#MY MORALS LEFT TO DECAY

[fentanyl-fantasies]

I NEED… NNghhhnrnthhh… TO MAKE… ARGGHHH… A JOHN ART PIECE.. AAAAAAA.. WITH NIN LYRICS!!!! (terrible lie specifically)

[moeblob]

Nytis, my loser demon cleric, about to lose it.

[rafes-slut]

You fuck your beat friends boyfriend

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Reader (Best Friend of His Girlfriend)

Warnings: (Dark themes, Cheating, Obsession, Sexual tension, Explicit sexual content, Morally gray characters, Emotional manipulation, Gaslighting, Voyeuristic tendencies, Language)

Summary: you were sofias best friend and rafe is her boyfriend. But you noticed how his eyes lingered on you, even how hia dick would get hard when you were around. He started texting you all while he is with her bout how crazy you make him. In the end you fuck him

You were Sofia’s best friend. Have been for years—since high school, sleepovers, inside jokes, and secrets you’d never dare say out loud. You knew everything about her. And, up until recently, you thought you knew everything about her long-time boyfriend too.

Rafe Cameron.

She met him her freshman year at Figure Eight Beach, introduced him to you by week two. Tall, confident, sharp jawline and sharper eyes—he was magnetic in that careless way that only someone like him could get away with. A Kook through and through, spoiled, temperamental, but undeniably captivating.

At first, you didn’t pay much attention to him. Not beyond the polite smiles and laughs shared over drinks at Sofia’s. You were loyal. She was your best friend. Rafe was just… Rafe. Until things started to shift. Until his eyes started lingering.

It was subtle at first. The way he looked at you when Sofia got up to grab another drink. The way his gaze dipped low when you stretched, when you laughed, when you wore those little shorts that hugged your thighs just a little too well. And at first, you thought maybe you were imagining it. Maybe you were the fucked-up one for even noticing.

But then it got obvious. Intentionally obvious.

He didn’t care if he got caught. He wanted to get caught.

You were lounging on the couch one afternoon, legs thrown over the side while Sofia scrolled through her phone beside you. Rafe was across the room, leaning against the doorframe in those tight black jeans he always wore. The ones that left nothing to the imagination when he was hard. And he was hard.

Your eyes dropped before you could stop them—and there it was. Pressed against the denim, straining, pulsing. And his eyes were on you the whole time, daring you to say something. Daring you to break the silence. You nearly choked on your own breath, shifting uncomfortably as heat crawled up your neck.

He smirked. Subtle. Just a ghost of a grin. Like he knew he had you exactly where he wanted you.

Sofia didn’t notice. Or maybe she chose not to.

And then the texts started.

It was late. You were in bed, alone, the buzz of your phone lighting up your nightstand.

You looked good today.

Those shorts are my favorite.

I think about you more than I should.

You didn’t reply. Not once. But he knew you were reading them. He’d time the messages perfectly—right after a story went up on your socials. Right after you posted a mirror pic. He was watching.

You’re not saying anything but you’re not blocking me either.

You like the attention. I can tell.

I get hard just thinking about you sitting on my couch, all innocent.

I wonder if Sofia would still be your friend if she knew how often I dream about fucking you.

Your heart raced every time your phone lit up. You hated it. You hated how it made your thighs clench. How it made you ache. How you started choosing tighter tops around him, just to see what he’d do. It was so wrong. So fucked up. But it made your blood rush, made your thoughts spiral.

You were starting to feel like an accomplice.

-----

Got it. This continuation is going to dive deeper into the twisted obsession, the moral decay, and the dangerous tension. Here's part two of Wrong Eyes, Right Time �� if you'd like it to eventually turn into an actual encounter or break point, let me know. For now, we’re still simmering in the sick heat of the buildup.

The texts didn’t stop.

If anything, they got worse.

He was relentless. Morning, night, sometimes in the middle of the afternoon when you were working or out with friends. He never cared about timing or boundaries. And you hated how you kept opening them—how you read them, even when they made your stomach twist and your thighs press together in shame.

It started with pictures. At first, they were just of him. A hand on his jaw. A cocky smirk. Then they got filthier. A shot of him lying in bed, shirtless, blanket low on his hips. Another of his bare chest, sweat-slick and toned. Then his hand, wrapped tight around his hard dick, veins bulging, tip red and glistening.

This is what you do to me.

All it takes is one look at you.

You made me hard during dinner with her.

I had to jerk off in the shower and I still wasn’t satisfied.

And then the voice notes came. Moaning. Panting. Your name leaving his lips like a prayer and a curse all at once.

You tried deleting them. But every time you did, your phone would light up again. He knew he had you.

But the thing that broke you—the one that finally made your jaw drop, your stomach lurch, your fingers tremble—was the video.

It came late. 2:14AM. You were just about to silence your phone and finally get some sleep when the notification popped up.

One video. No caption.

Your thumb hovered. You told yourself not to open it.

But you did.

The screen lit up with movement—dimly lit, shaky, breathless.

Sofia was on her back. Rafe on top of her, driving into her with a slow, filthy rhythm, her moans filling the background while his face stayed angled directly at the camera. His smirk was unmissable. So was the way he whispered:

“Should’ve been you, baby. This would feel so much better with you.”

Your mouth went dry. Your stomach flipped. But you didn’t look away.

Because then came the text.

This could be you.

She doesn’t even know I was thinking about you the whole time.

You’re in my head when I cum. Every single time.

You ruined me.

You threw your phone across the room.

For a moment, you just sat there, blank, buzzing with confusion, disgust, arousal, guilt—all of it tangled up in a sick cocktail that made you want to scream and melt and maybe even give in.

Because deep down, under all the layers of right and wrong, something inside you liked it. The power. The obsession. The way he wanted you more than the girl sleeping beside him your best friend.

---

You lasted all of five minutes staring at your phone, heart hammering, body thrumming with something far darker than guilt.

You were done pretending.

Done denying.

Done being the good friend.

You didn’t even reply. You just grabbed your keys, threw on a hoodie with nothing underneath, and left your house barefoot in your slides. The air was thick and humid, midnight pressing down on your skin as you drove through the quiet streets, your hands shaking on the steering wheel, headlights slicing through the dark like the path of no return.

You didn’t even think. You just went.

And when you pulled into Rafe’s driveway, tires crunching the gravel, you didn’t pause to check your reflection, didn’t take a breath. You stormed up to the front door like you were possessed and knocked hard. Once. Twice. Then again.

A beat passed before the porch light flicked on.

The door opened, creaking slow, and there he was—half-asleep, shirtless, sweats hanging low on his hips, hair messy from the pillow. His expression cracked the second he saw you. Like reality shattered in front of him.

“...What the fuck,” he breathed.

You didn’t give him time to speak.

You shoved him backward with both hands on his bare chest, walking him into the house like you owned it, eyes locked, heart pounding.

“Let’s see if you fuck as good as you run your mouth.”

That was it. That broke him.

His jaw clenched, his eyes went black with lust, and he snapped.

His hands were on you instantly, greedy, possessive, like he’d been waiting a lifetime. Your hoodie hit the floor in seconds. He groaned like he was in pain at the sight of your bare skin, your nipples already hard, your thighs trembling.

“You really came,” he muttered, dragging his mouth over your collarbone. “You fucking came.”

“Shut up,” you whispered, tugging his sweats down. “Do something about it.”

And he did.

Rafe practically tore your clothes off, hands gripping too tight, like he was scared you'd vanish if he blinked. He tried to go slow at first, kissing down your stomach, teasing, whispering things like "Been thinking about this for months", but you were past teasing.

“I want you,” you said, eyes wild. “Raw.”

He moaned like you’d just given him a death sentence and a fantasy at once.

You dragged him down onto the couch, pulled him between your legs, and wrapped them around his waist as he lined himself up—thick, veiny, twitching with anticipation.

The first push made you gasp.

He went slow, inch by torturous inch, watching your face twist, letting you feel all of him, stretch around him, take him raw just like you asked. His teeth clenched, his jaw locking as he sank deeper.

“Fuck,” he whispered, “you feel better than I imagined. So warm. So fucking tight.”

And then he moved.

He fucked. Like he meant it. Like he needed it. Rough, fast, too far gone to care about anything else. The couch creaked beneath you, your skin slapped against his, and the room filled with sounds that would haunt your conscience later—your moans, his groans, the filthy, wet sound of your bodies colliding.

It was overwhelming. Hot. Dirty. Perfect.

But it was over too fast.

Rafe buried his face in your neck, whispered your name like a broken man, and then he shuddered, hips stuttering, breath catching—he came.

Hard. Deep. Pulsing inside you with a noise that made your toes curl.

He went still for a moment, forehead against your shoulder, his whole body trembling from the high.

"...Fuck," he breathed, "I didn’t mean to—"

You laughed. Out loud. A little breathless, a lot cocky.

“Seriously? That fast?”

“Don’t—” he started, but you were already smirking, brushing your fingers through his hair, smug.

“You talk all that shit and that’s how long you last?”

“I’ll make it up to you,” he growled, eyes dark, determined. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

He dropped to his knees, gripped your thighs, and buried two fingers inside you without hesitation—crooked just right, finding that spot like he owned your body.

“Not until you cum for me,” he said, voice thick, “and you're gonna scream when you do.”

You did. Eventually. Loud. Shaking. Biting your hand to muffle it while he fucked you on his fingers until your body arched off the couch, soaking his palm.

He collapsed beside you after, chest rising and falling, hand still on your thigh, both of you silent.

No one said anything for a long moment.

Because what could you say

You fucked your best friend’s boyfriend.

[pawberri]

The key problem with "proship vs anti" discourse is that the most extreme versions of each side, the ones who actually bother to identify with these labels, accepted each others worst takes as arguments they had to debate. "Fiction =/= reality" is, in practice, an absurdly reductionist, anti-intellectual, thought-terminating-cliche that dictates we can learn nothing about a person via art and that their fiction reflects no political or moral messaging worthy of critique. In response to this, the "puriteens" who are too young to possibly hope to articulate their discomfort, to untangle their position from what is often real trauma experienced online, simply argue "yes, fiction influences and reflects reality in a 1 to 1 capacity." They, and people who want to use the groundwork they laid to make bad-faith callouts, make bad arguments about how the action of engaging in problematic fiction is on equal ground to real life abuse, or is a clear indicator of interest in real life abuse. Both of these arguments are terrible, but each side seems to radicalize the other further and further into their own brands of anti-intellectual reactionary belief. "Proshippers" become libertarian absolutists about free speech and view all transgression as righteous and alternative and therefore leftist. They gain a reactionary nostalgia for the past, desiring a time when people didn't seem to care about the implications of art. "Antis" become authoritarian and hypervigilant for signs of moral decay, at their worst, willing to align themselves with government bodies that offer carceral solutions to the debate. They are willing to use harassment as a tool of punishment, which then leads to false accusations and a fear of openness that puts people at risk of being triggered via obfuscation. (That said, proshippers also take part in plenty of harassment.)

I will say that I believe both of these movements are equally sensitive to co-opting by right-wing forces. We see the authoritarian tendencies of anti culture in harassment campaigns and even the way Republican law makers co-opt "grooming." The proship/fic crowd has such extreme nostalgia for the past that I often see people align themselves with the cultures of 4chan or other happily right-wing websites. They so heavily reject the idea that a drawn sexual depiction of a child could reflect any desire that they are disinterested in analyzing what the motivation behind the depiction is. i.e If we track the history of lolicon in Japan we do find that is, yes, countercultural, but that counter culture is right wing, very misogynistic, and defensive of patriarchial Japanese culture as it is and was including its culture around rape and abuse. Plenty of fictional content works as radicalization material, and radicalization material needs to be ambiguous. There is a valid reason to be hesitant to trust people who consume this content, even if I do not believe most of them will ever be dangerous towards children. The mere presence of sexuality is not enough to make a movement left wing. This kind of thing can again be seen in right-wing libertarian movements in the US. (And even leftist movements can be bigoted and even "pro-pedophilia" or otherwise disinterested in social reform around abuse.)

Is all content with elements of age-play this way? No. But to me, that is why kink media deserves to be treated as art and analyzed, critiqued, treated seriously. It doesn't have to do anything to anyone to be worthy of a moral critique. Said moral critique just doesn't warrant harassment and cruelty and reactionary exaggerations of the person consuming said content.

Anyway, what's my point in saying all this? I don't know. I'm just begging you to tag your God damn content with specific tags instead of random and nebulous shit like "dead dove" or "dark content", and also begging you to stop harassing people who do tag their content so I don't have to guess what "dead dove" and "dark content" mean. No one will erase incest kink fics or people who feel sickened by the idea of them off this earth because we aren't god, but we could at least all be responsible about tagging, flagging, and age-gating our stuff.

[phyrestartr]

Divine Favour | Sukuna x Kitsune!Reader (Pt.1)

W/C: 3.5k #full is NSFW, mild yuuji/reader, yuuji and gang are v early 20s, heian sukuna, male reader, typical kitsune shapeshifting, mentions of abuse, canon typical violence, morally grey reader, sukuna has FEELINGS but is BAD AT FEELINGS, unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, dubcon elements, soz if anything is clunky asdkjf; i can only reread the same fic so many times for editing sadge

A/N: Decided to separate this into parts since I'm dying to post some of it lol I've held it in a chokehold in the shadows of my WIPs for too long, some of it has to come out before I explode o(--( there is more to come!

tag: @nyanwko @kamote-kuneho @better-imagination-9

The scripture was incomplete, worn away by age.

…herein lays the God...imprisoned...by...Disgraced One…

Yet the society felt this, the coffin uncovered decades ago, could be an invaluable asset. The vessel was decrepit and ancient, yet still stood strong against the test of time and the wear of nature. Seal papers, no doubt left by a monk of sorts, covered the entirety of its surface, hiding away rotting wood and rusted bands of metal from modern sorcerer's curious eyes.

Few knew why the higher ups kept the vessel under lock and key. Fewer knew why they kept it at all; however, those few understood the importance of such a relic. They'd been the ones to seek it out, to steal it away before malicious forces took it for themselves, warping the supposed deity inside for their own, malevolent purpose, whatever that may be.

And with Ryoumen Sukuna's fingers being found one by one, they could not allow anyone to possess humanity's failsafe: you. A great being imprisoned by the devil.

“Anything?” Gojo trilled, patting Yuuji’s shoulders frantically as he stood behind him and beheld the wooden tub covered in sigils. 

“Uh…” Yuuji tried to focus on Sukuna’s presence inside of him. He didn’t seem intrigued or frightened, nor did he seem too bothered with the idea of them trying to smite him down with a sealed god–he was, however, annoyed that Yuuji continued to poke and prod at him. 

Piss off, runt. 

“Yep. Nope. Sukuna doesn't care,” Yuuji sighed. “He's getting all pissy now that I'm bothering him, though.” 

Gojo laughed and patted Yuuji's shoulders a few more times before all but twirling towards the bound box. “Well, that's a pretty good sign that he's not the one that did this, then! In that case,” he started, walking up to the seal papers keeping everything locked down, “let's pop ‘er open.” 

Before Yuuji could even wonder if that was a good idea, the white-haired witch used an overzealous amount of cursed energy and disintegrated every scrap of seal paper. 

Yuuji braced for impact. Surely something terrible like a bankai or a spirit bomb would send them flying once the coffin came undone. Surely they'd pay for this, for unleashing whatever godly spirit laid locked up for far too long, only to release it back into the modern age and–

“Huh. Weird.”

Yuuji cracked open an eye and saw the dull shine of tattered onyx fur, and his control slipped with a blitz of vertigo. 

Markings flared across his skin as he stormed toward the coffin, heart howling with thoughts and memories crashing through a shared mind; a face he didn't know but knew so well bloomed at the forefront of it all, eyes framed in pointed scarlet, skin bathed in ancient, dappled sunlight.

They reached the edge of the coffin and gripped the edges, splintering the wood as they took in the sight; crimson and curse decay pooled around a figure, curled up and half-submerged. Several black, tattered tails spilled free from the tub, no longer crushed from the force of the lid sealing them inside, but they were bent awkwardly and matted with whatever tincture lay at the bottom.

Then there was the so-called god in the middle of it all–you. Still. Quiet. Curled up in a haori far too big for you. Eyes closed. Almost peaceful.

Confusion tore at Sukuna while nausea ripped through Yuuji; he couldn't bear to look at such a morose scene.

So, Sukuna pushed him aside.

[Heian Era]

You were never supposed to be anything more than a trinket. 

You were a gift from some family trying to show off for Sukuna, so much so that they offered him a delicacy, something he surely didn't have yet–a yokai. A kitsune, to be more exact. One with peculiar black tails. 

Sukuna found it interesting, and similarly desperate, to be brought such a creature as tribute. Certainly, it was meant to be seen as a high honour, yet somehow it felt…off. Why would humans give up something so powerful? 

Unexpectedly, it'd be you who told him. 

They submit me for the sake of convenience and mockery, your withering voice whispered where no one else could hear. You sounded weak. Tired. Maybe afraid, yet brave enough to reach towards the king and unveil the intentions of the men who brought you before him. 

Sukuna's eyes flicked to you, his feigned interest in what the sorcerers said falling straight into dismissal. You were much more intriguing. 

“Oh?” Sukuna asked, a smile creeping onto his face. The speakers ceased their jabbering and stared at your back with fierce intensity. Sukuna grinned wider. Oh, how he loved the way fear twisted mortal faces. 

You didn't shift or crumple into yourself under the eyes of so many, however. You pushed on with what little energy and life you had, so intent on dragging that clan through the mud. 

What I say is true, you assured simply. I expect to die today–

“Speak so everyone hears you, fox,” Sukuna commanded.

“--so I–I–” you coughed and cleared your throat, trying to rid your voice of the scratchy, weakness it struggled through. “I wish to not die with regrets.

"They have rendered me ill and unable to produce children, they see the black of my tails and regard me as an ill omen; yet they bring me to you, daring to spin sweet tales about the value of such an offering. But they lie,” You hissed. Your eyes glinted with molten malice, and Sukuna fell captivated.

“They throw me to you as they would diseased meat to dogs.” 

The courtyard fell silent, and Sukuna basked in it. You really were such a little troublemaker. A quietly chaotic force of nature. 

The king stood, rolling his shoulders as he did, and his pride flared as you dropped to your knees before him in respect. He walked to you and patted your head as one might a child's before appraising the sorcerers stood before him. 

“What a disappointment,” Sukuna sighed, raising another hand. The couple took up position, pooling their cursed energy in hopes of fending off the monster standing before them. The effort was quite cute. “Here I thought your clan might actually earn my mercy.” His hand dropped as the two lunged. Then, the two clansmen fell, too, both in neat, vertical halves. Quite overkill, yes, but he had a point to make. 

Where he expected a reaction from you, he got nothing. Only panting and poorly-stifled coughs came from you, racking through the entirety of your skin and bones frame. Sukuna could see it up close now, the way your body trembled from fatigue, the sickly greying of your skin, the scent of disease clinging to you. 

That wouldn't do. Sukuna liked his things to be in good shape. 

“Uraume,” Sukuna droned as he stared down at you, “fix this.”

It took some time, but you managed to recover. It was an unnerving experience, with the way Uraume tended to you with sincerity. Perhaps it was genuinity born from their devotion to Ryoumen Sukuna, but you greedily soaked it in, filling your stomach with the care they offered you. 

Sukuna didn't bother much with you, not that you really minded; you were much more content to be fed and forgotten than hunted down by the creature that supposedly took ownership of you without enforcing it. If he didn't cause harm or good, if he simply existed somewhere else and forgot you breathed the same air as him, you'd still be at peace. 

But he was more intrigued than you gave him credit for. 

“Ho? So this is where you scamper off to,” Sukuna hummed, leaning over you as you dozed in the nice little spot you'd made for yourself in the garden, right under the crimson cover of a maple tree. You jumped the slightest bit, your daydreams and sunbathing interrupted by the brute’s silhouette eclipsing the sun, but you settled again quickly. The beast of a man wasn't a cause for panic in your little world, after all. 

“Does it displease you?” You inquired, fixing your hair and straightening out your robes. 

Sukuna held onto an overhead branch of the tree as he looked down at you. “Pets are supposed to play in the yard, aren't they?” He smirked as you pursed your lips and flicked your tail before calming it with hasty pets. “What, you don't like being my pet?” 

“I would not refer to myself as a pet,” you countered as the man sat down with you and leaned against the tree. The king's presence calmed you. With him, you knew you were invincible. 

“Pft. Then pray tell what your damn role is around here.” One set of arms folded behind his head while the other set crossed over his chest. “Pets are freeloaders. Pretty sure that's exactly what you are.”

You huffed. “Freeloader. Tch. How rude.” 

“Lookit that. You're copping an attitude now that you're fat and fed. Used to be so much more polite.” 

“Fat and–I am not fat.” You headbutted his side lightly, something that would make more sense had you been in your fox form. You grinding your forehead against him suggested this was more of a human move, however. “I am perfectly normal now. I was brittle and nonexistent prior to now. This is a grand improvement.”

Sukuna scoffed a laugh and looked down at your head pressed up against his side. “Thanks to me,” he boasted. 

“Yes,” you agreed. You held onto his haori and looked up at him, placid and intense. “It is thanks to you. I would not be here if not for your mercy and intervention.” 

Sukuna raised a brow as he regarded you. “Hm. And what will you do to repay me?” 

“My very presence grants you luck, good fortune and fertility.” You tilted your head. “I already repay you by being here.”

Tch. But the gardens and surrounding lands did look more lush and lively since your arrival, he couldn't deny that fact. But he was a king; he could always ask for more and expect to get it. 

“What more?” He prodded.

Your tail flicked as you thought. “What would you ask of me?” 

“Something you haven't given another,” Sukuna replied. Ugh, your flowery, poetry-y, bullshit speak was rubbing off on him. 

You stared at him, gemstone eyes glinting with earthen hues and shards of gold in the yawning afternoon sun. The leaves bristled just perfectly, letting in dapples of citrus sunlight as if trying to make this moment something special, as if to burn your ethereal presence into history for all eternity. All this, just while you thought of what to give him. Perhaps a riddle is what you wanted. Perhaps purple prose suited your fancy. Perhaps it was something else. 

You sat up, carefully raising yourself onto your knees before leaning up towards the hulking king. He turned his face to you in interest, feeling a sort of natural energy begin to pool around the both of you, reaching from the far depths of the earth and the wide stretch of the sky to converge on your existence as you framed his face with gentle hands, and placed a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth. 

It lasted only a second. But a second was long enough to catch the scent of petrichor and petals on your skin, to indulge in the heat of wildfires raging in your soul, to feel the blasphemy of you against him; then, you parted. 

“For now,” you murmured, and Sukuna swore he saw your single tail fan out into nine, “I give you my divine favor, Ryoumen Sukuna.”

You wondered if your favor was enough. He'd been gone some time, off to accept a duel from the snotty shitheads Sukuna had received you from. Apparently, having two of the eldest boys murdered rubbed them the wrong way. Sukuna was glad for it, you knew–the man lived and breathed for a fight. 

Of course, you stayed put. Uraume assured you'd be fine on your own, and Sukuna reminded his staff they'd all be eaten alive by the king himself if anything uncouth were to take place in his absence. It was more so that Sukuna didn't like the idea of idiots touching his stuff than it was the notion you were important to him, from your understanding. 

Regardless, the time alone left you restless. That king made you invincible. Without him, you were nothing more than the scared kit locked away in darkness, never to emerge lest your stubbornness trick them. But things were different here. Everyday was filled with unknowns and uncertainties when the two you'd forged fragile bonds with fell absent. 

So, you thought of how to repay Sukuna. Your divine favor would only do so much, after all–you didn't think a man like that really needed the extra luck, but he seemed more than intrigued by the manner of delivering the blessing; you remembered how he looked at you, eyes half-lidded, shielding you from the inferno burning out of control. He grumbled something low in his chest, just loud enough that you heard: 

You better be here when I get back.

“Ah–” The thrill those catastrophic words gave you nearly led to stabbing yourself with the needle. You tutted and regained focus, continuing to carefully embroider the sleeves of one of Sukuna's many plain black haori.

You learned how to sew and embroider from watching an elder from that clan work her magic on old, tattered clothes. She never spoke to you nor regarded you, but she never turned you away the rare times you watched her fix garments; you thought it was beautiful–the art of turning something mundane into something meaningful.

Though you wondered if Ryoumen Sukuna, the most powerful sorcerer, the most feared man alive, had a desire for anything useless and meaningful. 

The answer came quickly. You'd found yourself void of confidence when the monarch returned to his palace after (obviously) winning whatever duel he'd agreed to; you weren't sure if you were to congratulate him, celebrate him or something more. On top of that, he'd eventually find that haori you'd slaved over for days, and you weren't sure you could take the heartbreak of dismissal. 

However, those fears were quashed when, from a new little secret garden hovel, you spied the man donning the very haori you slaved over; it wasn't a flashy piece, you didn't want to subtract from the marvel that was the king of curses, so you opted for using black, shimmery thread to weave intricate twisting trees and blackened blooms along the sleeve. Only if the design caught the light would one be able to notice it. 

But that was enough for you. Knowing he accepted such a meaningless gift was reassuring of your place in his world. 

So, you finally let Uraume convince you to stay in the room they'd prepared for you. 

“No need to be nervous,” you hummed, that undying urge inside you to take care of something helping you soothe the young woman's nerves. You fixed her hair, your deft fingers carefully slipping strands into place before sliding a decorative pin in to hold it all together. You took a step back to appraise her, Sukuna's latest concubine. 

“I–thank you.” Sachiko blushed fiercely and bowed the slightest bit, not risking a deep bow for the fear of her hair falling loose. “I can see why all the girls love you.” 

You laughed, low and warm. “Well, it's hard not to love someone who takes care of you, no?” Gently, you tilted her chin up and leaned in, carefully examining the red lacquer staining her lips. The colour matched her kimono and the gems in that exquisite hairpin keeping dark locks at bay. “But I'm glad. I know it's difficult to find respite in these times.” 

Sachiko held her breath as she looked over the natural paint of crimson adorning your eyes. “I-I, um–yes, I do agree.” 

You hummed and carefully fixed the smallest smudge on the corner of her mouth. “Mh. So I hope you do your best to please him.” 

“I will!” Sachiko promised. “But–I wish to–may I give you something?” 

“Of course.” 

She gathered her kimono up in her hands and leaned up toward you. You leaned down, expecting a secret or hushed words, but perfect red lips pressed against your skin instead. And you were dumbfounded; you'd never been kissed before. You'd never had a lady show that interest in you. 

Sachiko got down from her tiptoes and hid her mouth with her sleeve. “Just for good luck!” She squeaked before bowing and hastily running through the doors where Sukuna would no doubt be waiting for his woman for the evening’s events. 

You looked at the doors sliding closed and caught a glimpse of Sukuna stood before the young woman, his frame swallowing hers as you looked on. And you caught a glimpse of his eyes, his stare of shock and utter vexation–clearly, he'd seen the short woman give you a kiss for good luck. 

You turned away, choosing to abandon the girl to her demise as your fingers ghosted against your lips in wonder. 

He showed up in your chambers later that night. You were still awake, quietly embroidering another haori; this time, it was for Uraume. They insisted they didn't want to burden you, but they crumbled under your more insistent insistence, and accepted the offer on the condition it looked subtle and muted. 

Sukuna padded toward you, hardly bothering to announce himself or ask to join you (ugh, how annoying) before plopping himself onto the futon beside you, sighing as he laid down. 

“I see you finished early,” you commented, jumping the littlest bit when large hands caught your flickering tails. He didn't hurt you, no; he was simply an overgrown toddler with a penchant for examining whatever wiggled before him. 

“That woman kissed you,” Sukuna answered, unhelpful. “Ruined it.” 

“Ah. Well. I didn't expect it either.” You cleared your throat, feeling an unexpected bubble of embarrassment rise in your chest. “I have…I've never been given a kiss before. Not from what I can recall, at the very least.” 

“The hell are you talking about?” Sukuna grouched. “You planted one on me in the gardens.” 

“Giving is not receiving,” you corrected, flicking your tail so as to hit his face. “I've never given a kiss on another's lips, regardless. Though I find myself wondering why I–” 

You yowled when he yanked your tail like he meant to rip the thing off, and you whirled on him, eyes drawn into slits and chunky fangs bared as you dug your nails into his wrist in an effort to make him let go.

Yet the king looked unfazed. He sat up and  tugged you closer by your tail, yank after yank, ripping an impressive collection of vexed noises from you until his broad hand caught you by the throat. You clawed at his wrist and forearm, scrambling to find purchase, idly wondering if he'd finally had enough of you and sought to put you down after dirtying one of his concubines–

But he kissed you instead. His lips were warm and dry, not quite soft yet not unwelcoming. Sukuna knew what he was doing, too; his tongue licked at your bottom lip before pushing inside to finally taste you and taint you from within just a little bit. 

Your grip on him laxed the slightest bit, and you even eased into his hold as he, too, refused to harm you further. If you weren't aware of his malevolent spirit, you might've thought him gentle in that long, simple moment–a special brand of “gentle” that was wholly Sukuna's. Kind, but jagged around the edges. 

He started pulling back, though, and you followed after his touch like a bewitched maiden chasing after the lips of a lover. You nipped at the air like that'd do something for you, but soon settled on leaning into the hand holding you still, even if your throat scratched and ached because of it. 

You found Sukuna's calm stare watching you when you opened your eyes a crack. For once, you thought he looked content; the cruel, mocking lines of his face had smoothed and relaxed, and that annoying, cocky smirk he'd been born sporting had been replaced with a placid, normal lilt. Even the inferno blazing in crimson depths eased into pools of yawning embers–warm and spirited, yet contained. 

The sight relaxed you despite the confusion it brought to your rationale. 

“That,” Sukuna said, so odd and quiet, but powerful and judicial. “Is your first.” His thumb stroked against the side of your neck, pausing to feel the pitter patter of your heart thrumming under his mercy. “It'd serve you to remember that.” 

You nodded shallowly. “Of course.” 

Pleased, he let go of your quite breakable neck and moved like he was about to get up. You grabbed at his hand and pressed his palm to the side of your face like he was cupping your cheek. Your insistence on touching gave the beast pause, but he settled again, content to let you keep him hostage for as long as you wanted.

And you indulged in the simple favour. You nuzzled into his palm with a very fox-like chitter as a bassy, quiet trill of a purr lazily rolled through your chest, eventually reaching Sukuna himself. It somehow had him feeling content. Relaxed. Like he was basking in the warmth of the sun. 

“I request another,” you chirped, and Sukuna quirked a brow. 

“Another?” 

“Kiss.” 

Sukuna twitched a smirk. “It'll cost ya.” 

“Oh?” 

“Give me another blessing.”

And you agreed.

[daryltwdixon]

Part 1 | Part 2 | masterlist

"Are you scared, little bunny?" Summary: You didn’t mean to be here. You didn’t mean to see this. The motel door had already been cracked open, a splintered frame, a hint of something wrong curling in the air. You should have turned around, left, pretended you never saw the blood on his knuckles, the way it was painted across his throat. But then he looked at you. Slow, unfazed. Like you walking in on his carnage was nothing at all. You didn’t know why your breath shuddered. You didn’t know why your fingers itched to touch. And you sure as hell didn’t know why you didn’t run. || DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT 🕊️ horror, Dark!Daryl Dixon, blood and implied violence, no walkers, motel room encounters, morally gray reader, predator/prey vibes, dubious situations and dubious consent (the reader whole heartedly consents they're just trying to reason with themselves that this is a terrible idea), serialkiller!Daryl, reader walks in on something she shouldn’t, fear-turned-arousal, misattribution of arousal, thanatos / death drive theory. || a/n: thank you so so so so much to my friend @dixonsdarkelf for beta reading & giving me the boost I needed to post this! Inspired by these gifsets x x

The drive home always dragged.

You let out a long, exhausted sigh, fingers tightening on the wheel as the road stretched endlessly ahead. This wasn’t how the weekend was supposed to go. You were supposed to stay with your family for two more days—grit your teeth through the small talk, sit through the passive-aggressive questions about your job, your life, your choices. Smile. Nod. Pretend. But instead, you were barely a few hours in before it all fell apart.

Dinner had started fine. It always did. But then one question turned into a pointed remark, then into something sharper, something meaner. The same fight, just recycled into different words, but this time, you weren’t in the mood to swallow it down. This time, you pushed back. Voices rose, tempers flared, and before you knew it, you were grabbing your keys, shoving out the door, leaving behind the half-eaten meal and whatever thin thread was still holding the conversation together.

Now you were here—alone on the highway, miles of darkness stretching in every direction, headlights carving a path forward. 

Traffic jams bled into one another, each red taillight blurring into the next, the clock on your dash creeping past midnight. Eventually, the further you went, the emptier the roads became, until it was just you and the long-haul truckers, their rigs groaning under the weight of whatever cargo they hauled through the night.

Your eyelids grew heavier, dipping lower with every mile. You blinked hard, willing yourself awake, but exhaustion clung to you, thick and suffocating. It wasn’t just the late hour—it was the crash after the adrenaline of the fight, the weight of too many words you couldn’t take back pressing down on you.

You told yourself you’d be fine. Just another two hours to go.

Then a deafening horn shattered the quiet, and before you even realized what was happening, your tires veered across the lane. You gasped, jerking the wheel hard, the car lurching as you barely corrected in time. The highway was nearly empty, but that didn't matter—your heart was pounding, hands clammy where they gripped the steering wheel, the sudden shock of how easily that could’ve ended differently locking your breath in your throat. That was it, you knew you needed to stop, needed to pull off and find a place to get some rest before hitting the road again in the morning. 

You took the next exit, into a town that was barely a town at all, just a forgotten smear of civilization on the side of the highway. The streets were empty, the buildings slumped and decayed, as if the place had given up on itself long ago. A gas station, a diner with its ‘Open 24 Hours’ sign flickering in and out of life, and a squat little motel, its vacancy sign buzzing weakly in the dark.

Pulling into the parking lot, your headlights washed over cracked pavement and weeds pushing up through the concrete. Only a few cars were parked outside, most of them old and rusted, as if they’d been sitting there for far longer than a single night’s stay. The only light came from the neon sign overhead and the sickly yellow glow spilling from the front office window, casting shadows that felt too long, too stretched.

You swallowed, gripping the steering wheel. Something about this place felt…off. Not in an obvious way—no shattered windows, no ominous figures lurking in doorways—but in a way that made your skin crawl. Like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting. These were the kind of motels in movies where you’d scream at the protagonist: Keep driving, idiot! Find someplace else!

But there was nowhere else, and you couldn’t risk driving another hour to find the next rest stop.

It wasn’t ideal. Hell, it was probably a breeding ground for bed bugs, or worse–the kind of place where people checked in but didn’t always check out. But the thought of curling up in your car for the night, stiff and vulnerable in an empty parking lot, wasn’t much better.

All you had to do was get the key, lock the door, and make it through till morning. You’d toss your clothes the second you got home, scrub this place off your skin like it never touched you.

It was fine. It would be fine.

The fluorescent lights in the front office buzzed overhead, their hum just a little too loud in the unnatural silence. The air inside was stale, thick with the scent of something overly sweet—like someone had tried to cover up years of cigarettes and mildew with cheap air freshener.

A small bell sat on the counter. You hesitated, then tapped it once, the chime ringing out sharp and hollow.

Nothing.

You waited, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of your neck despite the room being empty. Just as you were about to hit the bell again, a figure shuffled out from the back.

It was a woman, older, her expression carved from stone. Stringy hair pulled back into a loose bun, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers, her nails yellowed from years of nicotine.

“What can I do for ya?” she drawled, exhaling a long stream of smoke. It curled thick in the air, stale and cloying. You forced yourself to breathe through your nose, ignoring the burn in your throat.

“One room, please. Just for the night.”

She tapped at the ashtray on the counter, knocking the embers loose without looking. Her gaze stayed on you, too steady, too knowing, as if she was peeling you apart one layer at a time.

“You travelin’ alone, honey?”

Your spine straightened.

“No,” you said a little too quickly. “My dad’s waiting in the truck.”

She hummed, dragging another long inhale from her cigarette as her beady eyes stayed on you. Like she could tell it was a lie, no matter how sure you tried to sound.

“So, two beds?”

“Just the one is fine,” you said, tightening your fingers around your bag strap “We’ll manage.”

"Cash or card?" she asked, watching, peeling away whatever confidence you tried to have.

"Card," you murmured, fishing it out with stiff fingers.

She slid it through an ancient-looking reader, her other hand tapping the desk with the long, deliberate patience of someone who had nowhere to be. Her name tag was smeared, almost unreadable, and the glass of the front desk window was covered in a film of grime. 

She handed the card back, then a single brass key, its tag worn soft with age.

“Room one eighty,” she said, sliding it forward. “End of the lot.”

You took it quickly, fingers brushing against the cold metal.

The woman leaned back, taking another drag, her lips curling around the cigarette. “You let me know if y’all need anything, alright?”

You forced a nod, but something about her stare made your skin prickle. You turned toward the door, gripping the key so tight it pressed sharply into your palm.

Outside, the air felt too thick, like the humidity had climbed in the last few minutes, settling heavily on your skin. 

Then, you felt it again.

That thick, crawling awareness pricking at the back of your neck. That quiet, animal instinct that told you someone was watching. You turned your head before you could stop yourself.

Across the parking lot, just beyond the neon glow of the motel sign, a man stood under a broken street light. At first, he was nothing more than a dark shape, half-obscured by the flickering light, his face hidden in the deep hollows of shadow. 

He was just… standing there. Watching. 

You didn’t recognize him, and he was too far away to make out anything but his built form, the broadness of his shoulders. But there was something in the way he stood, still as stone, his body angled just slightly toward you, his gaze locked and unblinking.

The look in his eyes, dark and unreadable even from a distance, sent a shiver licking down your spine.

You turned quickly, your nerves on fire. But as you made your way down the long stretches of rooms on the outer perimeter, the railing overlooking the parking lot, you began to hear signs of life. The sounds seeped through the walls, slipping under doors and filling the narrow stretch of concrete. A bass line thrummed from somewhere nearby, muffled by thin walls as it seemed to pound with the rhythm of your heartbeat. Somewhere farther down, men shouted, their voices rising and falling, drunken or angry or both. Laughter burst out, sharp and sudden, followed by the distant clatter of something knocking against a table or a wall.

When you turned around and looked back across the parking lot, the man was suddenly gone.

TVs droned from multiple rooms, the glow of static flickering through slatted blinds. Someone had left theirs too loud, a newscaster rehashing old stories like it wasn’t the middle of the night. A couple was arguing behind one of the doors you passed, their voices biting and loud, words slamming into each other with no space to breathe. Something crashed—glass, maybe, or a chair knocking over—and you picked up your pace without realizing it.

Anywhere else, maybe it would have felt normal. Just people awake too late, passing the time, waiting for morning. Here, it only set your teeth on edge. Something about it felt wrong.

The fact that so many people were still awake at this hour made the muscles in your back pull tight. You weren’t alone here. But that didn’t mean you weren’t isolated.

Then, a heavy thump.

It came from the room to your right, sudden and jarring, loud enough to shake the thin wall between you. Your breath caught as you flinched back, your heart hammering against your ribs. There was movement, the slow creak of weight shifting, but nothing else followed. No voices, no explanation. Just silence settling too quickly, like whatever had happened had stopped the second you reacted to it.

Your feet moved faster, a reflex more than anything, carrying you down the walkway before you could think too hard about it. The numbers on the doors passed in a blur—178, 179, and finally, 180—your fingers tightening around the key as your room finally came into view. 

You fumbled once, just once, hands suddenly damp, but the second the lock turned, you pushed inside, slamming the door behind you.

The second it shut, you turned the lock.

The noises outside dulled, voices and music muffled the moment you closed the door and slumped your back against it, your chest rising and falling like you’d just run a half-marathon instead of walking across a motel lot. Your fingers curled into the fabric of your shirt, gripping at nothing, your pulse a frantic beat against your ribs.

You dragged in a breath, trying to slow the restless thrum in your veins. Just get through the next few hours, get some rest, and then you’d get the hell out of Dodge.

It was fine. It would be fine.

Except, sleep didn’t exactly come easy. You tossed and turned on top of the stiff bedspread, every shift of fabric loud in the silence, ears straining for any sudden sound beyond the walls. A door shutting, footsteps outside, voices carrying just enough to make you wonder if someone was too close to your room.

After what felt like forever, you gave up, flipping on the TV just to drown out the rest. The low murmur of late-night programming filled the room, casting weak blue light over the cracked ceiling, but it didn’t do much to settle you. You weren’t sure anything would.

The one thing you couldn’t ignore in favor of sleep, though, was the slow, gnawing ache of your stomach.

You should’ve stayed for the rest of dinner. Sat through the tense conversation, swallowed the words you wanted to throw back at them, and picked at your plate even if you had no appetite. At least then you wouldn’t be thinking about stepping outside again, not in the dead of night, not in the seediest motel you could’ve possibly stumbled across.

But the longer you lay there, the worse the hunger got.

Every motel had a vending machine, didn’t they?

You sighed, scrubbing a hand over your face, already hating where this was going.

You just had to be quick. In and out. Then you’d lock yourself in and actually try to sleep.

You knew it was wishful thinking to assume the vending machine would be easy to find. It was never that simple. You circled the building twice, passing the same cracked pavement, the same rusted-out cars, the same rooms with their curtains drawn too tight.

By the time you finally stumbled across the middle hallway, the glow of a single overhead light barely illuminating the space, you were already regretting this. The vending machine sat in the corner, humming under the flickering fluorescents, the metal frame dented, the glass fogged with fingerprints.

Your fingers hovered over the rows of snacks, barely able to focus on the choices, your body still on edge from the walk over. The motel felt alive, like every sound behind every door was something you weren’t supposed to hear.

The machine hummed under flickering light, the buttons worn down to the plastic. You fed it a couple of crumpled bills and tapped at one, then another, and waited. A loud mechanical churn. Then—nothing.

Great.

You smacked the side of it. Nothing again. Your stomach twisted painfully, a sharp reminder of just how long it had been since you’d last eaten. You sighed, rubbing a hand over your face, and turned to leave.

And that’s when you noticed it.

A door, cracked open at the very end of the hall.

The frame was splintered, like it had been forced open.

Something in your gut tensed.

You should walk away. Right now. Get back to your room, lock the door, and pretend you never saw anything. But something about it—about the stillness of it, the way the dim glow of a bedside lamp barely reached the threshold—made your feet stall.

Someone could be hurt. Or worse.

You swallowed hard, pulse in your throat as you crept closer, every instinct screaming at you that this was a bad idea. The air shifted the closer you got, thick with something you couldn’t name, something wrong.

And now that you were standing at the threshold, staring at the cracks in the doorframe, splintered from some kind of forced entry, your eyes drifted lower. Something dark and sticky was splattered on the ledge of the door, thick streaks leading onto the carpet inside.

Your heart stopped altogether. It was no longer rattling in your chest from fear, but fully frozen, skipping and halting as if trying to jumpstart itself while you stared into the dimly lit room.

At first, it was just shapes—shadows swallowing each other, the motel’s tiny lamp and the flickering TV casting everything into uneven light—warm and dark one second, sharp and cold the next. As your mind caught up to your eyes, it sharpened, the darkness peeling away, and you finally realized what you were looking at.

On the queen-sized bed in the center of the room, the bedspread was untouched, barely rumpled, except for the body laying perfectly still atop it.

Like someone had laid them there on purpose.

A mess of red had soaked deep into the fabric, fresh enough that the air was thick with it. The copper scent was overwhelming, clinging to the back of your throat, so metallic and sharp you could almost taste it. There was so much blood. More than you had ever seen in one place. Too much for it to be okay, too much for it to mean anything other than the obvious. You should have turned around. You should have stopped looking. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t do anything except stand there, heart frozen in your chest, as your brain worked double time, locking onto every detail like it needed to catalog the carnage in order to make sense of it. The body was positioned too neatly, arms at its sides, legs straight, head turned away just enough that it felt unnatural—like whoever had done this hadn’t just been brutal, but deliberate.

Your stomach clenched. The smell invaded your nose again, worse now, thick and nauseating, making something cold claw its way up your spine. You stumbled back a step, your hand flying to clamp around your mouth before you could decide whether you were about to scream or be sick. You needed to move. You needed to leave. You needed to call someone, do something, but your limbs refused to cooperate, locking up as if freezing in place would somehow make this all disappear. Your body was waiting for direction, for instinct to kick in, but it never did.

Then, the bathroom door on the other side of the room swung open, spilling yellow light into the dim space as a man stepped out.

At first, it was the fluffy pink robe that threw you off, a ridiculous contrast against the raw violence laid out before you. Your brain latched onto it, desperate for anything that made sense, anything that didn’t belong to the nightmare in front of you. But then your eyes dragged upward, and you saw it—the blood.

It was everywhere. Splattered across his throat, smeared up his neck, drying in dark, uneven streaks along his collarbone. His hand was coated in it, the thick, dried red cracked over his knuckles, like he hadn’t bothered to wash it off. Like he hadn’t cared enough to try.

Panic reared its head, shoving its way into your chest, squeezing your lungs tighter than before. It was one thing to stumble across a body, to witness a crime. It was another to look into the eyes of the man who had done it. Your body understood before your mind did—the liquid fire of adrenaline flooding through your veins, your muscles locking up in place, every nerve screaming caught, caught, caught.

His gaze locked onto you, heavy and assessing, and even from where you stood, you could tell his eyes were the deepest ocean blue you had ever seen. There was no rage in them, no madness—nothing that fit the sheer bloodshed he had left behind. He was unnervingly handsome, despite it all. Maybe because of it.

He inhaled, dragging another slow pull from his cigarette, letting the smoke curl lazily from his lips before shifting his weight, completely unconcerned.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“Well,” he muttered, voice rough and edged with disinterest as he let out a puff of smoke, “shit.”

You should have run.

You should have turned and bolted down the hallway, thrown yourself outside, screamed for help—something. But you didn’t. Your body wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t let you turn and run from the scene in front of you. Your limbs were locked in place, rooted to the motel floor like they had forgotten how to move, how to respond, how to do anything but tremble.

He seemed to notice, and flicking his cigarette, he made his way slowly toward you. He was so slow and careful it was almost predatory, like he was trying to camouflage into whatever normalcy was left in the room. Like he was trying to convince you that this was completely normal and he wasn’t some axe murderer in a pink fluffy robe.

“C’mon now,” he muttered, stepping toward you with zero hesitation, like your presence here was nothing more than an inconvenience. “Least shut the damn door.”

He moved with easy, unbothered confidence, reaching past you, pressing his palm against the motel door and nudging it inward. It swung heavy on its hinges, closing behind you with a soft, final click.

Your breath shuddered. You were really stuck here now, with him, and for some reason, the panic in your chest wasn’t flaring like before. You remained stock-still, frozen, waiting for him to make his move, to put you out of your misery for being a witness to his crime. What was his weapon of choice? Did he have a knife? A gun? Did he kill with his bare hands?

The man stepped in close, standing just in front of you now, close enough that you could see the uneven streaks of blood drying against his throat, close enough that you could smell the mix of cigarettes and sweat and something deeper layered with the metallic tang of blood. 

He didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at you, head tilting ever so slightly, like he was turning over a thought in his head, working something out.

Then he exhaled, lifting a hand—slow, deliberate, like he was giving you a second to react—and twisted a lock of your hair between his fingers.

His touch was light, but it sent a bolt of something electric straight through your spine, and yet, still, you didn’t move. You should have pulled away. You should have slapped his hand down. But your body wasn’t yours right now. It belonged to fear.

He hummed low in his throat, almost to himself, turning the strands between his fingers, studying them with an unreadable expression.

“You’re real pretty,” he muttered, almost absentmindedly, like it was a passing observation, not something meant to soothe you. His voice was low, rough, dragging over the syllables like he didn’t use them often. “What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ in a place like this?”

Your throat locked up, lungs seizing against the flood of adrenaline. You weren’t even sure if your heart was still in your chest based on the way blood was roaring in your ears, drowning out every rational thought. He was teasing. Curious. And—God—flirty?

If you didn’t know better, if you hadn’t just stepped into this room, hadn’t seen the blood, hadn’t noticed the body stretched out too perfectly on the bed—you might’ve… you might’ve…

You swallowed hard, but your throat was too dry to get any sound out. Your pulse slammed in your ears, your heartbeat betraying everything you wanted to hide. He watched you for a moment longer, then let your hair slip from his grip, rubbing his bloodstained fingers together as if testing the softness.

“You’re shakin’,” he observed, mouth pulling into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, but leaned in that direction, like your fear was interesting to him… like it was cute.

His fingers twitched then, and after a pause, he reached up again after sticking his cigarette in his mouth—this time, just barely brushing his knuckles along your jaw. The touch was fleeting, but enough to make you tense even more.

He made another small sound in the back of his throat, mock sympathy edging into it.

“Like a scared little bunny.”

You should have been running. Screaming for your life. You should have turned and bolted the second you saw the blood. Why weren’t you fucking running?

The part of you that should have been shutting down, the part of you that should have been clawing for survival, digging its heels into your fogged, terrified brain to pay fucking attention—that part of you…

It was curious about him too.

You watched as his face changed then, watching your reactions like a predator tracking in his prey, eyes narrowing as they darted around your face, reading you, piecing something together. His lips twitched like he was amused, like he had figured out something you didn’t even understand about yourself yet.

“No…” he said, pulling his hand away, head tilting slightly before his face split into a grin, pulling the cigarette out between his fingers, “you’re not scared, are you, little bunny? You like this.”

“No!” The word ripped out of you, barely a whisper at first, but then louder, cracking in the dim room around you., “No.” Your breath stuttered as you tried to sound more confident, your whole body wired too tight, but the denial felt weak even to your own ears.

“Oh, there she is,” he said, watching you closely, pleased that he had finally drawn something out of you. “You gotta name, sweetheart?”

Your lips pressed together, your jaw tight, but your eyes sharpened, taking him in, really seeing him now. His blue eyes were dangerous and beautiful and terrifying all at once, cutting through the haze of your fear like a blade. There was blood splattered up his face, drying along the sharp structure of his cheekbone, disappearing into the strands of dark hair that hung loose in his eyes. It should have made him look monstrous. It should have made him unrecognizable as anything human.

But it didn’t.

It made you want to lean forward. Your mind flashed with the idea, and you did everything you could to keep your body from following, the idea that you wanted to trace the sharp cut of his jaw, to drag your tongue over the remnants of metallic blood he had missed along his lip and—

No.

No no no no no.

The thought seared through you like an open flame. Your breath caught, your skin igniting in humiliation, a flush so deep you wanted to disappear. You couldn’t believe this. Couldn’t believe your own body, couldn’t believe the way your stomach clenched, the way something hot and ugly was overlapping the sheer horror of what this man had done. There was fear, yes—a lot of it. But there was something else crawling underneath, something just as intense, something that made your pulse skyrocket as his hand moved.

His hand pushed the cigarette into the wooden frame, the hiss of the burning end snuffing out by your head. His fingers then found the strap of your shirt, curling around the fabric, dragging it down over your shoulder with his bloodstained grip.

“No name, huh?” he murmured, watching your face, watching every shift in your expression, like he was memorizing what you looked like when you trembled. His voice was lower now, quieter, dangerous in a way that wasn’t loud or obvious, but steady and unshaken. He leaned in closer, close enough that the heat of his breath ghosted over your throat.

“That’s okay, bunny,” he muttered. “I don’t got a name either.”

Your stomach dropped.

And then, to your utter horror, he kissed your shoulder.

Not deep. Not forceful. Just the slow, deliberate press of his mouth against your skin, his lips barely parted, dragging warm and rough over the place he had just exposed.

It sent a violent shudder down your spine. The sensation—the heat of him, the quiet intimacy of it, the way he didn’t move away after, just lingered there—lit something in your chest, something sharp and unbearable. Your nipples, the traitors, hardened underneath your shirt, poking through the thin fabric that stretched across your chest. A gasp left you before you could stop it, your eyes widening in shock.

The man huffed softly against your skin, something amused in the sound.

“You like this, bunny?” His voice was slow, edged with something almost thoughtful, like he was figuring it out as he spoke. His nose brushed the side of your throat, his breath warm as he tilted his head, inhaling the scent of your perfume.

“You like a man like me takin’ advantage of just how scared you are?” His hand tightened just slightly at your shoulder, his mouth ghosting along your jaw before he murmured, “That it, bunny? You like the fear?”

His lips brushed your pulse.

“The shame?”

His fingers traced along your collarbone, the metallic tang of copper filling your nose as his hand got closer and closer to your face again.

“You turned on by a little bit of blood?”

Your breath caught in your throat, fingers curling at your sides, and you knew whatever you said next would change everything. You should have lied. You should have denied it, should have shaken your head, should have shoved him away and run before it was too late.

Your mouth parted, your chest heaving like you had just surfaced from drowning, but before you could answer, his hand snapped up, grabbing the nape of your neck, fingers lacing in your hair. His other hand suddenly gripped your jaw, forcing your face to tilt toward him.

It was fast, sudden, a flash of violence that slammed through you like a bolt of electricity, it made you gasp sharply, eyes going wide.

His grip wasn’t bruising, but it was firm, unyielding. His fingers dug into your jaw just enough that it bordered on pain, enough that you felt the quiet threat humming underneath him.

His eyes narrowed, sharp, dark, and hungry, locking onto yours like a predator seeing prey for exactly what it was. His grip tightened for a split second, his thumb dragging rough over your cheek, the dried blood flaking slightly against your skin, crumbling like dust beneath his touch.

“Say it,” he rasped, voice still calm, still steady as stone, but something inside it had changed—harder now, more dangerous.

Your body locked up, trapped between the heat of him and the cold reality of what was happening, of what had been happening for longer than just that moment.

Because it hadn’t started when you stepped into this room.

It didn’t start when you saw the blood. It didn’t even start when you heard the body hit the floor.

It started long before that.

You’d always known something was wrong with you. The way fear didn’t keep you away—it called to you, wrapped around your ribs and had you in its grip. The way you’d always looked for danger, for the spike of adrenaline that made your heart hammer against your ribs, made you feel more alive than anything else.

You could’ve stayed at your parents’ house. You could’ve forced yourself to sit through another dinner filled with questions about your future, their expectations suffocating you like a cage you were never meant to fit inside. But you didn’t.

You left in the middle of the night, peeling away from their house like something inside you was clawing to be free, chasing an impulse you hadn’t fully understood at the time.

You hadn’t stopped driving until exhaustion forced your hand. And when you pulled into this motel, when you stepped onto that cracked pavement, when you heard the distant sounds of raised voices, of something heavy hitting the ground—your pulse hadn’t stuttered in fear.

It had spiked.

And while you tried to ignore it, ignore that pull, to force yourself to sleep, you couldn’t say no to that part of you that needed to see. You’d left your room, weaving through the shadows of the motel, passing this exact door. The vending machine hadn’t been the excuse you told yourself it was. It wasn’t hunger for food that had your stomach twisting, your body restless against the scratchy motel sheets.

It was hunger to know.

To see.

To find the blood, the body, and the man who did it.

And now he was standing in front of you, looking at you like he already knew all of it. Like he’d read the answer in your dilated eyes, in the way your breath had hitched when you first saw him, in the way you were still here, still trembling under his grip but not running.

Your mouth was dry, your body refusing to move, refusing to break free of his hold. Because the worst part wasn’t that you were afraid.

The worst part was that you liked it.

You made a small, broken noise, your fingers twitching, your whole body tight as a wire as you reached up, your hands sliding around his  forearm.

“Yes,” you whispered. It was barely a sound, barely more than breath, but his eyes flickered, something shifting beneath them.

The pressure released all at once.

His grip loosened from your jaw, tracing down the side of your throat with something slower now, something more deliberate. You let your hands fall, reaching for him instead. His thumb dragged along your cheek, wiping away the remnants of old blood he had left there. His lips lingered, the warmth of them stark against your skin, a slow drag over your jaw as he exhaled. The scent of him—smoke, sweat, the faint metallic ghost of dried blood—was thick in your lungs, wrapping around you, leaving no space for anything else.

His lips barely moved as they traced your jaw again when he spoke, the words slipping against your skin, low and quiet, like they weren’t meant for the space between you but meant to sink into you, settle deep, curl around something inside you that you didn’t even have a name for.

“I know, bunny.”

It was soft, almost affectionate, but threaded with something deeper. Something knowing.

Like he had been waiting for you to admit it to yourself first.

His fingers, the ones still tangled in your hair, tightened slightly—not rough, but firm, keeping you in place, keeping you still for him. He turned your head just enough to guide you, slow, like testing a skittish animal, like making sure you wouldn’t bolt the second he took what you were already offering.

You didn’t know him. You didn’t even know his name.

And none of that mattered.

Your hands, trembling but restless, lifted before you could stop them, pressing against the warm plane of his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath your palms. He was solid. Real. Your fingertips brushed against the edge of the pink robe he still hadn’t bothered to shed, the soft, ridiculous fabric clashing with the rough scrape of stubble along your throat as his mouth continued its path downward.

You felt the shift in him before you even saw it, the slight pause of his breath, the way his grip in your hair flexed before tightening further. His tongue peeked out from his mouth, tracing the vein of your artery along the column of your neck. You shuddered against him, eyes fluttering closed, and he chuckled, low and breathless against your skin, the sound of it vibrating against your pulse.

“That feel nice, sweetheart?”

You opened your eyes to look at him, and his were darker now, heavy-lidded, focused entirely on you, taking in every shuddering breath, every small twitch of your lips, the way your pupils had swallowed nearly all of your color.

Then, he kissed you.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was ravenous. Not just hungry but starved. The slow, intoxicating drag of lips and teeth and heat blurred every thought, every warning screaming in your head turning into static. You felt one of his hands skim lower, tracing the dip of your waist, fingers pressing into the thin fabric of your shirt like he was debating whether to rip it from your body or take his time peeling you open.

His mouth moved over yours like he already knew you’d open for him, like he had been waiting for it, waiting for this.

And God, you let him.

[kabuki-writes]

Twin Suns

chapter: 8 chapter 1 | 2 | 3| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

pairing: emperor geta/emperor caracalla x acacius' daughter!reader

summary: With you being the wife of his brother now and therefore a part of the royal court, it gets increasingly harder for Emperor Caracalla to not seek your company. Noticing his interest in you, Emperor Geta sets up a twisted game to benefit from his twin's desires.

warning(s): MDNI | implied smut warning | partially non consent | Geta being Geta and Caracalla being Caracalla | semi-edited | english is not my first language, faults may occur | please let me know if i missed anything

Note: I know, i know! It took me quite some time to get this chapter ready for you. Writer blocks are sadly a thing and i am not immune to that ughhhh! But this series will continue, even though it might take longer than i initially expected it to be. Also there are some new projects i'd like to work on, but they'll probably going to be one-shots. Stay tuned and thank you for your patience <3!

word count: 3.1k

Rome felt different during the summer days. It barely rained and the bright sun turned the city into a melting pot. The heat could become a torture, at least for the common citizens, who had to live and work in the dense streets of the Aventin or the other districts outside the Palatin hill. In the previous decades, fires caused by drought and bad luck were a common problem, especially in the districts of the poor. It was nothing that was new but it only added to the pile of other injustices, which grab around like a plague, being it hunger or the slow decay of any morals that were once held so high by the Roman elite.

The upper classes themselves however had their ways of dealing with those "problems". A lot of them left the city during those hot months as they owned homes in the countryside with the same amount of comfort they enjoyed in the capital. One of the most lavish and gigantic depictions of such a summer residence was the palace of the Emperors in Anzio, directly built at the coastline and a few miles south of Rome. This place was almost like a small city in itself, a symbol of Emperor Geta's and Caracalla's wealth, even though it was actually their father, who restored the old palace that once belonged to Emperor Nero. Emperor Septimius Severus modernized the old walls and equipped the residence to be a retreat for his family. Just as their palace in Rome, their summer residence had everything Caracalla and Geta expected in their roles as the most powerful men in the world. An army of servants rushed around to cook and clean up, take care of the garden, or simply do whatever was needed. Additionally, as always, the Emperors had their entourage of concubines with them, who stayed with the other servants and slaves in another part of the palace - ready to be called whenever they were needed.

Over the last passing weeks after your wedding with Emperor Geta, you'd tried your best to get used to all of this - to the luxury and the way all eyes were always set on you, ready to watch every damn move you did. You rarely got any moment for yourself, since it was expected from you to stick at Geta's side, smile and be at his service every second of the day. And he had used this situation over and over again. Your husband would say that this was just the way he offered you his love, but the reality was that he was a very lustful and demanding man. One that searched for your approval so desperately through all the touches, kisses and pleasures he viewed as a gift, but you only took them to preserve your pride behind a carefully crafted mask of adaption. You despised the lavish parties, the concubines, the twisted game everyone of the royal court seemed to play, so that they wouldn't end up crucified the next morning. And you knew so well, that just like your father, you were fighting to save your family too - not on the battlefield, but in the front of the Emperor and in his bed.

Letters from General Acacius were a rarity, when he was off on a campaign at the end of the Roman Empire. A messenger needed weeks, often over a month until he was able to deliver to the right person. Holding the papyrus paper in your hands felt like holding a godly present, when you read the written words that were only meant for you over and over again. Beginning with "My dearest, my beloved daughter", Acacius told her about the exhausting travel, the situation of his legions as well as his own, about the siege of Numidia - the last free city of Africa Nova and more. In his letter it was an upcoming and unavoidable happening, but given all the time between writing and delivering, the battle might've been over already.

Although it was a personal letter adressed to the Empress, given that he didn't know if anyone else would lay their eyes on it, Acacius deliberately left out the any critique about the Emperor's decisions to continue Rome's expansions. But you knew your father well enough to read between the lines of his text, which gave you a glimpse about how tired he was about this war and how much it caused pain in him to kill and enslave under the banner of a reign he saw as nothing but a tyranny. You were lost in between his words and the smell of the sea mixed with the one of the papyrus in your hand, when a little squeak caught your ears and pulled you out of your thoughts. Another soft screech and you looked into the buttoned eyes of Dondus, the small pet monkey of Emperor Caracalla, who sat in his tiny tunic on the table next to you.

"I knew i'd find you here!" You didn't even need to turn your head around, to know which of the twins suddenly approached you as you were still sitting on a bench in the Palace gardens, protected by the shdaows of the trees around, but with the beautiful view of the sea right in front of you. Still you followed the etiquette and stood up to greet your brother-in-law with a bow of your head. "My Emperor,..."

"Caracalla", he corrected you, before you could even speak further. "You're part of the family now, there's no need to make it complicate, right?"

The fact that you were his brother's wife still bothered him from the very first day on. A mere thought about his brother's possession of your heart could kick off a tantrum of Caracalla at any given time, especially when he was alone in his rooms and had to face all the thoughts what Geta probably did to you, when he had you in his presence. And it was rare, very rare to get a moment with you alone, one in which you were not with Emperor Geta or accompanied by his personal guard. Those that Caracalla was the only one able to send away since the Praetorians had to follow his orders in the same way they did with his brother's. They were twin Emperors all along. And although Geta took more of the leading responsibilities, they shared the power equally at the end of the day.

You nodded in response to his offering, even if it was still an unusual practice - you weren't this close with him. Actually you thought that he had tried to avoid you for quite some time, after your wedding with his brother, which made his sudden approach even more dubious. Nonetheless you put on the mask of a dutiful Roman woman, graceful and without any falter, as your mouth curled into a smile and your hand started to crawl the head of Caracalla's pet monkey, who suddenly jumped onto your lap. "So you and Dondus have found me. Is there something i can help you with or do you just seek the company of your sister-in-law?" Caracalla's jaw clenched, even if his eyes remained open in a stare and his lips still frozen with a smile. "Maybe both", he whispered, before his hand suddenly grabbed yours, a soft gesture, a caring one combined with his following words, but you knew very well it was inappropriate.

"I know that we haven't seen each other for quite some time now and as you know Geta and i are twins - so i know my brother better than anyone. Which is, why i am more than curious to know how you're feeling now that you're his wife? Given the ... circumstances of your marriage, it was probably difficult to adjust to the court life and the duties of an Empress, with your honorable father fighting for Rome's glory somewhere in Africa Nova." His jaw clenched, when he mentioned the man he saw as nothing more than a traitor and you were well aware of that, which was why you hid your anger behind a well-crafted but forced smile.

„I know what is expected of me. And I do my duty for Rome just as my father.“

"That was not my question", Caracalla quickly shot back with an unbothered grin on his lips, while he was slowly leaning closer to you. Your eyes didn't left him as you watched intensely what he did, while you could already feel his breath on your skin. There was a danger radiating from him, a twisted combination out of friendly words and ulterior motives you weren't able to grasp. An inappropriate chuckle escaped his lips out of a sudden, as if he had done enough to hide it. "Is he not capable to satisfy his Empress?"

Your eyes widened and your lips parted, trying to say something, but no words came from them, shocked by the misguided question. Why, by the gods, did he ask such a thing!? Slowly, you gathered your thoughts again, as you tried your best to not show any emotions that would give off how uneasy you felt. But it didn't help that his hand crept further, as he reached out with his fingertips to trace the exposed skin of your arm. A gesture that caused a shiver running down you spine. It was as if he suddenly felt a sense of boldness, knowing that both of you were alone – even though you were not.

"I don't think that you would like me to tell you how your dear brother takes his pleasure from his wife". The words came from your lips like a confession, while you slowly gained conciousness about his goal. "Isn't it so? When we were at the amphitheater back then, you told me that you see yourself as Nero... and on my weddingday, you presented me the crown of Empress Poppaea. It is ironic, don't you think? That we sit here in the same gardens, those two probably enjoyed themselves too?", you said without a tone-shift in your voice, before you whispered, as if you were telling him a secret. "But i don't belong to you."

Something in Caracalla's eyes shifted, while you spoke, a dark glimpse of something that was buried deep inside him. The way his fingers suddenly snaked around your wrist and pressed themselves into your skin, while his lips shuddere, gave away that it triggered him. Even though it was simply the truth, but you wanted to hear what was going on in his mind. And how to get answers better than by teasing Caracalla in a way his lips would instantly react faster than his brain.

"Soon, i promise!", his voice a muddled with promise, plea and anger. "My brother doesn't deserve to have you", he hissed in a low tone, while his face was close to yours as if he was just a short distance away from simply kissing your lips. It took you a lot to not slip from his grip to escape this madness. Geta was cruel, but Caracalla was insane and you were trapped with their tantrums from the second they'd layed their eyes on you. "He never deserved you, not you, not the Empire, all of this. I do. I do. Don't tell me that you've never thought about it, i know that you do-"

"We shouldn't-"

"Don't deny it! We both know that it is fate that brought us together – that brought us here. It is just another sign that we're here together, like Nero and his love." His voice became louder and almost cracked in his anticipation, while his grip on your wrist was so tight, it started to hurt you. But it didn't seem like he would let go either. You were helpless in a situation like this as every word you said, seemed to make it even worse as he just heard what he wanted to hear. Caracalla was in his own reality, his own world, and you were his Venus, his goddess, the pinnacle of his unrestrained desire.

"Caracalla, please. My Emperor, you need to calm down", you tried it with a soft tone shift, your free hand slowly reaching for his scarred pale cheek. The scars testaments of his mental state as he scratched himself, whenever he had a nervous outburst. If he would voice this nonesense even louder, it might alert someone and you knew that it might get yourself in danger too. The Emperors were untouchable, but you...? Geta were able to punish you, if he would hear this conversation – even though you didn't even wished for the attention of his brother, it wouldn't matter.

Your voice, your touch, whatever it was, it shifted Caracalla's mood. He calmed down like a puppy, who melted under the way your filigran fingers ran over his cheek. His cold-blue eyes still stared at you, but it was almost as if he feared he said something wrong. It was the very first time you experienced firsthand how much power you actually hold over a man, who could easily order your murder. The young Emperor leaned into your touch and suddenly nodded softly. "I- i am sorry, i didn't...– i didn't want to scream at you. It was just- no, there is no excuse, please, you need to forgive me–"

You took your time with him even though there were so many thoughts echoing in your mind, how you were trapped in a seemingly never ending tragedy with no way out. However with Caracalla, you might get a chance to play your own little game... so you used this opportunity. "I already did, no need to worry, Caracalla", you whispered in an encouraging tone, taking away all his fears with just a few words. "But you should go now, Dondus seems to need some rest. And we will meet again for dinner, right?"

Indeed, Dondus, Caracalla's little pet monkey, had already laid down on the table, resting in the shadows of the olive trees. A sad shimmer appeared on Caracalla's face, when he got up. But he didn't leave you without. taking your hand for a moment and placing a kiss on your knuckles. He didn't said a word after this, while he simply took Dondus up his arms and walked off. Silence, it was even stronger than any word now, while your eyes went to your wrists, where he had grabbed you out of desperation. He was pathetic, insane – yet he could become a tool to find a way out of here. Maybe you became to ambitious in this very moment.

----

"Did you enjoy the moment with my wife", Geta's voice hit Caracalla like a dagger in the chest as he walked down the aisle, which lead from the gardens back to the palace rooms. He stopped instantly and turned his head around only to see his twin standing there in his lavish robes and the golden laurel wreath on his short gingerblonde hair. For a second, Caracalla almost favored the thought of simply leaving by ignoring those provocative words. But the accusation between the lines, grabbed his mind and basically forced a reaction from him.

"I just talked with her. Am i not allowed to do this, brother? She seemed lonely."

"Ah yeah, lonely?" Geta simply recalled Caracalla's words, while he did a few steps into his direction, stopping right in front of him as his face turned moe and more red. Not because of embarrassment, it was clear that his twin hated to be mocked like this, although the tease was not completely without a reason.

"And you really didn't thought about anything else as you were just accompaning my 'lonely' wife? Don't fool me, brother, i know you since we've shared our mother's womb."

"Is this an accusation?", Caracalla hissed, his fists clenching together. Even Dondus on his shoulder sensed the emotions that cooked up in his owner, screatching in response. What was Geta playing here?

"An offering."

An offering? Caracalla's eyes stared at Geta for a long minute, visibly trying to make sense of his words. It sounded like a test, like a tease, but nothing in his twin's face changed, while he looked at him with a smile that was too genuine for a moment like this.

"You wouldn't like to fuck her, don't you?"

"Stop playing with me!? Why are you doing this!? What should all of that mean!?", Caracalla complained almost like a child, who was bullied by an older kid.

Geta suddenly sighed – as if he was even annoyed by the way his brother reacted to him and this only fueled Caracalla's anger even more. His hand ran through his gingerblonde hair, while his sky-blue eyes were still locked with his smaller twin, since Geta towered him in height. Slowly, he leaned towards Caracalla's ear and finally revealed, what he was thinking in more clearer words. And they revealed a twisted idea that had grew in his mind from the very first moment he'd seen his brother's interest in you.

"If you would like to get a taste of my wife, i will allow it. I couldn't deny my dearest brother a wish like this, because i understand how easily she put a spell on you like a siren. But–" he paused intentionally to give his words even more weight as he spoke out the condition for such a 'trade'. "Since she is my wife, i want to watch what you're doing with her." Caracalla's eyes widened more and more in response to his offering. An internal fight enrupted in him between the hunger that already burned for you and the shame he would feel to put you in a situation like that.

Whoever thought that Caracalla was the only lunatic of the twin emperors had never seen what Geta was really capable of. He just usually did induldge in his 'fun' behind closed doors. Even before he even met you, Geta enjoyed the brutality of the arena fights just as he enjoyed the wild orgies hosted in the Emperor's palace. It were those orgies with tons of whores and slaves, where he not only developed a love for dominating others, but he also formed a voyeristic lust. Seeing others exposing themselves in front of him and losing themselves in the heat of the act was like a painting for his eyes. He shared a lot with his brother, even their concubines – so why shouldn't he share you as well? As long as you were officially his, bound to him and only him in front of the gods, that was the only thing he needed.

"So... what do you say, Caracalla?"

____________________________

Tags:

quuinyoung koshkahhh mmkkzz analves pandora-journey ange-olras tellynojelly targwh0re h3k3t onelemonoat whitenoise808 spooky-cupid dev1lbella onelemonoat hawraa-alzubaidi omg-hellgirl the-holy-pigeon justnobodynothingmore fandomblogs-stuff justnobodynothingmore superblyspeedydragon deliciousfestsalad moon-390 lv9su harmfulb1tch apollonshootafar zalera8310 sweetffcts lvspedri soltik capitanostella weepingfashionwritingplaid labellapeaky @qardasngan @fallout-girl219 @chaand-sitara @eighttens @riddlerloveb0t @nicksolemnlyswears @myotakureprieve @lovely--lover @idiotsatan @mqrrstarr @eclypsosworld @happythingtiger @a-lovers-card @fandom-princess-forevermore @theamandaaashow @themoonofthesun @an34l @sunny0jinkies @thatgirl444555 @malfoycassimalfoy @victoria-rue @hikohyuuga @heavengirls111 @prestinalove @jakesullyswhore @boywivlove @mystical1wonderland

[peggyao3]

The Art of Empathy

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: After the fall of House Harkonnen, an innocent poison flower is planted in their evil heart to teach them the art of empathy.

TAGS: 18+, smut, she/her AFAB FMC, mixed POVs, Feyd-Rautha feels things, Angst, Fluff, Hurt and Comfort, Political Schemes, Morally Grey Everything, Giedi Prime Realness, Knife Play, Minor Character Death, Mentions of Violence, Slice of Life, Character Analysis, Feyd being Feyd, Vaginal Sex, Squirting, Porn with Plot, Creampie, Soft Feyd by the end of it, Can he be redeemed?!

WORD COUNT: 6.3k

A/N: I posted this one on ao3 ages ago but not on tumblr. I hope you enjoy <3

Reposted from Ao3 💕| Masterlist

Divider by @/saradika-graphics

After the fall of House Harkonnen comes the slow decay. A whole folk is left floundering and looks up to their new leader for guidance, Baron Feyd-Rautha, to whom the title is a slight. There is no use for the Baron of a powerless House. The Atreides should have annihilated them all. Instead they are humiliating them and calling it mercy. 

And so, House Harkonnen rots, aimless and torpid. Violence festers in the streets, the military disassembles itself, the House’s spice stocks have been confiscated. And their new leader? He sits and stews in the family keep where Harkonnen and Atreides guards alternate and the latter keep a sharp eye on everything Feyd-Rautha does.

He is a man doomed who refuses to lead a House of shame.

All that remains is to distract himself and search for culprits. His uncle, yes, but his uncle is already dead. The Emperor, the Fremen, the Atreides. They’re all ripe for the killing but House Harkonnen can’t even provide for their own spice addicts.

And then one day, a new resident moves into the palace.

She is a gentle poison flower, planted by the Bene Gesserit. They had thought her a weak witch at first, with no poise and little use. She had only barely passed the Gom Jabbar test, crying and screaming like an animal, but she hadn’t pulled her hand out of the box, so they couldn’t dispose of her. Only much later did the sisters realize what a useful asset she could be. 

De-Harkonnification is the word whispered off the record. A new era of breeding will commence, for the better of the universe. The experiment will start with their leader. It has to.

The suddenly useful Bene Gesserit woman has been chosen to teach Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen the delicate art of empathy.

To force him into bland lessons will bear no fruit. The new baron needs to think he’s discovered wisdom all by himself, only then will his skin peel away and make room for a fresh layer. The slow blade of curiosity will penetrate the shield and kill a Harkonnen, and let him be reborn as something new.

This new woman, she is so soft and… mundane. 

With great irritation Feyd-Rautha takes notice of her moving into his palace where she occupies a medium-sized chamber that has been painted in all the warm colors that aren’t native to Giedi Prime.

“I know you’re a witch,” he tells her the first day, standing in her doorway like a beaten bull who is still ready to charge. “I have no business with witches.”

“I won’t force you,” she replies with a short smile which renders the new Baron momentarily speechless.

The next day, he returns with more anger and piercing eyes that won’t know peace until he finds the answers he seeks. “What is your purpose in my palace?”

“I am to live here,” she announces while sticking her finger into the soil of a gross looking potted plant with wide, green leaves to test how moist it is. Frustratingly, Feyd is unable to detect any deceit in her voice, even though she is a Bene Gesserit, so there must be deceit. He won’t be manipulated.

Throughout the weeks, Feyd realizes everything she does is boring. So boring that he finds himself returning every day and watching with blatant interest, wondering how anyone can live like that.

In her free time, this woman reads literature that has no educational or strategic value. She also says she enjoys naps and she considers having to do nothing at all a rare blessing that not many are free to relish in a world that is battered by politics and war. She reminds Feyd of a lazy housecat who cripples her own potential.

Her survival instincts are so meek, sometimes she won’t even wake up when he enters her room. Feyd is tempted to do a number of things to her sleeping body, but in the end he always just stands there, next to her bed, waiting for her to finally wake up and take note of the danger. With a blade at her throat he tries to teach her to be more attentive, relishing the naked fear in her eyes when she startles from her sleep and finds pain against her neck.

In those moments, she is such a fun toy and Feyd wants to thank whoever is responsible for sending him such a pitiful witch.

Another thing she likes is daydreaming, she says, and when asked to tell him what about, she just smiles mysteriously and shakes her head no, followed by soft laughter. Feyd assumes those daydreams must be about violence, because no human mind goes without violence. And so he smiles too, thinking to himself that he's learned a dirty secret of hers that takes away from her perceived purity.

There is at least one point on which they seem to agree, and that is their interest in good food and drink, though their ideas of ‘good’ differ.

“Do those… pastries you’ve got there strengthen your body?” Feyd peers at her over the table, licking bloody meat residue off his pale fingers.

“Hmmm. I don’t think so, but they’re very tasty.” And that again is something so mundane, Feyd can't wrap his head around it. “Would you like to try one?”

He hesitates, regarding the icing and powdered sugar on the tiny cake. “No. There’s no point in eating it then.”

“Aw.” The woman looks briefly disappointed but then resumes eating.

“Don’t you want your body to be strong and capable of attack and defense?!”

“I suppose that would be nice…” Feyd has noticed a while ago that she seems to have trouble looking him in the eyes and sometimes he thinks he has been deceived and this woman is no Bene Gesserit at all, but a stray that has been deposited in his palace because the sisterhood wanted to get rid of her.

“If I attacked you right now, what would you do?” Feyd stands up and grips her plate, pulling it away so she is left with only the cutlery in hands, looking a little helpless.

“I would scream for help.”

“And if no one came?” The idea amuses Feyd-Rautha and the corners of his full lips twist into an alluring smirk. The temptation makes his skin warm and his core tight.

“I could try to hurt you with this knife and fork,” she proposes and presents her weapons of choice, targeting Feyds clavicles with her mellow eyes.

“Wouldn’t you like to try it?” He purrs and slinks closer, rubbing his hand up her arm and shoulder, cupping her throat. He really could do anything to her and she’d have no choice, no matter which weapons are in her meager hands. His cock strains against the dark trousers he wears and she either ignores it or doesn’t notice in her endless languor.

“No, of course not!” She yelps with the high-pitched tone of an animal stupid enough to walk into a blatant trap.

“You bore me to death, woman! I wish you weren’t here.” Feyd rumbles and releases her throat with a punishing squeeze that knocks her backwards, then he sweeps her plate off the table so the pastries bounce across the carpet, leaving a trail of crumbs.

“Then don’t come and see me!”

His loins are left throbbing and he feels so strangely dissatisfied when he leaves that day and cannot help but picture the woman crawling over the carpeted floor, picking up the mess he’s made, and for some reason this image makes him unhappy.

In his churning mind, Feyd keeps wondering why she was brought to him and after enough twisting and turning, he commences an era of harshness in which he thinks she was given to him for his amusement, to be molded by him. The ways to torment her are as manifold as they are fun. Something as simple as twiddling with his knife can draw the warmth out of her cheeks and make her pull her feet under her body, as if fearing Feyd-Rautha might cut her toes off otherwise. 

Now, if only he could make her see how enjoyable pain is. The cuts and nicks on her body tell stories of his attempts, as do those on his, when he guided her unwilling hand to carve lines and half moons into his pale flesh.

The assortment of her scars stop around the middle of her thighs, even though he could easily lift her dress higher and leave his marks of his ownership wherever he wants. There are desires left unspoken and he revels in her fear, because she knows it will happen, just not when.

But the worst thing undoubtedly he's ever done to her, is when he brings her to the former preparation chamber behind the deserted colosseum that was once his gladiatorial arena, when House Harkonnen still had pride and honor. 

In the dark he shows her his assortment of blades, left untouched by the defeat of his House. He laughs when she nods and smiles uncertainly at the slave girls who stand gathered around with bowed heads.

“You’re a Bene Gesserit. You don’t need to smile at them.”

“But I want- Oh!”

With a swift thrust of the arm, Feyd swings his blade in a half circle and slashes two girls’ throats at once. Their willowy bodies drop to the floor, landing on top of each other with tangled limbs and inky blood dripping down their chests.

Feyd turns his head, tilts it slightly to the side and smiles at the woman who grows sickly frigid and barely manages to turn before she throws up as the overwhelming smell of fresh blood assaults her nose and gurgling last breaths her ears. She turns and runs, finding the door unresponsive to her pushing and pulling, so she backs away into the furthest corner and curls into herself, staring fearfully at the pale Harkonnen who still looks at her with an air of boyish fascination.

He lets her go after half an hour but soon learns a harsh lesson. When he seeks her out in her quarters that evening, she acts like a skittish rabbit and hides herself away in the bathroom. For some reason, this enrages Feyd so immensely, he can’t help the immediate tantrum that bursts out of him like gunfire.

For one whole week she doesn’t speak with him and Feyd finds absolutely no fun in that. This week is the worst of his life.

Desperately, he needs her to be the way she was again, the timid creature who peacefully lazes around all day and sleeps, unaware of danger. Now she won’t let him get close, glaring at him over the edge of her book whenever he loiters in her quarters like misplaced furniture, a black and white abomination in the warm, soft capsule she has created for herself on Giedi Prime.

On the seventh day, Feyd  walks up to her awkwardly, like one ready to confess his sins, or a beaten puppy the size of a man. She stiffens in her bed and is fully aware of her defenselessness, fingers tightening around the book as the mattress dips under Feyd-Rautha’s weight. But he only crawls over her and wraps his arms around her middle like he would hug a slain opponent in the arena before letting them drop into the sand.

“I wouldn’t do this to you ,” he rumbles and finds his breath uncomfortably quick and his throat uncomfortably tight. He can’t look her in the eyes.

“But you did this to them ,” she whispers and Feyd is left speechless as to why she would care. Yet for some reason, she drops her book on the floor and hugs him back, hiding her sniffling face in his shoulder. Like a toddler walking his first steps, Feyd pets the back of her head until her tears diminish to a small trickle that is soaked up by his shirt.

Months go by and the woman’s chamber becomes a place of forbidden things. No servant ear must ever hear about what goes down in there, how Feyd stains his hands with softness and sleep, not because he is tired but because he feels like it, how he eats the pastries that are made for her mouth not his, how he reads the pointless literature that forces him to imagine places he’s never been to and people that aren’t real. 

The woman doesn't even want anything from him in return and doesn't complain when he lays his head in her lap when he decides to sleep. She softly scrapes her nails over his scalp without being prompted and he never takes long to fall asleep. She could have plotted his death this whole time long, killed him now with a Gom Jabbar, and he wouldn't have cracked an eye open.

Feyd awakes in the late evening, though he can’t tell the hour of day through the ever-drawn curtains that block out the sun’s harmful wavelengths. Consciousness returns to him as a slow stream and he breathes drowsily against her thigh, listening to the seconds on the clock tick by. She has finished her book and placed it aside, now only focused on stroking his head.

“Do you sometimes think about me?” Feyd slurs, which leaves her wondering if he’s still half asleep.

“Of course, I think about you.” Her fingers curl around his jaws and the pad of her thumb finds the apple of his soft, pale cheek.

“Even when I’m not around?” He inhales the scent of laundry detergent and the subtle note of perfume that clings to the layers of her gown. The warmth of her lap perfuses the fabric and a light current of arousal flows through Feyd-Rautha’s awakening body. Hardness takes hold of his drowsy cock and he wonders when she will finally make a comment or do something about it. He finds himself wanting to hike up her dress and kiss the parts of her body that he has never seen.

“Especially when you’re not around.”

“So, you miss me?” Feyd’s voice becomes sharp like the cutting edge of a blade and his ears perk up. She only laughs softly upon that and curls both arms around his shoulders. Feyd is glad she can’t properly see his face now, ashamed of jumping to such a conclusion.

“You can’t go out there. It’ll make you sick.” Feyd stops the Bene Gesserit woman in the hallway. One half of her body is already bathed in brightness and one eye squints into the unforgiving sunlight.

Even though she seems to have been so very content in her quarters so far, a flash of disappointment washes over her face. “Not even for a short walk?”

“It’s not safe when you’re not Harkonnen. It’ll make you sick,” he emphasizes. “And there’s nothing out there. Only desperate people.” He curls his hand around the crook of her elbow and tugs her away from the light, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when color returns to her skin and hair.

The next day, Feyd is in for an unpleasant surprise.

The woman is found wandering in the sunlight without an umbrella, not even a protective shawl wrapped around her bare shoulders. A pair of Atreides guards spot her slumped over in the shade of a building, blinking disoriented into the light with a colorless rash of blisters on her exposed skin.

Half an hour later, she is back in her darkened quarters, tucked into bed with a soothing ointment applied to her skin.

Her eyes are glazed over with half-translucent milkiness as she stares at the ceiling above her bed. Her lungs still ache and wheeze from the residue toxins she had breathed from the polluted air and her temporarily blinded gaze flitters with silvery dots. Just barely she can make out Feyd-Rautha’s angry, white skull moving back and forth..

“This wouldn’t have happened if you read something substantial every now and then,” Feyd hisses, pacing in front of her bed. “If you had at least worn protection for your eyes and flesh.”

“It was so warm outside.” She tries to justify her lack of protective layers.

“Yes, because of the infrared radiation that cooks the atmosphere!”

She attempts to turn her head away so as not to see the flickering vision of Feyd’s accusatory visage, but he leans down and cups her face with both hands, drawing a whimper from her. The splitting headache turns every movement into agony.

“A few minutes later, and you would have gotten caught up in the sour rain.” Feyd’s voice quivers now. The sour rain brings cancer to foreigners and no one knows a cure for that.

“There was no sign of rain when I was out,” she meekly defends herself, cradled by two strong hands.

“The climate is turbulent on Giedi Prime and our storms are as ferocious as they are sudden. You know what the sour rain does.”

“I'm sorry.” Blistered hands carefully wrap around Feyd-Rautha's wrists, neither pulling nor pushing. Her fingers softly slip over the veins that coil over the back of his hand and between his knuckles.

“But you're a Bene Gesserit. You have control over your own cells, you could have reversed the damage, had it happened.” Feyd's gaze jumps from milky eye to milky eye, wondering why she isn't doing anything against this. “Right?”

She only breathes a soft sigh against his lips as he hovers impossibly close. “Feyd…”

Her lips brush against his as she speaks and a jolt of surprise prickles through the both of them. Feyd is suddenly overly aware of the weight of his own body and he cannot push himself away from the woman. A pull stronger than gravity tugs him down and his lips fall to hers, softly kissing, tasting her saliva and a note of ointment.

“Feyd, everything hurts.” The meek whisper is barely audible, even to her own ears. Her body yearns and arches, separated from him by thick layers of blankets. 

“Kiss me now, before you get yourself killed out there and we don’t get the chance.” Feyd knows he shouldn’t. Even her lips are colored red with a rash, but her hands slip from his wrists to his cheeks, holding him close. Moaning, Feyd’s lips part and he moves his mouth and tongue with as much gentleness as he can muster, softly rutting against her hip over the blanket.

Feyd rumbles: “I should keep you on a leash for your own safety.” The idea makes his cock jump against the blankets and after so many months of thinking about so many things, his balls feel plump like ripe apples.

But they only kiss while sour rain slaps against the windows.

“Do you ever fight?” Feyd ponders while sticking his finger into the soil of the lush potted  plant with wide, green leaves to test how moist it is. It could use a little water.

“You know what I do all day. Have you ever seen me fight?” The woman perks up, her skin healthy and her eyes clear again, like the lakes of Kaitain.

“Let me specify. Did you ever fight?” Feyd lets water from the can splash into the flower pot and the longer she looks, the more she gets used to the view of other things than weapons in his hands. She cocks a brow at him, no longer having so much trouble looking him in the eyes that are dark but usually glazed over with harmlessness when he is around her. “I’m only asking because you seemed so… bored, before the incident happened.”

Guilt drums against his heart with a soft pitter-patter that is like the droplets that soak the soil. He wishes he could offer her more. The longer she ponders, the more awful he feels.

“I sometimes fight with myself.” Her tone of voice indicates this is a big confession.

“How so?” Feyd is confused. He sets down the can and cautiously stalks closer with cat-like grace, head tilted to the right.

“It's a fight that I can't win, I can only delay it.”

“I don't understand that.” Slowly he blinks once, lowering his gaze, then lifting it again. The soft golden light of the glow orbs frays against his blonde lashes.

She pensively sighs. “Are you never angry with yourself? Or dissatisfied?”

“... No.”

She chuckles like she so often does, like he’s missing an obvious clue and Feyd angrily bends down, caging her on the sofa with both hands planted on the seat cushions on either side of her. “Don’t laugh at me, woman. I hate when you do that!”

“Then you know why I’m doing it, or else you wouldn’t hate it.”

“You’re not smarter than me.”

“I am indeed not.” Her eyes dig brightly into his and Feyd swallows. His jaws work and after a minute he pulls away from the intensity of her gaze, looking down at her chest instead. Softly, her hand cups his jaws and her fingers dance over his skin like feathers.

“But that’s not a real fight. You know that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about training and… gladiatorial games.” Petulantly, his eyes lift to hers again.

“How is self doubt not a real fight?” She tilts her head and Feyd swears she never did this at the beginning of their acquaintance.

“I… I didn’t want to talk philosophy, I just wanted to offer you a distraction from your boredom. I thought you might enjoy a fight.” Upon that, she giggles, something flustered in her voice, and Feyd grips the hand that cups his jaw, sliding it to the front so he can kiss her palm with plush, pouty lips. “Always laughing at me,” he grumbles and proceeds to kiss the inside of her hand until she wraps her arms around his head and locks her lips with his.

Much later, Feyd realizes he probably missed a hint.

The right moment is now! No. Yes. Another breath, another minute, another turn of the page while she caresses Feyd-Rautha’s face in her lap. With her Bene Gesserit awareness (Feyd still isn’t sure if she even possesses it), she can probably hear his labored breathing and quick heartbeat. His clammy palms occasionally slide over the blanket she had thrown over her legs before Feyd settled there.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?” Her thumb settles right over the point of his neck, between muscles and tendons, where his pulse hammers the hardest.

“I’ve been wondering…” Feyd twists the blanket and stares at the potted plant. “Are there other things you like to do just for the sake of it? Just like reading or napping…” 

In his whole life, he has never had sex for any other reason than to demonstrate power, or the desire to hurt and be hurt. To think he could have some just for the mundane pleasure of it feels almost forbidden. Feyd is ashamed to ask plainly, but she can read the thoughts behind his boyish eyes. 

She has been expecting this to happen and she is prepared, yet she is not. Before her stands a human now, with all the facettes one should have. 

“Yes, there are…” Pensively, she looks down at her lap. A faint warmth has risen to her cheeks and Feyd-Rautha takes proud notice of her coy glance, raising himself on his hands on either side of her lap.

“Then why did you never…?” His question trails off into nothingness when he notices the petulance in his own voice. He attempts to sit in a way that hides the tent in his pants.

“Don’t,” she scolds him and places her hand on his pale wrist, curling her fingers around the curve of the bone. Feyd inhales sharply and allows her to peel his arm away from his body. For the first time, she actively looks at the bulge of his clothed cock and Feyd has never felt so scrutinized. In an instant, her hand is beneath his shirt, fingers splayed over his hard tummy below his navel. “Why didn’t you?”

She moves her hand as if wanting to slip away and abandon his scalding skin. “Don’t stop~” Feyd whispers, half-lidded eyes dropped to her wrist that disappears under his shirt.

A moment later, her fingers curl around the waistband of his trousers and his grip the laces of her gown and they tear each other’s clothes away with awkward impatience. When Feyd is naked before her, she sinks into the pillows with a meek sigh, swallowing when he climbs on top of her and parts her legs where her pussy sits flushed and wet at the apex of her thighs, waiting for his caress longer than her pride allows her to admit.

She marvels at his hard curves and planes of marble, so pale, so soft. So seraphic. His nipples harden when she slides her palms over each pectoral. For now, she avoids looking at his cock but she feels the ghost of its scalding touch against her soft thigh.

“You’re beautiful,” Feyd breathes, raking his eyes down her exposed skin, studying each mark, each fold, each dimple.

“I was never certain if you found me beautiful,” she whispers and Feyd picks out the insecurity in her voice. His tongue presses against the backside of his inky teeth, wanting to call her stupid for assuming he might not find her beautiful, but he realizes he is no better himself. Anxiety pricks against his stomach like ice shards.

The woman smiles and cranes her head to brush her lips against his, then giggles softly. “Yes, I find you beautiful too.”

The anxious knot unravels and Feyd bares his teeth, chasing after her mouth until he’s got her pinned against the pillow and steals her breath. His hard chest presses against the soft mounds of her breasts and his cock slides against her thigh, bending downwards so it is wedged between their pelvises. The essence of her yearning cunt coats its upper side.

Their kisses turn desperate and sloppy and they part for breath, piercing each other with lust-heavy eyes. Feyd-Rautha’s plush lips are swollen and a low moan escapes him when she presses her mouth against the underside of his gently curved jaw, nipping and smelling his skin while Feyd’s fingers slide from her knee down her inner thigh and brush against the tender, hot parts of her.

He never used to pay attention to how soft and hot and responsive a woman can be there, how willingly her hips jump against his hand when he circles the tender bud of nerves with his fingertips.

When he slides two fingers into her weeping slit, her mouth detaches from Feyd’s jaws and her head drops back on the pillow, eyes closed, spine arched. His fingers sink as deep as they can go, soaking in her essence that generously spills from her inner walls.

“Did you think of this often?” Feyd rumbles and the grating sound of his voice makes her jump. Her eyes snap open and her pussy squeezes his fingers. Leisurely, he drags them against her inner walls, curling them slightly, so her eyes gloss over and her wet lashes flutter. “You did, didn't you? You daydreamed about my fingers in your little pussy.”

She doesn't need to reply for him to know it's true. Her knees bend further up against her chest, angling her pelvis so he plunges into her cunt just right. As pleasure rises, her neck writhes  from left to right, teeth on her lip, toes flexed. Feyd knows how to read the signs.

Mesmerized, he sits between her legs, watching with boyish fascination as his fingers sink into her puffy hole and come out glistening wet between her lower lips, how her essence dribbles down the cleft of her ass. His unoccupied hand sprawls over her lower belly and toys with her. With his thumb, Feyd pulls up the hood of her clit and marvels at the little nub that throbs for attention.

Her hips buck, fucking herself on his fingers while he lets a thread of drool drip down on her clit. She whines when the warm liquid drips over the tender bud, bending her leg even further. Feyd has never touched a woman so attentively. As soon as his thumb rubs over the lubricated little nub, she thrashes, moaning and clawing at his knees. But Feyd pacifies her with her soft circles over the maddening spot, turning her legs and brain into mush. 

“Wait~”

Feyd doesn’t wait. Three splashes of wetness squirt against his wrist and the woman covers her face with her forearms, moaning and whining as her release rolls through her in hard waves. Mesmerized, Feyd regards the liquid that dribbles hotly down his skin. 

Her limbs feel like putty, like a doll's that he can bend and fold as he likes. Feyd's fingers slowly slip out of her puffy hole which feels as ready as it can be to accommodate his cock.

She whimpers weakly, not ready to face reality and Feyd-Rautha's wet skin and the awe in his eyes with which he regards the glistening web between his fingers. Only when he nudges his cock between her boneless thighs, she stirs and dreamily eyes the pale, flushed monster that pokes needily against her cunt.

“Yes, take a good look at what I'll fill you with.”

The velvety head with its weeping slit nudges between her lower lips and her cunt yields almost too easily under pressure. Like a sheathe, she hugs him tightly, wetly squeezing inch after inch as he conquers her.

A wild  touch of something possessive and dangerous flashes over Feyd's lust-struck features. This soft thing will soon be his entirely, once he places his ultimate, inky mark against her cervix. Whether she neutralizes it with her Bene Gesserit tricks or not.

A guttural sound escapes her when the thick length pushes against the apex of her channel. The woman's arms snake around Feyd's neck, pulling him in a sweet embrace with her entire body.

“Why are you here?” Feyd repeats the question from many months ago, softly rutting against her core.

“Because I was sent here.” She gasps, pressing her face into the crook of his shoulder.

“And how do you feel about that?” Feyd's nose brushes against her hair, inhaling the sweetness and the freshness of her soap.

“You tell me, Feyd-Rautha,” she softly sighs, arching her spine against his undulating body.

“You are discontent.”

Upon that, the woman's lashes flutter, tickling his shoulder. “Hah, n-no, I’m not.”

“You’re lying now, but you usually don’t. What are you hiding from me, my darling?" 

“I’m not!” Her mouth stands agape and her back arches off the bed, pebbled nipples kissing Feyd’s silky chest. 

“My darling,” Feyd repeats and she purrs like a little cat for him, wrapping her legs around his waist. So, she likes being his darling, Feyd notes with a skipping heart. "Why would you lie to me?"

“I didn't want to be here," she admits. Wet eyes look back at him when her head sinks into the pillow. "It’s not nice, being called useless.”

“Useless?! By whom?” Anger fuels Feyd's movement but the brief pain of nails digging into his shoulder blades soothes him and a soft moan curls around his lips.

“By my fellow Bene Gesserit sisters, of course. They had no use for me until the fall of your House.” The slightly quicker rhythm makes her hiss through her teeth. "They can rot and die for all I care."

Feyd's eyes grow wondrous and wide, hips stuttering as he regards his darling with endless fascination. Her violence is sweet like berries. How lucky he is to bear witness of it tonight, all the while her warm, sodden pussy holds his cock in a lover's embrace.

“I manipulated you,” she confesses under tears and thinks Feyd-Rautha will probably flay her alive now. “When I went out into the sun and made myself sick, I just wanted to see if you’d take care of me.”

“You sound like you think I’d be mad.” Avidly, Feyd rolls his pelvis. Pleasure flutters through his nerves with every heartbeat, sweet and wild. Her eyes meet his with equal fascination and her fingertips dip into the groove of his spine.

“When did you become so… so…?”

“So… gentle?” Feyd purrs, laughing softly like she did so many times. “You made me this way.”

“Yes, and it was wrong! What gave me the right?” Her voice trembles with anger now and she claws at his back like she wants to flay him, strip the layers of faux skin off so he may become what he was again.

Feyd chuckles louder now, lips pulling away from inky teeth as he ruts quicker into her cunt, making her groan through gritted teeth. “You just gave me something I didn’t know I missed.”

“But what if-”

“No.”

“What if I killed you?”

“Killed me?” Feyd’s dark eyes sparkle with humor. “You’re a funny witch. I’m still here.” His palm slides over her breasts and pebbled nipples, settling heavily on her clavicles before closing around her throat. Her cunt reacts in an instant, clenching around him. “I can give you more proof.” Feyd leers at the woman who lies beneath him in submission. “Do you want more proof?”

Eagerly, she nods, exhaling a soft, strained moan, lips parting as she struggles for oxygen.

"Would you like my knife against your throat and your tits?"

Heat rushes to her cheeks so they feel like two ripe apples, ready for the harvest. "Yes, please~"

“You’re so sweet when you’re worried for me,” Feyd giggles. His voice is like stones grating against one another as he reaches for the kukri in the sheath at his belt which lies discarded in the folds of the soft, crumpled sheets. Feyd brandishes it with a flash of painted metal. A soft shade of gold, because the world has been feeling lighter lately.

Still humored, Feyd raises himself high enough to create generous space between their chests, so he can brush the blade featherlight against his woman's nipple. "Would you like me to make a cut, to prove I'm still in there?"

Avidly, she nods, bare heels digging into Feyd's ass cheeks as she clings to his rolling hips.

Feyd slashes the blade over her breasts, one, two, three, creating shallow lines from which red droplets bead like tiny berries and meander down her sternum along convoluted paths. She moans sweetly for him, muscles in her neck flexing against his calloused hand. "There, now we're even. We both lied a little. I said one cut and made three."

Feyd's lashes cast long shadows over the glinting metal when he brings the blade to his mouth and gingerly laps up the red beads. The woman's hand slips over his hard, smooth shoulder and the muscles that ripple underneath. She circles his wrist to guide the blade away from his plush mouth, then plunges her thumb past his soft bottom lip, swiping over the wetness of blood and saliva.

"Drink it from the source then," she softly hums and Feyd obeys, dropping the knife and bending over her heaving chest. He laps the salt off her skin and then finds the stinging wounds with his tongue, tracing the hairline cuts from bottom to top, tasting iron. Feyd nurses nectar from his flower. Moaning, he peers up at her through feathery lashes as his body undulates against hers with increasing pace.

The drag of his cock shoots molten pleasure through her core and she clings to him with arms and legs, like he is the only soft and living thing on Giedi Prime. She moans his name and Feyd is swathed in a web of hazy bliss, raising his face from her chest. A little streak of crimson still clings to his smooth chin and she pulls him down to kiss the blood off his skin.

His fingers flex around her throat, rather holding onto her than strangulating her. She gladly lets him and regards the sweet despair in Feyd's eyes as he chases after his high in the warmth of her body, stretching her with each drag of his cock.

Feyd wonders if he should make her cum again, if that's what a lover would do, but his building climax coils like a snake in his guts and there is no space between their sweaty bodies for his hand to slip between her thighs and tease her bundle of nerves. Like roots slung around a tree trunk, her legs are wrapped around Feyd's hips, reeling him in, again, again, again. The rhythm hypnotizes him and he cannot fight against the pull of release.

His jaws go slack and his entire complexion softens when his climax rolls through him in long waves, each one pulling him deeper and deeper into the weave of his mellow darling's body and soul. While he still fills up her cunt with thick ropes of seed, blissful mellowness spreads through Feyd-Rautha like a touch of mercy. 

Moaning, he slumps down and her body is his pillow. He's never shown a semblance of vulnerability after fucking a woman, but now fatigue pulls on his bones and he suckles softly on the soft spot between her neck and shoulder. His balls and pelvis are nestled against the woman's warm, full center and his broad chest against her breasts.

“My darling…” Feyd hums.

He crawls into her embrace and curls against her frame like an unborn against the womb, momentarily stripped of cruelty and all the black and white illnesses that fester on Giedi Prime.

Out of one gentle poison flower might yet bloom an entire garden, if nurtured with love.

FEYD TAG LIST:

@nostalgichoya, @forgedfromthestars, @sweetiee-o, @missbingu, @minedofmoria

@sebastianswallows, @charmingballoon, @flower-frog, @welliah, @aoi-targaryen

@coastalcowgirl35, @esolean, @szapizzapanda, @tatertooted, @sunny747

@ughdontbeboring, @meetmeatyourworst, @gravesdiggergirl

[hederasgarden]

The Price of Survival

Summary: Rescued by a stranger from a dangerous situation, you quickly find yourself thrust into an even more perilous one, forced to depend on him for protection in a world where survival means trusting no one. Pairing: Lucius Verus x F!Reader Word Count: 2.6K Rating: 18+ only, mature themes. Modern zombie AU, references to attempted SA, brief descriptions of violence and murder, and overall dark/gritty themes. Lucius is a little morally grey (perhaps soft dark?) in this story but he is not a bad guy.  A/N: I may turn this into a mini series if people are interested. Otherwise it can be read as a standalone fic. Thank you to @ryebecca, @writercole, @mayhem24-7forever , and @aliensupastar for their help! Please comment or reblog if you enjoyed this and want to see more. Or scream at me in my inbox. That always makes my day.

Gladiator Masterlist ♡ Masterlist

You’re making too much noise.

But you’re no longer concerned about the undead. The mindless, decaying monsters are a distant worry now. It’s the living men who are after you — the ones chasing you, the ones who want you back. Twigs snap underfoot, and leaves crunch with every hurried step you take. Your breathing is labored in the otherwise still air.

You push yourself harder, muscles screaming in protest. The scents of pine and damp earth fill your nostrils as the cold air burns your lungs. The zip ties around your wrists cut into your skin, tightening with each frantic movement, biting deeper the more you struggle. The blood beneath them stings, the friction leaving raw marks on your flesh. Still, you don’t stop. You can’t stop.

The voices of the men reach your ears, growing more insistent. Their words aren’t fully distinguishable, but the tone is unmistakable — hungry and malicious. They're closing in. You veer left, only to stumble as your foot sinks into an icy stream. Cold water rushes over your ankles, the shock of it halting your momentum for a brief, disorienting moment before you force yourself to continue.

As you run, the forest blurs around you, your heart pounding so loudly in your ears you can hardly hear anything else. You don’t see the figure emerging from the trees until it’s too late. You slam into them, the collision sending you both tumbling to the ground. A jarring pain shoots through your side where you hit the earth. You nearly miss the sharp intake of breath and grunt of surprise of the man beneath you. Though you’ve landed half on top of him, in the blink of an eye, he shifts, rolling you under him.

You try to scream, but his hand shoots out, clamping down over your mouth, silencing you before the sound can escape. Panic floods you and you twist away, instinctively trying to free yourself from his grasp. He holds you still, his body a solid weight pinning you to the earth. When you look up, the first thing you notice are his eyes: dark, intense, and unyielding amid the chaos of the forest. A sliver of moonlight cuts across his face, highlighting a rugged beard and wild curls. He’s not one of the men hunting you, but he’s still a man, and that fact alone gives you pause. 

For a heartbeat, the two of you just stare at each other, the tension in the air thick. His eyes move over your face, quick and assessing, before he seems to notice the zip ties binding your wrists. He tilts his head slightly, a flash of confusion passing over his face before glancing in the direction you came from. His brows knit in concentration as he scans the woods and you both hear the footsteps of the men as they grow closer, louder. You can almost hear their voices, too, faint murmurs cutting through the stillness of the forest. The stranger’s gaze snaps back to you and he stares at you as though weighing his next move. 

His grip on you loosens, but you can feel the tension in his body, the way he stays poised, ready to move if needed.

“Why are they after you?” he asks, quietly, so only you can hear. 

His question catches you off guard. For a moment, all you can do is stare at him, the panic still rising in your chest. His eyes remain locked on yours, his gaze sharp, waiting for you to answer. The longer you stay silent, the harder his expression becomes, a subtle edge creeping into his features. You shake your head and slowly tug your hands away from his to touch the torn collar of your blouse. His eyes follow the movement. 

“They want what all men want,” you murmur.

Your eyes lock onto his, searching for some hint of understanding or sympathy. You’re looking for something that might tell you what kind of man he is, whether he’s like them or not. His jaw tightens, and for a split second, his expression darkens in a way that makes your breath catch. He nods once, sharp and decisive, as though he’s made a calculation and found his answer. Then, without another word, he pulls you up by the arm.

“We don’t have much time,” he warns. 

“Who are you?” you ask, wariness threading through your voice.

He looks at you, his gaze steady and direct. “I’m someone who’s not here to hurt you,” he says simply.

The part of you that clings to the idea of how things were wants to believe there are still good people out there, who will help you survive. But you’ve learned the hard way that the world doesn’t work that way anymore. Everything good and kind about people died a year ago when the dead rose up and cities fell. Governments crumbled and everything you knew was replaced by a brutal, unforgiving reality overnight.

You started out with hope in a small group of survivors bound together by nothing more than circumstance. At first, it was almost comforting — traveling together, sharing food, and looking out for one another through the chaos that had engulfed the world. But that hope faded, slowly, painfully. One by one, they were lost to raider attacks, the relentless and unstoppable undead, and illness. Your world shrunk and the people you once trusted slipped away like sand through your fingers. And now, the same men who had slaughtered the last of your group were hunting you. 

You swallow hard, fighting the emotion rising in your throat. Trust is a weakness, a mistake you can’t afford to make again. But before you can find your voice the stranger is pulling you deeper into the trees, a firm hand locked around your bound wrist. He’s fast, moving with an efficiency you can’t match, his boots barely making a sound on the forest floor as he drags you along. You stumble after him but he doesn’t slow down until the brush opens to reveal a small, sheltered hollow between the trees. He pushes you into it and crouches beside you as his eyes scan the darkness.

“Stay low,” he directs, his hand firm on your shoulder as he guides you down onto the cold, damp earth. “And don’t make a sound.”

You nod, barely able to breathe as you sink into the shadows of the thicket, the chill of the earth seeping into your skin. The silence of the woods is loud, almost painfully so, but it’s shattered seconds later by the sound of heavy boots crunching through the underbrush.

A twig snaps. Another voice speaks, this time clearer. "She’s gotta be close. Keep looking.”

“I want the first crack at her, " a new voice adds.

Your eyes flick toward the man when he slinks forward slowly. For the first time, you notice the hatchet strapped to his waist, its handle worn from use, the blade gleaming faintly in the moonlight. He grips it tightly, his fingers brushing over the handle with an almost unconscious familiarity. Without a glance back, he disappears into the trees, a shadow among shadows.

A quiet rustling follows with a muffled thud, like something heavy hitting the ground. Your pulse spikes. Another noise, softer this time, a grunt, a brief, sharp inhale, then...silence.

Your heart races and your eyes dart to where he disappeared, your body rigid with fear. The men are closer now, their voices sharper, more urgent. One calls out again, “Where the hell is she?”

There’s another thud, followed by a sickeningly wet sound that makes your stomach churn. You can’t see what’s happening, but you don’t need to. You press yourself lower into the earth and try to make yourself as small as possible while the struggle continues. The smell of dirt and blood mixes in the air, filling your nose until it feels like you might choke. You can't move. You can’t even breathe properly, too afraid that a single sound will give you away. 

A voice, closer this time, shouts, “What is that? Who’s there, who —”

The words are cut off by another thud and a gurgling noise. It doesn’t take long for the sounds to die down, and when they do, the silence rushes in, swallowing you whole. It’s an oppressive kind of silence, heavy and suffocating. The absence of sound is somehow worse than the chaos that preceded it. Every nerve in your body feels raw and taut with the tension of waiting for something – anything – to happen. Minutes stretch on, each one thicker than the last, until finally, the stranger emerges soundlessly. Although his clothes are streaked with dirt and blood, his posture is calm, almost detached. 

The instinct to flee hits you with such force that you scramble back, your bound hands held out in front of you like they might somehow stop him. But you know they won’t. He stops an arm’s length away, crouching down. Before you can react, he produces a small blade and grasps your elbow, tugging you forward. He slices cleanly through the zip ties around your wrists and then releases you. 

Your throat feels dry, the words caught somewhere between panic and disbelief. Finally, you manage to whisper, “You...you killed them.”

He doesn’t respond right away, but after a beat, he simply nods. Your mind swirls with a thousand questions you don’t know how to ask. One thing is clear, though. This man, for all his brutality, just saved your life.

“You need to go now,” he says, helping you stand. “Head north. That’s your best chance.”

Your mind struggles to keep up with the fast turn of events. Even though you were scared of him seconds ago, the thought of walking into the unknown, alone again, churns your stomach, and a cold wave of fear settles over you. You think of the endless days of running, of barely surviving, and for a brief moment, the idea of leaving him is terrifying. What little supplies you had were taken by the men whose camp you have no hope of finding in the darkness. 

The stranger watches you, sensing your hesitation, and steps closer. His eyes are unblinking, focused on you. "There are worse things in these woods than those men." “The undead,” you begin, but before you can finish, he cuts you off, his lip curling back in a snarl that surprises you. 

"The undead aren’t what you should be worried about." His words are sharp, and dismissive, as though they mean nothing compared to what really lies ahead. “Go. Now." he urges, his grip suddenly tightening on your arm, pulling you away from the shelter of the trees and into the open.

You stumble as he shoves you forward. 

“Maybe we can stay together. I can be useful,” you promise him, the words leaving you in a rush. “I have medical training.”

A soft, almost imperceptible look crosses his face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. His jaw tightens and his expression hardens.

“Leave,” he grounds out. “Before it’s too late. Before-“

His voice cuts off and he looks away toward the dark trees, scanning the distance. Whatever he finds makes his posture go rigid and his breath leaves his lungs in a harsh exhale. You step closer to him, afraid of what you can’t sense but that seems to agitate him more. 

“My, my, Lucius, you’ve been busy. Macrinus sent you to hunt dinner, not men.”

The voice rings out from the edge of the trees where an unfamiliar man melds out of the shadows. Your rescuer, Lucius, tenses at the sound, and you can feel the shift in the air, the way the atmosphere thickens. He doesn’t respond to the man immediately. Instead, you watch his fingers move with practiced ease, slipping a slim, deadly knife from his belt. With a flick of his wrist, the blade is poised and ready.

For a brief moment you wonder if he means to kill this man too, but then, to your shock, two more figures emerge from behind the first. Lucius exhales through his nose, a quiet sound almost lost in the air between you, and you see the way he forces himself to relax. When you glance at his hand again, the knife is gone, as if it had never been there.

“Viggo,” Lucius greets curtly. “There are rabbits in the trap and a buck back by the stream. I did as he asked.”

The short but powerfully built man, Viggo, raises an eyebrow and glances at you, his grin widening. 

“You certainly did that and more. Looks like you found yourself a little something too, hmm?”

“A pretty little fawn,” another man comments with a smirk, reaching out, his hand extended like he intends to touch you.

Panic surges through you, and you instinctively take a step back, but you don’t get far before Lucius pulls you behind him. You wince as his fingertips brush over the torn skin of your wrist. 

“You know the rules,” Lucius growls, his voice low and deadly. “Take a step back if you want to keep your hand.”

Lucius’s stance doesn’t waver, still shielding you, but his expression softens for just a moment as he glances over his shoulder at you. In that fleeting look, you catch a hint of something else, regret or perhaps guilt? You blink and it’s replaced by a cold mask. You’re not sure what to make of him. Fear and appreciation tangle together as you consider his actions. You wonder what exactly he’s trying to protect you from, and why he seems so unsettled by the need to do so.

“Macrinus needs you back,” Viggo presses. "He’s waiting on the game. We can take her back to the settlement,"

“I don’t think so. I’ll bring her in,” he responds, jerking his head toward you, the motion sharp, dismissive. 

The words hang in the air, but it’s not just the command that catches your attention — it’s the hollowness in his tone. The men don’t challenge him, but they exchange a brief look before leaving. Lucius remains in front of you, standing rigidly, staring into the blackness. You get the sense you’re still not quite alone, something Lucius confirms when he turns to face you. He raises a finger to his lips and the warning is gentle but firm. Don’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice low and filled with a grief that sends a wave of unease through you. He takes a step closer and reaches for the rope hanging from his belt, uncoiling its length. 

 "What…?" you breathe, but the question trails off into the air, unfinished. 

You feel the panic rising in your chest as Lucius begins to wrap the rope around your forearms, the rough texture biting into your skin. Every muscle in your body screams to flee, to run from this situation, from him, but deep down you know that escaping would be futile. There’s nowhere to run, no one to turn to. The fear doesn’t stop you from trying, though, from taking a small step back, but Lucius’s grip on you tightens immediately, pulling you toward him again.

He doesn’t look at you as he works, lips pressed tight as he continues binding your arms, careful to avoid your torn wrists. When he finishes tying the knot, his hand lingers on the rope for just a moment, as though he’s second-guessing himself. Then Lucius shakes his head, a sharp, quick movement, almost like he’s clearing away his thoughts. His eyes flicker briefly to yours and he hooks his fingers under your new bindings, tugging you towards him. 

“You should have left when I told you,” Lucius says solemnly.

Part 2

[mya-valentine]

Headcanons for how the League Of Villains act when drunk?.. and Would they do stupid things while drunk? P.S: I love your writing

Headcanon: How The League of Villains Act When Drunk

A/N: Thank you☺️ I'm so glad you enjoy my work. Sorry if this took long, I've been very busy

Tomura Shigaraki

Shigaraki would be the moody type when drunk. He’d probably go from brooding in a corner, muttering about heroes, to suddenly ranting loudly about his disdain for All Might or Deku.

His usual “don’t touch me” attitude would flip. He might get oddly clingy, pulling people into bear hugs, much to everyone’s confusion and discomfort.

Shigaraki’s coordination would be all over the place, and his decay quirk would activate accidentally, leaving things crumbling everywhere—tables, chairs, even door handles, all turning to dust without him meaning to.

Dabi

Dabi would get even more sarcastic than usual, throwing snarky comments left and right. He’d probably flirt with everyone in the room, completely deadpan, even with people who have no interest. “Oh, Toga, you look so sharp today. Literally.”

In his drunken state, he’d accidentally set small things on fire—couches, curtains, even the occasional bottle of alcohol in his hand—just because he’s too distracted or careless to control his quirk properly.

He’d probably start stupid dares, like challenging Shigaraki to see who can destroy more things or asking Toga to "cut shapes" into walls with her knife.

Himiko Toga

Toga would become super giggly and affectionate, trying to hug and nuzzle everyone, especially the people she has a crush on. She might even start poking fun at people for how “cute” their blood would taste.

She’d playfully challenge others to knife games, laughing hysterically when she almost cuts herself or others, not caring about the danger.

She’d drink some blood, attempt to transform into someone else, and then forget halfway through who she was supposed to be. This would lead to hilarious transformations where she’s stuck as a weird mix of multiple people.

Twice

Twice would become even more chaotic when drunk, with his split personality going haywire. He’d swing from being super confident and boastful to panicking about trivial things like, "What if I’ve already drunk too much and cloned myself and don’t even know it!?"

In his confusion, he’d start cloning himself uncontrollably, leading to dozens of Twice clones running around, all with different levels of drunkenness and confusion, some trying to clean up while others make even more of a mess.

He’d constantly get into weird, loud arguments with his clones, debating who’s the “real” Twice, which would escalate into drunken wrestling matches with himself.

Toga and Twice would absolutely team up in their drunken state, pulling pranks on everyone. Twice would clone himself to create distractions while Toga sneaks up behind others, surprising them with her knives or transforming into random League members just to freak everyone out.

Spinner

Spinner would get very philosophical when drunk, going on long rants about Stain’s ideology, questioning the morality of their actions, and asking deep questions like, "Are we truly villains, or just misunderstood heroes?"

He’d probably unsheath his sword and start swinging it around clumsily, knocking things over, and hitting furniture while trying to show off his "heroic" skills, only to trip over his tail.

At some point, he’d drunkenly start insisting everyone play an old video game with him, like Tetris or Street Fighter, getting overly competitive and emotional about it.

Mr. Compress

Mr. Compress would turn into an exaggerated version of himself when drunk, speaking in grand, dramatic gestures, like he’s performing a show. He’d likely challenge others to card tricks or sleight-of-hand games, only to drop the cards everywhere.

He’d start compressing random items in the room—bottles, plates, even Twice’s clones—without much thought, laughing about the chaos it causes.

He’d try to tell elaborate, fantastical stories about his past or the League’s adventures, getting increasingly nonsensical and confusing as he rambles on, leaving everyone unsure of what he’s talking about.

Kurogiri

Kurogiri would try to stay responsible at first, keeping an eye on the others and making sure no one gets hurt. But after a few drinks, even he’d loosen up a bit, though he’d never fully lose his calm demeanor.

As he gets drunk, Kurogiri might accidentally start teleporting people or objects to random places, sending Dabi across the room or making Twice reappear in the kitchen without meaning to.

He’d start talking in circles about the importance of balance and order, even as he drunkenly sends half the room into his portals, much to everyone’s frustration.

.

.

.

Masterlist

[kingkatsuki]

Hihihi hello! More Dragon King Bakugou thoughts

Dragon King Bakugou drags you kicking and screaming. A brute display of strength as he wraps a bloodied, muscular arm around your waist and hauls you towards his dragon.

It’s the only way he can remove you from the devastation and destruction that he caused, your village— your home, now nothing more than charred ash and embers. You’ll die if you stay here, and maybe it’s a warped sense of morality that has him bringing you with him. A spared pardon that will allow the gods above to judge him less when it comes to judgement day; if there even is a god when all this life seems to give is destruction.

His castle is dank and cold, nothing like the warm grass that settled beneath your feet in your village. The saccharine of wildflowers that blessed your senses each morning as you made your way to collect fresh water from the flowing river. You have nothing inside these four walls but time, aimlessly wandering through the bleak halls as though it’s some kind of reward for being alive. For being pitied.

The first night he brought you here you tell him that he should’ve killed you. Of all the people that night, you wondered why he’d chosen to pity you.

It’s the better part of a week before he forces you to bathe. The cinders and blood from that fateful night are still seared into your skin, a constant reminder of the anguish of watching everything you’d ever known burn. You had nothing else— and this was yet another thing the Dragon King was trying to take from you.

This was the first time you’d left your village since you were a child— your first look at the big wide world outside and all you wanted was to go back home.

And yet here you were standing in front of the man that stole everything from you. The ruthless King that had seemingly taken everything was still trying to take more. The numerous attempts from Mina to help you bathe had been in vain as you refused to remove the tattered cloth that you wore that fateful day, the stench of death and decay was even starting to bother you as you tried to fight the desire to purge yourself of the toxins. But the desire to disobey Bakugou was stronger—

“Get in,” He snarled pure venom, “Or I’m throwing you in the lake.”

You fought the urge to spit back ‘make me’ knowing that he most definitely would. His crimson eyes focused on you, challenging you to disobey him now.

“You’re stinkin’ out the castle,” He sneered, “Even my dragon smells better than you.”

“Let me get in then.” You challenged, hoping he’d leave the room so you could lock the door again.

“You can try that shit with Mina, but it won’t work on me, fuckin’ brat.”

It felt like stalemate, as you both bore into each other. The intensity of his gaze made you want to look away, but you had to hold what little fight you had left— before you broke yourself completely.

“Lake it is.” Bakugou took a step towards you, booted feet clomping against the cold stone floor as your hands balled into fists in the fabric of your dress. Holding the cloth in your hands as you begun to bunch it up your body, focusing on the way Bakugou seemed to stumble— catching himself before he paused.

You lifted the dress up and over your head as you let the soiled, bloodied cloth fall to the floor beside your bare feet. Leaving you completely exposed to him as he tried to stop his hungry eyes from feasting over your bare skin, left eye twitching as he fought the hardest war he was yet to face to maintain eye contact.

The air silent as you stepped forward, raising a leg to dip your toes into the forged metal tub. Exhailing when you felt the warmth engulf you as you stepped in, trying to ignore your heart hammering against your ribcage at how exposed and vulnerable you were right now as Bakugou allowed himself a moment to admire your round breasts and plush hips as you dipped into the bath.

Bakugou could feel his pants tighten at the sight, a multitude of sordid thoughts racing through his mind as his cock pulsed in response. Making no attempt to leave the room as you sunk lower into the bath, letting the dirt and grime mingle with the water as you breathed a sigh of relief. The warmth helping to soothe the aching muscles that you hadn’t allowed a proper chance to relax since that day— maybe you had needed this.

You hid your smirk beneath the murky water as you noticed the way the tips of his ears tinged vibrant red at the sight of you, successful enough to rile him up or piss him off you weren’t sure. But it was enough to be called a small victory as you let the warm water calm you, the first time you’d felt at ease since that night.

“That wasn’t so hard was it, brat?” Bakugou growled before turning to leave the room. Thankful his cloak was long enough to hide the bulging tent between his thighs as he took swift, long strides down the hall towards his quarters. Pressing a palm to his crotch to try and elliviate the tension as he tried to commit the sight of your naked body to memory. The door barely closing before he had a large palm fisting his cock—

[scarletdreamers]

Hannibal, background music and what it tells us about Hannibal's feelings (Meta)

The background music in the erotic, dreamlike Hannibal point-of-view dinner scene wasn’t just chosen for that scene because it had a beautiful melody.

For the number one fandom when it comes to analysing every small detail in a show, we have a surprising lack of background music metas floating around on this site. Not very strange, because most of the Hannibal soundtrack is creepy gongs and ping pong balls and every other weird sound except for a regular violin. However, sometimes the horror sounds are swapped with beautiful classical pieces that resemble Hannibal’s music taste. And while it's Bach most of the time, there's a few gems that are soooo overlooked in my opinion. Though today I only want to talk about the music for 2x10, Naka-Choko. The last scene of this episode is this very intense, very passionate dinner scene: 

The background music of this scene happens to be a classical piece which is also the main theme of the film adaptation of the movie Morte a Venezia (1971). In English it is known as Death in Venice. The piece is called Symphony No.5 Adagietto by Gustav Mahler, a late Romantic componist. He made the soundtrack for the entire film. 

For those who don’t know Death in Venice: It’s a novel from 1912 by Thomas Mann, which was later adapted into a film by Italian director Luchino Viscosi. The plot follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a writer (book) / composer (movie) who travels to Venice and meets a young boy (concerningly young, fourteen years old I believe, not entirely sure) called Tadzio. Aschenbach falls deeply and obsessively in love with Tadzio, even though he at first tells himself that it is merely for aesthetic reasons since the boy is incredibly beautiful. A bit of a The Picture of Dorian Gray scenario. Towards the end of the story Aschenbach dies from illness while watching Tadzio on the beach and realises that he will forever be enslaved by his passion for the boy.

The thing is, Death in Venice’s main themes are death, a struggle with morality (physical and moral decay), art, passion & love, beauty and its dangers and internal conflict. The story toes the line between ‘’conscious will and uncontrolled passion’’. Rational morality and passion (passion when it comes to art, beauty, or desire). 

During the whole story Tadzio is described with countless mythical terms. Greek gods, heroes, tragedies and lovers, but always divine. We know that Hannibal sees Will the same way. The most obvious evidence is that he literally drew himself and Will as Pátroklos (Patroclus) and Achilles. All his sketches of Will are in a style that looks most like Renaissance/Baroque anatomy (Hannibal draws bodies like sculptors used to sculpt them, which is a very fascinating art style of itself). Two periods in which myths were the most depicted subject in art. Next to that, Hannibal considers himself something equal to God. He considers Will an equal, certainly in that dinner scene where no one is at the head of the table. Instead they are sitting eye to eye, mirrored, no one has more power than the other. Which would indirectly mean that Hannibal also considers Will divine. This dynamic is a bit different in Death in Venice, because Aschenbach and Tadzio are more like the worshipper and the worshipped. However, Hannibal’s love for Will could be called worship. I mean, he literally left his heart on a church altar. That’s an action that would usually be considered martyrdom. 

Also, the book opens with a storm on a boat and a stranger with red hair. The stranger with red hair symbolises danger, evil, maybe even a devil/demon. They symbolise the nemesis in Aschenbach's story. Not a direct threat, but evil, anyway.

Now what’s funny is that during the dinner scene, Hannibal and Will are supposed to be eating Freddie Lounds. At least, that’s what Hannibal thinks, since Will lied to him. In reality, they’re eating Randall Tier’s flesh and the red-haired devil Freddie Lounds is still alive. 

Another fascinating comparison is Aschenbach’s social status, his behavior and the way he deals with desire. Aschenbach comes from an academic and German powerful family. In his youth he was expected to repress any vulgarity, desire and unreasonable behavior included. Hannibal comes from an even more impressive family tree. His father was a Lithuanian count and his mother, Simonetta Sforza-Lecter, was a Sforza. The Sforza’s were a real aristocratic family that ruled over Milan during the Renaissance period. Their castle still exists in real life. Hannibal is completely blue-blooded. His name holds way more power than we realise, mainly because he’s the only living heir on both sides of the family. He was raised with a lot of expectations and standards. Hannibal’s need to be respected and for people to be as polite as he himself is isn’t just some personality issue he developed over years, he was born into it. He was forced to behave according to a book of rules when he was younger. He was restrained. Any expression of desire, lust, wanting, or romantic affection for anyone was forbidden, let alone for an American, grown up poor and unimportant, mentally unwell man ten years younger than him. This is the same with Aschenbach. Tadzio is young, male and Polish. His infatuation with the boy is an absolute disgrace. 

Which is also what makes his need for Tadzio so strong. His obsession with the boy goes beyond everything he was ever taught, beyond everything he ever knew. He doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s primal, it’s raw, it’s unrestrainable and intense and it’s wrong. But it doesn’t feel wrong. To Aschenbach it feels like something from a dream. His fantasies about Tadzio are so strong that they aren’t just simple daydreams, but border religious visions. It makes him uncontrollable. He loses control of himself, of his feelings and actions. It messes with his idea of morality and love. He’s enslaved by his desire for Tadzio and it gets so intense that it ultimately becomes his end.

See where I’m going? Hannibal’s feelings for Will are the same. They go beyond everything he has ever known about himself. Hannibal feels things for Will he never thought himself capable of, and that frightens him. During that dinner he’s, for example, unable to hold Will’s gaze. He’s unable to stop looking at the same time.

His face is a literal open book with pictures that scream ‘’I want him and I don’t know how to deal with it’’ all over it. It makes him feel vulnerable, it makes him feel seen, it requires an insane amount of trust in Will for Hannibal to let it happen. For Hannibal losing control means surrender, and that’s an insanely valuable (rare) gift he’s giving Will. This is why he completely loses it when he realises Will lied and ‘’betrayed’’ him in Mizumono. Which is why he responded with his version of an emotional outburst: hurting everybody in the room in the hope he wouldn’t be the one with the most broken heart. He’s being held captive by his own feelings for Will, and when Will betrays him, he feels he has no other choice but to shoot with closed eyes and run. It’s his version of Aschenbach’s death because of love, which eventually extends to Will pulling Hannibal off the cliff. 

It’s very smart that they chose that specific dinner scene to combine with the Death in Venice background music. That’s the dinner where Hannibal still believes Will is on his side, but he also realises how dangerous his compassion is to both of them. With the context of the music, this basically summarises his whole point-of-view. The music gives us an insight into the story and the feelings from Hannibal’s side.

Once again a round of applause for Bryan and the team because goddamn they really thought of EVERY detail

[visenyaism]

Sorry if you’ve been asked this but what do you think of all the rot in asoiaf? Obv some of it is related to the problems with monarchy but I feel like a lot of it isn’t and it just leaves me curious. Like cold hands or people killed by the others idk what that symbolizes there. Jon is in a land in which rot is in stasis from the cold and it’s creepy as shit. And then there’s stuff that could have multiple interpretations like dany by proxy of selmy experiencing bio warfare with the corpses like I know some people see it as the fall of old ghis but I wondered if maybe it was a sign to dany about breaking the wheel and doing as her ancestors did. Idk I know it’s a nasty series and sometimes grrm is just doing stuff so that it’s gross but I feel like rot comes up SO much and I people are usually talking online about like Tywin when it comes to rot.

Oh one of my favorite things about the asoiaf series is how heavy-handed george rr martin is with the rot symbolism. and (at the risk of sounding like an mfa vomited on my keyboard) the way that the political, pestilential, societal, and climatological aspects of the rot symbolism all interconnect.

In a society founded on so many feudal evils that has perpetuated for centuries, something has to give. It is a recurring theme in these books that violations of human decency under feudalism cause cataclysmic societal collapse represented through literal and metaphorical pestilence.

There’s the sociopolitical collapse in the riverlands caused by war of human decency and norms like guest right and prohibitions on kinslaying or cannibalism just dedicating away as times get hard. broken men. bodies left to rot in the sun for the crows to feast on. There’s the fermenting wildfire under every major street in Kings Landing. There’s the familial/relational decay of incest especially the targaryens and the lannisters. The people who hold power and that society rot, despite everyone’s best efforts at keeping up appearances: Robert Baratheon the “war hero” dies of a very nasty festering stomach wound he got in a drunken hunting accident, Tywin gets shot on the privy and his corpse putefies in the sept.

The climate stuff is also very salient. The series starts during late summer and as things get worse and worse in the world declines into the autumn where the summer fruit and all of the abundance is literally rotting through the hands of the characters. (see: renly’s peach vs doran’s blood oranges!) The cold up at the wall keeps the rot at bay for a while, but it does not entirely stop it. Coldhands’ hands are still blackening. Things are still unraveling at the hinges of the world. that’s pretty representative of the way that the violence of the border wall and the penal colony stationed there to patrol it are not sustainable. The decline of the night’s watch from a once proud order to a penal colony full of cruel and often impoverished convicts dropped off there by circumstance is a symptom of the society that sends people up there. But something still has to give. The wall will fall down and the existential crisis will come, it’s just slowed.

Critically, there is also the forgotten parable of Old Valyria: a society founded on extreme cruelty and slavery which eventually experiences cataclysm coming up from the very tunnels they send the enslaved into to die for the empire. A lot of what Daenerys experiences in Essos is an extension of that commentary on slave societies to me. Like. as the slavers try and reconquer places dany has liberated, people fleeing the violence, bring disease like the bloody flux with them. The rot creeps back. (important: disease and rot in the series is not always something people get for being morally bad. it often happens to people who just have no choice but to live in these places.)

But that’s why I think the way Volantis is described really ties a lot of those elements of the rot symbolism together. This is a society that has founded itself up from out of the corpse of old valyria. The city maintains some veneer of old glory, but the fountains are dry and the paint is chipping. The people there eat food that is so sweet it literally causes your teeth to rot out if you were to consume it every day. In terms of climate, I think it’s relevant that it is described as extremely, almost disgustingly, humid, and everything is excessively perfumed to cover up a tangible smell of decay.The air is quite literally cloying and difficult to breathe. You feel dirty after walking through it. The evil of slavery is rotting the city to its core in the same way that the evil of feudalism and the wars for the iron throne is affecting the city of king’s landing.

To wrap allllll this up. Rot is a signal that obviously societal collapse is coming, but it’s also transitional: the empire of old ghis brought about its downfall, and then valyria found itself on the same principles which brought about its own downfall, and then the Targaryen went to westeros and engineered their collapse in Kings Landing while the freehold did the same essos. I think the climatological and disease aspects of it are really heavy-handed symbolism that something has to give in the societies and we’re at the point in the series where that’s about to happen.

I think the ultimate arc of the series ends in some form of significant societal collapse, but instead of building upon a rotten foundation again people are going to have try and hope for something new and gather the courage to build that.,quite literally dreaming of the spring.

[kasunex]

I wrote before about how Coffin subverts the traditional trajectory of stories about co-dependency by portraying Andrew's efforts to "escape" Ashley as misguided at best and manipulative at worst.

But I also think going into the ways in which it subverts those expectations is fascinating in of itself.

Let's start with how the story frames Andrew's relationship with Julia. Now let's remember that Andrew is in a toxic and co-dependent relationship with his sister that has already led to someone's death and is socially isolating both siblings.

Julia is Andrew's attempt to break free of that, to find someone he can love in place of Ashley. That their relationship failed is a tragedy, right?

Hahaha, nope. Andrew is manipulative, callous, and even fantasizes about abusing her.

And where does pushing Ashley away for Julia for over a year leave Andrew?

The whole thing is an exercise in futility. It's an emotionally empty, hollow lie.

The reverse side of this is how the game portrays Andrew and Ashley. Take this scene, which is in my opinion the most vulnerable we ever see Ashley. Alright, sure, she gets rejected and she's sad. Pretty straightforward. But actually think about this scene for a second.

Ashley just came on to her brother. Ok, full stop there, that would be enough for most stories to completely condemn this move. But also add that Andrew has a girlfriend, and of course that Andrew and Ashley's relationship has been shown by this point to be deeply toxic for both of them.

In any other story, this would be a moment that Ashley crossed the moral boundary. Andrew rejecting her would be portrayed unambiguously as a moment of strength. Here? It's portrayed as a tragic mistake. Andrew isn't shown as resisting the fangs of co-dependency, he's shown as rejecting Ashley at her most vulnerable.

You see the opposite side of things when they kiss in Decay's main route. The teasing between them, the soft and peaceful music, the laughing and hugging, it's all very warm.

I've theorized that the takeaway from Coffin is ultimately "Co-dependency destroys everything until all you have left is each other." The first part of that isn't anything unique. There's a ton of stories about why co-dependency is bad.

But the second part, the idea that people can truly be left with only each other, truly destroy themselves to the point they not only can't imagine life apart but genuinely and truly don't even want to, that they can burn all their bridges for one another and yet call the ashes home - that's a poignant twist.

[paper-mario-wiki]

It only recently occurred to me that the Garden of Eden Creation Kits, or G.E.C.K. devices in Fallout, stand as a karmic opposite to the symbol of the nuclear bomb.

The nuclear bomb is effective as a weapon is a two stage attack. First there's the boom. An invention the size of a small car, in a flash so short you wouldn't even be able to think about it before being vaporized if you were anywhere within 2 miles of where it was, and you'd be lucky to live longer than 10 minutes if you weren't at least 10 miles away. An unstoppable, unhaltable fire that burns hot enough to vaporize anything even remotely alive instantly, and it's the size of a city before you have enough time to say "oh my god look at that". And then, after this devastating, all consuming flame goes out, the decay left over from that little drop of metal leaves the earth, the water, the sky, and all other physical domains completely uninhabitable for YEARS. It instantly creates a domain so remarkably dangerous that it becomes a global landmark. I'd say that it is only slightly hyperbolic in a cheesey poetic way that what a nuclear bomb does is create the closest thing to literal hell on earth that humans are currently capable (whether by scientific limitation, or by moral unwillingness) of creating.

On the other hand, the G.E.C.K., a sleek silver briefcase the size of a 2005 laptop, acts as a compact seed to create a stable, healthy environment, with enough power in a hyper-dense coal fusion battery to power a city. A succinct utopia in a box. In early depictions this was described as hyper resilient seeds, chemical mixtures to create viable soil, instructions for how to disassemble and reuse shelters to become extremely resilient and powerful new world places of safety, as well as vast documents on the details and assembly of advanced and highly efficient technologies like force fields. In later games, it was increased to something of a mythical item, capable of literally terraforming miles of earth down to the molecular level to be safe for habitation, as well as the ability to replicate anything you might need in terms of rations or supplies. In its own way, it is mankind's best attempt (at least in the Fallout universe) to create a massive-scale utopia in as small of a box, that creates as close to a heaven on earth, as possible. And it's even got a biblical tie-in right in the name. I think that's very fitting.

[noncrush]

☀︎☁︎ — MILES MILLER: druxy

(“It's winter. You ask me about love and I tell you about violence. I'm sorry. I thought that that's what love was.” — Katie Maria, ‘I used to be a hole in the ground’.)

miles miller x reader | 8k | mentions of death&guns, angst, fluff, yearning, very introspective, lots of backstory, MDNI 18+.

⤷ desc. when you get hired at the el royale, you don’t imagine you’ll be staying there long. you don’t imagine you’ll find the love of your life, either. as it turns out, you’re wrong two for two.

here is my submission for “quiet winter nights” with miles miller in @lewmagoo’s wonderful holiday celebration!!! enjoy this monster (that i blacked out for most of! this is perhaps not the best prompt fulfillment lol) tis the season of yearning everybody :)

Druxy — (adj.) something whole on the outside, but rotten inside; of timber, having decay in the heartwood.

i.

Working at the El Royale used to be easy. When you were still starry-eyed and bright, not yet overtaken by the suffocating, roiling waves of that horrid hotel.

“This job is just a stepping stone, that’s all,” you’d told Miles after your first rough week. He eyed you wearily then, knowing the grim unreality of those words—he’d done the very same, just happy to have a job at all after discharge… before quickly succumbing, a noxious fate he wouldn’t wish on a single soul. But he couldn’t warn you either, not when you started on the Californian bar: forced to deliver rounds of bronze booze and burnt sienna spirits with your piercing steel shaker until the end of the night. There were so many things Miles lost the chance to say, and later he’ll tell you he hates himself for it; later, you’ll hold him close and tell him you could never hate him for it.

You used to pray that promise beneath your breath, just a stepping stone, while staring up at the swelling water damage of your popcorn ceiling. It was a kind of foreshadowing in the tapestry of your life, telling you the longer you worked the harder it’d be to keep your head wading above water. Those early days at the hotel had you reluctantly settling into a seedy dingbat shoebox a few blocks away, the dip of your chin already beginning to sink into high tide. It’s odd to think of that part of your life in retrospect when you were first starting at the El Royale living all by your lonesome-- familiar head of tawny chestnut locks not yet lying beside your own at night. 

That hopeful, almost manifest, mantra was repeated again and again: in quiet hallways, collecting the pieces of your shattered morale off the wooden epoxy bar top, after a customer yelled at you for giving him too little ice. In a dank backroom corridor, after you caught Miles stumbling around with a heavy Vidicon tripod.

“What do you actually do here?” 

“I… I can’t tell you. N-not before you’ve been here for longer than a year. It’s standard procedure, and- and Management doesn’t trust part-timers.” 

Panicked circles paced into the carpet at your discovery, his burdened shoulders growing ever heavier; some sudden shimmer of pity overtaking your words, “Miles-- Miles, it's okay. Just a stepping stone, remember? You… don’t need to tell me, and I promise I won’t tell anyone.” 

After you parsed Miles' calendar at the clerk's desk and caught a glimpse of the date. The frustrated heel of your palm digging into the nasal bone: “It’s November, Miles, it’s been-- god, this was supposed to be a stepping stone, something temporary…” Suddenly realizing your life still hasn’t picked up the slack; stranded, your job inquiries left unreplied, buried beneath the unsavoury status of your currentemployment. 

“I have an address. I-- have an entire year's worth of paystubs. I have everything they could possibly ask for.”

“Did--did you tell them you worked here? B’cause… the El Royale’s been losing its prestige day by day, and—Management’s sayin’ we’re lucky we still get our cheques.”

Finally, letting “just a stepping stone” die on your tongue when rent was jacked up, and the thin string of normalcy in your life went frayed. You made little as a bartender at an understaffed hotel, just enough to pay the current rate, and the increase would quickly make your wallet grow ugly and barren. Suddenly, you had found yourself forced to choose between the hotel or your apartment block’s curb; meagre belongings packed up and trailing behind, head growing dizzy with smothering waves of shame clawing up your throat. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to ask, but I--“ Shoulders wilt. Head hung low. The hotel lobby light flickers above you; once, twice, a spark cinders. “I have nowhere to go.”

His mouth, slightly ajar. What could crawl out of there, you wonder: a laugh, an apology, an insult? “California is full, and- er, Nevada’s under renovation.” 

A rejection. Beads of sweat trickled down your trembling spine. Heart sinking into the pit of your stomach; nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nowhere to exist—

“B-but I have a room. In the back. If… if y’don’t mind sharing.” 

Kindness, in a place as consuming as this. You thought every dreg of it had long since been digested, surrendering to the dreary structure of the ogee pattern walls. The fact it existed in the heart of Miles, however minuscule, made your own flicker with light. Hope stirring, unafraid despite how brutally it was beaten down; it was always so stubborn, ceaseless, almost Sisyphean.

However, uncovering Miles’ poor living conditions while shuffling into that one untouched room in the entire hotel made your lips pull into a tight line. You were left completely aghast, as you realized he had not simply been leaving early before you could say goodbye, but had been ducking behind doors and slinking into his closet home. Esteem quickly overtook you: for that shy man, who was awkward, but just as well sensitive, gentle and compassionate to the very bone. Who offered his room up for you, sacrificing a part of his life for the hundredth time without remorse, because it was kind. 

You lay elbow to elbow with Miles that first night, not looking at each other but just speaking, letting the low timbre of tones fill the air. A figurative ball dance: persuading information out of one another and testing the boundaries–akin only to seeing how low you’d let him drag his palm against your back in that imaginary hall, how tight to ischemia he’d let your hand squeeze his own. 

Him, warning you of the worst aspects of the job; giving you an out, because taping others in the privacy of their rooms weighed like lead. “It’s a sinful thing,” said Miles, the words mumbled and scraped off the backs of his teeth, stuck to the enamel like taffy shame. “To reveal other people like this, even if they’re helpless. Even when my meddlin’ realizes the worst consequences.” Consumed with fear his soul would only grow darker by tainting your own. “Those tapes… those tapes are never pretty. Sometimes they’re downright… ugly.”

You, knowing for a fact it was dirty and invasive— but also that you were really very small and very poor, a wretch whose dreams would be out of reach for eternity. A wide-eyed housekeep and a listless bartender having to band together to maintain the El Royale’s realm of order after the other staff left sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. However, choice was a privilege you no longer possessed–you were there entirely out of necessity: “Who else will hire me? Certainly nobody in this town, nor the next one over.”

Two sets of drooping eyes drifting across his clean ceiling, so unlike the swelling, waterlogged one back in your apartment. There's something here, you thought then, something to be said about having an odd heart-to-heart with the man you’ve had less than five full conversations with in an entire year. All the while feeling an odd comfort at the faint cracks littering his ceiling tiles—like pockmarks had existed, once upon a time, but were cared for and repaired with a familiar gentle precision.

Alas, duty continued, and Management swiftly utilized you—now trusted, for you were thought to be living and breathing the El Royale just as Miles did. But being implicated in the true nature of the hotel's existence, via the increase of sordid dignitaries — fortuitous in their decision to stay at the hotel, but brusque and oddly knowing in such a way you knew the El Royales’ name was being recommended in dangerous places — made the job so very hard. You became thoroughly equipped with the all-consuming fear you could spend another lifetime being good, scrubbing yourself clean of the hotel, and still have your fingers stomped on trying to reach the pearly gates. 

As though you could spend mere hours in there and come out thinking a decade had gone by, time in that decrepit hotel served as a mere suggestion. Perhaps, that’s why moving into the hotel seemed to make so much time alone with Miles. It seemed more impossible for a connection not to foster: that quiet night sent your relationship journeying from an acquaintance, to coworker, to dear friend. Shyly circling one another’s empty orbits before growing inseparable. A lifetime of affinity condensed into years, compacted by common sin and mutual memory. A bond that grew ever proximate, stunned by having someone just like you, right there—just as tormented, just as unfulfilled. 

A friendship of comforting one another in the dark: Miles tenderly coaxing you out like a feral animal unused to attention that didn’t quickly follow with a beating, or your attentive fingers gently working the self-imposed restraint out of his muscles, unthreading traumatic memories from beneath his skin. (“You don’t have to say sorry, Miles—I know you don’t have a mean bone in your body.” “Shh, shh, just listen to the sound of my voice. The thunderstorm’s din has nothing on me.” “When you have a nightmare, tell me—I don’t mind, promise.”) Understanding the fear that gripped you at the sensitive scruff, why you woke up floundering beside him in the middle of the night like the weight of your unfulfilled life was pressing itself on the nape of your neck. Uncovering Miles' extent, and what set him off—what made him dig his fingernails into the bed of his palm or bite his sharp canine into his lower lip. Settling your head onto Miles’ left pillow at bed— your pillow, finding that you knew his heart betterthan your own. Fondly remembering the time spent winding the words out of him until your palm recognized him like it did scars marring your skin. 

Naturally, you grew protective of him. How Miles’ remained so tender is a mystery – it felt impossible to live there for so long and not come out the other end worse off; chewed up, spat out, torn into two and put back together all wrong – but that very kindness had invited you into his home, and you worked to protect it like nothing else. Only ever manning the bar when the need was immediate, more content to linger close behind Miles when he checked in customers. Learning to bare your teeth, going from, “My complete apologies for any offence I’ve caused,” to “The El Royale provides poor patience toward guests who threaten the welfare of our establishment.” 

Slowly, the thought bleeding through the air, you began to worry your love for Miles would die in this black hole. Extinguished in the very same place it was first lit, unable to survive the hotel’s suffocation. Nondescript was your relationship, blurred lines wavering between romantic and platonic at every turn—but love nonetheless. For days on end did a familiar chill wrack your spine: some primal, precognitive feeling of guilt, of dread, that something bad was going to happen and you would never be free of it. How your ears pounded, blood rushing because it felt like if you didn’t leave now you’d rot in that hotel’s hollow, refrained to the point of murder or madness. 

You desperately tried to quell that feeling, chalking it up to years spent with your guard up. Thought you’d merely turned spiked and jagged; rough around the edges, making others jerk away at the gentlest touch. The way a Venus flytrap withers and dies, because nobody is brave enough to care for something so biting. Several severe years turned you into the serrated rim of a broken carafe glass—like the chipped Blendo one Miles kept in his room for safekeeping, after you sold off all the other expensive china just to keep the hotel lights on for another exhausting day. Just… paranoid, your fear of losing Miles — and being completely alone again as a result — merely growing insistent and anxious. 

But the last straw was in December of ‘68; a frigid winter, practically turning the hotel subnivean with its wet and heavy blizzards; snowing the place in deep. A night at the El Royale and a quiet night in general, the kind with long, exhaustive hours– a shift that never seemed to end, despite the small number of customers (a group of skiers on the Nevadan side and a family on the Californian) before finally resigning away from the clerk desk at a bleak four in the morning. You’d long since shooed Miles off, “You first, or I’ll take all the blankets in my sleep,” content to man the place on his behalf. He’d gone so long without support, persevering through fatigue and illness with no choice, it was the least you could do,--and you would always rather he woke up with light eyebags. 

You were locking up, stashing the bell in the desk cavity with your neck craned low—when you felt the trained gaze of another over you. You pressed back up to meet eyes with a customer, his horn-rimmed glasses decorated with slow melting flurries: “If you would be so kind to check me out for a back-cabin along tha’ trails, that’d just about make my night, kid.”

“Unfortunately, sir, the bungalows are unserviced and unavailable in the off-season. Our frontward facing lodges, however, are wholly available—“

“You mean to tell me they’re off limits? Why, I jus’ saw someone leavin’ one of those cabins.”

A shiver traipsed down the column of your vertebrae. No door was open to let in a draft, and no winter winds hit your form; it was pure intuition making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The week before last, Management thrust a sudden assignment onto you two— Nevada room 7, tenured professor travelling across state lines for a conference, democratic and incredibly vocal about it— and Miles’ was supposed to develop the tape yesterday, mail it off this morning. But Miles didn’t develop the tape yesterday, no, there’d been a burst pipe in the casino bar instead, and the two of you spent lunch till early dawn fixing it. 

The man shot you a discomfiting smile. Stretched wide across his plain, glib face. “Say,” and he leaned in just as your heel planted you an inch back, gesturing to the photographs of celebrities strewn around, “September ‘63. Sinatra owned this place, and let politicians mingle with Hollywood’s leading ladies. You know anythin’ ‘bout that?”

Anxiety dragged upon your skin. Where was he going with this? “I didn’t-- work here in 1963, sir. Suffice to say I didn’t know much at all about the comings and goings of the El Royale yet.”

He studied carefully; mandible still tilted into that barren smile, but eyes set and stony behind the thin frame of glasses you weren’t even sure were real. The customer set his suitcase down with one hand and his briefcase down with the other, before patting down the wrinkled fabric of his suit—intentionally, or unintentionally, flashing the hilt of a Black Eagle Ruger slung low on a belt holster. It wasn’t uncommon for customers to be sporting some kind of self-defence, especially in dark hotels such as these–but still.  “Your associate, then?” 

“What?” Your blood ran cold, freezing into thin slivers like icicles hanging from the roof outside; like the one that pricked you in the shoulder, and made Miles aid and soothe the wound. 

Miles entered through the front door of the lobby, hair silken with powder-soft snow, murmuring to himself as he dragged his work-issue loafers in. The man jutted his thumb unceremoniously toward him, a calculating sheen lighting his green eyes. 

“Hey, you—“ and he waved Miles over like he were cattle or a dog, “d’you remember any blonde Hollywood Ingenue’s rooming here in September ‘63? You’d know her—hell, she’d have you stumblin’ over so bad you couldn’t just forget her.”

The look on Miles’ face — wide-eyed and perturbed, tired steps creaking to a stuttered stop at the digestion of the man’s words — made the pit of your gut swelter: how cruel to make him flounder, for Miles was skittish. You’d learned to slow your movements and keep steady to ease him, but this would surely frighten him. “Sir? I-I don’t know what you’re…”

You swallowed thickly. “He didn’t— he didn’t work here yet either. Alright? I mean, look at him—he’d barely be out of school.”

The customer’s stubborn smile dropped into thin-lipped obscurity. “Well, it was wortha’ try. Made a bet with some of my buds who heard I was stayin’ here– those sonsabitches thought some kinda tape existed.” He regarded you suddenly with a plain look: acknowledging, bored, seeking your professionalism rather than your conversation.

His look sobered you, making the tremouring buzz of your thoughts (get miles get out of here something bad is going to happen) go quiet. You snapped back into smooth, managerial tones, swiftly checking the man in and handing him the logbook. He hoisted his luggage and left just as suddenly as he’d arrived, leaving you in possession of one odd Laramie Seymour Sullivan signature in cursive. There was something… off about that salesman—be it the thin, almost prescription-less distortion of his lenses, or his odd accented twang of no particular origin—and you hoped his stay in the Nevada room was short-lived.

“Miles?” your gaze snapped up from the logbook you were inspecting to find Miles gone. Fortunately, not out into the thick pillowy avenues of snow from which he came, but forwards: his thin loafers tracking wet stains onto the floor. You set a mental reminder to mop that melt before morning, but Miles’ panic took precedence. He had the habit of scampering away in the face of danger, like a rabbit through dry autumn leaves–and you would never let him deal with it alone.

Finally, you traced your dear friend's prints to the maintenance room you shared; slightly ajar, warm lamp light filling the room, his soaked shoes haphazardly strewn by the doorway. There, you saw him crumpled upon the threadbare cot: on his knees lying down, almost in prayer with his silver rosary wrapped tight around the dry skin of his knuckles. It shone like the glimmer of the sun under that incandescent bulb, and you could hear a panicked recital of scripture along his tongue.

“Hey, hey,” you slide past the door gently, descending onto all fours so as not to box him in or raise the height of his fight-or-flight response. “C’mere, hold my hand,” you crawled over and laced his free fingers into yours, settling into a criss-cross apple-sauce position; knee bumping into the ankle that never healed right after he sprained it gardening last summer.

“Just listen to my voice, okay? Remember what we were doing last winter? Remember when every customer had left two evenings before to make it home in time for Christmas? We were sitting here, reading a book together. You told me the print company made a mistake after you saw a thread pop out of the inner hinge’s book bind. I was massaging your crown, then… I miss your long hair sometimes. The radio was playing, too–an auditory rerun of that musical you like so much. “A Christmas Carol” for "Shower of Stars", was it…”

You were fully equipped to spend the rest of the night coaxing Miles’ out of his panic, soothing tones drowning out the tantamount alarm running circles in his mind–but then, he lifted his head from the clothed caps of his knees and brought your intertwined fingers up to his warm cheek. “That man.. the-the- tape, he was talking about a ta-tape with- with…”

Your hand squeezed his in time with the patterned buzz of his pulse, pressed along your own wrist; thump-squeeze, thump-thump-squeeze… “It’s just you and me, Miles. Take your time.”

A shaky breath. Then another; better, easier. “The tape he’s talking about. It’s, it-t’s real. B-but nobody was ever-- supposed’t know it exists-- how did he know about it, how?”

“Miles… a tape? He knows about what you sent to management?”

“No, no, I never sent it! I never did, I kept it… I kept it because he was kind, and-- and…” And Miles is letting go of your palm, instead wrapping his lanky arms around the circumference of your waist, collapsing in your lap. He’s murmuring still, mere vibrations lost to the human capacity of Hertz, as your mind spun: once upon a time, Miles confessed to you a certain 60s starlet coupled up in Nevada 5 with one of the most influential and married politicians of that decade, before their deaths in– 

That was the tape?

Your heart hammered in your ears. Miles’ sobs simmered down into stammering breaths; his ever-softening palms gripping the fabric of your shirt between his fingers in some sort of self-soothing measure. Has your heart swapped with your brain? Is that why you’re so suddenly remembering how cruel it'd been for Miles: how he’d been at the El Royale so much longer than you, been beaten down so much smaller, was much closer to the edge? That Miles was crumpling atop you now with the rumblings of great, inescapable despair because the weight of these corrupt secrets was toppling him over?

It was then that you pet him, the man your heart swelled far past capacity for, fingernails tracing over the splattering of freckles along his neck–and then, that your survival instincts overtook.

“Miles, Miles, it’s okay. Don’t say sorry, s’not a problem. We can… well, we can… leave. Take the tape with us; burn it, destroy it, whatever you want. But we leave.” Deciding at last that enough was enough because you could either leave now or suffocate in silence forevermore. Curl into yourselves, like far neglected flora, until one of you dies and the other quickly follows.

In the hours before dawn, you’d suddenly pieced together a jilted, desperate plan of escape. You’d head an innocuous journey from the El Royale to Reno, wandering eccentrically so as not to leave a tangible trail. In that tawdry tourist town, you’d gather yourselves and map another path out again: to a smaller, quieter place, like Waterford, or Dunsmuir, where you could build yourselves a life anew. It would be hard, and frightening, and cold, and unkind—but above all it would be worth it.

Above all, this chapter would draw a close, and you could have the rest of the pages in your life to be selfish. The thought made your stomach flutter and clench with the foggiest of dreams, fluffy fox-tailed feelings beginning to run through the dim corridors of your heart: ideas of being free, of coming into your own, of maintaining a gentle realm together without the enduring pressure of the hotel. Of being able to sleep in and graze over the bony ridges of Miles' spine like you were allowed to—like you were supposed to, and would never be struck down for it.

That glassy night in late December of ‘68 was your final one in the hotel. You barely remember it: just the important stuff, the why and the how and the coaxing of two lonely souls who occupied the El Royale like ghosts from out of the shadows. You can’t remember the few days after very well either, not with the fear still so deeply imprinted on your souls– and certainly not with the anxious hush that fell over you: a silly vow of silence, to keep yourselves from revealing too much to potentially dangerous strangers. Words were chalk in the mouth then; you barely got them out before you were coughing, gasping, heaving for soothed breath-- then quieting, swallowing, holding back your voice in the crevice of your cords.

You did, however, remember the generous days that came after the fleeing and the hiding… and, understandably so: why allow your memory to remain preoccupied with the same dread you’d digested for years when you could keep space for the rest of your life to arrive? 

You sat atop that beat mattress in Miles’ drab room with him in your arms, halfway through dreaming up the rest of your life away from the hotel… and soon, sooner than you could’ve ever thought, you blinked and opened your eyes to find yourself living that merciful existence. Like the colour television channels Miles’ would always call you over to watch: you got a sparse glimpse once a year, the kind of magic you always swore you’d catch up to, but were always so busy with the bar (and the gardening and the kitchen and the–) to see. The hotel had the all-consuming quality to draw you away from any fulfilling aspects of life: friends, a better career, happiness, and like some sick inside joke, colour television.

Now, you were living the sweet life NTSC colour system shows portrayed—and were able to watch colour television whenever your heart damn well pleased. 

No longer did you let the days twist and swell around you without recognition, no– you allowed yourself the selfish possibility of listening to the day's whistle by, drinking in every peaking pitch: the dull flutter of Miles’ steps along your oak floor, your kitchen laminate, your soft bathroom rugs. The wispy rustle of crinkled grocery lists, checking through them in your kitchen on an early Sunday—shopping right when the supermarket opened, because the both of you cringed at the sight of busy aisles and overworked lanes. (The raspy, sniffled laughter of the elderly lady who ran the store, remarking, “Still in the honeymoon phase, huh?” as she checked you out. The squeak in Miles’ throat when you played along, pressing a peck to his cheek in mock confirmation.)

The stream of water from the creaky yard hose, sometimes pressurized to the point of injuring Miles’ poor petunias, and other times so frail you had to lug out his otter-shaped turret sprinkler to keep them healthy instead. The howling wind against your house walls on autumn nights, bouncing along the window sills as though ghosts roamed your halls. (Having to build a fort in the living room with Miles, after a “ghost” had spooked him on his nightly tread for a glass of water. He refused to brave the hallway to your bedroom again, and you refused to leave him there.)

The gentle snip-snap of scissors along Miles’ delicate head, telling him, “I’m not going as short as last time, even if you ask me to, ‘cause you’ll get cold and snag my earmuffs again.”  The sleepy purr of Miles’ in the morning, wrapping a lithe arm around your waist and greedily tugging you back to bed; grown spoiled with the days that go by so sweetly, used to having you all to himself. 

Drinking in these little moments, appreciating the mundanity of it all. How you simper, when doing laundry with Miles, sorting whites from colours as you regale him on the time you mixed in a blue sock by accident; is that why my button-up turned blue? When gardening side by side in the spring, Miles cooing to perennial flora as he packs down healthy fertilizer nearby; grazing a gentle finger over an unfurling petal and promising, you’ll grow up nice and strong when m’done with you. When sitting on the counter and watching Miles bustle about, trying to perfect his Tunnel of Fudge in time for the holidays and handing you the battered whisk; honey, you know I don’t care that there’s raw egg. 

Going through the motions of this post-hotel life, practically epilogic, with the relationship’s lines of platonic and romantic ever wavering. Ever thinning. Warbled by the merciful existences you reap: why focus on the status of your relationship when you could focus on the love itself, focus on your now-uninhibited freedom to love? 

But a rubber band snaps eventually. The lack of labels stretched wide and narrow around your intimate forms; never relieved, never named—never agreed upon, therefore just as well never reciprocated. Years after the hotel faded into a mere memory, just a faint speckle among the colourful mosaic of your existence, you wake with a pit drowning in your gut. Love burns in the bottom of your belly: no longer that comfortable love that rested so sweetly in the smiling swell of your cheeks, but more so a love that swallowed you whole—sudden, voracious, terrifying. You loved Miles, and you had for years… but just now did you realize you were in love with him. 

The distinction makes your heart hammer against its cage, starving for any kind of answer. The two of you never acknowledged it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there—it was always there, always lingering, providing the very allowance to be so intimate, be so loving. You’ve slept in one another’s bed for more than half a decade, for Christ's sake: tenderness is all you’ve ever known of each other. A deathly nerve deep within your gut strikes, begging for either reciprocation or rejection, not this limbo you’ve been living in. Imploring a tangible answer, an exacting label you can build the rest of your life upon.

Because the thought of staying trapped like this forever? Never fully friends and never fully lovers? That mortified you. It could all fall between the gaps of your fingers, even after decades, because none of it had ever been said aloud. 

The realization of being in love, and not just loving was kept under tightly wound wraps as best as you could. But Miles notices the little things over time: how you draw away easier, hugs growing brisk and polite rather than long and hearty. The tension in your shoulders, and how you no longer accept his tender offers to massage familiar knots out—even when you both know he can map out your problem areas just like that. Brushing off touchier advances, resolve greatly disturbed by Miles’ ever-constant need to hold hands, cling to your hip, hang onto you at all. He’s funny about that kind of thing: somewhere along the way, between the farm he grew up on, Vietnam, and the El Royale, to now, he picked up the miraculous ability to tune into moods at the drop of a hat. 

It gets worse as the week goes on, however. Not that you’d been very inconspicuous about your gloom—you sat up the fourth day quietly strained, trudging to the bathroom like a wet t-shirt that’d been wrung out and hung to dry in all the wrong ways. Misshapen, wrinkled, too burdened for the clothesline to hold up; the briefest of winter winds trickles past the window Miles forgot to close last night, and makes you shiver as you step in. But he doesn’t get the chance to intervene, not when you were heading off to work (there were so many things Miles lost the chance to say, and later he’ll tell you he hates himself for it–), and the two of you only see each other again when you’re back home. 

His first instinct when he sees you, mumbling your arrival in the frostbitten doorway, is to take your coat and set it on the wooden hanger; shuffle your fur-lined boots onto the shoe rack beside his own tassel loafers; dust the flurries off your clothes. Clean and take care of you, because that’s what he knows best. You half expect him to extend his arm out and point down either side of the hall, “Warmth and sunshine to the west, or hope and opportunity to the east,” on the tip of his tongue.

“Hi,” mumbles Miles, lip quivering as some semblance of a nervous smile inches across his face. “Um, welcome home.” 

That man is far too sweet for his own good. His greeting is the product of an offhand comment all those years ago, “It’s always the sweetest thing when the husband comes home and his wife welcomes him back.” Winter nights in the hotel when there were so few customers, management would skimp on paying the bills, and you’d huddle chest to chest with Miles to conserve heat. Breath visible, palms splayed beneath one another’s shirts to extinguish the chill racking through you. A random channel on his old RCA Victor Sportable playing a Brigitte Bardot special, if just to distract yourself from the very real, very harrowing possibility that you could fall asleep and never wake up.

“Miles,” out comes a dull whisper, scratchy and unreal in your own throat. You’ve tried all week to make a habit out of biting back too-sweet words, letting your blatant adoration die in your lungs. Speaking to him should be an activity gone stale, lest you forget yourself and allow you two to fall back headfirst into that exhausting will-they-won’t-they purgatory. 

But then you notice his clothes–an old cream cable knit and dress trousers, his Sunday best for weekly visits and the obligatory holiday ones–and his hair, neatly coiffed along the smooth crown of his head. You raise a brow–it’s incredibly unlike the pajamas and chestnut bedhead he usually sports; mussed and ruffled with the telltale stylistic edge of blankets and cotton pillowcases. Had he gone out, or is he going out now? 

That thought makes your heart thump and clench in its cavity: of Miles being swept off his feet by someone other than yourself and having to accept it with a choked nod, because you’re dancing around asking him “What are we?”, in paralyzing fear that you are the only one truly head over heels. You resign yourself to asking, “Going somewhere?” whilst gesturing to his unusually formal state of dress.

His rounded cheeks flush. Cobalts widen in tune with the sandy brows along his forehead rising. Your gaze hasn’t made it there yet, but you can bet his lips have slid ajar into a tiny “O” shape-- and there it is. His delicate expression of surprise is the same as it has been for years (and you fear how easily you predict it. You know him too well, and it’s never the one who knows another too well whose heart remains unbroken. But then again: between Miles’ delicate heart and your own… you’d rather you devastated.)

“Yes, well-- I’m going out with someone.”

“You’re going on a—“ How interesting. “…O-kay.”

Your offset okay has the tips of Miles’ lips twinging upward into a tiny, knowing smile. Smug, almost, if you pretended it wasn’t how Miles simply looked when content. It makes you frown instead. “Oh,” you mumbled, wincing as you brushed past him, hearing just how monotone; crestfallen; stupid you sounded. “Have fun, then.”

Your own cheeks burn, your harried footsteps clattering against hallway hickory wood: he was taking someone out? Miles’ had been venturing out on his own more often — your heart preened prideful praise at this, as he’d downright avoided public outings like the plague since his discharge all those years ago — so you knew it wasn’t at all unlikely he’d caught someone’s wandering eye. Miles was rather handsome, too (even downright pretty, which he rarely let you say aloud, since it made steam practically fume out of his ears) with the gentle brush of his blond lashes, framing the brilliant sheen of blue eyes, and that captivating curve of his nose, sloping high and elegant. 

But for however proud you were, the hurt still made your throat swell in its tender column. Suddenly, you realize it’s never going to be you who accompanies Miles in that way: because you are slow and cowardly. You are the decay that would make Miles’ heartwood go druxy– and for his sake, it cannot be you that accompanies him. Like understanding a language but never being taught to speak it, you can spot love easily even when it’s unspoken and barely there, but you cannot replicate it aloud. I love you is an unintelligible language twisted wryly on your tongue; you miss accents and mess up grammar, and before you know it those words as old as myth have gone sour. 

You’ll hurt him worse than rejection hurts you. But rejection, any kind of it, is still a quiet, burning thing that overtakes you like the wash of high tide. Digging its claws into the rapid flesh of your palpitating heart, you can’t help but desperately seek isolation. The balls of your feet practically jump over the threshold where the hall and your shared room meet… but he’s quick to follow.

Miles’ sock-swaddled thumping is slow at first, before speeding up and careening to a stop at the door of the bedroom. His fingers (originally rough with domestic work but grown soft in the simple life you’ve built around each other) cling shyly to the side jamb: “Are…” and his words warble at a pitchy high, like they’re curling around a pitiful lump balling up in his throat, “are you mad at me?”

“Of course not,” your reassurance is fast, uttered quicker than you can think or blink or even turn. But because your back still faces him, he asks again, are you mad at me? Murmurs, I’m sorry, a moment later, polyester-padded steps inching over the sill. Miles continues closer, appearing in the background of your mirror while you shed your outside clothes off; practically undergoing chrysalis into your pyjamas.

His words are childish, almost, and you have half a mind to shoo him out of the room for privacy–but you know Miles. Though his words are uttered gingerly, the nervous apology of a scolded child, he isn’t any less desperate, any less earnest; he’s genuine, and that genuinity has no bounds. 

The bed creaks behind you, and your mind buries the consuming temptation to look. Desire calls out your name, supplying imaginary images of cranberry Christmas sheets straining beneath Miles’ pretty, slow crawl. And the apology is part way through stumbling out of Miles’ mouth yet again when you finally turn to meet him: slim torso folded along the long edge of the bed, knees planted on the hardwood. Looking up at you with an impossible expression that pleads, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Are you mad at me? Please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m– 

His sweet head buries itself into the clothed cushion, and you can hear him sniffle; holding back a worried sob, are you mad at me? filling the ridges of his tongue. It’s so hard to seek solitude, to want to soothe yourself at all, when Miles is falling apart in front of you; fingers curling possessively into the sheets like he usually would your clothes. 

The tear that escapes the corner of Miles' eye dribbles into your bed. It makes your obstinacy waver. And then, you’re descending onto the bed too, scooping his weeping form into your arms, gently soothing him with shapes drawn into his cheek. Coaxing the tears away with a low hum cooed into the shell of his ear, shh, shh. M’not mad, just surprised. Just tired. 

Cries that finally dwindle into stuttered sniffles and tiny pecks along your inner wrist. The drag of his bottom lip on the ulna bone makes a ribbon of warmth run through you, and you cringe—you should be normal about this kind of thing because he’s perpetually starved for touch. This intimacy is nothing special, and you just happen to always be there. But it starts to feel less than normal: kisses growing hungry and adventurous, desperate to litter your skin with his presence… eventually reaching up to the top of your shoulder, just so gaining the confidence to sink his canines into your skin…

“Miles!” You yelp, squeezing at the nape of his neck and peeling his rebellious teeth from your side like you would a puppy. You bring him face to face, grip sliding to the mandible; his eyes half-lidded, lips wet with a doggish, slobbery sheen of saliva, brows knitted tensely in the middle. You meant to comfort him, rid the alarm from muscles that held memory so tightly. Instead, an entirely different neediness is roused out of him: he’s crawled halfway up your body, rigid knees subconsciously brushing between your thighs, pressing you to the mattress with the thick weight of his utterly relaxed lower body. 

He begins to slowly blink, as if coming out of a feverish daze, going ever-scarlet in realization. “Sorry, I– didn’t mean to…ah, just missed you so much, that’s all—” squirming to hide and bury his face into the pillows again, whining when you stop him with another squeeze of his cherubic cheeks.  

“What,” You’re breathless, and you reckon your pulse is beating as fast as Miles' is beneath your fingertips: rapid, floundering, like a marathon has been run four times over. “What was that, sweetheart?”

The nickname makes Miles shiver atop you; his head swivelling low to rest upon you, his everything pinning you down. Your huff of gentle (confused, frustrated, coy) air breezes along his brow bone, and he looks up to peer puppyish up at you. 

“Wanted to make you feel better,” he supplies, head tilting to rest the side of his face upon your skin too. “You-- you've been t-tense—and don’t lie, I can tell. So, so I was tryin’ to ask you on a date in the doorway… but then y-you stormed off on me! I thought you— I thought, maybe you don’t want thatkinda relief, so… so…”

“Oh, Miles.” you melt, hand cradling his face gently, thumb brushing against his lower lip, crooking the bed of your palm closer when he turns in to provide a chaste kiss. “I… didn’t realize you were trying to ask me on a date,” and your gaze darts away shyly, voice dropping to a ginger murmur, “in all honesty, I thought you were going out on one.”

“Me?” he asks, head tilting again in pure confusion. Cobalt blue eyes glistening with a disbelieving curiosity–like he couldn’t entertain the prospect logically in his mind long enough for it to make sense. “Who would I be going on a date with but you?”

Who would he be going on a date with but you? 

The silence of the room rings swirls in the junction of your ear. You think you hear a pin drop, but it might very well be your heart; trudging up the shaky interior of your ribcage, softly parsing through the meaning of his words… and finding it to be completely genuine. No sarcasm, and nothing of rhetoric: a true, confused question, uttered from those gentle lips. Who would I be going on a date with but you?as if the very notion was impossible. Like you just told him you’d reached up and plucked the sun for his garden. Like you just said, I miss the hotel.

For some odd, unknown reason, that is what makes your heart roar to life again. Makes your stomach churn with the familiar achings of hope. Those simple words, that glaring confusion, twist your entireviewpoint. How blatantly he says it: that there's nobody on this planet Miles’ would rather be with but you. This may not be very clear right now, but the path to it is, and one thing remains certain: you’ll be loving each other, no matter which way.

A small laugh tumbles out of your mouth, transforming your solemn features into something of silly belief. How foolish were you to think otherwise? That this gentle man, who offered his tiny room to you all those years ago, would suddenly let you slip out from his fingers at the prospect of someone else? Just as there's never been anyone else for you, there's never been anyone else at all for him but you.

How slow your realization was, too: you had been shying from Miles for days, worrying deep in your gut that he’d eventually disappear at the drop of the hat. Whereas, he had been entertaining big dreams of spending the rest of his life curled into your corner; cheering you on for all the world to see. Completely understanding that nobody better could be found; could be loved, could be known than you. 

Your laugh seems to make Miles’ smile twitch up too, and you can’t help but snicker a little louder when you catch his murmur: what are we laughing about now? Because that’s the kind of man Miles is, and always has been: a gentle lover, but fiercely loyal, tender to the very bone; happy to ask the silly, stupid questions when you don’t want to. 

“Nothing,” you shush him, letting your cold, fresh-from-work feet dip beneath the edge of Miles’ soft trousers, toe trailing along his bare Achilles and making him wince. 

“Y’cold,” he whines but doesn’t push you away. Miles doesn’t think he could ever push you away; even through a bout of worrying, self-imposed distance that made panic rise in his heart this week, because Miles’ knows you better than that. You know one another far better than that—and one thing you taught him, bits and pieces of philosophical advice littered into your early conversations, rings true now. Never stop trying. You never stopped trying to fulfill yourself at that trepid, consuming hotel– and you came out the other side with the love of your life tucked gently into your side. So Miles learned never to stop trying for anything at all– and certainly not for you. 

“Sorry,” you whisper. But you’re not for very long, especially when he sidles up real close to you, ducking his head right into your Plender gap and breathing you in.

You don’t know where the years went, but love peeled the layers back from Miles so quickly: paring away his skittish demeanour from back then, when he’d been afraid to leave any mess at all, afraid to give into his mild intrigue of you, to even stir the air with the gentlest inhale of his breath. Continuing to unravel him, until he was the greedy man caging you in now, unabashedly needy and unafraid to stake claim on what’s his. Wanting you by his side has never changed, and never will. 

Slowly, the two of you shift, roll, twitch and tug until the sheets are furrowed, comforter wrapped oddly around your legs-- but also until you’re comfortably in one another's arms, foreheads grazing every time one of you breathes. It gives you the most explicit look of his face, into those cobalt blues, through the brush of lashes you so admiringly yawp about when he puts lotion on his face — to the point Miles has to shut the bathroom door on you in the bedroom, just to continue his bedtime routine without melting out into a stammering pile of goop — and of the faint dustings of freckles you noted all that time ago.

Barely noticing the window Miles’ has the terribly endearing habit of keeping open—even on this quiet winter night—because in the summer it coaxed you to sleep and you thanked him for it the next morning. Eyes resting as you focused on the comforting murmur of Miles’ familiar breathing pattern, wrapped in silence so thick it was almost palpable—making you two feel like the only real things in the entire world.

You may have thought your love was nondescript and barely there — imperceptible if not for the top notes of intimacy and adoration lingering on the pulse points of your skin like perfumed oil — but it’s always been noticeable. Always been rich and heady, forever dabbled on the dip of your neck where he lies his head; a fervent scent of pure love blooming, caught on the hem of yourself like you sprayed a pump too much. And nothing, not even Miles’ cries or your own misunderstanding, would ever change that.