#Touch Screen Controllers Market

[iraot]

Dead On Paper

Pairing: Dawnbreak/Zayne x f!reader Summary: He is hired to kill her, but realized he was born to protect her instead. Genre: Romance, Some Smut, Blood, he's an ASSASSIN GUYS so just... he kills people. Word Count: 17, 896 AO3

A sealed, untraceable burner device chirps once—no vibration, no screen light, just a short mechanical tone sharp enough to pierce the hush of Zayne’s safehouse. He picks it up without hurry, thumbprint unlocking the message buried under four layers of encryption. Coordinates first. Then a face scan, timestamped, taken from a distance with low exposure. She’s walking near a market, head tilted to the sun like someone who’s never felt watched.

Target: a civilian woman. No priors. The file confirms it—no aliases, no history with black-market trades, no contact with arms or laundering circuits. Even her financial records look clean outside of a few late payments, nothing criminal. Her name’s been scrubbed from the brief, redacted by whoever ordered the kill. That’s unusual. Even high-profile jobs rarely erase the subject's name unless there’s heat somewhere.

Zayne narrows his eyes as he decrypts the secondary layer of metadata. The source trails back to a shell entity registered in Singapore—long dissolved on paper but active in deep channels. One of a thousand fake fronts tied to an old laundering tree used by both legacy cartels and the newer syndicate branches that spun off during the post-2008 chaos. He knows the kind. Family dynasties and private enforcers. The kind of people who issue death orders not to eliminate threats, but to humiliate those who failed them.

He reclines back in the steel-framed chair, fingers drumming once on the desk beside him. The image of the woman lingers on the cracked screen—arms full of greenery, face turned just slightly, mouth open in what looks like mid-laughter. Civilian. Young. Alive. And someone wants her very much not to be.

The reward is abnormally high—seven figures for a civilian who’s never touched a gun, never crossed a border under false papers, never whispered a name worth killing over. It makes him pause, green eyes narrowing on the screen like it might flinch under the scrutiny. This isn’t about threat mitigation or cleanup. This is punishment by proxy, and she’s the proxy—collateral born from blood ties to someone who fucked the wrong people and fled before the debt collectors came knocking.

Zayne leans forward, elbows on the metal desk, and reads the fine print again. No time limit. No discretion required. They don’t care how messy it gets. That confirms it—this is about spectacle, not silence. Someone wants her to disappear as a lesson carved into bone, left bleeding in the air as a warning to others who forget who they owe.

He exhales through his nose once, controlled and quiet, and types a single line of reply into the secured channel: I’ll handle it. Four words. Enough to signal acceptance, initiate payment escrow, and launch a countdown no one will trace back to him. But it isn’t final. Not yet. Zayne doesn’t pull triggers on photographs.

He scouts. Confirms. Decides. Always.

Zayne rents the unit under a fake name, cash only, no questions asked. It’s bare inside—concrete walls, no windows, stripped light fixtures. He brings in his own power supply, a collapsible chair, surveillance gear tucked into repurposed moving boxes labeled “kitchen” and “holiday lights.” Across the street, three ordinary-looking orange cones sit angled just right, each one housing high-res lenses wired into a portable server cooled by fans that hum beneath the drone of traffic.

For two weeks, he watches her from behind glass and code, logging everything with sniper precision. She opens the nursery each morning at exactly 6:45AM, sliding the gate open in one smooth motion before disappearing behind a veil of condensation and leaf-shadow. Her routine is seamless. Reliable. She starts her day with chamomile and mint tea in a chipped mug painted with violets, always held in both hands like it centers her.

She plays music through a speaker rigged near the herb section—first soft jazz, low saxophone and brushed percussion, then Spanish ballads after 9AM, lilting and sad. She hums sometimes, unconsciously, her mouth twitching with lyrics she doesn’t say aloud. Her lunch is always packed: boiled egg, vegetables, rice in a reused takeout container. Never any takeout. Never anything prepared by anyone but her.

She doesn’t answer phone calls. The burner she carries stays buried at the bottom of her bag, screen unlit, battery rarely above fifteen percent. Zayne tracks her movements through the rest of her week—short walks, two bus routes, no deviation. Once a week she slips into a hole-in-the-wall bookstore and leaves with worn paperbacks, crumpled bills exchanged with the owner in silence. No credit. No receipts. Just cash.

When her shift ends, she rides her rusted bike home with a basket full of trimmings and dented groceries, her fingernails dark with soil, her posture sagging with work. She greets no one. She never invites anyone in. And behind the nursery, under the old brick archway where vines have begun to grow wild, she kneels with a bowl of tuna for three stray cats—thin things with matted fur that purr when she speaks.

Zayne watches all of this. Records every minute. And finds nothing. No tail, no accomplices. No panic in her steps, no precautions. If she knows someone’s watching her, she hides it perfectly. But he doesn’t think she knows. She looks up sometimes at the sky, eyes wide like someone waiting for a better life to descend gently, green and growing, into her palms.

She’s crouched near a table of succulents, sleeves rolled up, hands dusted with potting soil, when a child comes barreling into the nursery. A boy, maybe five or six, wild curls and mismatched socks, clutching a bruised fern like it’s a treasure. He says something—Zayne can’t hear it through the feed, but her laughter rings out anyway, rich and spontaneous. She throws her head back just slightly, eyes crinkling, lips parted in a way that makes it unmistakable: it’s real.

Zayne blinks behind the scope, momentarily still. It takes longer than it should for his breathing to return to its usual rhythm. He shifts his position by instinct, recalibrating for line of sight, but the laugh echoes in his memory like an anomaly. It shouldn’t matter. It bothers him that it does.

She’s a target. That’s the refrain. Simple. Clean. She exists in this file for a reason—because someone, somewhere, decided her continued breathing was a liability. Zayne doesn’t ask why. Not usually. The 'why' makes the hand shake. Makes the bullet miss.

But something isn’t sitting right this time. Her routine is too open, too linear—no dead drops, no burner swaps, no subtle check-ins with strangers or mirrored surfaces. She doesn’t take alternate routes home. She doesn’t scan the street before she locks up at night. She walks like no one’s ever told her to be afraid. Like she doesn’t know that death is parked across the street in a borrowed van watching her finish a conversation with a six-year-old about aloe and water schedules.

She’s not avoiding being tracked. She’s not hiding. She doesn’t even know she’s being watched and that’s what makes it harder.

He enters the house at 2:14AM, lock bypassed in under four seconds, gloves on, eyes already mapping the interior like a living schematic. The place is small—one bedroom, no signs of luxury, no hidden compartments or surveillance. She sleeps in a bed without a headboard, covered by a faded quilt with stitched vines and leaves, the kind that looks handmade. He doesn’t linger. Just moves like smoke through each room until he finds what he’s looking for.

The shoebox is buried in the closet, tucked behind rain boots and a crate of broken ceramics. No lock, no alarm—just taped shut and sealed with old, half-peeled stickers. He opens it with a scalpel. Inside: a stack of unopened letters, official and bland, with seals from places like “Collection Units,” “Asset Adjustment Services,” and “Financial Intercession Groups.” Corporate euphemisms for legalized extortion. Some are printed on thick cardstock, others typed in sterile fonts, but they all have the same tone—pay what they owe, or we’ll extract it elsewhere.

He flips through them until the photographs start. Surveillance shots. A man and a woman—her parents. Stained shirts, glassy eyes, one of them half-smiling in a gas station mirror. Each image is stamped “DELINQUENT” in red ink. Beside it, a breakdown of debt portfolios: gambling, laundering, crypto fraud, unpaid smuggling tolls. One sheet reads $2.3 million outstanding. Another simply says: ASSET RECOVERY: ALL TIED.

Zayne stares at the handwriting below the photo.

Last known location: UNKNOWN.

So they went dark. Cowards who left their daughter as collateral.

She’s not part of the scam. She’s just the remaining name with a heartbeat. On paper, she’s tied into the debts—accidental proxy, inherited without consent. Her only crime is not covering their tracks for them.

He sits on the edge of her couch, documents spread like tarot cards across his lap, and exhales—slow, silent, like something sharp’s being drawn out of his chest. His code is old, quiet, carved into the marrow: no innocents. No children. No ghosts forced to carry the weight of other people’s bad decisions.

No one deserves to die for the sins of absentee, criminal bloodlines and no one gets to hunt her while he’s watching.

The rental sits to the left of her house, a sun-bleached skeleton with warped siding, blistered paint, and a roof that sighs in high wind. Zayne signs the lease as Elias Tan, a name clean enough to pass background checks and common enough to be forgettable. He doesn’t move in all at once—just a few boxes, a mattress, and the quiet thrum of tools unpacked with surgical precision. Each day he fixes something small: a cracked shingle, a leaking gutter, the stubborn back gate that swings open in storm wind.

He starts a garden along the fence line, nothing flashy—just cucumbers, rosemary, a few heirloom beans in salvaged planter boxes. The kind of thing you can ask advice about, even when you don’t need it. The soil is poor, so he tills it by hand, sweat running down the curve of his spine under worn cotton. It gives him something to do that looks honest.

She sees him for the first time on a humid Tuesday morning, dragging a twenty-pound bag of fertilizer across the gravel path, breath hitching at every uneven step. He’s trimming back lemon balm when he glances up. No words at first—just a look, held for a beat too long.

“You need a hand?” he asks, voice even. No smile. No pressure.

She shakes her head, arms locked around the bag. “Got it.”

He nods and steps back, she passes, and they leave it at that. Non-threatening. Just a neighbor with dirt under his nail a man who builds, instead of destroys.

The second time they speak, she catches him mid-morning, crouched beside a weather-beaten citrus tree he’s trying to revive. He’s trimming back curled, browning leaves with surgical snips, expression focused, hands steady. She walks by, slows, and tilts her head with the quiet confidence of someone who knows plants like they’re kin.

“You’re cutting too close to the node,” she says, nodding at the branch in his hand. “You’ll stress the stem.”

He looks up at her, eyes unreadable but attentive. “I thought it was rot.”

“It’s calcium deficiency,” she replies, stepping closer, brushing her thumb across one of the leaves. “Soil’s probably too acidic. Try crushed eggshells.”

He considers this, then asks, “You ever grafted from a lemon onto an orange base?”

That catches her off guard—in a good way. Her face brightens, eyes sparking like someone who didn’t expect to be taken seriously. “Yeah,” she says, grinning. “You’re braver than you look.”

He doesn’t respond, just returns to trimming, but there’s a flicker at the corner of his mouth, almost like amusement.

A week later, there’s a knock at his door. He opens it and finds her holding a woven basket filled with tangled sprigs of mint—wild, unruly, fragrant from several feet away.

“For tea,” she says, lifting it toward him. “Or whatever it is you drink after sunset.”

He takes it without hesitation. “I make chili jam,” he offers, stepping aside to retrieve a jar from his kitchen. “Want to try some?”

She perches on the edge of his porch while he unscrews the lid. There are no spoons, so she dips a finger directly into the thick, red mixture and brings it to her lips. She licks once, slow, thoughtful, then gasps quietly.

“Oh, that’s—hot,” she laughs, eyes wide. “But really fucking good.”

He says nothing. Just watches her mouth, the shine on her lower lip, the shape of her laugh as it curls out of her like steam. She talks for another minute or two, but he doesn’t hear much of it. Not really.

That image—her finger, her lips, the moment—lodges in his mind like a trigger half-pulled. He files it away with clinical care, like evidence but he doesn’t delete it.

The burner glows faint blue in the dark, a signal pulled through a quiet channel that only speaks in silence. Zayne uploads a high-resolution image of bloodied clothing—a hoodie similar to the one she wore last Tuesday, torn and stained with carefully applied theater blood. He pins it to GPS coordinates leading to an isolated burn site he used three years ago, a gravel pit ringed with trees and ash that no one patrols. No body. No teeth. Just enough residue to imply a conclusion.

The contract broker responds in under forty minutes. Confirmation flags appear, payment clears, and her profile gets an automated status: TERMINATED. Zayne watches the progress bar complete, then files the job under his real alias, Dawnbreaker—signed, sealed, archived with the others. She’s dead now, on paper. Dead enough that no one with a price list will come looking for her again.

He opens the encrypted archive, scrolls down to her original file, and deletes the biometric images from the kill folder. Gone, as protocol demands. But he copies one—the unedited one, the one where she’s smiling at a pigeon from across the street—and drops it into a buried partition in his personal archive. Just in case, he tells himself. Contingency. Not sentiment.

Still, when the screen fades to black, he doesn’t close the laptop right away.He just sits there, staring into the dark, and for once it doesn’t stare back. –

He learns her schedule like a melody—one note at a time, steady, familiar. Not for strategy or escape routes, not anymore. There’s no ambush in his mind, no scope tracking her from across the street. He memorized her routine the way a man memorizes the tide: because it matters to him, because its rhythm softens something he didn’t know needed softening.

She hums when she waters the plants, low and tuneless, like her thoughts are too full to keep silent. He hears it even from his yard, faint through the breeze, sometimes rising into fragments of a melody he never recognizes. She sways gently as she moves, trailing her fingers along leaf edges, like she’s reassuring them that she’ll be back tomorrow. It’s ritual, not work.

On slow afternoons, she reads pest control manuals with frayed spines and penciled notes in the margins. Half the time she forgets them outside, pages curling in the sun until he quietly gathers them and drops them off by her door. She never asks how they get back there. Just smiles, mutters “thank you, plant gods,” and tucks them under her arm like sacred texts.

When snails invade her violets, she crouches with a flashlight and whispers threats like a tired parent. “You little bastards better not touch my orchids,” she mutters, plucking them off one by one and dropping them gently into a tin. She keeps a kill count on a sticky note taped to the windowsill. He pretends not to smile when he sees it hit twelve.

One evening, she waves him over with dirt-streaked gloves and a furrowed brow. “Spider plant’s got something weird on its leaves,” she says, holding it out like a sick child. “You ever seen spots like this?” He leans in, fingertips grazing the edge of the pot, shoulder brushing hers. He tells her it’s fungal. She tells him she’s relieved it’s not a curse. He doesn’t correct her.

— It's late afternoon when the conversation slips past weather and watering schedules. They’re seated on her back porch, her feet bare and tucked under her, Zayne leaning against the railing with a glass of cold water in one hand. The sun is low, casting long gold stripes through the latticework, dust motes swirling in the light between them. She pulls her hair back absently and asks, “So what do you do, exactly? You’re too methodical for accounting, too quiet for customer service.”

He answers without hesitation, calm and rehearsed. “Freelance logistics. Short-term supply chain stuff. Inventory control.” It’s vague but plausible, the kind of job that sounds both boring and too technical to probe deeper. She nods like it makes sense and doesn’t ask more—not because she believes it entirely, but because she doesn’t want to ruin the quiet by making it heavy.

She’s silent for a moment, eyes scanning the small garden bed in front of them. Then she speaks without looking at him. “My parents disappeared six years ago. Took a bunch of other people’s money with them. Left me the mail, the debt collectors, and a name that doesn’t belong to anyone respectable anymore.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t interrupt, just takes another drink and waits. She exhales slowly, like it costs her something. “I don’t hate them. I did for a while, sure. But mostly I don’t think about them now. It’s like… they were a dream someone else had, and I just woke up in the part where everything’s wrecked.”

He watches her, eyes unreadable but steady. “That’s a heavy inheritance,” he says.

“Yeah.” Her laugh is soft and dry. “Would’ve preferred land or a timeshare. Maybe a haunted watchtower or something. At least that comes with ghosts you can see.”

He doesn’t chuckle, but there’s a shift in his posture, something just shy of warmth. “Most people don’t talk about it like that.”

“Most people try to solve it,” she replies, glancing at him sideways. “Tell me to track them down, sue someone, write a letter, ‘process the trauma.’ You didn’t do any of that. You just… let it sit.”

He shrugs slightly. “Not everything needs fixing.”

She nods, a small smile flickering at the edge of her mouth. “That’s rare. Most men don’t know when to shut up.” He doesn’t say anything to that either. Just watches the way her shoulders loosen when she’s finally said too much and didn’t regret it.

The evening is quiet, heat bleeding off the pavement in slow waves, when she appears at her back door with her arm cradled awkwardly against her chest. She tries to wave him off with her good hand, downplaying it with a weak smile and a casual, “Clumsy me—smashed a pot. Got a little too aggressive with the shelving.” The gash is long, stitched but fresh, the skin around it red and taut, still swollen beneath gauze that’s already soaking through. Zayne says nothing, just nods once, but his eyes never leave the wound.

The cut’s too clean for a terracotta shard—too long, too precise, no drag marks or irregular tears that would come from jagged edges. She was cut with intent, not accident. She moves slower than usual, flinching when she bends, but hides it behind chatty small talk and jokes about tetanus shots. He offers her tea; she declines. Says she’s tired, just needs to sleep it off.

That night, after the neighborhood has gone dark, Zayne pulls a tablet from a false bottom in his tool chest and taps into the nursery’s security feed—something he wired on his second week without telling her. He scans back six hours. There’s a man in the footage, medium height, leather coat, mirrored glasses that don’t reflect the camera. He isn’t browsing. He’s cornering her near the back greenhouse, gesturing wildly while she stands still, arms crossed but shoulders tense.

The feed’s audio is too low for voices, but the body language tells enough—she tries to walk away twice, and both times he blocks her path. She finally pushes past him, hand gripping her forearm tightly, blood already soaking into her sleeve. The man leaves calmly, no rush, no panic, head down. Professional. Former debt collector, Zayne guesses—someone hired to rattle cages, remind her what happens when money owed goes unpaid or unforgotten.

Zayne closes the feed and deletes the last twenty-four hours. Not just the file, but the server metadata. Wiped. Gone. He sits back in the dark of his living room, lit only by the glow of the screen and the soft green flicker of the security router’s heartbeat.

He doesn’t plan revenge. Not yet.

But he writes down the man’s face. And he doesn’t forget.

The trail isn’t hard to follow—not when you know how collectors move, how they drink cheap coffee in laundromats and always overstay their welcome at low-end motels. Zayne pulls surveillance from street cams and ATM clusters, piecing together the man’s route through the city. Credit card pings lead to a port-side warehouse district full of abandoned freight, rusted chains, and stacked shipping containers that haven’t been checked in years. He gets there just after midnight, boots crunching over gravel, gloved fingers tracing the latch of a container with a scent that’s wrong—coppery and humid, like something that’s been left too long.

Inside, the collector is slumped against the back wall, head tilted unnaturally, arms bound with zip ties still cinched tight at the wrists. Blood pools beneath him, sticky and black. His tongue is missing, lips parted as if trying to scream even in death. There are no signs of struggle—just execution. The work is professional, deliberate. Someone wanted him silent, and someone wanted it understood.

Zayne crouches beside the body, eyes scanning the scene without emotion. He didn’t do this. That much is clear. No one kills like him—his method is cleaner, colder, a scalpel where this was a scalping knife. But this wasn’t random. Someone else followed the same scent trail, maybe smelled the same debt. Maybe decided this wasn’t about her anymore. Maybe it never was.

He rises slowly, shutting the container door behind him without leaving a trace. Back outside, the air feels heavier, thicker with something unseen. He doesn’t know who got to the man first.  

But he knows this much now: He’s not the only one watching her.

She knocks just past eleven, a soft, almost apologetic tapping against his doorframe. Rain sheets down behind her in cold, silvery lines, her hoodie soaked through, dark curls of wet hair plastered to her temples. Her fingers tremble around her phone, the screen dim and cracked, useless. “Power’s out,” she says, voice small, breath hitching. “And the storm’s freaking me out. I just… didn’t want to sit in the dark by myself.”

Zayne steps aside without a word, letting her pass into the warmth and light of his kitchen. He hands her a towel first, then a dry shirt, heavy with his scent, and turns to the stove without watching her change. She sits quietly while he brews tea, eyes following the motion of his hands, precise and sure. When he opens a drawer for a spoon, she spots the knitting needles tucked neatly beside utility tools, long metal ones with red-painted tips.

“You knit?” she asks, not teasing—just surprised, intrigued.

He doesn’t answer. Just closes the drawer again. She doesn’t press. The silence between them is soft, not awkward, and when he returns with two mugs, she accepts hers with a nod of thanks.

They sit on the couch, close, steam curling up between their hands. Her shoulder brushes his, light but unmistakable, and neither of them moves away. Outside, the storm cracks across the sky like bone splitting. Inside, she doesn’t flinch. She exhales slow, steady, then turns slightly and rests her head back against the cushion beside his. Doesn’t speak.

When she leaves an hour later, wrapped in a dry coat and steadier than when she arrived, she pauses in the doorway and smiles. Not wide. Not performative. Just quiet, real, like something settled. Zayne watches her cross the gravel back to her house, headlights from the streetlight flickering over her path.

He stares at the door for a long time after it closes

Not thinking. Just feeling.

Like something important nearly happened, and might again.

The night air is thick with late-summer damp, cool on sweat-slick skin but not enough to banish the warmth still radiating from the soil. Overhead, string lights stretch between two fences, swaying faintly in the breeze, casting broken amber light across the backyards. Zayne is crouched near the rosemary, the scent sharp on his hands as he trims back a branch with the precision of a surgeon. Across the narrow space, her silhouette shifts among tomato vines and sprawling mint, dirt clinging to her calves, hair tied messily off her neck, the fabric of her shirt sticking slightly at the small of her back.

They’ve been working like this for nearly an hour—no music, no conversation, just the clink of tools, the occasional rustle of plants being turned or watered. It’s quiet, but not sterile. Comfortable. Her presence is a soft hum in the background of his mind, rhythmic and grounding. He’s gotten used to it—her garden gloves tossed onto the fence post, the way she hums tunelessly when she concentrates, the soft curse when she finds aphids again on her basil. It’s not surveillance anymore. He isn’t watching. He’s just…near.

Then her voice slices gently through the quiet.

“Want to see something?”

He looks up, blinking, surprised by the interruption but not displeased. She stands near her porch, wiping her hands on a ragged kitchen towel. There’s dirt under her nails, smudges on her cheeks, and something lighter in her eyes. “The lavender finally came up,” she says, nodding toward a tray sitting under a makeshift UV lamp. “They’re tiny, but they made it. You said once you never bothered starting them from seed.”

He doesn’t remember saying it out loud, but he nods and follows her across the yard. Her porch creaks under their weight as she leads him toward the table where the tray rests, a grid of damp soil and fragile green shoots barely taller than a fingernail. She kneels beside it, gestures for him to come closer, and starts talking—explaining the mix she used, the spray bottle technique, the humidity dome she rigged out of an old cake cover.

As she looks up to speak again, the porch light catches on a streak of dirt across her cheek. Without thinking, Zayne reaches out. His thumb grazes her skin, a slow wipe from just below her eye to the edge of her jaw, lifting the smudge away in one clean stroke. Her breath catches. She doesn’t lean back.

Her eyes lock onto his, wide and startled—not in fear, but in sudden awareness. He’s still close, hand halfway raised, her skin warm where he touched it. She swallows, then says his name—soft, quiet, almost questioning.

“Zayne.”

He says hers in return. Low. Careful. Like it might break something if he isn’t gentle with it.

There’s a pause. The porch is quiet but for the rustle of nearby leaves and the gentle creak of the wind nudging the wood. Then she steps forward, slowly, her fingers brushing against the edge of his shirt as she closes the space between them. She rises onto her toes and presses her lips to his—light, cautious, but not uncertain. It’s not a question. It’s a confession wrapped in silence.

The kiss lingers. Just lips against lips, the soft, warm pressure of something new testing its weight. She tastes like mint and rain, and something delicate and unnamed trembles between them. He doesn’t deepen it. Doesn’t pull her in or press back harder. He simply lifts his hand again, cups her jaw with deliberate tenderness, thumb tracing along her cheekbone in a way that says he could destroy anything that dared harm her—but he won’t ever touch her like glass.

She pulls away first, breathing just a little heavier, her hand still hovering near his chest. She looks at him like she’s not sure what she just did, but doesn’t regret it. Her mouth opens—no words come. Instead, she exhales slowly and nods.

“I should—” she starts, then stops. “Goodnight.”

He answers, quiet but unshaken. “Goodnight.”

She leaves barefoot, dirt still clinging to her soles as she disappears down the steps and across the lawn. She doesn’t run, but she moves quickly, like something might stop her if she stays.

Zayne remains where she left him, hand still faintly warm, jaw tight. When he finally sinks back into the chair near the table, it creaks beneath him. His fists curl on his thighs, fingers digging in, knuckles white. He doesn’t turn off the porch light. He doesn’t sleep, not because of threat but because he can still feel her lips—gentle and unguarded—like a promise he didn’t deserve and couldn’t bear to break.

—

The evenings fall quiet by the time he shows up, arms full of rosemary, garlic scapes, lemon balm clippings wrapped in damp paper towels. She’s already boiling water or roasting something when he knocks, expecting him without ever saying she is. The kitchen is small but warm, the walls honey-colored with steam curling against the windowpanes, and the scent of earth and spice fills every corner. She gives him a wooden bowl to clean the herbs, humming softly as she stirs miso paste into broth or brushes oil over warm flatbread.

They eat at the small table near the back door, the one facing her little herb patch where wind chimes tangle softly in the breeze. Sometimes she asks if the thyme tastes too strong, or if the eggs cooked long enough, but mostly they eat in silence. It’s not awkward. It’s familiar—the kind of quiet that feels earned, like something shared rather than something missing.

She sits closer now, not quite pressed against him, but near enough that her thigh brushes his beneath the table when she shifts her weight. The first time it happens, her knee knocks into his and she doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t move either. Just takes another bite of soup, slow and measured, while their legs remain gently aligned, a quiet point of contact neither acknowledges out loud.

Once, while she’s scraping lentils from the bottom of the pot, she glances over her shoulder and says, “You don’t talk much, do you?”| “Don’t need to,” he replies, eyes steady on her hands.

She grins without looking at him again. “Good. I like that better.” And he understands then—it’s not that she wants company. It’s that she wants someone who doesn’t demand to be seen while she's still learning to be.

It happens just past midnight. Zayne is in the backyard, securing the last of the hose reels and flipping off the porch lights, the moon heavy and yellow behind a veil of slow-moving clouds. The wind picks up in short, sharp bursts, rustling leaves and bending the tomato stakes at his feet. As he turns toward the gate, his gaze catches on the glass of her greenhouse—just a shimmer at first, but then a shape, dark and still, reflected in the pane.

It stands where it shouldn’t—between the rows of hibiscus and lavender, too tall for her, too motionless for wind. The figure’s not moving, but the angle is wrong, the placement off; it’s not inside, it’s behind her greenhouse, lit by nothing but moonlight. He drops into a crouch before he even thinks, sliding a blade from his boot, eyes locked on the shimmer. But by the time he rounds the fence and reaches the spot, it’s gone. The space is empty. Still. No footprints in the mulch. No broken stems. No sound except the soft rattle of string lights overhead.

Zayne doesn’t believe in coincidence. Whoever it was stood there long enough to study her, to memorize angles, movements, maybe wait for a moment when she’d step into that glass room unaware. It wasn’t random—it was recon. Someone watched her like he once did. But not like him. Not to protect. Not to keep.

He doesn’t tell her the next morning. She’s smiling too easily over breakfast, teasing him about overwatering his thyme, and he lets it lie for now. Instead, he spends the afternoon laying ground sensors six inches beneath her rose beds and reprogramming the micro-cameras he once installed for his own surveillance. Now they feed directly to his secured server, pinging alerts to his burner phone. She doesn’t know he’s building a fence of code and eyes around her life. She doesn’t know yet someone else is trying to slip in through the cracks.

The sun is low, slanting in through the kitchen window, catching dust motes and bathing the room in soft orange. She’s cleaning with casual energy, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, hair messily twisted on top of her head, humming as she sorts mail and shoves worn dish towels into a drawer. Zayne leans against the counter, watching with that quiet stillness that never quite leaves him, offering to help only once. She waves him off with a laugh and tosses a sponge at his chest.

Then she opens the bottom drawer near the floor and stiffens—just slightly, just enough. Her hand lingers a second too long before she pushes it shut with her hip and says, “That one’s just old bills. Junk I keep meaning to shred.” Her voice is breezy, light, but her eyes don’t meet his as she turns back toward the counter. He makes no move to question her, doesn’t even change expression. But he logs it, like everything else.

When she excuses herself to shower, he moves across the room without a sound. The drawer slides open easily—she didn’t bother to lock it. Inside, the papers are folded, some crumpled, others stiff with age and creased from too many hands. Envelopes marked with return addresses he recognizes from years of contract work: Collection Units, Financial Intercession, Recovery Escalation. No names on the senders. No signatures. Just threats. Demand letters. Photocopied photos of her face, her place of work. She called them bills. But they’re warnings. And they’ve been piling up.

The drawer’s contents spill like a confession—torn envelopes, hastily folded sheets, paper still dusted with the residue of anger. Each one is different in format—some printed on faded company letterhead, others handwritten in thick black marker like a ransom note. No return addresses. No official seals. Just half-legible demands scrawled in frantic script, the kind that smudges when written too fast, too hot with rage to wait for the ink to dry.

Some pages are short, just one or two lines. “You’ll pay what they owe.” “Blood knows where to find blood.” Others are longer, bulleted, spiraling with accusations and threats of “enforcement visits,” thinly veiled beneath legalese. One page simply reads “RUN. IT WON’T HELP.” in red ballpoint, the letters jagged, pressed so hard into the paper it left grooves on the envelope beneath.

Zayne doesn’t react. He sifts through the pile like an archivist, hands careful, eyes scanning each word without giving away a thing. The rage behind them is unmistakable—not the cold precision of hired killers or corporate silence. This is desperate fury, the kind that comes from men whose money’s gone, whose power’s cracked, lashing out at anything left to punish and all of it points back to her. Not because she did anything wrong, but because she’s still visible. Still reachable and someone—more than one—wants to remind her of that.

Zayne returns to his safehouse just before dawn, slipping in through the side entrance beneath the vines. The sky’s beginning to pale, but his thoughts stay anchored in the dark. He powers on the encrypted terminal hidden behind a false panel in the wall, fingers moving with practiced ease through layers of security. He isn’t looking for names. He’s looking for shape—slant, pressure, pattern. The way certain letters lean too hard to the right. The way the lowercase “f” never crosses fully. The handwriting in the threats burned itself into his mind the moment he saw it.

It doesn’t take long. He opens an old dossier from six years back, a failed collection job out of Detroit, and there it is—black and angry across a confession letter, nearly identical. Same pen pressure. Same malformed “r.” The signature at the bottom: Victor Dunn. Former enforcer. Known for using fear before force, humiliation before blood. Tied to the Mendez line—a syndicate with long money and short patience, the same one that sent the kill order on her weeks ago.

Zayne stares at the file, jaw tight. Dunn shouldn’t be active. Last he heard, Dunn had gone underground after botching a protection job and leaving a trail of bodies no one wanted cleaned up. But if he’s resurfaced, if he’s part of the threats then this isn’t coincidence. 

 It’s legacy. 

Vengeance and he’s not the only one circling her at least not anymore.

—

Victor Dunn dies on a Wednesday.

The bar is a low-lit dive on the edge of the industrial quarter, a place where the floor sticks and the jukebox eats quarters. Dunn sits at the far end, nursing cheap bourbon from a cloudy tumbler, the type of man who drinks alone because it makes him feel harder. Zayne walks in unnoticed, hood up, the weight of a flask already resting against his palm. The bartender never sees the sleight of hand—how the bottle Dunn brought in for himself ends up dosed with an odorless sedative laced with synthetic aconite.

The fight starts ten minutes later, as planned—two hired drunks swing at each other just behind Dunn’s stool. Shouting. Glass breaks. Chairs screech. In the commotion, Zayne nudges the bottle an inch closer to his target’s hand, lets the chaos cover the moment Dunn tips the rest of it back and grimaces. It takes eighteen minutes for his throat to swell, his heart to stutter. He’s dead before he hits the floor. To the rest of the room, he just passed out. To the police? Another overdose in a city full of them.

Zayne slips out through the back and walks five blocks before ditching the hoodie in a trash bin. No fingerprints. No witnesses. No security cameras facing the alley. Dunn’s death is ruled as accidental. Case closed in under forty-eight hours.

Zayne doesn’t relax. He watches the digital trail. Waits. And someone else keeps watching her—another set of eyes in the dark, patient, methodical. Whoever they are, they haven’t moved yet. Haven’t struck.

Which means they’re waiting for something.

Not her death.

Her vulnerability.

And Zayne knows now—this isn’t about if they’ll try again.

It’s about when.

-

The camera feed comes in just after 2:00 a.m.—a whisper of movement pinging Zayne’s encrypted server. The alert is faint, almost subtle, not the kind that would raise alarms for anyone but him. He’s already half-awake, seated at his desk, sharpening a blade he doesn’t need to use tonight. When the motion alert flashes, he taps the key, leans in, and watches.

The footage is black and white, softened with the grain of lowlight exposure, but the figure is clear. A dark sedan idles across the street from her house, tucked just far enough into the alley to avoid the streetlamps. The headlights are off. Engine silent. It wasn’t there five minutes ago. The driver doesn’t exit. He leans forward against the wheel, elbows propped, gaze fixed not on the front door, but the side yard—the greenhouse. Zayne’s chest tightens as he realizes the man isn’t surveying the house. He’s watching her route. He knows her pattern.

Zayne magnifies the feed, enhances the angle. The man’s face is partially obscured by shadow and tinted glass, but he’s clean-shaven, short dark hair, wearing a collared shirt and gloves. Not street muscle. Not a junkie collector. Professional. His posture is too composed. Too deliberate. There’s no fumbling with a phone, no cigarette, no nervous shifting. He’s not casing the house. He’s confirming something.

The car doesn’t idle long. After exactly twenty-three minutes, the headlights flash once—low beam, quick flick, not an accident. The engine murmurs to life, soft as a cat’s breath. By the time Zayne bolts out the back door and crosses three yards in a straight sprint, the car is gone. Not a sound of tires screeching. Not a trace of burned rubber. Just absence, clean and surgical.

He checks the camera playback, frame by frame, until he gets a brief shot of the license plate—centered, perfectly lit by the greenhouse flood light. He runs it through two firewalled databases, both civilian and military. The number pings back: valid registration, leased vehicle, no name attached. Clean. Too clean.

No traffic tickets. No parking violations. No servicing record. The plate’s not fake—it’s sanitized. Zayne leans back in his chair, eyes narrowing at the blank digital report. That’s worse than fake. It means the plate’s real, but protected. Government issue or black market protected. Which means someone has reach. And they know where to look.

He watches the footage again, this time focusing not on the car, but on the angle. The driver wasn’t just watching the greenhouse. He was watching her window. The one with the chipped paint and the vine pressing against the pane. The one she leaves cracked open at night because she says she sleeps better with fresh air.

Zayne’s fists tighten. He tells himself it could be a coincidence. A passerby. A curious neighbor who parked in the wrong place but he doesn’t believe it. Coincidences don’t sit motionless in the dark for twenty-three minutes and drive off without a headlight blink of confusion.

He doesn’t tell her. Not yet. In the morning, she’ll hand him a sprig of sage, smiling, saying it helps with pests.

Instead, he spends the rest of the night on his laptop and gear, rerouting the greenhouse camera feed to a secondary off-site server. He replaces the standard motion sensor with a military-grade proximity net and walks the perimeter twice in silence. Then he loads two guns—one for open carry, one for his ankle—and sets a third beside the couch where he pretends to sleep. He watches until the sun comes up because someone else is watching her and Zayne doesn’t share.

—

The evening is soft with heat, the kind that lingers even after sunset, wrapping around bare skin like a second shirt. They sit outside on her back patio, tucked beneath the overhang strung with mismatched glass lanterns that cast warm colors across the worn wooden table. The wine is red, rich, sweating in mismatched tumblers that catch the flicker of citronella candles. Zayne sips his slowly, eyes fixed on the curve of her throat as she speaks in half-hushed tones, like the words are fragile, easily shattered if said too loud.

The air smells like grilled zucchini—charred skin, oil, cracked salt—and she nudges a plate toward him without looking. Her hands, usually so steady when repotting basil or coaxing root bulbs from old soil, tremble slightly as she wipes her fork clean with a paper napkin. She doesn’t notice the shake, but he does. His fingers pause on the stem of his glass, silent, alert.

“They knew what they were doing,” she says finally, not looking at him. “They knew how deep they were in, and they still signed everything under my name.” Her voice is calm, but her shoulders are locked tight, posture stiff like she’s bracing for an argument she’s already lost. “Because it’s easier to disappear when you leave someone behind to clean up the wreckage. Easier to vanish when there’s a name on the books who isn’t yours.”

Zayne says nothing. Just watches her, head tilted slightly, green eyes unreadable but focused. The air between them grows heavier, no storm—just tension, memory, the weight of past decisions she had no part in. She takes another sip of wine, this time with both hands, like she’s steadying herself on the glass alone.

“They left like it was a heist. Neat, silent, timed.” She laughs once—sharp, brittle. “But I got the aftershock. Collection calls. Doors kicked in. People who didn’t care that I didn’t even know how deep it went. Just that I was easier to find than they were.”

Zayne shifts, just slightly, leans his forearm on the table and says, low and level, “Do you think they’re still alive?”

She hesitates. For once, her voice falters. “I don’t know. And I’m not sure I care anymore.” Her eyes lift to meet his, and for a moment, she looks older, worn down—not tired from work, but tired of surviving other people’s messes. “If they are… I hope they’re scared. Just a little. Like I was.”

He nods, slow. Doesn’t offer comfort. Doesn’t tell her they’ll get what they deserve. He just holds her gaze until her breath steadies, until her grip on the fork eases, and the wind carries the scent of burnt herbs off into the dark and in that stillness, she starts breathing like she finally has room.

He doesn’t speak when she finishes. Doesn’t offer apologies or platitudes, doesn’t reach for her hand or murmur something sweet to bridge the quiet. He just watches her—eyes unmoving, green and sharp in the flicker of candlelight, studying her face like it’s a map that leads somewhere dangerous. Every word she’s spoken, every hitch in her breath, every time she swallowed hard before saying something honest, he files it away. Like evidence. Like a puzzle that, if assembled correctly, will reveal where the next hit is coming from.

She looks down at her plate and pretends to be done with the conversation, but he knows she’s still bleeding inside from it. She changes the subject, asks him about companion planting, jokes about the weird bug she found in her kale earlier that morning. He goes along with it, nods when he needs to, offers a few soft, dry answers that won’t pull her back toward the hurt she’s trying to bury under grilled vegetables and red wine. But his mind is already elsewhere—clicking through shadows and data points, building patterns she doesn’t know he’s seeing.

Later that night, when the house is dark and she’s asleep behind closed curtains, he sits in his own kitchen with only the glow of his laptop for company. No lights. No music. Just the soft mechanical hum of the air conditioner and the steady tap of keys beneath his fingers. He reroutes a former fixer—an old contact who owes him silence more than favors—redirects him off his current surveillance gig and toward a new assignment: run traces. Not on her.

On everyone else.

Every property sale within a five-block radius. Every background check that’s touched her name in the last ninety days. Every camera that picked up the black sedan. He doesn’t just want to know who else is watching her. He wants to know how long they’ve been in his orbit. and if someone else is circling her, they’re already living on borrowed time.

It arrives in a plain white envelope with no stamp, no seal, no sender. Just her name written across the front in sharp, slanted letters—bolder than the last ones, as if whoever wrote it didn’t care about hiding anymore. She finds it that morning nestled between junk coupons and the local circular, her fingers pausing mid-sort when her eyes catch the handwriting. Her chest tightens before she even opens it. Some part of her already knows this one is worse.

Inside is a single sheet of glossy paper. No words. No warning. Just an image: her, walking home, head down, grocery bag in one hand, keys in the other. The angle is low, taken from behind a row of hedges. She remembers that day—it was raining lightly, and she paused at the gate to shake water off her shoulders. She never looked back. The timestamp in the corner is from forty-eight hours ago. Whoever took it was close. Watching. Waiting.

She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t throw the paper away. She stumbles inside, locking the door with trembling fingers, and makes it as far as the kitchen before her knees buckle. The letter crumples in her fist as she slides down against the cabinets, back hitting the cold tile with a soft thud. Her breathing is shallow, uneven, and her eyes won’t focus—she keeps glancing at the door like it might open, like someone might already be standing on the other side.

That’s how Zayne finds her. He doesn’t knock—he hears the change in her pattern from outside, hears the absence of movement where there should be footsteps, humming, her usual distracted energy. When he opens the door and steps into the kitchen, he sees her on the floor, knees pulled up, the paper clenched so tight in her hand it’s creased through the ink. Her eyes snap up to him, wild and wide, and for a second she doesn’t say anything. She just stares.

“I didn’t see them,” she whispers, voice frayed. “They were right there, and I didn’t even feel it.”

Zayne crosses the room slowly, crouches in front of her with a stillness that feels like a held breath. He doesn’t ask questions. Just pries the paper gently from her hand and scans it once.

He memorizes the angle. The distance. The background blur. Then he folds the letter and tucks it into his jacket. He says nothing. But the look in his eyes tells her: someone is going to pay for this.

He doesn’t ask if she wants to get up—he simply acts. In one fluid motion, he leans down, slides an arm beneath her knees and another around her back, and lifts her as if she weighs nothing. She makes a quiet sound in her throat, not quite protest, not quite surrender, her hands clutching at his shirt before she can think better of it. Her face burrows against his collarbone as he carries her into the next room.

The couch creaks softly beneath them as he sits with her still curled against him, his body solid, unmoving, wrapped around her like a wall. He grabs the knit throw folded over the back—gray, soft, worn in places—and pulls it over her shoulders without ever letting her go. She trembles under it, breath ragged, fingers gripping the front of his shirt in tight, stuttering motions. He doesn't speak. Doesn’t shush her. Doesn’t offer hollow words.

He just lets her cry.

His hand comes up once to the back of her head, palm wide and steady, thumb brushing her cheek. He holds her like armor, like gravity, like silence itself. And all the while, his eyes stay open, fixed on the front door—not to watch for danger but to dare it to come through.

It starts small—barely-there touches that could be passed off as accidental. A hand grazing his shoulder as she walks past him in the garden. Her fingers brushing the inside of his elbow when she leans closer to show him the pest bites on a leaf. She laughs more now, and when she does, she’ll rest her palm lightly on his forearm, like it’s instinct, like her body forgets he’s supposed to be a stranger.

Zayne never flinches. He doesn’t lean into it, but he doesn’t move away either. He allows it, absorbs it, and stores the sensation like a secret kept under his ribs. Her touch is light, never lingering too long—yet somehow, he feels it hours after it’s gone.

When she talks, especially when she’s animated—telling him about a plant’s root system or the nightmare customer who tried to haggle over a bag of soil—he finds his gaze drifting. Not to her eyes. Not to her hands. To her mouth. The curve of it when she smiles. The way she presses her lips together when she’s thinking. He watches, quiet and still, never interrupting and she notices. He knows she does—sees it in the flicker of her glance, the subtle way her teeth catch her bottom lip, the way her words slow, like she’s suddenly more aware of how they leave her but she doesn’t stop. If anything, she speaks softer. Holds his gaze longer. Like she wants him to keep looking.

She finds the box propped against her back door one morning, unmarked except for her name written in clean, deliberate handwriting across the top. No return address, no company logo—just the weight of something personal wrapped in plain brown paper. Her boots crunch lightly over gravel as she picks it up, tucking it under her arm while balancing a tray of seed starts in the other. It’s still early, the dew clinging to every leaf like breath, and the sky hasn’t fully decided if it wants to be blue or gray.

She opens it in the garden, seated on her overturned bucket stool between rows of kale and sunflowers. Inside: a pair of gloves, not the flimsy canvas ones she’s always buying in packs of three, but stitched leather, supple and strong, padded across the palms, designed for real work. They’re her favorite shade of green—the kind that matches the moss creeping up the base of her fence. A folded note sits on top, small, simple, scrawled in his tidy, unassuming hand: “These should last longer.”

Her throat tightens immediately. She blinks fast, head bowed as she turns the gloves over in her lap, running her thumbs across the seams like they might split under her touch. The tears come before she can stop them, sharp and hot. She bows her head lower, lets her hair fall forward to hide her face from no one.

She doesn’t go inside. She doesn’t wipe her cheeks. She just stays there in the garden, knees in the dirt, pretending the wind is too strong today. Pretending it’s the pollen in the air. Not kindness that broke her open.

– It’s early morning when Zayne notices the disturbance—just after sunrise, dew still clinging to the blades of grass, the garden glazed in silver light. He’s doing his usual perimeter check, nothing new expected, just routine. But then he sees it: bootprints, fresh and deep, sunk into the soft mulch along the side of her greenhouse. Not his. Not hers. The spacing’s wrong. The tread is military-issue, not casual—a brand he recognizes from tactical catalogues used by low-visibility ops teams.

The prints stop just beneath the greenhouse window, the one she always opens a crack when the humidity gets too thick inside. He kneels, fingers brushing the edges of the sole mark. There’s no attempt to hide the approach. No backtracking, no scuffing. Whoever it was wanted a clear view—inside the structure, toward her workbench where she drinks her morning tea with her legs curled under her on the stool.

Zayne glances through the pane, and it hits him: from that spot, at that distance, they could see everything. The mug she favors—white with a faded botanical print. The way her shoulders curve as she leans over soil trays. The damp strands of hair that fall along her neck while she works, sweat collecting at the hollow of her throat. Whoever was there stood close enough to see details, not just surveillance patterns.

He rises slowly, eyes scanning the surrounding fence line, the street beyond, the way the shadows fall in angles too familiar now. Someone’s testing proximity—measuring comfort. They weren’t just watching anymore. They were imagining the moment they’d step through the gap and reach for he and that makes this different.

This isn’t recon.

This is intention.

Zayne adjusts his schedule without a word, slipping into a rhythm that most soldiers take years to master—three hours down, three hours up, cycling through the night like a machine with a heartbeat. He builds his waking hours around hers, always keeping her within reach, eyes on the monitor even when she’s asleep. When she’s awake, he’s calm, present, making tea or trimming basil. But the moment she closes her door for the night, he becomes something else—watcher, hunter, guardian with no uniform but instinct.

One evening while she’s inside humming along to a jazz record, he climbs the side of her house in silence. Gloves on. Tools tucked into a roll at his belt. The eaves give just enough shadow to conceal his work, and within minutes he’s mounted a pinhole camera barely wider than a screw head, tucked into the weathered fascia above her back porch. It syncs directly to his private relay, filtered through a triple-layer proxy chain. No sound. Just a live feed. Just enough.

She never notices. Not the shift in air when he slides past her window, not the faint scrape of metal against wood. She trusts him. Enough to lean on him, laugh with him, fall asleep knowing he’s next door. And he hates how easy that trust comes, how effortless it is to exploit  but he keeps the feed up anyway.

 Because her safety isn’t a luxury anymore.  It’s a line in the sand.

And he’s already killed for it.

—

The sky outside is bruised purple, the last edges of daylight fading into shadow, and the kitchen smells faintly of rosemary and something sweet she baked earlier—he doesn’t know what, didn’t ask. Zayne stands by the table, fingers brushing the spine of the manila folder he set there minutes ago, unopened. A small USB drive rests on top, matte black, unmarked. He doesn’t sit. Doesn’t move toward her. Just waits until she finally looks up from her tea and catches the seriousness in his posture.

“What’s that?” she asks, her brow furrowed, her voice hesitant like she’s bracing for bad news.

He gestures once, a slight incline of his chin. “It’s a new name,” he says, voice low but steady. “Driver’s license, social number. Birth certificate. Clean record. There's a bank account with a work history already attached—quiet, believable, enough in it to not raise flags.”

She stares at the packet like it might bite. “Zayne… what is this?”

He doesn’t blink. “In case you ever want to leave everything behind,” he replies. “Walk away. Start somewhere else. Some people get to choose. You haven’t had that in a long time.”

Silence falls between them, soft but sharp around the edges. Her fingers toy with the rim of her mug, eyes locked on the papers like they carry weight she can’t lift. “You think I should run?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

“No,” he says, and for once, there’s something warmer under his tone. Not soft, exactly. But protective. “I think you should have the option. I think you deserve to choose what happens to you next.”

She doesn’t answer. She just stands and walks the two steps between them, then presses her arms around him—not polite, not casual, but full-bodied and immediate, like she’s anchoring herself to something solid before the floor can fall out again. Her face buries against his chest, and he stands still for a second, surprised. Then his arms wrap around her, slow but firm, like drawing a line between her and everything that still wants to claim her.

“Thank you,” she murmurs against him and he doesn’t say anything back. He doesn’t have to.

—

The broker’s flat is a third-story walk-up tucked between a shuttered liquor store and a dog grooming parlor with flickering neon. It smells of stale coffee and burnt wires, the kind of place people choose when they don’t want to be found. Zayne gets in without a sound—lock picked, gun holstered, no mask, no hesitation. The broker doesn’t even look up until Zayne’s already inside, standing by the window, the glint of a syringe caught in the room’s weak yellow light.

“Zayne?” the man croaks, half-rising from the chair. His laptop is open, cursor blinking over a series of encrypted message logs. He doesn’t answer. Just steps forward, grabs the back of the man’s neck, and drives the needle in cleanly behind his ear. The body slumps. No struggle. No sound. Just a heartbeat that fades and never returns.

Zayne glances at the laptop, fingers already working over the keyboard. Not for records of the original contract—he’d already erased those weeks ago. He’s looking for names. Echoes. Anyone else who accessed the job file after it was marked “complete.” What he finds sends a cold ripple through his spine: a mirrored access code. External. Burned through an anonymizer but still traceable in the backend metadata.

There’s a name. A digital fingerprint. A secondary inquiry logged by someone who had clearance—but not from the same family. Different domain. Different scent. The man in the black sedan. The one at the greenhouse.

Not working for the same people. Not following orders. Acting alone.

Zayne wipes the terminal clean, removes the drive, and closes the laptop with slow, surgical care. The body goes into the back of a van he parks behind a condemned warehouse two blocks over. That night, it’s buried six feet under an abandoned greenhouse outside the city, compost shoveled in thick layers over the grave.

He scatters lily bulbs across the soil. By spring, they’ll bloom blood-red.

There are no loose ends now, except for one and Zayne has a name,  a name, a face, and a promise: No one else touches her.

Not ever.

—

The blanket they lie on is old, worn soft by time, with its corners curled and stitching coming loose in places. She’d pulled it from the hall closet earlier that evening, laughing that it smelled like rosemary and mildew, but it had served its purpose well—spread across the patch of grass beneath the oak, away from the porch lights, half-wrapped in shadow. The air is cooler now, touched by the first hint of autumn, and the grass beneath them carries the damp memory of the day's heat, breathing up through the weave of the fabric. Above, the sky is wide and open, a dark indigo ocean scattered with stars that blink slowly, half-hidden by shifting branches that cast long, reaching silhouettes across their legs.

They’re both stretched out in parallel, shoulders just shy of brushing, but the space between them feels electric—charged, not by nerves, but by awareness. No phones buzz, no music hums softly from a speaker. There is only the steady, organic chorus of the night: cicadas rasping in waves from the treeline, the soft whisper of wind through the tall grass, the occasional rustle of leaves disturbed by some unseen thing. It’s the kind of quiet that doesn't demand conversation, only companionship, a kind of stillness neither of them had known in other lives, and they lie there suspended in it, neither moving, neither speaking, but completely present.

Zayne rests with his hands folded behind his head, eyes half-lidded, not quite closed, his breathing deep and even. To an outsider he might appear relaxed, lost in the stars like she is—but beneath his skin, every sound still registers with sniper clarity, every leaf that shifts too sharply, every break in the rhythm of the wind. His mind never fully softens, even here. But her presence at his side makes the edge duller, the silence less like a battlefield and more like a held breath he doesn't mind waiting through.

She’s quiet for a long time, fingers tangled loosely in the fraying edge of the blanket, eyes fixed upward with a look that doesn’t quite belong to the moment—distant, wide, searching. And then she speaks, barely louder than the wind, her voice steady but pulled from somewhere vulnerable.

“I think I’m falling for you.”

The words hang in the air, light but impossible to ignore, like the scent of something blooming after dark—unexpected and intimate. She doesn’t glance at him after she says it, doesn’t gauge his reaction. Her eyes remain fixed on the stars, as if it’s safer to address them than face whatever might be in his expression. Like saying it aloud was hard enough without inviting confirmation or denial. Her breath catches slightly at the end, not quite a hitch, but a subtle tension in her chest as she waits—maybe not for an answer, but for the weight of having said it to settle somewhere inside her.

Zayne doesn't answer, at least not with words. He doesn’t shift to meet her gaze, doesn’t offer the easy comfort of reciprocation. But after a long pause, he moves his hand from behind his head and reaches across the space between them, finding her hand with a certainty that is quiet but unmistakable. His fingers thread between hers—not tentative, not testing, but firm, as if this gesture alone is his reply. Not a promise. Not a confession. But something with gravity.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away or speak again. Her grip tightens slowly, gently, like she’d been waiting for something to anchor her. Her thumb brushes over his knuckles once, a silent thank-you, and though the words still echo softly between them, neither of them breaks the quiet.

And under the endless dark sky, with their hands linked and hearts laid bare in the hush of cicadas and shifting wind, neither of them moves, because whatever this is, it’s real now and neither of them is ready to let go.

–

The storm rolls in heavy, all color stripped from the sky and replaced with bruised clouds that churn and flash with the promise of something violent. Rain comes in sheets, sudden and unforgiving, hammering rooftops and rattling downspouts with a wild rhythm that turns the air electric. Zayne hears it long before the knock—feels the shift in pressure, the air thickening, the scent of ozone and soil rising through the floorboards like a warning. But it’s her silhouette in the window that tenses his shoulders, the shape of her framed in shadow and lightning.

She’s barefoot when he opens the door, toes wet and mud-speckled on the porch, the hem of her thin cotton dress clinging to her knees. Her hair is damp, curls plastered against her cheek and forehead, cheeks flushed and mouth slightly open, chest rising with the rush of running through rain. She doesn’t step inside immediately—just stands there grinning, half breathless, like this is all one big dare she hasn’t decided if she regrets.

“Tea,” she says, voice pitched with amusement, as if the word excuses everything. Her smile is crooked, teasing, but there’s something in her eyes that betrays her—something uncertain, raw, wanting. The kind of look you don’t wear for a drink. The kind of look you give someone you don’t want to leave alone anymore.

He doesn’t ask why she came. Doesn’t tell her she’s wet, doesn’t hand her a towel. He just steps aside, lets her in, and shuts the door behind her with the same quiet finality he reserves for chambering a round.

They don’t bother with the kettle because what she really came for has nothing to do with tea.

The door has barely latched behind them when she turns, still flushed from the run through the storm, rain dripping from her lashes, chest heaving beneath the cling of soaked fabric. Her fingers twitch like she wants to reach for him but hasn’t given herself permission—until she does. A hand rises, hesitant, then decisive, touching his chest just above his sternum, and she leans in without ceremony. The kiss is soft at first, trembling with restraint, a question wrapped in heat. She tastes like rain and something sweeter—like surrender held between teeth.

Zayne doesn’t hesitate. The moment her lips part against his, he steps into the space between them, crowding her back until she hits the wall, hands sliding firmly to her waist like she belongs beneath his grip. His mouth finds hers again, deeper this time, answering the question she didn’t dare ask with something elemental and sure. His breath is hot against her temple when he breaks for air, the kind of exhale that shudders through him like restraint cracking at the edges.

She gasps when he lifts her—shocked more by how easily he does it than the movement itself—her legs instinctively winding around his hips, bare thighs tightening at his sides. His hands are under her now, one bracing the small of her back, the other cupping beneath her thigh as he carries her across the room like she weighs nothing, like he’s been waiting to do this since the moment she first smiled at him over seed trays and spilled tea. Rain hammers against the windows, thunder shaking the panes, but inside the world has gone narrow and burning.

He sets her on the kitchen counter, the cold marble making her arch with a startled sound that dies against his mouth. His body presses into hers, solid, overwhelming, and her fingers dive into his hair like she needs to anchor herself to something real or drown in it.

And Zayne? Zayne feels like he’s not kissing her—he’s claiming her. With his mouth, his hands, his breath and she lets him.

The counter is slick with condensation from her skin and the rain still clinging to her dress, and he doesn’t rush—he doesn’t need to. Zayne kisses her like it’s been etched into him, mouth dragging slow and deliberate along the curve of her jaw, then down her throat where he lingers, tasting her pulse. His hands work at the thin fabric clinging to her, sliding it up inch by inch, exposing her like an offering, like she’s something to be unwrapped not with urgency, but with reverence. When he pulls the dress over her head, he does it with the precision of someone unwrapping something sacred, not hurried, not rough—just steady, determined, sure.

She’s already trembling, the cold of the air mingling with the heat rising in her, her legs parting instinctively as he lowers her onto the cool countertop. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t smirk. Just slides his hands down the sides of her thighs, fingers drawing invisible lines, mapping every shiver like it’s telling him something. His mouth finds her collarbone, her sternum, the dip of her navel—and then lower, lower, until she’s gasping just from the proximity of his breath.

When he kisses the inside of her thigh, her body jerks, tension melting into something deeper, needier. He doesn’t go straight to where she wants him. He teases—devours the soft skin at the bend of her leg, tongue tracing fire that only delays the inevitable. And when he finally moves between her, when his tongue finds her—slow, firm, consuming—her breath hitches, then breaks.

She lets out a sound that isn’t a moan, not at first, but a whimper, a soft, shocked exhale like she wasn’t prepared for how it would feel to be wanted like this. Her fingers dive into his hair, gripping tight, hips lifting against his mouth as if her body is trying to keep pace with what he’s doing to her. Her voice fractures with each flick of his tongue, each deep stroke, each pause where he watches her with dark, focused eyes before continuing. 

Outside, thunder rolls like a heartbeat, but inside—she’s the storm, when she comes, it’s not a scream—it’s a surrender. A low, shuddering cry pulled from her very center, her thighs locked around his head, her hands shaking, his name lost somewhere in the breath she can't quite catch. And Zayne? He keeps going. Until he’s sure she won’t forget that this—his mouth, his hands, his hunger—belongs to no one else but her.

Her breath is still uneven, chest rising in shallow pulls, skin flushed from where his mouth left a trail of devotion across her body. Her fingers twitch where they rest on his shoulders, gripping the cotton of his shirt like she’s afraid to let go, like she’s not ready to lose the weight of him against her. He kisses her again—not her mouth this time, but her ribs, her hip, the inside of her wrist—each one quieter, more reverent, like punctuation in a language only they understand. And then he’s above her, between her, his gaze locked on hers with a kind of focus that borders on unholy.

He slides into her slowly, deliberately, with a groan that catches in his throat and dies against the warm skin of her neck. Her body arches into his, welcoming, trembling, wrapping around him as if she’s known this weight her whole life but never had the name for it until now. His thrusts aren’t fast, aren’t greedy—they’re measured, deep, a rhythm built on the unspoken. Each one presses the breath from her lungs, not from force, but from how close he feels—how real.

He doesn’t whisper dirty promises. Doesn’t say her name over and over like a chant.

He’s quiet—achingly so—but everything he doesn’t say is in the way he holds her, the way he presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes like this is the only place in the world he can be still. He isn’t trying to leave a mark. He isn’t trying to conquer.

He’s just… there. Fully. Undeniably.

Inside her in a way that feels less like sex and more like something old, something foundational. As if, in this moment, with her wrapped around him and her hands buried in his hair, he's saying without speaking: You’re mine. Even if you never know it. Even if you never say it back.

You already are.

She moans softly into his neck, the sound muffled by skin and storm, her fingers sliding from his shoulders to his back, nails dragging just enough to feel him shudder. Her legs tighten around his waist, holding him to her like she’s afraid he might slip through her fingers, like if she lets go the moment might dissolve. But Zayne doesn’t move fast—doesn’t chase it. He stays inside her, steady, his hips rolling with the kind of control that makes her fall apart all over again with every deliberate thrust.

Each movement sinks deep, unhurried, like he’s carving her into memory. There’s no rush in his touch—just reverence, heat, weight. His hand finds hers above her head, fingers threading through tightly, anchoring them both. She opens her eyes and sees him watching her—really watching—and something in her chest cracks open, wide and silent, like this isn’t just a man holding her. It’s him staying. Rooted.

Their bodies move together like they've done this a thousand times in some other life. He shifts just slightly, hips angling different, and her gasp punches out like it surprises her. Her back arches, and he swallows her next sound with a kiss, slow and deep, like the rhythm of his body inside hers. His other hand is on her waist, thumb brushing her skin, grounding her in a moment that feels impossible—too full, too real.

She whispers something—maybe his name, maybe nothing at all—into the shell of his ear, and it makes him tremble. Not from lust, not from control slipping, but because she wants him like this. Sees him. Without question. Without fear.

He groans again, lower this time, buried against her throat, body tightening with the weight of what he’s feeling but can’t let out. His release comes quietly, teeth clenched, muscles locked, like he doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want the moment to leave him. He stays inside her afterward, still hard, still trembling faintly, his face tucked into the crook of her neck, their breath tangling in slow, uneven waves.

Neither of them speaks.

She just runs her fingers through his hair, soft and absent, the same way she touches seedlings before she sets them into fresh earth. And Zayne breathes with her—in sync, shared, like he’s been chasing silence all his life and finally found a version of it he doesn’t want to escape from.

—

She thinks it’s a whim—an idea born over too many late dinners and the restless quiet that settles over them after midnight. Just a weekend trip, she says with a half-smile, somewhere green where they can drink tea outside and pretend the world doesn’t exist. She talks about wildflowers and maybe picking up a packet of heirloom seeds if they find a roadside market. Zayne nods, offers to drive, listens to her dream out loud like it wasn’t already carved into the next steps he’d laid weeks ago.

Long before she brought it up, he’d already selected the house—a two-bedroom cottage tucked into a grove off a dirt road no one travels without intention. He booked it under a shell name four identities deep, a registration that doesn’t trace to anything real. The payment was routed through a layered system of burned cards and buried crypto accounts, untraceable, disposable. While she packs clothes and gathers jars of herbs, he sits at his terminal wiping her forwarding address from three databases, planting a redirect in its place: an empty apartment in another city, already rigged to show false movement on security footage.

He doesn’t tell her what he’s doing. He doesn’t need to. Her hands are busy folding sweaters into a canvas duffel, her mind already halfway to the scent of loamy earth and morning dew. She trusts him—implicitly, without hesitation—and that’s something Zayne doesn’t take lightly. He watches her from the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, memorizing the soft hum in her throat as she packs, the way she tucks one sock into another like ritual.

When they leave just after dawn, her eyes are bright with the thrill of escape, her window rolled down to let the wind mess her hair. She doesn't ask why he takes the longer route. She just rests her hand on his knee and starts pointing out birds on fence posts, talking about names for a garden they haven’t even walked through yet. Zayne keeps his hand on the wheel, his other curled loosely around hers, and behind his calm silence, he’s already watching the road in layers—routes in, routes out, no cameras, no tails because this isn’t a break.

It’s the extraction and he’ll make sure she never has to return to what they just left behind.

The road stretches out like silk ribbon unwinding beneath the tires, long and quiet, lined with pine and low-slung fog. The sun hasn’t broken fully yet—just a pink bruise on the edge of the sky—and the cabin is filled with the steady hum of the engine, the occasional shuffle of her shifting in her seat. She sleeps curled toward the window, cheek pressed to her shoulder, breath soft and even. He keeps one hand steady on the wheel, but the other drifts—light brushes against her thigh, small, absent touches that ground him more than he’ll ever admit.

She murmurs in her sleep once, the sound slurred, soft. His name. Not his alias. His name. The real one she doesn’t know she knows. His fingers pause where they rest, a breath catching somewhere beneath his ribs. He doesn’t react outwardly, but in his mind the syllables echo—Zayne—and he files it away, precise and quiet, like tucking a blade into a belt. Not for violence. But for proof. That even in dreams, she’s reaching for him.

The moment they pass the crooked county line sign, he hits the first trigger. GPS signal reroutes through a spoofed beacon on a highway two states south. He doesn’t slow down. Just tilts his phone screen once, confirms the signal bounce, then opens the secondary server tethered to the signal relay. Purge begins. Encrypted logs are scrubbed. IP pings rerouted. Facial recognition masks uploaded to rerun loops of her entering false locations—libraries, coffee shops, train stations—all automated ghosts that will confuse any tracker with less than government-grade clearance.

Then he plants the breadcrumbs. Three separate data points: a credit card ping in Chicago, a burner number attached to a cabin rental in Oregon, and a fake pharmacy script logged under her new name in Nevada. Each one clean, shallow, intentional. Not enough to catch, just enough to chase.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t shift his expression. Just drives, knuckles pale, eyes calm, the woman beside him sleeping like there’s nothing left in the world trying to find her. And if Zayne has done his job right, there isn’t.

The town unfolds slowly, like a secret kept between hills and tree lines, tucked too deep into the folds of the land to show up on anything but paper maps or memory. Cell reception is thin. Gas stations have mechanical pumps. The post office shares a roof with the general store, and everyone waves at everyone whether they know them or not. The signs are hand-painted and chipped, boasting names like “Pine & Petal” and “Cassie’s Feed & Fix,” and the only currency more stable than cash is reputation—earned through presence, not paperwork.

The nursery is just past the edge of town, where the gravel road curves between two weeping willows. The sign out front sways gently in the breeze, its paint faded and soft, the script curling around a hand-painted sunflower. On her first day, Zayne walks her there, not because she needs help finding it—but because he needs to see it. Needs to know what kind of people she’ll be surrounded by, what kind of ground she’ll be standing on when he isn’t right beside her.

She meets the owner—a stout, sun-tanned woman with a voice like velvet and dirt under every fingernail—and within five minutes, they’re laughing like old friends. Zayne watches from the corner of the greenhouse as she unpacks starter trays with practiced ease, her fingers quick and sure. He listens as she tells a half-true story about growing up surrounded by bad decisions, about how the only thing that made sense back then was soil. “People ruin things,” she says, smiling softly, “but plants just… try to live. Even in the wrong place.”

The owner nods. Offers her the job before she finishes the sentence.

Zayne doesn’t say anything. Just slips away before she can look for him, leaving her with a clipboard, a watering schedule, and the first real piece of peace she’s been allowed in years. He walks back home the long way—through the woods, eyes scanning shadows—not looking for threats. Just making sure there aren’t any.

The path home winds along a dirt road lined with blackberry brambles and old fencing, the boards warped by sun and time. She walks beside him with her hands in the pockets of her dress, shoulders relaxed in a way they rarely are, the tension that usually knots between her shoulder blades finally smoothed out. The late afternoon light catches on her cheeks, and there’s a smudge of soil across her jaw that she hasn’t noticed. She doesn’t talk much, but when she does, her voice is lighter, like it no longer has to push through static just to be heard.

She smiles, the kind that isn't polished or guarded, just open, and tilts her head toward him as they near the cottage. “I forgot what it feels like,” she says, half-laughing, half in awe. “To breathe with both lungs. Like I’m not waiting for the next hit.” She doesn’t cry. But her eyes shine like she might, if she wasn’t so busy memorizing how safety feels on her tongue.

Zayne doesn’t respond. Not with words. He watches her, nods once, and reaches ahead to open the front door before she can. It’s not ceremony—it’s ritual now, the smallest act of shelter. Inside, he takes off his boots, washes his hands, and begins pulling ingredients from the pantry. Onions. Rice. Stock. His movements are fluid, practiced. He doesn’t say it, but everything in how he dices, simmers, stirs says: you’re home now.

She hums as she waters the rosemary in the windowsill. Not to fill the space. Just because she can.

He builds it behind their cottage, just beyond the blackberry hedge where the grass grows thick and the ground is soft from years of being left alone. The greenhouse rises slowly, beam by beam, frame by frame, salvaged lumber hauled from an old barn a few miles out—wood worn smooth with age but still strong. He doesn’t use power tools, doesn’t rush the process. Each cut is deliberate, measured with a craftsman’s eye and the kind of care he never shows when he's breaking bones or snapping triggers. His knuckles split more than once from splinters and hammer strikes, blood drying in thin lines across his skin.

He never wears gloves. He wants the ache. 

Wants the realness of it.

She comes outside in the mid-mornings when the light is gold and clean, balancing a mason jar of cold water with lemon slices and a little mint plucked from the porch planter. She leans against the half-finished frame, watching him work with amusement softening every edge of her voice. 

“You’re going to burn like a fool,” she says, smirking as she catches sight of his reddening shoulders and the sweat beading along his neck. 

He glances up at her, shrugs once without breaking rhythm, and keeps hammering, jaw set in that quiet way of his that means I’d rather blister than be soft. She rolls her eyes and sets the jar down beside his tool kit anyway.

He’s halfway through anchoring one of the side panels when the hammer slips, catching his thumb with a vicious crack. The hiss he lets out is low and bitten off, more pain than he usually allows to show, and he presses his mouth tight to the back of his hand as if to seal it in. She startles at first, then covers her mouth with her soil-streaked fingers and laughs—full, unrestrained, the kind of laugh that leaves her slightly doubled over. “That,” she says between giggles, “was dramatic.” Her grin is so wide it lights her whole face.

He turns to her, breath still tight, but that laugh hits something inside him hard—softer than bone but just as permanent. He doesn’t speak. Just steps forward and kisses her without warning, without plan. His hands are rough and still stained with sawdust, his mouth insistent, hungry in the quiet way only he can be. It isn’t a thank you. It’s a vow. Built beam by beam with everything he doesn’t say.

The frame is finished by dusk, clear panels slotting into place like held breath finally exhaled. The inside smells of sawdust and warm earth, of work and beginnings. The soil in the beds is freshly turned, dark and damp, rich with compost he mixed by hand. There’s no ceremony when she steps inside barefoot, hem of her dress brushing the floorboards, trowel in hand. Just a quiet kind of reverence as she kneels in the corner where the light falls best at sunset, and presses the roots of the first cutting into the earth.

Lavender, of course—soft and stubborn, fragrant even when bruised. She hums to herself as she pats the soil around it, fingers stained with the same dirt she’s been working into her new life. The leaves shiver slightly under her breath, like they know they’ve been placed somewhere safe. When she looks up at him, there’s a smudge of soil on her cheek and peace in her smile.

Zayne steps forward, silent as always, and takes the watering can without a word. The spout tilts, a slow, steady pour soaking into the roots, the water catching light like glass. He uses his right hand—the same one that had held a gun only weeks ago, finger steady, gaze cold, ending the last man who knew what her name used to be. That hand, now dappled with dirt and dew, moves with surprising care.

She watches him with quiet wonder, like she knows but doesn’t speak it and in the hush of the new greenhouse, among seedlings and shadows, he waters the first bloom of the life they’ve stolen back together. Not as a soldier. Not as a killer but as a man learning how to grow something he never meant to keep.

They’re sitting on the porch steps, the evening sun filtering gold through the trees, casting long shadows across the overgrown path leading back to the road. She’s barefoot, toes curled against the wood, sipping from a chipped glass of red wine she keeps swirling like it might reveal something at the bottom. The air is quiet, slow-moving, a hush that’s become routine between them—comfortable, unspoken, full of weight. He’s beside her, one hand resting against her thigh, thumb stroking slow arcs over the fabric of her dress.

She speaks softly, like she’s not sure it’s worth mentioning. “There was a man at the nursery today. Older. Said the violets looked like they’d been raised on patience.” She chuckles once, but it fades quickly. “Then he asked if I’d always worked with my hands. Said it like he already knew the answer.”

Zayne freezes. Completely. His wine glass hovers midair, motionless, the red liquid catching the light like blood on glass. He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t breathe. Every sense in him sharpens, collapses inward to the single name he’d memorized and buried: Rian Sorn. Not Caleb. Rian. Older brother. The last enforcer. Disavowed from his house after their father’s death but known for keeping blood promises long past when they were due.

“Had that strange smile,” she continues, absently. “You know the kind. Not friendly. Not creepy. Just… like he knew me. Like he was waiting to be remembered.”

Zayne slowly lowers the glass, sets it on the step without looking. His pulse doesn’t quicken—it concentrates. Thoughts click into place behind his eyes like a scope narrowing, cold and silent. He nods once, just enough for her to stop talking, and then gently shifts the conversation to something else—soil pH, basil rot, anything—because she can’t know what’s coming. Not yet but in his mind, he’s already reaching for the old tools. The knives he hasn’t touched since the last death. The burner phone no one knows he reactivated because if Rian Sorn is here, he didn’t come for flowers.

He came to finish the contract Zayne already buried and this time, Zayne doesn’t intend to leave a body anyone can find.

Rian Sorn isn’t like the others—he doesn’t work for contracts, doesn’t answer to syndicates, doesn’t need a reason beyond the weight of unfinished blood. He’s the kind of man who kills out of inheritance, not obligation. His name never appears in records; there’s no heat trail, no payment logs, no messages. Only results. Silent disappearances. Houses burned down with no arson trace. Entire bloodlines snuffed out under the guise of accidents. Ritual violence—methodical, clean, personal. And if he’s close enough to make small talk about violets, then he’s already mapped the house, the exits, the blind spots. He already knows where she sleeps.

Zayne moves differently that night. There’s no panic, no rushing—just a complete shift in rhythm, like gears locking into place. He walks the property twice, barefoot, ears tuned to every creak of wind, every bird that doesn’t sing. Inside, he checks the locks—not once, but twice, fingers brushing along bolt edges, making sure the screws haven’t been tampered with. He flips the window latches. Secures the basement access. Even resets the motion detectors, narrowing the radius to just beyond the treeline.

In the quiet of the bedroom, she’s already asleep, curled on her side in the dip she’s worn into the mattress beside his. Her breathing is slow, lips parted slightly, one hand resting across his pillow. He watches her in the dark for a long moment, reading every line of her body like scripture—where she’s most vulnerable, where she trusts without thinking. Where he’d bleed the world dry to keep her untouched.

The knife he hides beneath the bed isn’t the folding kind tonight—it’s longer, sharper, a single-edged Karambit wrapped in oil cloth. He sharpens it slowly at the kitchen table while the kettle whistles and the lights stay off. Then he places it within reach, exact angle, practiced muscle memory. When he finally lays down, it’s not to rest. It’s to wait.

He doesn’t sleep not until the sky begins to pale. Not until he’s sure Rian hasn’t come to claim what Zayne has already marked as his.

Zayne picks up the trail in silence, without fanfare, relying not on devices or drones but on the patterns that live in muscle memory. He doesn’t need GPS when he knows how a predator moves—doesn’t need a name when he has behavior. Caleb—or Rian, he knows now—has been cautious, skilled, leaving no digital trace, but he’s not invisible. Zayne catches the first break when he spots the faint shimmer of heat in a parking lot near the edge of town—an exhaust signature too fresh for how still the car looks, parked at a blind curve near the woods. The thermal haze rises in waves from the tailpipe, subtle, nearly lost in the afternoon glare. It’s a trick he learned in Prague, when heat was the only language you could trust and every breath might get you killed.

That night, Zayne uses one of the few remaining contacts he hasn’t burned—an old fixer who owes him for a job that saved her life and took someone else's. The message is simple, clean: a digital tip-off that the girl is using an alias and just got spotted in New Mexico. Zayne even attaches a blurred photo—low resolution, plausible enough, timestamped for twenty minutes in the future and pinged through a burner signal off a modified dashcam.

The bait is too perfect to ignore, and the timing is surgical. Rian, meticulous and hungry for closure, takes it. By the time he moves—quick but not rushed, confident enough to fall for the misdirection—Zayne is already one step ahead. The false sighting routes him toward the old nursery’s delivery zone, an overgrown backlot once used for storing soil, pallets, broken tools. It's a dead space now, no witnesses, no cameras, a fence with a single weak link that only someone tracking a trail would push through.

Zayne waits in the shadow of the half-collapsed greenhouse, crouched behind a rusted steel rack, heartbeat steady, knife ready, eyes fixed on the path. The wind stirs loose paper and pollen. The dirt here smells like memory and rot. And when Rian steps into the clearing—silent, curious, reaching for the last breadcrumb—Zayne moves because this is where it ends. Not in bloodlines. 

Not in threats, but in a grave no one will dig but him.

The clearing is silent but tense, every insect gone still, the branches holding their breath. Zayne doesn’t give a warning—there’s no sharp callout, no monologue. Just movement, explosive and lethal, as he lunges from the greenhouse’s ruined frame like a blade in motion. His boots skid across packed dirt as he closes the distance in three quick strides. Rian barely registers the shape bearing down on him before instinct kicks in, knife flashing out from beneath his jacket, but it’s too late—Zayne is already on him.

Their bodies collide with a bone-jarring crack, momentum carrying them both sideways into the delivery shed’s rusted wall. Zayne drives a knee into Rian’s ribs, catching the wind out of him, then follows with an elbow to the temple that makes the other man grunt and stagger. Rian recovers fast, trained—he swings low with the knife, a practiced arc aimed for Zayne’s thigh. Zayne twists, the blade grazing cloth, not skin, and responds with a brutal hook that snaps Rian’s head back. There’s no choreography here—this is dirty, close, every blow meant to maim or drop.

Rian spits blood, face curling into a grin that’s half malice, half respect. “Knew it’d be you,” he growls through grit teeth. Zayne says nothing. Just slams his forearm into Rian’s throat, knocking him into a stack of plastic pots that scatter with a crash.

They wrestle into the mulch beds, slipping in compost, the smell of fertilizer sharp in the air. Rian lands one solid punch to Zayne’s jaw—makes his vision blur white at the edges—but Zayne absorbs it, turns the pain inward, and redirects the force with a twist of his hips. His knife comes up, low and brutal, slicing across Rian’s abdomen in a single, controlled stroke—hip to sternum. The sound isn’t dramatic. Just wet. Final.

Rian staggers backward, clutching his guts like they’ll stay in place by sheer will. His legs buckle. He drops to his knees in the dirt, fingers twitching in the mulch, trying to rise again even as blood pools beneath him. He gasps—chokes once—then folds forward, face pressing into soil.

Zayne watches, chest rising slow, calm. His hand doesn’t shake. His breath doesn’t falter. He looks down on the dying man like a gardener pulling weeds by the root. No rage. No gloating.

Just precision.

Just necessary removal and when Rian’s final breath rattles out through blood and spit, Zayne kneels. He grips the body by the collar and begins dragging it into the dark edge of the clearing—toward the shallow pit already carved beneath the compost tarp, because this isn’t vengeance.

It’s maintenance 

The wind shifts just enough to carry the sound of something wrong—metal scraping, a grunt swallowed by mulch, the final wet thud of a body hitting ground. She sets down the seed trays she was sorting, suddenly breathless, the hairs on her arms lifting like static. No one called her name. Nothing in the air says danger aloud. But she moves anyway, slow but certain, down the overgrown side path that leads to the back of the old nursery where she was told not to go.

Her boots crunch over shattered pots and torn landscape fabric, the scent of blood sharp and out of place in the sun-warmed dirt. When she rounds the corner of the collapsed greenhouse frame, her breath catches—but she doesn’t cry out. Doesn’t collapse. Doesn’t run. Zayne is there, crouched low beside the body like a storm paused mid-movement. His shirt is torn across one shoulder, blood slick down his arms to the elbows, one hand still clutched around the hilt of a blade so red it glistens.

He looks up, and in that moment, he doesn’t look like the man who fixes her sink or makes her tea or knows how she likes her toast just barely burnt. He looks like something older, carved from ash and oath, shaped by violence in the quiet way war is—not fire, but pressure. His eyes are not pleading, not defensive. Just watching. Waiting.

Her gaze shifts from the body to his face, then to the blood on his hands. She doesn’t ask who the man was. Doesn’t ask what he did. She knows. She’s always known and instead of breaking under the truth, she simply breathes it in.

“You did that for me,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, but carved from something unshakable. It isn’t a question. It’s a truth, spoken like a thread pulled taut and tied.

He says nothing. He couldn’t explain it if he tried. He just looks at her with the weight of everything he’s done—for her, to keep her, to build a life neither of them believed they’d survive long enough to live. There’s something unspoken in his expression, burning low and furious, like he’d do it all again and not blink and then she does the only thing that matters.

She steps into the bloodstained quiet, past the corpse, past the fear, past the violence, places her hand on his face, and holds him. Not like a man who’s broken.

But like one worth saving.

The porch is quiet beneath them, the night air soft and threaded with the scent of soil and cut grass. The moon hangs heavy and full above the treeline, its light glinting off the rim of her mug as she cradles it in both hands. The tea has long gone cold, but she hasn’t let it go, just rests it on her knees like a keepsake she’s not ready to part with. Her eyes are half-lidded, the exhaustion of the day tucked just behind her quiet, steady breathing. She hasn't spoken in a while, and he hasn't filled the silence—he never does. Some part of him knows silence is a kind of safety, too.

Zayne sits beside her, legs braced apart, elbows resting on his knees. His hands are scrubbed raw, fingertips still faintly pink from the cleaning they took after Rian. The scars across his knuckles are old but tight tonight, skin stretched and healing slow. There’s a kind of stillness to him that’s different from calm. Like he’s holding his breath somewhere under his ribs, waiting for something to finish settling in the air around them.

Without ceremony, without pause, he pulls something from his pocket. Not the usual folded paper, not a new ID packet. Just a small, square box—worn at the corners like it’s been in his coat too long. He holds it in his palm for a second before handing it over, gaze fixed not on her but the shadows moving just beyond the porchlight.

“This isn’t backup,” he says, voice low. “It’s not about running. It’s not a new name or a file to burn.” He glances at her now, just once, eyes fierce with something he rarely lets show. “It’s a future. If you want it.”

She looks down at the box in her hands, not moving, not breathing, then opens it with fingers slow and careful. Inside: a ring. Simple. Silver. Worn like his hands, forged for use, not flash. But beautiful, in the way something becomes beautiful when it’s meant.

Her throat tightens. Not from surprise. From understanding. From the weight of everything he’s never said until now. “You had this?” she whispers, voice cracking like the night itself.

He nods once. “A while.” Then, softer: “I didn’t want to offer it until I knew I could protect what it meant.”

She says nothing at first. Just reaches out and places the box down beside her, then shifts and leans fully into him, head against his shoulder, hand slipping down to find his. She squeezes. Hard. Like grounding herself to the moment so it doesn’t vanish.

“You really think we get that?” she murmurs. “A future?”

 He closes his eyes for a second, then opens them again—sharp, green, unblinking.

“Since you,” he says. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted.”

She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t have to,  just laces their fingers together and stays pressed to his side until the moon slips west and the mug in her lap is cold and forgotten.

And Zayne, for once, lets himself hope.

The ceremony is unceremonious in the way only the truest things are. No audience. No rehearsed lines. Just a morning that begins like any other—with coffee that she forgets on the windowsill, and him quietly ironing his one good shirt at the kitchen table, jaw tight with concentration as he avoids the patch that never quite sits flat. Her dress is simple, linen the color of rain-bleached stone, and her hands still carry the soft scent of mint and clay from the greenhouse—because even on the day she marries him, she couldn't resist tending her seedlings.

They walk out together just past noon, barefoot in the grass still wet from the morning’s dew. The old oak at the edge of the property stands like a sentinel, its branches heavy with age, framing the clearing where bees hum low around wildflowers in accidental rows. There’s no music, just birdsong and wind and the sound of her breath hitching when he takes her hand. He’s not holding a script. There is no officiant. Just them, and the silence of something sacred blooming without spectacle.

They stand beneath the tree and say nothing for a long while. No promises out loud. No recited declarations. Just the look they share—a gaze full of every night they spent surviving, every morning they chose to stay. When it’s time, Zayne doesn’t say “I do” like he’s reciting a ritual. He says it low, quiet, voice grounded like the soil beneath them.

Like he’s not just agreeing to love her but swearing to root himself beside her. To grow something together that no one—not ghosts, not debt, not blood—can dig up again. She doesn’t cry. Just steps forward, slips a small sprig of rosemary into the loop of his belt where a blade once rested. 

“For remembrance,” she murmurs, fingertips brushing his waist.

He catches her hand, brings it to his lips, and kisses her palm like it’s the center of the world, like it’s already his and in that patch of wild grass and wind, they are married—not by law, not by witness, but by the earth itself.

The cottage is warm with a kind of hush that feels earned, stone walls holding the heat of the fire flickering low in the hearth. The logs crack softly, throwing ribbons of orange across the wooden floor, across the bed they made themselves earlier that day—simple sheets, thick wool blanket, lavender tied with twine above the headboard, perfuming the room like memory. Rain whispers against the windows in gentle pulses, steady, private. The storm isn’t wild. It’s intimate. Like it came only to witness this.

She steps away from him without a word, untying the sash at her waist with slow, sure fingers. The linen dress slips from her shoulders, puddling around her ankles as she stands in the firelight—bare, unhurried, her skin kissed gold by the flicker of flame. She doesn’t cover herself. Doesn’t shy away from the way he’s looking at her. She just watches him watching her, the shadows moving across her collarbones, the slight swell of her breath. And when she climbs into his lap, one knee on either side of his thighs, she does it like ritual, like every inch of her already knows where to go.

His breath catches the moment she sinks down onto him, a soft, broken sound exhaled against her throat. Her hands brace against his shoulders, steadying herself as she takes all of him in one slow, aching stroke. He groans, low and guttural, pressing his forehead to her chest as his hands slide up the smooth length of her back, then down again to grip her hips with the kind of strength that says I will never let you go. Not in this life. Not in any.

She begins to move—slow rolls of her hips, deep and deliberate—and he doesn’t rush her. Doesn’t take control. He just watches. Watches the way her mouth parts, the way her lashes flutter, the way she bites back soft, strangled sounds when he shifts just right inside her. Each thrust is measured, more pressure than pace, his hands guiding, grounding her. She whimpers his name, voice thin with pleasure, full of trust.

And then he says hers.

The first time.

Rough and reverent, like something pulled from the bottom of his chest—something he never dared give voice to until now. Like it’s not just her name. It’s his home. tags: @blessdunrest @starmocha

[macabr3-barbi3]

CTRL ALT DELETE- Task Manager (Vox/Reader)

Something's up with Vox and you offer to help troubleshoot- it both does and does not go how you're expecting it to.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/54688282

The least serious thing I've ever written: inspired by the time i started a timer in class one day to see how long my teacher talked about her son instead of teaching us; i ended up realizing 4 months later that i never stopped the timer and it was just running in the background and making my shit slow that entire time lmao there's a screenshot in the ao3 notes

Tags: Stress Relief, Sexual Tension, Chair Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Begging, Computers. Dirty Talk, very basic knowledge of computers

<3<3<3<3<3<3

Your new boss seemed stressed. 

Not in the usual way that he was stressed, either- the note from the assistant you had replaced was that usually when Vox was having an off day he would call for Valentino or have you pull a list of low earners for the month, banishing you from the room in either case. But he hadn’t spent any time with Val in months, basically the entire time that you’d been working with him as a personal assistant after getting promoted from a stage grunt for the news channel.

You had thought for a bit that he might make a move- that maybe that was why he promoted you, that he was charmed enough by you to end the on/off thing he had going on with Val, which made sense based on the timing. But when you tested that theory recently- made double entendres, brushed your hands against his arms or leg or back, blatantly invited him out for dinner and drinks- he didn’t seem interested. He declined your invite, allowed you to touch him without being overcome with lust, and the sex jokes just seemed to go whoosh. 

Right over his head. 

He was on edge and twitchy. He took longer to respond to things than he normally did, his processors slow, occasionally getting a ‘buffering’ message that flashed across his screen when someone asked a question. His hypnotic eye seemed to be suffering as well, the swirls having slowed down now to the point that they were no more mesmerizing than watching paint dry. It was frustrating and enraging him, and in turn frustrating you- he was fucking hot when he was angry, which didn’t help your attraction to him that he was ignoring. 

He was sitting at his desk in the control room when you entered, head in his hands as he stared at a piece of paper on his desk. The monitors were all lit behind him, showing recorded footage of the Tower throughout the day- you spotted a short recording of yourself talking to some of the marketing team a few hours ago. Like a Valentino caricature he read the paper, blinked his eyes a couple times, read it again. Picked it up and pulled it closer to his face like that would help, and his screen scrolled the words along the bottom like his internal system was trying to transcribe it so something he could understand. He finally dropped the paper with a groan, letting it flutter to the floor where it slipped under his chair and stopped just before you. 

“Are you okay, sir?” The question is out before you can stop it, and as was the normal recently it took a few minutes for him to answer. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he muttered, swiveling around to look at you. He clutched the sides of his screen, eyes narrowed and mouth delayed in its movements as he spoke. “I feel like I can’t focus on anything. I can’t process anything. My- just, fucking everything is slow and useless in my head right now! How am I supposed to be a master media manipulator when I can’t fucking concentrate for more than two minutes at a time?”

“You have seemed more… stressed than usual,” you agree. “Are none of your usual relaxing activities helping? Or have you done any troubleshooting?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Troubleshooting,” you say again, and at his blank stare you chuckle a little. “You know, doing a couple ‘quick fix’ things to see if that’s what’s causing the problem. Do you have like, a cache or something that you have to clear? An archive dump to get rid of old files?” You let your eyes track his body from top to bottom. “I’m not super familiar with how your… anatomy works?”

God, but you wanted to be.

He blinks a couple times. “I think I used to have someone that did that for me,” he says. “Years ago. I fired them because it didn’t seem necessary, I was running perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, well, that might be what the problem is.” You offer him a soft smile. “Sometimes stuff will work in sub-optimal conditions for a while before it starts causing issues. I used to do programming customer support when I was alive- it’s been a while but I could take a look if you want?”

His mouth twists in a frown. “I guess so,” he agrees. “I’m desperate enough to try anything. I need to be able to fucking concentrate if the Vees are gonna stay on top, everyone fucking knows that Val is hopeless with the business aspect of everything.” He gets the buffering symbol on his screen for a few seconds, groaning and shaking his head as he clears. “What do you need access to?”

“Do you have a way to access your… system? Externally,” you clarify. “I’m not a surgeon- I don’t plan on cutting into you to get to anything.”

Vox gestures behind him. “I can hook up to the monitors,” he says, “but we’ll have to be pretty close, doll. I have to be sitting here to be hooked up, and since this is the only chair, looks like this will have to be your seat.” He pats a hand on his thighs, not so much an invitation as a statement.

You fucking wished. You know this isn’t him trying to initiate anything though- you’d been trying for long enough that you’re ready to give it up and just accept that your hot, overlord boss didn’t want to fuck you. Helping him out felt more important than that anyway, so you would do your best.

“You got it,” you say, and cross the remaining space to perch yourself gracefully on his lap. You push the inappropriate thoughts about how firm his muscles are underneath you- how exactly did this man’s body work? Was it really just his head that was not organic matter?- and let him rotate the chair back to face the monitors.

The sight is intimidating, as is the position- you’re surrounded by reflections of yourself from every angle, Vox’s lithe frame seated behind you. This is where he does most of his business, the background site of everything that VoxTec handles. And he’s trusting you to help him fix whatever is wrong with him so he can get back to handling all of that, free of distraction.

You watch as thick wires come up from the floor to plug into the back of his head, the sharp hiss making you wonder if it was painful or intrusive. You won’t ask though, not when you’re getting ready to try to restore him to his usual ruthless self; he might consider that to be prying.

He pulls something up on the main monitor, the one that sits directly across from you, and waves a hand to it. A little keyboard and mouse emerge from the desk as the monitor powers on, and when you glance back you can see the same thing reflected on his face. “Have at it,” you hear him say, even though you can’t see his mouth moving.

Ignoring his open programs for the time being in case he needs any of them, the first thing you do is go in and clear his archived files. He’s got entire terabytes of useless information; employee records for people that have been dead or fired for decades; funny videos that he saved; resources for old news stories that are no longer relevant. Some of it you help him upload to a cloud server- after explaining to him what a cloud server is- and create files to designate for actual important shit.

You find the internal browser that he uses to pull information on the fly and help him clear the cache and cookies.

You help him sort security footage from Vee Tower and get rid of stuff that wasn’t actually necessary, like the short bits of static and dead air that happened whenever he used the cameras to teleport around the building. Everything that he has saved about mentions of that fucking radio demon also goes into the garbage. There are some files you can’t access, things like his memories and day to day recordings of conversations and things that he personally is part of. 

You delete what you can and empty the recycling bin.

As the process has gone on, Vox has relaxed more and more behind you. “I still don’t feel completely back to normal,” he murmurs, “but this is already loads better. It’s like a massage directly on my brain. You know, if I still physically had one.”

You hit the keys to open his task manager- CTRL ALT DELETE. “Unholy fuck- Jesus, sir, if you thought that was good this is gonna feel orgasmic,” you say absently, scrolling through the opens apps and programs that he has running. Has this man ever closed anything? You hadn’t realized a person or device could even have so many things going at once. “Do you just leave everything open in the background?”

He peers around your shoulder, bracing his hands on your hips as he sits up a little straighter. The movement causes your stomach to drop, arousal threatening to make itself known, but you push the notion down as he sets his hands back on the arms of the chair. “I guess so?” He watches you scroll through the extensive list. “I guess it just never occurred to me to close them. Opening the programs to use is just like my stream of consciousness I suppose.”

“Kay, well, that’s stopping now.” You click on the first item on the list- VoxtaGram. “I recommend closing non-essential stuff out at least once a month. More, if you have the time to go through everything. For now, just in case, there is something important we’re gonna go through some of the more recently opened things, set them up to open automatically when you start up, before we reboot your system- wait, can we reboot your system entirely without killing you?”

“No worries there, dear. I can, I just haven’t done it in years because it can take a while to start back up afterwards.” He sneers at the social media page. “You can close that shit. Any of Velvette’s crap she can handle on her own. Same with any of the fucking games that Val loads up when he’s bored- can I delete those entirely? Or block them? Fucking moth and his blue-light addiction…”

You get through a lot of the list, Vox kind of dozing off and only passively participating in the process. You’ve got the gist of it; things like his news sources, contacts list and phone, and the notes app are staying open and set to automatically launch when he does reboot and start back up. Pretty much everything else is closed out, things he pulled up for two seconds weeks ago to check on something or another before abandoning it. You’re making excellent progress when the next thing on the list gives you pause.

“Vox? Why is this- oh my god.” You can’t help it- you start laughing, throwing your head back to rest on his shoulder as you look at what’s now displayed on the screen.

A stopwatch had apparently been started and never stopped. The elapsed time was over three thousand hours, which came out to something like four months if your mental math was correct. He had had this running constantly in the background since you had started working for him, possibly even before. “I think I found the problem,” you chuckled, and his eyes were narrowed as he looked at the timer continuing to tick. “What is this?”

“What the actual fuck?” He buffers for a second- and you’re pleased to note that it’s already much faster than it has been lately- before you hear a dinging sound coming from him. ‘Fucking Hell, I should have known this was all Valentino’s fault.” He drags a clawed hand down his screen in an imitation of a facepalm. “I was timing him. He was fucking ranting about Angel Dust again while we were in a strategy meeting with Velvette- I had the stopwatch going to see how much of the hour session he wasted talking about that whore. I must have forgotten to turn it off.” He barks out a laugh, throwing his head back with the force of it while you look at him with amusement. “I’m gonna owe you big time for this, doll, you’re a lifesaver.”

You close the app out with a smile. “Just trying to help,” you say. “I think that was probably the worst of it- do you want to just try rebooting now?”

He lets out a groan when the app closes, and the sound shoots through your body straight to your core. “Go for it, hun,” he says, eyes closed as he leans back against the chair. “I think I’m good to go now, but it can’t hurt. You were right, sorting this shit out feeling fucking good.”

You’re suddenly very aware of the dampness of your panties as you bypass ‘kinda horny’ straight to ‘fuck me on this desk.’ You scold yourself mentally: Don’t jump your boss. He’s trusting you to help him right now- do not take advantage of that. Do not ride his leg like you very clearly want to because his voice is fucking hot. Fucking focus.

You clear your throat, closing out the task manager and hitting the button to restart him. “See you in a bit, sir.”

You stay seated on his lap just in case- he might still have something he wants you to do when he comes back online, some settings you could apply to close out things that are used for more than a week or so. It’s definitely not because you like the feeling of his strong thigh underneath you, tantalizingly close to your cunt if you, by chance, decided to tilt your hips forward and start grinding down on him. 

After just a few minutes get a message on the main monitor telling you to wait a moment- things start popping up on the other screens surrounding the central one, and it takes you a moment to recognize the pattern.

Its all videos of you- shot from Vox’s perspective, and a mortifying blush takes over your face. They’re all the moments that you had tried coming onto him. The innuendos and subtle entendres, the times that you touched him, pressed yourself against him in a tight space despite having another way to get to the copy machine, when you had invited him out for dinner. There’s also videos where he had just been watching you, apparently, taken from a distance as you spoke with Velvette or passed instructions along to a member of the team or discreetly tried to hide behind a vending machine when you noticed  Val coming into a room. 

There’s a satisfied grumble behind you, and before you can turn to look at him Vox has settled his claws onto either side of your waist and shifted you over a bit, to rest directly on the erection straining his pants. 

Which is a surprise, albeit a pleasant one.

“Thanks for the reset, doll,” he says, and his voice is a quiet growl as he lets his hands wander from your waist to your hips and back again, claw tipped fingers catching on the fabric. “I got a chance to look at some files while I was under and found quite the treat in your logs.”

This could either be very bad or very, very good. “Sir-”

“You know, I’m usually pretty good at picking up what a woman is putting down. Imagine my surprise when I realize you’ve been coming onto me for weeks and my shit was so fucked up and bogged down that I didn’t even notice. Like that?” He uses one hand to point to a screen in the far left of the central monitor, while he snaked his other hand down to rest on your thigh, his hand large enough to encompass the muscle at the edge of your skirt. On the screen, you had come to his office to drop off meeting notes for something you attended on his behalf. You had dropped the stack as you came around his side of the desk, and got down fully on your knees to pick them up, glancing up at him through your lashes. You blush watching it now- it had seemed obvious to you even then, but watching it now, the way that Vox had seen it? When he didn’t say anything about you being face level with his prick you had used a hand on his thigh to brace yourself to stand up, letting your fingers run along the inner seam of his trousers when you rose back to standing. Still no reaction, and you had left his office equal parts turned on and irritated with yourself. Him not having acted on it had been the final nail in the coffin cementing the fact that he was not interested in the slightest.

You let out a weak exhale as the Vox sitting under you gets his other hand in the same position as the first, using his grip to ever so slightly spread your legs on his lap. He lets his fingers skim your inner thighs and you shake with the effort of not begging him to just touch you. This was delicious, agonizing torture.

“Had I been in my right mind for that display, baby, I would have fucking ṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡i̧̻̻͉̜͑ͪ̾͟n̫̫̘̗͕̲̲̎ͥḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧd̶̵̯̯̼̘ͨ̓ y͙͙̪̰ͫ͌́o͙͙̙̘̙ͤͫ͞ụ̴̴̾̀͟͡.” His voice crackles and glitches on the last words, and the sound of it forces a moan from your throat as you let your head fall back. You clutch your hands to the arms of the chair as his tongue- and who even really knew he had a tongue, what the fuck?- licks down the side of your jaw and at your exposed neck. “I would have had you choking on my cock before getting a taste of that sweet cunt and fucking you into the desk for hours.”

One hand finally slips under the edge of your skirt and you shiver when his fingers make contact with your soaked core. “Is that what you want now, babygirl? You want me to give you my cock as thanks for helping to set me straight? To make up for lost time?” He slides a finger under the thin material of your panties, groaning in your ear at how slick he finds you. “That’s what I want, doll. I want you to ride me so hard you go stupid with the feeling, and you never feel whole without some part of me in your cunt for the rest of for-fucking- ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧv̹̹̘̼̞̻͆ͩ̓ͪ͢ḛ̡̰̳͓̥ͬ͋ͪͧṛ̣̬̫̍͌ͩ͟.”

“Fuck, please,” you gasp out, the word devolving into a cry as Vox finally slides a finger into you, mindful of the claws as he pushes in and quickly follows the first with a second. He uses his free hand to hold your hips still as you try to grind into his digits, keeps you held firmly against his erection as you squirm in pleasure.

His sharp fingertips angle to prod gently at a spot inside of you that has you seeing stars; your eyes are clenched shut as you ride the feeling, so close to the edge you feel like you’re going to implode with the force of it when you finally tip over. “Fuck, sir, please, so c-close,” you mumble, and his tongue is back to licking at whatever parts of your skin it can reach.

“You wanna come like this, sweetheart?” The main monitor in front of you glitches out, and when it comes back into focus you see yourself on the screen- like a mirror, you’re reflected, and you can see Vox’s grinning face behind you. Your skin is flushed, sweat dripping down your face, the hint of tears along your lashline as your mouth drops open when he adds a third finger. “Look fuckin’ beautiful, baby, you were made for this- maybe we give Valentino a call, he could-”

“No!” You release the arms of the chair to grab onto his wrists where his hands meet your body. “No one- no one but you, sir. Vox, please, l- let me come. Please?” You let a little whine into your voice, and you can see the way his mouth goes lax and his eyes laser-focus on where you’re grabbing at his hands.

“I didn’t mean to join us, dollface, just to record- but you’re right, you’re right.” He pulls his fingers from your pussy, slicing the center of your panties in the process before he brings his digits to his mouth- you watch on the screen as he curls his tongue around each one, licks the flavor of you from his skin and glitches out at the taste. “How could I possibly share such a fucking vision with anyone else?

He shifts you to one side so he can get his dick out, and the sight of it in the monitor, his own arousal beading at the top and rock hard, has you whimpering before it’s even inside of you. He carried himself like a man with a big cock, but Christ.

“Hope you like what you see, hun, cause it’s all yours.” He scoots forward in the seat, tilts his hips forward for the right angle, and moves you back into your previous position with ease- this time, the tip of him is pushing inside you, and you watch in the monitor as you sink inch by glorious inch onto him.

Once you’re fully seated, Vox seems to lose capability for rational thought. “Fuck me, you’re perfect,” he moans, bracing his feet more firmly on the ground to thrust up into you, getting a firm grasp on your hips to pull you down into it. The result is a beautiful stab at that sweet spot inside of you that makes you clench and cry out, watching Vox’s hypnotic eye start spiraling at its normal speed on the screen, and you can see backwards scrolling text of his stream of thoughts- a bunch of nonsensical letters and cuss words interspersed with your name. “I want to fucking- chain you to my desk so I can have this perfect pussy whenever I want it. Fuck, I can’t believe we- we could have been doing this for weeks.” He punctuates his sentence with a hard thrust.

“A-all the more reason to regularly clear your task manager, sir,” you say, so caught up in the feeling of him railing you from below that you can hardly believe you formed a coherent thought. He feels so fucking good and you’re a hair trigger away from collapsing and wringing him for all he’s got.

With one quick movement he’s shifted, and there’s a hand on your throat arching you backwards at the same time that he gets a couple clawed fingers rubbing at your clit. The shock of the combination makes you flutter around his length, a choked noise escaping your throat before he tightens his grip- not enough to really cut off your air supply, but enough that your brain starts going soft and mushy and the vice grip your cunt has on his cock gets impossibly tighter. You can see the shine of your slick arousal coating him every time he pulls out to rut back into you, and the sights and sounds are threatening to rip you into the chasm of ecstasy that you’re flirting with. 

“Vox,” you whine, “please, I’m so fucking- please please please-“ 

“Christ, babygirl, whatever you fucking want.” His eyes are wide and frantic as they watch the place you’re joined, his mouth set in a snarl as he fucks into your pliant body. The cry you release is nothing short of agonized- it’s so fucking close you can taste it, nearly overwhelmed with the tension.

“You wanna fucking cum on my cock? Do it, angel, let me see it- come on, baby, cum for me-“

Your walls clench down hard as you reach your orgasm, Vox’s grip on your throat making your vision and mind go fuzzy with the force of it as you choke on a moan that tries to escape your tensed muscles. You’re distantly aware of Vox thrusting hard into you, more praise and curses falling from his lips as he hits his peak as well, pressing his screen to the side of your face when he relinquishes his handle on your throat to clutch at your hips and grind into your cunt as he spills inside of you. The aftershocks of your release leave you twitching, milking his cock of everything he has to offer before he collapses into the chair behind you, a boneless pile of a man now simply running his hands over any bit of skin he could reach. 

It’s truly a testament to how helpful the reset and reboot had been that Vox’s system doesn’t simply crash. “Fucking Hell, I haven’t felt this good in decades,” he mutters in your ear, and you shiver at the feeling of his tongue brushing the sensitive skin.

“Ha, you think that’s the reboot or the mind-melting orgasms?”

He hums contentedly. “Jury’s out on that, doll. Guess we’ll have to do a re-run on both and see how it stacks up to this one.”

“I’ll make sure to schedule some time out for it,” you chuckle before fixing him with a stern glare through the monitor. “I’m serious about clearing your apps and shit more frequently though. Christ, you had decades of backed up shit open-“

“Don’t berate me while my dick is still inside you, fuck.” He leans you forward far enough to pull out, and you grimace at the feeling of his cum starting to spill back out of you. He notices the expression though- “Whoops, sorry,” he says, and after a quick second during which he tucks his softening prick away he scoops you into his arms, standing from the chair and stepping away from the desk. “Let’s get you cleaned up at the penthouse, angel, what do you say?”

“If you’re carrying me then lead the way.” You gesture towards the door out of the control room. “Just don’t start any timers to see how long it takes to get there or anything and we should be good.”

The glare he fixes you with shouldn’t be hot, but it fucking is. “Hardy har,” he deadpans, and rolls his eyes while he stalks towards the elevator, control room door closing behind you; but there’s a small smile on his screen despite his ire and he’s functioning normally, and when you see the little stopwatch icon pop up in the bottom right corner of his face and start counting, you can’t help but laugh.

[saturnville]

bite, l. hamilton

pairing: he (lewis hamilton) x black best friend oc (anvika dawson) content: in which two friends cross a line people have been waiting for them to cross. warning: 18+ content song: bite by njzoma an: y'all know I don't write smut fr, so ntm. but I hope y'all enjoy it. wc: 2,498 tags: the girlies who were hyping me up to post this @boujiestpoet @mauvecherie-writes @saintslewis @greedyjudge2 @vile-harlot @emjayewrites

“Just because we’re attracted to one another doesn’t mean we need to sleep together. I’m off that. Plus, we’re friends.”

Anvika prided herself on being a woman of self-control and discipline. Though it did not come easy, years of abstinence grew dreary and at times, very lonely, her hard work was not something she was willing to risk. Her decision to step into abstinence wasn’t one she took lightly, nor was it one that she planned, but once Anvika began the journey of healing from a heartbreak, intimacy with another man wasn’t the priority. Though that had been over four years ago and she was well over the situation, she could admit that while it was difficult to maintain her self-control, not having to worry about anyone’s snot-nosed son brought more peace than she could ever imagine. 

“Even more of a reason to let it happen. Everything happens better when you have a solid foundation first. Everybody thinks you two are together anyways. He truly cares for you, in more ways than one.” 

Anvika hummed and rolled her eyes as she brought the slender champagne fluke to her full lips. The liquid went smooth down her throat. She shrugged. “Then let them think that. Lewis is a good man, a good and attractive man, but…”

Her friend, Onyx, sighed and downed her drink with a wave of her hand. “I don’t know how you do it! I would’ve lost my mind by now. I commend you.” Onyx bowed playfully which pulled a light laugh from Anvika. Though she was joking, she couldn’t help but sense the truth behind her words. 

Though swearing off men and intimacy had become a more common practice among women, many people found it taboo and unrealistic. She soon began to ponder--what if she’d never find anyone that could give her what she wanted because of how she chose to navigate her dating life? She shook it off internally. That would be a problem, but none that would be hers. 

Before she got the chance to respond, her phone rang against the glass table that held their expensive lunch on it’s back. LH flashed across the screen. She smiled softly which caught the attention of Onyx, who gave a teasing smirk. For someone who was insistant on keeping a strong boundary between herself and her closest friend, she surely smiled like a fool whenever he called. 

“I told you I have a lunch date with Onyx today,” she reminded the racer lowly, using her index finger to draw doodles in the condensation her water glass sweat off on the table. “Everything alright?” 

“Everything’s fine, angel,” he spoke smoothly. “Just wanted to make sure you were still wanting to join me for the event on Friday.” Anvika hummed and nodded as though he could see her. He was attending a gala in London and of course, offered his plus-one to Anvika, as he had done since their friendship had begun years prior. What was his, was hers, including access to rooms and events that would grant her opportunities to further her career as a branding and marketing consultant. 

“Yes,” she replied excitedly. “I still haven’t found a dress. What color are you wearing?”

There was shuffling in the background before he spoke again. “Blue. Don’t worry about it,  I’ll handle it.” Her heart fluttered. “Enjoy your lunch. Tell Onyx I said hello and call me later, alright?” 

Anvika’s teeth trapped her bottom lip. “Alright. Talk soon.” 

“Bye, love.” 

Anvika turned her phone on its face and looked up, catching Onyx’s playful eyes. Her thick eyebrow touched her forehead. “Friends, right?” Anvika gave her a look. Onyx raised her hands in defense, “My bad, my bad.” 

-

Lewis Hamilton was a gentleman. Sure, this was universal knowledge, but something about him being gentlemanly with her made her heart flutter and her stomach clench with desire. And it almost made her question Onyx’s point, ��he truly cares for you; in more ways than one.” It’d typically be something she’d deny, but as she stood in front of the mirror with her hair done by a hairstylist he arranged to come, her nails done by a nail technician he’d flown out, and a dress he arranged to be custom-made to suit her body, how could she deny it any longer? 

“Don’t think too deeply into it,” she scolded herself, slipping out of her robe. She walked toward her dress, pulled it off the hanger, and carefully slipped into it. “You’re friends. Close friends who care for one another. That’s it, that’s all.” 

They met at the paddock six years prior. She was invited to her first Formula One race through her consultant agency, which took her team on an all-expense paid trip for their hard work. She wasn’t aware of Formula One, just of familiar names. Then, at the end of the match, she had the chance to put a face to the infamous name of Lewis Hamilton. 

“You raced well,” Anvika noted, taking in the slightly disheveled appearance of the raceman. “I’ve never been to a Formula One race; good job on giving me a reason to come back one day.” 

The man’s eyebrow raised in interest. He crossed his arms over his chest, his muscular build on display. “Is that so?”

Anvika nodded. 

“We can make that happen whenever you want.” 

It was Anvika’s turn to raise an eyebrow. A smirk played on her lips. “Is that so? Tryna be my friend, Lewis?” 

He shrugged his shoulders. Friends wasn’t too bad. Anything to get to know her. “Any man would be a fool to refuse that opportunity, Anvika.”

That marked the beginning of an inseparable union.

Anvika continued to mumble and grumble, doing whatever she could to keep her mind eased. Her self-conversations were halted by a knock on her door. Lewis. “Coming!” Holding her dress to her chest. She turned the doorknob, and the familiar scent of his cologne filled her nose. “Are you…oh. Oh.”

Closing the door behind him, Lewis’ eyes were trained on her, the most beautiful woman he’d laid eyes on. The dress, complementary to his suit, was perfectly designed and tailored to her. She was a fan of long-sleeved dresses, so that’s what she got. It was constructed with a heavy, luxurious velvet material and it hugged every riff, edge, and curve on her body. The neckline showed the swell of her breasts and her beautiful collarbone. The mermaid-like tail further accentuated her shape. 

Her hair was parted to the side and curled to perfection. The makeup complimented her features--thick eyebrows, full lips, and a round nose. And her scent, goodness, it suffocated him. The jasmine and almond notes filled his nostrils and he wanted to nuzzle his face in her neck and inhale like she was the air he needed to breathe. 

“You look beautiful,” Lewis managed to speak. His voice was so low that she almost didn’t hear his compliment. With a bashful smile, she thanked him and led him to her room where she wandered toward the bathroom, which had a series of jewels across the counter. “Help me pick a necklace?” 

Anvika turned to face the jewelry and fought hard to ignore the heat that radiated from Lewis’ body as he moved to stand behind her. From over her shoulder, his eyes followed the line of jewels the stylists brought. His eyes landed on a silver necklace; a thin chain with a multi-carat teardrop diamond. “This one.” 

Lewis took the necklace in his hands and placed it around her neck. Anvika lifted her hair to grant him easy access and shivered as his cool fingertips brushed against her skin. She inhaled deeply. “Stunning.” His breath was warm against her neck. They locked eyes in the mirror ahead of them. The tension was thick. Suffocating. His brown eyes, usually so full of love and warmth, were filled with something she couldn’t quite identify, but it made her body heat like wildfire. 

“I’m ready,” she announced, careful not to let her voice waver. She turned, purposefully ignoring the groan he released when she brushed against him. Her lips quivered as she tried to give a steady smile. What the hell was happening between them? Anvika placed her hands on his chest and soothed the non-existent wrinkles on his suit jacket. He was so handsome. “You look great, darling.” 

“Thank you…” his words came out as a whisper. He was too distracted by her. Six years of friendship and what he felt from the time he met her at the paddock all those years ago had reached a breaking point. He’d boiled over. 

Anvika tried to smile as she pressed a kiss against his cheek, but with how he reacted, her lips landed at the corner of his lips. She took a step back. “Let’s get ready to go, yeah?” 

Lewis swallowed thickly. He held his arm out for her, which she grabbed instinctively, and together, they were out the door with a million and one thoughts swimming between them. 

-

“And that beauty you’ve brought?” an older man questioned Lewis, who had his eyes on Anvika as she danced through the siloes of people in the room. The gala was nothing short of a popularity function, a random event on a random weekend for the host to flaunt their money and connections, Truthfully, his desire to attend dwindled once he saw her in that dress. She was the only thing on his mind. 

“Anvika Dawson,” Lewis said, nodding in her direction. “One of the best branding and marketing consultants in the industry. She’s amazing at everything she does. You’ve got a business, don’t you?” And that’s why he was a good friend, Anvika noted as she began to walk over, hearing him advocate for her in front of the man. 

“You flatter me,” she said with a smile as she took a position under Lewis’ arm, which slid around her waist. “Anvika Dawson, nice to meet you.” 

The older man, who had went by the nam Eli, shook her hand firmly and nodded in interest. “Well, pardon me, but the two of you would make a wonderful couple.” The young adult chuckled lightly; the comment was nothing new to them, but it seemed to bring them both discomfort given the fact that they had a very intimate moment just an hour before their arrival. Before Lewis could speak up, Anvika thanked the man sweetly then they were whisked in another direction. 

They were joined together at the hip for the remainder of the evening. And, on the rare occasion that they were apart, they stole glances from across the room like teenagers in a romantic sitcom. Soon, the event wrapped up and they were in the backseat of the car, sitting in a thick silence. 

Anvika sat at the right of the car, her knees turned inward and her legs crossed. With every bump in the road and swerve of the car, the tip of her heel brushed against Lewis’ leg. His breath hitched. She said nothing. 

The car came to an abrupt stop and the doors were opened for them. Before her foot could touch the ground, Lewis’ hand was awaiting. “Thank you,” Anvika said softly, and allowed him to guide her into the hotel. 

He still hadn’t said much. The walk to the elevator was quiet, yet, he hadn’t let go of her hand. What was he thinking about? If it was the sudden shift in their interactions, it didn’t go unnoticed by her either. 

The elevator doors peeled open and Lewis guided her in. He pressed the button, 10, that would send them to the floor their rooms were on. The elevator ride seemed slow as each ding indicated they’d entered another floor. 

Anvika cleared her throat and decided to speak up, “I enjoyed tonight. And again, you looked great. I love blue on you.” 

He couldn’t remember what happened between her compliment, her back against the elevator wall, and his lips on hers.  The only thing that forced him to key in was her hands pressing against his abdomen and his name falling from her lips. “Lewis…” What he’d heard time and time again in his dreams had finally become a reality. His stomach churned; could he get her to say it again? “What are you…” She cut herself off when she fell victim to the wonderful feeling of his lips against her jaw. 

“I just…” Lewis settled his face in her neck. “One night, Vi. Let me have one night with you…” Her heart pounded in her ears. What the hell was happening? 

“Lewis…” Her hand slipped and fell just above his belt. She extended her arm just slightly. “We can’t do this. I-I don’t want to mess up our friendship and you know I’m not going all the way with anyone--” 

Lewis hummed. His eyes sat low as he looked at her. She looked completely worn out as if he’d done to her what he truly wanted. Her forehead glistened with sweat, her lipstick was smeared, and her chest heaved. “Nothing will change for the worse, angel. And I don’t want to go there with you, just want to make you feel good…always have.” His left arm circled around her waist and his large hand palmed her backside. She whimpered. “Can I?” 

“Someone might see...” 

He ignored her. “Can I make you feel good?” His tone was stern as he repeated his question. Suddenly, the gala was out of her mind and the only thing that clouded her thoughts was him. Him and him only. Lewis Hamilton had infiltrated her mind and she finally stopped fighting it. 

The elevator dinged. “Yes…” 

-

“Should I…?” her hands reached for the necklace that shone beneath the dim lights of the hotel suite. Lewis shook his head and peeled his jacket off his shoulders, revealing a crisp white wife beater. He shed that too. Anvika’s breath hitched. “Keep it on. Lay back for me, angel.” 

Anvika looked like an angel surrounded by the comforter. Her undergarments were long discarded, save for her underwear which he kept in the pocket of his pants. The pure white of the sheets were a stark contrast to the richness of her complexion. Her hair was sprawled against the pillow with a few strands covering her face lazily. The look on her face was one of comfort, relief in one way or another. 

She welcomed Lewis’ body between her legs as he crawled on the bed and his lips against hers as he hovered above her. For the first time that night, Anvika’s hands didn’t tremble when she touched him. She welcomed the feeling of every ridge of muscle, every raised scar, and every mature tattoo. 

Their hands moved frantically over each other’s body, and it felt amazing. She hadn’t realized how touch deprived she was until she heard his chuckle in her ear. Her face warmed. She felt like a teenager. “It’s okay…” his lips ghosted against the shell of her ear. “Make all the noise you want.” 

Anvika didn’t respond--her mouth wouldn’t allow her to. As Lewis moved down her body, she sat on her elbows, watching and waiting. God, he was so handsome like this. His head was dipped between her thighs and his tattooed glistened under the dim lights. Slowly, he lips created an intentional trail from her belly down to the treasure just centimeters away from his mouth. 

Her fingers clawed at the bedsheets as the anticipation rose. She was becoming impatient. He was giving attention to every other place except where he wanted her. She huffed. “Lewis…” 

He hummed, clearly unbothered by her frustration. He glanced at her, “Yes?” She whimpered. “Talk to me.” He was amused, very amused. She was desperate for him. It was evident by the way her arousal seeped onto the bed. He gathered some on his fingers, using it as a lubricant as he finally began to touch her. 

Anvika gasped. His movements were slow and meticulated but they were enough to set her over the edge. He brought his lips to hers again, which she accepted sloppily. Her jaw fell slack as he continued to work her to her first release of the night. It came quickly, quicker than she would have liked. When his fingers hit that spot within her, her hips jerked and she squeaked his name. 

Lewis chuckled, “That’s it?” He prodded that spot again. “Right there?” Anvika nodded. He removed his fingers. She groaned in frustration, “Lewis, please!”

“Please what?” He brought his fingers to his lips and moaned at the taste of her on his tongue. If this was just the beginning, he couldn’t imagine how mad he’d go in the coming moments. “Tell me what you want.”

She clocked it. He wanted her to beg. Anvika wasn’t the begging type. She may have been far removed from having sex, but she always got her way, especially with Lewis. Her hands trailed down the muscular planes of his stomach. Her fingers hooked in his belt and pulled him forward. Her fingers curled around his neck and her nails toyed with the faded hair there. She brought her smeared lips to his ear, her tongue dancing against the shell of it. He shudder. “I want you to make my legs shake and rock my world. Can you do that, Lewis?” 

Her voice. The way her voice dropped in octave but increased in seduction had his head spinning. There were a few moments of silence as he fought hard to gather himself and the more she spurred him on, the most difficult it became. But then, she heard it, “Yes…”

-

“Right there, right there! Oh my…” He was a lover of music. Being in a studio, creating melodies to go with lyrics, was his favorite pastime. But this took the cake. She created her a song better than he could have ever imagined, and was it addicting. 

Her moans, cries, and screams were melodic and his name was the only lyric she knew. He hated repetition in music, but loved hearing hers. So addicting. So well created. So beautiful. 

Her legs trembled around his head and her hands were buried in his braids. He fought the urge to bend her over when she whispered out the faintest, “Baby, please…” She’d used terms of endearment before, but in this context, it was different. “I’m close!”

Her body, damp with sweat and covered in bruises created by his mouth, jumped and jolted as she grew closer to her peak. Lewis sat up, replacing his tongue with his highly skilled fingers. He used his arm to stabilize his body as he hovered over her. What a sight.

Her hair was completely sweated out, pooped and frizzy at the roots. Her makeup stained the pillows and her lips were swollen from her biting and his intense kisses. Her neck was dark with love bites. Her eyelids were hooded but he could see the fire behind her eyes. If only he could capture her and keep the picture in his pocket forever. 

“Doing so well for me,” he whispered, kissing against her cheek and jaw. His fingers made quick work of the huddle of nerves between her legs. “Taking it like a good girl.” Her moans grew louder, higher in pitch, and full of air. It was becoming too much—her hands pushed against his arm, trying to run. “Don’t run now. Isn’t this what you wanted?” 

“Lewis, I’m—“ she cut herself off with a high pitched scream that seemed to ring on forever. Lewis chuckled lightly and worked her through her orgasm. “That’s it, baby.” Her body shook as she tried to come down calmly.

He spent a few minutes between her legs, caressing her gently as an act of comfort. Her loud noises had diminished to soft whimpers as she came down from cloud nine. When she finally opened her eyes again, he asked, “You okay?” 

She was better than okay. Though they didn’t cross all the lines, Anvika had gotten the best orgasm she’d received in her life from a man’s mouth and hands. She’d deal with the consequences later, but in that moment, she felt amazing. 

She nodded and smiled lazily. “I’m okay. Are you…do you want me to…?” Her eyes fell to the evident bulge that strained against his pants. He shook his head.

“I’m okay. Let’s get you cleaned up…”

-

What was supposed to be a shower to clean her up resulted in her on her knees giving him the most intense release he’d experienced in months. It left him panting, shaking, and whimpering like it was his first time all over again. 

Once again, she looked angelic with her now curly hair flat against her back and big brown eyes staring at him as she worked him like the expert she was. He came in her with with a groan, his fingers in her hair. She stood to her feet, smiling innocently as she showed him there was no remnant of him left in her mouth. 

“You’re nasty,” he announced, grabbing her jaw to place a sloppy kids on her lips. 

“Mhmmm, just the way I like it.” 

They migrated to her bed shortly after, laying together in a comfortable silence. Anvika’s head was against his bare chest and herfingers traced the tattoos on his body. Lewis’ arm was around her waist and his hand massaged her plump bottom. 

They were tired, exhausted even. But, they fought sleep like children, internally afraid of what the morning would bring. All actions had consequences whether good or bad. It was a mutual hope that what they’d done wouldn’t bring on the latter. 

“Lewis?” Anvika called after some time. 

“Yes, angel?” 

“Are we gonna be okay?” Her voice trembled slightly. They’d crossed a line--a big one. She had wobbled on her boundaries. There was a lot to discuss and a lot to consider. It was an amazing experience, she couldn’t lie, but her biggest fear was that she’d lose him as an important person in her life if reality didn’t set in the way they intended. 

Lewis gave her a squeeze and brought his lips to her forehead. Sensing her worry, he reassured, “We’ll always be okay.” And she believed it.

[bwobgames]

He quickly matches pace with Simon and go straight for their shared room

Sleeping furniture... on a moving vehicle...! The future is now.

"I brought so much stuff, Here's the switch, Here's a dart set, Here's a puppetry making kit, our shared off brand tamagotchi- It's a car now, by the way- And my guita-! I left it on the entrance."

"I have a potato chip keychain"

"Awesome!"

They unpack, which is to say, they throw some random things on the bed until they find something to distract themselves over.

"Do you think they give you train themed food? Like in themed cafes?"

"You are a marketing genious. We need to know."

With half their belongings not belonging anywhere, they go get some novelty snackies.

"Helo"

"This is train yes yes?"

"Snack train? Train snack?"

The food master, who looked at them strangely for some reason, apologizes and calmly explains that not only the food is for dinner, but that is not train themed.

"Makes sense, I guess, could be too much train"

As they leave, they hear an unfortunate interchange of words

"The people are hungry already?"

"No, no, the college kids were just wondering about the menu"

Ah. Yes. Right. College kids. Thats what they are now. Or what they'll be in a few months.

Which is a good thing and definitely not something that has been eating him for months now!!

They need to take a seat.

"Uuwaaabwhbwuwaaaauabwuwaaawuabwewbbwe"

"Yeag"

He melts on the table. He would melt on the background if he could, but sorceries far beyond his control deny it so.

"How long until doomsday?"

"If my cryptic dreams are right, 35 years. If you mean university, I think we still have a month until all inscriptions close everywhere. "

He melts harder.

He can't keep this waiting! He already took a year off!

"When we end up living underneath a bridge, I'll let you borrow my left shoe"

"I will not forget this deal."

In a world of possibilities, how is he to choose? To become one thing for the rest of his life? AND it has to be profitable??? Cruel and unusual punishment.

"Do you want to check the wheel"

"Okay..."

He becomes solid again and looks at Simon's phone.

It's a little coding fun bonanza he took part in, making a silly roulette with all possible work possibilities! With added stats of Quality of Life, Money expectancy and Whimsy.

He is not be the best artist out there, so Nadia’s Photoshop skills come in pretty handy!

"My son. What shall the future bring for your dear creator"

The wheel goes, it makes a silly slipping cartoon sound.

As programmed, it stops randomly and abruptly.

Right under "Retail"

"Do you want me dead. Is that it. Do you want your father dead."

"This is why God doesn’t talk to us anymore. We chose retail"

"It has low stats everywhere!!! Basically whimsyless!!!"

"I'm doomed. Not even my own creation supports me. What shall become of this wretched creature."

"Make another and let them compete for your love"

...Which could mean nothing. Coming from him. He lowers his internally raised eyebrow.

"You haven't rolled"

"It's fine"

"Huh? Have you decided already?!"

He looks a bit lost for a moment, and touches the screen.

"Doctor"

"WHAT THE HELL"

"That's so good!! Why do you get the good stuff!!"

"I don't want to be a doctor, though."

"But you could be! You're good at biology, you can totally be a doctor!!"

"I guess..."

If he recalls correctly, Miss Marigold also suggested being a doctor. Does he think it would be too hard? Too competitive? There are many other fields under medicine...

Unlike himself, who is not particularly good at anyth-

"Why aren't you going into coding, though?"

...Right. That.

"Oh I'm just... not into it anymore"

"It was like, a phase or something. It's not something I'd do as a career"

"But you're good at it. And it pays well. And you have fun doing it. The impossible triangle is possible."

"Um, yeah but uh, it's not my vibe now, you know? I'm doing different stuff now. As an adult who does adult things"

"...Is it because-"

"I just don’t like it anymore! Just because I'm good at it, it doesn't mean I want to work on it, okay?! You are good at cooking but you don't want to work on it, see?! We are the same! So just-!"

"..."

"..."

"...Okay. Sorry"

"Ah.

Did I fuck up?"

"...But um. I'd still do it as a hobby so..."

Silence

"Do you... have something else in mind?"

"I do"

"But mom won't like it"

(Must be nice, knowing what you want.)

(Knowing what you don't want.)

(Having your thoughts and feelings set straight, nothing unwavering them.)

A fading feeling of a strong hand patting his back comes to mind.

It sickens him, it sickens the comfort he gets from the memory.

(Maybe if he was actually his son, he would be able to hate him without remorse.)

"Have you considered making a podcast"

He slumps back on the table.

"I have. It sounds dreadful"

"Can't be worse than what already sells"

He raises a good point, but it doesn't make it better.

(He's secretly glad he didn't upset him for real. But what's friendship without accidentally brushing over your pal's trauma?)

Suddenly, a well wanted interruption!

“Now that’s not the mood for a fancy train ride. Cheer up, strange creatures!”

<PREV START NEXT>

[lassoinyourlap]

Bruce Wayne x fem!Reader

Dynamic: CEO x assistant, secret relationship, power imbalance, composure kink, silent control, overstimulation, quiet desperation

Tags: bruce wayne x reader, batman x reader, fem reader, ceo x assistant, video call sex, fingering during meeting, power imbalance, composed dom, dominant bruce wayne, silent control, overstimulation, nsfw fanfic, second person pov, bruce wayne smut, possession kink, hidden sex, filthy rich and filthy minded.

You're perched on Bruce's lap, your legs straddling his muscular thigh as you sit facing him. The position feels natural, as if you belong here, in his arms, his hands roaming over your curves with possessive intent.

But then the meeting starts, and Bruce's demeanor shifts. He's no longer the attentive lover, focused solely on your pleasure. He's the CEO, the man in control, the one who commands respect and obedience from all around him.

With a subtle movement, he pushes you forward, not roughly but with a deliberate firmness that leaves no room for argument. Your hands flatten on the surface of his desk as he lowers you into a new position, one that has you bent over with your ass lifted towards him.

The sensation of exposure sends a shiver down your spine. You're completely vulnerable in this position, your body on display for him, for anyone who might walk in through those closed office doors. But you trust Bruce, know that he would never let anything happen to you.

He adjusts you slightly, making sure you're angled just right. Your breath catches in your throat as you feel his fingers trailing down your spine, a feather-light touch that sets your nerves alight.

"As you can see from the quarterly earnings report," Bruce begins, his voice calm and steady despite the intimate position he has you in. "We've seen a significant increase in profits..."

His words wash over you, the business jargon blending with the feel of his fingers dipping between your legs. You bite your lip to stifle a moan as he teases your folds, spreading your arousal with expert precision.

Bruce continues his presentation, speaking about market trends and growth potential while his other hand slides around to cup your breast. He kneads the soft flesh, rolling your nipple between his fingers until it's a hard peak.

You can't help but arch into his touch, your body reacting instinctively to the pleasure he's igniting within you. Bruce chuckles softly, the sound low and full of promise.

"Stay still," he whispers, his breath hot against your ear. "They'll hear you."

The warning sends a thrill through you, a heady mix of fear and excitement. You clamp your mouth shut, determined to keep quiet even as Bruce's fingers delve deeper, stroking your inner walls with a steady rhythm.

He keeps you on edge, bringing you closer and closer to the brink of orgasm only to pull back at the last moment. You whimper softly, your hips bucking against his hand as you try to chase your release.

Bruce's chuckle is dark, filled with a primal satisfaction.

"Patience, love," he murmurs, his fingers stilling inside you.

"We have all the time in the world."

The camera on his laptop remains focused on him, capturing his flawless appearance and unreadable expression. If anyone were to look at the screen, they would see nothing but a professional businessman discussing business matters.

But you know the truth. You know the hidden power dynamic at play, the way Bruce wields his control over you like a finely honed blade. And you love it, crave it like a drug that only he can provide.

As the meeting draws to a close, Bruce removes his fingers from inside you, leaving you feeling empty and aching for his touch. He helps you up, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead as he adjusts your clothing.

"We'll finish this later," he promises, his eyes burning with barely restrained desire.

"For now, let's get back to work."

You nod, straightening your spine as you prepare to face the rest of the day.

Bruce is right, after all.

There will be plenty of time for pleasure later. For now, you have a job to do, and you won't let anything stand in your way.

[tf-kinky]

The dimly lit room buzzed with the soft hum of Joe Locke’s phone as he tapped away at the screen, a sly grin curling his lips. The app glowed an unnatural shade of violet, its interface sleek and predatory—Transmogrify, it was called, a black-market gem he’d stumbled upon in the depths of the dark web. The world saw Joe as the quiet one, the soft-spoken charmer with a boyish laugh, always yielding to Kit Connor’s brash confidence. Everyone assumed Joe was the submissive one, the bottom in their unspoken dynamic. But they were wrong. So very wrong.

Joe relished the secret he kept buried beneath his gentle facade: he was the one in control, the one who pulled the strings. And tonight, Kit would learn that the hard way.

Kit sprawled on the couch across the room, oblivious, scrolling through his own phone. “Mate, you’ve been glued to that thing all night,” he said, his voice carrying that familiar teasing edge. “What’s so fascinating?”

Joe didn’t look up. “You’ll see,” he murmured, his fingers hovering over the app’s final command. He’d already input the details: Target: Kit Connor. Transformation: Permanent insoles for my black Converse. Sensory amplification: Maximum. A little checkbox labeled Awareness was ticked—because what was the point if Kit didn’t know?

He pressed Execute, and the air shivered.

Kit’s phone clattered to the floor as his body seized, a gasp choking in his throat. “Joe—what the—?” His words dissolved into a strangled cry as his form began to warp. His arms folded inward, his legs twisted grotesquely, and his skin shimmered like liquid rubber. Joe watched, heart pounding with a thrill he couldn’t suppress, as Kit’s six-foot frame shrank and flattened. His horrified face lingered for a moment—wide eyes locked on Joe’s—before it too melted away, reshaping into something smaller, simpler. Two thin, cushioned slabs of material, perfectly molded to fit Joe’s sneakers.

The transformation was complete in seconds. Joe stepped forward, picking up the newly formed insoles from the floor. They were warm to the touch, faintly trembling. Kit was still in there, trapped in his new existence. Joe could almost feel the panic radiating off them.

“Perfect,” he whispered, turning them over in his hands. He slipped off his Converse and slid the Kit-insoles inside, pressing them down with a deliberate, cruel slowness. He knew Kit hated feet—loathed the smell, the sweat, the very idea of them. It was a running joke between them, one Joe had always laughed off. But now? Now it was the punchline to Kit’s eternal torment.

Joe laced up the sneakers and stood, shifting his weight. The insoles molded to his feet instantly, soft yet resilient, and he could sense Kit’s heightened awareness screaming beneath him. Every step, every shift of his toes, would be agony for Kit—amplified beyond human limits, inescapable. Joe took a slow stroll around the room, savoring the faint, imagined whimper he couldn’t hear but knew was there.

“You always thought you were the big shot, didn’t you?” Joe said aloud, his voice low and venomous. “Strutting around, acting like you owned the place. But look at you now. You’re mine, Kit. My little footrest. Forever.”

He dropped onto the couch, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table with a thud. The insoles cushioned every move, and Joe leaned back, closing his eyes. He could picture Kit’s disgust, his silent rage, locked in that sensory hell—smelling the faint musk of Joe’s socks, feeling the press of his heels, tasting the salt of his sweat. It was perverse. It was delicious.

Days turned to weeks, and Joe wore the sneakers everywhere. To set, to interviews, to the gym. The insoles never wore out—some perk of the app’s dark magic, he supposed. And with every step, he felt Kit’s presence, a secret only he knew. Friends complimented the bounce in his stride; fans gushed over his laid-back charm. No one suspected the truth: that Joe Locke, the sweet-faced darling, was a predator in plain sight, dominating Kit in a way no one could fathom.

One night, alone in his flat, Joe kicked off the Converse and peeled out the insoles, holding them up to the light. “Still hate feet, Kit?” he asked, smirking. “Too bad. You’re stuck with mine forever.”

He slid them back in and went to bed, dreaming of the power he wielded—over Kit, over the world’s perception, over everything. Joe wasn’t the bottom. He never had been. And now, with Kit beneath him in the most literal sense, he’d never let anyone forget it.

Even if Kit was the only one who’d ever know.

[muiitoloko]

Heyyy, please tell me there are more Lionel fics on the way?? You’re so good at writing him.

Title: Skype

Summary: Lionel, engrossed in a dull meeting about opening a new California branch, finds unexpected excitement when his wife initiates a bold, intimate act during his call.

Pairing: Lionel Shahbandar × Fem! Reader

Warning; Smut

Author's Notes: Heyyy! 😄 Thanks so much for the love! There are definitely more Lionel fics brewing in my brain—he's just too fun to write! Think of me as a literary mad scientist, concocting more Lionel goodness in my story lab. Stay tuned for more adventures with our favorite character! 🧪📚

Also read on Ao3

Lionel was bored, sitting in his home office, discussing the intricacies of opening a new branch in California via Skype. His baritone voice droned on about potential properties and zoning regulations, but his mind wandered to how he wished he were spending the day with you, his wife of less than three months.

He looked up when he heard the soft hiss of the office door. There you were, a shy smile playing on your lips as you approached him silently. Lionel felt a flicker of excitement but returned to his meeting, attempting to maintain his professional demeanor.

As you knelt between his knees and reached for his belt, Lionel’s heart pounded with a mix of anticipation and nervousness. He tried to push you away, his hands brushing against your shoulders, but it was a half-hearted effort. The prospect of receiving such intimate pleasure while in a meeting was too thrilling to resist.

His voice faltered momentarily as he felt your fingers deftly unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants. "Gentlemen, let’s focus on the market research data for a moment," he said, his voice slightly strained as he struggled to maintain his composure.

You freed him from the confines of his underwear, your touch sending a jolt of pleasure through his body. Lionel’s breath hitched, and he clenched the edge of his desk, his knuckles turning white. He glanced at the screen, praying none of the men noticed the faint tremor in his voice.

"Yes, I believe the property on Wilshire Boulevard could be quite suitable," he managed to say, his voice thick with barely contained desire.

Under the table, you took him into your mouth, your warm, wet lips sliding over his erection with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Lionel’s eyes closed briefly, a shudder of pleasure coursing through him. He bit down on his lip, trying to suppress a moan as you set a torturous pace.

"The property’s... location offers excellent visibility," Lionel continued, his voice wavering slightly as your tongue swirled around the sensitive head of his cock. "And the... amenities are... quite suitable."

His colleagues droned on about property values and market trends, but Lionel’s attention was entirely focused on the exquisite sensations you were creating. He could feel his control slipping, the pleasure building to an unbearable intensity as you sucked him with increasing fervor.

"You’re doing this on purpose," he muttered under his breath, his voice a rough whisper meant only for your ears. "Trying to make me lose control."

You responded with a soft, teasing hum, the vibration adding to the intense pleasure that made his hips buck involuntarily. Lionel’s fingers tangled in your hair, his breath coming in short, ragged bursts as he fought to maintain his composure.

"We need to finalize the budget allocations," one of the men on the call said, drawing Lionel’s attention back to the screen. He forced a smile, his eyes glazed with desire as he tried to focus on the conversation. "I’ll review the figures... and get back to you with a proposal," he replied, his voice trembling with the effort to stay composed.

Your mouth worked him with a relentless, skilled rhythm, your tongue flicking over his slit with every stroke. Lionel’s pulse quickened, his body tensing as he felt himself teetering on the brink of release. "Oh, fuck," he muttered under his breath, his voice a low, desperate growl. "I’m going to come."

His colleagues continued talking, oblivious to the sensual torment Lionel was enduring. He clutched the edge of the desk, his knuckles white as he fought against the overwhelming desire building inside him. "Let’s schedule a follow-up meeting for next week," he said, his voice tight with barely contained lust. "I’ll have more detailed feedback by then."

As the call finally ended, Lionel’s relief was palpable. He ended the meeting with a hasty farewell, then immediately looked down at you, his eyes blazing with a mixture of frustration and desire. "You’re incorrigible," he growled, his voice thick with need.

You pulled away, a satisfied smile on your lips as you looked up at him. "I couldn’t resist," you said, your voice a seductive purr. "You looked so serious, and I wanted to see if I could make you lose control."

Lionel’s breath came in heavy gasps, his body trembling with the effort to restrain himself. "Well, you’ve succeeded," he muttered, his hands reaching down to pull you up from under the table. "But now it’s my turn."

He stood up, his eyes dark with a fierce, possessive hunger as he guided you to his desk. Your skirt rode up as he lifted you onto the surface, his hands rough and demanding as he spread your legs wide. "I’ve been thinking about this all day," he growled, his voice a low, guttural rumble. "Watching you walk around the house, teasing me with those eyes."

You gasped, your body arching towards him as his fingers traced the outline of your panties, teasing the sensitive skin beneath. "Lionel," you moaned, your voice a breathless plea. "Please."

His eyes gleamed with a predatory glint as he pulled your panties aside, exposing your wet, glistening heat to his hungry gaze. "You’re so wet for me," he murmured, his voice filled with a dark, possessive satisfaction. "I want to taste you, make you scream my name."

Before you could respond, Lionel’s mouth was on you, his tongue parting your folds and lapping at your clit with a fierce, relentless rhythm. You cried out, your fingers gripping the edge of the desk as waves of pleasure crashed over you, your body trembling with the intensity of his touch. "Oh, God," you gasped, your voice breaking with need. "Yes, Lionel. Don’t stop."

Lionel’s hands gripped your hips, holding you in place as he devoured you with a ravenous hunger. His tongue flicked and swirled over your clit, the sensation driving you closer and closer to the edge. "Come for me," he growled against you, his voice thick with desire. "I want to feel you come on my tongue."

Your breath came in ragged gasps, your body trembling with the overwhelming need building inside you. "Lionel," you cried, your voice a breathless scream. "I’m so close. Please, don’t stop."

With a final, powerful flick of his tongue, Lionel drove you over the edge, your orgasm crashing over you with a force that left you breathless and shaking. You cried out his name, your body writhing beneath his mouth as the pleasure surged through you, every nerve alight with ecstasy.

Lionel continued to lick and suck at your clit, prolonging your orgasm until you were trembling with the aftershocks, your breath coming in short, uneven bursts. "You taste amazing," he murmured, his voice a rough, satisfied growl. "I could do this all day."

You shivered with the lingering pleasure, your mind hazy with the intensity of your release. "Lionel," you whispered, your voice a breathless plea. "I need you inside me. Please."

Lionel’s eyes darkened with a fierce, possessive hunger as he stood up, his erection pressing hot and hard against your entrance. "As you wish," he murmured, his voice a low, seductive rumble. "But I’m not going to be gentle. I want to fuck you hard. Make you scream my name."

Your breath hitched, your body arching towards him in eager anticipation. "Yes," you gasped, your voice trembling with need. "Fuck me, Lionel. Make me scream."

With a low, guttural growl, Lionel thrust into you, the sudden, intense sensation sending a jolt of pleasure through both of you. You cried out, your fingers digging into his shoulders as he moved with a fierce, relentless rhythm, his hips slamming against yours with each powerful thrust.

"You feel so good," he groaned, his voice rough with lust. "So tight. So perfect. I want to feel you come around my cock. Scream for me."

Your moans grew louder, your body trembling with the intensity of his thrusts. "Lionel," you gasped, your voice a breathless scream. "Oh, God. Yes. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop."

Lionel’s movements became more urgent, his hips driving into you with a force that left you breathless, your body arching towards him with each powerful thrust. "I’m going to come," he growled, his voice a rough, desperate whisper. "Come with me. Scream my name."

With a final, shuddering thrust, Lionel felt your muscles clench around him, your orgasm triggering his own. He buried himself deep inside you, his body trembling with the force of his release as he spilled into you, the pleasure so intense it left him gasping for breath.

"Lionel," you cried, your voice breaking with ecstasy. "Oh, God. Yes."

They stayed like that for a moment, their bodies pressed together, the echoes of their pleasure still pulsing through them. Lionel’s hands stroked your back soothingly, his breath warm against your skin as he murmured, “You’re incredible, absolutely incredible.”

Your breath came in shaky gasps, your body still trembling with the aftershocks of your orgasm. “I love you, Lionel,” you whispered, your voice a mixture of exhaustion and bliss. “So much.”

Lionel pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, his heart swelling with love. “I love you too,” he said softly. “You’re perfect.”

As you and Lionel basked in the afterglow of your passionate encounter, a sudden, discreet throat-clearing sound shattered the intimate atmosphere. You both froze, your eyes widening in alarm. Lionel pushed himself off you, his head snapping up as he looked around the room, searching for the source of the noise.

“Who’s there?” Lionel demanded, his voice a mixture of confusion and a hint of leftover irritation from your previous escapade. His gaze swept over the room but found nothing out of place.

Then, realization dawned on him, and his eyes fell on the laptop. His face turned ashen as he saw the Skype meeting still active, the camera icon dark but the microphone clearly on. The faint sounds of muted laughter and clearing throats echoed from the laptop speakers, confirming his worst fear.

“Uh, Lionel?” one of the men on the call spoke up, his voice tinged with awkwardness. “You turned off the camera, but, um, the audio… well, we could hear everything.”

A wave of mortification washed over you, your cheeks burning with embarrassment. You scrambled to cover yourself with a nearby throw, your mind racing with the implications of what they had just heard. “Oh my God,” you whispered, your voice a mixture of horror and disbelief. “They heard everything?”

Lionel, however, remained remarkably composed, his initial shock giving way to a sly, mischievous grin. A gleam of amusement sparkled in his eyes as he turned back to the laptop, clearly unbothered by the situation. “Well, gentlemen,” he drawled, his baritone voice oozing with a cheeky nonchalance, “at least you had the pleasure of listening to the hottest audio show of your lives. Consider it a free sample.”

Your mortification deepened, and you shot Lionel a furious glare, your eyes blazing with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “Lionel!” you hissed, your voice a low, reprimanding whisper. “What on earth are you thinking?”

He merely shrugged, a hint of a sneer curling his lips. “I hate technology,” he replied, his tone almost dismissive. “I don’t know how to deal with these modernities. Besides,” he added with a wink, “you’re the one who started it, love.”

Your fury only intensified at his cavalier attitude, and you reached over to the laptop, your fingers moving swiftly as you ended the Skype meeting with a decisive click. The screen went dark, and you turned back to Lionel, your eyes narrowing with a mixture of exasperation and lingering desire. “I can’t believe you,” you muttered, your voice filled with a mix of reprimand and reluctant amusement. “You’re impossible.”

Lionel’s eyes gleamed with a playful light, his expression unapologetic as he leaned in, his lips brushing against your ear. “And yet you love me,” he murmured, his voice a low, seductive rumble that sent shivers down your spine. “Despite my quirks.”

You couldn’t help but soften slightly at his words, a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “I suppose I do,” you admitted, your voice a whisper filled with affection. “But you’re still in trouble for that little stunt.”

Lionel chuckled softly, his fingers trailing down your arm in a soothing, affectionate caress. “I’ll make it up to you,” he promised, his voice a low, reassuring murmur. “Starting with a very long, very thorough apology.”

Your irritation melted away as his touch and words enveloped you in a warm, comforting embrace. Despite the mortifying incident, you couldn’t deny the magnetic pull Lionel had on you, his cheeky charm and mischievous nature endearing him to you even in moments of chaos.

As you settled back into each other’s arms, the memory of the Skype call faded into the background, replaced by the comforting rhythm of your breaths mingling together. Despite the embarrassment and Lionel’s incorrigible attitude, you knew that his unwavering love and playful spirit were what made your relationship so uniquely vibrant and fulfilling.

[galstelperion]

Conflicted fandom feelings...

So, I don't really have a lot of confidence in JD and Patrick's writing capabilities.

In private circles, I've even been saying that I would be completely fine if they hardly touched the dynamic on screen again. Before you burn me at the stake, I will admit that I don't think this is going to happen, as we've seen through the marketing of the show, they seem to be aware that Sauron and Galadriel is still such a huge selling point. They've said repeatedly in many interviews that the relationship between these two will be a central driving point throughout all five seasons.

All of this to say, the value of the ship should not be completely tied up in whatever ends up happening in the show. The value of the ship should come from the community we've cultivated, as cheesy as that might sound. After season one aired, we had such a huge burst of creativity and I made so many friends just simply through discussing headcanons and building off of each other's ideas.

The second season was not what many of us expected, but that doesn't have to get in the way of our love for this pairing. Fanon is good, actually. Fanon is oftentimes way more gratifying than what the canon provides. The greatest transformative works are often born out of extreme dissatisfaction with the source material. It's just that it takes a lot more work to cultivate. No amount of infighting or begging on your hands and knees is going to change whatever the corporate overlords at amazon have already decided will be the most profitable avenue to take. It's a shame that these are the metrics by which art is being created, but instead of stressing over it and speculating endlessly, I've personally decided to just let whatever happens happen. If I continue to be dissatisfied, well... I will always have my own fanon and community of people here to fall back on.

Rather than worrying about things we can't control, we could instead turn our focus on creating a more creative and fruitful space. Just some food for thought...

[beechersnope]

Summer of Cum Days 22/23/24: felching, coming in pants, cuckolding

logan/oscar & mark/oscar, warnings for accidental voyeurism/exhibitionism, non-monogamy, semi-public masturbation, and a stuffed animal used in a sexual context, 1280 words

***

The bear was an inspired idea.

“Are you at the factory?” Oscar asks curiously. He’s wearing a long t-shirt like Logan asked; if someone happens to walk in unannounced, they shouldn’t see anything out of the ordinary on the screen of Logan’s phone.

“Yeah,” Logan replies. He pushes one of his AirPods back in with a slight grimace. The left one always seems to fall out. “They called us in early to do some marketing thing, but then it turned out they only needed Alex for like, ninety percent of it, so I’ve just been sitting in this conference room for like an hour.”

“Poor baby,” Oscar says mockingly before his face turns serious again. “We can always reschedule, you know.”

Logan shrugs. “I was actually kinda thinking it might be hot if you got me all worked up even though I can’t do anything about it.”

“Yeah?” Oscar replies with a grin. “Gonna get yourself hard for me and go take some photographs, then?”

Logan flushes. “They’re just headshots.”

“Hmm. Just for me, then.” Oscar sets down the phone on the bed, and for a minute, all Logan can see is a flash of his thigh and a glimpse of the pale, downy fur of the gigantic stuffed bear he’d bought for Oscar on impulse right before the break.

“Can you still hear me?” Oscar asks.

It’s a bit quieter, but still clearly audible, so Logan compensates by turning up the call volume.

“Yeah,” he says. “Should I switch to the thing?”

“No, not yet.”

Logan listens intently as Oscar’s mattress creaks under his weight and then settles again.

“Okay,” Oscar says a few seconds later in a higher, breathier tone. “You can look now.”

Logan nearly drops the phone in his haste to bring up the app. BearCam, it’s called, which is a stupid, if not practical, name for it. He holds his breath while the feed loads, and then nearly drops his phone again when Oscar finally comes into view.

He’s straddling the bear, shirt rucked up around his waist to reveal nothing underneath. His hips are lifted just a few inches, revealing the strap-on harness attached to the life-size stuffed animal and the accompanying dildo already sitting snugly inside his pussy.

“Fuck,” Logan gasps.

“It’s good?” Oscar checks. “I can reposition the head, maybe, if it’s not a good angle.”

“No,” Logan replies tightly. “No, it’s good.” He’s already starting to get hard, and yeah, fuck, maybe this wasn’t the great idea he’d thought it would be all of five minutes ago.

“Okay, I’m gonna—” Oscar doesn’t even finish the sentence, instead just sinking down onto the strap-on cock with a loud groan. It’s a little bigger than the toys he usually uses when they’re on opposite sides of the world, and his thighs tremble with the effort of lifting himself off of it again.

“Can you, like—lean back?” Logan asks, throat closing up with every uttered syllable. He doesn’t think he’s gonna survive this now, and if he were any smarter, he’d probably tell Oscar that they should stop. Pause. Save it for later.

Oscar does as Logan asks, bracing himself on his palms against the mattress with his thighs splayed wide. He’s so wet that Logan see the gleam of it on the silicone as he fucks himself, slow and deep at first, and then a little faster, until quiet frantic moans slip out from between his lips that have Logan’s cock twitching in his pants.

Logan was determined not to touch himself at all during this little experiment—at least not until he got back to the apartment—but the way Oscar is squirming on the end of the shiny silicone cock as Logan watches him through a fucking nanny cam instantly tears his self-control asunder, and he breaks, shoving a hand down his pants right as the door to the conference room flies open.

Logan manages to act fast. He mutes his end of the Facetime call and whips his hand out of his jeans quickly enough that he doesn’t think Alex has cottoned on to what he was actually doing, though there’s a suspicious look on his face as he approaches the table.

“You’re not watching porn, are you?” Alex asks, and well. Maybe Logan hadn’t been so subtle after all.

Logan shakes his head, Oscar’s moans still echoing in his ear. He intentionally avoids looking at the screen of his phone and prays that he can manage to get Alex out of the room before Oscar comes. “On a call,” he says through gritted teeth. “With Oscar. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

Alex wrinkles his nose a little in mild disgust. “Of course, you are,” he says with a sigh before turning to leave the room again. “I’ll tell them you’re taking a shit,” he adds, and then the door swings shut again, cutting off Logan’s half-hearted attempt at laughter in response to Alex’s ribbing.

Logan quickly scrambles to pick up his phone and leans back in his chair, thighs spread to give himself as much room as possible to squeeze a hand down the front of his jeans. The app has disappeared from the screen somehow in the time that Logan has neglected it, though he can still hear the harsh, guttural cries emanating from Oscar’s mouth echoing loudly in his ears. He could probably get off to just that, he thinks, but Logan wants to see him when it happens.

Logan pulls up the app again, and his eyes nearly bug out of his head.

Oscar is on his stomach now, face mashed into the soft, white chest of the stuffed bear, but he isn’t alone.

Mark is behind him. Mark is inside him, and Logan feels a flash of heat deep in his belly as he thinks about how full Oscar must be, with the dildo still inside his cunt and Mark fucking his ass so hard the whole bed jerks with every thrust.

Logan knows he should unmute himself, say something. He knows that Oscar couldn’t have explained anything to Mark because there had been no audible interruption to the endless string of moans that had come through Logan’s AirPods, so that means Mark must have, what—just walked in on Oscar and started fucking him? Just like that?

The thought doesn’t upset him nearly as much as it should. Logan knew they fucked around sometimes, especially when they went to Australia together so Oscar could visit his family, but he’d never asked for details, never expected them. He certainly hadn’t expected this.

Logan keeps watching, his jaw hanging slack as Mark’s thrusts get faster, and then he’s coming, the jerky, abortive movements of his hips against Oscar’s ass unmistakable. Mark pulls out a few seconds later, and Logan only has a moment to wonder if he’s going to make sure Oscar comes too before Mark leans down and buries his face between Oscar’s legs.

Logan’s cock jerks against his hand. There’s a painful throb in his balls as he feels himself spilling into his underwear, his vision blurring as he watches Mark lick his own come out of Oscar’s ass while Oscar writhes and cries and humps the bear underneath him until he finally comes too, so loudly that Logan feels his balls seize up again like his body thinks it can wring another orgasm out of him right after the first.

Then the video cuts out. Logan stares down at his phone, devastated. Wi-fi signal lost. Fucking worthless Australian internet.

Somehow, Oscar's wi-fi shitting the bed (again) feels more like being cucked than actually watching another man fuck his boyfriend.

[lordsireno]

Deponia Space AU

((A snippet of a universe where Deponia is a solar system, of which Elysium is trying to escape, so Cletus is sent to convince the locals to help out))

“Cletus look! Isn’t it beautiful?”

He took pause, glancing to the window that Goal was pressed against. 

“If your standard of beauty is measured in clouds of cosmic radiation and poisonous atmosphere that would drop you in a single breath, then sure, it’s lovely.”

He could see her roll her eyes in the reflection, but it was of no consequence, because he was right. They’d left the safety of solid ground and breathable air for the vast, cold and empty void of space, and he hated every minute of it. 

“Hurry along, we shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

Goal pulled herself away, but rather than returning to his side, she pushed off the ground, floating down the hall with a slight spin.

“Well, hurry up then slow poke!”

“We were instructed to keep our feet on the ground! If you’re thrown about in turbulence then it will be your own fault.”

She stuck her tongue out, using a handrail to propel herself all the way to the next door. She re-engaged her magnetic boots before pressing the open button, heading through as Cletus had to take long strides to catch up. 

The command centre was buzzing with activity, men in green uniforms with tinted helmets pouring over controls and screens of data, all working to keep the massive spaceship functioning. On the top level they had entered on, a central station showed a holographic map of the system, which was being observed by the bridge commander Bailiff Argus.

“Guests on deck!”

One of the men called out as they approached, and Cletus frowned. Not being about to see the faces unnerved him. He’d much prefer to read someone's expression to know how his words were received. Argus at least had some transparency to his visor that let them see his eyes. They stopped on the opposite side of the display, Goal reaching out to touch one of the little planets.

“Inspector. Ma’am. You’ve familiarised yourself with the mission details?”

Cletus held his head high, “Yes. We’re to visit the habited locations in the Deponia system in an effort to drum up more workers for Elysium's launch.”

“Snk, Ma’am.”

Cletus saw Argus’ eye twitch, but the Bailiff simply cleared his throat.

“That is a very basic overview, but ultimately yes. We will be escorting you for the duration, providing transport and security, but we will keep our distance so as not to… intimidate the locals.”

“So you’re our babysitter, sir?” Goal snickered again.

“Yes. Because you both clearly need to be watched closely. This plan is vital to the survival of all Elysians, so I trust you can take your job seriously?”

Cletus scoffed, “Of course we will. We understand the severity of the situation clearly.”

“I’m not sure you really do.”

Argus turned away to speak to another soldier, so Cletus tapped Goal of the elbow to get her to lean down. 

“What is going on with you?" He whispered harshly, “I brought you along to help with negotiations, not antagonise our allies.”

“You brought me along? I remember volunteering because you’re the one prone to starting fights with your words. But if you don’t need me, I’m sure they’ll happily drop me at the next station.”

He grumbled. He didn’t want to be up in space working like this, but he particularly didn’t want to be doing it alone, or with just these faceless soldiers. That look Goal had was one where she knew she’d won. 

“Whatever just, let go of whatever hangup you have with the Bailiff.”

“You’re no fun-”

“This here,” Argus changed the holomap, drawing back their attention, “Is our first stop: The Floating Black Market.”

“Is that… an asteroid belt? We’re seriously going there first? Why not an actual planet, with oh I don’t know…a surface and air and proper gravity?”

“The Market is a gathering point for vagrants and the displaced. Plenty of people desperate for work, and just as many that won’t be missed if they go missing.”

“So kidnapping is still involved! Why am I even here then?”

Cletus quickly wilted at the glare that landed on him, avoiding it by turning to peer out into the darkness outside. 

“We depart immediately.”

—

The space craft felt more like a barge than a ship to Cletus. Sure, he’d been on neither in his life, but enough media showed him that ships were vessels for moving people in relative comfort, and barges got cargo from one place to another.

And he was really feeling like a piece of cargo, cramped in a tiny living compartment for the duration of their travel. 

There were other places, but the Organon army was not making them feel welcome in any of them, their opaque helmets staring them down. 

[roughentumble]

i wish mini laptops that werent just big phones were a more prevalent thing

like how the macbook airs used to be, they were legit actual computers with programs and hard disks n shit that did Actual Computer Stuff, just lighter and easier to carry around and usually with slightly less power cuz they had less space for components. basically anything i want to carry a tablet around for is something i'd rather be carrying a small computer around for, i don't mind a touch screen i guess but i prefer a screen i know i can rely on and a keyboard i can type faster on. it can play ANY lightweight game out there because its a computer! like, just use kongregate instead of the app store and you've got yourself a fun few minutes waiting for your order at panera or whatever. bigger youtube videos with a dedicated headphone jack, longer battery life, like

we use our tablets as big phones, and our phones as small computers, i think making a tablet thats actually just a computer is whats best...... but all of them are like chromebooks these days which is like, a glorified tablet that connects to the cloud and doesnt let you do Actual Computer Shit. i guess you could probably get a chromebook, wipe it to bare studs and install linux, maybe that would get you a useable laptop??? but it seems like its just bound and determined to be A Shittier Tablet

i dont WANT a shittier tablet, i want there to be small computers!!! not even for me (<-not currently on the computer market), just for the workd at large because i think its a good option. you should have a small laptop that you throw in a bag and take with you to the airport to watch movies in-flight and read downloaded webcomics. and it should be seen as exactly the same as bringing a tablet for entertainment. because they should be comparable sizes and weights, but the laptop gets you more control over your own digital landscape.....

[moniquill]

Look at this. Look at it:

😈 The devil’s wellness plan

A poem by Casey Means, MD (with some rhyming help from AI)

If I were the devil, I’d ditch the disguise— No pitchfork, no flames, just marketing lies. I’d feed you poison, call it a “snack,” And label you “elitist” when you want your health back.

I’d flood the media with videos of threats, Distract and scare and create non-stop stress. I’d poison the soil, then praise the “yield,” While destroying the topsoil in every field.

I’d bury research, seal the locks, Then line you up for seventy-three shots. I’d cancel critical thinking, stop dissenters with bots, Then jab your kids without a second thought.

I’d shame the sunlight and worship shade, And block the rays the holy sun made. Then sell you D in plastic packs, To fill the hole from all you lack.

I’d flood your nights with dopamine, From endless scrolls on little blue screens. I’d wreck your sleep and sell it back: “Sweet dreams” with Lunesta and a hundred sleep hacks!

I’d break your trust in ancient ways, And mock the moon and cycles’ phase. I’d push the Pill and dull women’s flame, Till womanhood forgot its name.

I’d give boys man-boobs through toxic food, And call masculine strength aggressive and lewd. I’d whisper, “You’re too much, too loud,” And shame men’s fire as something rude.

I’d flood your screens with porn on demand, Till touch means pixels, not holding a hand. I’d teach women that cooking is something to dread, That birth needs control and a hospital bed.

I’d destroy the Village, sell you “smart-phones,” And push Reels that make mothers feel they’re completely alone. I’d call the Sacred just a trend, And glorify materialism without any end.

From kids to elders, I’d fry their brains, Depression, pain, and dementia their chains. How can you fix things when you can’t think straight? But don’t worry: Big Pharma will medicate.

I’d put processed poison in the School Lunch, Let taxpayers pay while the children get sunk. We’d say that cereal was breakfast of choice, Packed with sugar and dyes to zap our life-force.

I’d fill the oceans with microplastics and trash, And poison rivers with pesticides and coal ash. I’d make you think that composting was hard, And that you need Roundup to murder every weed in your yard. I’d fill the air with infertility-chemicals galore: “Glade Plug-Ins” and “Lysol” as acceptable norms.

If I were the devil, I’d play it smart: No need for chains—I’ll just clog your heart! Keep you comfy, fed, and blind— Too tired to seek, too numb to find.

If I were the devil, I’d tax you to no end— Too broke to rise, too exhausted to defend. No need for war or guns or screams— Just sugar, screens, and broken dreams.

If I were the devil, I’d never show— I’d simply coax “yes” from your mouth when your heart screams “NO.” No need for fire, just silent control, I’d promote self-abandonment that fractures your whole. I’d convince your species it’s small and weak, Too scared of your power, too scared to speak. I’d help you forget you are a soul and pure light— A miracle of God trading Enlightenment for likes. I’d make you forget you’re One with all things, An eternal note in the symphony the universe sings.

I hope you’ll stay distracted by my noise and my spin, Never suspect I’m the one who is weakest within. For if you believed the limitless love that you are, You’d rise from my grip and entertain me no more. No fight, no fire — just your peace and your breath, And I’d melt in a flash, disarmed by your depth.

On May 7, 2025, President Donald Trump nominated Means as surgeon general

[videogamelover99]

[Gravity Falls] Waking Days Ch. 6: A Message

Summary: Bill Cipher is reborn, but not in the way he would have wanted. Stuck as a mortal and relying on those who brought his downfall, he realizes that maybe he didn't lie as hard as he should have. [AO3 Link] Characters: Bill Cipher, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Stanford Pines, Stanley Pines, Jheselbraum the Unswerving, The Axolotl Pairings: past BillFord Rating: T

A/N: The plot. Plot is happening. Also wacky sci-fi worldbuilding. Also, I might skip next week and go on a small hiatus to help prepare for the next arc. I will make a post if that's the case. Thank you to @megxolotl and @nexstage for beta-reading. Enjoy!

---

“Someone noticed it a day ago,” Miko said, his rock fingers clinking nervously together. “We didn’t know what it was until it got bigger, is it-?”

“A rift,” Nora breathed. “A rift to the Nightmare Realm.”

Baragerth shuddered. Miko whimpered and looked back at it in horror.

They found it in a small grove, a crack in the ground, just a short walk away from Miko's neighborhood. The blades of grass surrounding it shifted and warped as if on an old television screen, their shadows appearing multicolored. The oil-like surface of the Nightmare Realm rippled from inside the rift, threatening to spill out.

It was spreading too quickly.

“Seal the area,” Nora turned to Baragerth, who nodded, his gaze heavy with fear. “We don’t want anyone contaminated.”

“What happens if we touch it?” Miko asked.

Nora looked down at the rift. “The Nightmare Realm is made of Bill’s chaotic energy. If it infects anyone, the consequences could range from severe to fatal. You could grow a second head.”

“Oh.”

“Or your skin could peel off.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’. So don’t go poking it with a stick.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” said Baragerth. “So, what is the plan, aside from quarantining this?”

“I have a device that would slow down its spread.”

“That doesn’t sound like fixing it.”

“No,” Nora said. “It doesn’t.”

The squid-man turned a bit pale.

“What I ask of you is to keep your people calm. And to tell me as soon as you find any others like it,” she continued. 

“There could be others?” Miko asked, his tone verging on panicked.

“Yes.” The Oracle’s gaze did not betray any hint of the nervousness her companions were feeling. “I will return shortly with the device.” 

As she walked away, she was suddenly halted by a slimy arm on her shoulder. “Is there something you want to tell me? Away from the others?” Baragerth’s tone was measured like he was testing the waters.

She turned to him. “This is nothing to concern yourself with. Not yet, at least. I have a solution. It will just take time.”

He held her gaze for a moment longer, searching for something. She gave him no leeway. “You know,” he remarked. “It’s funny, looking into two eyes instead of seven.”

She smiled, measured, and in control. “You’ll have plenty of time to get used to it.”

That’s when a loud, thunderous explosion rocked them on their feet. Nora turned and saw smoke coming from the market district, just a few blocks from where they were.

Ah. So out of the ten thousand visions, it had to be this one. 

—

Once they made their way down to the valley, it was a lot easier to follow the path of destruction the Riddle Bot created for itself. 

“What was that?!”

“It blew a hole through my wall!”

“Your wall? I almost got pulverized!”

“My cabbages!”

Dipper and Mabel arrived at a market, the same one they’d seen on their first visit to this dimension. Except now everything was on fire. And alien people were screaming. And Dipper had just stepped into cabbage mush. 

“Hey, let's all calm down,” Dipper raised his voice over the crowd of people gathered in the middle of the road, some sporting bruises and singed clothing. “Everything is gonna be fine! Just tell us where that robot went and-”

“A hyooman!” One of the villagers, a being made entirely of crystals, pointed at him.

“Two of them!”

“Did they bring forth such a contraption?”

“It’s their fault!”

“Whaaat, don’t be silly!” Mabel stepped forward, and put on her best charming smile. “We’re here to fix it! We’re the, uh, robot police! Yeah! And if you cooperate, we’ll take that pesky robot to jail in no time! Where it won’t start any more fires. How does that sound?”

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Bill.”

“Silence, dear brother! I mean Agent Dipper!”

“You’re pretty short for police officers,” one of the creatures muttered, stroking its chin. Or at least, what was probably a chin. It was hard to tell, with its face embedded in its stomach. 

“That’s rude!” Mabel said. “Rude enough that maybe we won’t help you after all!”

“It went that way!” A tree-like creature with an adolescent voice pointed toward the rows of stalls down the road.

“Thank you for your cooperation!” said Mabel. 

“Sorry about your cabbages,” Dipper muttered to a pink-colored man, his one eye soaked in tears as he cradled what was left of his stock.

They managed to catch up with the robot. It was staring down a humanoid-looking alien with pink skin and three magenta eyes. In the alien’s arms was a smaller, baby-looking alien. The adult seemed mesmerized by the robot. The baby reached its bubblegum-pink hands toward it.

“I knew it. I should leave my husband,” they heard the alien say. “But will I ever find love?”

“PROPHECY #175-02 FOR TROMINIZ, JOHN, CONTENT: FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS-”

“Weepers,” John Trominiz finished, and burst into tears.

“Um,” said Dipper, who suddenly felt like they were intruding.

The robot turned toward them. Then, not breaking eye contact, it snatched the baby from John’s hands and flung it into the air.

“No!” John cried.

“Ahhh!” the twins screamed. The robot darted away.

“I got it, I got it,” Dipper flung himself to the ground and caught the giggling toddler. “Ow…”

“Not so fast!” Mabel dashed toward the robot as it took to the sky and made a running leap, grabbing its leg just as it left the ground. She wrapped her arms around its middle as it started sputtering, trying to shake her off. 

“Here you go,” Dipper gave the baby back to its stressed-out father and ran toward his sister. He grabbed one leg of the bot, keeping it from flying away. “We got it! Hit the switch, Mabel!”

Mabel reached with one hand toward the switch.

As if sensing what they were about to do, the robot suddenly made a sharp, panicked noise, and the thrusters on its hands let out an increasing, high-pitched whirr.

“Uh oh,” said Dipper. 

The robot’s thrusters burst into flame, and the force catapulted all three of them across the square.

—

Eegbock Borg had been present in this dimension for over 900 years. For his species, Eeg was still middle-aged, but even then, he couldn't help but think about retirement. His shop had been run for 3000 years, by his grandfather and his father and now him, and he had no children of his own, therefore no heir to entrust the shop to.

Ggrarky across the street had been eyeing it for some time now, that old crone. He couldn't risk it falling into her hands.

He'd gone to the Oracle to ask about the fate of the shop, once. His future wasn’t promising.

"I see many futures for your business, Mr. Borg…I would invest in insurance if I were you."

That day Borg got insurance. His family had survived Bill Cipher's absent-minded hunger for destruction, and if anything, it had instilled in him the risks of not having his bases thoroughly covered.

The insurance manager knocked on the wooden beams holding up the roof of the shop and scrutinized the dust that came raining down on Borg's stock. "Hmm, when have you last had these replaced, Mr. Borg?"

Ugh, renewal was a pain. All they did was look for excuses to raise his rates. He'd procrastinated on it, and his insurance had expired a few weeks ago. Luckily, nothing had happened that would require a payout. "Last week. Can I sign already?"

The inspector gave the wood one last sniff before shrugging in defeat. He pulled out a manila folder and from it, a stack of files. "Please sign here, here, here, and here and here. Aaaand here."

Borg grabbed the pen and signed the little boxes, only for the pen to run out of ink on the last page. "Damnit, do you have a spare?"

"Afraid not! I like to travel light."

Grumbling, Borg went to grab one from his office.

Maybe he should have expected the two strange, alien children and a person-sized mechanical robot to crash through the roof at that moment. And for the roof to catch on fire. And for his stock to be stomped on as the child with the long hair got up, looked down at the ruins, and sheepishly put the crushed items back on the shelf. The shelf, then, also caught fire. 

—

Back in Dimension 46’/, Bill Cipher had the distinct feeling that something wonderfully chaotic was happening without him.

—

Dipper slowed down, and leaned against the nearest tree, gulping in a lungful of air. Beside him, his sister appeared barely winded, though no less frustrated. 

They’d run through a crowd of panicked and confused aliens, past neighborhoods of small, quaint-looking buildings, only to end up on the other side of the town, nothing beyond them but dense forests and a sharp cliff that tumbled down into a deep ravine. 

“This is a nightmare,” Dipper sighed and hid his face in his hands.

“Hey, come on, don’t give up now!” Mabel said. “It can’t have gone far!”

Instead, Dipper sat down on the ground. “I really screwed up,” he said. His throat felt tight. “She had to have noticed the rampaging robot. I just made everything worse. She’s never gonna trust me again.”

“That’s not true. It was totally a mistake!” Mabel sat down next to him. “She’ll understand.”

“I really thought I was helping,” Dipper said. “If it were Grunkle Ford-”

“Look,” Mabel said, suddenly serious, “Grunkle Ford let an evil demon into his brain, he doesn’t always have the best judgment.”

“That’s…true,” said Dipper.

“And I’m pretty sure Nora’s the one who built the crazy robot. So…”

“That’s…okay, but we shouldn’t have touched it.”

“Then why wasn’t there a ‘DO NOT TOUCH, WILL START LEVELING BUILDINGS’ sign, huh?”

Dipper laughed. 

They sat in silence for a moment as Dipper caught his breath.

“You know what I’ve learned?” said Mabel.

“What?”

“Adults also don’t know what they’re doing. So quit putting them on pedestals. Unless they’re a super cute boyband in which case it’s a parasocial relationship and not real.”

“I…don’t know if I agree with that last part. But you have a point,” said Dipper. He got up and offered his sister a hand. “Come on, I have an idea.”

 —

“There is a hole in my ceiling, ma’am.”

“Yes, I can see that.” The Oracle looked up, where there was, in fact, a hole in the ceiling. Though calling it a hole was a stretch - it made up the majority of the roof. 

“Excuse me, coming through, careful there.” Baragerth’s voice rose over the agitated crowd gathered outside. 

Baragerth walked in and stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the state of the shop. Most of the wooden structure and furniture were soaked through, the villagers having put out a roaring blaze just an hour ago. The wares were either shattered or ruined completely by the mix of soot and water. In the middle of it all was the sullen shopkeeper.

“Borg?”

“That’s me,” the shopkeeper replied. “And that’s what’s left of my father’s legacy.”

Nora suppressed a wince. 

“And his father’s legacy.”

Baragerth looked to the side, at a loss of what to say. 

“And the father before him-”

Oh, come on.

“And the father-”

“Yes, I think you’ve made your point clear,” Nora held up a hand. “Let’s skip to the part where you tell me where they went.”

—

“Ready?” Dipper whispered.

“Ready,” Mabel lifted her grappling hook.

Dipper peeked around the bush. The Bot was hovering over the clearing, telling a little bug-like girl with a picnic basket a riddle that might have been about her parents’ times of death.

“FOR THE TWO THAT HAVE SPURRED YOU WILL COME TO THE SOIL WHEN THE SUN SETS ON THE AXIOM STAR-”

“Hey!” Dipper jumped out of the bush, waving his hands up and down. The girl and robot turned to him. “What’s my library backlog for the next year?!”

The girl frowned, unnerved by this sudden alien stranger. The robot, meanwhile, got to reciting every book author and title Dipper had written down, in alphabetical order. “IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION, AVISE, JOHN. THE UNIVERSAL MYTHS, ELIOT, ALEXANDER. LOST CITIES, HAMILTON, SUE-”

“Oh wow,” Dipper suddenly pulled out his journal, overwhelmed by the new titles. “I haven’t thought of that one-”

Before he could write any down, Mabel leaped in front of him, grappling hook pointed at the robot. “That’s enough nerd stuff! GRAPPLING HOOK!” 

The little alien girl shrieked, dropped her basket, and ran. Mabel’s grappling hook made a clear shot toward the robot, catching it by the head and dragging it toward the twins at top speed. 

“Oh, man.” Dipper stuffed the journal in his jacket and got ready to press the switch. He could feel his palms sweating. 

The robot barreled into them. Thankfully, it was light enough for the two to catch it by its arms. The robot struggled in their hold, shrieking garbled titles of books and articles, before letting out a long, electronic wail.

Dipper held it with one arm and stretched out the other, reaching for the switch. “Come on, almost, come on…” His fingertips brushed the button.

Then it twisted around, thruster pointed at Dipper’s middle.

“No!” Mabel yanked Dipper out of the way just as a white-hot jet of flame erupted where he was standing. The robot propelled itself back, toward the canyon drop. Mabel and Dipper tumbled down into the grass, wet dirt staining Dipper’s knees.

“It’s getting away!” he cried.

A small amber rock flew over his head. He watched, panic forgotten, as it pinged off the robot’s hull. The area surrounding the rock erupted in an amber glow, encasing the ground and the robot within it. The robot froze like someone had hit the pause button on a remote. A startled butterfly froze too, encased in the amber. 

“Well, that was dramatic.”

Dipper craned his neck to look back, and saw Nora, standing with her hands on her hips. In her hands was a vial containing more amber rocks. Dipper had a feeling he’d seen something like it back at the temple. She corked the vial and deposited it into her pocket, before making her way over to them. 

Mabel was the first one up. “Whoa, that was some shiny stuff you got there.”

But Nora didn’t answer, her gaze on them steady, filled with an amusement Dipper could tell was only surface level. “I hope you two had fun with your little excursion,” she said calmly. “But I’m afraid it’s time to go.”

“Wait,” Dipper climbed onto his feet, wincing at the sting in his knees, “I can explain!”

“Oh, I’m sure you can, but you don’t have to,” Nora’s curt smile made him want to run. “You decided to experiment with a device you didn’t know anything about because you had gotten bored. It happens.” Her gaze fell on each of them in turn. “I know you two are quite capable, I’ve seen it myself. That’s why I’m just a little baffled by this display of childishness.”

“I-I just thought…” Something was squeezing the back of Dipper’s throat. He swallowed it down. “I just wanted to help. If I could find a way to fix it-”

“I’m sorry, fix it? Fix the robot?”

“Yeah, and if-”

She laughed, loud and cold, and it was so unlike her that Dipper didn’t know what to say. “Well, you fixed it alright!”

No one noticed the flicker in the amber, nor that the stone Nora had thrown had cracked upon landing. 

“That’s not fair,” Mabel suddenly spoke up, her fists clenched at her sides, “Dipper was just trying to help.”

“No,” said Nora. “Dipper just wanted to feel special.”

Every nerve in Dipper’s body froze at that statement. Because it was true.

Mabel tried to say something in protest, but Dipper put a hand on her shoulder. She looked startled when she saw his face.

There were tears in his eyes and the embarrassment never even came. “Whatever. This was stupid. I get it. I couldn’t do anything.” He trudged past them, toward the bot. “How do we shut this thing off, anyway? Press the switch, right?”

“Dipper-” Nora said.

Whatever she wanted to say next never came. The amber bubble flickered, once twice, until it went out. The momentum the robot had before its immobilization was fully restored. And Dipper was standing right in front of it. 

Dipper had little time to do anything when the robot barreled into him, lifting him off his feet and dropping both of them into the canyon below.

—

Nora and Mabel knelt before the edge of the canyon, staring down into its depths. It was misty, with a few treetops peeking out through the cloud of fog.

“Dipper!” Mabel yelled. Her voice echoed back to her. There was no reply. No explosions, no rampaging robots. 

She was suddenly filled with dread.

“He’ll be fine,” said Nora.

Mabel glared at her.

“What?”

“How would you know?!”

“I can see the future,” Nora deadpanned. 

“Then why haven’t you predicted this?”

“Because that’s not how it works.”

“Well, you don’t explain anything!” Mabel got to her feet and pointed an angry finger at Nora. “How was Dipper supposed to know the robot would go crazy, huh?”

“That’s not the point,” Nora frowned, “I trusted you to not touch anything you didn’t know about.”

“Meow meow meow.”

“Okay,” Nora’s eye twitched. She seemed to be holding something back. “Have fun with your tantrum. I’m going to find your brother.”

With that, she got up and walked away.

Mabel watched her climb down a tight, brambled path along the canyon wall. She stood there stubbornly for ten seconds before she reluctantly followed, keeping a few paces back and chewing on her hair. Nora cast her an unreadable glance but said nothing. 

It wasn’t long before the anger gave way to anxiety, and Mabel kept looking for glimpses of her brother in the dense fog.

—

Dipper opened his eyes and willed the treetops above him to stop spinning. There were small cuts and bruises along his arms and legs, but at least he could move them, so, good sign there. His head hurt, but his vision wasn’t blurry, so probably no concussion. 

He tried to sit up, groaned, and gripped his ankle. He had likely twisted it in the fall.

The robot! Dipper looked around, frantically searching the little mass of fallen trees for any sign of it. He spotted it a few dozen feet away, partially buried under branches and dirt. It sat on the ground, slumped against the stump of a fallen tree. 

It wasn’t moving.

Dipper tried to stand up, winced when his ankle flared up, then sat back down. He slowly crawled toward the robot, watching for any sign of movement. Its eyes and lights were completely out, the mechanical hum silent.

It looked dead. 

Dipper sighed and stopped, instead resting his head on the fallen tree. Even the trees here were alien, made of a substance that was not quite wood and not quite fungi, soft and dry despite its more greyish tone. Dipper had not noticed that. 

He reached for his journal, before realizing it wasn’t there.

“No…no, come on!”

He had lost it. He’d lost it tumbling down the ravine. How could he lose it?

He looked around the small clearing, frantically hoping to spot its blue leather cover hidden in a pile of leaves. 

He froze when the robot’s head suddenly shot up.

The robot turned its head to look straight at him, and Dipper scrambled back, letting out a yelp. But it didn’t do anything. Just watched.

Dipper tried to think through panicked breaths. No sister, no Oracle, no journal, and no working foot. 

The robot spoke: “Hello, Dipper.”

—

They were close to the bottom of the canyon now, and the mist settled around them in a thick, chilly blanket.

It took Mabel all of five minutes of silence to start going crazy.

“Meow.”

“...”

“Meow meow.”

“...”

“Me-oww meow meow.”

“Sigh.”

“Meow meow meeeoooo-”

“Will you please stop?”

Mabel stopped and bit her lip. 

“Thank you,” Nora snapped.

There were five more minutes of awkward silence. Mabel couldn’t take it anymore. “To be clear, I’m still mad.”

“I’m aware.”

“But…how does your future thingy work? Do you know what I’m gonna step on in three seconds? Or is it more of a ‘great prophecy’ sort of thing?”

“Neither,” said Nora. “I see a kaleidoscopic quantum phantasmagoria of infinite possible futures across a spectrum of probability. In 49% of them, you trip over a branch. I’d watch what’s under my feet if I were you.”

“Woah, so it’s like a- oof!” Mabel did, just then, trip over a branch. She jumped back up, not too hurt. “Like a guessing game, almost? Only you know what all the answers are. So it’s like cheating.”

“Something like that,” Nora’s mouth twitched in an almost smile.

“Can you predict when I’ll stop being mad?” Mabel asked.

“I can’t see into your head, so no. Besides, it’s much harder to get a clear vision when I’m part of it.”

“Oh,” Mabel said. “That’s dumb.”

“That’s how it works,” Nora shrugged.

They walked in silence for a few more paces, before Mabel couldn’t help herself. “Why’d you say all that stuff to Dipper? He just wanted to impress you.”

“And that’s the problem,” Nora’s face suddenly soured. “He let his ego get in the way and look what it led to.”

“But he knew that,” Mabel insisted. “And it’s not all his fault! Maybe don’t build crazy robots!”

“I didn’t build it. It was a gift. Well, a joke. Not a very funny one.”

Gifting an oracle a robot that sees the future, but badly. “You’ve got weird friends.”

“It wasn’t from a friend.”

“Oh, so like, from someone special.”

Nora made a face. “Definitely not.”

“Then-”

“They sent it to me knowing I was going to try to fix it. Engineering isn’t something I do often, and it was a pain. You know what I couldn’t figure out? Why it rhymed. But only sometimes. There was no pattern to it, no cause and effect. Why is it only sometimes?”

“You and Dipper would go crazy fixing this thing. Too bad you said all that stuff.”

“I may have…been a little harsh,” Nora admitted.

“Ya think?”

Nora looked uncomfortable. She didn’t meet Mabel’s gaze when she said: “I don’t think I quite remember how to be around others, but that’s no excuse. I was frustrated and took it out on Dipper. He didn’t deserve that.”

“...Why don’t you know how to be around others?” Mabel asked quietly.

“I-” Nora’s eyes caught something in the distance. A blue, leather-bound journal, with a silver pine tree on the cover, lying on the ground.

“That’s Dipper’s journal!” Mabel ran toward it and picked it up. She dusted off the dirt, holding it close. “He must be close!”

Suddenly, Mabel could see, superimposed like a bright, golden hologram, five more eyes, hovering right above Nora’s brow. They all stared at something intensely in the distance. “We need to move this way.” She gestured to a smaller, more overgrown path. 

Mabel clutched the journal to her chest. She just hoped they weren’t too late. 

—

“Hello, Dipper,” said the robot.

The voice had little similarity to the robotic tone it had used before. It was soft and kind, with a calm, almost lulling quality, and feminine in tone. Dipper didn’t know what to think.

“Um, hello?” he tried. “I didn’t know you could talk. Like…like a person.”

Dipper got the impression that the robot was smiling, despite it not having any lips. “I am not the robot, Dipper. This was the only way of speaking to you.”

“Oh.” Dipper leaned back against the tree behind him.

The robot laughed. It was soft and melodic, like wind chimes. It carefully made its way over to him. 

Dipper flinched. “Stay back!”

It didn’t listen, instead kneeling before him. “Does it hurt?”

“What?” Dipper felt a little lost.

“Your ankle,” the robot repeated patiently. “Does it hurt?”

“Oh, um,” Dipper blushed. He felt kind of like a little kid who’d fallen from the swing set, with the way it spoke to him. “Yeah, a little. I twisted it in the fall.”

It reached a hand toward his busted-up ankle. “May I?”

After a moment of hesitation, Dipper nodded. The robot took a nearby branch and a handful of grass and proceeded to tie it to his leg as a hand-made brace. “Don’t put too much weight on it.”

Dipper tested the brace, standing up slowly. “Thanks.”

Still hurt, but less. Dipper didn’t know what to think. “Who are you?” he asked, not without caution. “Are you what Bill’s riddle was about?”

The robot tilted its head. It looked amused, despite having no facial expression. “Afraid not. That string of numbers refers to someone else.”

“But then why-” Dipper realized something. “‘She is watching’. You’re who the robot was talking about.”

The robot looked surprised. “You’re very clever, aren’t you?”

“Well, I-” Dipper blushed again. “I don’t really feel like it at the moment.”

The being inhabiting the robot let out a sympathetic hum. 

“You still haven’t told me who you are.”

“And I’m sure you have many other questions. I would explain everything if I could. However your time is limited, and I came to warn you.”

“Warn me?” Only one question suddenly came to mind “Bill! What’s he planning? Do you know why he’s back?”

“Bill Cipher.” The being sounded amused like it was holding back laughter. “Silas Birchtree is a liar, blame the arson for the fire,” she said in a sing-song manner.

“Okay,” Dipper said, “I got enough junk from that robot.”

“Afraid that’s the best I can do for now,” the being said. “Besides, he’s not what I came to warn you about.” She lifted one busted-up arm, only for it to spark and fall. Black ooze, shiny like oil, dripped from the robot’s joints.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Dipper said.

“Do you trust the Oracle?” she suddenly asked.

“What? Of course, I-” Dipper’s eyes darted to the side. He felt a stab in his chest when he remembered what had happened just moments earlier. He’d disappointed her. But that wasn’t just it, was it?

The robot regarded him sadly. “I would be careful. She has many faces. She only shows you and your family the ones she wants you to see.”

Dipper gulped. “How can I trust you?”

“I do not blame you if you don’t. All I ask is that you listen.”

Dipper considered it for a moment. “Fine.”

“The fabric of reality is splitting at the seams,” it said. “And you must-”

A small, cube-like structure landed in front of them. The robot looked down, and suddenly it was engulfed in a beam of bright blue light. Dipper watched with horror as parts of it started breaking off, like small square puzzle pieces, dividing again and again until it completely disintegrated, and the only thing left of it was the blue cube.

“Dipper!” 

He turned and flinched stiffly when Mabel barreled into him, hugging him tight. 

Nora walked over and snatched the cube from the ground. “Well,” she said. “That’s over.”

Mabel pulled away when he didn’t hug back. “Hey, you okay?”

“I-” Dipper swallowed. “Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” 

“Oh! And we found this!” Mabel pulled out his journal and handed it back to him.

In all other scenarios, Dipper would have been nothing but glad to get his journal back. Instead, Dipper watched Nora put away the cube. He stepped away from his sister, suddenly feeling sick. “You destroyed it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The Oracle gave him a surprised look. “Because it was a malfunctioning, dangerous menace?”

“But-” Dipper clamped his mouth shut. He wanted to tell her what he heard, and yet.

Do you trust her?

He looked down at the blue cube and kept quiet.

—

It was dark when they finally got back to the temple. Exhausted from the day and the dozen apologies the twins had handed out to the locals, Mabel immediately collapsed into one of the hand-woven bean bags in the corner and fell asleep. 

They watched her snore for a minute or two before Nora offered tea.

They sat down at the table in silence. While Dipper was all too eager to get a taste of true interdimensional tea, Nora barely touched hers. She looked at the cup, her brow furrowed, before she sighed, and put it down. It was cold. “About what I said earlier-”

“It’s fine,” Dipper said quickly. “I mean, you were right. I was being stupid. Getting in my head, like I do all the time.” Suddenly the strange-tasting tea wasn’t all that appealing. Dipper gulped down the dregs without tasting any of it.

“I was right,” Nora said. “That doesn’t mean I was being very fair to you.”

“Oh.”

“And your sister will not let it go unless I apologize.”

“Ha ha, yeah.” Dipper scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed.

“You’re extremely capable, Dipper. Which is why I found it so frustrating when you chose your ego over my trust.”

Dipper winced. “Right.”

“But lashing out at you accomplished nothing. I guess- I mean- What I’m trying to say is…” The measured tone was all but gone. Nora flailed her hands as if looking for the right words. 

“I know,” Dipper said. “It’s okay, really.”

Nora looked frustrated but nodded. Dipper felt a wave of fondness wash over him. He wanted to tell her about the robot, about the being that spoke to him. He really should.

Do you trust her?

If there was anything Dipper learned, it was to not trust mysterious entities who claimed to want to help you. Still, he could take the time and think about it.

Couldn’t he?

“I know what you’re trying to say.” Dipper looked back to where Mabel was sleeping. “I’m the king of socially awkward, you know?”

“I’m not socially awkward,” Nora huffed, “I’m just…out of practice.” She frowned. “That sounds worse, doesn’t it.”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“And you are clever, Dipper,” Nora added. “I don’t know why you would ever think otherwise.”

“Wow, um,” he suddenly felt his cheeks heat up. “Thanks? You’re pretty good too, with all those cubes and the…tech wizard stuff.”

“‘Tech wizard stuff’?”

“You know, ugh, wow, forget I said that.”

But Nora was smiling. “I think I’ll have to remember that one.” She finally took a sip of her lukewarm tea. “I should show you how they work.”

“Really?” Dipper couldn’t help but light up at the thought.

Nora shrugged. “If I feel like it.” She lifted her cup. “Here’s to our inconvenient little adventure. And subsequent property damage.”

Dipper clinked his cup with hers and tried to school his expression to something a little less eager. “Cheers.”

—

Baragerth found her in front of the rift. He approached quietly, but he knew she’d seen him coming before he even stepped out of the house. “The human children are gone, then?”

“I sent them home,” Jheselbraum’s hand went up to play idly with her pendant. “There was…another development.”

“Oh? Don’t tell me anything. I’m too old for so many stressors.” He joked. She did not return his smile, her gaze set far away, to somewhere he could not see. “Has there been any contact with the ancient one?”

“No. It’s like he’s waiting for something.”

“I cannot assume what you know, old friend, but perhaps it’s time to talk to you know who?”

Jheselbraum scowled.

“Or…not.”

“No,” she shook her head. “No, you’re right. Asking anything of them is just…frustrating.”

“Oh, I know that much.” He leaned on his cane. “Heard the head of their organization is a particularly meddlesome one. From a certain source. You might know her. She lives on top of that mountain.”

“I will speak with them,” the Oracle said, in a tone Baragerth figured was supposed to be calming and not like she wanted to set something on fire.

Immortals. Peel back the layers and they were all eerily similar. He decided not to tell her that. Her mask was one she took pride in and it had a good track record. It would be a shame to shatter the illusion. 

He left her soon enough, his knees starting to ache from the nighttime chill. Jheselbraum was still rooted in the same spot, and the glow of the rift cast shadows onto her strange human features.

She did not notice him leaving. She didn’t seem to notice much of anything, except some distant vision. 

—

Back at the temple, Nora pulled away the dusty long curtain in the back of the room. In front of her was a big, dark chalkboard.

Nora reached down underneath the frame, and something clicked in place. The chalkboard flickered; its surface suddenly filled with an interconnected map.

Nodes flowed into each other, bent around each other, their shapes complex and yielding. A node labeled "42'/" was in a corner, circled in different holographic chalk. An angry, red line pierced through the node sharp and jagged.

In between all the nodes was a dark blackness, a space that seemed to pulse with uncontrollable power.

Nora took a piece of chalk, and ran another red line through the node "52".

It was spreading.

---

[next]

[prev]

[first]

[abookishdreamer]

Character Intro: Hermes (Kingdom of Ichor)

Nicknames- Rabbit by Dionysus

The Busy One, Lord of Luck by the people of Olympius

Dude by Apollo

The God Wonder by Ares

Smart Ass by Thalia (muse of comedy)

Age- 18 (immortal)

Location- Arcadia, Olympius

Personality- He's cunning, mischievous, and generally laid back- with a sly smile on his face. He loves being the center of attention. He’s quick on his feet & exceptionally persuasive to anyone around him. Hermes never passes on the opportunity for a dare, bet, or wager and he also has a wicked sense of humor. Despite his outward persona, he takes his responsibilities as a deity very seriously. He’s pansexual & is currently single.

He has the standard abilities of a god. As the god of messengers, heralds, communication, language, speech, translation, interpretation, writing, travelers, travel, journeys, transportation, vehicles, movement, motion, roads, paths, passages, boundaries, velocity, speed, athletes, sports, athletics, games, gambling, competitions, championships, tournaments, stadiums, gymnasiums, merchants, commerce, trade, business, market, negotiation, sales, exchanges, livestock, animal husbandry, shepherding, thieves, thievery, theft, trickery, mischief, deception, oratory, diplomacy, invention, cunning, cleverness, wit, hospitality, & guide of the dead his other powers/abilities include gravikinesis (gravity manipulation), being able to conjure illusions, clauditikinesis (being able to control locks), proficient lucid dreaming, force field generation, chrimatakinesis (money manipulation), being able to expand storage spaces, teleportation (through a red mist), enhanced shapeshifting, chemokinesis (chemistry manipulation), super enchanced speed (the fastest deity in the pantheon), charmspeak; is able to convince a being of anything, hypnokinesis, lightning redirection, technokinesis (technology manipulation), as well as communicating with/shapeshifting into his sacred animals.

He gives off his natural scent- a mixture of ground up coffee beans & gasoline.

Hermes also has an eidetic memory. 

He’s fluent in all the languages spoken in Olympius.

Hermes is the only child of Zeus (god of the sky, thunder, & lightning) and Maia, one of The Pleiades. 

His sacred symbols are the caduceus, talaria (winged sandals), the winged helmet, & satchel.

He can also do GSL (Greek Sign Language).

His sacred plants include the strawberry tree, crocus, and palm tree.

Family members on Hermes’ mother side include his grandmother Pleione (Titaness of sailing & stars), his aunts (the rest of The Pleiades)- Electra, Celaeno, Taygete, Alcyone, Asterope, & Merope in addition to his cousins- Deucalion, Eetion, Dardanus, Ornytion, Glaucos, Thersander, and Almus.

The number of members of Hermes’ father’s immediate family are quite big! It includes his stepmother Hera (goddess of women & marriage) in addition to his half-siblings- Eris (goddess of strife & discord), Ares (god of war), Hebe (goddess of youth), Eileithyia (Ella) (goddess of childbirth), Hephaestus (god of the forge), Athena (goddess of wisdom), Dionysus (god of wine), Apollo (god of the sun, music, poetry, healing, medicine, archery, plague, light, & knowledge), and Artemis (goddess of the hunt & moon).

His primary address is a penthouse apartment that he shares with Apollo and Dionysus in The Golden Lyre, a luxury high rise apartment building located in the Solar district of New Olympus. Hermes also owns an apartment in The Obsidian Tower, a luxury high rise apartment building located in the Underworld, as well as a mansion estate in Arcadia. He also has a suite apartment in the royal palace on Mt. Olympus.

The mansion in Arcadia is a Greek- revival mansion built out of marble. The color scheme is gold, black, red, orange, and blue with the flooring being Imperial Gold. The mansion has a high tech security system as well as the latest modern appliances- including the first ever touch screen flat screen television. The main wall of the living room has a MASSIVE pair of golden ram horns mounted on it. His personal game room has a Talos Core gaming system, pinball machine, and even a few slot machines! There's another large room dedicated to housing his extensive sneaker collection. Throughout the mansion, there’s also exquisite sculptures and paintings.

His estate in Arcadia also has a few acres of land that has a farm filled with horses, cattle, & sheep.

Hermes’ most prized possession is his extremely technologically advanced smartphone- which can also transform into his divine caduceus.

He primarily gets around through use of his divine winged sneakers. Hermes can travel the total distance of Olympius in a matter of a few seconds! He also travels by teleportation too.

Hermes has a few small tattoos. There’s the greek numerical symbol of the number four on the inside of his left wrist, an obol coin on his left middle finger, a pair of ram horns on the left side of his neck, as well as a pair of hawk wings on his left ankle. 

When it comes to music, he’ll listen to a bit of everything. He generally prefers listening to rock, hip-hop, electronic, synth pop, & rap music. Hermes is a fan of the music of 24K Static, the stage name of one of his friends, Chrysos (god of gold & riches). Hermes’ ringtone for his smartphone is the song “Vibin’ High.”

Strawberries and red apples are his favorite fruits.

In the pantheon he's known for many things- including is barely legible scrawly handwriting. Hermes can read what he's writing perfectly.

Hermes typically starts out the day with a full run measuring the land distance of Olympius. If he’s at the penthouse, he’ll workout at the building’s state-of-the-art private gym. If he’s in Arcadia, he’ll work out in his own private just-as-advanced private gym in his mansion. Hermes’ workouts are focused on strength training in addition to flexibility/balance. At his mansion, there’s also a deep Olympic sized pool that he loves to swim in.

Other members of his extended family include his grandparents- Rhea (Titaness of fertility, motherhood, & comfort) and The Mad Titan, Kronos (Titan god of the harvest, time, & fate) as well as his great-grandmother Gaia (goddess of the earth).

Hermes’ fashion style is cool, flashy, sporty, and athletic. He’s very fond of wearing platinum & gold jewelry. Staples in his closet include graphic tees, tracksuits, baggy and ripped jeans, sneakers, boots, and sweatsuits. He also doesn’t mind dressing “proper” for high class & proper events- opting for suits made out of the most luxurious materials.

A piece of jewelry that he always wears is his platinum caduceus pendant necklace. 

Hermes has a well-groomed stylish haircut as well as a clean-shaven face. 

A go-to drink for him is a rum & coke. He also likes soda (most flavors), red wine, energy drinks (especially his brand), iced tea, rum punch, pomegranate juice, lapsang souchong tea (that he brews himself), daiquiris, whiskey sours, beer, champagne, fruit punch juice, dirty martinis, and orange juice. Usuals from The Roasted Bean are an olympian sized iced coffee & espresso.

Hermes is one of the few deities that developed at an accelerated rate! His trickster mischievous nature started early in life, as a one day old godling when he stole stole a herd of cattle from Apollo after leaving the watchful eye of Maia in a cave in Arcadia. Even as a baby, his cleverness was in full effect to cover his tracks- such as tying brooms to the cattle’s tails to erase their footprints in addition to creating sandals from tree branches to prevent them from making noise. When Apollo brought the chubby baby before Zeus to face justice, the king sat on his throne with an amused look on his face. Hermes, playing into the sweet innocent facade, babbled incoherently. Zeus took Hermes into his arms, smiling. “O gios mou,” he replied, laughing boisterously. 

He’s even credited with the creation of the lyre, his older half brother’s divine symbolic musical instrument.  

Hermes loves eating poached eggs with bacon & hash browns for breakfast. He also likes rizogalo, belgian waffles (topped with strawberries, powdered sugar, & whipped cream), as well as cereal- Omega Lightning Flakes and Grains of Olympus.

He’s fond of saying puns, adopting them into his everyday speech.

Hermes adores his mother, always taking the opportunity to shower her with expensive gifts. They keep in touch through video calls & texting and he's always traveling to Arcadia anyway. They love mountain climbing together.

His royal issued crown is a platinum circlet adorned with fat citrines and diamonds.

Instead of smoking cigarettes, Hermes uses a vape pen. His favorite vape flavors are strawberry, mint, cherry, cola, and coffee! 

Hermes feels that he has to put on a show (less flashy, more restrained) when his grandmother Pleione is around. He does look forward to her annual oyster roast.

Out of The Pleiades, Electra is his favorite aunt.

He loves snacking on cherry flavored licorice twists & pickle flavored potato chips.

During the Gigantomachy, Hermes killed the giant Hippolytus with his Imperial Gold sword- which was crafted by the three blacksmithing cyclopes.

There’s always a wad of mint gum in his mouth.

His favorite ice cream flavors are rocky road as well as chocolate coffee. He also likes strawberry sorbet- getting an olympian sized cup at The Frozen Spoon.

At the command of his father, Hermes killed the hundred eyed giant Argus. He was the head guardsman of Hera.

In the pantheon he tries to have friendly rapport with all the other deities. 

Hermes shows respect towards his stepmother, even when it’s not reciprocated. He even laughs off the sarcastic comments & insults the queen throws his way.

He has a close bond with his brothers Apollo and Dionysus. The three of them collectively refer to themselves as “The Triple Threat.” Despite their super busy schedules, they always find the time to hang out. 

Guilty pleasures for him include his aunt Electra's crispy egg rolls, olympian sized onion rings & crinkle cut fries along with chicken nuggets (with plenty of honey mustard dipping sauce) from Olympic Chef, and a slice of mediterranean pizza.

Hermes likes hanging out with his father Zeus- with them seeing each other often at council meetings. They like cloud surfing together- their competitive streak on full display.

From The Bread Box he loves getting the reuben sandwich with extra coleslaw along with a medium container of potato salad.

Hermes loves pissing Athena off, laughing whenever she calls him “snacabaz,” the Serpentis word for dumbass.

His favorite desserts are his mom's mooncakes and the rocky road brownies from Hollyhock's Bakery.

The national holiday Hermaea is dedicated to him, with the largest celebration being in Arcadia. Hermes’ other favorite holidays are the Summer Solstice & Dionysia. 

He’s currently teaching his baby sister Hebe how to play every card game known to man- starting with gin rummy and poker.

Hermes loves getting his straight teeth whitened. He visits the office of Paean (goddess of physicians) in the palace for the service. He also uses that time to flirt with her stepdaughter Ocyrhoe, who works there as a receptionist.

Hermes' official mentor was Pan (god of the wild, satyrs, shepherds, & rustic music).

Being a deity with a seemingly infinite number of domains, he’s quite busy with his lucrative businesses.

In the Underworld, he works for his uncle Hades (god of the dead) as a psychopomp- ushering in new souls every day.

Nationwide, Hermes has an airline called Diaktoros, the second most used in Olympius after Bolt Air, the airline owned by Zeus. 

There’s also gas stations and oil refineries called Polytropos.

He’s also the founder of the ridesharing service called Nimbus. There’s an official app!

Hermes often frequents the batting cages with Artemis.

He’s the founder of the Olympius Postal Service, otherwise known as the OPS. It’s the largest, most used parcel delivery service in the entire realm! The company’s insignia is that of a golden winged ram.

Hermes oversees all the banks in the country- including the largest one- Bank of Olympius.

There's also a chain of casinos aptly named Caduceus Palace.

Hermes also has a road construction business called Pronaus Infrastructure. 

He also has a telecommunications company called O-Mobile. It’s the second largest wireless carrier in Olympius, providing services like voice, text messaging, as well as data communications. The location of the company is in Klytometis Valley- in the Forgia neighborhood of New Olympus.

Hermes has hung out with his brother Hephaestus a few times. Even though he wanted to record some of their moments, he respected Hephaestus’ confidentiality agreement. Hermes thinks that he’s a super genius, without the madness. 

He’s the owner of a popular nightclub called Mist, located in Arcadia's capital of Tripoli.

There’s also novelty prank stores called The Mischief Mart, karaoke bars called Vocal Avenue, as well as gyms called Fit to be a God.

He's one of the co-chairs of the Olympic Tournament, the biggest sporting event in Olympius.

In New Olympus, Hermes oversees the New Olympus Stock Exchange- located in Acropolis Street, a major financial/business center in the capital.

He also oversees the NOTA, the New Olympus Transit Authority. The NOTA is responsible for managing & operating public transportation in the New Olympus metropolitan area. It oversees the New Olympus bus and subway systems, regional commuter railroads, bridges, & tunnels. 

In New Olympus there’s also the Enagônios Raceway.

He even has his own amusement park called Talaria. It is located in the Arcadia Heights neighborhood of New Olympus on 1000 Gold Coin Boulevard.

Hermes also has a vape pen brand called Elysium Exhales. 

Once a month, he hosts a game night at his mansion- open to everyone in the pantheon. Hermes makes snacks like his wacky loaded mega cheesy nachos- made with melted cheddar, monterey jack, & mozzarella cheese. The nachos are then topped with pickled cabbage, jalapeños, black olives, grilled chicken, guacamole, and salsa. He also makes buffalo wings, spicy dill pickle flavored popcorn, soft pretzel bits, as well as stuffed meatballs. Hermes and his guests play a variety of board and party games- including his favorite economics-themed board game called Syndikáto. The game can have up to eight players. The goal of the game is to become the wealthiest player by buying, renting, & developing properties. Players move around the board, acquiring property, collecting rent from opponents, and potentially building houses and hotels to increase their rental income. The game ends when all players except one have gone bankrupt, leaving that player as the winner. Hermes finds it humorous whenever Nemesis (goddess of retribution) loses, because she goes into a cursing tirade!

He’s the founder of Omega, the most popular & most used search engine, Fatestagram- the most popular social media website, in addition to PanopTube- the most popular video sharing website.

He’s created several apps, including Eriounious- a coupon app that allows users to find and utilize discounts, coupons, & cashback offers while shopping both online and in-store.

Hermes even has a line of energy drinks called DASH, which is sold in nationwide grocery stores and supermarkets.

His all time favorite football team is the Arcadia Rams!

Hermes is in the publication industry- being the founder & editor-in-chief of The Oracle newspaper. He also has a successful fitness magazine called Powerpulse, a business/finance magazine called The Acropolis Street Ledger, and a travel magazine called Manía Taxídion.

He’s in the fashion industry too- with a popular sneaker brand called Airopolis as well as a designer streetwear clothing brand called ViVoTrack. 

The average price for a pair of Airopolis sneakers is around 200 drachmas. The most expensive pair of sneakers from the brand are solid white gold with a reported weight of 100 pounds. The price? 2.5 million drachmas!

He has nearly a billion followers on Fatestagram in addition to the same number of subscribers on his PanopTube channel. Hermes uploads daily vlogs as well as gaming streams.

Hermes is the founder of Agoraios, a multi realm technology company focused on e-commerce, cloud computing, digital streaming, as well as artificial intelligence. It’s primarily the most popular and largest online retailer across the three realms- with hundreds of millions of daily customers. 

He’s one of the co-chairs of the Olympic Tournament, the largest sporting event in Olympius. The other co-chairs are Athena and Nike (goddess of victory). Hermes especially looks forward to the football (soccer) & track events!

Hermes loves watching action and comedy films at the cinema. His most recent favorite comedy film has been Joyride. 

He’s gotten more into photography- even taking pictures for the New Olympus travel brochure.

Hermes is currently taking breakdancing classes being taught by Terpischore (muse of dance). He's also learning to play the electric guitar.

He’s recently released a signature cologne called Dolios. A notable feature is the platinum bottle. The cologne has notes of saffron, raspberry, thyme, olibanum, leather, black suede, amberwood, & jasmine. A 50 mL bottle sells for 300 drachmas. 

Hermes has the biggest crush on Philotes (goddess of intimacy, friendship, & affection).

He has an active social life. He’s had his fair share of hook-ups with a few goddesses including Adephagia (goddess of gluttony), Thalia (muse of comedy), Chelone (goddess of tortoises), Pannychis (goddess of nightlife festivities), and Aphrodite (goddess of love & beauty).

Hermes has had relationships with guys- his most notable ones being with Crocus and Amphion. Whenever he was intimate with them, he preferred being a bottom.

He playfully flirts with Hecate (goddess of magic & witchcraft) any chance during work in the Underworld. They once drunkenly kissed at a Ta Kalanta party Hades was hosting.

Hermes has dated Chione (goddess of snow). Their break up was displayed on a jumbotron during a basketball game at Acropolis Square Garden.

He's currently seeing Peitho (goddess of persuasion & sensuality) casually. Hermes loves her sweet natural scent, the sound of her girlish giggle, running his fingers through her long golden blonde hair, and the feel of her perfect pink lips whenever they make out. 

His all time favorite meal is his mom's szechuan chicken with lo mein.

Hermes has been a frequent guest to the Olympian Gala. His favorite one thus far was when the Gala had the theme “Gilded Glamour.” He made the best dressed list that night when he showed up on the gold carpet in a custom made Christian Damascus design- a solid 24K gold 3D-printed suit, adorned with nearly 500 0.5 carat diamonds. Hermes completed the look with faint shimmery gold eyeshadow on his eyelids & solid white gold ankle boots. The outfit is archived at his place in Arcadia.

In his free time Hermes enjoys pulling pranks on the other deities. He also enjoys working out, basketball, playing dice, regular surfing, field hockey, sailing, writing in his journal, sunbathing, football (soccer), playing dominoes, volleyball, bowling, mountain climbing, baseball, skateboarding, chess, petteia, tennis, playing video games, archery, cliff diving, bungee jumping, ping pong, darts, boxing, fencing, rollerblading, drag racing, billiards, checkers, playing pool, wrestling, horseback riding, martial arts, bull riding, skiing, snowboarding, & ice hockey (in the Underworld), golf, and watching TV.

“The trickster's function is to break taboos, create mischief, stir things up. In the end, the trickster gives people what they really want, some sort of freedom.”

[yvetteheiser]

Yvette Heiser - Phone Photography Essentials without Formal Education

In today's digital world, the art of photography has become more accessible than ever. You no longer need a formal education or expensive camera equipment to create stunning images. With advancements in smartphone technology, your phone can be a powerful tool for capturing professional-quality photos. Here’s everything you need to know to excel in phone photography without a formal education.

Understanding Your Phone’s Camera

Before diving into photography, it’s essential to understand the capabilities of your phone’s camera. Modern smartphones are equipped with high-resolution sensors, multiple lenses, and advanced image processing software. Take some time to familiarize yourself with the various settings and features available on your phone's camera, including HDR, portrait mode, night mode, and manual controls for ISO, shutter speed, and white balance. For more detailed insights, consider exploring resources like Yvette Heiser Texas – All You Need to Know about Phone Photography.

Mastering the Basics of Photography

Even without formal education, you can learn the fundamental principles of photography. Start with the basics:

Composition: The rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing are essential techniques that can help you create balanced and visually appealing photos.

Lighting: Excellent lighting is essential for taking outstanding photos. Natural light is your greatest ally, so it's important to learn how to use it effectively. Understand the differences between soft and hard lighting and how to leverage shadows and highlights to enhance your images.

Focus and Exposure: Ensure your subject is in sharp focus. Most smartphones allow you to tap the screen to set the focus point. Adjusting exposure can help you manage the brightness and contrast of your photos.

Leveraging Photography Apps

One of the advantages of phone photography is the plethora of apps available to enhance your images. Here are a few must-have apps:

Editing Apps: Tools like Adobe Lightroom, Snapseed, and VSCO provide robust features for tweaking exposure, contrast, saturation, and other elements. They also come with presets and filters that can add unique and creative touches to your photos.

Camera Apps: Apps like ProCamera and Camera+ offer advanced manual controls, allowing you to fine-tune settings like ISO, shutter speed, and white balance.

Special Effects: Apps such as Lens Distortions and Afterlight can add unique effects and overlays to your photos, helping them stand out.

Building a Strong Portfolio

Your portfolio is your introduction in the photography world. Create a diverse collection of your best work to showcase your skills and style. Include different subjects such as landscapes, portraits, and macro shots. Regularly refresh your portfolio with updated and enhanced photographs. Sharing your portfolio on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest can help you reach a wider audience and attract potential clients.

 Networking and Marketing

Building a successful photography career requires more than just taking great photos. Networking and marketing are essential components:

Networking: Join online photography communities, attend local meetups, and participate in photography challenges. Networking with other photographers can lead to collaborations, referrals, and learning opportunities.

Social Media Marketing: Use social media to market your photography services. Regularly post your work, engage with your audience, and share behind-the-scenes content. Consider creating a website to establish an online presence and make it easy for clients to find and contact you.

 Continuous Learning and Experimentation

Photography is an ever-evolving field, and staying updated with the latest trends and techniques is crucial. Follow industry leaders, read photography blogs, and watch tutorial videos. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new styles and subjects. Continuous learning and experimentation will help you grow as a photographer and keep your work fresh and innovative.

Conclusion

Excelling in phone photography without formal education is entirely achievable with dedication and practice. By understanding your phone’s camera, mastering photography basics, leveraging apps, building a strong portfolio, networking, and continuously learning, you can create stunning images and establish a successful photography career. Yvette Heiser- Is it possible to start a career in photography without formal education? Embrace the journey, and let your creativity shine through your lens!

[waycaseuk]

The **evolution of the iPhone** since its introduction in 2007 has been a defining journey in the world of smartphones, with significant advancements in design, performance, and features. Here's a brief overview of key milestones in iPhone evolution:

### 1. **iPhone (2007)**

- **Notable Features**: 3.5" touchscreen, 2 MP camera, 4GB/8GB storage.

- **Innovation**: The first touchscreen-only smartphone, removing the physical keyboard seen in other phones at the time. It introduced multi-touch technology and mobile internet.

### 2. **iPhone 3G (2008)**

- **Notable Features**: 3G network support, App Store.

- **Innovation**: Faster internet browsing with 3G connectivity and the launch of the App Store, which opened the door to third-party apps.

### 3. **iPhone 3GS (2009)**

- **Notable Features**: Faster processor, video recording, voice control.

- **Innovation**: Significant speed improvements ("S" stands for speed) and better camera capabilities, including video recording.

### 4. **iPhone 4 (2010)**

- **Notable Features**: Retina Display, FaceTime, 5 MP camera, glass design.

- **Innovation**: A major redesign with a stainless steel frame and glass front/back, and the introduction of the Retina Display, which had higher pixel density for crisper visuals.

### 5. **iPhone 4S (2011)**

- **Notable Features**: Siri, 8 MP camera, A5 chip.

- **Innovation**: Siri, the first virtual assistant on an iPhone, was introduced, along with significant camera and processor upgrades.

### 6. **iPhone 5 (2012)**

- **Notable Features**: 4" display, Lightning connector, LTE support.

- **Innovation**: The iPhone grew in size to a 4-inch screen and introduced the Lightning connector, replacing the 30-pin dock.

### 7. **iPhone 5S & 5C (2013)**

- **Notable Features (5S)**: Touch ID, 64-bit architecture.

- **Notable Features (5C)**: Colorful plastic body.

- **Innovation**: The iPhone 5S brought Touch ID for fingerprint authentication and a powerful 64-bit A7 chip. The 5C was a more affordable model with colorful designs.

### 8. **iPhone 6 & 6 Plus (2014)**

- **Notable Features**: 4.7" & 5.5" displays, Apple Pay.

- **Innovation**: Apple entered the "phablet" market with larger displays, along with introducing Apple Pay, the company's mobile payment system.

### 9. **iPhone 6S & 6S Plus (2015)**

- **Notable Features**: 3D Touch, 12 MP camera, 4K video.

- **Innovation**: The introduction of 3D Touch, which allowed the screen to detect varying levels of pressure, creating new ways to interact with the phone.

### 10. **iPhone SE (2016)**

- **Notable Features**: 4" screen, A9 chip (same as iPhone 6S).

- **Innovation**: A smaller, more affordable model, resembling the iPhone 5S but with the internal power of the iPhone 6S.

### 11. **iPhone 7 & 7 Plus (2016)**

- **Notable Features**: Dual cameras (7 Plus), no headphone jack, water resistance.

- **Innovation**: The removal of the headphone jack was controversial, and Apple also introduced dual cameras on the 7 Plus for improved zoom and portrait photography.

### 12. **iPhone 8 & 8 Plus (2017)**

- **Notable Features**: Wireless charging, glass back, True Tone display.

- **Innovation**: While similar to the iPhone 7, the 8 series introduced wireless charging through the glass back and enhanced display technology with True Tone.

### 13. **iPhone X (2017)**

- **Notable Features**: Edge-to-edge OLED display, Face ID, no home button.

- **Innovation**: A radical redesign that removed the home button and Touch ID, replacing it with Face ID, Apple’s facial recognition technology. It also introduced the first OLED display in an iPhone.

### 14. **iPhone XS, XS Max, & XR (2018)**

- **Notable Features**: Larger OLED display (XS Max), Liquid Retina display (XR), A12 chip.

- **Innovation**: The XS Max brought a massive 6.5" screen, while the XR offered a more affordable option with an LCD display but the same powerful internals.

### 15. **iPhone 11, 11 Pro, & 11 Pro Max (2019)**

- **Notable Features**: Ultra-wide camera, night mode, A13 chip.

- **Innovation**: A triple-camera system on the Pro models enhanced photography, including better low-light performance with night mode.

### 16. **iPhone SE (2nd Gen) (2020)**

- **Notable Features**: A13 chip, 4.7" display, Touch ID.

- **Innovation**: Like the original SE, this model combined older iPhone design (resembling the iPhone 8) with powerful internals from newer models, offering a budget-friendly option.

### 17. **iPhone 12 Mini, 12, 12 Pro, & 12 Pro Max (2020)**

- **Notable Features**: 5G support, MagSafe, Ceramic Shield.

- **Innovation**: The iPhone 12 series introduced 5G connectivity and the MagSafe system for attaching accessories. Ceramic Shield provided increased drop protection.

### 18. **iPhone 13 Mini, 13, 13 Pro, & 13 Pro Max (2021)**

- **Notable Features**: Smaller notch, ProMotion 120Hz display (Pro models), Cinematic Mode.

- **Innovation**: Focused on camera improvements, including Cinematic Mode for video recording, and higher refresh rate displays on the Pro models for smoother performance.

### 19. **iPhone SE (3rd Gen) (2022)**

- **Notable Features**: A15 chip, 5G, improved battery life.

- **Innovation**: Continuation of the budget-friendly SE line with more powerful internals.

### 20. **iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro, & 14 Pro Max (2022)**

- **Notable Features**: Dynamic Island (Pro models), 48 MP camera (Pro), Always-On Display (Pro), satellite SOS.

- **Innovation**: The Pro models introduced the Dynamic Island, a new interactive notification area, along with the powerful 48 MP main camera and satellite communication for emergencies.

### 21. **iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, & 15 Pro Max (2023)**

- **Notable Features**: USB-C port, A17 Pro chip, Action Button (Pro models).

- **Innovation**: The transition from Lightning to USB-C for universal charging, along with enhanced performance and camera upgrades.

The iPhone's journey reflects major technological strides and design shifts, focusing on improving usability, camera quality, and processing power with each iteration.