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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months ago

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Podcasting “Capitalists Hate Capitalism”

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in Torino (Apr 21) Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

This week on my podcast, I read "Capitalists Hate Capitalism," my latest column for Locus Magazine:

https://locusmag.com/2024/03/cory-doctorow-capitalists-hate-capitalism/

What do I mean by "capitalists hate capitalism?" It all comes down to the difference between "profits" and "rents." A capitalist takes capital (money, or the things you can buy with it) and combines it with employees' labor, and generates profits (the capitalist's share) and wages (the workers' share).

Rents, meanwhile, come from owning an asset that capitalists need to generate profits. For example, a landlord who rents a storefront to a coffee shop extracts rent from the capitalist who owns the coffee shop. Meanwhile, the capitalist who owns the cafe extracts profits from the baristas' labor.

Capitalists' founding philosophers like Adam Smith hated rents. Worse: rents were the most important source of income at the time of capitalism's founding. Feudal lords owned great swathes of land, and there were armies of serfs who were bound to that land – it was illegal for them to leave it. The serfs owed rent to lords, and so they worked the land in order grow crops and raise livestock that they handed over the to lord as rent for the land they weren't allowed to leave.

Capitalists, meanwhile, wanted to turn that land into grazing territory for sheep as a source of wool for the "dark, Satanic mills" of the industrial revolution. They wanted the serfs to be kicked off their land so that they would become "free labor" that could be hired to work in those factories.

For the founders of capitalism, a "free market" wasn't free from regulation, it was free from rents, and "free labor" came from workers who were free to leave the estates where they were born – but also free to starve unless they took a job with the capitalists.

For capitalism's philosophers, free markets and free labor weren't just a source of profits, they were also a source of virtue. Capitalists – unlike lords – had to worry about competition from one another. They had to make better goods at lower prices, lest their customers take their business elsewhere; and they had to offer higher pay and better conditions, lest their "free labor" take a job elsewhere.

This means that capitalists are haunted by the fear of losing everything, and that fear acts as a goad, driving them to find ways to make everything better for everyone: better, cheaper products that benefit shoppers; and better-paid, safer jobs that benefit workers. For Smith, capitalism is alchemy, a philosopher's stone that transforms the base metal of greed into the gold of public spiritedness.

By contrast, rentiers are insulated from competition. Their workers are bound to the land, and must toil to pay the rent no matter whether they are treated well or abused. The rent rolls in reliably, without the lord having to invest in new, better ways to bring in the harvest. It's a good life (for the lord).

Think of that coffee-shop again: if a better cafe opens across the street, the owner can lose it all, as their customers and workers switch allegiance. But for the landlord, the failure of his capitalist tenant is a feature, not a bug. Once the cafe goes bust, the landlord gets a newly vacant storefront on the same block as the hot new coffee shop that can be rented out at even higher rates to another capitalist who tries his luck.

The industrial revolution wasn't just the triumph of automation over craft processes, nor the triumph of factory owners over weavers. It was also the triumph of profits over rents. The transformation of hereditary estates worked by serfs into part of the supply chain for textile mills was attended by – and contributed to – the political ascendancy of capitalists over rentiers.

Now, obviously, capitalism didn't end rents – just as feudalism didn't require the total absence of profits. Under feudalism, capitalists still extracted profits from capital and labor; and under capitalism, rentiers still extracted rents from assets that capitalists and workers paid them to use.

The difference comes in the way that conflicts between profits and rents were resolved. Feudalism is a system where rents triumph over profits, and capitalism is a system where profits triumph over rents.

It's conflict that tells you what really matters. You love your family, but they drive you crazy. If you side with your family over your friends – even when your friends might be right and your family's probably wrong – then you value your family more than your friends. That doesn't mean you don't value your friends – it means that you value them less than your family.

Conflict is a reliable way to know whether or not you're a leftist. As Steven Brust says, the way to distinguish a leftist is to ask "What's more important, human rights, or property rights?" If you answer "Property rights are human right," you're not a leftist. Leftists don't necessarily oppose all property rights – they just think they're less important than human rights.

Think of conflicts between property rights and human rights: the grocer who deliberately renders leftover food inedible before putting it in the dumpster to ensure that hungry people can't eat it, or the landlord who keeps an apartment empty while a homeless person freezes to death on its doorstep. You don't have to say "No one can own food or a home" to say, "in these cases, property rights are interfering with human rights, so they should be overridden." For leftists property rights can be a means to human rights (like revolutionary land reformers who give peasants title to the lands they work), but where property rights interfere with human rights, they are set aside.

In his 2023 book Technofeudalism, Yanis Varoufakis claims that capitalism has given way to a new feudalism – that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism…and feudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Varoufakis's point isn't that capitalists have gone extinct. Rather, it's that today, conflicts between capital and assets – between rents and profits – reliably end with a victory of rent over profit.

Think of Amazon: the "everything store" appears to be a vast bazaar, a flea-market whose stalls are all operated by independent capitalists who decide what to sell, how to price it, and then compete to tempt shoppers. In reality, though, the whole system is owned by a single feudalist, who extracts 51% from every dollar those merchants take in, and decides who can sell, and what they can sell, and at what price, and whether anyone can even see it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Or consider the patent trolls of the Eastern District of Texas. These "companies" are invisible and produce nothing. They consist solely of a serviced mailbox in a dusty, uninhabited office-building, and an overbroad patent (say, a patent on "tapping on a screen with your finger") issued by the US Patent and Trademark Office. These companies extract hundreds of millions of dollars from Apple, Google, Samsung for violating these patents. In other words, the government steps in and takes vast profits generated through productive activity by companies that make phones, and turns that money over as rent paid to unproductive companies whose sole "product" is lawsuits. It's the triumph of rent over profit.

Capitalists hate capitalism. All capitalists would rather extract rents than profits, because rents are insulated from competition. The merchants who sell on Jeff Bezos's Amazon (or open a cafe in a landlord's storefront, or license a foolish smartphone patent) bear all the risk. The landlords – of Amazon, the storefront, or the patent – get paid whether or not that risk pays off.

This is why Google, Apple and Samsung also have vast digital estates that they rent out to capitalists – everything from app stores to patent portfolios. They would much rather be in the business of renting things out to capitalists than competing with capitalists.

Hence that famous Adam Smith quote: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." This is literally what Google and Meta do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

And it's what Apple and Google do:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23934961/google-antitrust-trial-defaults-search-deal-26-3-billion

Why compete with one another when you can collude, like feudal lords with adjacent estates who trust one another to return any serf they catch trying to sneak away in the dead of night?

Because of course, it's not just "free markets" that have been captured by rents ("Competition is for losers" -P. Thiel) – it's also "free labor." For years, the largest tech and entertainment companies in America illegally colluded on a "no poach" agreement not to hire one-anothers' employees:

https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/03/apple-google-other-silicon-valley-tech-giants-ordered-to-pay-415m-in-no-poaching-suit/

These companies were bitter competitors – as were these sectors. Even as Big Content was lobbying for farcical copyright law expansions and vowing to capture Big Tech, all these companies on both sides were able to set aside their differences and collude to bind their free workers to their estates and end the "wasteful competition" to secure their labor.

Of course, this is even more pronounced at the bottom of the labor market, where noncompete "agreements" are the norm. The median American worker bound by a noncompete is a fast-food worker whose employer can wield the power of the state to prevent that worker from leaving behind the Wendy's cash-register to make $0.25/hour more at the McDonald's fry trap across the street:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/02/its-the-economy-stupid/#neofeudal

Employers defend this as necessary to secure their investment in training their workers and to ensure the integrity of their trade secrets. But why should their investments be protected? Capitalism is about risk, and the fear that accompanies risk – fear that drives capitalists to innovate, which creates the public benefit that is the moral justification for capitalism.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don't want free labor – they want labor bound to the land. Capitalists benefit from free labor: if you have a better company, you can tempt away the best workers and cause your inferior rival to fail. But feudalists benefit from un-free labor, from tricks like "bondage fees" that force workers to pay in order to quit their jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/21/bondage-fees/#doorman-building

Companies like Petsmart use "training repayment agreement provisions" (TRAPs) to keep low-waged workers from leaving for better employers. Petsmart says it costs $5,500 to train a pet-groomer, and if that worker is fired, laid off, or quits less than two years, they have to pay that amount to Petsmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Now, Petsmart is full of shit here. The "four-week training course" Petsmart claims is worth $5,500 actually only lasts for three weeks. What's more, the "training" consists of sweeping the floor and doing other low-level chores for three weeks, without pay.

But even if Petsmart were to give $5,500 worth of training to every pet-groomer, this would still be bullshit. Why should the worker bear the risk of Petsmart making a bad investment in their training? Under capitalism, risks justify rewards. Petsmart's argument for charging $50 to groom your dog and paying the groomer $15 for the job is that they took $35 worth of risk. But some of that risk is being borne by the worker – they're the ones footing the bill for the training.

For Petsmart – as for all feudalists – a worker (with all the attendant risks) can be turned into an asset, something that isn't subject to competition. Petsmart doesn't have to retain workers through superior pay and conditions – they can use the state's contract-enforcement mechanism instead.

Capitalists hate capitalism, but they love feudalism. Sure, they dress this up by claiming that governmental de-risking spurs investment: "Who would pay to train a pet-groomer if that worker could walk out the next day and shave dogs for some competing shop?"

But this is obvious nonsense. Think of Silicon Valley: high tech is the most "IP-intensive" of all industries, the sector that has had to compete most fiercely for skilled labor. And yet, Silicon Valley is in California, where noncompetes are illegal. Every single successful Silicon Valley company has thrived in an environment in which their skilled workers can walk out the door at any time and take a job with a rival company.

There's no indication that the risk of free labor prevents investment. Think of AI, the biggest investment bubble in human history. All the major AI companies are in jurisdictions where noncompetes are illegal. Anthropic – OpenAI's most serious competitor – was founded by a sister/brother team who quit senior roles at OpenAI and founded a direct competitor. No one can claim with a straight face that OpenAI is now unable to raise capital on favorable terms.

What's more, when OpenAI founder Sam Altman was forced out by his board, Microsoft offered to hire him – and 700 other OpenAI personnel – to found an OpenAI competitor. When Altman returned to the company, Microsoft invested more money in OpenAI, despite their intimate understanding that anyone could hire away the company's founder and all of its top technical staff at any time.

The idea that the departure of the Burger King trade secrets locked up in its workers' heads constitute more of a risk to the ability to operate a hamburger restaurant than the departure of the entire technical staff of OpenAI is obvious nonsense. Noncompetes aren't a way to make it possible to run a business – they're a way to make it easy to run a business, by eliminating competition and pushing the risk onto employees.

Because capitalists hate capitalism. And who can blame them? Who wouldn't prefer a life with less risk to one where you have to constantly look over your shoulder for competitors who've found a way to make a superior offer to your customers and workers?

This is why businesses are so excited about securing "IP" – that is, a government-backed right to control your workers, customers, competitors or critics:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The argument for every IP right expansion is the same: "Who would invest in creating something new without the assurance that someone else wouldn’t copy and improve on it and put them out of business?"

That was the argument raised five years ago, during the (mercifully brief) mania for genre writers seeking trademarks on common tropes. There was the romance writer who got a trademark on the word "cocky" in book titles:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17566276/cockygate-amazon-kindle-unlimited-algorithm-self-published-romance-novel-cabal

And the fantasy writer who wanted a trademark on "dragon slayer" in fantasy novel titles:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/06/14/son-of-cocky-a-writer-is-trying-to-trademark-dragon-slayer-for-fantasy-novels/

Who subsequently sought a trademark on any book cover featuring a person holding a weapon:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/07/19/trademark-troll-who-claims-to-own-dragon-slayer-now-wants-exclusive-rights-to-book-covers-where-someone-is-holding-a-weapon/

For these would-be rentiers, the logic was the same: "Why would I write a book about a dragon-slayer if I could lose readers to someone else who writes a book about dragon-slayers?"

In these cases, the USPTO denied or rescinded its trademarks. Profits triumphed over rents. But increasingly, rents are triumphing over profits, and rent-extraction is celebrated as "smart business," while profits are for suckers, only slightly preferable to "wages" (the worst way to get paid under both capitalism and feudalism).

That's what's behind all the talk about "passive income" – that's just a euphemism for "rent." It's what Douglas Rushkoff is referring to in Survival of the Richest when he talks about the wealthy wanting to "go meta":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Don't drive a cab – go meta and buy a medallion. Don't buy a medallion, go meta and found Uber. Don't found Uber, go meta and invest in Uber. Don't invest in Uber, go meta and buy options on Uber stock. Don't buy Uber stock options, go meta and buy derivatives of options on Uber stock.

"Going meta" means distancing yourself from capitalism – from income derived from profits, from competition, from risk – and cozying up to feudalism.

Capitalists have always hated capitalism. The owners of the dark Satanic mills wanted peasants turned off the land and converted into "free labor" – but they also kidnapped Napoleonic war-orphans and indentured them to ten-year terms of service, which was all you could get out of a child's body before it was ruined for further work:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

When Varoufakis says we've entered a new feudal age, he doesn't mean that we've abolished capitalism. He means that – for the first time in centuries – when rents go to war against profits – the rents almost always emerge victorious.

Here's the podcast episode:

https://craphound.com/news/2024/04/14/capitalists-hate-capitalism/

Here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the Internet Archive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_465_-_Capitalists_Hate_Capitalism.mp3

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podcast

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/18/in-extremis-veritas/#the-winnah

#pluralistic #technofeudalism #yanis varoufakis #rents #profits #economics #podcasts #locus magazine #mp3s

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starkeysprincess · 3 months ago

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personal trainer rafe who got the schedules mixed up and had booked you for an earlier session (because he wants to see you again ASAP) not realising he had another female client already booked at the same time.

Before the session you tell him to treat you both equally, but he just keeps favouring you for some reason— running across the room to spot you “just in case”, loitering around you unnecessarily, takes his water breaks when you do, compliments you/hypes you up but is professional with his other client, his eyes seek you out from the other side of the room etc etc.

You’re just his favourite and he’s not afraid to show it.

•°. *࿐ HIS FAVORITE

pairing: personal trainer!rafe x reader warnings: just fluff + you being rafe's favorite client word count: 433

personal trainer!rafe moodboard

a/n: ugh please, i LOVE this lil au i created sm <3

Rafe was so determined to see you as soon as he could that he accidentally booked you for the same time as one of his other clients. You knew accidents happen and were thankfully understanding, you even suggested rescheduling the session to ensure his other client was getting her money’s worth. Of course, Rafe declined because he’s been looking forward to seeing you, “You’re already here so there’s no need to reschedule, besides, I could work with both of you”.

As you worked out, Rafe was with his client, instructing her through her workout. On the other side, you were doing squats with the Smith machine. Rafe knew you wouldn’t need help because the machine didn’t require a spotter but he couldn’t help himself as he ran over to you.

He planted his hands on your waist, “Take it easy, I don’t want you to hurt yourself”.

“Rafe, I’m fine, you told me the other day this machine was great if you didn’t have a spotter, remember?” you reminded him, “I remember but I wanted to spot you just in case, you’re still fairly new to using this thing” he chuckled.

Throughout the session, he “coincidentally” took his water breaks when you did, walking over to where you were to grab his bottle. Even after your small break for water was over you’d go back to working out, he’d linger for a few minutes before going to his client.

When she would take a break, he loitered around watching you do the routine he’s shown you before. His hands occasionally touch your waist, fingers merely grazing the underside of your tits as he corrects your form and he praises you consistently, saying things such as, “There you go, good girl, you’re doing great”.

Towards the end of the session, he was back with his client, barely touching her and when he did, it was only a small brush against her shoulder to fix her posture, as he helped guide her. You could hear him from where you were across the room, “Good, just make sure your knees don’t go past your toes when you squat”.

He found himself consistently looking for your whereabouts, the corner of his lip turning upwards when his eyes would land on you. Rafe has always kept it professional with his clients and knew he should be doing the same with you but he couldn’t help it, you caught his attention the first day you met him. He should feel somewhat guilty for treating you differently but truth be told, he wasn’t ashamed, after all, you’re his favorite client.

tagging: @oceandriveab @babygorewhore @xxbimbobunnyxx @starkeyisthelastname @nemesyaaa @annoyingassleo @shawtycoreee @drewstarkeys-world @fae-of-prey @sturnioloshacker @heartsforvin @wearemadeofstardust0 @blckbrrybasket @honeybunniesoobin @spacexdrago @chimindity @spid6y @flvredcas @kisses4angel @rafecameroninterlude

#𝕞𝕪 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕜 ¸.*☆*.¸⁭#personal trainer!rafe #rafe cameron #rafe cameron fluff #rafe cameron blurb #rafe cameron drabble #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron outer banks #rafe cameron imagine #rafe fic #rafe x reader #rafe obx #rafe outer banks #rafe x you

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the-fiction-witch · 4 months ago

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Power Couple

Media - House Of The Dragon Character - Daemon Targaryen Couple - Daemon X Reader Reader - Princess Y/n (Daemons Wife) Rating - Smut Word Count - 2704

Anonymous asked:

More of matt smith characters fics plss🙏🏼🫶

Daemon woke very hungover to the sound of his bed chamber door being slammed shut, he groaned and slowly sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes. His head ached as he slowly opened his eyes with a frown on his face. "What do you want?" Daemon said, irritated as he looked up,

Y/n his long-suffering wife stood at the edge of his bed in her long black gown, her arms crossed and a firm look on her face, "I need to talk to you,"

Daemon groaned and ran a hand through his messy hair. He was already irritated at the fact that she dared to come to the bed chamber when he was nursing a hangover, "And what is it that you want to talk about, hm?" He said, the irritation evident in his voice already blocking her voice out in his mind,

But Y/n was far smarter than that, she could tell he’d already shut her voice out, but she knew how to force him to pay attention to her. So she moved the sheets away from his body, given his hangover he was far too slow to argue with her. She hitched up her dress and sat on his lap resting her hands on his loose shirt, "A raven came, from Kings Landing… from your brother."

Daemon's annoyance grew he was already irritated from last night's drinking. For a moment, he thought of pushing her off, but the mention of his brother made him pause. He was angry at his brother and wanted nothing to do with him. "What did my prick of a brother say?"

"He is requesting you to go to King's Landing, he has a new position to offer you, apparently. Raven didn't say what," she explained as she shifted on his lap grinding gently against his morning wood,

Daemon groaned in annoyance but didn't push her away. The irritation on his face slowly faded with the deliberate teasing and grinding. "A new position, huh? That prick..." He muttered under his breath. He reached out and grabbed her hips tightening their bodies, "And what do you suggest I do?" He asked, his voice less harsh. He was starting to pay attention to her, despite his attempts not to.

"I would suggest you make it an event" She shifted a little sitting up and unlacing his britches before she slowly let him slip inside her, "Go on Caraxes and make a show of it, for your brother and the lord's. Hear his offer and then come back here to think of over," she explained as she slowly shifted her hips to ride him,

With a faint gasp, Daemon's grip on her hips tightened, the irritation had almost disappeared, replaced by a mix of desire and frustration. "Make a show of it, hm..." Daemon muttered through gritting teeth, his eyes flickering between her face and the movement of her hips.

"I'm not saying accept it. You know it'll be awful, and it would mean staying in the red keep. But listen to his offer atleast"

His grip on her hips loosened a little, Daemon knew she was right, and he didn't want to admit it. But he could no longer deny the effect her presence had on him. "Mm..." He mumbled breathlessly, his eyes never leaving her face. "And what if... What if the offer is intriguing?"

"Even so come back here to dragonstone and think it over. I'd nothing else to keep him waiting " she explained gasping as she moved faster

A low moan escaped Daemon's lips as she picked up the pace, his fingers digging into her hips again. He was getting more and more lost in the pleasure of her movements. "You make a good point..." He panted, trying to maintain his demeanor despite the growing desire that was slowly taking over him. His eyes darkened with lust as he watched her closely, his breaths growing more ragged. "Keep going..." He whispered his voice almost a growl as he gave into the pleasure. His eyes were fixated on her face, watching her every expression as she continued to slowly ride him, causing him to let out another low moan. "We can talk more later..."

she nodded and moved faster as she was already close

Daemon's grip on her hips only tightened even more, helping her move faster on his lap. "Damnit, you're so eager for me today, aren't you?" He groaned softly, his eyes darkening with desire. His breaths grew ragged as he watched her closely, his heart racing and his body aching with need for her. He was trying to hold back his moans, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. He didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how much he was enjoying this, but he was quickly losing any semblance of control.

"Can you blame me... You've ignored me for three weeks"

Daemon was about to object and deny, but he couldn't. He could feel the weight of his neglect over the past weeks. "I've been... Busy, you know that." He said, his voice barely above a whisper as he struggled to form words through his ragged breaths. He was close too, his body tensing under her and he held her hips with almost bruising force.

"busy with your whores." She glared

Daemon winced at her glare, unable to deny the truth of her words. "I've... needed a distraction, you know that." He muttered, looking away from you for a brief moment. He didn't want to admit it, but he felt a pang of guilt in his chest. He knew it was wrong, but the guilt was quickly replaced by the growing pleasure of her movement on top of him.

"am I not distracting?" She asked moaning softly

Daemon's body tensed even more and he let out a deep guttural moan, "Ah... you're distracting enough to make me forget my name right now.” He panted, his grip on her hips still firm as he held her close, his breaths coming in short gasps and moans now.

she grabbed his neck and pulled him into a kiss as she moaned and reached her orgasm squeezing around him and trembling a little,

Daemon couldn't resist. He melted into the kiss, their mouths clashing together hungrily as his tongue entered her mouth. At the same time, the moment she reached her peak, he let out another deep moan against her lips, "Ah, damnit..." He groaned, his body tensing as he followed her over the edge, gripping her hips tightly and holding her tightly against him.

As the pleasure began to subside, a heavy silence blanketed the room. The only sounds were their ragged breaths as they slowly came back to their senses. Daemon didn't want to let her go, despite his irritation earlier. He tightened his grip on her hips pulling her to his chest, His eyes searched her face, his expression a mix of desire and guilt. There was a long pause before he spoke, his voice hoarse and low. "I've been a damned fool, haven't I?"

"yes... You have... But... Still… your brother" she gasped,

Daemon sighed, looking away and breaking the intense eye contact for a moment. He slowly loosened his grip on her hips, his fingers tracing small circles on them as he reluctantly shifted back into his usual irritated persona."Fine..." He muttered, his voice taking on that familiar tinge of irritation. "I'll go to King's Landing... and I will listen to my prick of a brother's words."

"thank you," she nodded between gasps "I'll have the maester send a raven that you're coming," she said climbing off and lying on the bed,

Daemon let out a soft hiss, feeling the absence of her warmth and body against him. Despite his usual stoicism, he couldn't help the slight pang of disappointment. "Mm..." He mumbled, letting out a soft sigh as he shifted back on the bed and lay next to her. Daemon was quiet for a moment before he spoke again, his voice quieter than before. "I'll be back as soon as possible..."

"... Will you be taking your lady friend?" She asked her tone pointed

Daemon froze at her question, his body tensing. He knew he had it coming and he couldn't blame her for being jealous, but he still felt his usual irritation creeping up within him. "Don't start." He said, his voice low and sharp. "No, I won't be taking her. She means nothing to me, you know that." He said, his words almost harsh as he tried to brush off the implication behind her question.

She hummed staring at the ceiling,

The silence in the room was thick and uncomfortable. It was clear that neither of them were in the best of moods. Daemon was still lying next to her, his body tense and his gaze fixed on the ceiling. The irritation was still visible, but there was also a hint of tiredness in his expression. Eventually, he spoke again, his voice softer this time. "You know it's just meaningless carnal pleasure, right? I don't care for her the way I care for you."

"I wasn't aware you cared for me?" her tone as sharp as a knife,

That was a direct hit and Daemon flinched slightly at her words. He could sense the hurt behind her voice and knew he had it coming. He stayed quiet for a moment, refusing to look at her still. When he spoke again, his voice was less harsh, almost tired. "I... I do care for you, dammit." He muttered, his fingers clenching the sheets beneath him.

"shouldn't her wife be for your carnal pleasure?"

Daemon let out a frustrated sigh, his jaw clenching again as he turned to look at her, "You don't understand it, do you? You're my wife by name, but we both know this marriage was arranged. You're a different kind of woman, and I have different needs-" His voice trailed off, his gaze locking with hers, his eyes trying to convey the truth behind his words, his own inner struggle clear in his expression.

"such as?"

Daemon clenched his jaw again, hesitating before answering. He could see the hurt in her eyes and it only made him more frustrated with himself. But he spoke truthfully, his voice thick with a hint of guilt. "You're not the kind of woman I need. You're sweet, kind, fragile. And I... need more..." He paused, unable to keep eye contact. He looked away for a moment before glancing back at you, his gaze hardening. "You're not strong, you're not fiery, you're not the kind of woman who can handle me."

"... Which one of us just walked in and took the other without even asking?"

Daemon froze as she threw back at him. He had no defense, because deep down, he knew she was right. He couldn't deny it, but he desperately tried to keep up his irritable act. "That's... different," he muttered through clenched teeth,

"is it?" She chuckled "Daemon I am your wife... Whatever you want I will do. You know that I've never kept that a secret... And oddly enough I am sick of being sneared at. People talk at court... That you so rarely share my bed, make no secret of your whores, don't you think that's humiliating for me?"

Daemon was silent for a moment, his jaw clenched and his mind working through her words. He knew she was right, and he hated himself for it. He hadn't really considered how his actions would affect her, how the court would talk behind her back. And to think he had never bothered to ask … "I... didn't..." He muttered weakly, unsure how to respond.

"you know I am willing to do whatever it is you ask of me ... There should only be two possible desires you can have that I would not be able for forfill for you. Both involve putting a sword in your hand...And both of those I would assist as much as I could." She said before sitting up getting off the bed to straighten her dress "... Next time call for your wife. Not your whore.

Daemon watched, A mix of emotions flashed across his face as he listened to her words; frustration and guilt mixed with something else that he couldn't quite identify. He sat up on the bed, running a hand through his messy hair again. "You know it's not that simple," he muttered, his voice still low but less sharp.

"why not? Tell me why it isn't?" She asked

Daemon let out a frustrated sigh, frustrated at himself for getting himself in this situation and at her unrelenting questions. "You're not the kind of woman I need," he repeated, "You're fragile, delicate, soft. I need a woman with fire and passion, who can keep up with me and my needs-"

she slapped him across the cheek "Do not pretend you have any idea what kind of woman I am anymore"

Daemon's eyes widened in shock. He was caught completely off guard, not expecting such a strong reaction, He remained silent for a moment, his cheek stinging from the impact. He had never expected her to actually hit him, and it sent a mix of anger and guilt coursing through his body. Slowly, he rubbed his face a mixture of annoyance and guilt flickering in his expression."What was that for..." There was a hint of disbelief in his voice,

"we have been married for ten years. I am not the frightened shivering little maiden I was when I was dragged through King Landing to be your bride. Who cried her whole wedding night from fear. Who screamed and punched walls till my fingers broke when I failed to keep our son inside me…. I am not that woman anymore..."

Daemon's face softened and he was struck silent. His heart clenched with guilt, He looked up at her, his gaze meeting hers and his voice low and quiet. "I... hadn't realized."

"no, you haven't. Because you don't ask."

Daemon's face twisted into a look of guilt and regret as she spoke, her words piercing straight through him. He realized the truth in her words and the weight of his failure to truly know you hit him hard. She was right, he hadn't asked, he hadn't paid attention to the changes in her, the strength she had gained. He looked away for a moment, unable to meet her gaze, his jaw clenching. His voice was quiet, almost apologetic when he spoke again. "I should have asked."

"you should. But don't bother to dwell or cant be changed. So just... Do better from now on" she glared before she went to leave

Daemon watched in silence, his expression a mix of guilt and remorse. He knew he had messed up, and the realization hit him hard. "Wait." He said, his voice still low but with a hint of desperation. He got off the bed and walked over to her grabbing her arm gently,

she sighed turning back to him "Yes Daemon?"

Daemon looked at her, his gaze holding a mix of guilt and sincerity. "I... I want to be better," he said slowly, his words taking some hesitation. "I want to pay more attention to you, to learn about you again. I've been a damn fool, and I want to make it right."

"... Thank you, but actions speak louder then words"

Daemon nodded in agreement, recognizing that his words wouldn't be enough to make up for his failure as a husband. "You're right," he admitted, his voice still sounding a bit guilty and remorseful. He paused for a moment before continuing, his grip on her arm still gentle yet firm. "I'll prove it to you. I promise."

“I… will choose to trust you.” She nodded,

Suddenly an idea came to Daemon’s mind, “Come with me,”

“What?”

“To Kings Landing with me,” He said, “pack your most seductive and beautiful dress, and ride on Caraxes with me, We will make a show of our arrival together. As prince and princess of Dragonstone. Silence their rumours and talk. Be seen as Dragons, of true Targaryen Power…Together.” He offered bringing her hand to his lips and giving her knuckles a gentle kiss,

“You mean this?”

“I can think of no better show of power, than having my wife by my side,”

“A power couple,” she chuckled,

“A power couple, So? Will you come with me, my sweet wife?”

“...Alright,” She agreed, “But I’m picking our clothes.”

“Deal.” He chuckled,

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tathrin · 6 months ago

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The next story I am Definitely Not Writing: a fic where Legolas and Gimli make it all the way to the Undying Lands before they realize that in addition to loving each other more than anything else in all of Arda, they are also in love with one another (this is less a realization on their part and more an assumption that just about everyone else in Aman makes on sight, and eventually they hear about it and go oh...dang...maybe...? and Legolas's mom facepalms forever) and hey what if they got married, then...?

Only the thing is, while an elvish marriage is very simple and requires literally nothing but the folks involved deciding to do it (and no, Thranduil is not allowed to demand that Gimli fetch some priceless jewel from the Fëanorian section of Tirion in order to prove himself worthy of Legolas's hand, although he tried very very hard to convince everyone that it was a great idea) a dwarven marriage is an elaborate ceremony, requiring the participation of both a dwarven officiant and several members of one's kin to perform the various elements of the ceremony.

...all of which are in short supply in this land of elves and valar.

Except. well. there aren't any other dwarves in Aman...but what there is, is the guy who made the dwarves. And he is VERY fond of Gimli. So when he learns that Gimli is kind of moping about the fact that he can't marry Legolas in dwarven-fashion, Aulë ENTHUSIASTICALLY volunteers to be the officiant and to set everything up and arrange just the BEST DWARVEN WEDDING EVER...

Because, you know. he's never actually been to one?

Gimli is stricken with horrified shock to realize just how much his own Maker has missed out on interactions with his beloved dwarves over the years, and immediately agrees to this plan (even though he knows it won't be a real dwarven wedding without his family there; but he'll swim back to Middle-earth before he says one word about that anywhere that Mahal can hear! he is going to do everything in his power to make this the best wedding ever for the sake of his Maker, dammit!).

So he gets to work crafting all the necessary accoutrements (with enthusiastic help from Celebrimbor and all his other elf-smith friends that Gimli has acquired since coming to these shores which is, let's be honest, quite a few) and carefully teaching Legolas all the necessary Khuzdul phrases and ceremonial steps that they can do to mimic as much of a proper wedding as they can without anyone else to help...

And when the big day comes, Aulë is vibrating so hard he's on the verge of setting off seventeen different earthquakes across the island, and not even Yavanna can get him to relax. Gimli and Legolas arrive to the appointed place, and find that they aren't alone: Aulë has invited Celebrimbor, too, seeing as he's the only elf in Aman who has actually participated in a dwarven wedding before with makes him the local expert as well as the closest thing to "kin" that Gimli is going to find on these shores...except.

Well, Mandos might be in charge of elvish souls, but dwarves? They belong to their Maker. And if Mahal decides he wants to...well, who is going to stop him from waking some of them up early, before the breaking of the world? Especially if he doesn't ask permission first. So when Gimli and Legolas hesitantly walk into this foreboding stone chamber, eerily close to the Halls of Mandos, wondering wtf is going on and have they offended the valar somehow and are they in trouble and if so how bad is it...?

Well, turns out Gimli will have kin at his wedding after all.

Mahal can't bring any of them back to life, not without the intervention and permission of Eru and probably Mandos too; but as long as they're in his halls, he can wake anybody he wants. So soon there is a great crowd of bewildered but enthusiastic dwarves gathered around Gimli, as he tries to explain what the heck is going on to a whole passel of relatives and friends, some of whom died even before the Lonely Mountain was reclaimed and don't even know how the Battle of Five Armies ended, let alone the whole thing with the Ring and the Fellowship...

And Legolas and Celebrimbor are standing near the entrance watching fondly, Legolas weeping around a great big smile and Celebrimbor torn between joy for Gimli and his own ever-bitter sorrows and then...

"Khelebrrimbor?" calls a deep dwarven voice, in a thick Khuzdul accent, and Celebrimbor stiffens like he's just been shot.

Suddenly there's a ruckus as a very burly dwarf is shouldering through the crowd, and Celebrimbor stumbles forward and throws himself at Narvi with a wail, and it's at least ten minutes before anyone can get a coherent word out of either of them (although it takes considerably less time to catch the gist of Narvi's lecture about how dare you and lucky he's already dead, or I'd have a gift for him he wouldn't forget in a hurry and what were you thinking???).

Legolas gives Aulë a very pointed raise of his eyebrows, and Aulë shrugs around an unabashed grin. "Who in all the ages of the world is more of an expert on marriages between elves and dwarves than the two of them? I am a craftsman, Greenleaf; of course I would want to make use of their skills and experience in this endeavor. Nothing more to it than that."

Legolas hums noncommittally, but his eyes are dancing.

Mahal ignores him and steps forward to start the wedding. It takes even him three tries before he can shout loud enough to be heard over the tumult and get everyone's attention, but eventually he gets them all to quiet down enough for the ceremony to begin. Not everyone in attendance is entirely thrilled by the prospect of Gimli marrying an elf (that elf) but no one is so cross that they walk back into their dreams of stone to avoid it, which Gimli chalks up as a victory.

(Legolas's terrible Khuzdul pronunciation doesn't help, but the very enthusiastic way he praises Gimli when the ceremony reaches that point makes up for a lot. By the time he finally runs out of words, a few of the more recalcitrant attendees have changed their tune about him. The fact that he's so good at weaving the required braids doesn't hurt, either.)

There aren't nearly enough refreshments for a crowd that size afterwards, of course, since Gimli and Legolas weren't expecting anyone but themselves and Aulë to be there; but that doesn't much matter, because 90% of those in attendance don't have the sort of corporealness that would allow them to eat the dwarven delicacies that Gimli spent all morning fussing over anyway. (That doesn't stop some of his more elderly relatives from scolding him for not following their recipes better.) They're solid enough that you can hug them or kiss them, in the case of a certain former smithlord of Eregion or get half-knocked off your feet by their congratulatory backslaps, but they aren't alive. They're still the dreaming dead...it's just that for the moment, they're dreaming in a bit more wakefulness than usual.

In the end it's not what one would call an orthodox dwarven wedding, no; but it's a lot closer than Gimli thought he would get, and since he's hardly an orthodox dwarf, the small tweaks and oddities of their strange situation don't bother him in the slightest.

As for Aulë, he's never been happier.

And if it takes a long, long time for Celebrimbor to finally leave (and if he tries to devise a way to prop the door open on his way out)...well, Aulë is enjoying himself far too much to do anything but pretend not to notice. Even when Námo clears his throat at him very pointedly.

Twice.

And then again. And again.

"Aulë...!"

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tansyuduri · 5 months ago

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Art for Chapter 11 of Our Stars Still Shine Together by @kairennart

Merlin’s hands trembled slightly as he knelt and placed the egg on a stone in the same field where he had hatched Aithusa so long ago. Though Kilgharrah and Aithusa were no longer around it seemed a fitting place to hatch the dragon egg. He had to admire its beauty, the way blue and white blended together all over the egg’s shell.

He was, as ever, in awe of it. And of what it meant. That there might be dragon eggs out there he somehow had not found. That there was hope for the species.

Merlin looked around him. Meeting the eyes of each of the knights, of his sorcerers, of the smith and of his king. The last time he hatched a dragon he had been alone, apart from Kilgharrah, and desperate to keep everything secret. Now he was surrounded by people who knew the truth of his magic. And of what this meant to him.

Merlin could not help but smile as he looked down on the egg. This time it would go better for the dragon, so much better… Merlin intended to make sure of that.

The greatest warlock that ever lived shut his eyes and breathed out. His dragonlord power reached for the life inside the egg channeling it and letting the name bloom in Merlin’s mind like a fierce but comforting fire. The word left his mouth in a deep whisper.

“Euthymos.” The knowledge of what it meant also filled his mind this time. Kindness.

He opened his eyes, lips slightly parted as he heard the cracking of a shell and the low warble of a baby dragon. A head poked through a crack made in the egg, dark as night. Merlin could feel tears form in his eyes as the black colored dragon continued to break from the shell.

It was tiny, perfectly formed. And so, so beautiful. Merlin started to laugh lightly as its orange eyes found his own. As the baby dragon spread its tiny wings. Merlin reached for Arthur who joined him in a few long strides.

“His name is Euthymos…. Look at him.” Merlin moved forward and stroked the baby dragon with a hand. Then he pulled Arthur's hand to the dragon as well. He could see Arthur blinking away tears. There was something about the birth of a dragon that could do that to anyone.

The baby flapped its wings a few times and let out a pleased warble at the pets it was receiving before taking flight to test its new wings. Merlin looked up as it circled around the clearing once before coming back to land on its stone. He watched the flight in awe.

“It’s so..” Arthur trailed off, also looking at the baby dragon. “Euthymos.” He repeated the name. Merlin watched the dragon’s head swivel in Arthur’s direction.

“Euthymos.” Merlin confirmed. The dragon looked between the two men speaking his name and let out another warble as if agreeing.

Merlin couldn’t help it, he put his hands to his head laughing happily. Dragons were back!

(Read it Here)

#merthur #merthur fanfic #merthur fanficion #bbc merlin #merlin fanfic #merlin fanfiction #bbc merlin fanfic #bbc merlin fanfiction #merlin fanart #bbc merlin fanart #my fanfiction #intoducing euythmos #they dragon daddies now

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foreverisntenough · 2 months ago

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‘Act II’

Summary: Attraction is like a gravitational pull that is undefinable and unavoidable. Unbeknownst to you, Jude had been keeping an eye on you since he caught a glimpse on his best friend’s girlfriend’s Instagram but he’s been loving his single life. You always were independent and know how to swim on your own but maybe you have been just treading water. Could the tides change on a holiday in Greece when you finally meet? It might get a little rocky but maybe you could be his paradise.

Index

Warnings: This series is 18+ MDNI

Note: Thank you for reading! Please be sure to like, comment, or message me what you think of the series! ‘Act II’ is interconnected to the 'You’re Mine' and 'Ours' Series but can read it independently.

Chapter 1 - Round Two | ‘Act II’

word count - 10 k

“Erm... yeah, that’s a bit of me. Big follow.” You giggled, plucking the phone out of your friend Whitney’s hand admiring an abnormally pretty boy she was showing you on the screen.

“Right?” She laughed with you spreading her two fingers on the screen to zoom in on the boy’s perfect physique. Whitney’s dad spent every day he could watching football. It was on in their house twenty four hours a day. He was an awesome dad to two girls you called your best friends but you always sensed that it pained him he couldn’t have had a son to give it a go in an international football league. He could care less about the American MLS teams but that’s a story for another time. Previously, you really hadn’t cared about your best friend’s fathers interest in the sport. Your own family was into footie, your brother, your dad, but again, you didn’t really buy in. That said, if someone asked you on the street who you supported, you’d have an answer, you knew the high level things going on in the world of football.

“Like okkkay besties! I’m into this.” You cheekily cooed. Your disinterest suddenly became a big interest when Whitney showed you a photo of two boys that played for the England international team. One was cute... pretty, in fact. You’d say he gave off a sort of a more demure vibe in comparison. Whitney was hooked; her dad was an avid Liverpool supporter and by turn Whitney was. Apparently her dad pointed Trent Alexander-Arnold out to her during a regular season match earlier. The other boy in said photo, well, that was a bit of you.

“They’re so pretty.” Whitney sighed, taking a longer look at Trent’s face. “Hello. Earth to Y/N.” She called for you after your eyes began to glaze over wishing your thumb hovering over his happy trail was able to actually feel the muscular abs you’d been actually drooling over beneath it.

“Sorry but he’s so hot.” You laughed with a shake of the head trying to snap out of your lustful haze. Whitney hadn’t even said their names but frankly, you didn’t care. You just might support England in this tournament. Your brother and dad would kill you but you’d do it for a man that looked like this. You were French, that would arguably be seen as treason in your household but he was so good looking they’d have to understand. Your dad would tell you you were French the same way Whitney’s dad would tell her she was British. You both were not born in your respective native lands but your dads were from, you had dual citizenships but no accents. That said, you did speak the language. Your family had actually lived in Paris for a few years before you went to university and met Whitney.

“I know I figured I’d share.” Whitney smiled at you with a bob of the head happy with her recent Instagram follow as she grabbed her phone back from you.

“Thank you Mr. Smith. Who knew he had such good taste in men.” You teased taking her phone back once more to actually look at the instagram handle above the photo that had you in such a trance. ‘Jude Bellingham’ you read the name in your head in a silly British accent that probably wasn’t all that accurate. You didn’t know a thing about him. You hadn’t heard either of the boys even speak but he just gave off such British vibes and it made you laugh a little.

“Man of many talents, l suppose.” Whitney snatched her phone back and went back to Trent’s Instagram, scrolling through photos she’d seen at least a hundred times by now but she wanted to see them one hundred more.

Flash forward a couple years, a lot of drinks, a blossomed relationship for Whitney, and unfortunately a few more tears than you would’ve hoped later and you found yourself in a Greecian club on a holiday with the two English footballers and their friends. How? You wondered the same thing but Whitney seemed to have fate on her side. Although, she didn’t seem to want to share any because a night ago you could have used some when you fucked her now boyfriend, Trent’s brother, so it didn’t really come as welcomed news when you found out the lustful torch you carried for your instagram crush, Jude, was in front of you in real life now burning. It had been a long couple of hours navigating the waters of two men in a confined space.

“I like this…” Jude cooed, slipping his fingers under the strap of your red dress. “Would look better on my floor though.” He whispered a line you’d heard too many times in your ear despite the loud thump of the bass in the club. It should’ve put you off. It should’ve been an eye roll moment except it wasn’t. There was something about the way he spoke to you, the way he looked at you, the way he touched you. All night he had you in a trance. It made you feel attended to in the least cheesy and cliche way. You’d flirted earlier in the evening when you’d been introduced after dinner but you were proper close now and the game had begun. You were not an easy lay… well it depended on the day and how bad you wanted to have sex. Regardless, you liked the game with boys. It was fun. You knew you were attractive and you knew that came with many perks like lines of men interested in you and the only way to make it slightly more entertaining and fun and maybe sift out the trash, although some always managed to seep through, you’d test them. Play games, flirt mercilessly and then leave high and dry, you’d make them buy your drinks while you played with their hearts and their hands dragging them up and down your figure.

“You can’t put a dress like this on the floor, Jude.” You quipped back, placing your hand over his and guiding it down your body and the sheer beaded fishnet fabric. It was a gorgeous Roberta Einer mini dress that you’d been itching to wear somewhere but the way the lights were reflecting off it now and your newly tanned skin barely hidden under it, you knew tonight was the perfect debut for it.

“Alright, I’ll hang it up just for you.” He gently whispered into your ear. He wasn’t offering to do you some sort of grand favor but the way he said it made it sound like you were meant to be grateful and you didn’t like that he had made such a subtle move to take the upper hand. So you cut the line.

“Okay, thank you.” You brushed him off with a short smile as if he had handed you a coffee over a counter.

“No problem. As long as it’s still coming off.” Jude was persistent though. He was sweet and smooth. His scent was encircling you and keeping you hostage. His woody musk built walls around you, caging you in. His big soft hands on your exposed skin acting as shackles. You were trapped.

“We shouldn’t.” You muttered haphazardly as he ducked his face to be in front of yours. He gently guided you to step back against a wall in a corridor of the club. You thought you’d get some air and free yourself from the thick tension being near Jude but he followed you. You two were like magnets. There was something there and you weren’t sure why it felt a little more dangerous than just lust. He placed his massive hand on your waist, squeezing you just a little before letting his hand drop down to your hip.

“But we could.” He cooed with the cheekiest smile you might have ever seen in your life and arguably the prettiest too. You couldn’t stop the giggle from escaping your lips. You hated that he had you like this. He moved closer and dragged his lips down your neck, kiss after kiss, running his tongue along your warm skin. It was like he was a live wire jump starting your whole system. The tension was palpable and you wanted more of it but not that easily, of course. You knew who Jude was. You were shown his instagram obviously by Whitney and if the millions of Instagram followers weren’t enough of an indicator it was his insistent presence in the media. A ad campaign, a dramatized story in the Daily Mail, a shirtless instagram post, you would’ve loved to say you did notice it all but you were very aware and embarrassingly you welcomed his ever presence on your phone when you were miles apart. Right now though you weren’t sure there was even a centimeter separating you. Despite knowing what you knew, you were not going to be complacent to the great Jude Bellingham. Tonight was meant to be a level playing field.

“Your first night out?” You questioned him. Honestly, the only reason you were asking this is because Whitney had made a point before you’d even left for this holiday that you not ruin it all making a rash hook up night one… except you already had. You slept with her boyfriend’s brother which in both his and your defense was good sex. It was fun, rough, drunk, orgasmic and unattached just the way you liked it. He wasn’t exactly off the table though in your mind. He was cute, you had control of the situation and his room was next to yours at the villa you were staying in. Like you said, it was good sex. Although you weren’t going to say no if Jude pushed and you hoped he did but you weren’t exactly closing off other options either. You were on holiday. No one would get hurt, they were twenty some year old men in Greece, you couldn’t imagine commitment was on anyone’s minds. You didn’t kiss Jude in the corridor even though it was the only thought populating in your mind. Jude hated that your game of teasing drew him in more. He liked to be in charge. He liked to run the show and he knew he was losing ground when you moved past him to get back to the ropped off private area in the club with everyone else. Jude was slick as you made your way back and moved quickly in front of you to sit down first. He pulled you down to sit on his lap and you faked an eye roll as if Jude’s persistence was unwelcomed but it was anything but. As the night rolled on you got drunker and his touches got more courageous. In the dim light of the nightclub, the bass thrummed like a heartbeat in the air, creating a pulsing rhythm that matched the intoxicating sway of the crowd. The atmosphere was thick with a heady mix of laughter, music, and the sweet scent of bottles and bottles of Don Julio 1942. You stayed settled on his lap, warmth enveloped you, igniting a spark that sent shivers down your spine. His strong hands rested gently on your hips, grounding you while the world around you blurred into a swirling tapestry of colors. With each sip of your drink, the world grew more vivid, the laughter more melodic, and the closeness between you more electric. Your heart raced, not just from the alcohol but from the magnetic pull of his gaze.

“Just want to pull this right up and…” He leaned in closer, his breath a tantalizing whisper against your ear, sending tiny jolts of excitement through you. The rich timbre of his voice wrapped around you like velvet, drawing you deeper into this intoxicating moment, letting his hand on your thigh go higher and higher pulling the hem of your dress with it. His pinky finger able to ghost over your panty clad pussy.

“Stop…” You giggled, meaning exactly the opposite, grabbing his hand to halt any further movement. This was a dangerous game. You were both on the verge of blacking out. As the night wore on, the music wrapped you both in its seductive embrace, and every glance he stole felt like a secret promise. You found yourself laughing freely, each sound mingling with the pulsating rhythm, feeling utterly alive under the spell of his charm. The lights danced across Jude’s features, enhancing the sharp lines of his jaw and the smirk that hinted at playful mischief. The more you drank, the more you adored him—the way he held you, the way he listened with rapt attention, as if you were the only person in the room. You could feel the warmth of connection building like the crescendo of a song, enveloping you in a cocoon of desire and vulnerability. The laughter faded into a soft hum, and in that moment, you knew you were falling—not just into drunken bliss but into something deeper, something intoxicatingly real. Time slipped away, lost in the rhythm of the night, and as you rested your head against his shoulder, a tender smile graced your lips. Similarly a boyish, lopsided grin plastered to his face. A darkness flooded your mind. You. blacked. out. You thought you had a pretty okay tolerance but maybe your stature didn’t exactly match the 6’2 man you were trying to keep up with shot for shot. 42 was starting to taste like water and you were pretty sure no one had an accent anymore.

You had a blurry memory of his lips brushing against yours, gentle yet urgent, igniting a fire that danced within you. As the vibrant strobe lights cast fleeting shadows across his face, you felt a magnetic pull, drawing you closer into a world that existed solely for the two of you. Each brush of his lips sent shivers racing through your body, igniting every nerve ending in a delicious wave of ecstasy. The heat of his body pressed against you, a tantalizing reminder of the summer night outside, while his hands tangled in your hair and traced the curve of your back, urging you deeper into his embrace. The music swelled around you, a backdrop of heavy bass that mirrored the pounding of your heart, creating a bubble of exhilaration and desire. Time seemed to dissolve as the world outside faded, leaving only the taste of his kiss—sweet and intoxicating, mingling with the warm summer air that danced around you. Your bodies moved in sync, a rhythm as intoxicating as the melody that surrounded you. With each kiss, the world blurred into soft hues of color, a vivid painting of passion and spontaneity. The tender urgency of your connection deepened, exploring uncharted territories as hands explored, pulling each other closer, savoring the moment as if time itself stood still. It was a wild, breathless escape, filled with promises whispered between breaths, where the pulse of the music became the heartbeat of your desires, leaving you both breathless, alive, and utterly entwined.

The morning light peeked through the curtains, casting a soft, golden glow across the disheveled bed. You stirred, feeling the weight of a night filled with laughter and passion settle heavily on your limbs. A dull throb pulsed in your temples, each beat a reminder of the revelry that had unfolded the night before. As your eyes fluttered open, they fell upon the figure beside you… Jude. His chiseled silhouette half-hidden beneath rumpled sheets, radiating an effortless charm even in the quiet aftermath of the night. The scent of his skin lingered in the air, a rich, intoxicating mix of cologne and the faint hint of warmth from your shared adventures. As you attempted to piece together the fragments of last night, the tableau before you sent a rush of sensations coursing through you. There he was, tangled in the sheets, sunkissed skin glistening slightly in the morning light, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips. You could have sworn he looked like a work of art, perfectly imperfect in a way that made your heart flutter unexpectedly.

“I have to get to my room.” You whispered to Jude with a pounding headache, not entirely sure what happened but you were sore and naked so you had a good idea. Your heart was racing praying to see some remnant or clue that protection was used. The world around you felt hazy, your thoughts muddled from too much tequila and laughter, yet the sight of him brought warmth and a flicker of exhilaration to your chest. You shifted slightly, the crisp sheets whispering against your skin, and he stirred, his eyes fluttering open to meet yours—a lazy, sultry gaze that ignited memories of stolen kisses and whispered secrets shared in low-lit corners of the nightclub.

“Good morning to you to." He laughed tiredly. "What’d you say?” His voice was low and smooth, like velvet draping over your senses, both teasing and inviting. A smile crept across his lips, illuminating his features and crinkling the corners of his eyes in a way that made your heart race. You couldn’t help but mirror his expression, feeling the pull of a connection that thrummed between you, more potent than the remnants of your hangover.

“I said, I have to get to my room.” You smiled as you tentatively lifted your hand to brush a loose strand of hair from your face, the soft rustle of sheets surrounded you both, creating a cocoon of intimacy that felt deliciously intoxicating. There was an unspoken understanding in the air, an acknowledgment of last night's escapades, layered with the thrill of unexpected mornings. In that moment, the world outside faded away, leaving just the two of you wrapped in warmth and longing, a beautiful aftermath that felt fleeting yet infinitely precious.

“Why…” Jude groaned, letting his eyes close again. With every heartbeat, it became clear: the night had woven your lives together, if only for an ephemeral moment. And though uncertainty lingered like a sweet aftertaste, the promise of the unknown shimmered in the air.

“Everyone can’t know I slept in here.” You whispered again with some urgency. Image was important to you. Sleep with whoever you want, absolutely. Let people know that? Absolutely not.

“Whyyy…” Jude kept on his childish theatrics with another groan. He outstretched his arm and draped it around your waist as insurance you wouldn’t leave. This was not a rare indulgence for you but it would cling to you like the sheets twisted around your body currently were, all day if you didn’t get out of there. The lavish villa room was stunning and an opulent blend of modern luxury and understated, but it did little to distract from Jude. His hair messy in a way he’d hate yet it formed a careless halo on the pillow beneath him.

“I’ll see you later.” You giggled pulling down the sheet and slapping his ass trying to make light of you not being able to remember anything and remind him you were waking up naked in case he didn’t either. You moved in a way that was calculated after that, you’d done this before. You have a good night, a great night in fact, great sex, although usually you prefer to remember a semblance of it… god damnit where is a condom wrapper… literally anything! But you’d done this before and you knew you had to move quickly as if your very presence in Jude’s room might unravel the meticulously crafted image you’d built. The mesh of your mini dress, now crumpled on the foot of the bed, tells the story of a night you could barely recall. You did recall Jude saying he’d hang the dress up but that went out the window and evidently so did your morality when it came to safe sex. It was a night you both dreaded and longed to remember.

“Ow fuck, Y/N.” Jude complained reaching lazily to pull the covers back up to cover himself. You laughed a little at his poor morning attitude but got distracted when you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. It reflected a woman who was both powerful and vulnerable, your usual poise slightly fractured. You couldn’t even attempt to restore any dignity to your appearance. This was simply the job for a real shower.

“I’m sorry, did that hurt?” You mocked him a little, coming and kissing near Jude’s ear softly with a hum.

“Yeah, fuck.” He complained, burying his face in a pillow.

“Aw, I’ll remember that when I’m laying concealer over your bite marks before breakfast.” You teased running your hand over a bruise you could clearly make out on your collarbone. There was no use trying to restore your usual pristine facade. There’s no hiding the telltale signs: the smudged mascara around your eyes, the bruised lips, the scent of him lingering on your skin. “It was good though.” You sympathetically smiled at him. You felt bad. Why did you suddenly feel a tinge of guilt and softness towards him? No idea. You weren’t sure. You snapped your eyes off him to hopefully help break the emotions you were starting to feel.

“Yeah? What you had wanted?” Jude opened his eyes again and smiled sleepily at you. You glanced back at his chiseled features softened in the haze of his tiredness. A part of you felt so drawn to him. So you took a seat on the side of the bed running your hands over his warm skin.

“Erm… don’t know, I might need one more go just to make sure it was as good as I remember.” You lied. Why did you lie? You weren’t sure. What had this boy done to you? You were having a hell of a hangover and you were starting to wonder if the tequila from last night somehow disregulated or fucked with the limbic system in your brain.

“Mmmm C’mere.” Jude pulled you down into a kiss and you let him. It was warm, soft, slow, and sleepy and yet it had you trying not to moan into his mouth it was turning you on so much.

“I have to go.” You sympathetically pulled away with an apologetic smile.

“Yeah but you’ve got me hard now.” Jude flashed you a conniving grin hoping that his pretty face could convince you to stay. It almost worked. Unfortunately his face didn’t outweigh your fear of being caught out. Two men in three or so days wasn’t a fact you’d be broadcasting but you weren’t exactly complaining either.

“That sounds like a you problem.” You gave him an annoyingly cheeky grin. Jude was upset that he still managed to find it cute despite him being painfully hard now. He sighed and grabbed your arm before you could get far. You looked at him innocently not sure what he needed because you weren’t going to stay. He kissed your knuckles and then rolled over in the bed. That was it. You weren’t sure what to make of it so you just smiled with a hum stepping away, leaving behind a world of temptation and chaos as you quietly gathered the remnants of your dignity and fragments of your outfit from last night. You grabbed Jude’s shirt of the floor and pulled it over you. You weren’t about to put back on your dress from last night. You were missing an earring as well but you’d find it later. It wasn’t a proud moment as you slipped out the door cautiously and tiptoed to your bedroom, heels in hand, your bare feet peeling off the marble floors of the villa, wincing at the noise with every step, terrified someone might see you. You went to the en suite of your room and took off his shirt. You looked at it and smiled until you caught yourself in the mirror smiling like an idiot at it. There was a slight smudge of your lipstick color on the collar. It smelt like him and you just wanted to put it back on and go to bed but instead you turned on the shower. In a state of delusion and a hangover haze you held the shirt in your hand and cheekily took a nude in the mirror sending it to Jude.

‘To help with your problem. xx’

Jude threw his head back on his pillow with another groan as he opened the message. He sorted himself out after that thanks to your photos assistance and memories of last night before he went back to sleep. You smiled when you saw he responded after your shower… until you read it.

‘You’re unreal, angel. Liked it better when I was cumming inside you though and not just to the thought of you. Maybe later? xx.’

“Oh my god!” You gasped out loud dropping your phone. It fell on your toe and you thought you were going to cry. It hurt so bad. You grabbed your phone and wrapped your towel around you a bit tighter and ran to your bed and fell face first. “I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid.” You repeated over and over again. You were haunted by the memory of last night you couldn’t remember, and the man down the hall, clinging to you like a whisper you couldn’t quite shake, a reminder that even the most perfect facades have cracks.

“I need to talk to you immediately.” You hushly but harshly whispered to Whitney in the kitchen later that morning gripping her arm so tight she might have a bruise later. She was sitting on Trent’s lap who gave you a curious yet concerned face. You just smiled and yanked Whitney off him pulling her all the way down the hall to your room. “Look at me…” You snapped peeling your shirt off to reveal the remnants of your night with Jude. Her eyes went wide and a cheeky grin began to pull on her face.

“Can you give me a little more context because I need to know if I should be applauding someone’s handiwork or if something happened because you look like someone attacked you.” Whitney kept her smile knowing it wasn’t the later.

“Whit… I don’t even remember it and I think he does. I lied and said I did and then I was a fucking idiot and sent him a nude this morning because I apparently willingly opt for chaos and he jerked off to it and said he…” You picked your arms up to air quote. “‘Liked it better when he was cumming inside me’ so that’s fucking insane.” Whitney’s jaw dropped at your confessional.

“Okay.. erm it’s fine. Sit down, sit down, sit down.” She beckoned you over and you sat next to her on your bed letting your body fall limp into her lap. “It’s fine. Honestly, we’ll sort it. A few questions for you. Erm… one, who are we talking about?” She asked you gently, running her hand over your head. That question alone made you feel dumb. To Whitney’s credit, it was a fair question.

“Jude… I woke up with Jude this morning.” You whined covering your face with your hands embarrassed to admit it.

“Y/N, its okay. Second question, you wanted to right? Like you’re not upset because he… you know. Like this was consensual?” She sheepishly asked you. You softly smiled at her with a shake of the head. Whitney was always so mindful and gentle. She did this with everything. She needed to make sure everything was okay so she could properly help. She wanted to make sure you were okay and she was probably the only person in your life that when she asked that, you knew she meant it and honestly wanted to listen. She really was the sweetest and had good intentions but consent wasn’t an issue here. “Okay, as long as you’re fine in that regard. Well, you should ask Jude like if he actually did finish inside and we’ll go from there. I mean… we’ve handled this before.” She giggled a little recalling many of antics between the pair of you from university to date. “The nude is whatever. Don’t worry. He’s seen you naked. It's not exactly like you have a body anyone would be ashamed of either. The photo won’t go anywhere and if you liked him or the sex, I mean it’s not a bad person to add to your body count.” She cheekily smiled at you. You couldn’t help but smile back. Her smile was infectious and it made you feel better just seeing it. “Jude is nicer than you’d think so just talk to him. You two can just have a pretty person conversation.”

“Yeah, I’ll talk to him. Do you want to get your joke in now or will you give me the morning?” You laughed, running your hands over your face again. Your relationship with Whitney was like any good friendship it was filled with love and support, a lot of laughter and amazing memories, but humor was a pillar for you two. When things got hard if you didn’t laugh about it you’d cry.

“Eh… When you least expect it. Today though.” She laughed. “To be fair, you looked really good last night. I didn’t think you’d be going to sleep alone.” Whitney cooed as you sat up. You picked up your phone and opened your messages with Jude and deleted them for your own sanity. You couldn’t have your mistakes just sitting there. “You’re supposed to say ‘yeah, Whit you looked good last night too, did you go home with anyone?” She teased bumping her shoulder against yours drawing you out of your moment of embarrassment rereading Jude’s message.

“Yes, yes, Whitney. You’re gorgeous and Trent loves you. You guys probably fucked four times yesterday so forgive me if I didn’t add to Trent’s chorus of chants of how beautiful you are.” You teased her dropping your cheek to rest on her shoulder. Whitney deserved Trent’s high praise. She was stunning, you just were a little caught out over your mistakes.

“It’ll be fine. I promise. Honest. Just talk to him, okay?” Whitney snapped back to a moment of seriousness and reassurance wrapping her arms around you tight. You don’t know what you’d do without her. She’d had this conversation with you more times than you cared to admit.

“Hey… Can I talk to you?” You embarrassingly asked Jude, coming up sheepishly beside him.

“Yeah, course but only if you help me with suncream.” He cheekily answered you, handing you the bottle. His tanned muscular physique in front of you had you momentarily forget what you even were coming to ask him. You hated that it all made your heart falter but in all seriousness, you needed to find out what happened so you took the bottle from him and squeezed it into the palm of your hand.

“Erm… so this is embarrassing, like I’m actually so embarrassed to say this but I don’t exactly remember the latter half of our night so can you just.. Ugh.. like… did you actually cum inside me?” You muttered out the words letting your face fall against his bicep. The sunscreen just waiting in your palms. You pressed your forehead against his arm muscle mortified unable to do anything else. You couldn’t look at him. Your words were quiet and mumbled.

“You were that drunk, Y/N!? That’s so bad. Fuck…” Jude was shocked. He pulled you off and held you by your shoulders in front of him looking directly into your eyes. “Okay, erm, first off I did.” He confirmed and your face dropped when he told you the fact you were hoping he was going to say wasn’t true. “Y/N… Y/N… hold on. I mean.” Jude started to laugh and your eyes widened in confusion and terror. “I mean, you don’t have to worry. I… or it was in your ass so you can’t get pregnant from that if that’s what your worried about, yeah?” Jude flashed you a devastatingly handsome and equally cheeky smile.

“Oh… my god. Are you serious right now?” If you weren’t embarrassed before you certainly were now. You wanted to just disappear.

“Yeah but I’m not really concerned about that. Are you serious you don’t remember? I feel awful that I was having fun last night with you now.” Jude admitted to you with no an unintentionally cute pout. His mind was racing panicking that he had somehow done something wrong but you didn’t think that at all. You were in your own head about how self-conscious you currently felt but also a little bit by how sweet he was.

“You had fun last night?” You asked him more reserved than you would’ve wanted to. You wanted to be confident in front of this person who felt almost larger than life but you couldn’t help but feel a little smitten by him, a shyness washing over you you didn’t often feel. You tried to move last night's antics into the back of your mind. Both he and your ‘cool’ facades were crumbling. You both clearly cared.

“Y/N, you're fit. Of course, I had fun. It was amazing. I just feel horrible you don’t remember because visuals aside it was just a fun night in general. Honest, it was great. If you’re interested, I can give you a refresh?” Jude cooed, running his hands up and down the sides of your arms in a way that somehow managed to be both comforting and sensual. His cheeky smile returning. You did as he asked and helped him with the suncream and both of you were plagued with memories of last night. “Am I wrong for thinking we have to pack condoms for the boat?” Jude whispered to you as you applied the lotion on so that no one else could hear. You wanted to laugh but you bit your lip and rolled your eyes instead.

“Yes, yes you are.” You spoke at a normal volume as you turned around to look directly at him. Funny he was asking to use condoms now considering you couldn't find any in the bedroom this morning.

“Oh, okay so you want to do round two, just do what we did last night, yeah?” Jude gave you a smug smile and slyly squeezed at your waist. Your jaw slacked at his cheek. No, you definitely weren't planning on anymore anal sex on this trip. That was a drunk indiscretion you typically preferred to save for a serious boyfriend, if that.

"No! We’re just not fucking on the boat. Full stop.” You smiled at him really having a hard time trying not to laugh but you managed spinning on your heel away from him and jetting off to find Whitney and your sexiest bikini just to really rub it in his face you weren’t fucking him on this boat. Although a part of you kind of wanted to but you'd hold your ground.

For the rest of the day though, suncream became your secret way to touch each other all day. The sun was already climbing high in the sky, casting a warm glow over the shimmering waters of Greece. The yacht bobbed gently in the marina, waiting for its passengers to board. You stood on the deck, holding a bottle of sunscreen, watching the sunlight dance on the sea’s surface. You could feel the excitement of the day ahead—a day spent out on the open water with Jude, a day of freedom and escape. Jude emerged from below deck, a grin on his face, wearing a pair of dark Prada sunglasses and Bottega swim trunks. His skin was already kissed by the sun from the days you’d spent together here, but there was something about the way the light hit him now, that made your heart skip a beat.

“Hey, you got that suncream?” Jude called out as he approached you. He took the bottle from your hand, your fingers brushing just slightly, sending a small jolt through you.

“Course” you replied with a playful smile. “Don’t want you getting any sun damage out here. You know, we wouldn’t want to ruin that pretty face of yours.” You teased.

“I don’t know, I think it could be a good look for me. Adds a little rugged charm.” Jude chuckled, shaking his head. He squeezed some sunscreen into his hand, rubbing it over his chest and arms in quick, careless strokes. You raised an eyebrow.

“I think you missed a few spots,” you teased, stepping closer to him. Your hand lightly grazed his back as you took the bottle from him. “Let me help.” Jude smirked, enjoying the attention.

“Only if it means getting your hands on me,” he said, his voice dropping slightly, adding a teasing tone.

“Oh, stop,” you said with a laugh, trying to sound casual as your hands spread sunscreen across his back. Your fingers moved slowly, deliberately, feeling the muscles tense slightly under your touch. “You’re lucky I’m nice enough to do this for you.”

“Lucky doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Jude replied, closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy the feeling of your hands on his skin. “I’ve got the best view and the best company. And now, a free suncream application. What more could a guy ask for?”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” You warned softly with a giggle, your hands moving to his shoulders, your touch more lingering now. “I still have to get my own back, you know.”

“I’d be more than happy to return the favor,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “In fact, I insist.” Jude turned his head slightly, peering over his shoulder at you. You felt a flutter in your chest but kept your expression playful. Jude took the suncream and poured some into his hands, stepping behind you. His hands were warm as they gently spread the lotion across your shoulders, his touch firm yet tender. You closed your eyes, feeling a shiver run down your spine despite the warmth of the sun. “Are you sure you trust me?” Jude murmured close to your ear, his breath hot against her skin.

“I don’t know,” you replied, your voice slightly breathless. “But I guess I’ll have to find out.” Jude��s hands moved down your back, his fingers grazing your skin in a way that made your knees feel weak. You could feel his breath on your neck, the closeness of him making your head spin.

“I’d never do anything to hurt you,” Jude whispered, his hands still working the sunscreen into your skin but moving slower, more deliberately. “You know that, right?”You nodded, your eyes still closed, leaning back slightly into his touch.

“I know,” you said softly, your voice barely more than a whisper. Jude’s hands finally reached the small of your back, lingering there for a moment before he let out a deep breath and stepped away, breaking the spell. “Alright, I think you’re all set,” he said, trying to sound casual but unable to hide the warmth in his voice. You turned to face him, your cheeks slightly flushed but smiling.

As the yacht continued to glide smoothly over the azure waters of the Mediterranean, everyone gathered around a large table for lunch. The sun was high, warming the deck, and the soft sound of waves provided a calming background melody. Plates of fresh seafood, salads, and cold drinks were spread out, and the air was filled with the scent of the sea. You were seated directly across from Jude, your little yellow Louis Vuitton bikini doing little to cover your sun-kissed skin. Every time you moved, the sunlight would catch on you, making you glow in a way that Jude found impossibly distracting. He tried to focus on his plate, spearing a piece of grilled octopus, but his eyes kept drifting back to you. You caught him looking more than once, your lips curving into a coy smile every time your eyes met.

“So, Jude,” you said suddenly, drawing his attention fully to you. You were leaning back in your chair, stretching in a way that made your body arch just slightly. “You enjoying yourself?” Your tone was light, but there was a playful glint in your eyes that didn’t go unnoticed. Jude swallowed hard, feeling the heat creep up the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I’m having a great time,” he replied, trying to sound casual. But his voice betrayed him with a slight huskiness. “How about you?” Your smile widened at his question, your fingers toyed with the rim of your wine glass.

“Oh, I’m having a wonderful time,” you said, your voice soft and teasing. “The company’s great… and the view’s not bad either.” Trent and Whitney exchanged a knowing glance but continued eating, choosing not to interrupt the obvious tension building between Jude and you. Whitney smirked, clearly amused by the situation though. Jude shifted in his seat, trying to keep his cool.

“Glad you’re enjoying the view,” he said with a smirk, though his eyes betrayed the way his pulse quickened every time you moved. You lifted a piece of fruit to your lips, biting into it slowly. You licked a drop of juice from your lower lip, watching Jude intently.

“I could say the same to you,” you murmured, your voice low and flirtatious. Jude’s grip tightened around his fork. It was becoming harder to focus on anything but you but he was annoyed by your cheek. Annoyed that he felt like he was loosing this conversation.

“Yeah, well,” he began, attempting to match your lighthearted tone, “it’s hard not to when you keep… putting on a show.” Jude quipped trying to regain ground. You feigned innocence, your eyes going wide.

“A show?” You repeated, your tone laced with playful mockery. “I’m just eating my lunch, Jude. What show?” You asked. Whitney lightly elbowed Trent, a small laugh escaping her.

“Maybe Jude’s just not used to being distracted during a meal,” she added, winking at you. You laughed softly, a mischievous glint in your eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Jude. Am I distracting you?” You purred, leaning forward slightly so your bikini dipped a little lower, tits out. Jude’s throat felt dry, and he took a sip of his drink to steady himself all he could think about was you in his bed last night and getting that stupid bikini off you now.

“Just a little,” he muttered, his voice strained with the effort of maintaining his composure. “But I’m managing.” You raised an eyebrow, your smile teasing.

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to suffer,” you said, drawing out the last word. “Maybe I should… cover up?” You smirked. All the boys sans Trent at the table shifted in their seats. Not keen about your suggestion. Jude quickly shook his head, a bit too fast, doing what they all wanted to.

“Nah, nah, nah, you’re fine,” he blurted out, then cursed inwardly at how desperate he sounded. He cleared his throat and tried again, “I mean, it’s a boat. You’re supposed to be comfortable.” He rectified. Your laugh was soft and melodic as you leaned back, clearly pleased with yourself.

“Good,” You said simply, your eyes twinkling with amusement. “Because I’m perfectly comfortable.” Jude could only nod, his eyes locked on hers. He felt a mixture of frustration and amusement at how effortlessly you could make him lose his cool. He knew you were doing it on purpose, and yet, he found he didn’t really mind. There was something thrilling about this game you played, a tension that made every glance, every word feel charged with electricity. As they continued eating, the conversation flowed around them, but Jude and you remained locked in your private dance of flirtation and teasing, each word, each look a step closer to something inevitable.

The villa was silent, the only sound being the soft hum of the waves outside. It was late, and everyone had already gone to bed after another lively night out at a Grecian club. The moonlight spilled into the hallway, casting gentle shadows on the whitewashed walls as you quietly padded towards Jude's room. Your heart raced, not just from the couple too many of drinks you had earlier, but from the anticipation of seeing Jude again. The whole day had been a tease-sly glances, lingering touches, and stolen moments of whispered words that had you on edge. You reached his door and paused, biting your lip, starting to second guess yourself. You could feel the fluttering in your stomach, a mixture of nerves and excitement. Gently, you turned the knob and slipped inside. The room was dimly lit by the moon, enough to make out Jude's form lying in bed, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. You tiptoed over to his bed, your bare feet barely making a sound on the cool floor.

“Jude…” you whispered as you slipped under the covers, pressing your body against his. Jude stirred slightly, his eyes fluttering open in the darkness. He turned his head to see you, a lazy smile tugging at his lips even in his half-awake state

“Y/N." He mumbled, his voice husky from sleep. "You alright?” He smiled and you felt relief weigh over you. It was unsaid but Jude was welcome in your room and you were welcome in his. Although tonight you had gone your separate ways both trying to make it seem like you weren’t dying to sleep with the other. You were the first to cave.

"I'm cold.” You lied, shivering dramatically. You knew it was a poor excuse, especially considering the warm summer night, but you didn't care, you knew he wouldn’t care. All you wanted was to be close to him.

“Cold, huh?” Jude teased with a soft chuckle, his arm reaching out to pull you closer to him. His voice was still thick with sleep but laced with amusement. "You're always cold." You pouted, though the darkness hid your playful expression.

“I am," you insisted, snuggling closer, pressing your body into his. You could feel the heat of his skin and it sent a shiver down your spine-this one was real. Jude's arms wrapped around you, his touch gentle but firm. He pulled you even closer, your bodies now pressed tightly together under the covers.

"Better?" he whispered, his lips brushing against your forehead.

"Much," you breathed, letting your hands rest on his chest. You could feel his heart beating steadily beneath your palm, and it made you feel safe, like this was exactly where you were supposed to be. For a few moments, you laid there in comfortable silence, the only sound the faint rustle of the sheets as you shifted slightly against each other. Your fingers traced light patterns on Jude's chest, your touch soft and exploratory. You could feel his muscles tense slightly under your touch, a silent acknowledgment of the effect you were having on him.

"Y/N," Jude murmured, his voice a little tighter now. "What are you doing?" He smirked at you.

"Nothing," you whispered back, your fingers continuing their slow journey over his skin. "Just…feeling you." Jude let out a low breath, a mix between a sigh and a groan.

"You're not making it easy to try to go back to sleep , you know.” Jude’s tone dropped. You’re breath began to increase.

"Who said anything about going back to sleep?" You shot back playfully, your voice hushed but teasing. You tilted your head up to look at him, your eyes catching the moonlight just enough for him to see the mischievous glint in them. Jude chuckled again, but there was a strain in his voice now, a tension that was unmistakable.

"You're trouble," he muttered, his hand sliding down your back, resting just above your waist. "You know that?" His eyes lit up as they looked at you. You smiled, your lips brushing against his jawline as you leaned in closer.

"Only for you," you whispered, your breath warm against his skin. Jude's grip on you tightened instinctively, his body reacting before his mind could catch up. He rolled slightly onto his back, pulling you with him so you were half-draped over his chest. Your faces were close, the heat between you palpable. His hand slipped under your shirt, fingertips grazing your spine, causing you to shiver again-but this time, not from the cold.

"Still cold?" Jude asked, his voice low, almost a growl. His eyes were dark with a mixture of desire and uncertainty. You didn't answer with words. Instead, you pressed your lips to his, a soft, tentative kiss that quickly deepened as Jude responded. His hand moved up your back, pulling you even closer, while the other hand found its way into your hair, tangling in it. Your kiss grew hungrier, more insistent, as if all the teasing and flirting throughout the day had led to this inevitable moment. Your fingers slid up Jude's chest to his neck, holding him close, not wanting to let go. You could feel the heat of his body beneath you, the way his muscles moved under your touch, and it made your head spin. He broke the kiss, breathing heavily as he looked up at you, his eyes searching yours. “I want you to remember this time.” His voice thick with emotion. You nodded, your hands moving to the back of his neck, pulling yourself down towards him.

"I've never been more sure," you whispered, your voice barely audible but filled with certainty. Jude leaned foreward, capturing your lips again, and this time, there was no hesitation. The tension that had been building between you all day finally snapped, and you gave in to the desire that had been simmering just below the surface. His hands roamed over your body, memorizing every curve and line, while your hands explored his, feeling the strength and warmth of him against you. The world outside faded away, leaving just the two of you tangled together under the moonlight, loosing clothing items by the second, lost in each other, and in the heat of the moment. His tongue slipped past your lips, causing you to moan. Judes hand slowly drifted down towards your core. The sounds you were making in desperation were driving him crazy. The soft moans like music. You could feel your pussy aching and dripping begging for him to move faster. You wiggled your body closer into his. He gripped your thigh squeezing you as he moved closer. You were so fixated on his hands so painfully close to your pussy you hadn’t noticed one of his hand coming to grip your chin. He moved your head to look directly at him. His deep brown eyes stared back into yours. His thumb grazed over your lips as he smirked at you. He slid his finger over your plump lips a few times before pressing it into your mouth. You took it desperately, swirling your tongue around his thumb.

“So impatient, angel. What? You want me to touch you?” He asked you with such smugness you wanted to tell him to shut up but you couldn't. The only thing on your mind was his massive hard dick beneath you. He began to kiss down your jawline to your neck and you whimpered. You didn’t get to feel this last time or at least you hadn’t remembered it but god you wish you did. You tilted your head back to give him more space. He let his lips graze your warm soft skin before you started to leave little bites and nips, marking you again. You bit your lip in an attempt to muffle your moans. Jude knew exactly what he was doing and he was playing you. He now had you distracted by his lips on your neck you failed to remember his other hand, wet with your spit sliding through your folds, quick to place his thumb onto your clit and tease your entrance with his finger. He pushed one finger inside of you. He hit your sweet spot out the gate. Jude smirked in a devilishly handsome way. You couldn’t help but clench around the singular digit. He began to speed up whilst pushing in another finger. A loud, squelching sound filled the room as he played with you. “Good girl.” Jude praised you as your eyes began to roll back and the pace of his fingers sped up. His thumb keeping up its motions on your clit. Involuntarily, your hips grind on his hand as you quickly grow addicted to the feeling of him. Your back arched as he kept at it for ages until you were cumming all over his finger. You covered them in your slick as he brought you to your first high of the night.

“Jude. Please, I want more.” You begged him with a whimper as he slowly removed his fingers from your pussy. You were practically shaking and the only thing you wanted was more of him. He brought his slick covered fingers up to his mouth, sucking them clean with a groan. While he attempted to tease you, you had had enough. You made quick work and wrapped your hand around his massive length beginning to pump his cock in your hand as you let some of your spit drip onto it. Jude let his head drop back into the pillow behind him not anticipating your eagerness. You loved the way he reacted to you. You moved your other hand to take his balls into it, eliciting more groans from him. You wish you remembered the first time better because his cock looked so fucking good it had your mouth watering as it began to leak precum. The prevalent vein running along the underside had you swallowing to keep yourself from drooling. Jude grabbed your hips and moved you. He pinned you beneath him now, pushing your legs further apart, settling himself in between them. He took his cock in his hand and slapped the tip softly against your wet pussy.

“I’ll give you more, baby. Is that what you want? You want me to fuck you?” Jude roughly asked you dragging his cock through your folds. You nodded desperately reaching for him and pulling him into you. You gripped his muscular arms, digging your nails into his skin as he lined himself up with your entrance. He slowly stretched you out as he pushed inside, your walls already clenching around him, squeezing his cock. “Tell me, Y/N. Tell me you want me.”

“Please. Please. I need you to fuck me. I want your cock so bad.” You whined. You couldn’t believe this man had you begging like that. You bite into his lip, causing him to laugh. When he leans back, your eyes are almost closed. You moan, arching your back, and he pushes completely into you. He begins to thrust his hips and the discomfort from his massive size slips into pure pleasure. He moves in a hypnotic rhythmic pace, loving the feeling of your tight pussy squeeze him in the dead of the night.

“Fuck. This pussy’s so good, angel. Just for me, yeah?” Jude mumbled leaning down to press his lips to yours. You nodded and absentmindedly smiled at his words but were unable to get any words out as his thrusts began to get harder and faster. You moan and your eyes shut tight when he repeatedly hits your g spot. Jude’s cock is throbbing. He can barely focus. He was probably too drunk the first to really relish in how fucking good this felt. The coil in your stomach was tightening with every stroke of his cock. Your orgasm was imminent but when he slipped his hand in between your bodies to play with your clit your whined digging your nails into him further. Your mouth dropped open as you could feel your slick drip down your thighs and all over him. “Good girl—just like that– fuck. Cum f’me.” Jude groaned, moving his hips with skill. His cock glistening with your arousal. Your body is on fire, and neither of you does anything to dampen the flame, only adding gasoline to it.

“Jude.. Jude.. wait.” You whined as another climax began to blended into the one you were struggling to come down from.

“Cum f’me angel. Cum with me this time. Gimme one more. Be a good girl f’me.” Jude whispered into your ear nibbling on it and simultaneously you spasmed around his length once more clenching tightly around him. “Fuck!” He growled, nudging his face in the nape of your neck as his warmth began to fill you up. He pushes his cum deep into your pussy, fucking you through your orgasm. His thrusts began to slow and then still. Jude held himself up with one hand while his dominant one came to caress your cheek. He softly swiped some stray stands of hair out of your face, tucking them behind your ear. He kissed you softly with a hum. “That was the best reason I’ve ever been woken up in the middle of the night.” He smiled at you as he flopped over dramatically to your side.

“Yeah?” You questioned him with a breathy giggle now exhausted. He pulled you tight into his side.

“Hmm. You should’ve just stayed with me to begin with. This could’ve been round two.” He whispered pressing kisses to your temple.

“You want round two?” You cheekily asked running your hands over his bare chest, his skin warm and slick with a sheen of sweat. He was impossibly sexy.

“Yeah, gimme a bit more of you.” He cooed and dragged your body on top of his. You obliged happily and in the end didn’t get much sleep till the morning. And as that morning’s sun filtered through the sheer curtains, casting a soft, golden light across the room, the rest of the house was still asleep. The quiet hush of dawn wrapping everything in a gentle cocoon. The early light painted Jude’s features in a warm glow, making him look almost ethereal, like a dream made flesh. There was something intoxicating about seeing him like this—unguarded, vulnerable, bathed in the morning light. Jude stirred slightly, his arm tightened around you, pulling you closer as he murmured something soft and unintelligible in his sleep. You smiled against his skin, your fingers tracing light patterns across his back, a silent promise of affection and comfort. For a moment, you simply lay there, wrapped in the stillness of the morning, your breaths syncing in a quiet, intimate dance. The world outside the room felt distant, irrelevant, as if nothing else mattered but the feel of his body against your, the rise and fall of his chest beneath your cheek. As the minutes passed, Jude began to wake, his body slowly coming alive under your touch. He shifted, his hand finding its way into your hair as he pressed a sleepy kiss to the top of your head. You looked up at him, meeting his half-lidded gaze, and the sleepy smile he gave you was like the sun breaking through the clouds.

“Morning,” he whispered, his voice rough with sleep, and you couldn’t help but smile back, your heart swelling with a quiet joy that only these secret, stolen moments could bring.

“Morning,” you whispered back, your voice just as soft. You shifted slightly, pressing a kiss to his jaw, your lips brushing against the stubble that shadowed his skin. Jude sighed, contentment settling over him like a warm blanket as he pulled you even closer, your bodies fitting together perfectly. You stayed like that, entwined in the early morning light, the world outside forgotten as you indulged in the simple pleasure of being together, of holding each other close. In that quiet, tender moment, nothing else mattered. Last night was sex you would always remember and you were starting to realize it may be hard to forget it and even harder to forget Jude.

•

🪩🫶❤️‍🔥🍹🌞🍒 Thank you for reading! Please like, comment, or message what you think of the chapter 🍒🌞🍹❤️‍🔥🫶🪩

Next part - Chapter 2 - Wine & Tequila xx

#jude bellingham #jude bellingham x reader #jude bellingham imagine #jude bellingham x you #jude bellingham smut

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jolalibrary · 5 months ago

Text

met you once, saw you thrice

lucien flores x f!reader

summary: the first time, he kissed you. the second time, you found yourselves in a bathroom. the third time, well, the third time.

warnings: 18+ smut, fingering aka hands go inside underwear under a tree. not-friends to not-lovers. tension. lots of references to past debauchery. slight mention of lucien's sobriety. lots of plot for some sexy rewards. wc: 5.3k an: this is my submission to summer lovin', brought to you by @pedgito, @chaotic-mystery and @amanitacowboy. i got Lucien, and this gorgeous moodboard. im a touch nervous about this man as i usually need the source material to write, so be kind. huge thanks to @pedgito for hand holding and to my circle for lifting me when i kept falling.

You shouldn’t be here.

That’s what you think, hovering under the white canopy away from the sun, surrounded by expensive bottles of champagne chilling in silver buckets, their labels catching the flickering candlelight strategically placed around the sprawling garden.

Another bead falls down your glass, the ice in your drink melting. Thick rolls of condensation drip over your knuckles, along your hand, and down your wrist. Each one falls like rain, landing on the flowy skirt of your summer dress.

It's a new purchase, far too expensive, the label tucked inside, hidden away—pressing and cutting into your skin when you move—doing so each time you nod and over-pronounce a hello to those draped in designers and silk, while the grill sizzles and steams as more is added to it.

You shouldn’t be here because you don’t belong.

Not an actor, not someone on stage; not a writer or a producer. Not the girlfriend of one either. Just a friend of a friend—one ditched, left to ferment with the salad wilting in the warm temperatures as Smith flits between flirting with a waiter and the one he really wants.

You’re not sure why you let him convince you to come. Even as you take another sip, glancing at the time on your wrist, the free food and drink are slowly becoming less worth it. Assessing through sideward glances where the hand needs to be before you can dismiss the worries of being a bad friend and hail a cab.

Not that Smith would notice.

To him, you had completed your role, and earned your accolade in his eyes—the role of not allowing him to come to this alone. It would be criminal to do that. To let him arrive at a house tucked into acres, with Dom Perignon on tap and a grill larger than your kitchen.

You know you should be grateful Smith hadn’t traded you for his new friends. The ones who walk red carpets and call him Smithy. You suppose you should also be thankful he brings you so you can take home stories that make you not hate that you live in a studio apartment and work a 9 to 5.

It’s hard not to be bitter right now. On your own. Exhaling and staring around, wearing that plastered-on half-smile perfected from shitty customer service jobs.

Bringing your glass back to your lips, doing one last sweep before you sneak out, fighting the scent of split open apricots and pungent flowery perfume, you see him. Spot him. The crowd practically parting for him to come into view, creating a gap that would make a romantic swoon.

But, you’re no romantic—more thrillers and mysteries on your nightstand than meet cutes and midnight kisses. If anything, you’re more a cynic, a twisted-up, poisoned hater of hand-holding and Sunday mornings.

Especially when it comes to him.

Lucien Flores.

His name echoes around your skull in the same way it did when it was first introduced to you. Dropped to you, honeyed and elongated as though by stretching it out, you’d fall under some spell as he seated himself beside you—a deck of cards in hand.

Tipping the glass, your mouth fills with lemonade, holding his gaze—willing to do so until your eyes burn, until it feels impossible. All stubborn to a fault. Obstinate and arrogant.

You’re saved as a group moves in between the two of you—breaking it for you.

And you decide, rather quickly, it’s time to move—hoping the sight of your back will be enough for him not to press further.

You’re not counting—but he waits an hour.

Crosses the garden, where the tables have moved into standing groups around various points of the green. Some have stood to mingle, to mill around with their flutes and their tales of marriage, honours, and complaints once the grilling finished and the bubbles got to some of the louder women. Others begin the garden games, the ones which had no rules but also had some, as though the aim was to confuse rather than create fun.

Smith had returned between the salad being offered and the grilled steaks. A leaf between his fingers, he whispered he was going back to his tennis match. A twinkle in his eye, a kiss to your forehead, a promise there but one that never really seals itself or makes itself solid. Just confirms that your use was done—You don’t have to wait for me, pumpkin.

A nickname which had once made you smile and now just makes your heart lurch when you let go of his hand and watch him vanish into the house.

One person who hasn’t vanished is Lucien. It surprises you that he’s waited so long to make his approach. Almost as surprising as it is to see him, having heard rumours he’d landed a role in a movie—something British, remote, taking him overseas.

But he’s here. All brown eyes that attempt to drown you, pull you under—dig into you. You feel you should be used to them; they’ve been fixed on you for so long. Soaking you in deep chocolate, thick enough to make it feel like it’s hard to move, to fight it—akin to sludge, mud—as he begins to smirk as he nears.

And maybe he remembers too.

Able to recall a time similar to this. Not the first, but the second. When instead of barbecues and setting suns, it had been wine, cheese and a much later evening. Card games having caused outrage, shrieked words from a woman who should have been cut off a while ago, having caused you to slip out, escape to the first-floor bathroom. Finding he followed.

Don’t think about him—

The opposite sprouts so easily, you have to wonder what soil lives in your mind.

Because, of course, you had thought about it, about him. More than you should. Heat gliding up your neck now, making you shift your shoulders as the straps of your dress cut in, as you do. You think about how his lips felt on the juncture of your neck when you sit in conference calls, and how his hips had dipped before you felt his hardening cock slide over your covered ass. At night, you think about how it feels to have his thick fingers sliding open the button and zip of your pantsuit, how they’d slid inside your new lace undies and collected your slick to enjoy a taste.

The more you stopped yourself, the worse it became. Craving him when the moon was at its highest, hand delving between your thighs as you tried to replicate all the places he touched. Wanting, needing—desperately desiring until you arched from your sheets, sprinkled in sweat as you hissed his name out between gritted teeth.

That’s all you allow.

No second-glances passing newspaper stands when he makes the front page, no secret Google searches when you were frustrated and impossibly lonely. Knowing, and comprehending, that if you did, it would only lead to further disappointment. It would land you somewhere close to remembered disinterest, like those times when you’d found yourself sat across from charm and wit—making you disassociate when your palm rested on white linen with a candle flickering in the middle as you hoped, prayed, internally begged for a comment on how nice you’d looked.

Not again.

Never again.

So, you placed him where you suspected he had placed you. Out of sight, out of mind. Yours a box, right at the back of your mind—the lid sliding free when you needed release, and only then. It marked in thick Sharpie: a good time, even better cock, but comes with baggage.

It’s why you stand as he takes the final steps to you, your hand retrieving your glass, only to find it empty, drained, with only the little bits of fruit and a smidge of ice at the bottom. But his hands were not.

Extending one to you, one that looked close to the one you’d been enjoying—all mint leaves and lemon slices swimming in lemonade.

“What are the chances?”

You snort, taking a sip. “You’ve used that line.”

“Have I?”

“The last time.”

It’s his turn to snort. Staring. Looking you up and down in a soft drag that makes your stomach flip and your skin prickle with heat.

“Next you’ll tell me your name, tell me that you’re a movie star and that you’ve not seen me around.”

For a second, he gives you a silent stare, eyes speaking volumes that you couldn’t hear as he chews his tongue, and flicks his eyes from your chest back to your face once, twice. “Does it make you nervous when I stare?”

Swallowing, wrapping a hand around your middle, you smile—cold, wickedly. “No.”

“S’that why you won’t look at me?”

You eye him, as he does you. Despising that he looks good—that it’s another silk shirt, slightly unbuttoned, similar gold chains hanging from his neck. Hating that he looks so broad, that you remember how it feels to have them spreading your legs, how his chest feels pressed to your back with his cock in your pussy.

Loathing that right now, as you will a quip, a response, your thigh remembers how his palm felt on it as he held it and speared into you. How much of a mess he made of you, that you’d come so hard you’d seen galaxies and not just stars.

“Never known you to be this qui—”

Scowling at him through your eyebrows, you slide your lips into your cheek and straighten your spine. “Do I still look nervous?”

Your pulse quickens as he takes another step closer. His aftershave smothers you. It’s wooden and earthy this time, it flooding your senses as blood hammers in your ears. Every muscle in your frame going taught, tight—so close to snapping that you expect with one breath you’d play a tune like a harp.

Scoffing, a roll of his eyes and he’s taking a long drink of his water—a pebble of it remaining on his lower lip, it commanding to be stared at, to be wiped, to be noticed and applauded like the rest of him as he replies no.

You’re quick not to react, to let pride flood your expression. Something warning you against it, telling you not to—especially when he places his bottle down. The sound echoes out in the quietness of the moment.

“You do look fucking miserable though.”

There it is. Expecting it, the doorway to show itself so he can use a line to cheer you up, to have you smiling, as though he’s a gift. His cock might be, not that you’ll admit it—not even if he begged, if he pleaded.

“Maybe that’s because this asshole keeps staring at me.”

“You think I’m an asshole?”

Eyes narrowing, head tilting to the side as you shrug. “I don’t think you’re not an asshole.”

Rolling his lips, pursing them, before they flatten into a line—hand stroking the hair along his chin, his jaw, he bathes in it, your insult. Let it simmer, cook, before clearing his throat. “Is that why you gave me a fake number?”

Your mouth falls open. Your eyes quickly widen—all cards gone, knocking the air out of your lungs as your heart slams into your stomach for different reasons as he sneers, and shakes his head.

“Enjoy your drink.”

“I—I…”

But, he’s already turned his back.

While a perfectly good exit window had cracked itself open for you, you don’t take it.

Even if it would have allowed you to bid the ache in the arch of your foot goodbye, slide out with the people moving into the house to avoid the chill and those making their own escape.

But, guilt gnawed, chewed. It there ruminating when you catch sight of his silk shirt between other guests. When the scent of his aftershave lingered in the air when you stepped inside to catch your breath from having to re-explain what it is you do to the same people you had done hours ago.

You know he’s presenting a chance to leave, yet your hand grabs another glass bottle of water, the lemon slice bobbing around as you venture down the lit path no one else seems to be trekking.

The one you know he escaped down earlier, seeing it after you’d heard some of them talking about him—the man who doesn’t settle, the one who’s clean but not really clean, the one who has talent and charm, and they wonder in their hushed voices if his cock is really as big as it’s rumoured.

It took all you had to bite back that it is, wanting to point out you’d discovered it in one of their new bathrooms only three months ago.

You pause when you reach the end of the path as it morphs into perfectly manicured grass. Feet sliding from your shoes as you grab the straps, wondering what you’re doing—cursing yourself as your chest heaves and presses roughly against the too-expensive fabric as you question all life choices.

Because you wouldn’t survive him.

A man too big for you, who wouldn’t fit in your world. There’d be no farmers markets and Chinese takeout boxes in bed; no quaint coffee shops and sharing of woes of the day. It would be unbalanced, wrong, awkward, in the same way, it would be if you let him step into your shoebox of an apartment and battle feeling smaller than you do when you’re alone.

Adventure, you think.

He’d said that the first time—when his fingers had wrapped around your wrist and tugged you further into someone's hedge you didn’t know. All green leaves and the scent of flowers sticking to your skin as his mouth pressed to yours. He’d repeated it in the bathroom, your palm flush to the white tiles above the sink—clawing at grout as he hissed it in your ear, filling you, making your mouth contort around a moan of his name as he dragged his cock in and out of your puffy, needy hole.

You suppose adventures are fleeting, not ever after.

Something momentary, nothing serious.

You wonder if he’s actually an adventure or if he just thinks he is. Whether he struggles to leave the fun of who he plays or whether it bleeds into him—a patchwork personality of who he’s had to morph into. It gives him the tools to be an escape, becoming a pause from the mundane, but nothing that stretches itself out passed an evening into the daytime.

When you spot him, your adventure has his phone in hand—spinning it, round and around. Lit cigarette between his lips, the tip burning, paper crisping.

“You seem like trouble.”

Lucien doesn’t turn, but he hears your announcement.

The phone pauses in its 180—it catching the light flickering in the tree above, making the leaves and branches more ominous than they do surrounded by the vivid oranges and reds of the sunset, all fiery intensity. As though the horizon itself had caught fire from the tension, the sun sinking slowly into it, leaving a trail of molten gold and crimson streaks.

“Trouble?” he asks, deep, guttural—caked in smoke and disbelief.

“Trouble.”

Taking another step closer, you stop close to his side. Handing him the bottle, feeling him take it as drop your shoes and stare in the same direction he is—taking in the shades as they deepen before the sun bids the day goodbye.

“That realisation come before or after you came on my cock?”

Nostrils flaring, you regret finding him almost instantly. Shame blooming, filling you from stomach to throat. “A-after.”

He makes a noise, and leaves you in the cold of his mood. To the point, you question again what it is you’re doing. Why you fucking care. Because you don’t. Not really. There’s nothing to know, to latch to—no feelings that could become anything more than a crush.

Incompatible, you think. Incompatible. Incompatible. Incompatible—

“You brought me water.”

His head turns, takes you in—and sweeps you in the familiar brown from earlier. And this time, you let it hang on your shoulders like a sweater. Let it warm you, and bring you comfort. Allow it to smother the shame and force it to seep away as he blows out rings of smoke.

It quickens in its retreat when he pushes off from the trunk, pocketing his phone—it stretching the pocket of his dark jeans as you will yourself not to stare at the bulge already there.

“I did.” It’s matter of fact, no further questions—head dipping, a tightness forming as you shake your head and exhale. “I… I just don’t think your sobriety is a joke.”

You feel his gaze snap to you as the words hang—stringing themselves together like twinkling lights. Unwilling again to meet him, wondering if he was thinking about it, that first time. When a sentence was said in response to a casual joke as the two of you hid out of view. It was made by someone you didn't know, at a party where people pretended to be friends when really they were trying to belittle one another, and Smith pretended he wasn’t in love with the older man he’s vying for.

His cigarette is almost out when you look at him, the lit end illuminating his face in some ways, and casted shadows in others. But, you could see his eyes searing—likely able to even in the darkest night. It etches into you as he takes another drag, as your nose tries to capture the scent of it, it so him, a thing which comes to you when you’re close from your own hand, blotched by it.

“Do you have a collection of silk shirts or something?”

Smirking, blowing a smoke ring between the two of you. “Do you not like my shirts?”

Breathing, you fight saying I do. Not enjoying that you think of how they feel between your thighs when he'd spread you with his thumb when his tongue had licked from clit to hole and made you sob.

“They’re okay.”

“Liar.”

Snorting, you roll your eyes. “Says you.”

“She miss me?” Stuffing the cigarette under his shoe, leaning the water against the base of the tree as his chains catch the light as he straightens. “Bet she’s missed me.”

“She?”

His lips curl, eyes flicking down to the place your thighs meet, before he hauls them back up.

And it’s instant, the way heat floods your cheek, pussy fluttering around nothing—remembering.

The noise is first, recalling whispering sweet nothings as he slid inside you in one thrust. Next is the feel of him, the stretch, how impossible it had felt as he kept going, and going, until those fingers, thick and dexterous slid over your swollen nerves. Then, there’s the aftershave, the same as he’s wearing tonight. How it mixed with smoke and liquor, and roses and expensive hand soap—

“D-don’t flatter yourself.”

But you swallow, give it away. Shaky on two legs as you try to look unfazed.

Because you’re pulsing between your legs, starving, aching. Trying to blink back memories of his tongue, of his thigh, or his crooked smile in the mirror as he repeated your name, over and over, like it held weight—like it lived on his tongue and in his mind—

“Parched, are you?”

“Parched?” you hiss. “Who the fuck even are you? Who the fuck says parched—”

Snorting harshly, leaning in his stance as he shrugs, “Oh, you know who I am. I’m baby, baby, right there, baby, I’m gonna come, Luci—”

In a step, your chest is flush with his—hands steadying you on your hips as your palm flattens to his words. You’re aware of him smirking, gloating, right against your skin; feeling the wiry hair around his mouth scratching at you, the same one that left your skin raw and irritated from lapping up the taste of you both before sending you back out to smile.

Lowering your hand, you become conscious of how close you are and how his fingers spread out, holding you tighter, keeping you pinned against him as you descend into his web all over again. Embers spreading out, electricity pulsing out from where his fingers touch you over your dress, as your body recognises, identifies.

“I’m trying not to be an asshole.”

“Is that what you’re doing…”

His hand reaches up, stroking your cheek, thumb caressing your lower lip as you take in a deep breath. “Tell me you don’t want me to make you come.”

You should. But, you don’t.

Instead, you close your mouth around his thumb, swirling the tip of it with your tongue as he grunts, right in the back of his throat before he slips it out with a pop. A second brews, and then another before his mouth crashes to yours, all impatient, hungry—rough. Lips parting for him as you feel him lick into your mouth, tasting cigarettes and lemon, at the same time as your back meets bark.

And you’re desperate, yearning.

Tugging him close, palms sliding over silk as you make a note that it’s softer than the faux-paint-splattered one. More velvety, smooth. Hooking your hands around the back of his neck as you pull him closer, practically feeling each breath as coolness slides up your leg, the heel of his hand gliding behind as he bunches the fabric in his hand, his jean-covered thigh coming up between yours as you hiss into his mouth at the contact. Lost in it, in him.

In how intoxicating he is, how wrong it is, clawing at him to come closer, to touch you, whining as he teases you by rocking his knee and slides his palm to cup your breast through your dress. Thumb expertly hardening your nipple, tongue lathing over a spot on your neck that has you keening.

You forget, for a moment, blissfully allow yourself to until he’s pulling at it—tugging at the label as you try to pull his face up.

“Shit, Lucien, no.”

He grunts. Not mockingly, but not full of surprise either. “Planning on returning this?”

Clenching your teeth, you take a breath—needing air to fill your brain to help you think. To ignore the way your lips are swollen and your underwear is already soaked and pressing to his thick thigh.

“Yes.”

“You look too fuckin’ good in this dress to return it.”

“Well unless you’re going to buy it, I have no other choice—”

“I’ll buy it.”

“No you fucking won’t.”

Because it would be wrong.

More than an exchange of your body, more than a mutual appreciation and hunger and need. It would be a gift. A something more. A thing that would fester in your closet and make you hope when you see it, make you dream when your finger slides over the fabric.

“Lucien.”

His fingers drop it, let it hang—the tag. Both your embarrassment and the price of it, just there, as his lips slide down your jaw.

“You won’t want to return it. You’ll want to see it hung in your closet—bury your fingers in your underwear as you stare at it, thinking of this.” Teeth grazing over your pulse, tongue swirling a signature you suspect is his own. “You’ll think of me when you stick that toy in your pussy, wishing it was me, turn it on right between your perfect fucking thighs and—”

You blame his fingers ghosting over your upper thigh for what you let escape, let slip free. “Already think of you.”

Pausing, his shoulders bow—somehow becoming even broader before his head comes up from his place buried in your neck. You see it, words, kindness—a bunch of things he could likely reel off that would make you ruin the wet patch on your gusset even wider.

But he ingests them, consumes them like they never existed. A different offered kindness, you suppose—as though he knows, can see, and begins to understand.

“Be rude of me not to say hi to her then.”

“Why do you…”

His thumb hooks into one side of your underwear, dragging it from its place. Aware of it, the way he’s gentle in shifting the fabric down, handing you the bunched-up dress with a pointed stare, before he’s teasing your lace from between your slick, soaked core. Tugging it down your thighs, eyes not breaking from yours, exhaling as he licks his lips at the sight of you bare to him in the middle of someone's fucking garden.

“Lift?”

And you do, without question. Taking a deep inhale in, closing your eyes, hand covering your face as you lift one foot, then the other.

Finding him staring when you look down. Ogling. Admiring you like what is there between your thighs is some art piece, an exhibit, a thing he’d queue for—as he pockets your panties.

“I’m keeping these.”

“Lucien…”

His hand urging yours to take the balled-up fabric of your dress as he rises, places kisses on your outer thighs, dragging his face slowly up your frame—breath fanning out, somehow feeling it under your layers.

“I’m. Keeping. Them.”

You swallow, silently surrendering. Back of your head flat against the tree as his hands nudge your thighs to part.

“Gorgeous.” He whispers. “You’re so gorgeous—prettiest pussy I’ve ever seen.”

A protest readying, but stolen as one of his thick fingers slides over and through your folds. Knowing you, understanding you. Standing as he drags your slick to your desperate, swollen clit, swirling it, massaging it as you hiccup his name and forget all about his compliment and chase his lips instead. Instead, your hips move on instinct, desiring—determined to find more friction even as he just slowly draws a circle.

You know he’s grinning. Cockily. Frame pressing to you as you feel his hard cock against your thigh—hips keeping you pinned. Fixed.

“You want my fingers? Let me give you my fingers, baby.”

Nodding, fingers tangling in his curls you say it, more in a whisper, something close to a whine: yes, please, yes—

Aware of the heaviness in the air, how thick it feels, even in the breeze. In the same way, you’re aware of the way he breathes good girl. It makes you shudder, yearn, more so when he slides his fingers down from your clit and works two into you.

You gasp. Almost crying out. Unable to stop yourself when he curls them inside of you, bearing down on him, squeezing him, hand releasing your dress as your fingers grip his forearm.

“Want me to stop?”

Shaking your head, no, no, no—

“Good,” he breathes, kissing the side of your mouth. “She’s the best pussy I’ve ever had my fingers in.”

You almost hiss your bet that he says that to all the girls. But, your teeth grit. Not wanting him to stop. Not as your head tilts, eyes opening to see the navy blue smothering burnt orange, blurring the afternoon into the night through your lashes. Shh, he coaxes, as your nails dig into the bark, as he finds that spot inside of you that makes you dizzy, makes you pant. He works it, makes you roll your hips and his palm catches your clit in teased movements—

“Feel so good clenching down on me.”

“Shut up.”

He laughs, and buries it right into your neck as he nips, as he grazes his teeth over your skin. “You tell me one thing but she’s giving you away, baby. Telling me all your secrets.”

Your hand tightens around the fabric in your palm, mouth falling open, paused around words that won’t appear—

“Said you’d tried to make your fingers feel like mine. But they just, wouldn’t, do.”

Each word is punctuated by his fingers fucking into you, crooked, making you messier, wetter, hearing the evidence of it, all filthy, obscene. Enough to get you barred from one of these events again.

Good you almost think, until his mouth slants over yours. Then, it’s bad. Very bad. Each flick of his wrist, and curve of his fingers solidifies it. How bad it would be to lose this, to lose him. The man who has your vision spotting, darkening in the corners.

“Fuck me, Lucien. Please—”

“Not tonight.”

Blinking, hearing it over and over: not tonight, not tonight, not tonight. Your body is lit, more electric than skin and muscle. Thrumming, vibrating bone against blood as he drags his moistened lips against your cheek.

“That’s it. Give it to me, can feel you squeezin’. I know you’re close, baby. So, soak my fingers, want you to stain them, make—”

You come somewhere amid his sentence—right when he kisses you properly. When he presses his vulgar words to your mouth and curls his fingers to meet that spot that has you arching, tensing and chasing. It’s maddening, and everything else before that. Hitting you, and exploding out—something like liquid fire erupting through you as you bear down on his fingers. Each cry and whine muffled by his mouth, by his tongue licking past your teeth and his hips being flush to yours. Pinning.

Because he doesn’t slow or stop even as you tremble. Not doing so until you’re gasping, frayed, all shaking nerves and splintered edges. Lucien swallows each heaved and hissed version of his name until you’re nudging him with your forehead, face scrunching, fingers pushing on his forearm until he retracts.

And, like it does in the movies, your dress falls back down into place. Creased, likely ruined. But nonetheless perfect to anyone who may glance.

Not that you care. Not as you chase normal breaths, as you blink and he comes back into vision, all ridiculously handsome and wide, brown eyes.

Because he’s watching you, seeing his lips curl into his cheek, fingers being brought to his mouth before he wraps his tongue around them. Licks and sucks you clean from them—

It makes you breathe heavier. Want more.

Even on shaky legs, you take a step closer to be flush to him. Arms sliding around his neck, finding your mouth glues back to his as though it should be there. Tasting yourself now, discerning it from the other things he’s enjoyed tonight.

“You do make me nervous when you stare.”

He gives a short laugh, hand on the back of your neck, tugging you back so he can stare into your soul. Something there. Something hurt that has healed all wrong, left things poisoned and rotten as you.

“You know I’m too fucked to be anyone’s anything, right?”

You smile, fingers teasing the hair on the back of his neck. Swallowing, seeing it shift back—the usualness of the two of you.

“See, this is where I think you’re an asshole.”

“For being honest?”

“No,” you say, shaking your head—lips ghosting over his. “Because I think you’re a liar. I think you’d kill to be something, never mind an anything.”

Smirking, but you suspect he stops it from being a smile. Offering silence, instead of a lie—a thing that’ll hurt and sting.

“You going to keep the dress?”

Shrugging, offering a roll of your eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

“You think I could have your number now?”

Biting your lip, you tug on a particular curl. Hearing a dull yelp, watch him narrow his eyes. “I think you can have an email address and take it from there.”

Snorting, he tilts his head back as the both of you hear a commotion from the other end of the garden. Private time likely ending, his name called out in confusion by the same high-pitched voices you’re sure were comparing his inch size earlier.

“I fucking hate these things.”

“Yet you come to them every time,” you reply.

And then his head moves; stares at your side profile as you pretend not to notice. “So do you.”

So you do, you think.

hope you enjoyed! this was so much fun, and also so scary. but i did it, wahayyy. now, i should admit, i may have fallen for him...

npt's [added from the liked post]: @yorksgirl @maggiemayhemnj @janaispunk @sawymredfox @angiewatson

@survivingandenduring @saradika @purplerain04

#SummerLovin24 #lucien flores x reader #lucien flores x you #lucien flores fanfic #lucien flores smut #lucien flores x y/n #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal #the uninvited #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character smut #lucien flores #pedro pascal fanfic

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vintagegeekculture · 8 months ago

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The Evil Little Hairy Cave People of Europe in Pulp Fiction

From the 1900s to the 1940s, there was a trendy theme in occult and horror stories that the explanation for widespread European legends of fairies, brownies, pixies, leprechauns and other malicious little people, was that they were a hereditary racial memory of the extremely small non-human, hairy stone age original inhabitants of Europe, who still survive well into modern times in caves and barrows below the earth. Envious of being displaced on the surface, these weird creatures, adapted to the darkness of living underground and unable to withstand the sun, still mean mischief and occasionally go out at night to capture someone.... usually an attractive woman....to take to their dark caves for human sacrifice.

Displaced by the arrival of Indo-European language speakers at the dawn of the Bronze Age, these original, not quite human stone age people of Europe were driven deep underground into caves and barrows below the earth, where they went mad, adapted to the darkness and acquired a fear of daylight, became extremely inbred, in some cases acquired widespread albinism. It is these strange little people who gave the descendants of Europeans a haunting racial dread of places below the earth like mines and caves, and it also is these strange, hairy troglodytes who originally built the uncanny and mysterious menhir, fairy rings, and stone age structures of England, Scotland, and Ireland that predate the coming of the Celts and Romans.

In some cases, these evil troglodytes are usually identified with the mysterious Picts, the pre-Celtic stone age inhabitants of the British Isles. In some cases, they are identified with the Basque people of Spain, best known as the inventors of Jai Alai, and the oldest people in Europe who speak a unique language unrelated to any in the world.

The original codifier of this trend was Arthur Machen, a horror writer who is less remembered than his contemporary, Henry James, but who may be the best horror writer in the generations between Poe on the one end and Lovecraft/CL Moore/Clark Ashton Smith on the other. His story, "the White People" from 1904 (a reference to their strange cave albinism) was a twisted Alice in Wonderland with a girl who is irresistibly attracted to dark pre-Roman stone age ruins and who is eventually pulled underground.

In addition to being a great horror writer, Arthur Machen was a member of the Hermetic Society of the Golden Dawn, an occult organization, and was often seen at the Isis-Urania Temple in London. Many of his works have secretive occult knowledge.

H.P. Lovecraft in particular always pointed out Arthur Machen as his single biggest inspiration, though he combined Machen's dread and occultism with Abraham Merritt's sense of fear of the cosmic unknown, seen in "Dwellers in the Mirage" and "People of the Pit."

Another and scarier example of this trend would be "No Man's Land," a story by John Buchan, a Scotsman fascinated by paganism and horror, who often wrote stories of horrific discoveries and evil rites on the Scottish moors. He is often reduced to being described as a "Scottish Ghost Story" writer, a painfully reductivist description as in his career, Buchan wrote a lot of thrillers, detective, and adventure stories as well. In later life, he was appointed Governor General of Canada, meaning he may be the first head of state to be a horror writer.

It was Buchan who first identified the cave creatures with the Picts, something that another Weird Tales writer decades later, Robert E. Howard, would roll with in the 1920s.

Howard is a very identifiable kind of modern person you often see on the internet: a guy who talks tough, but who was terrified to leave his small town. He created manly man, tough guy heroes like Conan the Barbarian, Kull, and El Borak, but he himself never left his mother's house. It's no wonder he got along well with his fellow Weird Tales writer and weird shut in, HP Lovecraft. With 1920s Weird Tales writers, despite your admiration for their incredible talent, you also can't help but laugh at them a little, a feeling you also apply to a lot of Victorians, who achieved incredible things, but who are often closet cases and cranks who died virgins ("Chinese" Gordon comes to mind, as does Immelmann).

With Howard, his obsession with the Picts and the stone age cave dwelling people of Europe started with an unpublished manuscript where at a dinner party, a man gets knocked out and regresses to his past life in the Bronze Age, where he remembers the earliest contact between modern humans and the original inhabitants of the British Isles, the evil darkskinned Picts. This is a mix of both the "little cave people" story and another cliche at the time, "the stone age past life regression novel," another turn of the century cliche.

Still with the Picts on his mind, Howard would later create Bran Mak Morn, a Pict chieftain, who predated Kull and Conan as his Celtic caveman muscle hero. Howard was of Irish descent and proudly anti-Colonial and anti-British, with his Roman Empire and Civilized Kingdoms as a stand in for the British and other Empires, which he viewed as rapacious and humbug, a view shared by his greatest inspiration, Talbot Mundy. His "Worms of the Earth" gets to the heart of why these little cave people scare us so much: they remind us that we live on land that is impossibly ancient and we don't fully understand at all.

It was another Weird Tales Writer a decade later who wrote one of the last stories about the little hairy cave people of Europe, though, Manly Wade Wellman in 1942. Wellman was mainly known for creating the blond beefcake caveman hero Hok the Mighty set in stone age times, and for his supernatural ghost stories of Silver John the Balladeer set in modern, ghostly Appalachia (like many ex-Weird Tales writers, he made a turn to being a regional author in his later career, in the same way Hugh B. Cave became a Caribbean writer), but Wellman also had a regular character known as John Thunstone, a muscular and wealthy playboy known for his moustache who used his great wealth to investigate the supernatural and the occult. Thunstone had a silver sword made by St. Dunstan, patron of Silversmiths, well known for his confrontations with the Devil.

Most John Thunstone stories featured familiar stories, like a demon possessed seance and so on, but one in particular featured a unique enemy, the Shonokins.

The Shonokins were the original rulers of North America, descendants of Neanderthal man displaced by American Indians. This fear that the land we live is ancient and unknowable and we just arrived on it and don't know any of its secrets is common to settler societies, who often hold the landscape with dread, as in Patricia Wrightson's fantasies of the Australian Outback. It was easy enough to transport the hairy cave people from the Scottish Moors to North America. I suspect that's what they are, a personification of a fear shared in the middle class, that in the back of their minds, that everything they have supposedly earned is merely an accident of history, built by rapacity and the crimes of history, and that someday a bill will come due.

A text page in the May 1942 issue of Weird Tales gives strange additional information on the Shonokins not found elsewhere:

Since then, there have been too many examples of evil cave people who predate Europeans. Philip Jose Farmer's "The All White Elf" features the last survivor of a pre-European people who live in caves. A lot of other fiction of course has featured the Picts, but according to our modern scientific understanding, which describes them as much, much less exotically, as a blue tattooed people not too different and practically indistinguishable from the Celtic tribes that surrounded them, and which they eventually blended into.

#pulp fiction #horror #pulp novels #stone age #picts

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l8rose · 1 year ago

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Smith From Another Land

Chapter 75

I can hear it.”

Of all the things Ara expected him to say, that was not it. She genuinely was not prepared for that level of honesty, and it brought a hundred more questions but all of those had to wait when they came face to face with another group of Sha-Brytol.

The lyrium-clad creatures seemed intent on keeping them from moving forward. Something that apparently annoyed the humming in her head.

It was only after the battle was over that she seized the chance to ask him about it.

If he heard it like she did or if it was just the buzzing hum like Varric and the wall.

Only it seemed like she was not going to get the chance to ask as it was battle after battle and when they were not in action, the tunnel had become too small for them to speak without being overheard by the others.

Not that it stopped her but each time she tried to speak to Solas, he seemed to shy away and move closer to Ellana or Varric. Like he knew she would not bring up the questions she still had.

He’s avoiding me.

The realization did little to help the irritation that seemed to be her constant companion.

She was never gladder to encounter things to fight. Fighting seemed to help with the irritation that was named ‘Solas’ but it got worse each time she was left alone with her own thoughts.

Even the hum did little to stop the runaway wagon that made up her thoughts.

Everything from Solas to the Titan, even going back to the dragon that they had encountered on the way to the Storm Coast. Then there was the lack of the sun. And her armour was starting to rub her shoulder the wrong way. And her skin was itchy.

It was when they hit the giant cavern that the feeling stopped getting worse. It just kind of stayed at a level that was just everything in the blasted place was designed to make her angry. Even the hum was back to making her annoyed as it gradually became a headache. The kind that pressed at the back of her eyes.

Or perhaps it was that particular shade of blue that seemed to be everywhere.

She was really starting to hate that color.

Especially once they rounded a corner and stepped into a large cavern full of jagged stalactites and stalagmites. Only these were covered in glowing blue roots.

Ara stopped dead in her tracks and just stared.

It looks like veins. Strange, glowing veins.

“Ara?” Ellana’s voice was cautious but concerned. “Is something wr-oh.”

Everyone stepped out of the narrow tunnel behind her and they were all faced with the blue glow.

“Look at that,” Ellana said in wonder. “Like stars at night.”

She could not help but look up at the elf’s words and saw the glittering dots of blue far above them. It did look like stars, but it only made her feel like they were somewhere they should not be. The lack of a moon or even a different color only added to her growing discomfort.

“All these lyrium veins,” Valta said in equal wonder to match Ellana. “And they’re completely untapped.”

Ara whipped her head towards the Shaper and just stared at her.

Out of the six of them, three were non-dwarves and she had heard from the beginning that lyrium was dangerous to them. Yet here they were striding in like this was completely normal and safe.

That hum in her head felt like it was trying to be soothing. Like it was trying to tell her that they would not be harmed by the lyrium.

Somehow, she did not believe it.

“It should be fine.” Varric quickly said. “As long as you don’t touch the open veins.”

“He’s right.” Renn agreed. “These veins are untapped so if we just keep our distance, we should be fine.”

“Should?” Ara asked.

“Raw lyrium is bad for anyone that goes near it.” Renn continued to explain, seemingly delighted by the fact that he was actually getting the chance to talk to her.

“Even dwarves?”

“Even dwarves.” Renn continued. “Deafness and memory loss are the worst I’ve seen among the Legions who came from the mining caste.”

“Great,” Ara mumbled and looked back at the lyrium tendrils. “Anything else to worry about?”

“Sometimes the veins explode.” He said it with all the candour of discussing the weather.

“This is what they force-fed me?” Ara asked in disbelief, her attention turning towards Varric.

“Hey, you’re the one who told me you tried poisons on your own,” Varric said with a good-natured shrug, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

“Plants don’t explode.”

Ara was certain the hum in her head was laughing at their banter, but she tried to drown it out. She let out a huff and started following Ellana in the only route down. She did her best to avoid stepping anywhere near the glowing veins of lyrium.

It did not help when she passed closer to one vein than she liked and felt goosebumps rise on her arm. The more they walked, the worse everything felt. Her irritation was made worse by the strange prickling that had started along her skin as she passed the lyrium veins.

It was like every hair on her body was standing but it was also like a pressure. Like something was travelling up her bare skin. It was not distinct enough to be painful or even ticklish, but it was there.

It had started out like an itch she could not scratch.

“I see no evidence of darkspawn here.” Valta’s voice echoed throughout the cavern.

“Let’s just be grateful,” Ellana said.

Ara snorted but did not add in that she knew there were no darkspawn down this far. A quick glance over at Varric and she kept her mouth closed even more. He was very subtly shaking his head to her. A clear indication that she should just keep quiet.

Guess he doesn’t want me to tell them I can smell the darkspawn.

She knew she should have been grateful that Varric was willing to keep her secrets but she just felt irritated.

“But there must be a reason they avoid this place.” Valta’s words were more of a statement than a question.

“Raw lyrium is bad,” Ara said with an annoyed shrug before scratching at the armor over her shoulder.

No one had a chance to respond as more of those sha-brytol arrived. There were more than she cared to count and this time they were accompanied by more strange-looking creatures.

At first glance, Ara had thought they were bears as they seemed to have the same kind of shape. She realized her mistake when she saw the horns and a face uglier than a troll’s backside.

Fighting them seemed easier than fighting the lyrium-infused dwarves but she made no discrimination during the fight. Somehow, they all managed not to get shot full of holes.

She could hear the others talking during the fight, but she shoved it all down and focused solely on fighting the enemies before them. Even as her irritation rose, she was still able to drown out all the other problems with the continuous swing of her weapon. That was familiar. That was easy.

Even if everything was bathed in blue, she could almost sense a faint tinge of purple beginning at the edges of her sight. She tried not to think about it as she continued to fight.

Even when they stopped for a breather, it did not fade.

It felt like the start of a blood rage, but she knew the color was wrong. Her vision had always gone red, and this color was far from that.

She gripped the handle of her weapon even tighter as she tried to focus on something other than that purple, or the hum, or the strange sense across her skin. Everything just felt wrong and loud. She wanted to cover her ears and eyes at the same time, but she knew that would have yet another round of someone asking her if she was okay.

That hum in her head grew louder and she could hear the faint words mixed in. Unfamiliar words but dimly, she thought of the word wall they had already passed.

Another must have been nearby.

She felt her body sway towards it.

“Ara?” Varric’s voice was full of concern, but he sounded louder than he should have. Not quite a yell but loud like he was speaking directly into her ear.

“What?” Ara whipped her head towards him.

Varric was some distance away and his face shared the same concern as his voice.

“I think if you hold that any tighter, the handle is going to snap.” He said softly.

She blinked and looked down at her hands. Her knuckles had gone bone white on the handle.

“Oh.” Ara quickly loosened her grip and could see the imprints her fingers had made in the handle. She quickly sucked in a deep breath of air. “Thanks…”

Varric frowned at her, but he said nothing.

She tried to smile as she rubbed her fingernails against her scalp. Like she was dealing with itchy skin but all that did was make her ears twitch. It did little to help the sensations all over her skin.

“Why don’t you try to relax for a little bit?” Varric asked softly.

She knew it was his way of showing concern. There was a brief second that she felt bad for snapping at him earlier but then the prickling feeling just chased away any goodwill she had. She looked up at the ceiling and tried to focus on something other than being irritated at Varric.

Solas and his lies deserved her irritation. Ellana, maybe for being just so damn optimistic and bossy. But Varric always treated her the same. There was no reason to be annoyed with him.

Wait… why… am I irritated at them all…?

There was no answering hum in her head to explain it. And even trying to figure it out was just making her more annoyed.

“I’m fine,” Ara said through gritted teeth before trying to force her face to relax. “Just… miss the sky.”

“You and me, both.” Varric agreed with a nod. It sounded genuine but Ara felt like he was patronizing her. “I think I’ll sit out on any other trips down here.”

She clenched her teeth again and sucked in another lungful of air through them.

“I think we will be done soon,” Solas said quietly, just loud enough that the two of them could hear him.

“I hope so,” Varric responded.

“Ellana is just looking at another one of those strange walls.” Solas continued.

Ara said nothing and merely stared at the wall. Anything was better than having to talk with him. She felt like she was close to losing her mind. It made her really wish she had something to hit. Something, anything. Just an enemy she could vent this mind-numbing irritation on.

“We must be nearing the source.” Valta’s voice rang out through the cavern and Ara glanced towards her.

Ara was surprised to see Valta and Ellana walking towards them all from the tunnel forward. She had not realized the pair had gone off.

“Come on, this is apparently the right way to go.” Ellana motioned them all forward before she started down the tunnel with Valta.

Ara shook her head as she tried to clear her head. Another deep breath and she followed the pair.

That hum was almost overwhelming as they travelled down the tunnel. It was still much too blue for it to be truly dark, but that darkness did not last long. Soon, the tunnel opened up into a massive cavern far larger than any place they had been since they had stepped off that first lift.

“By the Stone…” Renn’s voice was low, but the words seemed to echo the feelings everyone had.

She could see a landscape before them that should not have existed. Trees and ferns grew from raised pillars. The horizon was like a blue sky. Walkways of carved stone. It almost looked like they were standing on top of a giant mountain and looking down into the mist far below.

A wave of smells hit Ara and she instantly regretted taking a breath of air. She could smell lyrium and plants. Water and dirt. The people she was walking with. The sha-brytol further in. It was almost too much.

“Nothing should surprise me anymore, but this…” Valta started. “Wait!”

Everyone turned to look at Valta as she leaned against the stone guardrail.

“The rhythm we followed – we’ve found the source.”

And as one, everyone turned to look to where she motioned. There, at the center of it all was a strange altar-like platform. At the center was a strangely shaped rock with blue tendrils reaching up into the abyss above.

That rock was the same color as lyrium but it possessed a glow that was somehow different than lyrium. It was almost something more.

Something about that stone felt like it was beckoning. Like that was where they were supposed to go.

It became an urge to just run to it.

“But not the titan.”

Ara winced as that hum in her head suddenly became a stabbing pain. She leaned against one of the larger parts of the guardrail. That hum overwhelmed everything, even the encroaching purple at the edges of her vision.

People said things around her, but it was like listening to the buzzing of flies. She knew they were there and that they were talking but it made no sense to her.

Someone put their hand on her arm, and she instinctively flinched away.

That purple had begun to lighten to red.

“We’ve found the Titan.” Valta’s words made that hum suddenly die down. “We’re standing inside it.”

#Chapter 75 #Smith from another land #ara #Arakash gra-Krazak #Solas #Varric Tethras #Varric #dragonborn in thedas #dragonborn is not inquisitor #dragon age #dragon age inqusition #cross over #crossover #skyrim #elder scrolls #dai #orc #dragonborn

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hrefna-the-raven · 3 months ago

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Home

Horror masterlist - Masterlist - Misc. masterlist

RZ Michael Myers x female nurse reader

Part 1 - 2

Words: 1476

Warnings: smut (18+)

Summary: Michael has escaped Smith Grove's Sanitarium...

Reader: short female reader, female genitals in smut scenes

The voice echoing in his mind persisted, urging him to go to Haddonfield but the back door he was sliding open was miles away from it, for today he listened to another power rising from deep within. Stepping inside, he found himself standing in the kitchen, his eyes drawn to the assortment of sweets and candies neatly arranged on the countertop. A faint smile curled at the edges of his mouth, knowing that you had purchased each one of them according to the list. Right next to it, neatly folded, was a black witch costume with a small hat resting atop of it.

You were sitting on the couch, engrossed in the movie "Bates Motel" when a continued cold draft caught finally caught your attention. With a grunt, you switched off the TV and lifted your body from the comfort of the couch, making your way towards the kitchen. Your fingers fumbled in search of the light switch, and as it clicked on, your gaze shot up, landing on the tall masked man standing at the counter, his fingers gliding over the tiny hat from your costume. You immediately recognised deep blue striped pants and the torn dirty gray bathrobe that seemed tiny hanging on his imposing figure.

"Michael!", you shouted in shock and total disbelief.

Your body froze for a moment. It was something else seeing this mountain of man standing in your kitchen, close to midnight, all alone and far away from the security that Smith's Grove provided. How could he even be here? Did he escape? Just as you wondered why nobody had informed you about the escape of the patient you mainly took care of, the sharp ringing of the wall-mounted phone next to you startled both you and Michael. Without diverting your gaze from him, you reached out and grabbed the phone, placing it against your ear and waiting a moment before speaking.

"Hello?"

"Oh nurse, heavens! I'm glad I was able to reach you. Michael has escaped, he killed several on his way out."

There was a pause on the other side as Loomis waited for your reply. Any sane person would have freaked out while being trapped alone in their home with the sanitarium's most infamous patient. The doctor on the other end of the line was you're only chance to call for help and as the thoughts of what any sane person would have done in that moment flashed before your inner vision, your body had its own surprise in store for you. Your hand gestured for Michael to close the door behind him while you shot a warm smile at him before focusing back on the phone call.

"Oh my god, that's terrible! Did someone alarm the police? Do you know where he's headed?"

Michael blinked in disbelief as you faked a shocked tone while the traces of your smile still lingered on your lips. His eyes never left your figure, his hand fumbling behind him to close the door. The enigma that was you continued to surprise him, eluding the expectations formed by the cruel world around him, only to grace him with the kindness he not only thought lost after his mother stopped visiting him. No, you continued to surpass it and as he stood within your kitchen, he almost felt a sense of home, carrying his thoughts to the one he had back then as he briefly wondered where his little sister could be now.

"No I haven't seen him. Why would he come here? Have you checked in Haddonfield where his sister lives now?"

You winked at him, feeling freed from your confidential oath as he was technically, officially, not near you to overhear such information. Michael felt stunned at your response. Back in the sanitarium he had wondered more than once if you'd be able to peak into his mind as you always seemed to understand him so well and now you had answered the very question that had been lingering in his mind. A strange sensation burned underneath his skin as if he wanted to...wanted to kiss you. His breaths grew heavier and his hands pressed tightly against his sides, trying to hide the trembles.

"I'll keep a look out but I'm sure he won't waste any time coming here. You too. Goodnight Dr Loomis."

You hung up the phone and turned back to Michael, taking a few hesitant steps into his direction.

"So...uhm...what brought you here? You could also have tried to find your sister."

A small shivering breath came from behind the mask before Michael slowly pulled it off his face and pointed at you. Your brows furrowed for a moment and you contemplated on the possibilities before answering cautiously.

"Me? You came here because of me? To see me?"

He nodded, placing his mask on the counter beside your costume and sank to his knees, arms outstretched, waiting for you to approach him. He was aware that you probably knew the circumstances that led to his escape, Loomis would have surely informed you how much blood stained his hands tonight. And yet, you chose to send the doctor straight to Haddonfield all the while wearing a smile on your face. You had a choice tonight and you chose him. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes when you wrapped your arms around him, exhaling relieved at the shared closeness. It had been a long time since anyone had chosen him, and now here you were, gently cradling his face, your gaze filled with nothing but affection. His heart ached beautifully as the feeling of home nestled within. He leaned in closer, his lips pressing on yours in a, first, tender kiss that quickly morphed into burning passion he couldn't control any longer. Strong hands slid beneath your butt and you gasped when you were lifted onto the counter. Long fingers wrapped around your shorts and panties, tearing them off with such force that they were flying off to the corner of the kitchen.

"Michael!", you shrieked in surprise but your legs parting on their own betrayed your desire.

Michael groaned at the sight of your wet folds before him. Not only had you chosen him, but you were also willing to surrender yourself to him, to be his. He silently vowed to worship you as the angelic being that you were, grant you the pleasures of the heavens you descended from. Gently, he positioned your legs over his shoulders and leaned forward, his face coming tantalisingly close to your cunt and you could feel his breath fanning over your wetness. A deep, sinful moan escaped your lips as his tongue pressed flat against your swollen clit. His fingers dug deeper into your flesh as your sweet taste began to fill his mouth, igniting a feral hunger within him. His sloppy licks grew faster, sucking at your clit in between before shoving three fingers into your dripping entrance. You cried out in pleasure as he kept thrusting into you, pushing you fast towards the edge of your release. The man between your legs had nothing in common with the shy calm patient from the observation room, the one standing between your legs ate you out like a starved man, worshipping you for the loyalty you showed him. Your fingers entwined in his hair, urging him closer as you bucked your hips and cried out his name, panting and finally coming undone while pure bliss washed over you. Michael mumbled something against your folds before rising and using his sleeve to wipe away your juices from his face. You still breathed heavily, chuckling as you hopped off the countertop, searching for your pants in the kitchen corner.

"That was....wow....I-I should return the favour", you spoke softly, pulling up your pants.

As you glanced up, a short gasp escaped your lips as you discovered Michael already standing beside you, his arms sneaking around your waist as he placed a tender kiss on your forehead.

"Later", he murmured, his voice coarse and deep, "let's sleep."

Those little words, so simple and yet the desire that gave birth to them ran so deep. Michael never truly had someone, his dark thoughts being the only company he ever knew until, one day, you stepped through those doors in the Sanitarium. He had always wondered it how would to be to lie down in bed with someone, not a single worry in his world as only happiness seeped through his body and the warmth of your touch lulling him into slumber. You led him upstairs and cuddled up to him on your bed, slowly sinking into a blissful sleep in the arms of Haddonfield's most feared man. Michael caressed your arm, eyelids growing heavy as he drifted off, one final thought lingering before surrendering to the irresistible lure of slumber. Home...

Feel free to reblog if you enjoyed the story 😊

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revelboo · 26 days ago

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A little more thundercracker? (I'll even take a smidge of Skywarp if you'll allow it)

Sure!

Better Open the Door Pt 2

Thundercracker x Reader, Skywarp x Reader

• Somehow movie night is now an ongoing Friday night thing. And as crazy as it is, you even begin to look forward to it. Waiting impatiently for the credits to roll and the last car to pull out of the drive in has you fidgety. Excited even as you grieve your bank account, you set up the telescoping little, cloth screen and hook the new projector up to your laptop. It’s not that Thundercracker has said a word about having to watch movies on your tiny laptop, but you still feel slightly bad about it. The two of you had run through the Mission Impossible movies and you can admit you like his easy, laidback companionship. The questions he asks as you sit beside each other in the dark like he really wants to know the answers. Cares about your opinion. Your neck cranes as you hear the now familiar scream of a jet engine overhead, your smile wavering when there’s a second jet right behind.

• Venting heavily as he lands in a clearing near the drive in, he rounds on Skywarp as soon as he transforms. “You promised to behave,” Thundercracker growls, worry bright in his processor. Worry that he’s making a mistake and his tiny human will suffer for it. The promise being only a vague ‘I won’t break your little secret pet.’ Smirking, the purple and black mech pushes the servo leveled at him away and looks around.

• You hear their heavy steps before you see them and sure enough, there’s another one stepping out of the woods behind Thundercracker. Your skin prickles as that new robot spots you and grins in a decidedly unsettling way. That is exactly how you imagine a shark looks before biting down on a seal. Seeming to sense your unease, Thundercracker bends and scoops you up into his huge hands and you inhale sharply. Because he’s never grabbed you before and as he straightens you realize you might have a newfound issue with heights.

• “I said I wouldn’t break your toy,” Skywarp laughs as he stalks around, expression sly as he studies the little human clinging to Thundercracker’s servos. “Relax.”

• That interest is dangerous, rasping uncomfortably over Thundercracker as he forces his attention down to you. No matter what Skywarp says, if he decides it might amuse him, he might accidentally hurt you. Toy with you without realizing how fragile you are. “You okay?” He asks, feeling your insubstantial weight and how much softer you feel in his servos than he’d guessed you would be. Looking up at him with the trust that he’ll keep you safe. That small smile you give him spreads warmly through him.

• Nodding, you slowly relax. While you don’t trust this new alien at all, for better or worse, you do trust in Thundercracker. And you feel better about your instincts on his buddy when he shoots him a look that’s pure warning before setting you down near your setup. Shivering as you slide out of his hand, you realize exactly how warm he is and how chilly the night is. “I have something new tonight. It’s still action, but it’s also, um, well, it’s a bit different,” you say, floundering on how to explain a romantic comedy to a giant alien robot. Knight and Day still has enough action you think he might like it, but the romance bits? Maybe you should have chosen Mr. And Mrs. Smith instead.

• Your two huge guests settle themselves and you start the movie, retrieving a blanket to wrap yourself in as you sit on the ground near Thundercracker’s leg. As far from his buddy as you can get and the stranger just smirks like he knows you’re afraid of him and finds it particularly hilarious. A servo touches your shoulder, as the movie starts. “You’re shaking.” Thundercracker murmurs and you offer him a smile. Because he does keep an eye on you. Worries over you. Before you can explain it’s just a bit cold outside, he’s carefully picking you up again and you stiffen as he cradles you in a hand against his chassis. And he’s gloriously warm. Exhaling, you lean into him, giving in.

• It is a different kind of movie and it snares him, the interactions between the main characters fascinating. In his hand, you curl more firmly into him as the story continues. As engrossed in it as he is, he’s still very aware of you against him. Of your little head resting against his canopy and the change in your breathing. Trusting him so completely, you can let your guard down and rest knowing he’s there. That he has you and it’s such a precious thing. On the screen, the humans slowly evolve from at odds to lovers. Slowly. Softly.

Previous Next

#transformers #thundercracker x reader #Skywarp x reader #idw thundercracker #IDW Skywarp #transformers x reader

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apoloadonisandnarcissus · 1 month ago

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The Tragedy of Haladriel - Part II

In Part I, I already analyzed Galadriel and Mairon’s characters, their judgment by the Valar in Númenor, and why they connected so deeply with each other.

Mairon's Wish to Heal

After Morgoth’s defeat, the one you call Sauron devoted himself to healing Middle-earth–bringing its ruined lands together in perfect order. He sought to craft a power not of the flesh, but o’er the flesh. The power of the unseen world. Adar reveals to Galadriel that he killed Sauron, 1x06

This “wound” is most likely another one of Mairon’s tricks, because he wants to be near Galadriel: he wants to serve her, she’s his Vala, now.

Although, in the lore, when Maiar are in human forms they can still get injured and have a different set of needs. We see this with Gandalf in “Lord of the Rings”; he needs to sleep in order to sustain his human form. Maiar just need to be careful not to overindulge on their humans forms, otherwise they can become bound to them, and unable to return to their true spiritual forms (there’s a lot of debate around this, with some even saying that eating can be binding). So, there is a very small possibility that Mairon was indeed injured (unlikely).

Galadriel: “You wish to heal me?” Sauron: “I wish to heal all Middle-earth.” Galadriel mocks Sauron's goal, 2x08

Either way, this wound is deeply symbolic, of Mairon wish to heal himself, Galadriel and all of Middle-earth, from Morgoth’s corruption (darkness). And since the wound “soured” overnight (sneaky Mairon), Galadriel takes him to the nearest by Elven kingdom: Eregion, ruled by Celebrimbor, the grandson of the legendary Elven smith, Fëanor.

Now, I don’t know if Mairon’s intention was to go to Eregion, because, unless he has the gift of foresight (and nothing on Tolkien lore or even RoP canon suggests this), he could never have known that Galadriel would take him there, in the first place. Because, in “Rings of Power”, she lives in Lindon, and could have taken a different road to get to her home realm faster.

After being healed by the Elves, Marion seems to be a completely different being. He’s happy, excited and enthusiastic at the forge of Eregion, exchanging knowledge and ideas with Celebrimbor. When this episode aired, it was noticed by many just how “hot” he looked. It’s that Maia glow-up, because Mairon, the Maia of Aulë, was starting to make an appearance.

Perhaps, due to Mithril, itself? In 2x08, we saw that Nenya, a ring entirely made of Mithril, was able to heal Adar from Morgoth’s corruption, but the effect was temporary and vanished as soon as he removed the ring.

This look is peak "Mairon, the Maia of Aulë", vibes: with his reddish hair, beard and the Dwarvish-inspired necklace (the Dwarves are the Children of Aulë).

Mairon: Thank you, Galadriel. Galadriel: For bringing you here? Mairon: For saving my life. Galadriel: As you saved mine. Our scales are balanced. Mairon: No. No, you've done far more than that for me. I'd all but given up. But you, you believed in me. You saw strength in me. You pushed me to heights that no one else could have. I will never forget that. And I'll see to it that no one else does either.

In the episode itself (1x08) this line “I’ll see to it that no one else does either” sounds ominous, because the show wanted the big “He is Sauron” reveal.

However, and looking at the great scheme of things, I don’t believe it was Mairon’s intention to be threatening here, at all. He wanted Galadriel to know she would be given the proper credit for her role in healing and saving Middle-earth, and for his own redemption at the eyes of all in the Seen and Unseen world (more on that later).

Which leads me to...

The Three Elven Rings of Power

Are they truly free of "Sauron's influence", like Season 2 expects us to believe?

Gil-galad: The Rings. Show them to me. Elrond: Dare not, High King. He's [Sauron] no doubt corrupted... Galadriel: He never touched them, High King. Elrond: He worked with Celebrimbor for weeks. We know not the depth of his influence. Elrond refuses to give the Three to Gil-galad, 2x01

In 2x01, every Elf in Lindon seems to believe the Three rings of power are free from Sauron’s influence, expect for Elrond.

Círdan: I remember, he [Celebrimbor] used to speak of, one day, crafting objects of such power, they could change the heart of any who beheld them. If, as you say, these Rings have so quickly turned Elf against Elf... it would appear he has succeeded. Elrond: Perhaps it was not Celebrimbor's hand that produced that effect. Círdan: If what you've told me is true, these three Rings were made without Sauron's touch. Elrond: The Enemy is cunning. The Rings may well be a ploy on his part. A device in some larger plan, the end of which we cannot yet see.

Indeed, Mairon spent a lot of time at Eregion with Celebrimbor, handling the only piece of Mithril available, and experimenting with different alloys. And when Celebrimbor melted down the Mithril into the purest gold and silver from Valinor (Finrod’s dagger), “the eye of Sauron” makes a (double) appearance:

In 2x03, when he (in Annatar form) and Celebrimbor are forging the Seven for the Dwarves lords, infusing the piece of Mithril with spells was the only thing he needed:

But I almost had it sooner. It was only in speaking with the Southlander that I realized... [...] His suggestions were but the key that unlocked the dam. We are on the cusp of crafting a new kind of power. Not of strength, but of spirit. Not of the flesh, but over flesh. This is... This is a power of the Unseen World. Celebrimbor tells Gil-galad about Halbrand’s ideas concerning the “crown” to save the Elves, 1x08

In an entirely different post, I already explained what is the Unseen world, but it's also worth mentioning here that "controlling the Unseen world" isn't a dark or evil power per say. Even in Tolkien lore, the Three Elven rings are a “power of the Unseen world”, allowing their ring-bearers to have foresight, strength, etc.

Mairon: We found it. I don't know how we missed it before. It's too much power for one object. We need two. We're making two. Galadriel: Two crowns? Mairon: Not exactly. It'll need to be something… Smaller. Come, see for yourself.

This exchange suggests that the idea of “rings” (instead of crowns) might have come from Mairon himself, and he wanted to forged two. One for Galadriel, and another for himself. And probably entirely made of mithril, too. Because Nenya, "Ring of Water" has no lesser ore (unlike Vilya "Ring of Air", and Narya, "Ring of Fire"). With what purpose? For them both to heal, themselves and Middle-earth.

Nenya choosing Galadriel in 2x01

Perfection does not exist only in Valinor, High King. It is here. Celebrimbor has brought it to Middle-earth. Círdan arrives with the Three, wearing Narya himself.

Did he, now?

At the beginning, Mairon was one of the most powerful Maiar, and the purest one, too. Which makes his corruption by Morgoth all more tragic. Before his mastery of Dark magic and witchcraft ("Sauron"), he’s gifted in Ainur magic, as it was his purpose by Eru.

And, in Tolkien canon, the Three aren’t free from Sauron’s influence, since their ring-bearers were able to perceive that Sauron forged the One ring (and took off theirs), and the Three lost their power once the One ring is destroyed by Frodo, in the Third Age. This means, the Three are, indeed, connected to Sauron’s power, they just don’t enslave their wearers to his will (like the Nine) nor bring misfortune (greed) as the Seven. “Rings of Power” build upon this and made the question more complex (and interesting).

Since “Rings of Power” somewhat changed the Tolkien canon (Celebrimbor forged the Three, alone, when he started to suspect Annatar’s true intentions and without any intervention from his part, meaning, he didn’t touch any material), I believe Mairon might had a hand on them being so powerful, especially their healing proprieties (Nenya above all). Because this was his ultimate goal, and what he has been seeking for a very long time. And since he was healing himself (through the Mithril), he might have transferred that, alongside with his original purposes (purity of heart and loyalty) as designed by Eru, onto the Three.

Mairon’s Illusions

This is more of side note, but now most of you are wondering, if that was Mairon, in his pathway to redemption, what’s with all the illusions in 1x08?

You see, “illusions” don’t exactly equal deception in Tolkien’s lore. Mostly because we have another character who’s also a Maia and who uses them on a regular basis: Gandalf (ironically, Tolkien himself said that Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron ever was).

His charade with her brother had one purpose, only:

He [Sauron] was seeking a power not to destroy Middle-earth, but to heal it. Just as your fellow Elves are seeking to do this very moment. You needn't lie to them. Simply let the work proceed.

And, at the end, Galadriel does allow the work to proceed, only she has Three rings made, instead of original Two (as Mairon intended).

Galadriel's Desire for Power

Mairon sees in Galadriel a wish for power. It’s no coincidence we see her on a power trip in 1x06, mostly in her interaction with Adar after the battle is won. And he’s a Maia, he was created with the purpose of being a servant to a Vala.

And this is where the majority of the fandom gets things wrong about Mairon’s offer to Galadriel in 1x08 (because the dialogue is misleading).

Mairon wasn’t asking her to be “his” queen, but *the* Queen of all Middle-earth. With him as her consort, “my king”, of course (he was already planning on getting the wedding rings made, after all).

This idea is confirmed in 2x08, when Sauron reveals to Galadriel his original intention in 1x08 (when he was Halbrand/Repentant Mairon):

I would have placed a crown upon your head. I would never have rested until all Middle-earth had been brought to its knees, to worship the light of its Queen.

In 1x08, Mairon asks his new “Vala” (Galadriel) for them to bind together. He says “You bind me” (and not the other way around). This is Marion plegding himself at her service (the Maia in service of a Vala). She binds him to the light (redemption), and he binds her to power, allowing her to become the Queen she wants to be.

This vision is meant to symbolize redeemed Mairon with Queen Galadriel, and not Dark!Galadriel as many assume.

And this is pretty much what Galadriel will tell Frodo, in the Third Age, when he offers her the One ring:

And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, Chapter 7: "The Mirror of Galadriel"

Thousands of years later, this offer still haunts Galadriel, which makes me wonder if “Rings of Power” will return to this scene again in future seasons (maybe to reveal the truth of it).

Galadriel denies Mairon, because she doesn't believe in his redemption, and thinks he has deceived her all along, and, worst, she fell in love with the enemy she has been obsessively searching for centuries now. He still fights back with “you need me.”, in pledge of his servitude to her, but to no avail. She’s too prideful to say “yes” to him. Because she assumes he's "Sauron", "the deceiver".

Mairon, on the other hand, sees his oath of servitude denied. Galadriel refused to be his Vala, and to bind him to the light (redemption). He placed his bet on the wrong horse, as they say. And without a Vala to guide him, he’s lost. Because that's how he was created to be. And while he flees Eregion, he takes Galadriel back to when she was drowning in the Sundering Seas (and he saved her), to drive home just how much she, actually, needs him.

We have a double-edged blade over here.

Mairon's explosive reaction also goes back to what he said to Galadriel in 1x05: “You don’t know what I did before I ended up on that raft. And when these people discover it, they will cast me out. And so will you.” Galadriel rejecting him in 1x08 represents the confirmation of Mairon’s worst fear: he’s not worthy of redemption.

In fact, he should have stayed in Númenor instead of following Galadriel's pride and ambition. His first deception ("King of the Southlands") caused a snowball of errors and bad choices for Mairon, and caused him to fall back into evil and embrace his "Sauron" persona in Season 2.

And Galadriel, should have “let it lie” as Mairon himself told her on the raft, and every other time he begged her to leave him alone, because she couldn't fix his suffering, no matter how strong her will or her pride. In truth, what she really wanted to "fix" (heal) was herself, like I've talked about in Part I.

In the end, they both chose power over the light, and they both "failed the test".

Is there any way these two could have worked out?

We know, upfront, that Galadriel and Mairon are doomed by the narrative (peak doomship). Not only he ends up becoming the new Dark Lord with plans of enslaving every race on Middle-earth to his will, but Galadriel is one of his primary adversaries on that endevadour. And, yet, they never fight each other in the flesh. And Season 2 might have provided an explanation for that.

A lot of them bonding together in Season 1 was due to their shared traumas and hopes (redemption, healing the darkness within, etc.), but the way they looked at each other on their first encounter in the Sundering Seas might suggest these two could have end up sharing a attraction/connection, either way.

Moving forward and up until Galadriel returns to Valinor at the end of “Return of the King”, there is little chance for these two to actually reconcile (unless Galadriel goes dark). The only way for them to get a “second change” was if Mairon accepted to face the judgement of the Valar, at the end of it all and after the One ring gets destroyed, and for them to be reunited in Aman (they are immortal spirits, after all).

Halbrand aka Repentant Mairon is gone, and I don’t think he will make another appeareance (unless it’s in flahsbacks). And this is very clear in the “last temptation” scene in 2x08: Sauron doesn’t even remember how Halbrand looks like. And, as Sauron goes deeper and deeper into evil, more “polished” and “glamorized” his looks will be, because his love for beauty is getting corrupted into vanity.

The only way Galadriel and Mairon could have worked out is if she had said “yes” to him, really. And this “what if” or “what could have been” will probably haunt Galadriel forever (she still remembers Mairon’s words when speaking to Frodo), because, in Season 2, we were told that Elven memories do not dim.

#saurondriel #haladriel #sauron x galadriel #galadriel x sauron #galadriel x halbrand #halbrand #mairondriel

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laurfilijames · 10 months ago

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Expensive

Pairing: Raymond Smith x female reader

Words: 4.3k

Warnings: Rated E, 18+. Swearing. Alcohol. Fingering and oral sex (F receiving). Light dom/sub dynamics. Unprotected intercourse. Name calling (slut).

Summary: PWP but with feelings. Some saucy fun in lavish lingerie and a romp on the floor in front of the fireplace with our generous gentleman Ray.

A/N: I finally did it. I wrote for Raymondo. I've wanted to ever since I first watched The Gentlemen and finally landed an idea to have fun with. Enjoy!

---

Ray knew you were there before he even stepped foot inside the house.

It wasn’t planned; no discussion was had about you paying him a visit or spending time together tonight, but he had caught on to your devious plan by the tone of your voice when he spoke on the phone with you earlier, your excitement in your scheming not slipping past him.

He didn’t miss much, always attentive and observant to anything going on around him, but when it came to you he didn’t ever miss a thing.

He walked quietly to the porch, the sound of his shoes crunching against the wet grit on the bricks and the softness of the steady rain hitting his jacket the only noises registering in his ears, and unlocked the door just as he did any other night, though knowing you were waiting for him inside made his homecoming after a long day that much more appealing.

The intoxicating scent of your perfume hit him as soon as he stepped through the threshold, the smell of it so familiar and welcoming even with it being faint in the distance between where he assumed you waited for him in the living room and the entryway.

Not wanting to ruin your fun by not playing along with your little game, Ray walked through to the kitchen, acting as if he didn’t notice that your coat was draped over the back of one of the chairs or that you’d already helped yourself to the bottle of wine that he had a glass out of the night before; the level of the crisp red now sitting at the halfway mark rather than just below the neck.

He opened the cupboard that kept his glassware, reaching for one glass, then a second, a smile tugging at his lips when he heard your short, disappointed sigh.

“Spoilsport.”

“You quite like making yourself at home, don't you?” he asked, eyebrows raised as he filled both glasses with water; hydration favoured over the craveable taste of wine or scotch for the games he intended to play next.

“Breaking and entering is a felony…” he purred, removing his jacket while maintaining eye contact with you.

“It isn’t when the homeowner has gifted you the key needed to open the front door whenever you please.”

He sighed, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose, “I told you I was busy.”

“I don't like being told no.”

Ray grabbed the water glasses and slowly made his way into the living room, depositing one on the small table beside the chair you were sprawled out in wearing nothing but a stunning set of lingerie.

He blinked quickly, a display of his rising frenzy, turning on his heels and taking a seat on the chair opposite you after looking you up and down.

You smiled, watching him cross his legs and fold his hands in his lap, staring at you intently like he was blatantly ignoring the fact that you were nearly naked and the balcony-style bra barely covered your nipples, the material that did cover them see-through.

“You don’t like being told no,” he spoke slowly, repeating your words to clarify or mock, you weren’t sure.

“No,” you said through a grin, uncrossing and recrossing your own legs to show off your crotchless panties, running your finger teasingly up along your stockings before adjusting the clips that connected them to the garter belt around your waist.

A groan that was hardly audible sounded from him as he sighed, taking a long sip out of his glass while watching you over the rim.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, rising from his seat where he unbuttoned his cardigan and peeled it off his broad shoulders, revealing another layer of pristine clothing underneath.

“I’m quite certain a smart man such as yourself can think of something.”

“Flattery won’t help you now, darling,” he warned, having stalked over to you where he hovered above you dominantly.

“I appreciate you using a coaster,” he nodded to your wine glass. “At least you listen to some of the things you’re told.”

You sucked in a sharp breath in amusement at his comment, clasping the long-stemmed glass in question where you brought it to your ruby coloured lips.

“I strive to be a good girl.”

“You’re going to need to prove that.”

Ray couldn’t help but smirk, not at all serious about being displeased that you were here, feeling quite the opposite, in fact, even if you weren’t primed and ready to provide him with anything he asked.

He had regretted it immediately when he told you that morning that you wouldn't be seeing each other tonight, the usual comforting warmth of his tea tasting bitter on his tongue after he had said it, knowing all the while that all he really wanted was to relax with you and indulge in every simple pleasure imaginable, his chest tightening with hope that you would be your defiant self when you accepted his denial with a simple and suspiciously bright ‘okay’.

You returned his smile, shifting slightly in your seat on account of how adoringly he was looking at you, your arousal and need for him growing as you watched him unfasten the buttons on each cuff of his shirtsleeves and began rolling them up his toned forearms.

The wearied look in his eyes was highlighted by his glasses, his features appearing more serious than they usually were, making your heart ache in wanting to take away whatever it was that was worrying him.

“You look expensive,” he spoke quietly, almost a whisper, his focus still on his shirt as he rolled the second sleeve neatly to his elbow.

“I am expensive, Ray,” you quipped, your tone light but quiet as well.

One eyebrow rose at your answer, his head tilting slightly as his arms fell back to his side and he straightened himself, looking down at you.

You reached forward, smoothing your hand over his stomach, unfastening the buttons on his waistcoat effortlessly before grabbing onto his tie to pull him closer to you.

The smell of his almost worn off cologne and rich beard oil mixed with a sweeter hint of tobacco and marijuana, awakening more desire in you and making you draw in a deeper breath to try to capture more of it, of him, as you brought your face closer to his body, his warmth radiating off of him and making you moan softly.

Ray followed your silent directions as you continued to tug on his tie, kneeling in front of you, his blue eyes warm and bright compared to how they appeared a short moment ago.

Your body tensed slightly when his hands landed on your knees, his thumbs brushing them gently while you pulled the knot out of his tie and slipped it from his collar, admiring every part of his chest that was revealed to you as you undid each button on his striped shirt that now held wrinkles in it despite having been meticulously ironed that morning.

“What’s the price?” Ray inquired, running his long fingers up your thigh to make it tremble under his soft strokes.

You smiled, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth, slipping your hands under his shirt to caress over his strong, smooth muscles.

Watching his eyelids fall shut as he relaxed into your touch, you continued to rub him, moving everywhere you could from his neck down to the flaxen hairs that crept out from the top of his jeans, and back up again where you found his steady heartbeat.

You stilled, your palm resting where his heart began to thump harder against it, his eyes opening in realization as to what your price was.

He smiled, bringing out the creases around his eyes and mouth, a twinkle shining in them that made your own heart leap. His hands came up to hold your cheeks, his eyes traveling down from yours to your lips, his tongue peeking out to lick his own quickly before he leaned forward and kissed you.

It was almost liberating to think that you didn't have a clue that he had settled the cost pretty much the moment he met you, that he would continue to pay with it over and over until you did realize you had captured his solitary heart, but in the meantime he would take every bit of joy out of pretending he owed you a fortune of his love.

You sighed into his kiss, any tension you felt leaving your body as you relished in the feel of his tongue and the softness of his beard on your chin and lips, arching your back in order to get yourself closer to him and deepen it.

Continuing to kiss until many moments were gone unnoticed, you tangled your fingers in his neatly fixed hair, disrupting it enough that your nails ran over his scalp and sent tingles down his spine, rousing him from this alluring inebriation.

A low growl sounded from him as he dug his fingers into the flesh on your thighs, looking at you with a dark hunger that sparked your soul and every other wanton desire waiting to be set free.

“Stand up, turn around, and bend over.”

His demand came out between heaving breaths, his resolve quickly tumbling apart before you, and with a sweet smile and love in your eyes for the man you would obey without hesitation, you slowly stood.

Ray never broke eye contact with you, his dominance clear and resolute despite him being the one on his knees while you stood tall above him, a trusting assurance glowing in his crystal blue eyes that you always saw whenever you were with him.

Feeling reluctant to turn away from him but eager for what was next all at once, you did, biting your lip as you hinged at your hips and gripped the back of the chair you had been sitting in, leaning forward to stick your ass out invitingly.

You gasped, Ray’s lips and silky beard meeting the inside of your right thigh, peppering kisses up along it and back down again slowly, his mouth tracing the edge of your stocking.

The wood frame of the chair creaked under your grasp as Ray continued to tease you, his lips and hands sending you into a frenzy that you had to try to contain, your legs shifting to rub them together and present yourself even more to him.

“Patience,” he chimed, fully aware of what he was doing to you, making your head fall between your arms that braced in front of you.

The gold ring that sat on his pinky caught on your nylons as he ran his hand up the inside of your leg once more, the tip of his thumb grazing your folds with a teasing nudge that made you let out a breathy sigh when he reached the apex of them.

“You’re beautiful,” he praised, his confident and evenly-toned voice softer. “And you’re mine.”

You felt so powerful, knowing he was admiring every bit of you with genuine interest and affection, his attention to detail carried over to the most intimate parts of your body, all while reminding you of his claim on you that made you soar higher than ever.

“Fuck, Ray…” you hissed, your grip hardening on the chair as his nose skimmed beside your aching core, his long, slow inhale echoing loudly in your ears.

He groaned appreciatively when his tongue swiped through your wet, immediately going back for more with a second broad stroke, your legs already shaking from how good it felt.

Your whines grew as his tongue probed inside you, taking turns with angling his chin to reach the front of you and flicking your clit while his nose buried in your soaked cunt, the precision in his pattern and rhythm bringing you dangerously close to your climax.

He wouldn’t let you have it quite that easy though, and halting his feast on you, he gave one last lick around your puckered hole and slapped your cheek as he abandoned you completely, standing with a low groan.

Running a hand over his beard, he stared you down maliciously, amused at the sight of you still bent over and writhing, your core a soppy mess just waiting to be fucked by him.

“Go over there and wait for me,” he spoke steadily, a contrast from how his chest rose and fell sharply and his cheeks were tinged with a rosy blush.

Unsteady legs brought you over to the space in front of the fireplace, and you watched with a restlessness as Ray reached for a remote on the coffee table, pressing a button before placing it back in its spot.

The fireplace ignited with a loud fwoosh, the propane instantly bringing flames up to a roaring burn, the sound startling you and making you jump.

“Nothing to be afraid of…” he cooed, smirking at you, his playful reassurance making your need for him burst just as the fire had.

He stood there watching you for a moment, slowly peeling off his waistcoat that had been left open along with his shirt, leaving you unsure what to do with yourself in the meantime.

You let your hand travel slowly down your chest, grazing between your breasts and lower until you reached your exposed core, only to be stopped.

“Ah, ah,” he tutted, his eyebrows high on his forehead.

Although you let out a huff, you did your best to hide your disappointment, willing patience to grace you as you continued to watch him undress himself layer by layer, and far slower than he needed to.

To make matters worse, Ray proceeded to neatly fold his clothes and place them on the sofa, effectively running up any patience you had mustered, leaving you to take in his perfectly sculpted body and his ivory skin that called for your lips to touch.

“Jesus, Ray…” you muttered, only to quiet yourself with the look he gave you.

He extended his finger, pointing at the floor beside you, unclasping his watch from his wrist with the other hand.

“On the ground.”

His order was calm and collected, as if you expected anything less from him, and you licked your lips as you sank down to the carpet that was already warm from the fire, feeling your arousal drip from you as you moved.

“Now,” he said, taking his glasses off and placing them carefully beside his pile of clothes. “What to do with you…” he pondered out loud, stalking over to you as he grasped his hard cock with his hand and began stroking it.

“Put me out of my fucking misery…” you complained under your breath, squirming on your knees.

He grinned, “Ah, just a naughty girl begging to have her cunt filled in.”

His accusation washed over you like a drug, making your attitude vanish as quickly as his words came off his tongue, unable but also not wanting to deny that what he said was completely true.

Standing tall in front of you now, he glanced down at you, his mouth parted slightly, his hand still pumping his shaft as he brought it close to your face.

“Yes, Ray,” you whispered, ready to beg and worship at his feet if you had to, feeling the most desperate you ever had for that cock and how intensely he always pleasured you.

He tapped his leaking head against your cheek, and you sucked in a deep breath, inhaling his musky scent as you subtly titled your head closer to his groin, your mouth watering at the thought of tasting all of him.

“As you wish.”

Ray stepped behind you, his finger tracing along your jawline softly so that your head tipped back, relishing in such a simple touch that would only be the beginning of so much more.

He joined you on the floor, kneeling directly behind you so his strong quads met the back of your thighs, his cock nudging at your folds to tease you. His hands wrapped around your front, one traveling upward while the other went down, landing on your throat and your hot cunt where he stopped, his mouth beside your ear.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmured, the depth of his voice making you shiver.

“You.”

His breath fanned out on your searing skin when he chuckled softly, “You have me.”

He kissed your neck, his lips slow to move but powerful in their action; sucking and pressing into your flesh, his teeth gliding along where your pulse hammered furiously.

You moaned, the sensation of his kisses and the way his deft fingers toyed with your nipple already making you insane with lust, and when he slipped his other fingers inside you, you prayed for him to never stop.

He always knew exactly how to build you up quickly, removing his fingers from you where he rubbed your clit with your slick while continuing to pinch your nipple through the thin lace of your bra, his cock sliding back and forth between your legs where it threatened to breach your entrance as he moved his hips.

Hazy from ecstasy, you didn’t notice when Ray had reached for a pillow off the chair beside you and placed it in front of you, the tartan fabric soft to your touch when you leaned forward and grabbed onto it with both hands.

“Fuck…” Ray hissed, admiring the view you provided him with as he stroked you from behind, his fingers easily sliding in and out of you again.

You moved down onto your elbows, thankful for his consideration for having them cushioned by the pillow and not the hardwood floor, but knew you would sacrifice having bruises mark your skin for this without question.

He exchanged his fingers for his cock, pressing his engorged head against your hole, smearing his precum onto you in slow, circular motions until he couldn't wait any longer.

A long moan came from him as he pushed his cock inside you, inch by inch, savouring every moment of it until he filled you completely. Slowly, he dragged back out, his cock coated in your milky wet that made his mouth water and eager for more, slamming back into you where you cried and jolted forward slightly from his force.

Ray didn’t hold back, letting out all of the day’s frustrations on you while also conveying everything you made him feel, thrusting into you harshly until a layer of sweat broke out over his skin.

It was difficult to keep yourself upright on your elbows, his vigorous tempo forcing you onto your chest, feeling his body lower down to cover your back where he kept up his brutal pace.

Gripping under your left leg, Ray guided it up to lay at an angle, his hand slipping under your body to reach around for your clit, massaging it with perfectly rough strokes while his cock pummeled your g-spot with each blow.

Spit smeared over the plaid pattern of the pillow, your mouth unable to control the evidence of your pleasure between that and your cries, the sound of your wet skin meeting with his sending you close to the edge.

“Ray…I’m- fuck! I’m close!” you wailed, the admission of it making your climax barrel forward faster.

You clenched around him, rolling your hips up and back against his in a hurried, desperate pace, the seconds of waiting for him to grant you permission feeling like a cruel eternity.

“Are you?” he asked, a hint of malice laced in his tone.

He stopped rubbing your clit, halting your orgasm in its tracks, your grip on the pillow loosening slightly as you whined in frustration.

“You know you’re to fucking ask,” he reminded you, his voice somehow calm and his expression composed as you glanced over your shoulder at him.

You dared to smile at him, making him tilt his head in warning and resume his barrage on you, fucking you harder than before.

“Fuck, Ray!” you whined, the rate at which he brought you right back to where he left you making you tingle from head to toe, that blissful heat coiling at the base of your spine.

Somehow, you managed to bring yourself back up onto your hands, meeting his thrusts with your hips in a frantic need, his hand returning between your legs to circle your swollen bud while his other tore at your chest, pulling at the lace covering your breasts until they fell out of their covering.

“Fuck!” he roared, pawing at your tits as they shook to his movements, his own climax not far off.

His grunts spurred you on, hearing how good you made him feel taking you to a place of no return, and you rushed to ask for your permission before it was too late.

“Can I come, Ray?” you cried, your words coming out as a weak and trembling mess as you did your best to hold off the inevitable.

“Yes! Fuck…” he breathed. “Come around that cock you fucking slut!” he growled, his pace increasing as he fucked you senseless, throwing you into one of the most intense orgasms he had ever given you.

You shuddered as you choked him with your cunt, grinding on his fingers that remained firm on your clit, feeling your high bring out his own as he pounded you harder and harder until he pulsed inside you, generously dragging out your climax with his.

Ray watched his cock slide in and out of you, creamy cum leaking out with it as he did, slowing his movements gradually as you both came down from your highs, the sound of your ragged breathing the only thing heard over the soft roar of the powered flames coming from the fireplace.

Sweat glistened in the dip of your lower back, and you couldn’t look more heavenly as you glowed from the heat on your skin and the wetness between your legs, your luxurious set of lingerie beautifully disheveled.

Trails of sweat dripped down his own body, and as he remained inside you until he no longer could, he smoothed his hair back with his hands, fixing the stray pieces that had been misplaced during his efforts.

He leaned over and retrieved his glasses from the sofa, replacing them on his face with a few quick blinks, watching out of the corner of his eye as you carefully stood on wobbly legs from your spot, trying not to make a mess on the expensive threads that were soft on your feet.

Ray gracefully laid down on the carpet, his chest rising and falling heavily as he relaxed, his hand splayed across his abdomen comfortably while the other arm rested above his head.

Nothing was said as you grabbed your bag where it sat against the wall between the living room and kitchen, getting your clothes out to get ready to make your exit, not wanting to disrupt Ray’s night more than you already had.

He sighed, his glasses pushing up as he pinched his nose with his fingers, wishing you didn’t feel the need to whisk yourself away like you were nothing more to him than something to wet his cock.

Taking a deep inhale and blowing it slowly out through his mouth, he tipped his head, able to watch you where he knew you had strategically placed yourself between pieces of furniture for him to see.

You were bent over, stepping your feet into your shoes after having slipped your skirt over your waist, your bare pussy that he had just finished ruining on full display in those crotchless panties Ray knew he would be thinking about for days after.

“Come back over here.”

His voice cut through the room with a demand to be heard, making you pause in reaching for your shirt, a smile tugging at your lips.

“I’ll count to three.”

Once again, his warning came out far gentler than it should, his ability to so nonchalantly list off orders in that sultry voice making excitement bloom in your belly.

You turned on your heel to see him staring up at the ceiling, looking as divine as ever in the warm light of the fire that flickered over his features, his naked form a rare sight for anyone but you to see with it so frequently covered in layers of posh garments.

Ray was a bit recluse, and you didn't take his affection toward you for granted even for a second, smiling with a sense of pride and devotion as you kicked off your shoes and slowly made your way back over to the man your heart had begun to miss already.

He welcomed you by opening his arm, giving you space to tuck yourself up beside him, your head finding a spot on his chest where his heart thrummed in your ear.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place…” you reminded him, feeling slightly guilty over showing up unannounced.

Ray hummed, always carefully assessing whatever thoughts were about to pass through his lips, his thumb rubbing your arm languidly.

“No,” he blinked quickly, his tone lighter. “But I’m glad that you are.”

As much as Ray tried keeping things neat and tidy between you, he couldn’t ignore how tangled you had become in his soul, his thoughts distracted by you more times than he would care to admit or ever want the Boss to know of, something he swore would never happen taking place before his very eyes without any intention of stopping it.

Ray pressed a kiss to your temple, thinking how he had paid the price a long time ago with you, the expense of your love something he would go broke for a million times over, letting you take careful possession of the one thing he would never pay out to anyone else.

---

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