an addiction, if you lean into it hard enough. Sure, your Contracts become easier to activate and you can Incite Bedlam if you get powerful enough, but are you willing to chance withdrawal if you can’t get your daily fix of goblin fruit? How much are you willing to play with human emotions in order to get that sweet sweet taste of anger or grief?

Then there’s the seeming-specific traumas. Beasts struggle with wondering whether they can be human after giving in to animal instinct; Darklings fell into Faerie because they crossed an invisible or moral line and have had to make morally questionable decisions in order to survive. Elementals are used to being treated as part of the scenery, moulded to fit the whims of their captors; Fairest are constantly pressured to be the prettiest or the best with the threat of terrible terrible things should they fail. Ogres have undergone terrible physical hardships, including physical mistreatment and deprivation, while Wizened have been told time and time again that they are only worth something if they are useful. Stepping out of Faerie doesn’t magically “fix” any of these complexes, and as a result each Seeming has to wrestle with stereotypes even amongst their own: if you need someone murdered, go to a Darkling, If you need something made, go to a Wizened. If you need a hot piece of ass, a Fairest is sure to oblige - right?

Lastly, there's the Fetch: a copy of yourself that was made to replace you when the Fae took you away. This other-you is often so much better or so much worse than the person they used to be - they can act as a foil to your character, haunting you or making your life difficult, reminding you of who you used to be, or never letting others forget how badly you may have screwed up. In Changeling society, killing your Fetch is at the very least a regrettably convenient way of tying up loose ends, and at the most, a rite of passage. But it's also a surefire way to risk losing Clarity. Kind of a catch-22 situation, isn't it?

My Experience So Far

Past Changeling sessions I’ve run have included NPCs getting kidnapped by misguided friends, stumbling across characters who were at an all-time Clarity low, trying to save other Changelings from their Faerie kidnappers, cannibals, Fetches, and antagonists who are set out to betray one or more factions of the Freehold that is supposed to protect them. It’s always bits and pieces of what feels like a bigger picture.

On the one hand, I think that's to be expected. There's so much in this game, and I doubt that any campaign can really dig in to all of its systems and complexities. On the other hand, I’m not sure if I’ve been able to really dig into the themes of Changeling: the Lost in the way that I’d really love to be able to do.

The subject matter can be so close to real struggles, that I’m nervous about making those struggles too bare-faced at my local table. Gas-lighting, torture, hallucinations, drug abuse and cannibalism are so very easy to drop into a Changeling game, but are also so very easy to hit uncomfortable moments for someone who's unprepared.

At the same time, I think that playing a game like Changeling with a high-trust table that uses robust safety features has so many interesting stories that can give power to players, even if the setting is technically a horror one. I’ve been having conversations with @psychhound about a lot of the themes that folks try to explore in ttrpgs, especially in response to this post he commented on back in April. To summarize that conversation: TTRPGs are a great way for folks to tackle personal struggles and traumas from a safe place, in ways that can give them a cathartic experience or that can give them a fresh sense of identity. Changeling has been a significant part of those discussions.

I came to Changeling: the Lost as a fairly new GM the first time I picked it up, and the more I learn about Safety Tools and a culture of care, the closer I feel to getting to that game that lives in my head that lured me into TTRPGS in the first place. Every time I come back to It, I think I'm closer to pulling together a Changeling game that sinks its teeth into the themes I’m interested in and hit some of the grime beneath all that glitter. So every time I come back to it, I’m going to create funky little goblins and design weird Fae bars and take the characters’ memories and ask them why they hurt - figuring out how I can twist the knife just enough to peel back the glamour, without opening any wounds that we’re trying to keep closed.

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #changeling the lost #mint plays games #mint speaks #world of darkness

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twilightkitkat · 3 months ago

Note

OK QUESTION with the one series with the different universe we see how you think the X-Men would react to a similar Logan being so close with Deadpool.

BUT

How do you think our main universe reacts to the relationship especially when they compare this new Logan to the fallen hero?

This is such an interesting question that I thought about it for a while before answering because I wanted to do it justice. Firstly, I want to clarify that my answer takes place in a world where all the X-men are miraculously alive somehow except for Logan (maybe by some time shenanigans or just twisting the plot).

---

The world at large would be shocked to see The Wolverine again, especially after he was confirmed dead and his bones were buried. The TVA wouldn't want the entire world to know about them, and Logan and Wade would probably be the type to never really formally address his existence (since they aren't actually official heroes or a government body).

His resurrection would likely spark a lot of conspiracy theories and people wondering if he had a secret mission where he pretended to die or if he had a reason to stage his death. It's almost like the urban legend of Bigfoot with how rarely he shows up (somehow always next to the same red vigilante).

Aside from the initial shock, the public reception would be very positive. Who wouldn't want to see your childhood superhero back in action again? People would be excited to see him rejoin the X-men only to be extremely confused when he showed no interest in returning to his superhero work (especially when they assumed he either died and came back or was on a mission and so would naturally want back his spot).

As a matter of fact, after initial sightings of him in his suit, he just sort of... fades away. He never really makes public appearances or is involved in much of anything. He looks different than he did before and he always dresses casually. This combined with the lack of media about him after the initial outrage means that he only occasionally gets recognized in public.

(Something he's secretly very grateful for. He disliked being reminded of his past, of a world where he wasn't a failure. Of the version of him that was revered instead of feared and hated. He has to stop himself from flinching sometimes when people loudly yell out, "It's The Wolverine!" He lays low for a while in Wade's apartment, only accompanying him sometimes on covert missions until people mostly stop caring about his existence.)

But more than public confusion is the confusion of the X-men. They heard the truth through Colossus that this Wolverine was from another universe than their own and that he'd helped save their timeline.

(And most of the X-men were very confused because... why does Colossus know this of all people? Why didn't Logan just come to tell them himself? They knew Colossus was in cahoots with this vigilante vaguely from the time he visited the mansion, but they didn't know he was actually close to him. And why did being Deadpool's friend give him exclusive access to The Wolverine and his situation?)

They expected Logan to show up at their doorstep, one day. He apparently had the X-men in his own world, and while Colossus never really elaborated further (despite their prodding) they could surmise something happened to them if Logan was staying here. It's a perfect fit: the X-men who lost their Wolverine and the Wolverine who lost his X-men.

But he never does. At first, they chalk it up to him going on one of his solo trips. He liked to do that—to go out into the wilderness or disappear on some unspecified mission. He never really stayed in one place too long. (It was his personality, wasn't it? He got antsy being tied down to commitment and wanted to be free from everyone. It was fine even if it was inconvenient, it was just how he was.)

But then he never makes an effort to get involved. To reach out to them. He doesn't show any interest at all in returning to his old life or taking up the helm of an X-man again.

This Logan couldn't be all that different from theirs, right? Even if he was a lone wolf type who kept up his guard and acted gruffly, he only really had them. They took him in and fed him and clothed him and he showed up when shit went sideways in return. A perfect, neat, package with a bow on top.

But then a month passes. Then two. And even if he was the type to do his own thing, this was a little ridiculous. He'd just come back to life and didn't even bother showing up?

They all cornered Colossus, one day. Asked him about his well-being and what he was doing. Why he wasn't reaching out and when they should expect him to come back.

His answer shocked them. Apparently, Logan wasn't out on a mission at all. Instead, he was staying with Deadpool at his apartment and just... living there. Existing. He wasn't even particularly busy, he just hadn't visited. When they inquired further, Colossus smiled slightly and said that he seemed happy there. Content. That Wade was good for Logan and Logan was good for him, too.

It was... hard to wrap their heads around. Logan—fierce, closed-off, restless—just staying in one place? Content to just live with someone and accompany them on mercenary jobs.

Since when did Logan prefer teamwork? He always tried to turn joint missions into solo ones, and went out of his way to brush people off.. More than that—Logan, a mercenary? He'd rather pick up illegal work for some extra cash than return to being a hero? To being with them? Why did he decide to stay in a shitty apartment taking shady jobs for rent instead of just staying for free at their mansion? It made no sense.

It all came to a head when Laura (who'd been staying with them but largely kept to herself around the X-men) had her birthday party. They had parties often for the children in the mansion, that wasn't anything new. Except for the fact that the Wolverine was coming. She'd been excited when she mentioned that both Logan and Wade were going to show up (they didn't even know she'd stayed in touch with them).

(Why was the first time they saw Logan at a birthday party for someone else? Were they not enough? They'd taken him in despite his... difficult personality. What more did he want?)

And Logan comes. But he's entirely different than their Logan, the one they remember.

He's more... relaxed, somehow. He looks less hostile and cagey, letting his muscles relax and his head lean back. He looks like a man content with life instead of the guy who ran away the first chance he got, who always had an itch under his skin to move and never stayed too long.

He sticks to Wade like glue. They're always touching, somehow. An arm around the shoulders, a hand placed firmly on Wade's waist, fingers intertwined, legs pressed together. Logan is touchy in a way he never was with them.

And the way he looks at Wade—like he hung the stars and the moon and the sky itself. Even when they try to catch his eye from across the room, to get him to come over, he doesn't pay attention. His eyes are firmly locked on Wade's face, a warmth there (a softness) that they'd never seen before.

Wade gawks at the mansion and its decoration, flitting between Colossus and Negasonic and Yukio, gleefully grabbing some of the food. And Logan stays by his side the whole time, only watching him, murmuring in his occasionally which makes Wade either jab him in the elbow or cackle.

(And Logan lets him. He doesn't even retaliate aside from a grunt when Wade punches him in the arm, rolling his eyes and flicking his forehead in return but entirely content to let Wade at him. The trust there was so obvious it was painful. The familiarity. The warmth.)

The first time Logan takes his eyes off Wade is when Laura comes up to them. His eyes soften as he looks at her, almost imperceptibly if not for the fact that in their memories, his eyes were always hard. Guarded. They could count on one hand the number of times they saw even a semblance of that expression, normally involving Jean or Rogue.

Laura hugs him, grinning as she prattles on about whatever she'd been doing lately. Logan hugs her back, arms coming to wrap firmly around her. Easy affection. She pulls back and Wade hugs her too, spinning her around in the air as she laughs and hits him and asks him to put her down.

When Logan looks at them, the fondness is so obvious it's painful. They were used to seeing Logan show emotion—anger, sadness, fear, arousal. But never softness. (Especially not for a tumor-ridden mercenary and an experiment built off of his DNA.)

The party continues like that, with Logan leaning against Wade and basking in his presence. Hiding in his shadow when he's tired, leaning his forehead against Wade's shoulder.

Until they finally decide to approach them. Scott and Jean hold hands as they approach him for the first time, tired of observing him all night. Storm follows closely behind.

"Logan, nice seeing you man. It's, uh, been a while," Scott smiles crookedly at him. He expects Logan to respond how he normally does. To grin back, insult him, and start up their typical banter.

Like a well-oiled machine, they kept their rivalry going. Logan and Scott would act like they hated each other in public and fight like children over Jean until she inevitably chose Scott (and then it'd repeat). Sometimes, in the quiet of the night or an emotional moment, they'd become more. But that was rare, and Scott preferred the comfortable rhythm they normally kept to.

But Logan barely looked at him, nodded, and then turned back to Wade as he talked about some kid's show.

"Logan, that was a little rude, don't you think? We haven't heard from you in a while, it's good to see you're doing well." Jean lightly scolded him before letting her face melt into a smile. It was meant to be welcoming. Kind.

Scott tightened his arm around Jean. He knew Jean would always choose him, in the end, but it was annoying to see Logan flirt with her. She'd entertain him enough, and occasionally the three would wind in bed together in a moment of passion. But Jean was his, in the end.

Except, Logan didn't react. He just grunted in response. When his eyes met Jean's they were completely devoid of any attraction. He didn't flirt with her or pay her any attention. His eyes were solely on Wade.

It was only when Wade's eyes flicked toward them and he waved that Logan bothered to acknowledge their existence.

"Oh, hey! You guys are the real deal! The original X-men! The ones that took the 2000s by storm and made Marvel a shit ton of money," he rambled. His face was... interesting, to say the least.

Logan snorted. "Did you not expect to see the X-men in the X-mansion, bub?" The first time he verbally admitted they were even there.

"Considering the budget on my previous movies? Fuck no. It was too expensive to even have a good cameo, let alone actually have them on screen for more than a minute to have a conversation."

...What the hell was he talking about? He sounded clinically insane. And Logan was living with this guy?

But Logan laughed, genuinely, and it was like the world stopped spinning. He smiled and his eyes wrinkled, forming crescents. He teased Wade back in response, but they were stuck in that moment.

Logan was never like that. Never open, never soft. He cared, in a distant way, but he never really stayed. (Was it really that? Was it that he never tried to stay, or that they never gave him reason to? That they never gave him the chance before shutting the door in his face.)

But here it was. Physical proof that he was capable of looking at someone so softly. Of melting his hard exterior and becoming someone softer. Someone capable of cherishing the person they loved, of being domesticated.

Because there was really no other way than "domesticated" to describe him. He used to be like a wild animal—all sharp edges, jagged teeth, and razor-sharp claws. He snarled and growled at anyone who got too close and cornered him. He'd drop by for food, but snatch it and run off.

(But that's the thing about wild animals, isn't it? To get them to calm down, to stop seeing you as a threat, you need to be patient. To reach out. To prove you're safe. Did they ever really try?)

And now he even looked different. His hard muscles had filled out with a layer of fat. He looked healthy, like he wasn't just a tool built to fight and gnaw on the scraps he was given. He looked like a person who went home and ate a warm, balanced dinner at night. Who got adequate sleep and had all of his needs taken care of.

They thought that Logan's personality was rough, sharp, and jagged. That he was just Like That, and that it was useless to try to change it.

(After all, the bad boy is just someone you flirt with. Not someone you take him. Jean had said that, hadn't she?

And Logan had told her he could be the "good guy." Tried to show that he was capable of being more than just how he acted when he was hurt and alone. But she brushed it off. They all did.

And yet here Logan was. Soft and entranced by Wade in a way he never had been, even with her. Looking at him with something so much deeper than lust or attraction or infatuation. Looking at him with devotion. Reverence. Complete and utter love.)

But Logan wasn't Like That. He had always wanted to be soft. To be able to curl up next to somebody and trace the curve of their spine with his fingertips. He'd always yearned for a home he could feel genuinely warm in, where he'd be accepted and allowed to be vulnerable even if it wasn't pretty.

He'd only been hard because he had to. Because if he wasn't, the biting words and indifference of everyone around him would cut so deep he'd never recover. Because if he let himself love and be vulnerable with the X-men and they still viewed him as a passerby, as a tool, as an outsider, as just someone to sleep with—he'd break.

But Wade gave him a home. Gave him the chance to finally love and be loved and not feel afraid. To finally relax and open up. To show his emotions without fear of being scorned and to know he'd always be taken seriously. To not just be seen as the bad boy, but as a broken man desperate for anyone to cling to and feel cared for.

He was finally seen as more than just a stereotype. He was seen and loved for he was.

He was used to being hidden. Like a shameful secret. Jean was embarrassed to like him. Scott hid him away during the night and fought him during the day. He was a temptation, but that was it. They'd always choose each other first. Every member of the X-men had their person, but he was nobody's.

But with Wade, for the first time in his life, he was the first choice. He was the priority. He got to eat at the table instead of being fed scraps thrown onto the floor.

Logan thought it was natural to be treated as lesser. To be an afterthought. But with Wade, who cradled his face like he was something precious and was willing to die for him, he realized that he could be loved just as fiercely as he loved Wade. As an equal. As partners.

And so when he saw the X-men, he reacted the same way they had all those years ago: with indifference. With the same detached care he'd grown so used to. He spared them the effort of a few words, of reluctant acknowledgment, but that was it. If they never wanted to look closer at him or care about his needs, it was fine. But he'd do the same.

After all, there was so need to scramble to collect crumbs when he was well-fed. There was no need to look for a shitty room in an empty-feeling mansion when he already had a home.

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six-eyed-samurai · 4 months ago

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SUMMARY: Someone turns up on Sanemi's doorstep after the final war - that someone being a part of Genya's life Sanemi regrets never knowing. A/N: NGL I lost a lot of respect for Sanemi after he tried to poke Genya's eyes out but I do feel really bad for him after the final battle with Muzan because what is he going to live for now? What's he going to do? Fall into depression, probably, and that just made me sad so here we are to be sad together. You don't have a choice. WARNINGS: Genya x GN Reader but mainly Platonic!Sanemi x Reader

Seeing as nearly everyone he had known was dead after the final war, the hesitant knocking at his door startled the wits out of one former Wind Hashira.

He probably shouldn’t have stayed up late last night drinking and wasting everything away because he could barely see straight stumbling towards the doors, cursing the early dawn, the furniture he stubbed his toe on and the pounding in his head, but nothing numbed the dull grief and pain better than being blackout drunk and coma-like sleep. At least Sanemi wasn’t seeing double like last time.

Although he was wondering if he was hallucinating shit, because ain’t no freaking way there was someone showing up at his doorstep at 6 in the morning asking if he was Shinazugawa and if he could please, if he didn’t mind, help them find someone?

“Yeah…what?”

They repeat their question, tugging nervously at their sleeves, hopeful underneath all that anxiety. “Are you Shinazugawa Sanemi? Genya told me to go find you if…”

“He’s-”

His first reaction, out of force of habit, was to deny that he had any brother, but the words glued themselves to the sides of his throat and would only spill out in the form of ugly sobbing. His second reaction was pretty much equally brutal: tell them that his brother had long died, sliced in half by the late Upper Moon One, all because he had failed in every duty possible, as a brother, as a slayer, as a human. But Sanemi, undeniably, had mellowed out and if he had to crack that porcelain-frail look of desperate hope in their eyes he too would shatter in his precarious mental state.

So he settled for delaying the inevitable. “If what? You a slayer?”

“No,” they say, shaking their head. “I…he was my, um…”

Oh.

No.

Please no.

“Your boyfriend,” he barks out bluntly, but tries to tone down and soften his expression when they wince, flustered. “That’s…”

Unexpected. He could still remember a time when Genya either beat down everyone and not gave a rat’s ass about it or when he would explode into a ripe tomato if someone good looking so much as said hello to him. Or maybe sweet. Sanemi’s always wanted him to have a normal life, go get married, have a family, live peacefully to a ripe old age while he did the bloody work of slaying. At least he got a taste of it. Most of all…sad, really. Sad that he pushed his younger brother away so much he never even know he’d fallen in love, someone new had entered his life, he’s gotten over his emotional constipation somewhat. Sad that he never got to spend the rest of his life with them like Sanemi had no doubt he had promised. Sad that they had never known, all this while, that Genya would never stagger home to them.

It seemed like this conversation would be one of trailed-off sentences.

They nod. “Yes…”

“Huh. Can see why he liked you,” Sanemi says off-handedly, but remembers he never actually knew what his brother’s type was. Funny how he only realized it was stupid of him to keep trying to cut off ties with his only brother after he died. But they are cute in their mannerisms, the air that just made you want to protect them forever, wrapped in innocence. No wonder Genya fell in love.

“Liked?” Their expression falls, but it’s still hopeful.

Sanemi can’t think what’s worse, for her to have the only option of thinking that Genya has moved on, fallen for someone else, left them behind because the other option is too terrible to contemplate. It’s the truth, however.

“Liked,” he repeats, and he can feel his mind just wanting to succumb to the hopeless pain. Sanemi digs his nails into his palm and bites the insides of his cheeks instead.

“I think I should start from the beginning.”

“Come on in, then.”

He waits until they're further into the room before he releases a breath, slumps his shoulders and stares at the sky to mouth his apologies to his brother for not giving him enough time to spend with them, to the gods for leading them on for so long, to someone, anyone, who would spare a sinner like him some forgiveness as he prepared to cry all over again about Genya.

***

“And then he told me if he isn’t at Himejima’s Estate, go find his older brother who’s probably living alone somewhere, scaring everyone away with his temper and dog.”

They laugh, clear as bells, at the memory, hiding their smile behind the steaming cup of tea, but it’s broken, like their fake grins and the mug in their hands. Sanemi wants to laugh too (is this how you really saw me, Genya, after all I did to you?), but he might actually start the waterworks. Sanemi was already halfway there, listening to his brother’s secret romance and everything he missed out because of his own foolishness.

“He said he hoped he’d finally be there with you, or if he wasn’t, you’d tell me where he went.”

I could tell you where he went, Sanemi agreed, because I saw him. When I was dying. And he was dead.

They fidgets, tugging at their clothes again. “I waited a really long time for a letter. He said he’d send me one if he could after the…after the fight, but it was so long. I checked up on Himejima’s Estate all the time, but he was never there. Nobody was. I asked around; they told me the owner had died and - and -”

“I know.” If he was a better person Sanemi would probably be reaching out to put a hand on their shoulder, assure them. If he were a better brother Genya would be alive and drinking tea with them. But he was none of those and so all he could do was awkwardly say two words. “Go on.”

“I didn’t know to look after that.” They wipe at their face, setting down the cup. “Genya said you had white hair and was covered in scars, and well, there aren’t that many of those sort of people around, but even then it took me forever to find you. I tried tracking down Muichiro, but I couldn’t either.”

Tokito. Another failure. Sanemi turned away slightly.

“Then I finally found Tanjiro last week. He’d been trying to find me as well, but heh, since I kept traveling it made it hard.” They shrug. “He told me where to find you, so here I am. Sorry for intruding…but it’s a little late for that.”

They glance around, clinging onto the belief. “Is he - is he here? Can I see him?”

“Yeah,” Sanemi whispers hoarsely. “I’ll take you to him.”

Not before he winds up sobbing himself dry on their shoulder, pathetically trying to assure them as well as tears streamed down both their faces.

***

There was no body but Sanemi had carved out a tombstone for him anyway.

It was under a tree, scattered with leaves, wilting flowers and weeds watered by his grief. Sometimes when Sanemi’s more sober and when he can light a candle without burning anything else he’ll leave some there, so waxy stubs are left over. That Kamado kid and his friends came down sometimes and left behind their mementos as well. Unlike his own home, Sanemi did his best to keep it clean.

He left to give them some privacy, walking a little further away, but even so the wind carried their words over and Sanemi couldn’t pretend he couldn’t hear them raging against fate, death, Genya.

“Why?”

“Why you?”

“Why would you do this to me?”

You and me both, kid, Sanemi thinks.

“You said you’d come back! You said you’d take me to see your aniki! We were going to - there was so much we haven’t - what am I supposed to do now, Genya? You were supposed to be here with Sanemi-san as well, not just me!”

He’s always been too caught up with himself. Damn, blind to what Genya really wanted to the end, Sanemi thinks wryly.

For a moment there seems to be someone else beside him. He turns and for a moment he sees someone’s shadow on the ground, someone smiling, someone asking. Someone who didn’t want him to go squandering his life on regrets; a favor, the silhouette seemed to say, so will you do it for me?

The answer was always yes - Sanemi blinks, and it’s gone, so he hurries back to the grave.

They're dragged out of their misery by a heavy hand, rough but gentle. “I’m sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be.” They hiccup and drag a hand across their face. “I'm sorry. Sorry for…I wish you both had gotten a chance…”

Sanemi laughed, voice scratchy. “That was my own fault.”

“You know what I mean.” They managed to roll their eyes.

“Where you going now?”

“I'm…not sure. I don't know. Back to my hometown, maybe, but there's not really anyone there.”

Anyone to go back to, they meant.

“Tch.” He began to stomp back to the house, gesturing for them to follow. Sanemi pauses at the doorway, frowning, and turns back. “You planning to sit there all day? You can stay if you like, I don't like the idea of you walking around alone and defenceless.”

“Stay - what?”

“Stay,” Sanemi agrees, exasperation in his tone at their stunned, slow reaction. “And you're having ohagi for breakfast whether you like it or not.”

***

Days fly past.

Mostly they’re spent in mourning together. Privately Sanemi preferred this to the funeral they had held with what was left of the Corps, because it feels more…closer. Similar. Here were two people that were a part of a big chunk of Genya’s life and yet never knew the other part.

They sat at the grave a lot and just…nothing. There were no tears or comfort. Just silence, never knowing what to do because you’ve been living for someone who’s now dead so you could live, but what are YOU living for? Sanemi wished time and time again he’d be the one to bite it. Not like anyone much would miss him, and maybe all those times he’d been hurting his brother was so Genya could move on in the event he died, very much unlike him right now.

On the third day they finally made conversation.

“So…” Sanemi cleared his throat. “How’d you both meet, since, y’know, he’s a slayer?”

They squint at the dirt, absently pulling up blades of grass. “I didn’t actually know he was one until a lot later, but even then he didn’t tell me much.” They tilted up their head. “He never wanted to expose that part of his life to me. I thought he was just another traveler when we first met; I offered him a room in my house.”

“House? Will you go back there?” Suddenly Sanemi is seized with panic - if they, his one and only link to Genya now, went back, and he ended up alone again…

“It’s not really my house. It’s more like…my employer’s house at that time…”

“Ah. So you’ve got nowhere to go for now?”

“Mhm. When I got fired I stayed over at Himejima’s occasionally. Then Genya sent me away before…yeah, before all that.” They blink and their eyes glisten. “What was he like, as a slayer? I knew he was different or something, because Tanjiro and his friends used a sword and some technique he couldn’t master, so the gun and all.”

Unbeknownst to everyone Sanemi had been watching his little brother train all those years ago. It’d be the first time he exposed himself. “He was really hard-working. Threw in everything he had to try and learn Breathing Techniques but he just couldn’t master it, and I think it took a big toll on Genya. I didn’t help much.”

“It’s alright. He forgives you.”

“Present tense?”

“Would he have told me to go look for you if he hadn’t?”

There. The real reason Sanemi would lose it if they left. He needed someone, something, anything to prove all the accusing, guilty voices in his head that Genya hadn’t died hating him.

“Tch. Fair enough. Tell me about his life outside the Corps now.”

***

Weeks go by.

Having them around, Sanemi discovers, is a stark reminder of what had happened to Genya, yet not in a bad way. Sanemi started forcing himself to bathe more frequently, take care of himself better - don’t want them having to put up with my stench - not just doing the bare minimum for his dog. He’d been alone and heartbroken for so long he’s honestly stopped functioning like a normal person, forgotten what Genya had died for.

Now he had to go out and buy food more consistently because he wasn’t the only one around anymore. Sanemi had to get around to repairing all those things that had fallen to ruins at the Wind Estate. Grudgingly he even agreed to let them take over cooking meals in order to get more than just ohagi in his diet.

But he only really noticed the differences when one morning Sanemi staggered into the kitchen looking for a drink after another round of restless nightmares and instead stumbled onto them dumping the contents of the sake bottle he left out down the drain.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sanemi made a grab for it but they ducked out of reach, flinching at the sudden yell.

“Getting rid of this. You’ve been drinking a lot lately.”

“For a damn reason!”

“What reason?”

Because every day is painful and I just want it all to go away, isn’t it obvious? Sanemi dug his nails into his palm again, muttering obscenities.

“I thought you of all people should know better than to cope like this.”

“I-”

He should. He remembered the former Flame Hashira before Rengoku. He recalled Kyogo.

Sanemi had always feared he would turn out like his father and here he was proving everyone right. Genya wouldn’t have wanted that…god, what was wrong with him?

“You’re right.”

They watched uneasily as Sanemi stalked off, but they had nothing to worry about. Sanemi threw out the rest of the bottles that day and apologized to the grave.

“Bet he’s pretty mad I turned out like this after all he fought for.” A scarred hand gestures listlessly at the headstone, the other holding a cup. The both of them sat in evening silence, watching the wind flitter around from the engawa. Remaining rain droplets trickle down from the roof.

“Genya?’ They set down their cup and ponder. “Not really. He could never get mad at you.”

Sanemi snorts. “Never?”

“Never.”

“Ah, he should’ve.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m here.” They flash him a smile. In truth they could’ve been his sibling regardless - sibling-in-law, but he’d settle for surrogate now.

Sanemi rolls his eyes but likes the idea more than he admits, of Genya watching over him even now…because it has to mean he’s forgiven him, right, for everything he did wrong? “What was he like?”

“Huh?”

“Y’know.” Sanemi draws random blobs in the air, vague shapes of hearts. “When you both were-”

“SHINAZUGAWA!”

“Did you make out? At least once. You had to.”

They’re mortified and got up several times to leave but not before Sanemi’s heard everything he missed out: yes, they’d gotten to the kissing stage but no, they did not make out, why was he so vulgar, yes, Genya often had a panic attack every time they held hands, yes, they could show him all the dried flowers Genya had gifted them, stop laughing at their confession story, you’re right, Genya was horribly obvious with his blushy crush phase and NO, Shinazugawa, Genya would self combust before they ever got to the topic of marriage or starting a family!

***

Years pass.

Sanemi’s gotten married. Four mini-mes running around as well, a fifth on the way. He likes to think of it as a parallel between him and his own siblings, because his oldest is the only to inherit his shock of white hair and the second bears a striking resemblance to Genya. They think so too, written clearly on their faces every time they look at him.

Speaking of them, they hadn’t left all this while and Sanemi doesn’t want them to. Not when they’ve been there to pull him out of his depressive state, united in grief, see him fall in love with a local girl, urge him to court her despite his anxious worries, stood next to him when he was getting hitched, supported him throughout fatherhood and babysat the four hurricanes when he and his wife went out on date nights.

It’d be just as bad as losing Genya.

“You better be good for them, or I’ll string you all up by your feet.” Despite Sanemi’s threatening words he’s unusually gentle as he peels his two youngest from his legs as they cling on and whine at him and mom not to go out without them, they wanted to go see the fireworks too, can’t they stay up late this one time?

“Don’t worry, they’re all angels.” They help remove the other two older ones from their mom, rolling their eyes. “And before you say anything, yes, I’ll get them all to bed before ten.”

“Sometimes I think Sanemi nags more than I do,” his beloved jokes, taking his arm and the both of them leave, calling out to the protesting kids as they’re hauled off inside and the door closes. He’s lucky, he thinks, tucking his wife closer, that even after all this he managed to be happy. He can almost see Genya in front of him, smiling and telling Aniki not to get too naughty, not abandon them for so long to try and control four rowdy kids.

Sanemi wishes the same could be said of them, though.

When he comes back, tells his wife he’ll be back into the bedroom soon, checks on his kids and realizes they’ve disappeared again, Sanemi knows just where to look, quickly making his way to the grave, carrying a lantern and something else.

“You really have to stop coming here in the middle of the night. There’s no more demons, but ya think you’ll be safe?” Sanemi huffs, taking his seat next to them. They snort derisively. “I’m serious! What if you get mauled by some wild animal? Who am I gonna dump the kids on if you’re not here?”

“Tomioka’s around. Kamado too,” they sing-song.

“Tomioka would give my kids depression and maybe I’d trust Kamado but not his friends.”

“You give ME depression.”

“Haha, very funny.” Sanemi passes the slice of watermelon to them, taking a bite of his own. Genya’s headstone looks chipped in the yellow light, worn and old, but still lovingly cared for. “I think he might want you to move on, you know? It’s been years. He’ll understand. He’ll want you to be happy. You can’t keep waiting around, crying and wasting time.”

“You’re stealing my words.”

“Hey, it worked back then, when you told that to me. You’re a hypocrite. Use your own advice.”

“I tried. It didn’t work out. I kept coming back here.” A finger traces the stone, uncertainty in their tone.

“You feel guilty, like you’re being unfaithful to him or something?” Sanemi passes them another slice, awkwardly trying to sympathize. He wants them to be happy as well, after all.

“No, it’s just…” They shrug, head shaking from side to side. “I dunno. I can’t. Not like you did.”

Sanemi understands, suddenlyl, sort of. They gave him their heart and maybe it wasn’t theirs to take back yet. It didn’t really make sense and wasn’t enough of a reason to argue against moving on, but feelings were weird and rarely made enough reason.

“No one’s going to be like him, huh.”

“No. No one,” They agreed, and they both lapsed into silence.

“I mean, the guy we met yesterday looked like a great match-”

“Have fun taking your kids on your next date, Shinazugawa.”

“I was kidding!”

They wipe their mouth and set down their watermelon rind before, a ghost of smile tugging at their lips. “You and Genya really are the same, you know.”

“How?’ Years later and he’s still learning new things he should’ve known during all those years he wasted thinking it was a good idea to push him away. Ah well.

“Um…I guess in the way you both really suck at trying to talk about feelings.”

“You wound me.”

“You’re a former Hashira. But you both try to understand and make me feel better anyway.” They smirk. “In the form of bad jokes, usually.”

“I’m hurt.” Sanemi got the point, mouth twitching.

“So, yeah. You both don’t really know how to do it but you do your best. That’s good enough.”

Sanemi caught their eye. “…good enough for me, at least.” He stood up and picked up the rinds, returning back to his tough boy exterior. “Enough mushy stuff. Go back to bed.”

“Yessir.”

***

“You and Genya really are the same, Sanemi.”

They lean their forehead against the cool, rough headstone. The new one. It was new and clear but now it was wet with tears. “It’s gonna be hard…why did you both have to go?”

Five years later. Sanemi’s slayer mark had finally caught up with him, but not before he had gotten the chance to settle down and leave behind some kids, have another chance at enjoying life, find a new sibling. Still, no one had expected him to just…not wake up one day. It seemed a little too quiet of an ending for the tale of Shinazugawa.

“Where was all your talk about going down in a blaze of glory to the kids last night, huh?” They coughed out a laugh. “I know you must be really pissed to just die like that.”

They’ve been holding it together the past few days, for the sake of Sanemi’s children and his widow. Only now could they cry in quiet, in the same spot where Sanemi and them had cried over Genya. Tomioka’s widow and two kids had joined them as well. Three united in grief.

“I know you said you’re happy you got a chance at all this, Sanemi, but I can’t help feeling like you were robbed of having the full experience in all this. Like Genya all over again. When you see him, tell him I miss him a lot, okay? Still very much head over heels and making an absolute fool of myself…”

They laid down their bouquet, taking a breath. “You also said you were afraid Naomi, Hiroshi and Remi won’t remember you if you die so early in their childhood…it’s alright. I don’t think anyone will forget you. Least of all me. Thanks for everything.”

“I hope you and Genya finally see each other again.”

It wasn’t seen or heard, but rather, felt - a lover’s arm wrapped around their shoulders and a brotherly hand on the other.

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