#It's also on ao3 if that's easier to read

[aureatelys]

can't lose when i'm with you

pairing: dbf!aaron hotchner/fem!reader rating: explicit w.c.: 7k a/n: happy valentines day! this idea came to me as a joke but then i couldnt stop thinking about it. also i know nothing about golf or country clubs so sorry in advance if i got anything wrong.

summary: You work as a beverage cart girl at your local country club and your dad ropes you in to make him look good during a business meeting with his new best friend.

content warnings: 18+ MDNI PLEASE, dbf!hotch so age gap, kinda flirty!reader, porn with no plot, dry humping on a golf cart yessir, semi public sex, m masturbation, some dirty talk, men (not hotch) being gross and touchy

read below or here on ao3 here <3

You’ve been working as a beverage cart girl at your dad’s country club for the past several months to save money for school. At first, the bluntness of some of these older men flirting with you caught you off guard, but after you got your first $100 tip just from serving a group of three men a couple of beers and flashed them a smile, you were hooked. Flirting was part of the job, which became easier and easier for you the more shifts you took.

After all, it was easy money—refilling the drinks in the coolers, driving around a well-kept golf course while underneath the shade of the cart, and handing out drinks with a little smile and a hair flip. Sometimes, you even sat nearby and cheered Ted on as he hobbled over to take his shot.

You even got to add some personal touches to your beloved cart—a pink fuzzy steering wheel cover, a blush pink sheet covering the leather seats so your thighs would stop sticking to them, a pillow in the shape of a heart for your back, and a cute miniature disco ball hanging from the roof because old people love to pretend like they can party again.

And the men weren’t too bad. You’ve had a few run ins with some on the handsier side, or ones that straight up asked to have sex with you, but luckily your manager dealt a swift and heavy hand and you never saw them again. Otherwise, the customers were mostly decent, as long as you were okay with some heavy flirting and generous eye-fucking.

It’s a typical busy Saturday when you meet Aaron.

You knew your dad was having some sort of “business meeting” with the highly decorated FBI agent he’s been recently obsessed and hanging out with, and he knew that you were mentioned the most in the country club’s Google reviews. He wanted you to put him in a good mood, which was basically in your job description. You didn’t mind since your father promised a hefty tip for you at the end.

You spot them a few yards away—your father’s lucky red hat, muted in color due to wear and tear, and another man nearly a foot taller standing near him. You call out for them and speed your way there in your rickety little cart when your dad waves to you.

When you pull up next to them, it looks like they’ve just finished Hole 2, which means this would be absolute prime time for you if they were typical customers.

“Hey boys,” you call out. You’re about to ask them if they’re thirsty when you get a good look at your dad’s friend.

He’s tall, almost outrageously so with how far you have to crane your neck to look at him. He’s also ridiculously handsome; strong brows, intense eyes, and floppy hair that looked so soft you craved running your hands through them. Wide shoulders, thick arms, and a little soft around the middle in a way that made something flutter in your stomach.

He was definitely not your typical customer.

“Hey sweetie!” Your dad comes to give you a kiss on the top of your head. “I didn’t know you were working today.”

He’s such a good actor, you think as you beam up at him. “And I didn’t know you were going golfing today. You guys thirsty?”

“Absolutely! I’ll take a beer, how about you, Aaron?”

“A water is fine.” Christ, even his voice is hot—low and smooth, sending a shiver down your spine despite the summer heat.

You make your way to the cooler in the back, squinting as soon as you’re out from the shade and into the blazing sun. “A beer and a water for my two most handsome guys coming right up!”

As always, your dad laughs, but when you peek a glance out of the corner of your eye from where you’re bent over, half of your body basically in the cooler as you fish out a water bottle, Aaron was wearing an obviously practiced neutral expression.

You finally find the bottle, your hand nearly going numb from how much ice you had to dig through, and hand it to Aaron with a grin. “Here you go.”

He meets your gaze and you’re drawn to the pretty brown sugar shade of his eyes. “Thank you.” He’s polite, not even a smile gracing his lips before he’s twisting the cap off and tipping his head back to take a long swig.

You swear your throat goes dry at the tantalizingly long line of his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing. You’re able to get a closer look at him this way— the sharp cut of his jaw, the way the tight red polo was stretching over his broad shoulders, and the way his hands were so large it made the water bottle look almost comically small.

Your father’s voice breaks you out of your thoughts. “Aaron, this is my daughter. Sweetie, this is Aaron Hotchner, the unit chief of the BAU I told you about?”

Boy, have you heard about him—your dad hasn’t shut up about him over the past month, talking about how he’s such a great guy, how he’s been at the Bureau for over a decade, and how he’s been bragging about his golfing skills and that the two of them just had to play some time.

You don’t exactly remember what today’s meeting was about, something about implementing a new training program to his agents? Either way, he had hoped you would use your spectacular customer service to help his odds, but you’re sure he wasn’t hoping for you to have the thoughts you were currently having that involved his hands on your hips and your mouth pressed against his throat.

A ringtone blares, nearly making you jump, and you watch as your father steps away to take a call.

You put on your best customer service smile and put your hand out, pink nails glinting underneath the sun. “Nice to meet you, Aaron. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Something quirks at the corner of Aaron’s mouth as he puts his hand in yours. You try not to pay attention to how his hand nearly dwarfs yours or how you could feel the rough calluses on his fingers. “You as well.”

“Unit chief, huh?” you ask, raising a hand to shield your eyes from the sun. “I bet that’s a really stressful job. You should come visit me more. To de-stress.”

And it’s like Aaron’s face transforms into something softer, younger. You watch in delight as his eyebrows shoot up in surprise, mouth twisting in an effort to hide an amused smile. “Should I now?”

“Oh, absolutely,” you say, leaning your hip against your cart. You’re suddenly glad you wore your shortest tennis skirt and sleeveless top that emphasized your cleavage quite well today. “I’m here almost every day and we close at 6.”

His body turns towards you, stepping in closer. You think you catch the faintest whiff of his woodsy cologne, breaking through the freshly cut grass smell. “Is that why your dad was so adamant about going golfing today? So his daughter could flirt his way into me approving his training curriculum?”

An incredulous laugh nearly bubbles out of you at his instant ability to read through you despite only knowing each other less than 5 minutes. You assume he’s the unit chief for a reason.

“Is it working?”

He says nothing for a moment, just looking you up and down in a way that made you want to shift, though not uncomfortably. He studies you and your pristine white sneakers, the hem of your tennis skirt brushing against the warm expanse of your thighs, and your hair in a high ponytail. He glances at the cannisters of edible glitter and mini umbrellas on your bev cart. You see his eyes dance with amusement when he notices the mini disco ball swinging from your roof.

When he looks back at you, eyebrows relaxed, the professional flat line of his mouth was gone and instead replaced with something more private. “Yes.”

Excitement settles in your chest, light and golden. You feel your face flush out of your own accord and hope you can blame the summer sun beating down on you and not your father’s coworker, no more than 20 years older than you, flirting with you.

Your father suddenly appears right around Aaron’s shoulder, always with impeccable timing. He looks just as flushed as you feel, sweat building at his hairline while Aaron looks impossibly dry despite the humidity. “Ready to move onto the next hole, Hotch?”

And just like that, Aaron’s face smoothly changes to polite professionalism and not like you were seconds away from throwing your arms around his neck. He nods and gives you a courteous smile, something playful tugging at his lips. “It was nice to meet you.”

When your father fishes through his wallet to pay for the drinks, and hopefully your tip as well, Aaron lays a hand over his before he’s pulling out his own from his back pocket. “I got it,” he says, before handing you two crisp $100 bills.

“Oh,” you say before you could help yourself. And because it’s Aaron, whom you’ve never met before and not like your other customers, you didn’t feel quite comfortable in taking his money. Yet. “This more than pays for the drinks…”

He shakes his head and pushes the money towards you. “I know.”

You take his money, solely because you don’t want to cause a scene when your father was already stuttering over himself in an attempt to still cover the bill himself. You notice how thick his fingers are over the folded bills and ignore the warmth tingling up your spine when your fingers brush against his.

“Thank you, Aaron.” You don’t miss the way his eyes barely narrow at the sound of his name from your lips or the imperceptible clench of his hand at his side.

You try to hide the smirk threatening to show on your face when you get back into your cart, your silly keychains hanging from the ignition clinking with the action. You put your cart in drive and look over your shoulder at Aaron, your father’s attention already enraptured by the phone in his hand.

“See you around, handsome.”

You think you see a faint hint of pink at the tips of Aaron’s ears before you drive away.

-

You don’t see Aaron for several weeks.

You try not to let it bother you, starting to come to terms with the possibility that he just wasn’t interested in you or that you were too young and juvenile for him. So what if you’ve been picking up more shifts lately, just in case he decided to show up? Or spending your entire paycheck on cute outfits that hug you in all the right places? That isn’t anyone else’s business except yours.

So it’s totally because you’ve been bored all day when you let out a squeak of excitement at the text you get from your dad letting you know that him and Aaron were on their way to the country club.

It’s a slow Thursday afternoon, which means the men that do show up to play, clearly avoiding their wives, believe they can keep you around at their beck and call. A group of 3 older gentlemen who were somewhat regulars had asked you to drive them around in your golf cart despite regulations not allowing customers to catch a ride, but they’ve already racked up hundreds of dollars in drinks, so you’re sure your boss wouldn’t mind.

They’re also a little touchy, wanting to teach you how to play so they have an excuse to put their hands on your hips and not so subtly cop a feel, but their usual tips at the end of the day easily pays for half of your rent. So, you play along by flipping your hair over your shoulder a bit, maybe even acting a little ditsy when they talk about golf as if your dad hadn’t thrown you in lessons as soon as you were able to hold a club.

That’s why you’ve been sitting behind your wheel entertaining grandpa for the past 30 minutes, his friends actually focused on the game, as he rattles on about his ex-wife, how he’s currently looking for a younger girl to take out, and the best way to move your hips when you shoot.

“If you stand up, I can show you how,” he says hoarsely, standing so closely you can smell not only the acrid scent of beer that he’s been sipping on but also the general musty smell of old people you’ve unfortunately become familiar with.

You fake a laugh, even playing it up by leaning forward and patting his wrinkled hand from where it’s inching closer and closer to you on the headrest. “Oh, Jerry, I don’t think we have time for that. I have to make my rounds.”

When you spot Aaron and your father driving over the hill, the rattle of the shitty golf carts a familiar tune, you immediately lock gazes with him. It’s like watching a movie in slow motion the way you’re able to discern when Aaron notices the older man’s close proximity and your clear uncomfortable posture— his eyebrows drawing up in barely concealed shock before knitting in concern, eyes narrowing.

You let out a breathless laugh at the silent rage, plain as day, before scooting out through the other side of the cart and away from Jerry and his beady eyes.

“Where you going, hot stuff?” Ew.

You put on your sweet customer service smile, often used to placate the rowdier men, before you brush away imaginary dust and start throwing away the trash left on your cart. “Jerry! I still have to do my job!”

You’re relieved when Jerry finally takes the hint and shuffles away towards his golf bag that he left near the teeing area just as Aaron and your father pull up next to you with a screech, giving you a slight breeze. When Aaron steps out of the cart, the most mundane action in the world, he looks unfairly attractive. You stare at the slight flex of his biceps when he holds onto the roof of the cart before tearing yourself away and turning towards your dad.

“How are my two favorite guys?” you tease, giving your dad a hug when he opens his arms out.

“I don’t know about Hotch but I’m ready to kick his ass,” your dad laughs, patting Aaron’s back like they’re suddenly best friends. Which is almost true, seeing as how your dad has somehow become even more obsessed with him, having not stopped talking about losing to him several weeks ago and has evidently somehow roped him into another day on the course.

“Well, I don’t think I should choose sides,” you giggle and glance at Aaron. He’s squinting at you, as if you’re speaking a completely different language, his expression still strained and posture tense.  

You smile at him and give him a cheery little wave. “Hi Aaron.”

“Hi,” he says slowly, shoulders slowly relaxing, and hearing his voice makes you breathless all over again. “Are you okay?”

And it’s sweet, the obvious way Aaron is checking in on you as if you don’t do this every day. Truthfully, you’re used to it and it’s not like the men take it too far. You’re more focused on the fact that this is your second time meeting Aaron and he’s already concerned about your wellbeing and personal space like the true gentleman he is.  

You almost want to tease, poke fun at him, but then you remember your father standing mere inches away who probably wouldn’t like you flirting so unabashedly with his friend/coworker.

Instead, you roll your eyes and head towards your cart. “I’m fine. So, what can I get for you, handsome?”

You’re pulling up the POS on your iPad when you notice Aaron hasn’t answered yet. You turn to lean your hip against your cart, meeting his gaze steadily from where he’s studying you.

You decide to blatantly look him up and down— drinking in the fitted dark green polo, showing off the veins decorating his forearms, and black slacks, making him appear taller and hanging enticingly low on his hips. His hair is tousled from the wind and you notice some gray dusting at his sideburns. And then there’s something about the Rolex on his wrist, God, he’s so hot.

Aaron notices you checking him out, because of course he does. His eyes barely flicker down your body, not quite taking the same liberty as you, but you feel want curling in your stomach when he licks his lips.

“A gin and tonic sounds great, sweetie,” your father says, once again interrupting your thoughts, before he’s immediately launching into a ramble regarding what you assume is some office gossip.

“A water is fine,” Aaron says in between your dad’s breaths. He gives you a sheepish little twitch of the mouth that you shouldn’t find so endearing before he turns to give your dad his full attention.

You make your dad’s drink, the motions automatic and familiar, before you’re opening the cooler and bending over to reach a water bottle at the very bottom. You weren’t really doing it on purpose this time, too focused on getting the coldest bottle at the bottom of the cooler for him, but you still feel a thrill run up your spine when you hear a choked cough behind you.

At least you chose a skort today and not a skirt, though you’re sure it still doesn’t leave much room for the imagination with its flimsy white fabric.

A smirk tugs at your lips, hidden by the cooler, before you turn around with a polite smile and drinks in your hands. Maybe you weren’t wrong about being too juvenile for Aaron after all. “Here you guys are.”

When Aaron’s fingers brush against yours, something hot twists itself into your stomach and settles in between your thighs. You meet his gaze and notice his eyes, dark and almost predatory, pupils nearly completely blown.

You distantly hear your name being called through the blood rushing in your ears. When you break from the hold Aaron’s stare has on you and turn to where the sound came from, you spot Jerry still standing near his golf bag. He and his friends evidently still haven’t taken their shots and moved on yet, instead beckoning you over with a wave as if you were some bumbling waitress.

“Well, duty calls,” you feign a sigh. When you turn back around, Aaron’s wearing an almost petulant frown as he watches Jerry continue calling for you.

“We’ll see you around, pumpkin,” your dad says before slapping a $50 dollar bill in your hand, tutting at Aaron when he starts to pull out his wallet. “Let’s get a move on.”

And then he’s walking away, once again leaving you and Aaron alone.

You move to clean up your cart from where you made your drink, expecting Aaron to silently follow your father and not seeing him for several weeks again. You’re pleasantly surprised, maybe even a little smug, when you hear Aaron clear his throat, as if unsure what to say. And wouldn’t that be something—causing a unit chief of the FBI to hesitate.

“You get off at 6, right?”

A lazy grin blooms across your face as you meet Aaron’s eyes. He appears composed, stoic, but you can see the uncertainty swimming in his eyes, the frown still tugging at his lips as if he can’t get the thought of you with Jerry off his mind. He’s rubbing his thumb across his fingers and you wonder how it would feel on the bare skin of your hips.

“I sure do,” you chirp. “I’ll see you then?”

You can tell that Aaron wasn’t expecting you to give him another chance at backing out. His eyebrows raise in surprise, similarly to how they did when he first met you, like he thought he had you all figured out.

“See you then.”

-

Although you’re stuck with Jerry and his friends for the next 3 hours, you can feel the heavy weight of Aaron’s watchful eyes on your back the entire time. There were even several moments where you thought he was going to burn a hole in the back of your head, or especially Jerry’s, every time he put his clammy hands on yours to help you with a swing or at the small of your back.

And so what if you played it up a little, knowing that you barely knew Aaron but you were already digging your way under his skin?

Knowing Aaron was only several yards away, you laughed extra hard at Jerry’s jokes and bent over a little more every time you set the ball on the tee. It was exhilarating, playful in a way you’ve never felt before. You couldn’t deny that noticing the carnal way Aaron reacted to you, how he stared at you like he wanted to eat you alive, didn’t get you all hot and bothered. You’re sure the wetness between your legs was proof enough.

By the time 6 o’clock finally rolls around and you’re pulling up to the extra storage shed at the back of the country club, your wallet has grown a couple hundred dollars more and your cart’s glove box has gained a couple more slips of paper with phone numbers to gather dust in.

You’ve just finished unloading your cart and cleaning out your shelves when you hear another cart pulling up behind you. When you turn and realize that it’s Aaron, that he actually showed up, you feel giddy in a way you haven’t felt since you were a teenager.

“Hey you,” you say over the stack of crates you’re trying to organize. “Let me finish up real quick and then we can go.” Go where, you have no idea, but you’re sure the two of you will figure it out.

“Do you need any help?” he asks, standing so close to you now you can get a full whiff of his cologne. It’s something woodsy and warm that settles comfortably in your chest.

Any other day, you would’ve taken up his offer if only as an excuse to see him lifting crates of drinks and drooling over the way his arms would surely nearly burst out of his sleeves, but you’re honestly almost done and ready to get the hell out of here. “I’m almost done, I promise. But next time you can help so you can show off.”

Aaron immediately rolls his eyes, but you watch with glee as something quirks at the corner of his lips. “Yes, I sat in my car in the parking lot and waited for you just to show off.”

Damn, he is so cute when he’s actually making jokes with you.

You put away all of the cleaning products and lock the door before you’re stepping out to stand in front of Aaron where he’s hovering near your cart.

When you crane your neck to look up at him, you’re suddenly aware of how alone the two of you are, tucked away in a secluded area at the back of the country club where only employees have access to. The two of you are surrounded by trees, thankfully shielding you from the sun, and there’s only one path in and out of the area. The near constant drone of cicadas would be almost annoying if your attention wasn’t all focused on Aaron.

“So, why did you wait for me then?”

And just like that, Aaron’s eyes darken and he clenches his jaw. Now that there was nobody else around, teasing him almost felt like you were poking at a grumpy bear. A cute and very hot bear, but a bear, nonetheless.

“So I can do this.”

And then he’s placing a gentle hand on your waist, hot despite your already sun-kissed skin, and leaning in slowly, as if giving you the chance to back out in case he was reading your signals wrong.

You don’t think you could’ve laid it on thicker, so you meet him halfway to finally press your mouths together.

His lips are soft and he smells like sunscreen, and the way he kisses you is so tender it makes your chest tighten just a little. But it’s not enough.

You step closer into him, throwing your arms around his neck, and deepen the kiss. You catch him by surprise, detecting the exasperated smile against your mouth, but then his hand tightens its grip on your hip and he’s pulling you until you’re pressed flushed up against him.

You can feel the muscles in his chest and the softness of his stomach this way, and it’s so fucking delicious you can’t help the moan that comes out of your mouth and into his.

It’s like a dam breaks loose because Aaron groans into your mouth, now causing you to smile, and then he’s spinning you around until he’s sitting in your golf cart and you’re planted right on his lap, straddling him with your knees on either side of his hips and the steering wheel digging into the small of your back.

You gasp in surprise, nearly dizzy with the action, but it melts into a breathy moan when Aaron’s hands run all over you—down your back, your hips, the flesh of your thighs, and then grabbing onto your ass so hard it just pushes you further into his lap. The barely there friction of his belt buckle against your pussy from the movement has you rolling your eyes back into your head, causing you to cant your hips forward again to chase the sharp pleasure twisting in your stomach.

“You’re so,” he mutters under his breath, face tucked between your breasts as he attempts to press open-mouthed kisses against the skin exposed by your black work polo. “Pretty.”

Then he’s lifting up your shirt until it gathers underneath your arms, just enough so he can move the band of your sports bra up so he could put his warm, wet mouth on the underside of your breasts. You know you must smell like sweat and sunscreen, your clothes still sticking to you, but that seems to just spur Aaron on as he moves up to suck a nipple into his mouth, flicking it repeatedly with his tongue.

“Aaron…” you exhale, pushing your chest into him to chase the wet heat of his mouth as he continues alternating sucking and licking at your nipples, hardening nearly immediately under him. It feels so fucking divine, you don’t think having your nipples played with has ever felt this good. You don’t even want to think about where else he can use his mouth. “Not here…”

He pulls back from your breasts and you’re mesmerized by the spit-slick shine of his lips as he meets your gaze from below you. His hands immediately come to replace his mouth, initially groping at you until thick fingers are grazing over your nipples before gently pinching. “There’s a banquet going on at the front of the club so no one’s coming back here.”

You have to bite your lip to prevent a whimper at the hot pleasure-pain from your breasts, your own hands coming up to tug at the damp hair on the back of his neck. Aaron groans at that, a sound coming deep from within his chest, and he jerkily thrusts his hips up as if they moved of their own accord.

You can feel the line of his hard cock against your inner thigh, so close to where you desperately want him, and your patience wanes thin for just a moment. Of course Aaron checked out the club first before coming back to meet you, as if he was planning on ambushing you behind the country club the entire time.

“We don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” Aaron says, voice tight as if he was holding himself back from taking you right there on your golf cart with the fuzzy pink blanket on the seat and fairy lights hanging from the dashboard.

You’re tempted take him up on his offer and stop; climbing off his lap and inviting him back to your apartment so you can moan and scream all you want in your very comfortable bed, because Aaron seems like the type of man to want to hear every single noise.

But the thought of both of you being so desperate that you can’t help but rut against each other behind a fancy country club, where you’re at risk of anyone walking around the building and finding you? With your shirt rolled up and Aaron’s fingers nearly pressing bruises against your hips? You really should not find that as intoxicating and hot as you do.

It’s going to be uncomfortable, with the summer sun just barely moving to set over the horizon and your golf cart sometimes being too small even for you. You feel sweat already forming on your upper lip and hair sticking to your neck, internally hitting yourself for not buying that $5 fan that mounts on your dash.

Yet, as you look down at Aaron from where he’s propped his chin on your chest to meet your gaze, somehow looking both cute and ridiculously hot, you knew you couldn’t back out.

“Okay,” you whisper, grinning down at him before your fingers intertwine with his hair again to lean his head back and kiss him.

You think Aaron chuckles but you’re already swallowing it, shuffling somehow closer until the entire line of your body is against his. The top of your head keeps bumping into the roof of the cart and your thighs are already burning from the uncomfortable position of sitting up, but just then you angle your hips differently when you drop down and his bulge rubs against your clit in a way that has you sucking in a sharp breath.

“Fuck, you’d look so pretty riding on my cock,” Aaron breathes against your lips, the grip he has on your waist tightening as he starts to move you up and down on his lap. “I bet you’re so wet for me.”

His left hand trails down your thigh, moving inward, and you squirm when you feel his thick fingers pressing against your cunt, wetness already seeping through your panties and the shorts of your tennis skirt. He briefly rubs through down your slit, spreading the wetness around and causing the fabric to cling to you.

“Is this all for me, pretty girl?” he murmurs, not even giving you the chance to answer before he’s moving the fabric aside to press his hot fingers against your soaked cunt.

You let out a long moan at finally being touched, the ache between your thighs becoming unbearable. You try to angle your hips in an effort to get more of his fingers on you, maybe even inside of you, but Aaron annoyingly avoids your hole and instead intently traces them gently through your folds before moving up to rub circles against your clit.

“Fuck,” you gasp, eyes nearly fluttering shut and your thighs trembling as the tight coil in the pit of your stomach builds so fast it knocks the breath out of you.

Aaron hums. “Does that feel good, sweetheart?”

You nod, at a loss for words as you chase the building pressure. He rubs your clit agonizingly slow, like he wants to prolong this as he intently studies your reactions.

You’re about to beg him to hurry up when he stops and removes his fingers from underneath your skirt. Your breath stutters at the loss of sensation until you notice Aaron holding his hand up to eye-level.

His thick fingers are obscenely drenched in your wetness, nearly glistening. You should feel embarrassed, that you’re so horny for him that you’re getting off at the possibility of being caught, but you don’t. In fact, noticing just how much Aaron is enjoying you enjoying yourself makes you feel even more flushed, more needy.

You lean in to bring his two fingers into your open mouth, swirling your tongue around the rough callouses as your own musky taste infiltrates your senses.

When you look down to meet his eyes, yours no doubt glossed over, he nearly growls as he yanks his fingers out of your mouth and kisses you, tongue prodding against yours. You feel a rumble from his chest as he chases the taste of your pussy in your mouth.

When he pulls back, he has a wild look in his eyes that does nothing to quell the fire in your stomach and the growing ache in your pussy. He runs his hands up and down your sides, nearly reverent, before thrusting his hips up so his cock presses against you. “Do you think you can come like this?”

Honestly, you think you could come in 30 seconds, with the way he grabs and moves your hips so deliciously you swear you could feel every inch of him, staring at you as if he couldn’t believe you were giving him the time of day.

“Yes,” you breath, and then Aaron is giving you a wicked grin, something dangerous in his eyes.

He moves you until you’re fully seated on his lap, giving your knees a break, and then moving you back and forth against his cock, the drag of his slacks against the fabric of your shorts rubbing deliciously against your clit, causing you to nearly choke on your own saliva.

You rest your forehead against his, both of you panting, as you start grinding against him. Even through the several layers of fabric, you can feel the hard ridge of his cock pressing in between your cunt and against your clit. You nearly feel dizzy, like the heat was getting to you, as your hands scramble to find purchase on his broad shoulders.

“Just like that, honey,” Aaron pants as you watch a droplet of sweat run down the side of his face through half-lidded eyes. “Make yourself come just like that.”

You’re shamelessly whimpering in between your moans now as you grind against him faster, the tightness in your core growing at the lewdness of his words. Aaron just lets you rut against him, essentially sitting still besides his hands on your hips helping you move back and forth. You feel the stickiness on your inner thighs, a mixture of sweat and your arousal, and you bet if you glanced down, there’d be a wet spot on his slacks. That image in your head sends you reeling and nearly over the edge, your thighs squeezing around his hips.

“Come on, sweetie.” Fuck, even the low tone of his voice adds to it, the raspiness giving away how just as equally turned on he was. Your chest is heaving, thighs trembling, and you’re so fucking close. “I can’t wait to fuck your pretty pussy later, make you come, over and over on my cock.”

Aaron rolls his hips then, and the new angle has the head of his cock pressing against your clit just so that has you gasping, back arching, and you finally fall over the edge as your orgasm hits you like a fucking train.

Your breath is knocked out of your chest, your eyes squeezing shut as you desperately chase the feeling of his cock against your clit as your clench around nothing. You distantly feel Aaron still grinding your hips back and forth as you ride it out, the tight hold he has on your hips just adding to your bliss. The repeated motions eventually become overstimulating, almost too much, but it deliciously adds to your aftershocks and causes you to release a choked whimper.

When you blearily blink your eyes open, Aaron is staring at you like he’s drinking you up, memorizing every little detail about you. The hair at his forehead is curling from the sweat and his face is tinged pink, but his eyes are a pretty molten brown and there’s something soft tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Hey handsome,” you say breathlessly, giving him a weary smile as you bring your hand up to wipe away the sweat on your own forehead. When you purse your lips, Aaron huffs a laugh and immediately leans in to give you a chaste kiss that does nothing to calm your racing heart.

You feel Aaron languidly move his hips up against you, making you hum against his mouth. When you look down, not only do you see the line of his cock where he’s still impossibly hard, but also a barely visible wet spot on his black slacks. From you.

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly, embarrassment burning hot on your ears.

“I’m not,” Aaron says before his hands come down to swiftly unbuckle his belt and pull down his pants and briefs until his cock springs free.

Your mouth instantly waters because fuck, is he big. He’s thick, a drop of precum beading at the slit with a delicious-looking prominent vein that runs on the underside that you can see when he wraps his left hand around his cock and starts jerking himself off.

“Do you want me to…” you trail off, your hands twitching from where they’re still on top of his shoulders and eyes zeroing in on his large hand on his cock.

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” he huffs. “I’m close, just sit there and look pretty.”

You think your brain short circuits, because no way is this man not only okay with you rutting up on him, but also got close enough to coming from watching you come? And now he doesn’t even want you to touch him, he’s okay with just looking at you as he gets himself off?

Your heart thumps erratically because Aaron looks like the absolute definition of sin; hair slightly damp and tousled, his bicep flexing from where he’s erratically jerking himself off, and his chest heaving deliciously. His lips are parted and he’s watching you with half-lidded eyes, your shirt still bunched under your arms and exposing your breasts and your aching thighs wrapped around him.

You lean back against the steering wheel, ignoring how it digs harder into your back, as you decide to flip up your skirt until your clothed cunt is exposed. The piece of fabric is nearly see-through with how wet you are, and you bite your lip when you bring a hand down to move the fabric aside and angle your hips up until your bare pussy was exposed.

Aaron lets out a strangled noise, and you watch in awe as his hand around his cock pumps faster until it’s nearly a blur. You look up to see his eyes trained on your pussy, wet and puffy. The squelching of him fucking into his own hand, so turned on that he was steadily leaking precum from the slit of his cock was so fucking filthy that you felt the beginning sparks of arousal tugging in your abdomen again.

“Are you going to come all over my pussy?” you whisper.

Aaron suddenly lets out a deep and guttural groan, his breath stuttering and hand stilling, before he comes with his head thrown back. You watch, mesmerized, as hot spurts of his come land on your bare pussy, some even catching on your folds as you clench around nothing.

It’s so fucking hot, he’s so fucking hot.

It’s silent while you both catch your breath, the mindless chirping of birds dwindling down as the sun finally starts to set and the air begins to slightly cool.

You pull your shirt down before you lean over to reach for the tissues you usually keep in your purse on the floor. The way you have to twist your body while still on Aaron’s lap is uncomfortable, but he doesn’t seem to mind as he helps you sit back up with hands on your sides.

He wordlessly takes the pack of tissues from your hand to clean you up. He’s meticulous, eyebrows almost comically furrowed in concentration as he makes sure you’re presentable again. When he’s done, he looks around for a trash can and, upon not finding one, he stuffs the tissues in his pocket. You give him a teasing disgusted look, to which Aaron responds by rolling his eyes.

When you climb off his lap with a groan, your hips and knees pop. You stretch your back out a bit by twisting your body back and forth and notice Aaron getting up as well, watching you with a confused, yet fond, expression.

“You’re too young for your body to crack like that.”

You laugh. “Whatever you say, grandpa.”

You’re suddenly being pulled into Aaron’s embrace with a squeal, an arm snaking around your waist, instinctively putting your hands up on his chest as you steady yourself.

“I think I’ve more than shown you that I’m not a grandpa,” he mutters, lowly and directly in your ear, making you nearly swoon against him.

You clear your throat, using him as leverage to push back at him until you’re able to meet his eyes. “Well, not-grandpa, would you be able to wash my cart blanket? Since it was your idea to dirty it up.”

You can tell Aaron is holding himself back from rolling his eyes again. Instead, he chuckles, letting you go so he could grab the fuzzy pink blanket that is actually most likely devoid of any suspicious stains.

“Can I ride in your car?” you ask, giving him a shy smile. “So I can… see how efficient your washer and dryer is? The material for that blanket is very expensive, you know.” Never mind the fact that you got it from Target nor the fact that you drove yourself to the country club.

Aaron obviously sees right through you, not bothering to hold back a soft laugh. Witnessing him joking with you, his guard down, has your heart thumping just a little bit harder.

He stretches his hand out to you, palm up. “Come on, let’s go inspect my house appliances then.”

You place your hand in his, silently giggling to yourself when you notice how large his hand looks compared to yours, and sidle up next to him despite both of you still damp with sweat.

“Let’s go, hot grandpa.”

The laugh that Aaron lets out, soft and sweet, makes you so grateful to your dad for getting you this job.

taglist <3 @kiwriteswords @solardrop @knitmeatardis @mggslover lmk if you would like to be added!

[glorioustidalwavedefendor]

All OF THIS! <3

Prohibition should have taught us that you can‘t keep people from drugging themselves without also making life significantly less shity

And to the person (can't be arsed to scroll up to read the name)that was like:

No I don't think Adderall should should be sold over the counter.

Yeah, good idea

Aderall should not be over the counter because some dude bro asshole might abuse it

And trans women should not be allowed to use womens restrooms BECAUSE SOME DUDE BRO ASSHOLE MIGHT ABUSE IT

And you have to babysit your drink because SOME DUDE BRO ASSHOLE MIGHT ABUSE IT

I AM NOTICING A PATTERN … YOU TOO?

Also newsflash

Adderall isn‘t over the counter, yet their dad got it … because he has a functioning brain.

Meanwhile people who need it can‘t have it because in order to jump through all those hoops … you need a functioning brain.

And their solution to the problem is:

ta-da!

People with a functioning brain should still have easier access to medication they don‘t need then people with neurological issues who do NEED it

How about no one is allowed to get insulin without jumping through endless hoops because some people who didn‘t need it used it and ended up in a hospital?

No?

Not a good solution?

But it protects people who should not take serious medication in the first place, from themselves

And their families from potential tragedy

All at the low low price of the lives of the people who DO need the medication.

No?

You don‘t like that?

Why do you think it‘s a good solution for people with ADHD?

Because they don‘t drop dead without the meds?

Trust me, some of them are dead in every way that matters

They can‘t finish their education, they can‘t hold down a job, they can‘t keep up friendships, they can barely concentrate on their hobbies, they are the black sheep of the family that everyone hates, they self medicate with alcohol …

But I guess it’s better if people with neurological issues damage their bodies with alcohol and drugs in a desperate attempt to self medicate then that their dad gets an easier access to a medication he should not be taking TO BEGIN WITH.

That sounds fair …

We have been here before

Rather burn a hundred innocent women, then letting one witch life.

Well, I can only counter :

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” Sir William Blackstone

It’s the same stupid argument of why AO3 needs to sensor everything because some people have no media literacy, so again everyone has to yield to the assholes …

If I'm stepping out of line y'all can tell me

You are stepping out of line

Badly

Your dads problem wasn’t that access to Adderall was to easy

IT ISN’T

You dads problem is that he can’t take no as an answer

If your father hadn’t gotten his hands on Adderall

Which again, I can not emphasize enough HE DID

WHILE it was heavily regulated, so clearly the regulations aren’t doing shit to keep people from abusing it

If your father hadn’t gotten his hands on Adderall

Then it would have been something else

Some people are garbage

Doesn’t mean the rest of us has to suffer just to protect them

→ bUt mY dAd lAsHeD oUt aT hIs fAmIly

Yeah?

Mine too

Without meds

Without Alcohol

Just in is natural state

Probably because HE SHOULD have been on ADHD medication …

wild how we have a medication that is super effective at treating a debilitating disability but its controlled to hell and back because What If Someone Takes It For Fun like i have an idea who gives a shit

[bimboamyrose]

Unfamiliar - Ch. 17: (Dis)trust

Artwork by @mmm-asbestos ☆Read Ch. 17 on AO3☆ Previous Chapter ☆ First Chapter☆

[sidesteppostinghours]

ok. question.

ortega ended up hallucinating sidestep after they "died", but sidestep doesnt know about that. they know it got bad, but never the full extent of how their death affected them. so if your sidestep Did learn, if they found out ortega looked for them in every little piece they could, would that change anything for your sidesteps? would their relationship with ortega be any different?

[hailsatanacab]

Your Favourite Author's Favourite Fic

in no way is this me sneakily trying to get fic recs out of people, but here's my new tag game!

Rules! When tagged, reblog with the fic you've written that you love the most

Not the fic with the most kudos, or the most comments, or the most hits, but the fic that you're the most proud of. I'm talking about the story that kept you up at night, the one that you still think about, the one that you wish more people would read

So, it's time to show off! I strongly encourage - in fact, I demand - that you give yourself some compliments, a well-deserved pat on the back, and tell us all the reasons why it's your favourite!

Then tag five people and make them go through it, too 🥰🩷

I'll tag @wolfjackle, @tourettesdog, @gilbirda, @die-erlkonigin6083, and @thewritingowl to get us started, please and thank you!!

[iwanttobepersephone]

Okay, you know what. You know what. I wanna know. I've had plenty of people ask me to write fanfics, and every time I say I can't. BUT! I CAN write movie-script esc "fanfics". And I wanna know if people would actually be interested in that? If they are, I can try and figure out how to use A03 if people would rather read on there than Tumblr. But if nobody is interested in "fanfics" that aren't really... stories, just. Descriptions of scenes and emotions. Then I won't bother lol.

I'll have examples below the cut, and also tag a couple people I think (EMPHASIS ON THINK) have asked me to write a fanfic in the past

@permettez-moi (or @golden-bubblebee ? Idk which one you prefer to be tagged for) @solarishashernoseinabook @ragingadhd @dragonslovecoins @rangertessadarling @ranger-tater @reine-du-sourire @biggestqiblifan

The quality WILL be better if it's an actual fanfiction, less references to the reader and more immersed and stuff, but the general writing style/pov probably won't change

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober 9 - Obsession

title: oddly enough, i seem to be alive

fandom: empires smp

TRUST AU!!!! (it's super long jsyk warning on opening the readmore)

cw: graphic self-harm

~

"Hey," Pix says, softly.

When Jimmy doesn't respond, Pix clears his throat. "Jimmy."

Jimmy just watches, entranced, as the scrape on his arm slowly heals black up, blood pulled back in and skin melting together.

It had been an accident.

He'd been lugging a large branch, and it had slipped and scratched down his arm. There was no way he would have done that on purpose.

But staring at where the wound had just been, Jimmy kind of wants it to happen again.

"Jimmy."

He blinks, looks up. Pix is watching him, brows furrowed in an expression that Jimmy can't quite read.

Jimmy waits, and after a long moment of studying him, Pix gives a little decisive nod. "I'll stay another day," he says, readjusting the branch in his arms.

"I—I thought you were just staying—"

"To finish one hut, yes, but I was just thinking—it's very possible that your first recruits will be injured. They may not be up to constructing anything. We'd better build two, just to be sure."

Jimmy nods. That makes sense. He understands that.

"How are the wounds feeling?" asks Pix a couple of moments later, after Jimmy has laid the branch in the pile, ready to prop them all up leaning against each other like a tent made of branches.

"Good," Jimmy says, too quickly. "They don't—they don't even hurt."

They don't, that's true. But if he thinks about it too hard, he can still feel that sword carving its way down through him and he wants to vomit.

So he doesn't think about it. Easy-peasy.

"And your ear?"

Jimmy's ears twitch on instinct, the movements of the left one cruelly limited.

He remembers, so long ago, fWhip touching that ear, thumb tracing over the delicate spines, his hold so terrifying that Jimmy did everything he said to avoid injury.

Then, he'd been afraid of a tear in the fin. It would have been almost impossible to stitch it back together straight, leaving an ugly scar.

He hadn't even thought of the possibility of half of it just being slashed off.

The cut has healed over, but he's missing half of his ear, most of the fin chopped away. Sound echoes in a strangely muffled way on his left side, and walking makes him a little nauseous. He doesn't think there's a way to fix it, though. It doesn't really hurt, it just unbalances him a little.

"It's fine," he says, rubbing the back of his neck a little self-consciously. "I'm fine. Thanks."

Pix is watching him again, he realizes as he looks up. Jimmy shrugs, looks away.

His desire for Scott to be here hasn't changed. But Pix had said something about how there's no way to contact Scott without it being seen by fWhip's spies, and his work here is more important.

Sure, he wants to rescue his people. But he doesn't see how that's so important that he has to stay hidden in the woods of the No Man's Land outside the Cod Empire's borders. Wouldn't it be better to go to Scott or Lizzie and get their help to free his lands?

But Pix saved him—somehow—and Jimmy will trust that he knows what he's doing.

That night, Pix lays out in his bedroll by their little campfire and tells Jimmy that if anything happens or he needs to sleep before his watch is over, to wake him.

And after Pix is long asleep, Jimmy sits by the fire and stares into the embers, fingers itching and every nerve jangling.

With a sudden rush of energy, he reaches into the fire and plucks out a charred piece of wood, which he holds to his forearm.

It burns—quickly, painfully, his fingertips and his arm, but Jimmy's no stranger to pain and he holds it there until it becomes too much to bear. When it does, he tosses the piece of wood back into the fire and watches his arm.

His skin is bubbling up angrily, red and blotchy, his finger and thumb black with soot and stinging. 

But after an agonizing couple of moments and a splash of water, the blisters start to sink back into his skin, fading away with every passing moment, until quite some time later, his arm has little more than a tiny red mark, sure to vanish in time.

Jimmy rinses his finger off with some water from their shared waterskin, finds the pads of his fingertips normal.

His heart is beating too fast. Is he breathing too fast? He thinks he is. He remembers the way the pain felt, but he can't feel it at all anymore. There's no sign of it. There's nothing to prove that he even felt it.

He died. He stopped breathing, and his heart slowed and eventually stopped, and he died, no matter what Pix said.

And what does he have to show for it? A thin scar on his back? A missing piece of his ear?

He just burned himself, badly, and now he can't even feel it.

Jimmy takes in a shuddering breath, pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. This can't—this can't be right. Nothing about this is right.

He stares again into the low fire, heart jumping at the possibility of doing it again. No one would even know.

He doesn't do anything, almost stuck there in indecision. And when the moon passes the predetermined point, he forces himself to stand and shakes Pix awake. Then he stumbles off to the pond to sleep, and just hopes that his head will be a bit clearer in the morning.

-

His old scars are beginning to fade.

He'd noticed it this morning, drying himself off after sleeping in the pond. There had been one, a nasty raised one on his forearm from when Joey broke his arm and it burst through the skin. Now it's faded into his skin, visible but not as dark as it had been, and his skin there is almost smooth.

There are others. The jagged one on his upper arm is nothing more than a thin line, the small brown scar on his ribs entirely gone. They're all slowly fading, some more like vague marks along his body rather than the ugly scars they once were.

He should be happy. He should be excited that his scars are fading, that his skin is clearing.

He isn't.

He panics, actually.

Jimmy used to look at himself in the mirror and hate his appearance. He would wish idly for his scars to miraculously vanish, if only to annoy Sausage. He would always wear a long-sleeved tunic to various meetings, ashamed of the many marks that a ruler oughtn't have.

But what he went through was torture. Torture, for several years, and then death.

He was tortured for years, and he has no proof.

Without even thinking, Jimmy grabs his new knife and carves carefully along one of the scars on his ribcage, pushing the knife in deeper and deeper as he can bear it.

He bites his lip to repress any noise, digs the knife in a bit further before yanking it out. There. That should do it.

Blood spills down his stomach, and Jimmy just stares at it, relishing the aching sting of the cut.

It hurts. It hurts a lot, actually.

But it feels so good. It feels like he's alive.

He makes quick work of his other scars, tracing the lines with the blade of his knife. And when that's all done, and his head feels a little woozy but his mind feels clearer than ever, sharpened by the pain, he stares down at his murky reflection in the pond.

He's absolutely covered in blood. It washes down his torso (and all over his body, really, the tally marks under his knee among others carved out), and Jimmy can really only feel glad that he hadn't put on any clothes yet. That's a sure way for Pix to find out what he's doing. Blood-stained clothes is a dead giveaway that someone is bleeding.

He's not really sure why he feels he needs to hide this. He just has some sort of idea that Pix wouldn't be all too happy about it, after all the effort he went through to make sure Jimmy survived.

It is a lot of blood, though, and Jimmy's fairly sure it isn't stopping soon, so he takes the scrap of cloth he has to wash himself with and wets it, runs it over his body.

It's water, apparently, that mostly fosters this new healing power. He can heal without it, but not very efficiently, and it will definitely scar. A damp rag should just act as a clotting agent, right?

It does—every cut scabs over, and Jimmy feels like something tight in his chest loosens as he looks down at himself, at his new old scars.

Perfect.

"Jimmy? Are you decent?"

Jimmy curses under his breath, dashes away the few tears that have gathered in his eyes. "No, no—um, give me one second!"

"All right, but hurry up, please—we've got another hut to set up, still, and I started designing a lean-to of sorts last night, so I might try that out. Also, are you all right if I come back later in the week with some tents? It might be more convenient to set those up in case of an influx of people."

"Yeah—sure, whatever," Jimmy calls in Pix's direction, pulling his tunic on over his head. "Sounds great."

"I was also thinking—I know we were talking about going for Bobsill first, but it may be best to go through farmhouses or hamlets on the border before trying to go to a larger village. That way, if Mythland has already reached Bobsill, it won't just be one man trying to infiltrate an army."

"Mhm," Jimmy says, probably not loud enough for Pix to hear. He cringes as his freshly-scabbing wounds stick to his tunic. Hopefully if he gets a bit of blood on his clothes, Pix won't notice it amongst the bloodstains already there.

He's come to hate these clothes, stomach turning every time he pulls them over his head. He died in these clothes, after all. He's washed them since, but the blood doesn't come out.

Pix had mentioned getting him something new to wear. Jimmy can't wait for that.

Then he just has to tug his boots on, and he can join Pix in building the next hut. His clothes chafe against his scabs, but that's more than okay. It reminds him that he's alive.

And the next morning, after Pix hugs him and leaves, Jimmy carves right back into his already mostly-healed scars.

-

Scott asks him, once, why his scales seem to be perpetually growing in. Jimmy panics, just shrugs and mutters something about scars.

He doesn't know how to say that he pulls them out in front of the mirror every morning.

It's a little like pulling a nail from the nailbed, but over the past month or so Jimmy's gotten good at wiggling them out quickly without making any sort of pained noises.

He only touches the scales that are trying to push through the scar tissue, of course. Those scars—the scars left from the Void—don't disappear. They don't fade with every swim, the patchwork marks stubbornly remaining on his face.

He doesn't mind that those ones don't fade. He doesn't want to have to stick a knife into his face every day.

But he does tug out the scales trying to grow in, every morning in the mirror (after re-scarring his body), before pinning his veil on and heading out for the day, holding himself carefully and hiding the winces at every touch from Scott.

By the evening, when they retire to their quarters, Jimmy has pretty much healed enough that the pain isn't an issue. He'll run a bath, then just rinse himself off enough that there aren't any scabs or lingering patches of dried blood, before he returns to Scott, looking as close to as he always did before.

It's exhausting, but it works perfectly. He spends every moment tired and pained, but the pain clears Jimmy's head and reminds him that he did suffer, that it was real. He won't let that fade away.

It works perfectly.

That is, until it doesn't.

One morning, Jimmy's in the washroom as he usually is, tongue sticking out a bit between his teeth as he digs his knife a little deeper into his side.

There must be some moisture in the air today or something, because his body keeps stubbornly healing this one wound. Jimmy wipes away some blood with a cloth, trying to get a clearer view of it.

It's already begun to heal again, the skin sealing up by itself. It's like his body is trying to tell him something. 

Something that Jimmy is resolutely going to ignore.

He pulls the knife out, blinks away a tear, and shoves it right back in—a little harder than intended—

Too deep, too deep—he knows instantly that he's gone too far, because his vision goes double and his stomach turns unpleasantly.

There's a knife, almost hilt-deep, in his side.

It's not the first time he's accidentally gone too far. He did it that first morning after they won—while his whole country prepared to kick out the occupying soldiers, he was passed out on the floor of the washroom, his body slowly healing itself until he was able to wake up and crawl into the bath.

He'd done it again a week later, while preparing to visit Rivendell. He'd gone too deep on his thigh, pierced that same artery that had made it such a dire wound in the first place. Again, he'd passed out until his body healed just enough for him to get in the bath.

And now here he is, knife way too far into his body, and he didn't even start any water running before cutting into himself.

Jimmy's fingers grasp the handle of the knife, but it's slippery with blood and he can't get a good enough grasp to do more than wiggle it a little, which does nothing but make him gasp out in pain.

Okay. No need to panic. He just . . . he just needs to. . . .

His knees buckle and he falls onto his other side, biting his lip as it jostles all his other wounds. This has happened before. He knows this has happened before. He just has to get some water.

His damp cloth is out of reach, hanging on the edge of the sink basin. The bath is out of reach of his trembling arms, and he doesn't think he'd have the strength to turn the faucet, anyway.

Jimmy's just thinking it might be best to just sleep here a moment, let his body do a bit of healing with whatever moisture is already in the air, when the door opens.

"Sorry, I—Jimmy!"

He blinks, sees three—two Scotts, looking down at him in horror.

"Hng," he slurs, attempting a greeting.

In an instant, Scott's beside him, right hand frantic as it lightly touches him all over.

"Is someone in the palace? Who—Jimmy, the knife—I won't let you die, it's all right, I just need—I need a healing potion, or something, I need—"

"W'er," Jimmy forces out past his heavy lips. "Jus' . . . jus' w'er."

"Water! Right, right, er—I am going to have to pull this knife out, sorry—I'll put pressure on it, and—I'll start the bath first, don't move—"

Jimmy, of course, doesn't move. He just lies there, beginning to feel a bit cold.

Being cold isn't his favorite thing in the world. There are a lot of better ways to be.

Then he cries out, because suddenly Scott is right there again, yanking the knife out of his side.

"It's all right, I'm going to lift you into the bath now—"

His world tilts and slides together, and Jimmy bites the inside of his cheek to keep from vomiting—

Then there's water—crisp, cool water, all around him, enveloping him. Jimmy sighs a little, shifts—oh, he's in the tub. Right. That's disappointing. He likes swimming.

No. No, he has to stay focused. He was . . . he was cutting himself, he was fixing his scars, and then Scott—

No. Scott can't see this, he can't know about what Jimmy has been doing because—he wouldn't understand—

Jimmy sits up, ignoring the pull of his various wounds. He's going to be normal, act normal, and just hope that Scott didn't notice anything.

A hand pushes on his chest, and he looks up to see Scott, worry creasing his face.

"You aren't anywhere near done healing, lie back down," he says, something terribly sad in his voice. "We'll talk after."

Oh. He doesn't like the sound of that.

But Jimmy lies back down, anyways, his head sticking out of the water, and watches as his wounds slowly seal back together.

-

"So."

Scott looks at him, eyes crinkled sadly. "So."

Jimmy shifts uncomfortably in his spot on the couch, his scabs rubbing against his tunic.

He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to know what Scott thinks. He just wants to pretend this never happened, so he can go see his Rivendell tutor before heading home and leading his country.

There's a plate of food on his lap, eggs that Scott had scrambled for him. Something about protein being good for blood loss.

Jimmy stares down at it, pushing the eggs around with his fork. He's hungry, but he doesn't really want to eat. He's scared of what Scott will say.

It's kind of messed up to recarve his own scars every morning. It's really messed up. Which means that Jimmy's really messed up in the head, too. What kind of sick person cuts themself every day to make sure they don't lose reminders of pain?

"How are you feeling right now?" Scott asks after a moment. Jimmy's stomach lurches; he grips his fork a bit tighter.

"Fine," he manages.

Scott sighs.

Scott’s going to break up with him. Jimmy knows it, suddenly—who would want to be with someone who purposefully hurts himself?

Tears gather in his eyes. He doesn't know what to do. He can't fix this.

"How long," Scott says, voice carefully unwavering, "have you been . . . hurting yourself?"

A tear spills free onto his cheek. Jimmy opens his mouth several times, can't speak for the lump in his throat. Instead, he shrugs, scoops up a bite of eggs and shoves into his mouth, forcing his jaw to chew when all it wants is to open wide in a sob.

"Okay," Scott says, sounding almost maddeningly calm. "More than just today?"

Jimmy forces himself to nod.

"Since before everything?"

He shakes his head.

"That's good to hear. And, er, it's all right if you don't know, but . . . why?"

Another question that Jimmy can't answer. He thinks he could answer it, if he had asked himself in the mirror, but here, with Scott waiting to break up with him after he hears how terrible of an answer it is?

Jimmy swallows his mouthful of egg and valiantly tries not to cry.

"Well, darling—I want you to remember that I love you. Nothing that you say will make me hate you. I just want to help."

That's what Scott thinks. He doesn't know the thoughts that go through Jimmy's head every time he digs a knife into his body. He doesn't know that in some sick way, Jimmy wants the scars, wants the memories of all the hurt.

A cold, pale hand lays itself on his own hand, stilling his anxious jiggling of his plate.

"Look at me, please."

Reluctantly, Jimmy looks up, meets Scott's eyes.

Scott doesn't look angry. He doesn't look disgusted.

He just looks sad.

"I want to help you," Scott repeats slowly. "I can't help you if I don't know why you're hurting."

Jimmy can't say it. He can’t, he can’t face the way Scott will look at him—

"If you would prefer, you can talk to Lizzie or Joel about it," Scott offers, and. . . .

Jimmy's automatic reaction is to refuse, because Lizzie's his sister (and a terrifying twelve-foot sea monster) and Joel is his best friend, but then it strikes him that if he tells one of them, they could tell Scott, and then Jimmy wouldn't have to see his reaction.

Which is how, only two hours later, Jimmy's sitting on the same sofa beside Joel, the same plate of eggs still in his lap.

He's wearing his veil, now, so at least if he starts crying again, Joel won't see it.

His scars are itching to be reopened, just to make sure they don't heal over too much. He doesn't usually take a morning bath, so they've probably healed more than they should have. He wonders if he can excuse himself for the washroom, take a knife to some of them before talking to Joel. It always clears his mind, too. Then he could have this conversation without losing track of it.

Then he remembers that Scott took the knife when he helped Jimmy out of the bath, and to get another one he would have to go dig through his drawers, and that would be suspicious.

"Scott told me a little bit about what's going on," Joel says quietly, interrupting Jimmy's thoughts. "He says he walked in on you . . . uh, hurting yourself? Do you want to talk about that?"

No. He doesn't want to talk about that at all. He would, in fact, prefer it if everyone forgot it happened so that he could go back to his routine in peace.

But Scott is worried, and now Joel is worried, and Jimmy owes an explanation.

He also knows that if he won't explain to either of them, they'll bring in Lizzie, and he doesn't want to worry her, too.

Joel lets out a breath. "Okay. Cool. Well, was that a one time thing? Or have you done it before?"

He can answer that. That isn't a difficult question.

"Since—every day," Jimmy forces out, voice barely above a whisper, his throat constricting against his will. "Every day since I, uh, woke up."

He feels the sofa go still under him as Joel's knee stops bouncing.

"Sorry—every day since—Jimmy, that's got to be three months ago, or more! Why didn't you talk to anyone?"

Jimmy cringes. This is why he didn't tell anyone—he doesn't want people to freak out over his personal issues. "It's not a big deal," he mutters.

Joel laughs incredulously. "Not a big deal? You—you—what, trying to kill yourself isn't a big deal?"

"I'm not trying to kill myself," Jimmy argues, turning to properly face Joel.

Joel looks—not quite angry, but definitely heated, hands curled into fists and a bit red in the face. If Jimmy were any less stubborn, he would have cowed, returning to his cold plate of eggs and his half-hearted shrugs.

But Jimmy's stubborn, and a moron, and he doesn't like false accusations.

"Right, then what are you trying to do, huh?" Joel asks, hands spreading wide. "Because when Scott calls crying about how he found you covered in blood with a knife hilt-deep in your ribcage, you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, your idiot brother-in-law and best friend just tried to commit suicide and nobody even knew there was a problem!"

"I'm—I'm not suicidal!" Jimmy sputters.

"You sound pretty bloody suicidal to me."

Jimmy takes a deep breath, hot tears prickling at his eyes. He didn't want to worry anyone with his stupid problems, and now everybody's worried.

"I'm not, okay?" he says. He grips his long robe in his gloved hands, twists the fabric between his fingers. He doesn't even try to stop the plate when it slips off his lap, falling to the carpet with a muffled thunk.

"It's just—look, it's hard to explain."

"Start at the beginning, maybe," says Joel irritatingly, crossing his arms.

Jimmy swallows. "Okay. Um, so I died, right?"

"I do remember giving your eulogy, yeah. I also seem to remember you telling us that you didn't actually die."

"I basically died," Jimmy waves. "My heartrate went down too low to register as alive, so I died. And—and suddenly I'm awake, in—in a ditch, and just start limping my way across fields in the middle of the night as I feel my internal organs just sloshing about—"

"Gross—"

"—and Pix found me, and I almost died again, and I learned that I could heal in water."

Joel nods wisely. "Being a terrifying sea demigod, and all that."

"I didn't know any of that yet. But the longer I spent in water, the more healed I got—and then, the next day, I noticed my—my scars started to fade."

He pauses, not entirely sure how to proceed. Joel doesn't say anything, just waits.

"I couldn't let them fade," Jimmy says eventually, and his eyes slide away from Joel's face and down to the floor. "I—I know, it's messed up, but it was like—the only proof that I had been hurt was disappearing before my eyes, and I couldn't—I couldn't let that happen. So I—I started carving my scars. Every morning. To keep them from going away."

Silence.

"Why," Joel says slowly, "on this great bloomin' earth, would you do that?"

Jimmy cringes. He sounds angry. It's usually pretty funny when Joel gets angry, but it's definitely not something Jimmy can handle right now.

He doesn't even know how to explain it. He doesn't know how to put reasoning to his terrible actions. He's a ruler, and a good thousand years old or more—he ought to know better!

"Because," Joel continues when he doesn't answer, "I know that is not the way Lizzie raised you."

"You weren't there," Jimmy points out.

"Yeah, well, you can't even remember it, so let's assume I'm right. My wife wouldn't encourage you to hurt yourself because you feel some sick need to have scars—"

"I was gaslit for years," Jimmy interrupts, standing. Joel doesn't understand—nobody understands— "They convinced me that all the stuff I went through was my fault, and the only reason someone realized it wasn't was because of my scars! The only proof I have that it wasn't my fault is on my body, and I can't let it just fade away!"

"So you mutilate yourself." Joel stands as well, eyebrows low in a glower.

"I don't—" Jimmy pulls at his hood, wishing it was his hair. "It's not—"

He can't focus, he can't do this, his head is all twisted around and he's tired, tired from already having to practically heal himself back to life this morning, and he just knows that some of the scars are more healed than they should be at this time of day so he ought to cut into them just to make sure—

"I have to go," he mumbles, because that's all he can think of, he just has to get away to somewhere private and quiet where he can cry and cut in peace.

He starts to leave, but Joel catches him around the chest. "I don't think we're done talking! We need—"

"I have to go," Jimmy says again, and now there's tears gathering in his eyes and he can't do this—

He pushes past Joel and out the door, into the hallway, and from there he makes a break for it, running, robes flapping around his ankles, down as many confusing corridors as he can until he finds himself in some kind of cellar, barrels lining the walls, a cozy light flickering from bracketed torches.

There's nobody else here, as far as he can tell, so Jimmy curls up in a corner beside an empty barrel and buries his face in his knees.

He cries for a while, veil sticking to his cheeks, just letting out all the terrible feelings of getting caught and having to explain and being so twisted in his mind, all the shame and guilt and disgust. And when he feels that all his tears are gone, he digs his sharp nails into a shiny pink scar on his forearm, watches as blood beads up then streams down his arm with a growing calmness.

This is sick. He shouldn't find peace in hurting himself. He shouldn't have to do this to feel like he's actually alive, and not some undead creature.

Footsteps.

Jimmy pulls down his sleeve as quickly as he can, tugs his glove back on. And when the shadow of someone rounds the corner, he sees Scott.

Scott offers him a smile, he can tell. Even with the veil on, with the teary red eyes, Jimmy can tell he smiled.

Scott sits down beside him, far better at sitting gracefully with a skirt on than Jimmy will ever be. He sits there, quiet, their knees just barely bumping against each other.

"Your arm is bleeding," Scott says after a couple of long minutes.

Jimmy, fully knowing that his arm is bleeding, looks down. Sure enough, there's an ugly splotch of red against the pale green of his sleeve.

"Oops," he says dully, word a little distorted by his stuffed-up nose.

He's kind of beyond caring, at this point. Nobody understands. Why would anybody see this wonderful healing magic as a curse, like he does?

"I talked with Joel," says Scott cautiously.

Jimmy waits.

Scott waits, too.

Historically, Jimmy is not a very patient person. It usually takes about thirty seconds for him to give in when Scott is waiting.

But his mood has swung from terrified and upset to numb and indifferent. So he doesn't say anything, and after a bit, Scott continues.

"I'm going to be having a long talk with him about handling matters of mental health," Scott says, anger suddenly bursting from him in a wave of cold air. "He went about that in entirely the wrong way. I'm sorry for the hurt he's caused."

Hurt? Joel didn't really do anything, he just . . . he just responded in the way a normal person would. He didn't understand, and that's exactly right. Nobody should understand something this horrible. Some days Jimmy doesn't even understand it.

"I want you to know that I love you," says Scott. "I'm not going to stop just because you're struggling. I want to help you."

He'd said something similar this morning. Jimmy just shrugs. He's not willing to hope that Scott would actually be willing to help. Not if he knew the full story.

"Joel said something about you trying to stop your scars from healing?"

Right. He'd better explain, then, let Scott know upfront everything that's wrong with him.

"My body heals, right?" he says quietly. "And—and my scars were healing. And it scared me. I didn't want them to heal."

"You hate your scars, though," Scott puts in. Jimmy doesn't look at him, keeps his eyes trained on the floor. "You told me that you—that you're ashamed of them. Why did you feel like that?"

Jimmy bites his lip, searches for whatever it was that he'd told Joel.

"They hurt me for a really long time," he decides on eventually, and he's frustrated when tears start to burn behind his eyes. He literally just finished crying, he doesn't need to do more. "And I thought it was my fault. Until you told me it wasn't, and you only knew that because of my scars."

Scott makes a small humming noise. Jimmy looks up, makes eye contact briefly (he sees nothing but grief and love) before turning back to the floor.

"If they fade, there's nothing to prove that I went through any of that. And I know that's stupid, and messed up, but I couldn't—I couldn't just let that go. So I started . . . re-carving them. Just enough every morning that it would scar over again, and then by the next morning I could do it again. I'm sorry."

"And this morning?"

Jimmy shrugs again, idly wipes away a tear. "Accidentally went too deep. It's happened a couple of times. Not fun, of course—" he shudders, remembering the burning pain and the cold and the blurry vision— "but nothing that won't heal itself. I'm usually very careful about it."

A burst of cold from Scott, one that almost feels like fear on the back of Jimmy's tongue.

"Is that all?" Scott asks, voice trembling just the slightest bit.

Is it all?

Jimmy certainly wants it to be all. He doesn't want to have to cause Scott any more heartache.

And he remembers, vaguely, that first night conscious, Pix fast asleep, and how he held a hot coal to his arm just to watch himself heal. He remembers how the pain made him feel alive.

And just now, his fingernails digging into his arm to calm himself.

"I think so," he says.

Then he's utterly taken aback when Scott leans over and wraps him in a hug.

"Tell me if this hurts, okay?" Scott mumbles into his shoulder.

It does, a little bit. But Jimmy just puts his arms around Scott, awkward as the leaning hug is, and holds him close, as his instinct dictates.

He loves Scott. He loves him so, so much. He can't wait until they're married.

If they get married.

After a good minute, Scott pulls back, readjusts so that he can lean against Jimmy. Jimmy, naturally, lays his head atop Scott's.

"I'm not upset with you," Scott says, sounding a little like he's crying. Jimmy doesn't move to check, his heart leaping at the words. "I'm not mad at you. I love you so much, okay? I'm making a promise every day to stick with you, and I'm not breaking it."

Jimmy's breath chokes in his throat.

Scott isn't going to break up with him, probably.

And Jimmy is going to do everything in his power to make sure he never does. Even if that means stopping cutting. He'll do whatever it takes to be good enough for Scott.

"I have elves that work in mental and emotional health," Scott says. "I can get you in for an appointment today."

Does he want that?

There's something wrong with his head if he actually wants to cut himself (like he does right now, healed cuts itching to be reopened), and he wants to be better for Scott, so he probably should see someone who's actually trained for help.

But he doesn't really want to. He doesn't want to talk to anyone else about this. He doesn't want to lose his scars.

"Maybe," he hedges. Scott gently takes his chin, moves his head a bit further away to face him.

Reluctantly, Jimmy looks up into his eyes, the rest of his face obscured by the veil.

Scott's eyes are their normal, beautiful ice blue, lovingly soft yet determined.

"That is not a 'maybe'," he says firmly. "That is non-negotiable. You are going to try to get better, and I am going to help you, but you aren't going to stay like this. So I'll get you the appointment, and then we can treat the rest of the day like it's normal, if you like. But right now we're figuring this out."

That sounds like a lot of hurt.

But somewhere, deep down, he's really sick of stabbing himself.

"You're mean," grumbles Jimmy, resting his head back on Scott. "I've never done anything like this to you."

"You literally made me hug you that one time," Scott says drily. "Remember?"

Jimmy forces a laugh. "What, when you were afraid you were gonna freeze me?"

"And you knew that I could do anything if I put my mind to it," continues Scott. "Including control my freak ice powers. And I know you can control this, all right?"

Control is an interesting word, but. . . .

Jimmy nods. He can . . . he can try.

And for now, he leans on Scott, and wishes everything was just a bit easier.

-

It's hard.

It's hard to let go.

"Jimmy, what are you doing?"

Jimmy bites his lip. His health advisor told him to ask Scott for help when he got self-harm urges, and here he is with blood running down his torso and a knife held over his collarbone.

What's he supposed to do?

His health advisor also told him to not lie if he cut.

He didn't ask Scott for help, so he might as well follow the second rule.

"Jimmy?" Scott asks again, knocking on the closed bathroom door. "What are you doing?"

"Um," Jimmy says, looking down at himself. "I'm cutting?"

"Jimmy, unlock the door."

Jimmy sighs, guilt rising in his throat. He's not trying hard enough. He really isn't.

He doesn't want to be better.

He crosses the room to the door, pauses for just a moment to dig the knife into the skin above his collarbone, hissing between his teeth as it smarts. He pulls up a little chunk of skin as he withdraws the knife, rubs the blood from his hand onto some unbloodied patch of skin on his stomach, and opens the door.

Scott's waiting there, arms folded, and Jimmy can see in his face the way his heart breaks when he takes in the violent scene that is Jimmy's body.

"Sorry," Jimmy mumbles, face heating with shame. "It was a rough morning."

Which is true. He'd woken up with the itch under his skin, and then he'd had to message Joel and tell him he was fine after being entirely out of contact for the past week, which had been terrifying and made him feel out of control somehow, and then he saw that the scar above his elbow that had once been so gnarled and raised was nothing but a brown mark on his skin, and he hadn't been able to hold back the urge any longer.

Which is how he found himself here in the washroom, shirtless and veil-less and trousers rolled up above his knees, covered in blood as he'd slowly quieted the buzzing of his mind by cutting into himself again and again.

"Oh, darling," Scott says mournfully. He heads toward the sink basin and Jimmy's wet cloth there. "Let's get you cleaned up, all right? Then we can schedule an extra appointment with the health advisor."

Jimmy doesn't move when Scott beckons him to the sink, though. He just stares down at himself, at the blood leaking from the six or seven deep cuts he's already carved.

"Jimmy?"

It's terrible. It's absolutely horrible, and Jimmy's insides twist awfully when he says it, but it's all his mind is stuck on.

"I wasn't finished."

Scott tilts his head. "What?"

Jimmy flexes his fingers on the knife hilt. "I—I wasn't done. I can't just, just stop in the middle."

Scott looks at him. Just looks at him, eyes scanning Jimmy's body in a way that makes him want to squirm and shy away.

"All right," Scott says eventually, and he leans against the basin. He waves a hand. "Continue."

Jimmy blinks. He didn't expect Scott to agree. He kind of expected him to forcibly take the knife away and send him straight to his health advisor.

He waits, knife poised above his sternum, ready to make a quick, long cut. Scott doesn't even move.

Well, he isn't going to do it while Scott is right here. That's—that would be awful.

"Um. . . ." He looks at the door, then back at Scott. Scott folds his arms.

"I'm not leaving," he says, settling in a bit. "Either cut in front of me or don't do it at all."

He can't do that. He isn't going to hurt himself in front of Scott.

But it's the only option if he wants to finish re-carving his scars.

Jimmy lifts the knife again—at some point it had fallen to his side—and sets it on his sternum, ready to drag it down.

He tries not to look at Scott, but he sees him flinch out of the corner of his eye—

He lets the knife fall back to his side. He can't do it. Not with Scott here. He can't make Scott watch that.

He knows why Scott won't leave, but it seems stupid. Why can't he just let Jimmy finish cutting in peace?

"Sure you can't leave?" he tries half-heartedly. Scott raises an eyebrow.

Right.

He can agree, give Scott the knife, pour some water on his wounds; or he can get angry, yell at him, run out and finish cutting in peace.

The second option, while certainly appealing, is quite possibly relationship-ruining. He's always done his best to rein in his stubbornness with Scott, and he's learned in recent months that it's frequently better and safer to not fight.

Even though he twitches toward the door, even though the knife feels so right against his skin, even though there's nothing stopping him, he chooses the first.

He isn't going to do it happily, though, and he levels a glare at Scott (who just raises his other eyebrow) before stumping across the washroom and holding the knife out, hilt-first.

"Here," he grumbles. "Hide it, or whatever you did with the first one."

Scott takes it, a smile playing on his lips that's some combination of relieved and self-satisfied. Jimmy rolls his eyes.

It drops quickly, though, as Scott picks up the washcloth and sits Jimmy down on the side of the tub, cleaning his wounds one by one.

"I thought you were supposed to come to me when you felt urges," Scott says quietly, pulling back the cloth as the cut on his collarbone begins to slowly mend itself. "I was just in our room. You wouldn't have been bothering me."

Jimmy sighs, purposefully drawing it out so that Scott knows just how annoyed he is. "I dunno. Just needed to fix my scars. Didn't want you to stop me."

"I'm sorry. I don't know how hard this is for you, but I need you to come to me even when you don't want to. Or—if not me, someone. Your advisor, or Lizzie, or someone. All right?"

He's right.

Jimmy doesn't want him to be right. He wants him to be nice.

It isn't Scott's kindness that makes him want to marry him, though. It probably isn't one of the first qualities that anyone would associate with him. He may want Scott to be nice about this, but he's far more likely to be right—which is, sometimes unfortunately, one of his prominent qualities. He always seems to be right.

"Okay," he says begrudgingly. "I'm fine, though. It doesn't actually hurt me."

Scott scoffs. "Right. It doesn't hurt to cut? At all?"

"Well, yeah, it hurts, but not permanently—"

"Just because you heal well doesn't mean damage isn't permanent," Scott tells him, frowning at a wound that won't close. He reaches into the medicine chest beside them, pulls out a bandage. "I would say this has been very hard for you emotionally. For others, too. And you can't tell me that almost dying every so often is healthy."

Scott is, again, right. Regular and severe amounts of pain are bad for the psyche, according to his health advisor.

Jimmy sighs again, less intentionally obnoxious. "Why are you always right?"

Scott smiles, gives him a little kiss on the cheek. "It's my job as your future husband. Somebody has to take care of you."

"I'm still not happy with you, mister, but . . . it's good to know one of us knows what he's doing."

"I'll keep doing my best," Scott declares. "But you have your moments, Jimmy."

Jimmy snorts. "Right. Honestly, if I looked at the two of us for help, I'd definitely choose the savior king who took down a demon over the guy who died a couple months ago."

"You're forgetting that I basically died, too," says Scott. "We're both just that guy. And you're a demigod who single-handedly kept an empire alive, so don't sell yourself short."

Jimmy lifts his arm when Scott taps it, lets him treat a cut on his side.

"I don't know if you know, but you're kind of a local hero," Jimmy jokes. "Kind of hard to measure up to."

Scott chuckles. "Yes, I think I figured that out when Katherine showed me the new line of Smajor dolls at her local toy shop. Or maybe when Gem told me that her students were dying their hair blue? Or maybe when I was issued an official apology from the citizens of the Grimlands. There, all done. You can start getting dressed, I'll clean up in here."

Jimmy stands, grimaces at how stiff his wounds already feel. He would offer to help—that is his blood on the floor, after all—but he always feels a little lightheaded after cutting and it takes him long enough to get dressed, anyways. Better to let Scott take care of this, and that way Jimmy won't accidentally pass out while leaning over to clean the washroom floor and he also might be ready to leave right when Scott is.

He heads toward their shared closet, hand hovering over his favorite green tunic (he usually belts it over a brown long-sleeved piece to keep in line with the betrothal modesty laws) before choosing one of Scott's favorites, a sky-blue robe with gold leaf trim and wide sleeves, which Jimmy chooses to wear over his brown long-sleeved shirt, knowing that they absolutely won't match. Scott will be embarrassed and annoyed at Jimmy for wearing his clothes in public, and Jimmy's definitely still feeling like acting obnoxious.

Sure enough, Scott glares at him all through the political breakfast of that morning, when the elven lords and ladies eye Jimmy and barely restrain giggles.

And Jimmy ignores the itching of his scars and smiles.

-

It's only two days later, and he's about to cut again.

The itching is so strong, and Jimmy, though avoiding mirrors for now, catches a glimpse of his reflection in the pool that morning and can't help but notice how light his scars are.

He has a knife socked away behind one of the never-read books on his shelf. He's taken to hiding any knives he can find (there's at least three in his room, in various hiding places) and he goes so far as to pull out the book and stare at the knife there.

He made it an entire week, and now he can't go two days?

He's stronger than this. He needs to fight this urge. He doesn't want to, but he also, logically, does not want to cut.

Which is nice, actually. He's been craving it for so long; it's nice to genuinely not want to cut. Even if it's just because he doesn't want to let Scott down.

So how on earth is he meant to deal with this, when he's supposed to be studying in their quarters for the next two hours and he can't stop thinking about the knives he has?

Scott's in a meeting about rebuilding assistance with a representative of the Undergrove, so Jimmy can't just go hang out with him. It would be both illegal and improper to have an unallied ruler present at such a meeting.

He'd come up with other such solutions at the insistence of his health advisor, in case Scott wasn't available at any given time. But none of those options are very feasible right now, either—he could take a walk but would just end up returning here, still needing to do his studies. He could call Lizzie, but then he would need to explain the situation and he still hasn't found the guts to tell her of the matter. He could instead do work for his empire—he and Scott are going to be returning there in just a couple of days—but there's not really anything remote that he can do that hasn't already been done. And his last option is to take a nap, but he doesn't think he'd be able to sleep with this pulling at his brain.

Whatever he does, he can't stay in this room, Jimmy decides. It's too much of a temptation. He'd be much better off somewhere else, somewhere people are watching and he has to act normal.

It's almost physically difficult to make himself leave, but Jimmy grabs his books on the history of musical tradition in Rivendell and his study journal and leaves the room, wandering the palace until he finds the meeting room where Scott currently is.

He sits outside the room (a servant pulls a chair into the hallway for him, despite his insistence that he didn't need one, that he was fine on the floor) and does his best to study while he waits for his fiance to have a break.

After about an hour, he's startled by the door opening, a guard leading the Undergrove representative into the hall and away, followed by others from the meeting.

Jimmy waits until all the official-looking people have filtered out, muttering to each other and shuffling papers. Then he pokes his head in, finds Scott sitting in his grand chair at the head of the table, Ilphas at his side. They're murmuring with each other, examining papers before them, and Scott rubs his eyes and lays his face in his hands.

Jimmy doesn't say anything, but Ilphas looks up, raises their eyebrows, and stands, patting Scott lightly on the shoulder.

"You'll cheer him up," they mutter to Jimmy as they pass on their way out. "The meeting is on recess, you have fifteen minutes."

Jimmy nods, sidles into the room. Scott looks up when he gets close, lines around his eyes softening.

"Hi," Scott says as Jimmy takes Ilphas's vacated seat. "How has studying been?"

Jimmy thinks of his time in the hallway, trying desperately not to roll up his sleeves just to scratch at his arms, or head back up to his room to fix his scars. It had been a constant struggle, and he hadn't gotten more than page read, the words blurring before his eyes.

He hums noncommittally, taps his gloved fingers on the table before him. "How was the meeting?"

"Good, I think," Scott says, glancing down at his papers. "Just difficult. Our alliance with the Undergrove is about as strong as it can get, which is always good. The problem is, I have an empire of my own that was under enemy rule to take care of, and we're spread thin enough with other allies. We're trying to figure out what Rivendell has spare of that the gnomes could actually use. There are at least five other people who need to be present for this, though, so it may go on for several days."

"Hm." Jimmy shifts a bit, ready to preemptively wince when his stomach presses against the table, but there's no wound there.

He hadn't carved it open, after all.

Instantly, Jimmy feels his entire body break out into sweat, the itching becoming a hive of ants crawling under his skin.

He needs to fix his scars. He needs to cut, or else they'll disappear and they're already starting to disappear and he can't stand it.

He isn't supposed to be cutting. He's supposed to distract himself.

But Jimmy's doing all of the right things! He left the room with the temptations, he tried to focus on something else, he found Scott. He did exactly what his health advisor told him to do, and it didn't work. He just needs to fix his scars, he needs to leave the room and go get his knife and lock himself in the washroom—Scott would never know, he knows how to hide it, he could just get it done—

"—entirely confidential, of course," Scott is saying distantly. "But basically, Shelby's afraid that—"

"Scott," Jimmy interrupts, voice too loud. Scott looks up from the table, and Jimmy just knows his eyebrow is raised, even if he can't well see it. "Yes, darling?"

Right. He isn't even going to think about it, because if he thinks about it, he'll chicken out, he just can't let Scott down.

"I am about to cut myself," Jimmy says, detached and calm. "There is a knife on my bookshelf, second shelf behind the red book on the left. There's another one between my mattress and my bedframe. Could you please remove them?"

Scott stares at him for a moment, before shoving back his chair. "I—yes, of course—are you all right if I leave you here?"

"Maybe leave me with Ilphas," Jimmy forces himself to say, despite the way his head screams at him. If he's alone, he can at least scratch himself with his sharp nails. "I—I shouldn't be alone."

He should be letting Scott rest during this break, not bothering him with his dumb mental issues. He should actually be a normal adult for once and handle his own problems.

But Scott taps his shoulder as he passes by. "Thank you for coming to me," he says seriously. "You did everything right. I'll see you in a moment, and I'll send Ilphas in here."

Then he's gone, and a moment later, Ilphas ducks back into the room.

"Milord," they nod to Jimmy. Jimmy nods back, tugging his gloves up a bit from where he'd started to subconsciously pull them off.

Jimmy doesn't speak. Ilphas looks awkwardly between him and the hall, then, with the uncomfortable air of forcing a conversation, says, "The music of Rivendell? How do you find yourself enjoying it?"

"The—the music itself, or, uh, the study?"

"The study," they clarify. Jimmy chews on his lip for a moment.

"It's strange, studying music," he says. "I guess I didn't think about the fact that people must do it."

"How did Cod music come about?"

Jimmy shrugs. "I don't know. I think I pioneered it, though."

Ilphas tilts their head. Jimmy does not elaborate.

He does vaguely remember tying two clam shells together to make a noisemaker, one that had quickly spread in popularity and he still sees as a percussion instrument in Cod culture. Why study Cod music when he was there for its development?

"How old do elves get?" Jimmy asks suddenly as the thought occurs to him—are there elves here who might have seen the development of their culture, as Jimmy had seen his own?

"One thousand and two-hundred is the oldest an elf has lived to be," Ilphas says, sounding weirdly proud. "We are among the longest-lived of the species of the earth. Even the fae tend to live for under four hundred years. The gnomes have a lifespan slightly shorter than humans, and the inhabitants of the ocean and the Codlands—do correct me if I'm wrong—do not commonly live longer than one hundred and fifty years, and often shorter, depending on the breed. Which is why elves have historically kept to themselves, and rarely married outside their own—there is no one who can match our lifespan."

It almost feels pointed. "Well, you won't have that problem with me," Jimmy says offhandedly. He so badly wants to tear through his sleeve, stab his pointed nail into his upper arm. He can't stand this, he has to go fix his scars, he has to stop Scott from taking his knives.

He takes in a long, slow breath. He can control this urge until it passes.

He blinks, and realizes that Ilphas is frowning at him.

"Pardon my asking, milord, but is the Cod lifespan not typically under a hundred years? Lord Smajor will likely live to be over a thousand, praying all goes well in his reign."

Oh. Right.

"I'm . . . I'm kind of older than I look," Jimmy says awkwardly. "I'll . . . I'll probably outlive him, honestly. If all goes well in—in my reign."

"Outlive Lord Smajor?" Ilphas sputters. "Perhaps, if he were already well-advanced, but he is barely an adult! Aeor willing, he will—"

"I'm back, thank you, Ilphas," Scott says, entering the room. "Apologies, it was urgent. Do you mind if I have a moment alone with my betrothed? And," he adds, as Ilphas inclines their head and moves to leave, "give us ample warning before entering again. Five minutes alone?"

"Five minutes," Ilphas agrees, casting one more confused look toward Jimmy before leaving and closing the door behind themself.

Scott barely hesitates. He crosses the room like he has an urgent mission and sweeps Jimmy up into a hug.

Jimmy can't help it; he smiles, throws his arms around Scott's neck.

"I'm so proud of you!" Scott says, and he lets go of Jimmy only for a moment to release the clips on both their veils, letting them slip down.

Scott isn't kidding—his face is positively beaming, as tired as he still appears. Jimmy's really not sure why. He hadn't even done anything, except want to hurt himself. "I didn't do anything special," he mumbles.

"You came up with a plan, and you stuck to it," says Scott. "You took initiative by asking me to remove dangerous items from your room. You fought your addiction to get help. That's incredible, Jimmy!"

But it isn't. He didn't do anything.

And he doesn't like that word.

"It's not an addiction," Jimmy says, looking away. "It's just me being dumb. Don't—don't call it an addiction when I could stop at any time, I just keep choosing to mess up."

Scott frowns. "Jimmy, you came in here because you were fighting an urge to self-harm and you needed me to make sure you didn't. Do you want to cut?"

Does he?

To some extent, he does. He wants to check on his scars, make them dark and ugly again, tug the shimmering scales out of his face and from his knuckles. He can't lose this.

But Jimmy's so tired of hurting. He doesn't want to be trapped in this endless loop of nearly killing himself every morning for the next however-long he lives.

He feels like a child, trying to lug around a wagon of useless rocks, each one collected from a meaningful place, but useless all the same.

"I don't know," he whispers. "I don't think I want to."

"You don't have to call it an addiction," Scott says gently. "It's an alarming word. But when you're repeatedly hurting yourself and you don't want to, it isn't normal."

He says something else that Jimmy doesn't understand as he turns his head to check the door, Scott's voice becoming distorted in his bad ear. When he turns back, Scott's smiling softly.

"You're two days sober," he says, voice bursting with something like pride. "And you're already taking all the right steps."

"Two days," Jimmy groans. It feels like it's been weeks already, his scars constantly nagging at the back of his mind. And he has to be clean from self-harm for—for forever?

He isn't strong enough for that. He doesn't want to be strong enough.

"Three days tomorrow," Scott encourages. "Three days is enough. And then four days after that. One day at a time."

Scott is too perfect for him. He's such an excellent person, and Jimmy just can't measure up.

One day at a time.

"I can try that," Jimmy says. Scott smiles, one gloved hand coming up to rest on Jimmy's jaw.

"I'm right here, okay? Every day."

And then, at Jimmy's little nod, Scott closes the gap between them and kisses him.

Scott's a good kisser, if Jimmy does say so himself. He's responsive, and tends to let Jimmy lead, and Jimmy really wants to lead right now.

He lightly scrapes one of his sharp lower teeth against Scott's bottom lip, smiles against Scott's mouth when his partner actually moans a little, lets his lips fall further open. So ridiculously sensitive, his lover is.

Jimmy's about to go a little further—he really does love kissing Scott, it feels like taking care of him in some odd, protective way, it makes him feel like he can do something right—when a knock on the door startles them apart.

The door opens a crack, and Ilphas calls in, "Milords, it's been seven minutes, so you had really better make yourselves decent if you aren't."

Jimmy blushes; the blood drains from Scott's face.

"Just one moment," Scott calls over his shoulder, standing up straight from where he'd been leaning back on the table.

He fixes both their veils, and Jimmy cracks one last smile at him, hidden by the thin green fabric.

Then he's being ushered out of the room, and many more people are being ushered in, and Jimmy has to return to his studies for another half hour before heading off for a walk through the gardens.

The itching under his skin quiets just a little.

And Jimmy lives one day at a time.

-

It's about a year later when he relapses.

Jimmy's had a bad day—he's been in meetings all week, trying to see if the House Blossom Alliance can be reformed, and it's been stressful all around. And then today, in one of those meetings, fWhip had made it clear that he believed Jimmy had entirely invented the years of torment at the hands of him and Sausage and Joey.

It had been a moment where Jimmy had floundered. His hands had clenched into fists, bile had risen in the back of his throat, he'd stared hard at the table while Katherine called for fWhip to behave himself.

And now, arriving home in Rivendell, Jimmy can barely hide in his room fast enough.

fWhip's right, there's no proof that any of it ever happened—there's no way to verify it, no way to show that Jimmy had been through everything because none of his scars are more than faint lines now except the ones from the Void, and those ones have a clear origin that isn't necessarily fWhip—and Scott doesn't count as an eyewitness because he's Jimmy's husband, he's biased, he could be lying about seeing any of it because Jimmy doesn't have any way to corroborate his story and everything itches under his skin and it's so bad—

Moving almost by instinct, Jimmy stumbles up from where he's collapsed on the floor, up and over to his bedside rug. He pulls up a corner of it, and there the knife is.

It's been hidden there for at least a year, its oiled sheath still showing Jimmy's fingerprints from when he'd last touched it to hide it.

He barely thinks for a moment, his stomach going all cold as he realizes what he's about to do—he's been clean for a year, he can't do this he doesn't really want to does he?—but he thinks more about where he's going to start and how to keep himself from being interrupted than he does anything else.

He locks himself in the washroom, strips off his brown leather waistcoat and green tunic and surveys his torso for a moment.

There used to be a scar, long and thin, right down his sternum. He traces his skin there lightly with the tip of the knife, hair standing on end.

Then he pushes the knife in.

It hurts. It hurts a lot more than it used to, he thinks—it's been a while since he was properly injured, and it's hard to think when there's a knife in him.

After the first cut, he falls back into the routine as if he'd cut just yesterday. His hands find the vague spots that were once twisted scars and carves them out by muscle memory, stabbing the knife deeper and deeper as his hands shake and his knees go weak.

And then he reaches the scales on his face and his hand falters.

He's covered in blood. He's absolutely soaked in it, his face stark-white against all that red.

He relapsed.

The knife slips from his numb fingers and clatters to the floor. Jimmy feels himself sway, the sight of so much blood making his head woozy.

He sits down, hard, on the floor, the world tilting a little. He isn't going to—it isn't that bad. He's definitely done worse to himself, even if it's been a year.

A year. He was clean for an entire year, and all of that is now gone.

He kind of doesn't want to clean up. What's the point? He might as well keep cutting and never stop, seeing as he's already lost literally all of his progress.

But he doesn't, for some reason. He doesn't touch the scales on his face and hands, fully grown in now when he'd never let them before.

Instead, he follows old routine. He gets his wet cloth from the basin and wipes down his body, watching the wounds slowly scab over until no more blood is seeping out. Then he pulls his tunic back on over stinging wounds, leaving the waist coat for another day, and rolls his trouser legs down.

Now what is he supposed to do?

He wants to keep it hidden. That old itch that had been a quiet background noise for many months now is roaring for attention, pushing and pulling at his mind.

He can't tell anyone about this, or else they'll make him stop.

Which—he wants to stop. He literally wants to stop, but he can't stop thinking of ways to hide it, to keep his knife as his own and cover the marks he's made.

He isn't going to do that. He isn't going to hide things from Scott anymore.

So Jimmy sits on their bed and gets out his communicator, tapping out a message to his husband with trembling fingers.

I need help. if you're busy don't worry about it it isn't urgent :)

Jimmy tosses his communicator across the bed, hugs his arms around himself. Why did he send a smiley face? That was dumb. Then Scott will turn up later and think that it isn't an actual issue, even though Jimmy relapsed and everything is suddenly so bad.

But he can't bother him by telling him it's important, because Scott is currently in his weekend planning meeting to prepare to go to the Codlands for the next week, and that's very important and if Jimmy interrupts it Scott might not be able to go home with him this week.

So he waits there, hugging himself, his cuts hurting just a little too much for him to forget them.

He doesn't cry. When he used to cut, it would disconnect his emotions. His head would clear a little more with every dig of the knife, and he would finish feeling numb with a buzz of satisfaction.

The satisfaction feels more sickly than anything else. He sits there, stewing in the feeling, staring at nothing.

He can't act normal. He's not sure how he thought he would be able to pretend that nothing was wrong. He can't even do that while alone.

Jimmy waits there, feeling rather small, curled up on the end of their bed. He doesn't move. He doesn't even readjust when he feels a cut on his side pull open and stick to his tunic. Shame. He liked this tunic.

He's not sure how long he waits before the sitting room door opens and he hears Scott take off his boots. He knows it's Scott, instinctively—Scott always turns the doorknob when shutting the door so that it closes softly, and Jimmy knows exactly the sounds it makes when Scott pulls free the laces of his boots and sets them on the wooden rack.

Sure enough, Scott comes through the bedroom side door, offering Jimmy a soft smile before unclasping an official-looking cape of sorts (his wings shake themselves a couple of times) and laying it on the back of his desk chair, setting his crown on the desk.

"I got your message," Scott says. "Sorry I took a little while, I only had a few more items of business to take care of before it was all finished. How was your meeting? How's Katherine doing?"

Jimmy stands, twisting his hands in the fabric of his shirt, carefully not looking at the cut across his lower palm that he'd made just earlier.

"Um, she's good," he says, not quite meeting Scott's eyes. "The meeting didn't go the best."

Scott clicks his tongue, lifts a necklace off himself and sets it on the desk beside his crown. "I should've been there. I don't like it when you have to talk to any of them without me there."

"Gem and Katherine and Pix were there," Jimmy says. "He wasn't going to attack me. He just . . . he said some stuff."

"I'll kill him," Scott says instantly. "I'm the Champion of Aeor, I can take him, easy."

"And I'm a thousand-year-old demigod, we all could take him," Jimmy reminds him. "But that's not really . . . that's not what I need help with. But it's related, I guess."

"What, did fWhip do something?"

"Not . . . not exactly."

A frown creases Scott's face. He crosses the room, sits down on the bed, and pats the spot beside him.

Jimmy joins him, almost reluctantly. It would be easier to just tell him from the doorway, then take off running before Scott can get angry or sad. But he sits beside his husband and does his best not to flinch when Scott's wing comes to settle around him.

"You're upset, darling," Scott says, tone careful and soft. "What's wrong?"

There's no tears. Not yet. Only a feeling like he's going to throw up.

"I relapsed," Jimmy manages, voice barely above a whisper. "I cut myself. I relapsed."

"Oh . . . oh, love. . . ."

"I didn't mean to," he adds. "Just—fWhip said some things and I couldn't get them out of my head."

"I'll kill him," Scott says again. "I'm actually going to kill him, he made you feel like that and—"

"Scott. . . ."

Scott stops at Jimmy's small, pleading word. He pauses, then takes Jimmy's hands in his own.

"I love you," he says seriously, and Jimmy's heart flips at the reminder. "Whatever fWhip said means absolutely nothing to me, okay? You are incredible, darling. Now, do you need any medical attention? How bad is it?"

Jimmy's about to wave him off, say that it isn't bad at all. He's never liked to admit to pain.

But he's learning how to be better. He doesn't want to lie to his husband.

"I'll be fine," he says carefully. "It was pretty bad, though. I—I really messed up. I basically just, uh, stopped short of my scales."

Scott breathes in and out, slow and steady. Then he looks Jimmy hard in the eye.

"I'm glad you're okay," he says, face determined. "I'm sorry you went through that. Do you have anything that I need to keep safe?"

"Knife," Jimmy says. "It's in the washroom, on the sink. I cleaned up, so don't worry about . . . anything."

Scott nods, squeezes Jimmy's hands before slipping away, through the sitting room and into the washroom. After a couple of moments, he returns, smile a little tight around the corners.

Jimmy swallows back that horrible ill feeling. He was an entire year sober, and one little mocking statement from fWhip sent him right back to day one.

“I failed,” he whispers eventually. Finally, tears burn at his eyes.

He failed. An entire year.

“You didn’t . . . that doesn’t change your worth,” Scott tells him, once again weaving their hands together. “It doesn’t change anything. You just keep trying.”

“Yeah, but—it does, really, because—”

“Failing doesn’t mean you’re worthless,” Scott says strongly. “It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It only means you try again.”

Scott knows that. Jimmy knows how deeply Scott struggled, those weeks living in the refugee camp, with feeling like he was anything but a failure. Scott’s worked with those feelings for a very long time—Jimmy still remembers from the other month how Scott held him so tightly and almost cried over that first time that he was late to answer Jimmy’s messages, so long ago, how badly he felt he’d failed him.

Scott knows how it feels to be a failure.

Jimmy’s pretty well-acquainted with it too, to be fair. He’s felt like a failure for most of his short memory.

But that’s okay.

“I’m a loser,” he tries half-heartedly.

“Don’t say such things about my husband.”

Hearing Scott call him his husband releases some of the tension Jimmy’s holding in his chest and he collapses onto Scott, his wounds twinging. Scott huffs out a laugh, falls back against the bed, pulling Jimmy down with him.

“The urge is a lot stronger, now,” Jimmy warns Scott, voice partially muffled by his husband’s tunic. “I might . . . I might fail again.”

The last words come out small, shameful. Scott hugs Jimmy tight.

“Okay,” he says simply. “I wish I could fight it for you, but I’m here to support you, no matter what.”

That’s all Jimmy needs.

He can do it, he thinks.

“One day at a time, darling.”

“One day at a time.”

[hsslilly-blog]

if i were to post my writing (high school story/hollywood u), would you prefer it if i posted it directly on tumblr or would it be better if it were posted on ao3? or maybe, a third, less categorical option: should i crosspost it?

[non-un-topo]

I realize I've been so flaky with responding to asks, finishing my drawings or fics I promised, etc. I've kind of been drifting in and out of tumblr without interacting much. Real life just finally started, and I need to build up a ton of motivation and find time before I can work on a fandom project. Just wanted to say that I'm still here and still working on stuff, just slowly.

[cannibalisticskittles]

first times - ch. 1

For the past few weeks, you’ve been plagued with thoughts of Pen. Thoughts that are… decidedly less than chaste. But really, who could blame you? You’ve got eyes. And needs. And you’re certain that Pen could meet those needs. That is, if you ever get around to acting on these thoughts, instead of just sitting around and fantasizing. 

And Pen – he has his duties, sure, but when your interest in him is brought to light… well, there’s nothing that says he can’t have a little fun while he’s here, right?

…which is definitely, unquestionably, 100% the only reason why he’s increasingly drawn to you. The sudden temptation of attention, admiration, and affection holds no sway over him. But… as Sandrock’s premier protector, he wouldn’t say no to some long-overdue appreciation directed his way.

(or: you are awash in horny nonsense. feelings ensue.)

[builder/pen]

One thing you’ve learned about Pen is that he has an uncanny knack for finding you when you’ve stayed out far too late in the mines, or gathering supplies in the desert, and you wind up falling asleep somewhere you shouldn’t. 

It’s a handy skill, really, given how often you push yourself beyond your limits. At this rate, you can’t even count the number of times you’ve woken up safe in your bed, knowing the only way you could’ve gotten there was if Pen brought you home. 

The trouble with that is – sometimes you swear you can smell him when you wake. Sand and a faint hint of what you assume is his hair gel, but mostly sweat, lingering in the air as if he’s only just tucked you into bed; as if you could call out for him and he would appear in your doorframe.

Sometimes you do call out – though you tend to do so after slipping a hand into your underwear as you imagine him there with you, and – well, the details change from there.

You’ve seen… quite a bit of him, thanks to his insistence that you take the time to really soak in the details of his physique and admire how fantastic his pecs look after his latest workout. 

Arms. Chest. Thighs. Glistening with sweat from yet another punishing self-improvement session – self-perfection, more like – that you have, mercifully, so far prevented yourself from darting forward and tasting. His exercise attire leaves little to the imagination – and you are happy to let your imagination fill in the gaps. And as all of him is big – you have to assume his cock is no exception. You wonder sometimes if you’d really be able to take him with the ease that you do in these daydreams, but that thought never lasts too long, pushed out by far more important thoughts of how good you’re sure it would feel.

Sometimes you imagine Pen engulfing you, his broad chest pinning you to the mattress as he fucks into you, filling you completely. 

Sometimes you imagine his large hands wrapped around your wrists, setting a lazy pace just to hear you whine for more and chuckling as he prevents you from moving against him and speeding things up.

Sometimes you imagine him fucking you with no restraint at all, panting and grunting above you with that beautiful voice of his as he fucks you like an animal. 

Sometimes you switch it up a little and imagine bouncing on his lap, your nails clawing marks up and down his back.

Often, you imagine him murmuring lowly into your ear, filthy things about how wet you are, how desperate, how ready for him. 

In all these fantasies, his smile is nearly always present, smug and self-satisfied – and why wouldn’t he be? He’s not even here, and he’s made a whimpering mess of you with just the idea of him. Light, he’d love that if he knew, wouldn’t he? Love to know how desperate you are to see him, taste him, feel him. How the thought of him leaves you trembling. It’s not as if his ego needs feeding, but if he knew what you thought when you looked at him – 

Fuck. He’d be smug about it, unquestionably. His ego would grow to an unprecedented size. You know he thinks quite highly of himself; rather than be flattered he may just take it in stride – his dues, as it were. 

And yet. Maybe he’d be… interested in these fantasies of yours. Maybe, maybe he would… reward you for it. 

And the thought of him looking at you with hunger is – delicious. Overwhelming. That’s the thought you fixate most on, as all your senses fill with thoughts of him, him, him –

And then you come to with your fingers in your cunt and your underwear soaked through and realize you have lost yet another morning to fantasies of Pen. 

By the time you drag yourself out of bed, clean yourself up, and finally, finally get ready for the day, it is far later than it has any right to be – close to midday already. How much of that is from your body catching up on all those hours of lost sleep, and how much was spent tangled up in thoughts of Pen, you cannot say for certain. What is clear is that you’ve managed to waste no small amount of time. 

There goes another morning…

Because – this isn’t the first time this has happened, has it? Far from it. 

You… might have been deliberately staying out too late sometimes, just so he’ll find you and carry you home, and… okay, maybe this is the third day in a row that you’ve done that – and that’s just accounting for this week. How many times has this happened last week? And the one before that?

It… might be time to admit you have a problem. 

Right. No more dawdling. First things first – you’re going to make up the time you lost today. There is work to be done. The bridge to the Eufaula is coming along well, but several tons of steel cables and frames do take time and effort to put together – two factors which you have been sorely lacking lately.

No more. Today, you catch up on the projects you’ve let fall by the wayside. And… this time, no midnight forays. As disappointing as that feels. 

You’ve finished your designated part of the project, but there’s still more to do. Smaller tasks to help speed things up. So, off to the guild you go. 

You ignore Yan’s yammering in your ear about being late to pick up commissions; like he would know anything about that. As far as you can tell, he’s been riding the coattails of legitimate builders for as long as he’s been in his position. Even with… distractions… you’re outpacing him by a mile. But you’re a practiced hand at tuning out the buzz of his voice at this point.

Heidi’s been busy; even with signs that the board has been picked over, with several commissions already taken by Mi-an or Athena – or both – there’s still a fair amount left over. Frames and beams and raw materials needed for the base. Yeah, you can handle that. 

From there, you fall into a familiar pattern. Load the recyclers up with a new heap of scrap, fill furnaces with ore – which reminds you, you have got to find some way to thank Pen for carrying not only you but a full bag of ore, too. …and now you have got to stop thinking about being carried in his arms. Focus. Pop out to the scrapyard for extra materials, dip down into the ruins to top up on copper ore, head back home, reload the machines, sort the excess into storage. Only then, with the last of these tasks done, do you concede that it’s time for a break from the heat and dip inside to cool down.

You take stock of what else still needs to be done as you make your way to the fridge. Don’t you still have some pressed sandberry juice left over? That sounds like a good idea right about now. 

You can always use more materials – ore mostly; you should make sure to set aside an afternoon to go mining soon – but as far as today’s commissions go, once the furnace cools, you should be able to put everything together relatively quickly. 

You nudge the door of the fridge open with your hip and scan the shelves. Ah, there’s the pitcher, at the back of the lowest shelf. You bend to reach it. 

The frames will be easy enough to transport, as will the various rods and pipes Heidi asked for, but the beams… once those are built, you might need to ask Pen for some help hauling them over to the bridge worksite. Difficult for you to handle moving them, but surely no problem for him.

The mental image of Pen lifting iron beams with ease hits you just as your fingers brush the pitcher’s glass handle, and you pause. 

…maybe he’d be willing to extend the favor and lift more than that.

Nothing too heavy, just… your hips. As he bends you over much like the position you’re in now. His breath warm against the back of your neck, his hands pushing your underwear aside as he spreads you open with his fingers and prepares to–

The sound of your name and the sensation of a hand on your back pulls you from your reverie, and you yelp as you jolt, inadvertently bashing your head against a shelf in the process.

“Augh, who–?” You blink through the pain as you straighten. “–Athena.”

A Sister from Meidi, your fellow builder, an excellent listening ear – and also, very possibly the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever met, which you’re sure many others in Sandrock would agree with – is now standing in your kitchen.

She’s clearly been hard at work, if the faint smudges of dirt on the sleeves of her bright yellow toga and dotted across her hands are any indication, but she still looks radiant, which doesn’t make you feel much better about being caught with your ass sticking out of your refrigerator, mid-fantasy.

Athena normally wears an expression of serene tranquility, but there’s a slight frown on the taller woman’s face as she pushes back a strand of her long, white hair and then extends a hand towards you. You lean towards her obligingly, letting her gently probe at the point of impact. You hiss as her fingers make contact, but it doesn’t hurt too bad. 

“No blood,” she says, “but it’ll likely bruise. Are you alright?”

“I – yeah, I’m alright, it just stings a bit. You startled me.”

“I knocked, but there was no answer and no one’s seen you all day.” Her frown deepens. “You know you left your door unlocked?”

“Yeah, I’ve… been doing that,” you say. Hard to go in and out as often as you need if you have to fiddle with locks all day. …and hard for Pen to bring you home if you leave it locked, too. “What’s, uh – what’s going on, though? Did you need something, or…?” You were kind of in the middle of something, and much as you adore Athena, it was just about to get good. 

She regards you silently for a moment, her frown softening into a look of puzzlement. You resist the urge to shuffle on your feet under her scrutiny. 

“...we were supposed to finish filling the planters around town and tend to the greenery on the northeast side of the desert this afternoon,” she says. “You never came.”

“Was that today? I thought–” And, wait, ‘this afternoon?’ It can’t be that late, can it?

You glance out the window. It’s dusk. 

Shit. 

You groan, swiping a hand across your face. All thoughts of returning to your interrupted daydream fizzle out. …well, most of them do, anyway. You’d be lying if you said you wouldn’t be able to jump back into them in a heartbeat, if given the opportunity. “I’m so sorry, I lost track of time, and the days, I guess, and I…” You shake your head. “I’m sorry. I was… distracted.”

“You’ve seemed distracted a lot, recently,” she notes. “I’ve hardly seen you at all this week, and you’ve seemed frazzled every time. And I’ve heard you’ve been passing out far too often lately. Didn’t you say you were going to work on not doing that anymore?”

“I did,” you admit, and the reminder of that promise comes with no small amount of shame. “I just… I…”

What could you say – that taking care of yourself has seemed far less appealing than hoping your reckless actions will somehow bring you closer to him – not that you’ll even be awake to appreciate it if it does? That your head’s been so full of fantasies you barely have room for anything else?

“Hey.” Athena’s voice is gentle. “What’s on your mind?” She practically radiates understanding – something about the set of her eyes and the way she regards you suggests you could spill all your secrets to her and she would be a stalwart protector of them all. You wonder sometimes if that came after those years of service with the church, or if she’s always been like that. Regardless, maybe it would help to talk to someone about this. 

“It’s…” You sigh. “…you want something to drink? Let me get you something. And, uh… feel free to take a seat. Get comfortable.” 

Feels strange to start dumping all these thoughts on her when you’re both just standing in your kitchen. …not that it’s likely to stop feeling strange once you’re sitting, but it’s worth a shot. And having some sandberry juice as you chat might help to collect your scattered thoughts.

As you grab the pitcher and a pair of glasses, you ruminate on how to explain this in a… delicate way, but you remain at a loss. By the time you mosey over to the table where Athena is waiting patiently, you have failed to alight on some neat, perfect explanation that leaves out any potential for embarrassment. No, you’ll have to be honest about this, won’t you? Mortifying as that may be. 

You fill both glasses and take a seat. “So,” you say, pushing one of the glasses towards Athena, “lately I’ve been… preoccupied, it’s true. I’ve been thinking about… Pen.” You tap your nails on your glass. “I can’t stop thinking about Pen. He’s–” Your face begins to burn. Is there not a way to do this that feels less – soul-baring? “...very attractive, and I am… not immune to his charms, and lately I have been… drawn to him more and more.”

“Mmh.” Athena takes a sip from her glass. “I’ve noticed.”

“You… have?”

“You have a tendency to stare when you see him. Constantly.”

“Oh. I do?” Shit. You haven’t noticed, but then, when Pen’s around, he is all you think about, so it’s… certainly possible.

“Mmhmm. And you’ve been giving him what I can only describe as bedroom eyes.”

You blanche. “No. I – have I?” 

She nods. “And you’ve picked up a habit of sticking out your chest around him, and it’s like you go out of your way to find something to put in your mouth so that you’re constantly sucking on something.”

“That’s – a complete coincidence, that’s not–”

But Athena continues, counting off each new observation on her fingers as she goes. “You find reasons to be near him and some of your excuses are extremely flimsy, you get tongue-tied, you bite your lip so often it’s a wonder it isn’t perpetually bleeding… and you bounce sometimes. Like you’re thinking about–”

“I – I just like to move!” you protest. 

“Mmhmm. And it just so happens that you always feel compelled to move specifically while you’re looking at his… ‘belt?’”

You bury your face in your hands. “Fucking hell,” you groan, “I’ve been that obvious?”

“Enough that I didn’t think you were trying to keep it a secret,” she says. 

You drop your hands, though you cannot meet Athena’s gaze head on. “Yes. Yes! Alright! It’s — I mean, I didn’t know I was announcing it to everyone, by the Light, but yes, I’ve been–”

You push back from your chair and stand so that you can pace. Feels better to move. Feels better to not look at her right now, and see the judgment that you fear might be there. Instead, you run a hand through your hair. 

“–unendingly horny about Pen,” you finish. “Athena, he’s so hot, can you blame me?

But it’s – it’s constant. I pass him in town and I start thinking about him picking me up, carrying me into one of the alleys, and fucking me against a wall. I – I sit next to him in church, and, Light, those thighs, and I just want him to bend me over a pew, sermon be damned.”

Athena grimaces slightly at this blasphemous scenario you’ve conjured up for her. “I understand,” she says, and it seems as though she has more to say – some advice, perhaps, but how can she advise you when this is something you’ve never experienced with such intensity?

So you – sorry, Athena – cut her off. 

“I don’t think you do, because I don’t even get how it can be this bad, it’s – Athena, I don’t even need to see him, sometimes I just hear his voice and I imagine what he might say as he – talks me through taking all of him. It’s so much worse than it’s ever been and it feels like it’s getting worse day by day.”

“Really,” she insists. “I understand. …not about Pen, specifically, but – it is possible to be this… intensely horny even without having had experiences like that before, you know. Your… situation, isn’t so unheard of. Many could understand, and it’s not some damning edict. Even with it affecting your day to day life.”

You groan. “Sure feels damning, but… thanks. If you think so, maybe there’s some hope for me after all.” Hard to imagine anyone else making such a massive fool out of themselves the way you’ve been doing, but you suppose it’s more likely than you being utterly unique in this horny torment. And then you process more of what she’s said and your focus shifts. “Wait, are you saying you–?” Because it sure sounds like she’s including herself in that ‘many,’ and that is interesting. The devout Sister from Meidi, inexperienced but wanting? This bad?

But Athena shakes her head. “No.” Her voice is firm, though not harsh. “We are… focused on you, and your predicament right now. We can talk about nuances that may or may not concern me, later.”

You certainly will. But she’s right – you’re the one letting all this… pent up desire interfere with, well, everything.

“Right,” you say, “okay. So – maybe this isn’t so strange and you do get where I’m coming from. But if experience factors into this, I’m – I’m not – I do have experience.” You run a hand through your hair. You don’t love how insistent that came out. Like you’ve got something to prove. It’s really not that big a deal – honestly, it isn’t even noteworthy. “I mean… I’m not exactly virginal, y’know?”

Athena stifles a laugh. “I’ve gathered. You’re not quiet about some of your past… exploits.”

“Right,” you say, “yeah. About that. The thing is, I have had partners before. And I’ve done… some things. But there are… some other things, I… haven’t. Yet.”

Your pacing brings you to the wall near one of the windows currently letting in a gentle, warm breeze, and you lean against it, considering how best to mention this… tiny, insignificant little detail. 

“Like… penetration.” You wince as soon as the word leaves your mouth. Could you have chosen a more awkward way to phrase that? Doesn’t seem like it, but it’s too late now. “From someone else, anyway,” you hasten to add. “There are some really marvelous devices sold at a shop in Tallsky that’ll do the trick for some solo stress relief – in fact, I could hook you up with their contact information if you’re interested in trying them out?”

But from the way Athena’s eyebrows are raised, she’s not taking the bait, and you have failed to distract her from this bit of information.

“You’re saying you’ve never…?”

You groan again, swiping a hand across your face. “Rub it in some more, why don’t you?” you grumble.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she assures you, “I’m just… a little surprised to hear that from you, given that you’ve always made it sound like you’re… well…”

“...a massive slut?” you suggest. 

“Not what I was going to say.” You laugh. She wouldn’t say that, but that’s probably the core of it. “And… hold on, you mean to tell me that you’ve never gone all the way – and yet you’ve been getting Burgess to watch Old World porn with you to ‘show him the ropes?’”

“Yes, and I’m doing you a favor, honestly,” you say. “When you finally get around to making a move, you’ll thank me, because it’s clear that his sexual education has been woefully neglected thus far, and someone needs to teach him the basics.”

The both of them have been dancing around their feelings for ages now, which is ridiculous, given that they’re clearly smitten with each other. But, as a friend to both, you are sworn by sacred Friend Code to not reveal their feelings to either of them until they’re ready to do it themselves. Even if it feels like it’ll take forever at this rate. 

…but that won’t stop you from doing your best to make sure that when one of them finally cracks and confesses, there’s nothing in this world that could prevent them from celebrating an end to that agonizing wait with some earth-shattering orgasms. 

Hm. Actually, if you’re right about what Athena was alluding to earlier, she might also benefit from some good old fashioned porn watching. 

“And that someone needs to be you?”

“No one else is stepping up to the plate – unless you want to volunteer?” 

There’s a faint flush to Athena’s face at your words, and she exhales sharply through her nose, but she does not deign to grace your suggestion with a response. 

“Seriously, though, don’t worry. I vet the vids first, and nothing too weird makes it in. Just ones that’ll give him a better sense of what to do when faced with, y’know, someone who happens to be into him.” Like her, of course. Her face flushes ever so slightly more at the implication. “When I’m done, he’ll fuck like a champ, guaranteed.”

“Something that you know so much about?”

“Hey,” you say, “I am more than qualified to teach Burgess some tricks. I may not have gotten dicked down before–” Is that better than ‘penetrated?’ “–but I do have some wisdom to pass on. I’m aces at oral, for one. And I happen to know quite a bit about what not to do that’ll help him out – keep him from following in the footsteps of those who have tried, and failed, to deflower me.” And then you pause. “No, nope, scratch that, I hate that. Blech. Should not have said that, even as a joke. Ew. Basic point still stands, though – drilling the importance of foreplay into dear Burgy-boy’s head is vital.”

“That’s still not–” Athena shakes her head and sighs. “This is an argument for another time.” Though her tone makes it clear that these are not empty words, and you should be prepared to pick up this discussion at some later date. That’s fine, though; you know you’re right. You’ll sell her on the idea eventually. “And it’s besides the point. So, you’re inexperienced. That’s not a big deal.” 

“No, especially since I have had sex before, just not–”

“–penetration, I get it.” There’s a soft sigh at the end of that. 

“Right,” you say. “Still, shouldn’t that help me here? Shouldn’t I be… not this uncontrollably horny, since it was never this bad before, with previous partners? It shouldn’t be like that.”

“Mmh.” Athena considers you carefully. “It doesn’t help to worry about what you should be feeling, because you are feeling that way.”

You resist the urge to respond with a sullen pout. For some reason, a logical response like that isn’t what you were looking for.

“Yeah, but Athena, this is–” You shake your head. “It’s not just the constant fantasizing. It’s the fact that I feel… ready? For it at all. For…” You roll your shoulders as though to preemptively ward off the ick of what you’re about to say. “...ugh, penetration? And that’s crazy, right? We’re not even – dating. How’s that make sense, huh? To not feel ready with anyone I actually dated, and then suddenly be so sure I’m up for it now? What the fuck is with that, huh?”

“Maybe because they’re just fantasies?” Athena suggests. “It might feel… safer to imagine doing some of these things than it did to be faced with the possibility of actually doing them.”

“Could be,” you say. “But I’m not a stranger to dirty thoughts. And my, y’know, fantasy self can be down for whatever I want her to be, so I have imagined… some of these scenarios in the past, and yet. This still feels different.”

“...what was it like before, with those previous partners?” Athena asks. “What made you feel… not ready then?”

You consider this. 

“Well, one wouldn’t have known what foreplay was if it bit him in the ass – and yet hated the idea of lube, and no way was I letting him try and do it dry. One kept claiming to be allergic to condoms – not to whatever material any given kind of condom was made of, mind you, not latex or any of the alternatives. To condoms. Wanted me to trust his pull-out game, can you believe that? He was not hot enough to risk single motherhood. Told ‘em both ‘no,’ of course.”

Athena clicks her tongue sympathetically. “I’d say that’s a normal response.”

“Right? What is this, the Age of Darkness? We’re not ‘fucking to survive’ anymore, damn.” You shake your head. “There were others, but they weren’t much better. I really know how to pick ‘em, I guess. Anyway. I’ve… been fingered before. I've given oral – I mentioned I’m great at that?”

“You did.”

“Worth repeating. And… one of ‘em tried oral on me, which was – ugh.” You shudder at the memory. Like being caressed by a warm, dead fish. “Beyond that, I… always ended up dipping out before anything else happened.” You drum your fingers on your arm. “...a lot of the time, they were – I dunno, rushing things? Like everything else was just a roadblock towards their ultimate goal of getting their dicks wet? And it turns out it’s hard for me to get into it when I feel like I’m just being seen as a hole. Who knew, right?”

“Also very natural,” Athena says. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t be comfortable if you felt like your partner was just using you for release, and it also makes sense that you wouldn’t have much reason to even fantasize about going further with anyone like that. And, with experiences like the ones you’ve had, I can imagine that you may have been… put off from envisioning scenarios that remind you of them, too. So – if you’re doing that now, what’s different?”

“I mean… it’s Pen,” you say. “Pen… existing is the only change. But why?” You groan. “And why now, when there’s so much to be done that I can’t do because I’m thinking of him?”

“Now, that is a question that only you can answer.”

“Back to square one, I guess,” you grumble.

“Not necessarily,” she says. “If it wasn't like this right away, and you say you feel like it’s been getting worse recently, then something happened. Do you know when this started getting really bad?”

Hmm. Can you pinpoint the moment this went from ‘occasional flights of fancy’ to ‘constant and debilitating?’

“I’ve been attracted to him the whole time, of course,” you say, “I mean, he’s gorgeous, like really ridiculously handsome, and… yeah, that time he carried me home my first week here was – maybe fodder for a daydream or two, but for a long time, it was just an occasional thing. Manageable. Definitely didn’t start ramping up until after the bridge was destroyed. Which was also when I started asking Pen for help with moving some of the structural support for the new bridge, and… since then, he comes by to help me out in my workshop and I’ve been seeing him more often. But – it still wasn’t that bad, at least not right away.”

You frown. When was it, then? Seeing him lift beams and trusses with such ease did have an effect on you, but you still managed to get through a whole slew of commissions. Then there were a few days where you’d finished the bulkier parts of your commissions and didn’t need his help, and the next time you saw him was because he sought you out, and – yeah, that’s about when you started losing yourself to daydreams pretty consistently. At least, you think so. Which means –

“It was after he tried to teach me how to Space Punch,” you breathe. When he’d casually revealed that he’d never had a friend before and that you were his first. And when he said he knew everyone was waiting for him to fail. “Oh, shit. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Athena gives you a knowing look.

You’d – discussed the moment with her afterwards, naturally. Though Pen had sworn you to secrecy, you figured that was primarily in regards to his supposed ‘failure’ to impart his knowledge to you. You’d needed someone to be a sounding board to vent your agonies to – his first friend? Ever? The unbearable loneliness of that thought was too much to bear alone – and Athena would never go around gossiping or spilling his secrets to anyone. Plus, if you glossed over the Space Punch thing, said you just weren’t ready to learn such a powerful technique, that still fulfilled the spirit of the promise you made to him, right?

And if these thoughts intensified only after he told you all that, that means… 

“...I… I’m so horny because I care?”

“You’ve been seeing him more often and it's showing you how much he’s not like your exes. How much you don’t think he sees you as a means to an end.”

“Well yeah, of course not. I mean… he comes by to help out sometimes without me even asking, and it’s not like I’m paying him for his help, so I have to assume he likes being around me. Plus, I have apparently been extremely obvious about my interest and he hasn’t even tried to make a move, so he can’t be rushing me–”

You grind to a halt as you realize what you’ve said. 

“…oh, shit. Athena. Athena, what if he’s not interested, what if – oh, fuck, if I’ve been as obvious as you say, he must have picked up on it, so – shit, shit, he’s not into me like that and I’ve been parading around like a fool and–”

“Hold on,” she says, “There’s no need to spiral over this. You’re very much interested in him, and yet you haven’t made a move. Not an official one, anyway. Maybe he hasn’t said anything for the same reason you haven’t.” And then she chuckles. “In fact, I’d wager it is.”

“And… what reason is that?” you venture. “Because I’d kind of figured the biggest factor in not jumping his bones yet is that most of my fantasies feel like they’re pulled straight from some bottom-shelf porno, and that doesn’t tend to work so well outside of that.”

“Yes,” she says, “but if all you wanted to do was jump his bones, you… probably would have done that by now. Porno premise or not. I’d guess that you haven’t done anything because you’re nervous about changing things too much – or, you’re worried he won’t feel the same.” Athena’s voice is patient – despite the wry smile pulling up the corners of her lips. “You’re emotionally invested. …don’t make a face, that’s not bad. The strongest relationships start as friends versus simply going straight to romance, how else is one supposed to know if you’re compatible? And, despite Pen’s… whole situation, it’s likely he’s thinking the same thing.”

Whatever blithe comment you were going to make dies on your tongue. “...you think so?”

She nods. “I do.”

“…what makes you so sure?”

“I’ve… noticed things,” she says. “You’re not the only one being obvious.”

“Well?” You push off from the wall and return to the table in a few short, quick steps, then take both of her hands in yours. “What are you waiting for? Spill.”

She laughs. “He always seems to be looking in your direction, for one. And he somehow gets even more puffed up when you’re around – like he needs to show off somewhere you can see him.”

“How often? And – and since when?”

“About as often as you stare at him? And… I really couldn’t say. It wasn’t something I was looking out for, exactly.”

“Oh. Yeah. …still, I can work with that. Though – shit, what do I do?

“Talk to him?”

You make a noise like a strangled duck.

Athena stifles a laugh. “Yes, talk. What else would you do?”

“I mean – yeah, no, I definitely have to talk to him, just – woof. Daunting. Lot of things that could go wrong. Lot of ways I could stick my foot in my mouth. But I guess I’m going to have to... put on my big girl pants and do it,” you grumble. “What’ll I say…? Because I should probably come up with a better opening than ‘Hi Pen, could I interest you in fucking my brains out?’”

Athena snorts – and at the same time, there comes a thump from outside. 

You jolt. “–the fuck is that noise?”

You hurry over to the window nearest the sound, push it open, and stick your head out to peer around. The sun has long since set, and it is completely dark outside. There’s nothing abnormal that you can see – certainly no sign of whatever made that noise. 

Huh. Honey ant getting too close again, maybe? They keep wandering over from the scrapyard lately, trying to mess with some of the storage bins. After another moment of scanning around in the dark, you pull your head back inside and shut the window as you do so.

“Y’know what,” you say, “I’m gonna go take a quick peek outside and make sure everything’s okay, but after that… you’ve listened to me bitch and moan enough, and I think we’ve pretty much sussed out the root of my problem. Whaddya say we crack open a bottle of wine, get some painting done? Eh? Another paint n’ sip session?”

Athena considers this for a moment. “I think I could be tempted by that.”

“Hell yeah!” you crow. 

Alright, good. You wasted a decent chunk of time this morning but the day’s not a total wash. You have… well, it’s not a plan, exactly. It’ll take some time for you to think through the right way to go about this. 

But in the meantime, it seems like a good idea to blow off some steam in a less risqué way than you’ve been doing lately, and hey – maybe in the process, she’ll loosen up and spill some details about some of those dirty thoughts you now know she has. And maybe, if you’re lucky, they’ll be about her and Burgess. Might give you some new ideas for how you can nudge them together. 

And you’ll… come up with some plan to… confess to Pen, in time. 

Without fucking it up. 

…you hope.

[tenthousandyearsx]

Thank you for tagging me, @maraudersaffair and @crazybutgood! I loved reading yours. ❤ I'm going to do 10 smutty dialogue quotes instead because I'm not feeling any of my first lines and I'm curious to see what you all choose.

Rules: pick any ten fics, select some smut or pre-smut dialogue, and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, feel free to share anyway!

These are all Drarry.

ㅤ

Keep your hands on me (E, 21k)

“They just… they want to satisfy an itch, Potter. It’s not… It’s not really the same.” Harry pressed a kiss on Malfoy’s lips. “They don’t want to wreck you like I do, you mean.” “Yes.” “Do you want to be wrecked, Draco?” “Fuck, yes,” Malfoy groaned. “By me? Or by anyone?” “By you.”

Just a trial run (E, 9k)

“You had a fantasy about paying to have sex with me?” Potter asked, frowning. Draco snorted. “No, just having sex with you in general. Potter’s eyes glazed over. “How – How old is this fantasy?” Draco took a sip of his drink. “Quite old.” “You wanted to fuck me at Hogwarts, Malfoy?” Draco’s eyes were on him, appraisingly. “Isn’t that what that was all about?”

Trouble with your tie, Potter? (E, 6.7k)

Harry’s face grew warmer, his heartbeat picking up. Malfoy reached out and put his hands on Harry’s hips, pressing against him, his front to Harry’s back. “I bet –” He kissed Harry’s neck. “I bet I could turn you around, tug your tie just slightly, and you’d fall on your knees for me.” Harry shut his eyes, not even bothering to hide the small noise that escaped him. “Yeah,” he said. It was true anyway. He tilted his head a bit, baring his neck for Malfoy, and Malfoy’s hands tightened on him. “I’d do that.”

Truth be told (E, 2.3k)

Malfoy smirked. “Really, Potter. I should have guessed you just wanted to be fucked.” He slid a hand under Harry’s shirt and a moan escaped Harry’s throat. “You do, don’t you?” “Yes,” Harry groaned. “I thought we’d already established that.” Harry was on bloody Veritaserum, had just spilled his guts in a room full of Slytherins, and it was all Hermione and her stupid inter-house parties’ fault.

At wand point (E, 2.8k)

Harry’s mind went hazy, sluggish. “Blackmailing me, Malfoy?” Malfoy smirked. “It’s not blackmailing if you offer, Potter.” He leaned in slightly, lips almost brushing Harry’s, and murmured, “You are offering, aren’t you?” Harry wanted to pull him into a kiss, wanted to drop to his knees and mouth him through his trousers right there and then. Instead, he said, “What if I am?”

Imperio (E, 3.8k)

Malfoy caught Harry’s hair and yanked it back hard, still panting against Nott’s cheek. “What is it? Tell me.” “I don’t like it when you kiss him,” Harry said obediently, because he didn’t, even though he was too turned on and blissed out to find it really upsetting. “Oh?” Malfoy said, sounding delighted, and then laughed and pulled Nott into a furious snog again, Nott’s cock brushing Harry’s parted lips. Harry swallowed at the sound of their moans. “Like this?”

Good (E, 300)

“So good,” Draco murmurs, stunned and a little breathless, lips dragging over Harry’s jaw. “Are you always this good, Potter?”

Why (E, 100)

“This is fucked up,” Draco says, and Harry bites down on his thigh. “Why?” “Fucking hell, Potter,” Draco whines. Harry adds another finger. “Yesterday, we weren’t even on speaking terms.”

Under the Invisibility Cloak (E, 100)

“Shhh.” Draco flicked his thumb. “You don’t want them to hear you, do you?”

You can, now (E, 100)

“Like that,” Ginny murmured. “Open your mouth. You’ve wanted this for so long.” Harry whimpered. He let Ginny guide his head forward, let Draco’s cock slide past his lips. “You’ve wanted him all along, haven’t you?”

Tagging @orange-peony, @magpiefngrlrl, @nv-md, @ladderofyears, @makeitp1nk, @sweet-s0rr0w, @roseharpermaxwell, @wolfpants and anyone who feels like sharing smutty goodness!

[snickerdoodlles]

regarding posting extra fic content that is not fic, but being worried about notifications... i have no idea how user subscriptions for pseuds work on AO3, but would it be a viable option to post those extra things under a pseud and then you can make it a related work to the fic in question?

it doesn't work! :( anyone who's subscribed to my main 'snickerdoodlles' username will get notifications for everything i post on AO3 that isn't anonymous because the pseuds still tie back to it. which is actually really convenient for me in every other case, but ajkfdjh.

right now i'm mostly considering building up a queue of tumblr posts that i'd want to copy over to AO3, then making a specific story post that's in my anon collection as i move stuff over. i can link all the story stuff together in the fics themselves, then take them out of the anon collection after i've finished uploading everything so that it's just one email notification at the end. my only hesitation rn is that moving a bunch of stuff over sounds very boring and i'm procrastinating it lol, but that's the only method i can think of atm that won't drive me completely nuts? i also don't really want anyone getting AO3 notifications from me to become associated with "not fic" either oof, i will cry if that happens 😂

[yukipri]

...I was right. Anakin Skywalker is once again breaking me emotionally as always.

I like that you showed that yes while Anakin is honestly a good person who was manipulated and tricked into falling and committing heinous crimes by melty face sparky hands (Palpatine) he did however make the choice to fall and he has to take responsibility for his actions.

But that he still deserves help and support nonetheless. And I love how you wrote his situation to be, it's sad and he is suffering but at least he has a chance to recover and hopefully one day be reunited with Obi Wan, Padme and the clones (I miss Rex and Anakin's dynamic 😭)

I'm glad Windu and the other Jedi are alive and the whole reunion between him and Ponds is heartwarming and just all together nice.

Overall another 10/10 for your new chapter. As always your work is amazing 🤩

Anakin is a very complicated and interesting character, and as you say, I think it's possible to both acknowledge that he was manipulated from a young age, but ALSO that he still has responsibility for his own actions.

We'll be viewing his fall from a number of character POVs in this fic, and let's just say that not all of them are equally sympathetic towards him. Not every character saw him do the same things, and how they feel about Anakin will be affected by that.

I'm glad you liked the reunions!

Thanks so much for reading and enjoying the chapter!

❀ ❀ Send YukiPri an Ask! ❀ ❀

[potatobugz]

biggest problem with writing is that I have all the ideas and themes I want to express in my head, but when I try to write it down the words come out. wrong

[lipstickontheglass1985]

honestlyyyy i lowkey need to burn down my smartphone

[twenty-orange-balloons]

I wish AO3 had the option to choose how many chapters you want to see at a time instead of only being able to choose chapter by chapter or entire work