#UGH I LOVE THIS SO MUCH T_T

[ravensmadreads]

OH MY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD

next year

Marcus Pike x gn!reader | 18.3k | 18+ | masterlist | ao3

summary:

You expected your vacation to go like it always did -- a week of reading, relaxing, and so much alone time you'd be almost happy to see your coworkers when you got back. You'd spend time on the beach and walk around town and generally do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, just like you did every year.  But when you locked eyes from across the sand with the handsome man renting the house next door, something told you this year would be different.

a/n: So I started writing this in June when I saw @mermaidgirl30’s Ocean Challenge. I came up with the idea pretty quickly and thought oh that’ll be short, I can probably write that over the weekend. 👀Well, 18k words and 2 months of writing later… lol here it is. Sorry I’m late, Jamie. 😂I hope you’re ready to go on vacation and meet a handsome stranger on the beach! Thank you as always to @katareyoudrilling for being the best beta. 🧡

tags/warnings: fluff, meet cute, vacation AU, flirting, touching, kissing, smut (grinding, kissing), reader has a brother, reader likes to read (lol), reader works at a museum, reader goes on regular short walks, reader lives in Houston, author used to live in Houston (can you tell?), reader can wink (author cannot), reader likes art and music, no physical description of reader (sometimes clothing is vaguely described – reader wears bright colors, a bathing suit (not described), and a shirt with a low cut back once), gn!reader, pet names (sweetheart, baby, beautiful, handsome, gorgeous)

Day 1, Wednesday

You sighed and rested your hands on your hips after you finally finished wrestling with your beach umbrella. The sun was bright overhead, with no clouds in sight. When you’d peeked out of the window of your parents’ small beach house that morning, you’d known you would need to lug the old umbrella out if you wanted to enjoy your time at the beach today.

You brought up your hand to shade your eyes and looked around to see if anyone else had joined you. It was still early, though it was already hot, and you weren’t surprised to see you were still alone on the beach. You set up your chair and towel and grabbed your next book before settling in. You’d finished your first book after arriving the night before, but as always you’d brought a small library with you for your annual personal getaway. 

The waves crashed soothingly against the sand and you took a moment to just breathe in the sea air and appreciate the slight breeze before you started reading. It was one of the best weeks of your year – nothing but books, good food, the beach, and your own company. You watched, amused, as a seagull darted across the sand away from a small crab, and you heard the call of a few others from over the dunes to your right. You shook your head and turned your attention to your book.

Thirty pages later you finally heard the sound of people arriving at the beach. You glanced over to your left and saw some unfamiliar faces emerging from the path that led to the house next to yours. You knew the owners rented it out regularly. A woman carrying a few large bags led the way, followed closely by two small boys and a little girl, each carrying their own colorful towel. The kids were skipping, almost running, clearly excited to finally be at the beach. 

The last person in the group stepped out onto the sand as the kids started to run in circles around the woman. He was tall, with dark hair that curled at the ends, and a little bit of a beard. He had very broad shoulders and you briefly admired the curve of his back in his white t-shirt and the shape of his legs below his colorful swimsuit. He was carrying a few beach chairs hooked over his shoulder and another large bag.

He stopped and scanned the beach in front of him. As he started to turn towards you, you quickly turned away, back to your book. He was probably the kids’ dad, and as hot as he was, you didn’t want anything to do with that.

Just then, though, you heard the little girl shout, “mom!” at the same time as one of the boys yelled, “uncle Mark! Hurry up!”

You looked back over to see Uncle Mark roll his eyes playfully and continue down the beach towards his family. You heard the woman tell the kids it was time to put on sunscreen, and the round of groans of “mom!” seemed to indicate that he wasn’t her husband, after all. Maybe her brother? They did look similar. You allowed yourself to turn your head and look at him again.

He was looking back.

You felt your cheeks get warm and looked away again, thankful for your sunglasses, even though it had probably been obvious you were looking at him anyway. Without moving your head this time you looked back towards him. He was looking down at the sand with a smile on his face and you felt yourself start to smile, too.

Before your eyes could meet again, the kids started tugging on his hands to pull him towards the water. Laughing, he waved them off so he could set up the chairs, but soon enough you were watching out of the corner of your eye as he played with them in the surf. They were old enough to know how to swim, clearly, but you noticed that he kept the littlest boy close by.

The rest of the morning passed that way, with Uncle Mark playing with the kids while their mom got some time to relax in a chair. Eventually she was joined by the youngest and started building a sand castle. You tried not to observe them too closely, but you were distracted by his deep voice every time you caught snippets on the breeze and by his bright smile every time he laughed.

By lunch time, you figured you should head inside for a break, if you actually wanted to get any reading done. As you finished packing your stuff, you glanced back up and found him looking at you again. He smiled and nodded at you. You nodded back and then turned and walked swiftly back towards your house with a smile playing around your mouth.

Day 2, Thursday

On your second day of vacation, you visited your favorite coffee shop and bakery for breakfast before heading back to the beach. It meant you arrived a bit later, and found that your new neighbors had beaten you there.

The kids and Uncle Mark were well into building a pretty impressive sand castle when you reached your usual spot and dropped your bag and umbrella. The movement must have caught his eye because he looked up and met your gaze. He smiled, and you couldn’t help but smile back.

You looked down quickly, feeling your cheeks start to burn, and picked up your large red umbrella. It was old and, like always, you had to strain to undo the latch that kept it folded up. You began to wrestle with it to prop it up in the sand, fighting against its desire to collapse with you inside of it. A few minutes passed like that and you felt sweat start to drip down your spine. You hoped no one was watching you battling against an old beach umbrella (and losing).

Just when you were about to give up and throw the annoying thing down in the sand, a deep, warm voice interrupted you. You startled and almost dropped the umbrella anyway.

“Need some help?”

You turned to find Uncle Mark standing about 5 feet from you, shading his eyes from the sun. You glanced behind him and saw the kids were still working on their sand fortress, now with their mom standing nearby and pointing at something on the oceanside wall.

You looked back at the man in front of you and found him just as attractive as he’d been the day before. Tall, dark hair, sweet smile. You blinked.

“Um, sure,” you said, as your lips started to tilt upwards. “At this point I probably can’t claim I’ve got it and be at all believable.” You grimaced a little, but he chuckled.

“Ours isn’t exactly a breeze to put up, either.” He gestured at their little area of towels and bags behind him. “Here, let me hold it and you tell me what the issue is.” He stepped forward, hands outstretched, and you let him take the umbrella from you. As soon as he did it tried to fold closed on him. You winced.

“Sorry–”

“Hey, no problem.” He laughed again, and you watched the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Ours nearly ate me earlier, I don’t think my nephews have ever laughed harder in their lives.” 

You laughed and nodded. “This one seems bent on eating me alive for sure.”

He looked up at you from where he’d been fiddling with the lock at the base, smile still in place. “Well, we can’t have that.” He propped the umbrella up in the spot you’d had it before. “Here, hold this, I’ll get it to stay open.”

You did and soon enough you had a functioning beach umbrella that didn’t look ready to snap closed on your head at any moment. You both stepped back from it and stared at it for a moment, almost daring it to change its mind.

“Looks like our victory.” He winked at you and you grinned. “I’m Marcus, by the way.” He held his hand out and you slipped yours into his grip to shake it.

“Not Mark?” You nodded towards the kids and he huffed a laugh.

“My sisters call me Mark, so their kids do too. But I prefer Marcus.”

You smiled and introduced yourself. “Nice to meet you, Marcus.” 

He grinned when you said his name. “Have you been here before? It’s our first time.”

You nodded, and gestured back to the house. “That’s my parents’ house. I usually come out here for a week or so every year, at least.” 

Marcus shifted his weight and tilted his head. “Sounds nice. We’re renting that one, I’m sure you guessed. The rest of my family is coming in a week but my sister and I had extra time off, so we took advantage and got here early.”

You opened your mouth to ask about his family – sounded like there were a lot of them, and the house they were renting was pretty big. But just then the kids' voices got louder.

“Uncle Mark!” you heard, and Marcus turned to look. They were all pointing at the ocean-side wall of their sand fortress, which looked like it had just been assailed by a wave and collapsed. “Help!”

He turned back to you with a shy smile. “Well, duty calls. Nice to meet you. Don’t let the umbrella get you.”

You laughed and waved. “Nice to meet you, too.”

For the rest of the morning, until they left around lunch time, you and Marcus kept glancing each other’s way. You caught his eyes so many times he started to grin and wink at you. You bit your lip and glanced away.

After they left for lunch, though, you didn’t see them again for the rest of the day.

Day 3, Friday

On your third day of vacation, you were at your spot on the beach bright and early. You managed to wrestle your umbrella into submission and successfully set up in its shade with your chair and your book.

After about an hour alone on the beach, you heard someone say your name. You turned to find Marcus walking towards you carrying a beach towel and a bag with a beach chair slung over his shoulder. His swimsuit was shorter than the one he’d worn the day before and your eyes were drawn to the way the muscles in his thighs flexed as he walked across the sand. 

Thank god for sunglasses. Your eyes danced down his legs and you noticed he was walking barefoot, sandals hooked over his fingers. Even his feet are attractive. 

You waved. “Morning! Alone today?” You glanced behind him, but no children burst through the dunes in his wake.

He nodded. “Yep. They wanted to go to the aquarium, but their dad got in last night, so I’m off the hook for the day.” You smiled as he came to a stop right next to you.”Mind if I join you?” He gestured to the other side of your umbrella. 

You shook your head. “Please. I’ve got plenty of shade.”

He set up his chair and sat quickly, throwing his head back and letting out a little groan as he did. “I love those kids, but I need a break. They’ve been using me as their own personal jungle gym.” 

You eyed the line of his neck but laughed. “And now it’s dad’s turn?”

He looked at you and grinned. “Yep. My sister actually said I wasn’t allowed to come. ‘Go have some actual vacation time,’ she said. Before the rest of the circus gets here, anyway.”

“That’s nice of her,” you said, smiling. 

Marcus nodded. “Yeah, she knows how much I need it.” Before you could even think to ask what he meant by that, he started digging in his bag. His furrowed brow told you he was having trouble finding whatever he was looking for. “Damn,” he murmured. “Forgot the sunscreen.”

You reached to your side and retrieved your own. You smiled again, holding it out to him. “You can borrow mine.”

He looked up at you and as you admired the way his smile spread slowly across his face, you couldn’t help notice his eyes crinkling again. “Thank you.” He reached out and took the bottle from you, fingertips just brushing yours. You ignored the shiver it sent up your spine.

You resolved not to stare as he put on the sunscreen, turning back towards the ocean. “So, first time here, right?” you asked.

“Yep,” he answered. You noticed he was rubbing sunscreen into his thighs out of the corner of your eye and swallowed, mouth dry. “It’s been in the works for a while. My sisters have been wanting to do a big family vacation, and my job finally cooperated with time off I could actually take. So here we are.” He shrugged. “Originally I was only going to be here for a week, too, but, um…” he trailed off, and you looked over to find he was staring out over the water with a pensive look on his face.

“Things changed?” you prompted, trying not to push.

Marcus turned back to you and smiled, a little wistfully. “Yeah. Things changed.” He cleared his throat as he started working on his arms and shoulders. “Anyway. But you must come here a lot, right?”

You nodded and rested your elbows on your knees. “Every year, at least once, when we’re not renting it out. It was my grandparents’ house, and now it’s my parents’. We spent a lot of time here as kids.”

He hummed. “That sounds nice. It must be pretty great, to have somewhere like this you can come if you need to get away.” He sounded wistful again, and you wondered what he wanted to get away from. He started to reach around towards his back with the sunscreen, clearly struggling, and you smiled. 

“Need some help?” You grinned at him as you echoed his words from the day before, and he chuckled, clearly recognizing them.

“If you don’t mind, sure. I promise I won’t make it weird.” His smile was too charming.

“Well, Marcus,” you replied, tone teasing, “I didn’t think you were going to make it weird until you said that.” He laughed again as he handed you the sunscreen, and turned in his low chair so you could get to his back. You rose up onto your knees behind him and squirted some sunscreen into your hand.

“Ok, here it comes,” you warned before gently placing your palms on his back. 

Immediately your focus narrowed to the feeling of your hands on his skin. He was naturally tan, but he’d also gotten some sun in the last two days. His skin was warm and smooth and you felt the muscles in his back shift as he turned slightly towards you, looking over his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, and you glanced up to find him looking back at you as much as he could from his position. You nodded, and he turned forward again.

You rubbed in the sunscreen, making sure to cover his entire back. You tried not to notice the breadth of his shoulders and the way his back narrowed to his waist.  As you moved your hands downwards towards the waistband of his swimsuit, you bit your lip. You resolved to just be quick about it and finished by covering his lower back as fast as you could. 

You were so caught up in not making it weird that you didn’t notice the shiver that traveled up his spine.

“Ok!” you said, a little more forcefully than you intended. “You’re all set.” He started to turn and you quickly sat back in your own chair before meeting his eyes. You realized he looked a little flushed and wondered if he could tell your cheeks felt warm.

“Thanks,” he said again.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. You looked at him, and he looked back and you felt the pressure to say something, anything, building in your chest.

“So–”

“Well–”

You both started talking at the same time, and then laughed. He waved his hand in front of him and said, “please, you first.”

“So,” you said again, leaning back in your chair. “What do you do for work? If you don’t mind me asking. You made it sound like you barely escaped with time off.”

He chuckled again, and shook his head, looking rueful. “I did. Barely escape, I mean. I, ah,” he cleared his throat again, and you wondered if he was nervous. “I work for the FBI.”

Your eyebrows rose. “Oh! Like, as an… agent?” You weren’t sure how the FBI worked, really, except that there were FBI agents.

Marcus nodded and smiled. “Yes, exactly like that. Agent Marcus Pike, at your service.” 

You studied him for a moment, smiling. “So, what does that mean, exactly? What does an agent do?”

He shifted in his chair, leaning back like you just had. “Well,” he said, “it means a lot of things, but in my case it means I investigate art crimes. I’m in the art crimes division.”

You turned towards him a bit more, leaning in your chair. “Art crimes? Like, what was that TV show called… White Collar? Or Indiana Jones?”

He grinned, and then laughed. “I mean, theoretically maybe, but in practice, no, not much like either one.”

You bit your lip, a bit sheepish. “You probably get that question a lot.”

He shrugged, still smiling. “Well, it’s not the first time.” 

“Ok, Agent Jones, sounds interesting. And busy.” 

He smirked at the nickname, but nodded again. “It is. It has been, lately. But I just moved and then closed a big case and my boss basically kicked me out. Early. Once she knew I was going on vacation anyway.”

You laughed. “Sounds like a good boss.”

“Seems like it. I just transferred, so we haven’t worked together long.”

You tilted your head. “Transferred?”

“To DC. I’ve barely had a chance to unpack, really.”

You perked up. “Oh, I love DC! My brother lives there.”

Marcus smiled. “I like it so far, but I haven’t been many places other than the office and my apartment.” You nodded. You knew what that was like. “What about you?”

“Hmm?” you said, not sure what he meant.

“What do you do? Since now you know all about me.” He gestured at himself, and you smiled.

“Um, well,” you started, interested to see his reaction, now that you knew about his job. “I’m a museum curator, actually.”

His eyebrows rose and he leaned in. “Really?” His tone was full of interest and he looked as excited as you’d hoped.

“Really,” you said, with a laugh. “At the Museum of Natural Science, in Houston.”

“Texas?” he asked, and you wondered if you were imagining that he looked a little disappointed at the news. “Oh, I’ve been there, actually.”

“Houston or the museum?”

He laughed. “Both. That’s, well. I moved to DC from Austin.”

“Really?” you asked, and then laughed at the way you were echoing his question from a moment before.

He smiled. “Really. About six weeks ago, so it hasn’t been that long.”

“Well, damn,” you said. “We might have even been at the museum at the same time.”

“I went about two years ago, I guess?” he asked. “Spent a lot of time watching the pendulum.”

You nodded. “I was probably there, then. I’ve been there about five years. And a lot of people get distracted and stuck there, you’re not alone.” You laughed.

Marcus shook his head, smiling. “What are the odds?”

You looked at each other for a moment, and you tried not to wonder what it would have been like if you’d met this man two years ago, when he lived three hours away instead of twenty.

“So, Marcus,” you started. He tilted his head, giving you his full attention. You realized he’d done nothing but that, since you met, always turning towards you to listen to whatever you had to say. You were going to have to be careful not to let that get to you. “I was planning to go to the little gallery they have in town this afternoon. They usually have something new, whenever I go, from local artists.” He’d perked up as soon as you said the word gallery, and it made you smile. “Would you, um,” you hesitated, but he still looked interested. “Would you want to come?”

He was nodding before you finished your question. “I’d love to.” You looked at each other for another moment, and then he laughed. “Do you want to relax and read for a bit? Before lunch? I brought a book, too.” He reached into his bag and brandished his book, and you smiled.

“Sure.”

…

You spent the next couple of hours reading in mostly easy silence, with some conversation. Marcus turned out to be a good beach companion, happy to relax and read next to you. A couple of times he went to cool off in the ocean and you joined him once. (You spent the whole time trying not to stare at the way his wet swimsuit clung to his thighs and ass.) By the time the sun was high overhead, you were both ready to leave and get some food.

“Do you want to meet out front of the houses, in about half an hour?” he offered, and you nodded. 

“Sounds good.”

A little more than half an hour later you exited your house to find him waiting, leaning against one of your fence posts.

“Ready?” you called, and almost missed a step when he turned and smiled at you, obviously happy to see you. He was wearing a loose blue t-shirt that really emphasized how broad his shoulders were. You tried not to stare.

“Sure am,” he said, opening the little gate for you. 

As you turned towards the town, you said, “it’s not a long walk. About 10 minutes?”

“Perfect,” he said, nodding. “Where do you want to go for lunch?”

You told him about the options in town, and he must have picked up something from your descriptions, because he said, “well, let’s go to the cafe, then. Sounds like it’s your favorite.”

You blinked, surprised. “It is. How could you tell?”

He grinned. “I interview people for a living.” He waggled his eyebrows at you, and you laughed. “No, really you just looked more excited about it.”

“Well, it is my favorite, but we can go to any of them. I’ve been here before and you haven’t.”

He was shaking his head, though. “No, I’d rather get to know you, I mean, the town, through you. Um, as a guide, I mean.”

You smiled – maybe you weren’t the only one feeling a bit nervous. “Ok, sure. To the cafe, then.”

The town had risen up around you, by then, and you pointed out some of the popular places as you walked towards the center. “The gallery is past the cafe, but we’ll be able to see it from there.”

He held the door for you when you arrived, and you bit your lip as you stepped past him into the cafe. You could feel the heat of his body as you passed and caught a whiff of something warm and earthy from his post-beach shower.

They showed you to a table by the window, which was perfect for people watching, as you told Marcus after you sat down.

“It’s one of the things I like most about coming in the summer,” you told him, gesturing towards the street. “All the new people.”

He nodded, and you watched as he scanned his eyes over the street. “I can see that. Lots of tourists?”

“Yes,” you agreed, “people staying nearby and sometimes buses full of kids. Those days are fun.”

He laughed. “I’m busy enough with three and they aren’t even mine.”

Your easy conversation continued over lunch, and you started to feel something warm building in your chest as you spent more time with Marcus. He seemed genuinely interested in you, giving you his full attention and asking questions about your job and your life in Houston. He was familiar with the area you lived in and eager to hear if anything had changed in recent years. He was more reticent about his job, but you figured that was probably normal for an FBI agent. It wasn’t that he didn’t answer your questions – more that he was careful with details. 

You did notice that he seemed to be avoiding talking about his previous job in Austin, though. But since you’d barely known each other a day, you figured it would be weird to ask about it.

As you left, he held the door again, and said, “I can see why this place is your favorite.”

You squinted at him, frowning playfully. “You haven’t even tried the other places yet.”

He grinned and followed as you turned towards the gallery. “Sure, but that place was very you.”

You tilted your head. “What do you mean?” Part of you was skeptical whether he’d know what was you or not after only a few hours in your company.

Marcus looked a little bit shy, suddenly, but answered, “well, it was very warm. And welcoming. And I noticed you seem to like bright colors, and they do, too, in their decor.” You glanced down at your own clothing and bag and couldn’t help but nod. “But really it’s that it felt so comfortable, being in there. I–” he cut himself off, but you elbowed him gently. 

“Come on, you can’t stop there. What do you mean, comfortable?” Your voice was light and teasing, but you really wanted to know how he was going to finish that sentence.

“Um,” he started, and you noticed he had started to blush. It was very cute. “Well, it felt like… Ok. I’m sorry if this is too much. But it felt like we were eating at someone’s home. And you’ve seemed so at home, here. Not like me, I feel like I don’t even know how to relax anymore. Even with the kids, I felt like I was forcing it. Or just going through the motions. And I know we just met yesterday, but I’ve been more relaxed since we did.”

You blinked, a little stunned. It was a bit more than you expected from someone you’d just met, but it also somehow didn’t surprise you that Marcus was the type to just say what he was thinking and feeling like this.

“I–”

“I know, I can be a little bit much,” he interrupted you with a self-deprecating smile. “I really just didn’t expect to actually be able to relax and have fun, after what’s been going on for me lately. So I’m… pleasantly surprised.”

You were almost at the gallery, so you stopped and turned to look at him. He looked back, a little apprehensive. “Well, we did just meet,” you agreed, “but you don’t seem like too much to me.” You watched as his shoulders lost some of their tension and his smile turned a little more genuine. “Just very honest,” you said with a laugh, and he laughed, too.

“That’s definitely true,” he agreed, “maybe too honest, sometimes.”

You shrugged. You found it refreshing, and you told him so.

As you stepped up to the gallery you noticed he had lost his apprehension and turned back into the easy-going man you’d met on the beach. Now that you knew that easiness was somewhat hard won, you wondered what it meant that he’d never been anything but that, with you. And you wondered what had happened to him lately that made it so hard for him to relax.

…

Marcus liked the gallery.

You could tell, almost from the moment you entered. He immediately walked over to look closer at some of the art, and you recognized the work of an artist whose work you’d been seeing around town for years. You had one of their watercolors of the ocean during a thunderstorm in your apartment back in Houston.

You started scanning the room, looking to see what might be new in the familiar displays. It wasn’t a huge space but they did a good job of showcasing the work of each artist they hosted. After a few minutes of browsing separately, Marcus called your name and you turned to find him beckoning you over to a display of pottery made with cement and sea glass. 

“Look at this,” he said, and you could hear the excitement in his voice again. “It’s cement! That’s so cool, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

You grinned. “I’ve met the artist, actually. She was here last summer. She hand mixes all the different colors and materials. They’re not painted, the color is actually in the cement mix. I have one of her planters at home.”

Marcus picked up one of the smaller multi-colored pots and ran his fingers lightly over the uneven edges along the top. “Do you know how she makes these?” He glanced up at you and you felt a little swept away by the clear enthusiasm on his face.

You nodded. “She makes those from broken pieces from other projects. And I think she said from overpours, though I’m not really clear on what that means.”

He looked very impressed. “I think I have to buy one of these.” His hands curled possessively around the little pot he’d picked up, and he turned to look over the rest of the display. “Maybe more than one.”

You laughed, and elbowed him gently. “Consider me an enabler, then, because I think you should, too. I love her work.”

The two of you continued around the gallery, sometimes chatting and sometimes exploring separately. It felt, as Marcus had pointed out, easy and relaxed. Spending time with him was just so comfortable. You marveled a bit at how quickly you’d fallen into such ease with this man you barely knew.

He did end up buying two of the cement pieces, as well as a watercolor painting of the beach. You picked up a new screen print of one of your favorite spots in town.

As he was paying he laughed, and you looked at him curiously. He met your gaze, and then gestured at his purchases. “My sisters are going to tease me. They know I can’t resist buying art.”

You smiled, charmed. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

“No?” he asked, stepping out of the way so you could pay. “I am running out of wall space. Or I was… in my old place.” He grimaced, and you felt regret at reminding him of whatever had been making his life more difficult lately. “Haven’t really unpacked much or decorated the new one.”

You hummed, wanting to comfort him, but you weren’t sure how to go about it when you didn’t know what was wrong, and you barely knew each other. “Well, maybe you can start with those,” you pointed at his bag, “something totally new, for your new place.”

He looked at you thoughtfully and nodded. “You’re right. That’s a good idea. Something new, with only good memories attached.” He said the last part to himself quietly.

“Only good?” you teased. “What about those man-eating beach umbrellas?”

He laughed, and you again watched as he seemed to relax and shake off his tension. “Yes, only good memories. Even the umbrellas.”

As you walked back to your houses, you wondered if you could ask him about whatever it was that kept making the smile drop off his face, whenever he thought of it. But you figured it was probably too soon. Maybe he’d tell you, if you kept getting to know each other.

At your front gate, he turned and reached out to squeeze your arm gently. “Thank you for letting me crash your plans for the day,” he said with a smile. “I had fun.”

You shook your head at him and laughed. “I did too, Marcus.” 

He bit his lip and let his hand drop from your arm, and you felt a tingle run down your arm with the tips of his fingers. “The kids’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll probably see you on the beach?”

You nodded. “I’ll be there.”

With a smile and a wave, you headed inside.

Day 4, Saturday

They beat you to the beach the next morning.

You could hear the kids laughing as you made your way through the dunes on the wooden path that led from the house’s back porch to the beach. As you passed the last dune, you looked to your left and saw that they were armed with foam squirt guns, chasing each other and Uncle Mark across the sand. You couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

They had set up their chairs and umbrellas over in front of their house, and you noticed that Marcus’ sister was sitting with a man you assumed was her husband. You drifted slightly to the right, out of the path of the water battle, as you found a spot to set up for the morning. 

After you dropped your bag you looked up again and found Marcus looking at you. He smiled and waved and you couldn’t help but do the same. You couldn’t quite wipe the smile off your face as you set up your umbrella and chair and settled in.

You kept track of the water war out of the corner of your eye and noticed Marcus was absolutely letting the kids win, while also backing up the littlest one (the younger boy) whenever he could.

It was pretty adorable. You bit your lip and turned your attention to your book. You managed to read almost a full chapter and didn’t look up again until you heard someone clear their throat to your left. 

You’d been so engrossed you didn’t notice Marcus approaching with a chair hooked over his elbow. “Mind if I join you?”

You shook your head and tried not to stare at the amount of his thighs you could see in his little swim shorts. Your gaze traveled upwards and you noticed his t-shirt was wet and clinging to his torso in a way that made you shift in your seat and glance away. You waved vaguely at the spot next to you in the sand and said, “please.”

As he sat you glanced behind him and noticed the kids were sitting on towels and having a snack. “Snack time?” you asked, gesturing behind him once he’d sat down. 

He smiled and nodded. “Yep. Too much running around, we have to feed them if we’re going to make it lunch time.”

You nodded. “So who won?” 

“Hm?” Marcus looked up at you.

“The great water war. Did you have to surrender?”

He laughed, and you grinned as you admired the way his nose scrunched when he smiled. “It was a draw. According to my sister, anyway. After their snack they’re going for a walk.”

“Ah,” you replied, “so no walk for you?”

He turned his smile towards you and shifted in his chair so he could face you. “Nah,” he said, tilting his head. “Had to come catch up with my gallery buddy.”

You laughed, and looked down at your lap. You realized you were still holding your book and set it aside in your bag. “Not much to catch up on since yesterday. I spent my afternoon reading in the hammock on my back porch.”

He shrugged. “Sounds pretty nice.” You nodded. “After they got back from the aquarium I went another round as the human jungle gym.” He was smiling as he said it, so you knew he enjoyed it, despite his words. 

“When does the rest of your family get here?” You realized he’d never said and were suddenly wondering if soon he’d be too busy to “catch up”.

Marcus sighed, and you watched as a bit of tension entered his shoulders that you hadn’t seen before. “Wednesday, at different times.” He looked out over the ocean and you wondered why the thought of his family arriving would make him tense. 

You clasped your hands together in your lap. “I’m leaving Tuesday,” you said, tone even. He whipped his head to look at you and you couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“So soon?” his tone was careful and you weren’t sure what to read into it.

You nodded. “I’m only here for a week. In between rentals.”

He furrowed his brow and you tilted your head, watching as he seemed to decide what he wanted to say. He opened his mouth and you learned forward slightly, eager to hear it. “Do you–”

“Hey!” A woman’s voice interrupted you, and you looked around Marcus to find his sister walking towards you across the sand. “So you must be our neighbor? And Mark’s new friend.”

Marcus shoulders’ were tense again, you noticed, but you turned to his sister with a smile. “Yep, that’s me.” You introduced herself as she came to a stop right next to his chair.

“Nice to meet you,” she replied. “I don’t know how much Mark has told you, but I’m Stef. So he said you come here a lot?” She seemed friendly, so you weren’t sure why Marcus was looking so tense. You wanted to reassure him but you weren’t sure how. You hadn’t known each other that long.

“Yes, the house is my parents’,” you gestured behind you towards the small house, and she nodded. “We all try to get out here together, sometimes, but I usually come by myself once a year.”

“Well, I know it’s probably not your idea of a relaxing evening on vacation, but you’re welcome to join us for dinner later,” Stef said, smiling. “We’re just going to grill and hangout on the deck.”

You hesitated for a moment, glancing at Marcus and wondering if this was why he’d become so tense. But you found that he was looking back at you with a smile. He nodded, so you smiled and nodded too. “I’d love to.”

Stef grinned and gave you the rest of the details. You agreed to head over there around five and promised to bring something to share.

As she walked back towards their spot, you turned to look at Marcus with one eyebrow raised. He was still smiling at you. “Are you sure you want me to come?” You couldn’t help but ask, wanting to be certain.

He blinked and looked confused. He shook his head, “of course. I was going to ask if you wanted to, right before Stef came over.”

You considered him. He wasn’t tense anymore, and you wondered why he had been, if this had been his plan all along. It still felt too early to ask.

“Ok, well, good. I’m excited, then.”

He smiled and you smiled back. Just then you heard the kids returning from their walk and calls for Uncle Mark to come back and help them with their next mission.

He sighed. “Guess that’s my cue.” He stood with a theatrical groan and picked up his chair. “I’ll see you?”

You laughed and waved him off. “I’ll see you later,” you confirmed.

…

Later that afternoon you were hesitating in front of your suitcase, wondering what to wear. You knew what you’d planned to wear for an afternoon of reading, and you’d only brought so many “nice” outfits for leaving the house for non-beach destinations.

You had three outfits left, and two more days after this one. 

You had one fairly nice option that you’d brought in case you felt like going out to dinner. You decided against that one – too fancy for a backyard cookout.

You had two options left after that, and both were probably fine. But one was a loose top with a low v-shaped back that you could wear with a swimsuit or dress up to go out, and you decided that was probably too much for this gathering.

So you went with the remaining more casual but nice outfit and nodded to yourself. You’d save the other two, just in case.

Just in case of what? You didn’t let yourself continue that thought. You grabbed your chosen outfit and walked quickly into the bathroom to get ready.

…

At just before five, you walked up to the front door of the house next door. You were curious to see inside for the first time, as you remembered the small house that had stood on the lot before the owners had sold it, almost 15 years ago. 

The new one was much larger. It had three stories, and you knew even the back deck had two. 

The door opened in front of you, interrupting your musings. You were surprised to find one of the kids standing behind it – the oldest, one of the boys.

“Hi!” he greeted you, and you smiled. “I’m Luke.”

As he said his name, you heard his mother call for him from down the hall. “Lucas, did you open the front door?” Her voice got louder as she came down the hall and rounded the corner. “Oh! Hi neighbor. Come on in.” She waved you in, but turned to Luke and sighed. “You can’t just open the door, bud.”

Luke looked a bit put out. “But I looked through the window! I saw her.”

His mom smiled and ruffled his hair. “Alright, but next time get one of us anyway. Go help your uncle.”

Luke ran off, and Stef turned her smile on you. “Ok, now come on in.” You held up the box of cookies that you’d brought as you followed her to the kitchen. She took it and nodded. “Good idea. The kids will love them.” She looked at you and winked. “Mark, too.”

You smiled and ignored the heat you felt in your cheeks. As you stepped into the kitchen you realized Marcus and the kids were out on the deck. “You can go join them if you’d like, we’re just finishing up in here. This is Andy, my husband.” 

You looked and saw that he was plating some sides and arranging bowls to go outside. He waved and you waved back as you introduced yourself. You stepped towards Stef instead of the door. “Can I help?”

Stef smiled, pleased, and nodded. “Sure. We just have to carry everything out.”

You grabbed a few of the dishes and followed her out the door and onto the deck, where there was a table set up as a buffet. You set down your dishes before turning to look for the rest of their family.

Stef’s husband had followed you out and was helping the littlest one into a seat at the table, and the older boy appeared to be wrestling with Marcus in the open space on the other side of the deck. You couldn’t help but smile as you watched. 

The girl, whose name you didn’t know yet, appeared next to you. “Hi! I’m Mandy,” she greeted, and you smiled at her as you introduced yourself. “Uncle Mark said you work in a museum. Do you have any dinosaurs?” 

You noticed as she asked that she was wearing a shirt with multi-colored, cartoon dinosaurs on it, and realized you were probably talking to a connoisseur. You grinned. “We sure do. We have a whole huge room full of them, the biggest one in the US. It’s called the Morian Hall of Paleontology.”

Her eyes lit up. “You do? What kinds? My favorite is triceratops.”

You knelt down and pulled out your phone, excited. “Well, I have great news, because we do have a triceratops. It’s the most complete skeleton ever found! Want to see a picture?”

Mandy looked like she was ready to burst out of her skin. She nodded so hard her whole body moved. You smiled. “Ok, here you go,” you said as you handed her your phone. “That’s Lane. She was found in Wyoming and was in such good shape we learned a lot of new things about triceratops from her. She even had skin, still! Here, look,” you said, tapping through to the next picture. “See the tail? We learned the tail had a different shape than we thought.”

“Wow,” Mandy said, squinting at the screen. “That’s so cool. I wish I could go see her,” she sighed, looking wistfully at the screen. 

“Well, I bet you can one day. She has a sister in Indianapolis, too – Kelsey. They come from the same ranch in Wyoming. But I can show you more pictures, if you want. Or send your parents a link to a website with a bunch of good ones of all of our dinosaurs and fossils. I think I have a video, too, and we have a lot more – a t-rex, an allosaurus, a stegosaurus–”

“Yes, please!” Mandy almost shouted, vibrating with excitement. “Uncle Mark got me a dinosaur book with lots of pictures ‘n stuff, I could look at them together! That would be so cool!”

You smiled at her and nodded. “I think that sounds extremely cool.” Someone stepped up next to you and you looked up for the first time since you’d started talking to Mandy, and realized the rest of the family was sitting around the table. Stef was looking at you and Mandy and smiling, but Andy was talking to the two boys. Marcus was standing next to you, and when your eyes traveled slowly up his body to meet his you realized he was smiling at you, softly. It made your cheeks start to warm. “Oh! Sorry. Guess we got carried away.”

Mandy ran over to climb into the seat next to her mom, already talking about dinosaurs again. Marcus offered you his hand to pull you up, and you took it.

“Don’t apologize – that was cute.” He grinned at you and squeezed your hand.

You laughed and shrugged. You noticed he was wearing a short-sleeve button-up shirt and decided it was a very good look on him.

“No, really,” he said, leaning a little closer to speak more quietly. “Mandy’s been asking me if you have dinosaurs all day. I told her she’d have to ask you about them, so, my fault I guess. But that was adorable. And you made her day.”

You tilted your head and smiled at him. “Taking kids through the Morian is one of the highlights of my job, I won’t lie.”

He laughed, and you found yourself caught by the warm look in his brown eyes. You blinked. Before either of you could say anything else, Stef called you over. 

“Come on, you two,” she said, and you whipped around to find her grinning at you. “Mandy has more questions about dinosaurs.”

You laughed as you joined them at the table, and soon you were pulled into a wide-ranging, somewhat chaotic set of conversations about dinosaurs (with Mandy), space (with Luke, you had to tell him you’d only been to the Space Center in Houston a few times, but he was right, it was cool), Stef (about your job and your family’s house next door), Andy (about things to do in the area, especially kid-friendly stuff), and with the younger boy, whose name you learned was Benny. It turned out Benny loved butterflies, and he was very excited to learn you had a butterfly zoo at the museum, too.

As you were telling Benny about the butterflies, you realized it had been a while since you’d heard Marcus say anything. You looked up to find him looking at you, eyes intent. You felt your cheeks heat again and smiled at him.

He smiled back, and it took all of your willpower to tear your eyes away when Benny asked you another question.

After everyone finished eating, Stef disappeared and reappeared with the cookies you’d brought, and the kids cheered. They apparently got to eat their cookies wherever, because all three sprang up and started running around the deck.

Andy and Stef started clearing the table but waved you off when you moved to help. You turned back to Marcus and found he was moving to the seat next to you, previously occupied by Mandy.

“So I think it’s safe to say you were a hit,” he said, grinning. “I think all three of the kids think you’re the coolest person they’ve ever met, since you knew so much about all of their favorite things.”

You smiled and leaned your elbow on the table with your chin resting in your hand. “What are the odds they’d like three things I know so much about?”

He smiled and shrugged. “I think dinosaurs and space are a safe bet with lots of kids. You got lucky with the butterflies.”

You laughed and nodded. “I really did.”

You were both quiet for a moment. Marcus opened his mouth to say something, but Stef appeared next to you again before he could.

“We’re going to put the kids to bed, let you two chill. Do you want to hang out longer? We might stay up a bit, but I will admit we are pretty tired from their antics all day.” She was smiling as she said it, so you smiled back.

“That’s ok. Thank you for dinner, it was great. And a lot of fun.”

“No,” she shook her head, “thank you for entertaining my kids. They’ve banded together and are begging for a family vacation to Houston, now.”

You grinned. “Well, if that does happen, you have to let me know. We can do a special museum tour and everything.”

“No promises,” she said. “Getting out to Texas will probably be less likely, now that this one has fled the state.” She nudged Marcus with her elbow and he grimaced. You noticed that tension from the beach in his shoulders again and eyed him, worried. “But I’ll keep that in mind. It does sound nice.”

You chatted with Stef for a few more minutes before the kids came parading by to say goodnight, and suddenly you were alone with Marcus on the back porch. You looked at each other for a moment before he took a deep breath and smiled. “Want to go walk on the beach for a bit? I can walk you home.”

“Love to,” you replied, turning towards the stairs off the deck. 

He was quiet as you walked through the dunes towards the beach, and you wondered if you should ask him about whatever was bothering him. But you didn’t know him that well, and couldn’t decide. 

You were still arguing with yourself when you stepped out onto the beach and Marcus stopped, looking out over the ocean. You slipped your shoes off and stepped up beside him.

The sun had set while you were eating dinner, but the night was clear, and for a moment you simply took in the expanse of stars that were visible above you. The waves crashed lightly against the shore and you sighed.

This was why you loved coming out here every year.

You weren’t sure how long you’d been standing there in comfortable silence when Marcus cleared his throat. “Um, sorry about that,” he said, sounding a bit sheepish. “Didn’t mean to go all quiet on you.”

You turned to look at him and smiled, reaching out to squeeze his forearm. “It’s ok. I was enjoying the moment.”

He tilted his head again and seemed to study you. “I was, too,” he murmured. “I’ve enjoyed all of our moments since we met.”

You blinked and felt your cheeks heat. He was so straightforward, so earnest. Just like the day before, you couldn’t help but feel drawn to it. It was so refreshing. “Me too,” you said, biting back a grin.

Marcus smiled back, looking much more relaxed than he had at the house. “Let’s walk.” You nodded and the two of you fell into step as you walked down the beach.

As you walked you asked him about the kids and his sister and brother-in-law, and he told you more about them and their plans for the week. You found yourself drifting closer to him as you got closer to your house.

“Thanks for coming over,” he said, turning towards you again at the entrance to the path that led to your house through the dunes. “The kids loved you, obviously, but we all had a good time.”

You nudged him with your elbow. “I did, too. But I didn’t get to talk to my buddy, much.”

He looked surprised, eyebrows raised, and you watched as a slow, pleased smile spread across his face. “Well, I’d hate to let my buddy down. Maybe we can talk more tomorrow? I think they’re taking the kids somewhere, again, but I don’t know yet if I’m going to be encouraged to go along.”

You nodded. “I’ll be here in the morning,” you said, gesturing towards the beach. “Just come find me if you’re free.”

His smile turned into a little bit of a smirk and he reached out to squeeze your arm, mirroring your action from before. “I’ll come find you,” he promised, and you shivered. For a moment you were frozen, his hand on your arm, just looking at each other. But he cleared his throat and the moment was broken.

You turned to head towards your house, but looked back when he said goodnight. “See you tomorrow, Marcus.”

He smiled at you. “I hope so.”

Day 5, Sunday

On Sunday you woke suddenly at the cry of a seagull, grasping at the tatters of the dream that was already slipping away. You were pretty sure you’d been walking down a beautiful, sunny beach with Marcus at your side, and he’d reached out to take your hand just before the bird woke you up.

You sighed and pulled the covers over your head to hide from the morning. You couldn’t believe you’d only known this man for three days and you were already dreaming about him. But he was so sweet, so handsome, and so interesting. He listened so carefully when you spoke and seemed so interested in learning about you, too. And his smile… you smiled to yourself under the covers, just thinking of it.

And there was something going on in his life that was making it hard for him to relax, something that made him look tense and unhappy whenever he thought of it. You couldn’t help but wonder what it was. You wondered if you were going to be able to get to know him better and ask.

You wondered if he’d be waiting for you on the beach, or if he’d get pulled into more family activities. 

You knew which one you were hoping for, and there was only one way to find out.

…

You stepped out onto the beach with your bag, chair and umbrella and a grin took over your face at the sight of Marcus already set up with his chair and umbrella. You noticed he was set up in front of your house instead of his and your smile grew wider. As you started walking down the beach you called out his name, and he whipped around in his chair to look at you, already smiling.

“Morning!” he called, standing and brushing some sand off his legs. The action brought your attention to them, and then the short red swim trunks he was wearing. How many of those did he have? You realized you’d been staring a beat too long and shifted your gaze to his face. 

He was smirking, just a bit. You smiled back. He gestured towards the sand next to his chair as he took the chair and umbrella from you. “Thought I’d go ahead and set up over here. Didn’t want to miss my buddy.” You smiled.

Once everything was set up, you noticed he had placed your chair much closer to his than it had ever been before.

“So,” you said, turning towards him slightly in your chair. “What’s the rest of the family up to today?”

“They’re headed to that mini-golf place you told them about,” he replied, and you noticed he was watching the movements of your hands as you started to put on sunscreen. You bit your lip and ducked your head to hide your smile. “And then maybe back here, maybe something else. They were going to decide later.”

“But you’re off the hook?” You pulled off your shirt to apply more sunscreen, very carefully not acknowledging to yourself that you had already put some on inside. You’d caught his eyes on you and his smirk when he caught your eyes on him and decided to push, just a little. You could tell he was trying not to stare.

“Yep. Stef told me to ‘go relax’ again.” You laughed and he shook his head, smiling. “She liked you, by the way. They all did. It’s all I heard about this morning at breakfast. The kids are still campaigning for a vacation to Texas.”

“Oh yeah? Well, I meant it, I’m happy to show them around.”

He nodded, but frowned playfully. “They were never this excited to visit when I lived there.”

You laughed, and when he joined in you admired the way his smile took over his face. The little crinkles by his eyes told you he probably smiled a lot. The air seemed different between you that morning, like the two of you had silently acknowledged something the night before. Something new. 

“So,” he said, shaking his head with a grin. “What are your plans for the day? Can I crash them?” His tone was teasing and you couldn't help but smile back at him, sunscreen held loosely in your fingers. You felt like you’d done nothing but smile from the moment you spotted him on the beach.

“Well, I was hoping to run into my buddy,” you winked at him, “and spend some time on the beach. Then there’s a market in town on Sundays, I was going to check it out.”

Marcus perked up at your words. “Sounds fun. When does it start?”

“In a couple hours. We could relax, then wander into town this afternoon?”

He nodded. “And maybe grab dinner?” He looked hopeful as he said it and you couldn’t help but smile.

“I’d love to.” You’d reached the end of what you could reasonably do with sunscreen without help and Marcus noticed when you twisted to apply some to your lower back.

“Um,” he cleared his throat. “Need some help?” His voice sounded a little bit strangled and you bit down on a grin.

“Sure,” you said. “I promise I won’t make it weird.” You teased him with his own words and he laughed. His shoulders dropped, more relaxed and you smiled to yourself.

He took the sunscreen from you and you turned in your chair to give him access to your back. “So,” you said, gathering yourself, “is there anything you’ve been wanting to do on vacation and haven’t, yet?”

Before he replied, you felt his hand first brush, then come to rest lightly on your upper back, and you realized how badly you’d miscalculated. 

Goosebumps erupted down your back and arms and you suppressed a shiver as the warmth of his hand transferred to your skin. His hands were large and warm and you realized he’d been speaking and you had no idea what he’d said. You forced your attention back to his words and away from the path of his fingers down your back.

“--so I didn’t really have any plans, I guess. Just needed to get away, whatever that meant.” His hand smoothed sunscreen over your shoulder and you bit your lip, thankful he couldn’t see your face. “I think it’s gone a lot better than it might have, since I met you.”

“O- oh?” you said, and then cleared your throat. “Well, I don’t know what I did but I’m glad it helped.” You laced your fingers together in your lap and tried not to tense every muscle in your body when you felt his left hand join his right on your shoulders. 

“I think…” he trailed off, seemingly focused on making sure you had sunscreen everywhere you needed it. You took a deep breath and he continued, “I think I would have just spent the whole vacation stuck in my head. Thinking about everything I wanted to get away from.”

You wanted to ask, but it still didn’t seem like the right time.

“But since we met, well.” He finished by rubbing the last of the sunscreen into your upper arms and then smoothed both his hands down your arms until he was cupping your elbows. He paused, just for a moment, and swiped both thumbs over the back of your arms. You couldn’t suppress the shiver this time. “It’s been easy to think about other things. I feel…”

You felt him lean back and you turned to finally meet his eyes again, hoping your thoughts weren’t obvious on your face.

He had a small, wistful smile on his face. “I feel lighter, I think.”

You tilted your head at him and returned the smile. “I know you’ve mentioned something that might be weighing on you a few times, but I have to say, you have seemed pretty relaxed since we met.”

Marcus’ little smile turned into a bashful grin, and he ducked his head. “Like I said. You make it easy to think about better things.” He looked up at you through his eyelashes and you couldn’t help but notice, again, how attractive he was. 

You cleared your throat. “Thanks for the help.”

Rather than lighten the serious tone, your comment seemed to deepen it. The air between you became tense but in a way that made you want to lean in instead of away. 

Marcus nodded. “Anytime.” 

You could tell he meant it.

You both turned to look out over the water and for the next little while, you turned to lighter topics.

…

As you were packing up and getting ready to head to the market a couple of hours later, Marcus asked what you liked to do for fun.

“Oh, well,” you said, struggling to close the umbrella. He reached a hand out to help and the two of you wrestled it into submission. “I like to try to go to different events around town, like food festivals and concerts.”

He perked up. “Me too,” he smiled, “I was, um. In a band. In college.” 

You grinned, delighted. “No way. Do you sing?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “Nah, I played bass. I haven’t picked it up in years.”

You bit your lip. “I’m imagining young Marcus Pike in a band and I have to say, I don’t hate it.”

He laughed, and you both turned to walk towards your house. “Faint praise, I see how it is.”

You elbowed him. “What, am I supposed to just tell you that I’ve always loved live music and maybe dated a few musicians?”

“Ohh, so you have a type, then?” He sounded half teasing and half serious and it sent a little shiver through you. 

“Maybe,” you said, shaking your head. “I think maybe I just like people who like art. Of all kinds.”

That felt like maybe you were being a bit too honest, so you changed the subject.

“There’s a place in town that does live music, but I think only on Fridays and Saturdays, so we missed it.”

“Too bad,” he agreed. “But I’m enjoying getting to know you. That’s harder to do, when there’s live music.” Marcus met your honesty with more of his own and you felt a little warmth take root inside your chest. 

“True,” you agreed. “Well, let’s meet out front in an hour? We can walk to town and explore some more.” 

You were both standing by the end of the walkway back to your house through the dunes, and Marcus leaned closer as he nodded. “Sounds perfect.” For a moment the two of you just smiled at each other. 

You cleared your throat. “Ok, great.” You bit your lip as you turned away, forcing yourself to start walking towards your house. About halfway you looked back and found Marcus watching you go. You felt your face heat as you waved and he waved back.

…

An hour later, you were feeling surprisingly nervous as you paced behind your front door. You’d gone through your clothes again and decided against the “nicer” outfit, which left only the top with the low back. You couldn’t help but imagine him putting his hands on your shoulders again, like he had on the beach, and it made you shiver with anticipation.

You took a deep breath and rested your hand on the doorknob, and when you opened your front door, you found Marcus waiting for you again. He was wearing a navy short-sleeved button up that did nothing but draw your eyes to his shoulders and arms. When he saw you he smiled and you could see the tension leave his shoulders. It quieted your own nerves, too.

“Hey, buddy,” he called as you walked forward, and you couldn’t help but grin. “Ready to explore?”

You nodded. “Sure am.” As you turned to lead the way, giving him a nice view of the low back of your top, you heard him make a low, strangled noise, and smiled to yourself. 

As you walked you gave him a run down of the various booths you could expect, and some you hoped to see but that weren’t always there. You felt the back of his hand brush against yours more than once and bit down on a grin each time.

The town came into view, and with it, the lively market that had taken over the main square.

“Oh, wow,” Marcus said, looking around in every direction. “Where do all these people come from?”

You laughed. “From the neighboring towns. We have the best square with the most space, so they do this market here. There are others, but they’re smaller.” You looked around, too, and immediately noticed a booth you knew Marcus would love. “Ooh! Marcus, look.”

You pointed towards the booth but watched him, and the look of excitement that took over his face was extremely cute. “Is that what I think it is?”

He immediately started moving towards the booth, and you laughed again. “Sure is.”

It was the concrete pottery shop, the one you’d both been fawning over in the gallery the day before. You waved at the owner, who was deep in conversation with some customers, and she smiled at you and waved back. 

“Look at this!” Marcus was holding a small pot in the shape of a cactus and grinning. “This stuff is so fucking cool, I know I’m about to buy even more of it.” 

You nudged him. “Look at this one.” You pointed it out and smiled when he gasped dramatically. 

“Is that a brain?” he laughed. “I love it.”

The two of you spent some time looking over all of the booth’s offerings, and Marcus did, in fact, buy three more things. (“How can I resist?” he said, grinning at you, arms full of pottery.)

From there you wandered the market together, chatting and smiling and laughing. His genuine delight at the different art booths made it feel like you were experiencing it for the first time again. You started to wonder sometime during the afternoon if it was less that Marcus was an amazing shopping buddy and vacation buddy, and more that you were just enjoying Marcus. 

You started to wonder if maybe you were getting in a little over your head.

By the time the booths started to close up for the afternoon, it was close enough to dinner that you suggested finding a table before everywhere got busy. “There are a few options. Oh, wait, do you want to have dinner right off the beach? I bet if we go now we can get a table at the Inn.” 

You pointed down the road and Marcus turned to follow your arm. It wasn’t really an inn, and you could see his confusion. “It’s not a real inn, that’s just the name of the place. Come on, I’ll show you.”

It was just down the street, but you had to turn the corner at the edge of the beach to show him why you’d suggested it.

They had a long, raised deck that ran the length of the building, with a beautiful view of the beach and the ocean from every table. The deck was strung with lights that were beginning to twinkle in the growing twilight. You looked from the deck, which wasn’t too busy, you noted, back to Marcus, and were gratified by the delight you could see in his expression.

“Yes, definitely,” he said, looking around. “I mean, this is amazing. I bet the view is amazing, too.”

You grinned and grabbed his hand to lead him inside. Your breath hitched when he immediately laced your fingers together. “It is amazing, but it’s usually really busy. We’re just early enough to get lucky.”

Your luck held and soon enough the two of you were seated at a table along the railing with an amazing view out over the open water. You’d felt the loss of his hand when he’d finally let go of yours at the table and hoped whatever you were feeling wasn’t showing on your face.

Marcus rested his chin in his hand and looked out over the water. “Beautiful,” he murmured, before looking back at you. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

You leaned on your elbows and smiled at him. “Thanks for joining me. I’ve had more fun than I would have alone.”

“Yeah?” he asked, looking suddenly shy. “I’ll admit, I was a little worried I was crashing your vacation and keeping you from doing your thing.”

You shook your head and laughed. “No, this is definitely better.” Marcus ducked his head and you smiled at him, fondly. Something about this man and his earnest, direct way of talking to you just made you want to open up to him. It felt thrilling and a little bit scary at the same time. “I would never have guessed I’d find such a great buddy.” You teased him, and he looked back up at you with a wide grin.

“Me neither,” he said, and reached across the table to brush his hand over yours lightly. You shivered. “Couldn’t ask for a better one, that’s for sure.”

Before either of you could say anything more revealing that maybe you weren’t quite ready for, your server appeared. You took a deep breath, both relieved and disappointed, as they told you about the specials for the night.

Dinner was easy, like every other conversation you’d had with Marcus so far. He put you at ease and you felt yourself opening up to him in a way you never had, not with someone you’d just met. It was heady.

“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” He looked apprehensive as he asked, and you knew he remembered it was your last full day.

You shrugged. “More beach. But I don’t have any plans.” 

He hummed, and for a moment you thought he might ask to join you, but he didn’t. He sighed. “I’ve got to hang with the kids for at least part of the day. But I’ll come find you on the beach?” 

You felt your stomach swoop a bit, disappointed. It sounded like you wouldn’t get another full day with Marcus before you had to leave on Tuesday afternoon. But you nodded. “I’ll be there.”

When it was time to go he offered his hand to help you out of your chair, and you took it with a smile. You tried not to read into the fact that he didn’t let go until you left the restaurant.

“Do you want to walk back along the beach? It’s a nice walk, especially when it’s not so hot.”

He agreed, and the two of you set off down the path through the dunes. The beach was quiet at that time of night, and the moon was almost full. It left you more than enough light to see by and you tried not to notice how romantic it felt to be walking down the beach with him.

After a few moments of walking in companionable silence, Marcus asked if you had to go back to work as soon as you got back. You traded stories about work for a few minutes, and he groaned with you when you talked about the early morning you had waiting for you on your first day back.

You rounded a curve in the beach that you knew meant you were close to the house, and sure enough it came into view. 

“Mm,” Marcus said when he saw it, “we should have been going this way the whole time. It’s so nice.”

You smiled. “Yeah, but during the day it’s so crowded. And hot.”

He nodded. “True. This is beautiful though.” He gestured to the water and turned in a slow circle as the two of you came to a stop in front of your house. He turned around to face you again and suddenly you realized the two of you were standing incredibly close to each other, much closer than before. “Thanks for spending the day with me. I had an amazing time.” His gaze was direct, and you could see the sincerity in his eyes. It made your breath catch in your throat.

“So did I,” you said, and it came out almost breathy. You cleared your throat and you weren’t certain, but it seemed like Marcus leaned in a bit more. He was very close.

“I–” he started, but then he looked down. He took a deep breath and when he looked back up, he looked wistful. “It’s too bad you’re leaving so soon.”

You nodded. It was. 

“I–” he cut himself off again, and you couldn’t help but wonder what it was he wouldn’t let himself say. You bit your lip and watched as his eyes darted down to stare. You both stood frozen, unmoving, his eyes locked on your lips, yours watching him. 

It felt like the world around you slowed, everything focused on this moment and the sudden tension between you and Marcus. You ran your tongue along your bottom lip and watched him shiver. 

Suddenly, he shook himself and almost jumped a step away from you. His expression went from open and wanting to closed and blank and you blinked, startled. “I have to go,” he said, voice low and hurried. “Good night.”

You opened your mouth, but before you could say anything, he was gone, already moving down the sand.

Was that– You didn’t know. You were pretty sure Marcus had been thinking about kissing you. But something was holding him back. You turned and started down the path towards your house, trying not to worry that maybe he just didn’t want to. 

Well, did you want to kiss him? You thought of everything you knew about the handsome not-such-a-stranger you’d met just a few days before, and felt the answer settle deep in your chest.

Yes.

Day 6, Monday

You woke on Monday feeling a bit out of sorts. You’d dreamed of Marcus, of a different ending to the night before – one where he’d stepped towards you instead of away, and what might have happened after.

But when you woke up alone in your bed, you remembered the look on his face when he’d moved away, and you felt uneasy. Like you’d taken a wrong turn somehow and weren’t sure how to get back to where you were before. Was this all moving too fast? Maybe that was what he was so worried about. Or maybe he wasn’t feeling anything at all.

You shook your head and heaved yourself out of bed, ready to let the sun and the waves wash away your nerves.

By the time you made it out to the beach, your neighbors were already there. Andy and Marcus were in the water with the kids while Stef watched from the shore, standing with one hand on her hip and the other shading her eyes. Andy noticed you first and waved, and then suddenly you had the whole family waving at you enthusiastically. You grinned and waved back.

Even from a distance, you could see the way Marcus straightened up and started to smile when he saw you. You tried to let that reassure you, but you were still feeling like you’d stepped off whatever path the two of you had been walking together. You looked away and turned your attention to setting up your chair and umbrella, and didn’t let yourself look back at your neighbors. 

Before you could sit down or settle in, you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You spun around, startled, to find Marcus standing a few feet away, looking nervous.

“Morning, buddy,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting into a hesitant smile.

You turned fully towards him and tried for a smile. “Morning,” you said. Every moment with Marcus had been easy since you’d met, but suddenly the two of you were nothing but awkward. You were more aware than ever before how short a time you’d known each other.

He cleared his throat, lifting his hand to rub the back of his neck. “Well,” he said, peering up at you through his eyelashes. Even when you weren’t sure what to think, he was still devastatingly cute. “I’ve got to spend some time with the kids today, but I was wondering, um,” he trailed off, looking uncertain. He took a step closer and you bit your lip. “Would you want to get dinner with me tonight?”

You blinked. That sounded like a date. You’d talked yourself out of him being interested, and now he was asking you on a date?

“I–” you said, not sure how to respond, so you asked, “do you mean like a date?”

Marcus stepped closer again and your breath hitched when he moved close enough for you to feel the heat of his body. “Yes,” he said, voice low, gaze intent. “Like a date.”

You wanted to say yes, but the memory of his face the night before rose up in front of your eyes, so at odds with the way he was looking at you now. You weren’t sure what to make of it. “I didn’t think you would– that you were interested,” you said, hesitant. 

His brow furrowed, and he reached out and ran his fingertips lightly down your arm. When he reached your hand and met no resistance, he laced his fingers through yours and squeezed. He glanced behind him, and must have been satisfied with whatever he saw, because he lifted your hands and pressed a soft kiss to your knuckles. Your mouth dropped open.

“I’m interested, believe me,” he said, voice deep and sure. The tension from the night before, that heady feeling from before he’d walked away, rose up around you again. You wished you were anywhere but out in the open on this beach. His eyes were locked on yours as he continued, “I just don’t want to rush anything.”

You could hear something more, something weighty behind his words, and you nodded. “Ok. Well, I’d love to get dinner with you.”

The smile that slowly stretched across his face took your breath away.

“Great,” he breathed, squeezing your hand again. “Can I pick you up out front at 6? I have uncle duties until then.”

You nodded, already feeling a bit swept away. “Where do you want to go?”

He winked at you and you felt your cheeks heat. “Don’t worry, I’ve got something in mind.”

…

At 5 minutes to 6, you were standing just inside your front door, taking deep, steadying breaths.

You spent the morning catching Marcus’ eye as he played with the kids and grinning every time he lit up at the sight of you and smiled. You were sure Stef and Andy were teasing him, but he looked happy.

It was a good look.

In the afternoon you decided to spend some time in the hammock before getting ready. You tried to read and relax, but your mind was spinning with thoughts of Marcus and your date. It seemed unbelievable that you’d met him only days ago, when it felt like you knew him already. And every time he looked at you, well. You were looking forward to more of that over dinner. 

You had one fancy outfit left, and you were glad you’d packed it on a whim, just in case you decided to go out. It made you feel sexy, and you couldn’t wait for him to see you in it.

So you stood behind your door and closed your eyes. You took a deep breath, steadying yourself, thinking of the pull you’d felt ever since you’d first spoken to Marcus on the beach. Thinking of his smile, and the feel of his hand in yours.

A knock on the door startled you out of your reverie, and you smiled. You opened it to find Marcus Pike on the other side. He was wearing dark slacks and a button up shirt that made his shoulders look delicious. 

“Hey there, handsome,” you said. This was a date, right? That meant you were allowed to flirt, now. You watched as his cheeks turned a little bit pink. He smiled. 

“Hey there yourself, gorgeous.” He stepped forward and leaned down to press a kiss to your cheek. “This is beautiful on you,” he murmured, lips close to your ear. You shivered. “Ready for dinner?” he asked as he stepped back. He caught your hand and tugged you forward. 

You nodded. “Where to?”

He grinned, and gestured towards the town. “You’ll see.”

You laughed and let him lead you down the road. “Alright, I see how it is. A surprise then, hmm?”

Marcus nodded. “I may have snuck away to town on my own.”

You gasped. “What? Without me? I thought we were buddies!”

He squeezed your hand and laughed. “We are buddies!” he protested, smiling widely. “But I have to keep some secrets up my sleeve. You know, make sure I keep you interested. Wouldn’t want to lose my buddy.” You could hear something in his voice, something that made you furrow your brow.

You tugged on his hand, pulling him to a stop under the awning of a closed shop. He turned towards you and you studied him. He looked like he was fighting to keep whatever emotion was behind his words off his face. “Hey,” you said, grabbing his other hand. “You don’t need to worry about that.” You squeezed both of his hands. “I’m so interested, Marcus.”

He smiled a little half smile that made you melt. “Yeah?”

You nodded. “Yeah. Never had a better buddy.”

He ducked his head and chuckled. “Me neither,” he agreed.

You let go of his hands and tucked your arm into his. “Ok, now where to?”

He stood up a bit taller and started walking again. “Just around the corner.”

Marcus led you down a small side street and onto the next road, turning sharply and walking until you stood in front of a small restaurant. The front was brick, overgrown with ivy and strung with twinkling lights. You peered inside and saw no more than 10 or 15 small tables lit with soft, romantic lighting. The decor was warm and inviting and you grinned at the sight.

“I’ve always wanted to eat here!” you exclaimed, turning to him. He was watching you and you could see he was pleased at your reaction. “I’ve never been, they have that special menu for two and it’s always seemed too romantic and kind of sad to do it alone.”

He smiled at you. “Well, I’m glad you think it’s romantic, because it’s exactly what we’ll be doing.” You jumped up and down in place in excitement and he laughed. “I hope it’s as good as advertised.”

“Either way, I’m excited to try it with you,” you said, and he blushed. 

He gestured to the door and opened it for you. As you stepped through you felt him run his fingertips down your back, and you shivered.

Inside you were led to a cozy table in the corner where you could sit almost next to each other instead of across from each other. There weren’t any menus, and you knew the menu for the night would be set with only a few choices to be made about drinks and dessert. Marcus looked as excited as you felt at the prospect.

Like every other moment you’d spent with him so far, dinner was easy. He was easy to talk to, easy to tease, easy to make laugh. Something about the two of you together just clicked, and for the first time since you met Marcus, you let yourself sink into it without hesitation.

The food was amazing, but experiencing it with him made it better. He was so curious and excited about new things, it was hard not to get swept up in that excitement, too. 

During the second course, the two of you fell into an easy silence. You were trying not to think about going home the next day when he said, “you know,” and then trailed off. 

You elbowed him. “What do I know?” 

He smiled at you. “I’m glad you said yes.”

You smiled back. “Me too, Marcus.”

…

After dinner, he took your hand and you wordlessly agreed to take the long way back, through town to the beach. 

As you stepped out onto the sand, you sighed. You were going to miss this view when you went home. “It’s so beautiful here,” you said, wistfully.

“It is,” Marcus agreed, but when you turned to look at him, he was looking at you.

“I–” you started to reply, but he kept talking.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, and you breathed in sharply. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you yesterday, you know.” He stepped closer. “In that shirt? And on the beach? And then tonight?” He squeezed your hand and you stepped towards him. 

The two of you were standing so close, you would only need to lean forward to be fully in his space. You ran your eyes slowly over his shoulders and then back up to meet his gaze. “You aren’t the only one who’s been looking, you know.”

He grinned. “No?”

You shook your head. “Your swimsuits, Marcus. And then the sunscreen?” You raised your eyebrows at him and watched as his eyes darkened.

“The sunscreen,” he agreed. “You know how badly I wanted to make it weird? Both times?” You laughed. “Shit, sweetheart. It took everything in me not to touch you last night, in that little shirt.”

“Marcus,” you said, and he leaned towards you. You were so close to him. “I want you to touch me.”

He groaned and surged forward, and suddenly you weren’t aware of anything but how he was touching you.

You felt one hand snake around your waist and the other grip the back of your neck as he turned your face into a kiss. He pressed his lips to yours, gentle at first, and then firmly. His lips were soft and his kiss drove every thought of anything but him far from your mind.

He hummed into the kiss and you shivered when you felt his tongue brush lightly against your bottom lip. You opened to him and let out a low moan of your own. You felt him clutch you tighter in response. 

After a few moments he broke away, breathing hard, and you felt your own chest heaving in response. He let his forehead rest against yours and you both sighed.

“I’ve wanted to do that ever since I rescued you from your man-eating umbrella,” he said, and you giggled. 

“I’ve wanted you to, ever since you let me put sunscreen on you.” You grinned as he started to giggle, too.

“You have no idea how hard it was not to make it weird,” he said, tugging you closer and hiding his face in your neck. “You put your hands on me and I have no idea how I held up my end of the conversation. I wanted to turn around and kiss you, right there on the sand.”

You shivered, and he must have felt it, because he pressed a soothing kiss to your neck. “I felt the same way, when you put it on me, you know,” you said. You felt him kiss you again. “I actually didn’t hear part of what you said, I was so distracted.”

Marcus laughed and leaned back to catch your eye. “Really?” He looked delighted. 

You nodded. “Really. I truly have no idea what you said.”

He laughed again, letting his head fall back. You leaned forward and pressed a line of soft kisses up the side of his neck. He hummed. “Well, it wasn’t important. I’m glad it wasn’t just me.”

You leaned in and sank into his embrace. For a moment neither of you said anything, just enjoying the feeling of being held in each other’s arms.

He turned his head and murmured in your ear, “I’m sorry about last night. I’m just…” he trailed off again, and you squeezed him encouragingly. “I just want to take it slow. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

You nodded against his shoulder. “Slow is probably good. It doesn’t feel like we just met, but we did.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

You both stepped back, and you caught his eye as he caught your hand with his own, turning to walk down the beach towards your house.

“I don’t, um,” he said, looking suddenly nervous. “I know we probably can’t promise each other anything. But I’m really happy I met you. And I’d like to keep talking, after you leave.”

You nodded. You wanted that, too. “And I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

At the end of the path to your house he stopped and turned to face you. He tugged you closer by both hands and you leaned into his space again. “I’ll find you tomorrow.”

You nodded. “You’d better.”

He grinned. “I’m going to want to come back here as soon as I walk away, don’t worry. I’ll find you.”

For a moment you just looked at each other, and you marveled at how much better this evening felt than the one before. 

Marcus untangled his right hand and lifted it to cup your cheek. “Good night, beautiful,” he said, and leaned forward to press a soft kiss to your lips. You leaned into it, but he pulled away. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You nodded and fell into his embrace one more time before turning away and going inside.

Day 7, Tuesday

You woke to the knowledge that it was your last day, and it felt more bittersweet than usual. You realized as soon as you thought of it that you didn’t know what time Marcus would find you. Only that he would.

It was nice out, but you decided to pack so you’d have most of the day open. You looked around, wondering where to start, and when your eyes fell on your nightstand, you smiled. There was a large pile of books you hadn’t quite managed to finish after meeting Marcus. You’d suddenly had a lot less time for reading. 

By late morning you didn’t have anything left to do except to close up the house. You had just put your last bag in your car when you heard someone say your name. You turned just in time for Marcus to step into your space and pull you into a tight hug.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” he said, pressing a soft kiss just behind your ear in apology. “The kids demanded Uncle Mark time.”

“It’s ok, I’ve just been packing.” You pulled back and took his hand to lead him inside your house. As you stepped over the threshold you realized he’d never been inside. He looked around eagerly, taking in the varying decor.

“This is nice,” he said, gesturing to some of the art on the walls. “I like the variation.”

You laughed. “None of us like the same style, so we agreed everyone could add a little bit of their own. It’s a little bit silly.”

He smiled and shook his head. “No, it feels lived in. Like a home. Comfortable.” His words reminded you of your first lunch together, and you smiled back.

He stepped over to the couch and tugged you down next to him. You threw caution to the wind and threw your legs over his lap. He immediately slid his hands over your calves and you shivered. “I wish we had more time,” you murmured, and he nodded. Marcus straightened his shoulders and furrowed his brow, and you could tell whatever he was about to say was important. 

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something,” he started, and then stopped. You reached out and took one of his hands between your own. The corner of his mouth lifted in a small, wistful smile. “I’m so happy I met you. But I have to tell you, I just got out of an intense and, well, bad relationship. It ended badly, at least. I didn’t see it coming, but I realized after that I should have.” He cleared his throat, and you realized this was probably the reason for all of that stress and tension he kept talking about.

“Part of the reason for this whole vacation was to get away from it all. She was in Texas, and she was supposed to come with me to DC and then she didn’t. And I…” he trailed off and you squeezed his hand between your own. “It just hasn’t been that long… since it happened. I never–” he shook his head. “I never thought I’d meet you.”

He looked up, and when your eyes met you felt the intensity of his gaze. “You were so unexpected. And I like you so much.”

“I like you too, Marcus.” you couldn’t help but interject, and you thought he needed to hear it. You knew you were right when you saw some of the tension leave his shoulders.

He smiled. “I think we maybe found something good. Something too good to let it pass us by.” You nodded. You knew exactly what he meant. His smile twisted into something more rueful, more worried, and he looked down at your tangled hands. “But I’m not ready. Part of the reason everything fell apart was me rushing into things. And I don’t want to do that again.” He looked up at you. “I don’t want to do that to you.”

You looked at him, and even though you could feel the disappointment welling within you, you wanted to reassure him. You leaned forward. “I understand, it’s ok.”

But he shook his head. “No, listen. You said you come here every year, right?” You nodded. “Well, I have a proposition for you.”

You tilted your head. “Oh?”

“Meet me here next year,” he said, rushed, breath coming quickly. “We can talk, get to know each other. Learn more about each other this year. And next year, one year from today. If we’re both still interested… meet me here. Out on the beach.”

Your breath caught in your throat, suddenly swept away by the romantic notion – talking, learning each other, and meeting here again. But you paused to give it the thought you knew he deserved.

You nodded. “I do want to get to know you, Marcus.”

He smiled. “Me, too.”

You leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “One year.”

He nodded. “One year from today. And we’ll see.”

You smiled, and when you leaned in to kiss him, you knew it wouldn’t be the last time.

One year later

You were nervous as you closed the door behind you and stepped out onto the back porch. You couldn’t see the beach from there, not past the dunes, and so you couldn’t see if he’d come.

If Marcus would be there, waiting for you.

You took a deep breath and shook out your arms, trying to ground yourself. You knew Marcus, you reminded yourself. He wasn’t a stranger anymore. You’d spoken on the phone and on video chat, taking it slow and getting to know each other, letting it happen naturally.

He’d become one of your closest friends. And you knew you wanted him to be more.

You hadn’t spoken for the last week, keeping to your silent agreement not to talk about whether you were going to see each other today. Somehow you had both known that the other would need to take time and decide. And you knew Marcus was wary, these days, after Teresa. He was so afraid of rushing things, of getting ahead of himself. 

But it had been a year, and you couldn’t be more sure.

You twisted your hands together nervously as you walked down the porch steps and onto the sand. As you walked through the dunes, you didn’t let yourself search ahead. You focused on the sand in front of your feet as you thought about nothing but the man you hoped to find waiting for you on the beach.

One more dune stood between you and a clear view of the beach. You paused and took another deep breath before stepping forward.

As the beach came into view, your eyes were immediately drawn to a familiar pair of shoulders. He was standing with his back to you, looking out over the ocean, hands in the pockets of his shorts. His hair moved slightly in the light breeze. You barely registered the blanket and basket next to his feet. 

A grin took over your face. Before you could stop yourself or think about it, you called out, “Marcus!”

He was already moving towards you as he turned, a smile breaking across his face. You started walking faster as he did the same, and then you were both running. With only a few feet left between you, you flung your arms out.

Between one breath and the next you were tangled together, secure in his arms for the first time in a year. He wrapped himself around you tightly and you sank into his embrace, tangling your hands in his hair. 

He murmured your name in your ear and you shivered. “I was so afraid you weren’t coming,” he said, voice deep and warm and so familiar. “I was starting to worry I wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.”

You laughed into his neck and blinked back the sudden tears you felt threatening at the back of your eyes. You wanted to tease him back, but you knew this man and all of his worries, and more than anything you wanted to tell him the truth.

“I’ve known I would be here for months, Marcus,” you reassured him, leaning back to catch his eye. He looked as teary and emotional as you felt, but he was smiling widely. You moved your hands from his hair to cup his face gently. It was surreal, seeing him in person after so many months of nothing but videos and photos. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

He turned his smile into your palm and pressed a kiss there. You sucked in a sharp breath. “Me neither,” he murmured, kissing your hand again. “I’m–” he sighed. “Thank you for waiting for me.”

You ran your right hand through his hair and smiled when he shut his eyes at the sensation. “You’re worth the wait.”

Marcus tugged you closer and nudged his nose against your own. “So are you, sweetheart.” Before you could say anything back, he kissed you.

It was just as good as you remembered it. His lips were soft, but the way he kissed you was firm and full of intent. You sighed into his mouth and felt him smile. 

“Come on,” he said, tugging you forward as he took a step back. “I brought dinner.”

You grinned. “Are we having a picnic?”

He smiled as he let your hands tangle together. “I owe you so many dates, sweetheart. Just the first of many.”

You tilted your head and considered him, and he cocked an eyebrow at whatever expression he read on your face. “You know, this is technically our third date,” you said. You couldn’t bite down on a smile and found yourself grinning at him as he smirked at you.

“Third date, huh?”

You nodded. “Yep. Good thing you’re staying with me, isn’t it?”

Marcus laughed and you couldn’t help but admire the way it made him look lighter. His shoulders dropped and his face opened and he looked gorgeous, smiling and relaxed with you on the beach where you’d first met. 

“Are you propositioning me, sweetheart?”

You reached the blanket and he tugged you down next to him. 

“You bet your extremely cute ass I am, Pike.”

With another laugh, Marcus leaned forward to press a quick kiss to your lips before reaching for the basket. “Good. Consider me propositioned.”

You smiled and let yourself sink into the feeling, into Marcus, into the warmth you’d been missing for the last year.

…

The cry of a seagull woke you and you blinked against the sunlight that was streaming through the window of your bedroom at your parents’ beach house. It felt early, and you’d really hoped for more rest. But you were awake and you knew you wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.

Despite your frustration, you felt a smile stretch across your face when a warm hand snaked over your waist and around you, pulling you snugly into the warmth of the man you’d thought was still asleep.

“Mm,” Marcus murmured, pressing his face into your neck. “Don’t the seagulls ever take a day off?”

You snorted into your pillow and reached back to tangle your fingers in his hair, still wild from where you’d clutched at it the night before. “Never have before,” you said, and he grunted. You laughed. “Should I write them an angry letter? About letting us sleep in?”

You felt him smile into your neck. “Nah,” he said, starting to press soft kisses along the line of your throat. “Maybe I’ll thank them instead, for waking us up early and giving me more time to do this.” His hand started to slide down towards your underwear and you grinned. 

“What, are we on a schedule?” You curved your back as you asked, pressing up against him. You could feel his cock start to harden against you and smiled.

He pressed down with his hand over your underwear and your breath hitched. “Maybe not,” he said, starting to move his hand. You felt a warmth start to pool at the base of your spine and moved to grasp his arm. He kissed your neck again and murmured, “but I want so many things with you… so we better get started.”

You laughed and marveled a little at how fun this was with Marcus. It was perfect. “Yes, please,” you agreed. Marcus pressed on your hip to turn you until you were lying beneath him. He hovered over you and you took a moment to admire his smile. And the wicked look in his eye.

“Gorgeous,” he said, a little breathless. He pushed his hips down into yours and you moaned at the sensation. You ground your own hips upwards to meet him on his next thrust. “You feel so good under me, sweetheart.”

You reached down to tug your underwear down and kicked it off. He did the same and when you came together again, you both moaned at the feeling, all hot skin with nothing in between you. “So soft,” he murmured, and you pulled him down into a searing kiss.

You let the sensations wash over you – your hands in his hair, his right hand firmly gripping your hip. The way his cock rubbed against you as he ground his hips downward. The slide of his tongue against yours.

The warmth inside of you was building. You felt a shiver run up your spine like lightning and gasped.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling back to study your face. “Just like that, sweetheart. You look so gorgeous when you come. Let me see it again.” His words reminded you of the night before, when he’d put his mouth on you and taken his sweet time learning every inch of your skin. 

You felt it building again and teetered on the edge. You met his eyes and felt yourself start to fall. “Yes–” you choked out, but he claimed your mouth again and you moaned into his as you came. As it swept through you, stealing your breath away, you wondered, distantly, if it would be this amazing every time.

You blinked your eyes open and found Marcus had buried his face in your neck. His hips were still moving slowly against yours. You wrapped your legs around him and said, “yes, baby, just like that.” When he shivered, you smiled. “C’mon, Marcus, I want you to come on me.”

His hips faltered in their movement at your words, and you heard him make a low, keening noise in his throat as he threw his head back. You pressed kisses along his neck and then sucked lightly at a spot just above his collar bone.

It pushed him over the edge. You pulled back to watch him tip over and couldn’t take your eyes off of his face. You felt him come and twitched your hips upwards again. He moaned.

He fell forward and tucked his face into your neck. “Shit,” he breathed, and you grinned. “That was so fucking good.”

“Mm,” you agreed. You started to run your hands up and down his back. “Seems like we were right, last year. We’re pretty good together.”

Marcus lifted his head and caught your eye. He was smiling, but the look in his eye said even more. “And we’re just getting started.” 

You pulled him into another kiss and let him sweep you away.

Epilogue: eighteen months later 

The ocean crashed against the shore and you let the sound soothe you as you sipped your coffee. You sat curled in a loveseat on the back porch of the beach house, blanket wrapped around you to ward off the chill. This wasn’t your usual summer beach vacation and you weren’t used to it being so chilly out.

You smiled to yourself when you heard movement in the house behind you, and turned to smile up at Marcus as he came stumbling through the back door, rubbing at his eyes. “Sweetheart? You’re up early.” He yawned and you admired the lines of his body as he stretched.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you agreed, smiling. “Too excited.”

He grinned. “Me too.” He looked out over the sand and squinted, trying to see around the dunes. You imagined the rows of chairs and flowers that might already be in place on the beach and sighed. “You think they started setting up?”

You shrugged. “I’ve been told not to worry about it. Just to show up on time.” You moved over on the seat so he could sit next to you. He tucked you in his arms, blanket and all, and you leaned into it with a smile.

“Well, we’ve got at least a few hours until showtime. How should we spend them?” He nuzzled his face into your neck as he asked, and you were pretty sure you knew what he was thinking.

“Are you trying to lure me back to bed, Mr. Pike?” You knew he could probably hear the smile in your voice as you teased him.

“Maybe I am,” he agreed, pressing soft kisses along your neck. “Maybe I want you all to myself for a little while longer, before the chaos starts.”

You laughed and shook your head. “You’ll have me all to yourself forever after today, you know.”

He nibbled at your neck, and you sighed. “Just the way I want it,” he agreed. 

You could feel yourself starting to give in – you hadn’t seen him in two weeks before last night, as you’d been packing up the last of your apartment in Houston and he’d been doing the same with his place in DC. You smiled again, thinking about the new place and new jobs awaiting the two of you in New York, ready for you to return from your honeymoon. “You know, my brother reminded me last night that it’s bad luck to see each other the day of the wedding,” you teased, and you felt him laugh. “I told him I hadn’t seen you in two weeks and luck would just have to deal with it.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Marcus said. “Now come on, we’ve got at least an hour before anyone comes looking for us or makes us get ready.” He brushed his nose against your ear and murmured, “let’s get this marriage off to a good start.”

You laughed and let him pull you up. “I love you, you know,” you said, leaning in to kiss him. When you pulled back the look in his eye made your breath hitch, even after all this time. 

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

...

a/n: Thank you for reading. 🧡 I thought about posting this in small bits but I'm just giving it to you all at once. 😂

Some links! The Houston Museum of Natural Science:

Pics and more from the Morian Hall of Paleontology: https://www.geologyvirtualtrips.com/hmns-hall-of-paleontology 

The Herzstein Foucault Pendulum: https://www.hmns.org/exhibits/herzstein-foucault-pendulum/ 

More about the museum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Museum_of_Natural_Science 

https://samblyblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/assignmentquestion/ 

https://www.tiktok.com/@houstonmuseumns/video/7202415390708780331

And the pottery described in the fic is based on the amazing work of Maker Missya.

tag list coming in a reblog 🧡 (this post is already way too long)

[apparently-artless]

kaiju no. 8 episode 11 - hibino kafka & the 3rd division defense force

bonus: 3rd division saluting to their captain when they are in fact saluting to kafka ♡( ◡‿◡ )

[meep-meep-richie]

´´ You already know that i´m interested. ´´

[eurydia]

fake romance scenes (5/?) - Zevlor, pt. 3, morning after

credit to @rainyaviels for the reference ❤️ thank you

[stunies]

very messy word dump below the cut + in tags :^) heh

okay it’s officially been a full day since reading this and i’m going to write down everything i remember feeling from day 1! and then in the tags im going to reread this (for the third time within 24 hours) and add thoughts that i didn’t put down here. SORRY FOR THE MESS & NO PRESSURE TO READ ALL THIS SJKDMF IT IS JUST A LOT OF WORD VOMIT BC IM INSANE OVER THIS FIC

okay i should start from the beginning. Wait I’ll use caps so it’s easier to read if you’re reading it bahahhaa OKAY. The way you write alpha / omega!!! It’s different from what I’m used to reading— and I mean it has a lot of a depth. The way you wrote reader being an alpha = being so protective over Aventurine fucked me up so bad /pos. Reader just wants him safe and they’re so real for that.

Going off on that, I LOVE HOW U WROTE THE READER. Understands Aventurine so well. Will literally do anything to keep him safe. Understands what sets him off and what he’s comfortable with. The part where Aventurine was talking about the next mission & reader seeing right through him ): are you serious /pos. WAIT I SKIPPED TOO FAR AHEAD. When Aventurine was trying to get reader to join the IPC? Dead. Evie DEAD. Reader saw right through him omg. Being able to notice the little changes in his scent, the way he tries to mask it etc etc. I love that so bad.

WHEN READER FOUND HIM IN HEAT FUUUCK. ARE YOU SERIOUS /pos. Fighting the urge to help him vs waiting to just make it better because reader has the power to ): I loved that so much. The struggle was so real. Literally bringing a doctor just to hear that he needs an alpha to help anyways omg. Lowkey when the doctor said that I was like PLEASE LET US HELP YOU PLEASEEEEEEE. But also. I didn’t want him to be scared either you know ):

I skipped over another scene sighs. THE part where reader said ‘I like your eyes because they’re yours” and then the end. Him saying he likes our scent because it’s ours. Are you serious /pos. Be so serious /pos.

Okay the scent gland scenes actually fucked me up so bad (I unfortunately did not dream about anything but maybe that is for the best because I’m still recovering from this scene). The part where he asks for just the wrist. Reader struggling when they FEEL HIS TEETH GRAZE THE WRIST IM GONNA EXPLODE OMFG. The immediate pulling away because we don’t want to scare him please. + the scent gland scene at the end. HE DIDN’T FEEL LIKE HE HAD TO BE ON TOP. We could lay side by side ): I was so happy that he was okay with that omg. Literally all giddy like aaaaa!!!!!! IM NOT A THREAT!! Actually that’s a lie I wasn’t giddy. I was literally in tears jejdkckckckk Aventurine 😭😭 ughhhhhhh /pos

I won’t comment on the actual scene (I am commenting on it right now actually) because I was literally so sad and my heart hurt so badly for him. I wanted him to see himself from our POV for just one moment so he can understand that we genuinely love him and treasure him & want to keep him safe. ):

ABOUT YOUR WRITING ITSELF : insanity. I will just say insanity. How should I put it in words….. just thinking about this fic again is taking all the words out of my mouth shejdjfjj (I say this as I type a 27738 page essay about it). I love how you write. I really do. Your writing style is so beautiful. I haven’t read the other tags under your fic but I’m sure many others have said the same thing!!! They word it better than me I’m sure bsjsjsjsjsk

I just love everything about it. How you add in little details (oh! Speaking of details— Aventurine’s reaction to reader cozying up to her husband in the other fic) HEJDJJDJDJ omg. But in this fic, the little signs of him being scared. Scared 24/7 actually ): I love how you conveyed his fear so much. And the way he tries so hard to hide it. HIM CRUMBLING DOWN TO HIS RAW SELF WHEN HES IN HEAT. AND THE FEAR THERE TOO. INSANE.

^^ How you wrote him so adamant about not needing help at first …. To him asking for the scent gland ….. to him agreeing to use reader. It was all so real. He didn’t just change his mind like oh okay! It took him a while to be okay with it and I love how real it all felt. You write dialogue & little details so well— it actually drives me nuts (/compliment /pos)

Oh this just reminded me. Your description of how Aventurine smells killed me /pos. And how you describe his scent as sweet. I’m really not okay /pos. It fits him so well. And … for reader…. the scent after rain ? Oh my god ???? I love that smell so much. It’s so comforting…. OMG. COMFORTING????????? BECAUSE. Oh wow. I’m really not okay now. I JUST LOVE ALL THE DETAILS LIKE THAT )))): it’s so clear you put so much thought into all these things because your fic has so much depth. I lowkey yanked out Notibility for your other Aventurine fic to highlight the parts I wanted to comment on ehdjdkkck I was annotating it like a book (I’m so sorry if this is creepy I promise I don’t do this on a regular basis. I don’t annotate fics normally. Actually please disregard this because I’m a bit red admitting this) (I just have the memory of a goldfish and can only remember feelings and not actual content) (That’s a lie because here I am remembering a lot of this fic MOST LIKELY BECAUSE I READ IT WITH MY EYES AN INCH FROM THE SCREEN PROBABLY I WAS LIKE O_O) /pos

NIGHT FLOWER: part i

Your place in the world was one of a tool. This was true of every slave: you were all things to be used. Kakavasha understood this about you, and he understood this about himself. It was how he survived all those years ago, and it’s how he survives now. And so, when Aventurine goes into his first heat in years and decides to suffer it alone, you can only think of one way to get him to accept your help: You offer to let him use you.

written for @/lorelune's spring fever collab & @ficsforgaza

13.5k words of omegaverse, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, angst with an eventual happy ending. gn alpha reader + omega aventurine (they each have both amab and afab genitalia). explicit piv sex, reader bottoms, the sex is consensual but emotionally complicated and deeply sad. cw slavery, racism, gendered violence, including very brief and non-graphic (but direct) references to sexual abuse during slavery. the sa and slavery are not eroticized. dead dove do not eat, mdni.

thank you to @acerathia, @minnaci, @owlespresso for all your help with beta reading and to @kosmiccarma for brainstorming omega aventurine hcs!

��I’ve alw███ l█ved ███, Ka██v█s███”

You knew it from the moment you met him.

Gaunt, pallid, weighed down by heavy chains. Irises that glowed like the auroras back in your world. Delicate features that made every passerby in the market stop to read the description on the placard. (Sigonian, it said, although you couldn’t read at the time. Avgin. Male. Omega. Sixteen years old. Sixty Tanba, no tax.) He had an all-consuming scent that was impossible to ignore—one that possessed you, made your heels dig into the dirt, every atom in your body resisting the impatient jerk of the chains at your wrist. Even through your muzzle, through the perpetual stench of carbon-steel and blood, you could smell it: honey and wildflowers. A fragrance that settled deep within you, flooded you with a warmth that felt like home.

Aventurine is not a spiritual person. He once told you this, his smile cold in the glow of an artificial moon. He'd been deeply religious as a child, but hasn’t since cared for fairy tales about fortune and fate, three-eyed goddesses or merciful rainfalls. Hasn't thought about anything like a destined love. He thinks the idea of a true mate is laughable, that no such bond could ever be forged between an omega and an alpha. That nothing so unconditional could ever exist.

You know differently, of course. You've known it from the moment you met him, from the second you laid eyes on him and thought, I need to help you, and I need to protect you, and I need you to be safe, and you’d never once heard the word ‘love’ in your life—slaves are never loved by their masters, after all, and you'd always been nothing but a slave—but every atom of your being knew that you loved him, that you'd always love him.

And when your master cradled your face that night and crooned that he owned you, that you'd always be his obedient, alpha pet—for the first time in your life, you knew that he was wrong.

You didn't belong to your slaver.

You belonged to him.

To Kakavasha.

These days, Aventurine does not smell like honey, and your jaw is not restrained.

Your muzzle was one of the first things that Aventurine threw away when he bought your freedom. According to the Amber Era system, it had been several months since the murder of your shared master. Ninety-five Star Calendar days after the Interastral Peace Corps had arrested Kakavasha. An entire rotation around the black hole at the centre of your wretched galaxy, all of which had been spent in the captivity of some new mistress. She picked you out because she liked your calming scent and the look of your face, but mostly she used you for the fighting pits just like your old master.

Aventurine had been sitting in the audience of your final match, then bought you out right after you won. “I’m in need of a fighter,” he’d said, smiling in his thick furs and jewels. He played the part of a slavemaster perfectly, his gloved hands wandering the span of your aching shoulders, touching the bloodied maw of your mask. “And I’d be willing to pay top credit for yours.”

She protested. You were her most prized possession, one of her greatest investments. Slaves from your planet were hard enough to come by—alphas capable of reproduction, nearly impossible. And you were so well-behaved, so poised, so endearing in a way that was rare for alphas. She was fond of you. Her omega slaves were fond of you too. They would be distraught if you left, and that would complicate her household affairs—and surely Aventurine, as a respectable owner of human capital like herself, could understand how inconvenient that would be?

Aventurine bared his teeth in a gracious smile. (You’d never seen Kakavasha make such an expression before—so disarming, so cunning, a crescent moon beneath snake eyes. He’d never smelt like this either, like an expensive cologne layered with bleach, and it left you feeling nauseous, wondering if he was ill.) He flirted his way into her good graces, made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, and then he brought you into the first-class ship on which he’d arrived. You were so stunned by its luxury—the handwoven carpets, the crushed velvet seats, the imported tea from several galaxies away and the custom-ordered outfit he had bought for you—that you nearly missed the tremble in his hands as he punched numbers into the remote control lock for your chains.

He had regained his composure by the time he pulled away your muzzle, though. He threw it carelessly to the ground—your titanium chains, too. Then kicked both away with his shined leather shoes.

“There,” Aventurine said, smiling cheerfully. “Much better, don’t you think?”

“Vasha—” you started, voice thick with wasted grief, and all you wanted to was reach for him, to double check that he was real, but he placed a finger to your lips and stopped you. You stiffened at the satin touch, but he seemed unbothered.

“‘Aventurine’,” he corrected.

You stared blankly. “What?”

“‘Aventurine’. Like the gemstone. That’s my name now.”

“You—” Your voice caught in your throat. You realized that you’d been holding your breath. You always had the habit of holding your breath in the luxurious, private rooms of very rich men, because you never liked what happened in them. Forcing yourself to breathe, you asked, “You gave yourself a new name?”

“No. The IPC gave me a new name. They gave me a job, too.”

“A job?” you asked, voice faint. Now that you were breathing again, you were noticing once more just how bizarre he smelled. Sterile and expensive and completely foreign. “You’re free now?”

“Well, I’m a freedman, but I don’t know if I’d call myself free. I’m a bit… indebted to the IPC, let’s say. But that’s fine. I can’t complain. I mean—look around. This beats the fighting pits, doesn’t it?” He gestured lazily at your surroundings, and you nodded.

“It’s nice here,” you replied, feeling absurd but not knowing what else to say. Once Kakavasha got talking, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise.

“You like it here? Good. This room’s yours. Mine is the next one over. You’ll live and work here, with me. I’ll make sure you’re paid well. Full benefits, vacation, salary, and overtime. The standard pay for your role is seventy-thousand credits per month, but I’ll see if I can get you more. HR is pretty strict about their hiring policies, but—”

“You’re hiring me?”

Aventurine went very still, his smile tightly controlled. His eyes remained fixed on you, but they seemed less snake-like, now. They looked more familiar. More afraid.

“I’m offering, yes,” he said neatly. “You’ll be part of my personal security detail. I don’t have the contract for you to review yet, unfortunately. I didn’t arrange one ahead of time because, well”—he laughed, as if this were polite conversation and he were making a joke about the weather—“I didn’t know if I’d find you alive. But things worked out in my favour. They always work out in my favour. I’ll make sure they’ll work out in your favour too, so long as you’re with me. So you’ll consider it, won’t you? Staying with—working for me, I mean.”

Your eyes went soft. Beneath the artificial fragrance, you finally caught a hint of his familiar scent—more wildflower than honey at that moment, the way it always is when he’s scared.

“Kakavasha—”

“Name your price,” he said loudly, “and I’ll match it.”

You sighed. “Vasha,” you said more gently, and his shoulders relaxed at the subvocal shift in your timbre, at the famed alpha Voice that necessitated your muzzle, “I don’t care about the money. Of course I’ll stay here. But—what happened? Why did you kill him yourself? Why didn't you let me do it? That was the plan. It was always supposed to be me.”

It was my job, you thought then, just as you had thought to yourself every night, curled up in your bed and trying to recall the scent of fresh honey, to keep you safe.

He shrugged and said, “It would have been too risky to involve you.”

“You were caught and sentenced to death. The risk was already too high.”

“But the stakes weren’t,” he replied simply, and before you could ask what he meant by that, he continued, “and it worked out, didn’t it? I work for the IPC. You work for me. We’re freedmen now. Whatever I've lost, it doesn't matter. Our gains far outweigh it.”

“And what have you lost, Vasha?”

He smiled at you, charming and distracting. A crescent moon beneath snake eyes. “Nothing of value,” he reassured you, and even though you could feel the calm of an omega’s voice washing over you, even though it released all the tension in your body, all you could smell was cologne and wildflowers, and you knew that he was lying.

Vasha once told you, curled up and quiet on the basement floor, that he despised his eyes. They were supposed to be a sign of blessing from Gaiathra Triclops, but they'd never brought him anything but trouble. They were the first thing that the slavers always noticed about him, the feature that made him such an alluring commodity. Their aurora glow, their strange beauty, their promise of a rare opportunity: a chance at owning a specimen of an exotic, endangered species, possibly the last of its kind. These are all things that you've heard in the parlour of your master’s house as he entertained rich company, the crowd of them gawking at his human curios.

Avgin are said to make the most beautiful slaves, he'd often say. And Avgin omegas are said to be the most beautiful among them. What do you all think? They'd all hum, peering closely at Kakavasha’s features, and inevitably someone would joke, I think I'd like to borrow him sometime, and then they would all laugh while your pulse ticked up and you imagined tearing at their throats. Vasha would search for your gaze in these moments, giving you a long, pointed look: Don't do anything stupid.

He’d always been so blasé about it, the way people fixated on his Avgin blood. You'll never understand how. He didn't react to any of the comments, the groping, the innuendos. He was, however, distinctly unimpressed at the way that your master liked to play him up as a rare and expensive acquisition, as a sign of his own status. It's embarrassing to watch, Kakavasha had remarked. Everyone knows that Sigonian slaves are uncommon but cheap—people always think we’ll bring them more trouble than our worth. This was how Kakavasha had ended up in the market in the first place: because his last master had been robbed, and he'd been wrongly blamed for it.

The blame, to this day, has never stopped. People—powerful people, politicians, businessmen, socialites—look at Aventurine’s eyes and immediately reach for their pockets. You've seen it for yourself, these spineless despots and scammers feeling for their wallets. Sigonian, you know they're thinking. Liar, cheat, thief, whore, worthless, worthless, worthless. Your hands tighten around your blade each time, a loaded gun with a finger on the trigger.

Alphas are said to be violent by nature. Aventurine has often called you the one exception to this rule: the most docile, good-hearted alpha he's ever met. But this is a lie. You do have a predator instinct, and it comes out in full-force whenever you’re around these particular types of men. These types who notice Aventurine’s eyes and see a thief; these monsters who see his irises and imagine what it would be like to bed him. You’d kill them if you could. It would be so easy, especially now that you are an IPC dog. The Company is already such a violent force; what would be one more murder?

But Aventurine has never ordered you to punish anyone. (Don't do anything stupid, he always tells you with a glance, smiling through every humiliation.) Nor has he ever seemed bothered enough by these meetings to try concealing his heritage.

A fellow Asset Liquidation Specialist once asked why he didn't just hide his eye colour—it would likely be better for fostering relationships, negotiating deals—but Aventurine had shrugged it off. I'm a gambler working with the IPC, he'd said. Do you really think a pair of coloured contacts would make anyone trust me? He'd laughed, and his voice had carried a threatening edge, and his coworker had shifted visibly at it. Being an Avgin is the least threatening thing about me, wouldn't you say?

You think that Aventurine likes being seen as a threat. Sometimes you wonder if this is why he doesn't mind wearing his eyes so much, but abhors keeping his scent. He washes his clothes until they're free of his disarming sweetness and then masks himself with an unsettling blend of ambergris, jasmine, and wood. And he is on suppressants all the time—hasn’t had a single heat since the day he killed his master. Hasn't smelled like himself, either.

At the end of the day, it’s manageable being an Avgin in this business, he often comments, spraying half a bottle of masking cologne on himself, but you can't be an Avgin and an omega. Wouldn’t you agree?

You'd know better than me, you reply, noncommittally—and truthfully.

But you're an alpha, he observes. Don't you have an opinion?

You don't pay me to have opinions, you always remind him, stone-faced. You pay me to stand here and look scary. And Aventurine always laughs at this, and he always wires you money and calls it a bonus as he pesters you for an answer, and he always gets distracted and starts scrolling through all his shopping wishlists instead. I saw this thing the other day and thought of you. And this too. Would you like either of them? Would you like them both? I’m a very generous manager, you know. I'll buy you anything you like.

But even though he always gets distracted, Aventurine never forgets. Sooner or later, he inevitably circles back to these questions—these anxieties about his scent, about his eyes, about his blood. He never cares for anyone else’s opinions, but he's always been curious about yours. Even when he was Vasha, he wanted to know what you thought.

He’d been sixteen years old and delirious with heat the first time he asked you, face wrinkling with pain as he spilled his thoughts. It was so incoherent, so sad, you thought it must have been about a fever dream. Mama Fenge, he kept saying. Mama Fenge blessed me, She blessed me, I'm blessed, it rained when I was born—did you know that? My luck, I was lucky. The Katicans, they never caught me. They got everyone else, but not me. I was blessed by Her. I'm going to save my people. I will. I'll save my sister. My eyes are proof. My mistress liked them. Said they're beautiful. Worth sixty whole coppers. A blessing. He pulled you close, pressed his scalding face to your scent gland, and his whole body shuddered with relief. This was the first and only time he'd allowed you to hold him, and it was only out of desperation, out of his mind. Do you like them, alpha? Do you like my eyes? Why? Is it because they're beautiful? Because they're from Gaiathra?

“I like them because they're yours,” you'd replied, and Kakavasha had laughed deliriously.

This is when he told you he hated them: I'd close them forever, if I could.

When you were younger—dumber—you had a habit of squirrelling away every spare coin you came across. You collected them in a little purse that one of the omega slaves had sewn for you—a thank-you for always keeping the other alphas away from her—and you hid it underneath a loose floorboard. By the time that Kakavasha was arrested, you'd saved up twenty-nine Tanba. You’d wanted enough to buy Kakavasha’s freedom and then to set him up for a comfortable life.

It had been a stupid plan. An embarrassing one. If you ever confessed it to Aventurine, he'd laugh at you. Slaves can't buy other slaves, he'd say. Leave the schemes to me next time. You’re too good-hearted for it.

You’d already known that, of course. You knew that you didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him, but you wanted to. God, did you want to—you spent every waking moment thinking about it, every sleeping moment dreaming of it. It wasn't even that you desired him, though he was beautiful and fragrant and more delicate than anything that had ever touched you in your life, which was only your master’s hands and your muzzle and your chains. Aventurine would feel so soft in comparison, you’d always figured. It made your heart ache, thinking about getting to hold something so lovely.

But really—that desire came second. What came first was how mated omegas feel safe around their alphas, and you so desperately wanted him to be safe. Kakavasha had looked so frail, so grim, as your master took his chains and led him home from the market, and you could smell the fear coming off him in waves. And you could do nothing to stop it. You had nothing you could use to stop it—nothing other than your hands that could kill for him and your pheromones that could soothe him and your useless heart that wanted to collect sixty Tanba for him. That was all you had.

So you failed in the end. Of course you did. You didn't have the status to buy him or mate him or even just provide for him. You couldn't even do for him the one thing you could have done—which was to kill. And Kakavasha suffered for your incompetence. He had to dirty his hands with blood and gamble his way into wealth and then suddenly he was freeing you, not the other way around.

And now you are comfortable. You'll lead an easy life from now, Aventurine reassured you when he brought you onto his ship all those years ago, and he's kept that promise. What about you? you'd asked him then. Will you lead an easy life with me, if you're working for the IPC? And he had smiled and lied to you: Yes.

It had been a painfully obvious lie. If you were a smarter person, you'd have never believed it in the first place. Aventurine has no interest in leading an easy life, because an easy life would be less profitable, and less profit would mean less safety. And he is always, always worried about being unsafe. It is indiscernible to everyone but you—an alpha (his alpha, always his, even if he doesn't want you) who has watched over him for so long that you can detect every shift in his scent. No matter how much cologne he drowns himself in and no matter how strong his suppressants are, you know when he is afraid.

And here is the bitter truth, the ultimate proof of your shortcomings:

Aventurine is always afraid.

It is a beautiful day on Agnisahr, and you can tell that Aventurine is about to throw up from worry.

You're sitting in the middle of stunning wealth—Aventurine in his feathers and jewellery, you in your tailored jacket—in a lobby made from marble and pale sandstone, with a view of palm trees and rolling, scarlet sand dunes beyond the window. The waitstaff addresses him as Honoured Guest and they keep his crystal chalice filled constantly with water—one of the most expensive commodities on the planet. Aventurine has been drinking from it religiously, which is strange as he typically has the habit of forgetting to hydrate. A faint wildflower scent is drifting from his slender form. These are the only giveaway to his mood: he's otherwise as pokerfaced as ever, smiling calmly as he discusses his plans to sabotage the local government and acquire the planet for the IPC.

“This is a very dangerous mission,” you state flatly.

“All my missions are dangerous.” He takes a sip, one pinky up. “The IPC pays me well for a reason. As they say—”

“‘High risk, high reward.’ I know.” You try not to sound bitter, though you allow yourself to sound tired. “I still do not think the risk is worth the reward in this case.”

“I think over 5.6 million in credits is a great reward, actually. We could do a lot with that kind of money.”

You raise a brow. “What could an extra 5.6 million get you that you can't already buy?” It is—as Topaz would say—‘chump change’ in comparison to his current wealth, which sums to a number so vast that you can't wrap your head around it.

Aventurine pretends to miss the point. “Tons! We could buy a new spacecraft. Get another mansion. Or—we could take a vacation to Penacony. I hear it's quite nice there.” A playful smile. “I could get us a penthouse unit. With a featherbed.”

You frown. Sometimes Aventurine likes to flirt when you're being stubborn—not out of interest, but as a ploy to distract you. He’d developed the habit after he joined the IPC. It used to fluster you, but now it only makes you cross your arms.

“You could die,” you point out.

“You'll protect me.”

“No, I won't. You always find a way to get rid of me when things are most dangerous.” You give him an accusatory stare. “You never let me do my job.”

He's too shameless to deny it. “And it's worked out fine, hasn't it? I haven't died so far.”

“Yes. Just by dumb luck.”

“I beg to differ. My luck is quite reliable.” He sets down his glass. Glances back outside. A microexpression, brows knotting for the briefest second as he studies the sky. “I'm not worried.”

“You're a shit liar.”

That gets him to look at you, letting a small frown pass over his face. “No, I'm actually a great liar. You're just too good at reading me. It's very inconvenient, you know.”

“I can't help it.” You lean toward him, making a show of it as you sniff. An orchid-like scent—faint but unmistakable—has seeped into artificial ambergris and wood. “It's hard to ignore.”

He hums. He isn't frowning anymore—but doesn't look happy, either. “I should change suppressants.” He taps the side of his empty glass, fidgeting. Aventurine never fidgets: it's an amateur giveaway. “These ones clearly don't work well enough.”

“That won't help. I know you too well.” Your eyes soften. He's looking outside again, the blues of his irises distant. “You're worried, Aventurine. More than usual. Let’s back out of this—let Jade handle it.”

“The mission isn't what's bothering me,” he says patiently. “I just don't like this planet.”

“Because you can tell it's dangerous.”

“No. Well—it is, but nothing I can't handle.” He leans back. “I just dislike the weather here.”

You arch a brow. “...the weather?”

“Yes,” he says neatly, “it's too dry here. I'll break out.”

You open your mouth. Close it. It is possibly the most absurd thing you've ever heard, and certainly the worst lie that's ever come from him. For as long as you've known him, Aventurine has had flawless skin, marble-smooth, and ever since being freed, he’s never really cared much for looking handsome so much as looking rich. But he maintains his serious expression: all-in on the farce. “Did you know that outside the capital, this planet hasn't had any natural rain in a quarter of an Amber Era? And the stellar winds are terrible. I don't know how people live on a planet like this.” His eyes narrow at the cloudless sky. “The IPC is going to need to do a lot of terraforming if they want to make this into a merchant hub.”

“Aventurine.”

“It'll be a pain crossing the desert—the elements will ruin my clothes, you know,” he continues. “It won't be so bad while we're on the ships, but we’ve got to go outside from time to time. Can't make any friends otherwise.”

“Aventurine.”

“And there's nothing to do for fun when we’re not working.” He sighs dramatically. “I can't wait to get our 5.6 billion and leave for someplace else. I'm being serious about Penacony, by the way—”

“Aventurine.”

“—though not about the featherbed. I'll get you your own room, obviously. And I'll buy whatever dream experience you’d like. What kind would you want?”

Finally allowed a chance to speak, you say, “One where you retire.”

“Retire? Why would I ever do that?”

“I don't know. Maybe you decide you've made enough money.”

“No such thing.”

“Then you can settle down with someone.”

That makes him smile. It feels mocking. “Me? Settling down? With who?”

“Who knows. Someone who will treat you better than the IPC, I hope.”

“Anyone that nice would run in the other direction. But never mind me. This would be your dream experience. What happens to you in it?”

“I stop chasing after you and get to live out the rest of my days in peace,” you say dryly, and Aventurine blinks. “Please stop deflecting. The IPC gave you a suicide mission. We will both die if we stay here.”

He looks serious now. “I wouldn't let you die.”

“You can't know that.”

“Well, I do. And I've got decent chances at surviving too—at least one in ten.”

You feel like sighing—a deep, aggravated noise is heavy in your throat—but Aventurine doesn't enjoy it when you show anger around him. It's the one omega instinct that he can't ignore, you suppose: unease around an aggressive alpha. Voice tightly controlled, you say, “You’re going to bet your life on one in ten?”

  “Sure. My chances were worse on the last planet, and things worked out great. It'll be the same on Agnisahr.” Aventurine raises a hand, calls for the bill. The conversation is over. You lean back in your seat, watching sourly as he pays tens of thousands of credits just for water.

“You know, they say the royal family is backed by an Aeon,” you can't help but point out, once the waiter is gone. A last-ditch effort. Aventurine smiles at it, amused. Like you're a child.

“So what?” He glances outside, at the desolate landscape beyond the oasis—nothing but red sand, a blue, rainless sky, and two radiant suns shining above it all. “The protection of a god is nothing compared to the schemes of human beings. And gods abandon their people all the time, anyway.”

During your tenth day on Agnisahr, you realise that something is deeply wrong.

It takes you some time to understand what’s happening. At first you think that whatever political danger you’ve intuited is much worse than you thought, and that’s why Aventurine has been so pale, so discomforted, so exhausted. Then his scent starts changing—he switches clothes two, three times a day (because of all this heat during Agnisahran days, he tells his new business associates) and spritzes his nape with his cologne almost religiously—and you wonder if he is sick with something. If the food in this planet has something that disagrees with his Sigonian biology, or if he has picked up one of the local filoviruses, or if someone’s poisoned one of his meals because they’ve correctly identified him as a threat. Aventurine dismisses every single one of these theories when you bring it up, and—as if in denial—only attributes it to the weather. (I’ve never done well in deserts, he tells you, his eyes on his phone screen. I'm not used to them. It is above 300 Kelvin, and you do not see a single bead of sweat on his neck, and his cheeks are not even a little flushed.)

You only figure it out when he is too ill to get out of bed one morning and forbids all the IPC staff from coming near his hotel room. It sets off alarms immediately—Aventurine, no matter how sick, will work and see through meetings as long as he is mentally capable of it—and so you naturally ignore his orders and check on him, using the spare key to his sleeping quarters that you're given as a policy. And as soon as the door cracks open—as soon as you step inside only to be hit with a violent, cloying sweetness—you realise what’s happening and slam the door shut behind you.

“You’re in heat,” you blurt out, and Aventurine—a shivering, panting mess on the bed—groans in response.

“Why are you here?” He turns toward you, still lucid enough to glare at you through the tangled mess of his hair. His voice is weak, but no less self-possessed: “I was very clear—no company today.”

“I am your personal bodyguard,” you remind him mildly. Your voice is calm—both non-threatening and non-condescending. “Those orders don’t apply to me. If things feel suspicious, I look into it. And they felt very suspicious.” Your brow knits as you study his clothes. Mulberry silk clings to his form, soaked through with sweat. Thin, eucalyptus sheets are tangled up around him. There are only two pillows. No water bottles. No knotting toys.

Nothing.

“You didn't know you'd be in heat,” you realise. “What happened to your suppressants?”

“I don't know.” There’s a quiet, frustrated edge to his voice. Vulnerable too. It makes you think of when you were both still slaves, and Aventurine was confined to the basement of the manor—the one that all omega slaves were made to ride out their heats in. Either they would do it alone or were ordered to spend it with some alpha, usually either a friend of the master or an alpha slave he wished to reward. That's when they're most pliable, he'd tell his guests, or sometimes even you. They get so desperate they'll present themselves to anyone. Then amused laughter from the other party—How obscene!—as you looked away, blood hammering in your ears.

You had been your master’s favourite. His most obedient, most profitable pet—striking enough for his guests to admire, deadly enough for his audiences to bet on, docile enough for him to enjoy. Good enough for him to reward, and he often rewarded you with his most beautiful slave: his Avgin omega. Just don't mark him, he’d said, fastening the muzzle around your mouth. It'll ruin his market value. Who knows if someday he'd sell Kakavasha off to some alpha master who wished to claim him, he said. Though I don't think there's anyone in this star system who'd want a Sigonian for a mate, let alone a Sigonian slave. Then he’d paused, eyes scanning over you. As if contemplating. But maybe they'd try to get Avgin whelps out of him, he added, and you felt like throwing up.

You'd never mate him in those moments, your muzzle always prevented you from saying. You didn't even want to think about touching him, and he didn't want to think about it either. Even in the cruel grip of his heats, with nothing but the thin mat beneath him and his slave’s rags around him, Kakavasha hadn't wanted any kind of contact from you, rejecting any chance of solace. Don't, don't—not again, not again, he'd begged. Then as the nights marched on and his mind grew hazier, he’d start whimpering too: It hurts, alpha. It hurts. Help me. It hurts. Don't touch me. Not again. It hurts. It hurts. Stop it, please stop it.

It gutted you.

It went against every instinct, not to touch him. To let him lie there, in scorching, lonely pain, when all you wanted to do was to dispel it. It would be so easy to press yourself against him and let his skin cool against yours, do the one thing that your body was good at other than killing. But not again, not again, I can't anymore, I don't want it, I never wanted it, and all you could do was sit there, unmoving. Watch as the most delicate, precious thing you had in your life shatter.

And standing here now, watching Aventurine shatter before you once more—it is unbearable. He needs a nest, you keep thinking. He needs a nest and some water and some kind of touch, some kind of relief, but not again, not again, and you’re still a slave, still a worthless and stupid slave, and Kakavasha is still crying on a basement floor and you can't do anything for him.

“You need help, Aventurine,” you say, voice soft, and his whole body tenses. His scent dips, and the scent of florals overwhelms you.

“No,” he breathes, “I don't.”

“You do. You're sick.” You bite your lip. Your heart splits as you suggest it, but you say, “I can call a professional.”

“No,” he spits. The facade is gone. The poker face has cracked. The anger and the pain and the fear are all on full display, and his voice sharpens: “No strangers.”

No foreign scents, you realise he's demanding. A new scent would probably make him feel unsafe.

Then let me help you, you think of pleading, but not again, not again, and you're filled with so much shame at the thought that all you can do is look away.

“Then—can I do anything?” He goes still. “Not—not that, but something to make you more comfortable. I can build you a nest, at least—”

“No.” He takes a deep, shaking breath. “No nests. I don't need one—”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don't,” he says. His voice is wavering now, on the verge of crumbling with fever and pain. “I've never—I’ve never needed a nest, I don't—I don't want to—” He presses his face into his pillow. “I need—I need to be alone, fuck—”

He doesn't mean to whine. The cry for distress is instinct, something that all omegas are programmed to do in heat. You’ve heard that they’ve evolved to make this noise as a way of appealing to nearby alphas for help, but you think this must be a lie as you never once saw your alpha master giving mercy to any of his omega slaves. Still, whether it is your biology or not—the noise that Aventurine makes has your heart aching so much you can't help but step forward. But he shakes his head and inches away, shuddering violently, and then his voice echoes again in that cold basement—not again, not again, and don't touch it anymore, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore, not again, and it's all you can do to back away until your spine is pressed against the door.

“I'm sorry, Vasha,” you say, strained. “I’m sorry. I'll leave you now.”

As the door shuts behind you, you catch a final glimpse him—face pressed into the pillows, shivering.

If you didn't know better, you'd think he was crying.

When you were both slaves, Aventurine hated seeing you during his heats.

Kakavasha was normally calm around you. Most of the time, he was even friendly (he was friendly to everyone whom he thought could be useful), but he was different during his heats. Sometimes he was vicious; mostly he was withdrawn. Nearly always, he wanted to be left alone. In those moments, all he could register was your alpha scent and his memories of what other people had done to him during his heats. And while you'd have hated to leave him, despised the idea of him being offered to another alpha—even more than that, you hated violating this boundary of his. Hated that you were allowed to do whatever you wanted to him. Hated being the reason he felt so unsafe.

Hated being an alpha.

Now that you no longer have the orders of your slavemaster hanging over you, it is the least you can do to respect Aventurine’s wish of being left alone. He has every right to privacy, and you have every obligation to give it to him. But instead you have been standing here, outside his door, for a full system-hour.

Every time you try to leave, your body is wracked with anxiety. The thought of other people—other alphas—coming near him in this state makes you seethe, your hands flexing at your side. The predator instinct comes out, and the people around you notice it. Every person unlucky enough to walk down this hall scurries away under your glare, even the other IPC staff wandering about to look for Aventurine: Must be their mate on the other side, they remark to one another, and then they're gone.

It is a hard thing to hear. You are not his mate. You are not even a heat partner. If you were, then he wouldn't be in so much pain. Not now, and not back then.

Aventurine has never had easy heats. You keep replaying your memories of all his past ones, each one a wound in your heart: the aching sweetness of nectar and honey; his withering body as he clutched his abdomen and curled up; the tears and sweat staining the mat beneath him. And above all: the fear. The scent of it, the sight of it, the sound of it in his voice. Stronger today than any other day.

By instinct, you know that he cannot persist like this. That this time is somehow worse than all those other times, and that he will become seriously ill if left alone.

After nearly an hour and a half, you finally open the door, fearing the worst.

“Aventurine?” you say quietly, but there's no response, and your stomach drops as you see him.

His body is pale, listless. If it weren't for the fragrance washing over you or the sweat on his temple, you'd worry that he was dead.

Tentatively, you reach out. Rest a hand on his forehead, and it scorches you. He stirs at the touch, doesn't open his eyes—but the quiet sigh of relief is unmistakable. His fingers twitch, as if wanting to reach for you.

“Aventurine,” you say gently. “Aventurine, I'm going to take care of you. Is that alright?”

He doesn't respond. You grimace, pulling away to fetch things for him: several spare pillows from the closet, an extra blanket too. From his suitcase, you grab a few of his sweaters, all thick cotton and fleece. He’d had a sense that Agnisahr would be cold at night. Deserts always get cold after sundown, since sand doesn’t retain heat, he'd told you while he was packing. Or I think so, anyway. Don't know why. Must have read it somewhere. Then he’d given you a long, unreadable look before saying, Make sure to bring a jacket. The warmest one you have. The elements on a planet like Agnisahr can kill a person—even a person like you.

I’m sure I’ll be fine, you’d dismissed him. I can survive anything. Any kind of weather, any kind of illness, any kind of pain: these are all things your species is known for being able to endure, the trait that made you such a prized slave in your master’s eyes, such a useful agent at the IPC. You hadn’t given Aventurine’s warning any thought and hardly paid attention to what you’d thrown into your own suitcase.

It surprises you, then, that you find one of your sweaters in his luggage. Made from Sedanian cashmere and heat tech designed by the Intelligentsia Guild. Cloud-soft and warm to the touch. Aventurine had bought it for you before you were deployed to Jarilo-IV to collect intelligence for Topaz. Warmest thing in the known universe, he’d commented. One of a kind, too. Remember to wear it, alright? Don't let my money go to waste, now.

You stare at it, kneading the fleece between your fingers. You hadn’t mentioned wanting to bring this sweater. You’d lost it in your closet some months ago and forgot about it. Aventurine must have remembered and gone looking for it, because—why? You aren't sure. Probably because it’s warmer and softer than anything he owns, you guess. Of course he’d want to wear it.

You throw it into the pile of things you’ve collected for him.

You take it all to his bed, the mattress dipping as you sit next to Aventurine. One by one, you scent each item with your wrist, watching him carefully the whole time. You’re quiet as you lay them out around him, leaving him undisturbed as you build a nest. You order water and electrolyte drinks too, and you’re quick about going to the door when you hear room service knocking—with how feverish he is, he probably badly needs it.

Aventurine is awake when you come back. His breathing is still laboured, pained—but calm.

“I said I didn’t need a nest,” Aventurine says, though he doesn’t sound angry. You wonder if he’s too weak to be. His voice is faint, and his eyes are barely open—focused on the pile of blankets and clothing around him.

“You’re welcome.” You open a bottle of water, hold it out to him. “Drink.”

Aventurine pauses, stares at the offering like it's some kind of foreign object. But he accepts it eventually, sitting up and taking it from you. He winces with the movement, which he tries to hide. He ignores your frown as he drinks, and he doesn't stop until the bottle is empty.

“There are more,” you say, pointing at the several additional bottles on the nightstand. “And some food and some painkillers. I don't know how well they’ll work. This isn't a normal heat. If you're alright with it, I'll call a doctor and—”

“Everything smells like you,” he says quietly, and you stop.

“...yes. Unless they’re mated, nests usually feel most comforting to an omega when they smell like an alpha.” You swallow, looking away. “...you don't have a mate, and you didn't want a professional, so this was the only option I could think of. I'm sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. He picks out one of the sweaters that have made its way into the nest, the Sedanian one. “I don't mind it.”

“Oh.” You let out a breath. “Then—can I call a doctor?”

His grip on the sweater tightens. “No.”

You frown. “Aventurine—”

“I’ve never needed a doctor before,” he says. He sounds unbothered, but he's fidgeting with the sweater now. “I don't need one now.”

A lie. He almost certainly needed a doctor in some of his prior heats, but you don't push the matter. “Maybe you don't need one,” you say instead, “but it would help.”

“I don't need help,” he says, and you look at him in disbelief. He catches your expression, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Not more than you've already done, I mean.”

“I’ve barely—”

“Contact Topaz. Tell her I'm incapacitated. Tell her…” He hums. “Tell her I have food poisoning. The personnel too. It's not time-sensitive, our business on Agnisahr, so it shouldn't matter if I need a few days off.”

“You really need—”

“Give my regrets to our Agnisahran friends. Deliver it in person. They see you as my right hand, so they’ll most appreciate it coming from you. Topaz can help you with the verbiage. And—try to socialise with them a little, won't you? I think that little omega princess of theirs likes you. Some of the courtesans too, and they have surprising influence.”

“I do not want to be around any omega other than you right now,” you say before you can stop yourself, and Aventurine stops, blinking. His expression is blank, if perhaps a little curious—but his scent shifts. You can't identify how. You add quickly, “I’m not leaving you alone when you’re this sick.”

“Ah. Right.” Aventurine looks away. His voice sounds strange, and his heat must be getting to him again, because it carries a hint of pain. “But you have to. The IPC’s goals take priority.”

You frown. “Your life is more important than the IPC,” you say, and he laughs. Loudly.

“What? This is just a heat. I’m not going to die.”

“You don’t know that without seeing a doctor.”

“I do. I’m willing to bet money that I won’t die.” He cuts you off before you can reply: yes, you're always willing to bet on your life. “And even if I do, that would still be less important than Agnisahr. Do you know how many resources are on this lifeless rock?” His mouth slants. “If we mess up here, I’m dead anyway.”

“I wouldn’t let them touch you.”

“Yes, you would—because they would kill you too.” Aventurine sighs. His eyes close, and his brow creases—a sign that whatever reprieve he was lucky enough to get is about to end. “Go do what I asked. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll… see a doctor if you do.”

You stand immediately. “Alright. I’ll be back to check on you.”

“I know.”

You stop at the door, giving him a long look. Seeing him like this—lying on a proper bed, cradled in a warm nest, with water and food and medicine nearby—you feel a little better. This is leagues beyond what he’d been afforded in his days as a slave, at the very least. Even if he isn’t free, at least he isn’t trapped.

But it still doesn’t feel good, having to step away. The last thing you want to do is talk to other people, pretend to have interest in other omegas. There are an astonishing number of them who are interested in you on this planet—that princess, and some baron’s son, and one of the prince’s favourite paramours—but you can’t bring yourself to care even for business purposes when Aventurine is like this. You can't act as if you are enjoying yourself when you know he is in pain.

You wonder about telling Topaz the truth. You wonder if she’d be worried enough about Aventurine to let you neglect this mission and cover for you instead, without letting Jade or Diamond or anyone else dangerous know. Not that you think that anyone at the Company particularly cares about Kakavasha—it’s only that he’s valuable. Aventurine of Stratagems is valuable. How many worlds have fallen because of him?

But he seemed unwilling to bet on his worth to them. Which is startling, given how often he's bet on it in the past.

“What’s so important about this planet,” you can’t help but ask, “that the IPC would rather you die than lose it?”

He’s silent for a long moment. His eyes are closed—hidden—but you can see his knuckles whiten as he clutches the Sedanian sweater.

“Copper,” he says. “They want it for the copper.”

When Kakavasha first suggested a friendship to you, it had felt like something in between a proposition and a threat:

Go ahead, he'd said. Use me as you wish. You can even stab me in the back if you want. Just be mindful of this: I don't make deals that don't pay off.

It might have been a strange way of making friends in any other circumstance, but in a house of slaves, it was a natural one. You had not been a clever person—still aren't—but you understood that your place in the world was one of a tool. This was the place of all slaves: you were all things to be used. Your body was a thing to be used. It was valuable for its strength, for its hardiness, for its threat in the arena and for its convenience in your master’s bed (or in a dark basement, or within a heat house, or inside whichever omega your mistress ordered you to calm down). It did not surprise you that Kakavasha wanted to use it as well. It did not surprise you that Kakavasha expected you to use him in return.

You never would have, of course. Kakavasha was not a thing to be used—he had always been a mate. Though you were happy to let him use you, because all you were was a tool anyway, so it was really all you could offer him: to be used.

None of this has changed for you. You don't think any of this has changed for Aventurine, either. With each new friendship he makes, he repeats those familiar words: Use me as you wish. And with each person who accepts, this is exactly what they do: they use him, and they use him, and they use him until suddenly they notice he's tricked them and they've got the losing hand.

You damned gambler, they always spit. You Sigonian wretch. All you know is how to manipulate people. Thief, liar, cheat, whore. Despite all these insults, Aventurine always smiles at them. Cry as they might, he’s won his bet and has their world in his palms.

Winner takes all, he sometimes gloats.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. This is all Aventurine knows; these are his great guiding principles in life. (He's told you this point blank, stacking up chips in his favourite gambling dens with a self-satisfied grin.) You often find yourself coming back to these conversations, particularly when you need to convince him of something.

And right now, you very badly need to convince him of something.

Aventurine is ignoring his doctor’s advice. His suppressants are unstable in extreme temperatures, he's been told. During travel on Agnisahr, they'd degraded, and now he’s experiencing his first heat in several years. Of course it's going to be painful, his doctor had said. I can prescribe you some medication to ease the symptoms, but really—nothing will work better than a heat partner. It doesn't need to be a mate. Any alpha will do.

The doctor had been an alpha. You had asked for a beta or omega, but alphas tend to dominate in Interastral Medical Schools, so they're in short supply. Aventurine had been still the whole time, face unreadable, but you could tell he wanted to throw up at the stench of an unfamiliar alpha. You had stepped between the two of them, not bothering to hide the animosity in your voice. We’ll take the medication, you had said, and the doctor had sniffed the air and nodded at you in approval.

Probably won't need it. An alpha like you could sort him out with just a few rounds, he told you, and both of you stayed quiet as he left.

You still aren't talking, or even looking at each other. Aventurine has lay down in his nest again, closing his eyes, while you stand as far away as physically possible—at the door where you'd just shown the doctor out. With the room shut off again, windows closed and door locked, Aventurine’s scent is starting to flood your senses once more. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him shivering.

“What do you want to do?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He swallows. “I'll be fine.”

He's afraid. You can tell he's afraid. And you can tell he’ll be more afraid if you take even a single step closer to him, so you nod and say, “I'll go pick up your medication, then,” and Aventurine doesn't stop you. You can see him curling up in his nest, face pressed into the cashmere sweater.

But he still doesn't stop you.

After a few more days, Aventurine finally breaks.

There is a rare sag to his shoulders when he calls you to the room, along with a taste of dread in the air. You haven't seen him so vulnerable in years. Aventurine is not an open person, so cunning and self-possessed in his wealth—but Kakavasha was more brittle, more powerless, flayed raw and open even though he didn't often get the whip. (It would ruin his value if he ever scarred—his looks were his greatest selling point, your master said.) He was especially defeated when forced to spend his heats with an alpha he didn't want. You wonder, a vice grip of pain around your heart, whether this entire situation is simply an extension of that. Whether he is calling you here against his will, this time compelled by his pain, rather than his master. Whether this luxury suite feels like that wretched basement to him.

He doesn't look at you when he talks, nor does he sit up. He remains curled in his nest, nearly clinging onto the blankets and clothes.

“That stupid medication,” he pants out, sharp even in his heat, “isn't working.”

“I can tell.” Your brow knots. He’s in so much pain, it is palpable. “I”—you hesitate, voice dropping. “Can I help you?”

He goes quiet. As both Aventurine and Kakavasha, he has always been disinclined to accept help from other people. There is no such thing as unconditional help in his mind—only leverage and weakness. He hates it when people have leverage over him, and he hates being weak. Both are things that can be exploited, and Aventurine always needs to be the one doing the exploiting. He always needs to be in control.

Even like this, the last threads of his sanity about to snap, with every circuit of his omega biology trying to drag him into insensible lust, he fights viciously to be in control.

Winning and losing. Using and being used. Exploitation and treachery. Control and being controlled. This is how he's always lived. This is how he's always survived.

This is the only way to let him maintain control when he is most afraid of losing it.

“I don't mind,” you say quietly, “if you use me.”

Even through the haze of heat, Aventurine’s eyes sharpen. “What?”

“I don't mind if you use me,” you repeat, voice neutral. Unfeeling. The proposal might sound cruel to someone else, but not you. After all—your place in the world is one of a tool, and this is what you've always done as an alpha and a slave: sleeping with people to take care of their needs, or sometimes just their desires. It did always make you feel strangely hollow, but you think it will feel just fine with Aventurine. All you've ever wanted to do is keep him safe, and surely, this will do that, but—

“I'll only help if you want. I don't want to force it.” You lower your eyes. “But if you do want it, I'll be careful with you. You can lead. I promise.”

“...I know.” Aventurine’s voice is weak, cracks with pain, but you can tell he's speaking with clarity. “I know you will be.”

You look up. “Then you'll let me help?”

Aventurine looks away—a sign that he cannot adopt his usual smile. He’s clutching that sweater again, pressed close to his chest.

“Just your wrist,” he says quietly.

You listen carefully. “What?”

“I just—I just want your wrist.” He looks away. “Your—your scent gland. Only that.”

“Okay.”

You get up, then falter. When it was your job to comfort your mistress’ omega slaves, you were told to enter their nests—no permission needed from them, no permission needed from you, because only her permission ever mattered for anything. The omegas were usually too delirious to care, often had even begged for it with the state of mind that they were in. But Aventurine is different. He's not like you, and he's not like them. He's never bent to any of his masters’ wills. And even if he did, you wouldn't want to have him bend to yours.

Instead of climbing into his nest, you ask, “Can I sit on the bed?” He doesn't answer. “Just the edge of it,” you add, and you hear him exhale.

“Fine,” he says, breathing measured.

“Thank you,” you say, and he gives you a confused look. But then you're reaching out with a hand, offering it, and he is quickly distracted.

Aventurine drops the sweater, grabs your hand almost immediately. He turns over your palms, fingers tracing your heartlines—as if testing you, as if mapping out territory. He runs his thumbs along the veins of your wrists, too, right over your scent gland, and you have to force yourself not to shudder at the feeling. You only stay still, letting him explore the contours of your hands, letting him acclimate to the feeling of your skin. He laces his fingers with your own, a latticework trap, and he finally drags his wrist along yours.

Both of you inhale sharply.

You can't react. You know it'll scare him if you do, but it's hard to keep still. The way his scent blossoms, the way it mingles with yours, the way it all washes over you—what you're doing can hardly be called touching, but you feel like you're going mad. Especially when he flushes like that, his vibrant eyes fluttering shut. Especially when the sweetness of honey overtakes your senses. Especially when you can smell the way his body is reacting, all that wetness and heat and slick dripping between his legs. You don't miss the way his thighs rub together, nor the hard outline of his cock straining against his pants.

Aventurine shudders. He brings your hand up to his face, rests his cheek in your palm. His skin is flushed and burning with fever, and it's no wonder that he's sighing with relief at your touch. You try not to stare at the way his mouth falls open. He looks at you for a moment, his gaze a hazy violet and blue—before he closes his eyes again and presses his lips into your wrist.

Fuck.

“Aventurine—” You have to stop, voice strangled, when you feel the full softness of his lips working against your skin. He’s panting now, laboured breaths sweeping over your veins. Then you feel his teeth catch, a gentle nip on your flesh, and when he groans into your racing pulse—deep, relieved, desperate, a noise that makes your gut flare with heat—you realise you can't do this.

You pull back your hand, and Aventurine startles.

“Aventurine,” you say, voice strained. Maybe we should stop, you want to say, but he cuts you off.

“I need”—a shaky breath—“I need more.”

You watch Aventurine carefully. His pupils are dilated, blue irises nearly eclipsed. His cheeks are rosy, and he can't stop panting. You can fully smell his arousal now, even through his silk clothes. He's desperate, needing to be filled.

But he also looks torn. His brows are knotted, and you can taste a faint hint of fear in the air now. His knuckles clutch at the sheets, almost white, and he stares at them. He can't look up. He can't look at you. His whole body is tense, like he wants to bolt—and if he weren't so weak, you think he might actually.

“Are you sure?” you ask.

He doesn't nod. He also doesn't shake his head. His arms clutch at his midsection as he winces. He doesn't look like Aventurine. He looks like Kakavasha. It makes your heart ache as you watch him give into his body’s demands, wearing the same expression he did on the day your master bought him.

“...don't use your Voice on me,” Aventurine—Kakavasha—says quietly.

It takes you a moment to realise what he's asking. “I won't.”

“And”—his eyes somehow grow even more evasive, hidden by his long lashes— “don’t touch my commodity code.”

His commodity code. His commodity code that is seared into his scent gland. His code that, if you kiss, will ease his agony instantly. His code that, if you bite—will chain him to you irreversibly.

“Of course I won't,” you say instantly.

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath.

“And—” Aventurine looks away, jaw tight. His voice is quiet but wrought with tension: “—I don't like when people put things inside me.”

Something claws the walls of your heart.

“That's fine too,” you reply. “I don't mind doing it the other way.”

Aventurine’s sigh is nearly inaudible, but unmistakable. His scent shifts a little bit, the wildflower fragrance fading ever so slightly. But he doesn't come to you. He merely sits there—waiting. Expecting. Maybe dreading. Even in the senseless daze of heat, he’s too anxious to move.

You approach slowly. Though you're overwhelmed by the bouquet of his scent, though you feel a curl of heat in your belly in response to it—you are slow. Alphas are supposedly victims of insatiable lust whenever around an omega in heat, absolved of every action they take, but you are convinced this is a lie. You have never once wanted to handle Aventurine with such cruelty. You think that inflicting violence on him, more than anything else, would go against your biology. Every molecule in your body would reject putting him in such pain or inciting such fear. So you are careful when you approach him, slow as you inch up to him—but you do not think it helps.

Aventurine lies down, his face turned away from yours. His eyes squeeze shut, like he's expecting this to hurt. Uncertainty gnaws at your gut as you lean over him, draping your body over his—the only position you've ever taken an omega in, other than mounting them from behind.

(You do not want to mount Aventurine. You never have. It is an impersonal position, a position that omega biology supposedly would force him to enjoy, a position that alphas have likely dictated him to enjoy. You think there is nothing you would hate more. In your weakest, most selfish moments, in your worst ruts, when you’ve allowed yourself to fantasise about mating Kakavasha—you are always facing each other, and he is always looking at you with his eyes you've always loved, and it always feels intimate. Never impersonal. Never dictated. Never forced.)

Aventurine is so honeysweet beneath you. More fragrant than any omega you’ve ever been with. You glance at his commodity code, trying to ignore the scent of his branded skin, then lean down to press your face against the other side of his neck, where a faint scar mars the otherwise flawless slope of his nape. Like every other omega slave you've ever slept with, the scent gland there has been excised: a precautionary measure to reduce the risk of an unwanted mating bite.

(Not unwanted by them—the wants of a slave never matter—but unwanted by their owners. A mating bite would ruin the code seared into their neck, claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. It would hurt their resale value. Only owners are allowed to claim slaves in such a permanent way—and the wants of a slave have no relevance there, either.)

It's a funny thing, this surgical scar. Even with their gland missing, you've noticed that most omegas like having their neck scented by you anyway, probably from some vestigial instinct. You guess that Aventurine won't be any different, that maybe it will comfort him. But when your lips skim the scar left on him by his owner, his entire body stiffens beneath you. His fragrance cuts into your lungs, sharp.

You recoil, as if burned by the touch of him.

“Sorry,” Aventurine is quick to say. He tries to glance at you, but his diamond pupils quickly avoid you again. “Don’t worry about me. Just do whatever you need to do.”

“But you're scared,” you point out, and you see his brow twitch. “You’re scared when I touch you.”

“Not scared,” he lies. “Just…”

When his eyes finally look at you—land on your lips—you understand.

A bite would claim an omega more deeply and permanently than any titanium collar or carbon steel chain. If you lost your mind—give into the insatiable lust of an alpha whenever around an omega in heat—you might bite him, and then you would own Aventurine.

And Aventurine would rather die than be owned by anyone again.

He doesn't need to finish his sentence. You already know what you need to do.

“It's okay,” you say gently, and his brow knots. “I have an idea.”

Aventurine is always afraid.

This is a fact that has haunted you since the day you met him. You've wondered about how to fix it—the bare minimum as his mate (always his, even if he doesn't want you)—and you’ve never quite pinned down how. Because when someone has spent their life in perpetual fear, how do you make them feel safe? When their life is constantly at risk, how do you ever make them feel calm?

You still aren't sure of the answer. But after seeing Kakavasha become Aventurine, you now have a good guess.

It is clear from his scent that Aventurine does not feel remotely safe right now. Not when you leave to fetch something from your own room, and not when you return. The anxiety thickens when he sees, in your hands, a very familiar muzzle.

Aventurine stares. He is not smiling, but he also does not reveal his discomfort on his face, even as beads of sweat line his temple. But his voice is too controlled, too calm, when he asks, “You kept the mask.”

You nod.

“I told you to throw it out,” he points out, “when I freed you.”

“I know. Sorry. I don't know why I kept it.” You remember how tightly you clutched it before the incinerator, thinking about how strange it would feel, discarding something that you'd worn everyday since you presented—but you don't tell him this. Instead, you say, “But it’s convenient.”

Before Aventurine can say anything, you toss him the remote.

“You’re afraid of my bite and my Voice, but you don't have to be with this,” you explain. Your tone is gentle, soothing. Probably disarming coming from an alpha, with how he is in heat. Perhaps that's why he’s studying the remote rather than chucking it away. “You'll be in full control if I wear this.”

Control. Mere seconds after you say it, you can smell his fragrance change again, mellowing. It's only a brief moment of calm that fades when you latch the mask onto your face, but he doesn't smell as nearly as stressed before.

Aventurine watches you carefully as the carbon steel swallows your maw, its old and familiar edges biting into you. For the first time in years, you cannot tell what he is thinking—truly poker-faced even to you.

“You aren't bothered by wearing that thing while we do this,” he says—asks?—and you shake your head. The muzzle was part of you for years. You were wearing it when you killed someone for the first time. You were wearing it when you went into rut for the first time. You were wearing it when your master had sex with you for the first time. It doesn't bother you that you’ll wear it when you have sex with Aventurine.

If you could speak, you would ask him, Why do you think it would bother me? But all you do is gesture for him to sit up. To switch places with you. You lie down—something you've never done with an omega—and wait for him to get on top.

Aventurine stares at you for a long, quiet moment. It's followed by a sigh of relief. Disarmed, he—for the first time in any heat you've witnessed—finally relaxes. His scent wafts over you as he climbs between your legs, and you can feel the heat radiating from his hands as he parts your thighs, almost scalding.

He doesn't bother getting you ready, too needy to think rationally, but he doesn't have to anyway. You've been wet ever since you felt his mouth touch your wrist, hard ever since you heard him groan into it. You're equally desperate to get some relief as you feel his cockhead sliding against your opening, leaking all over your entrance as his slick drips onto your thighs. His breath shakes as he enters you, and he can't hear it with how you're muzzled—but you groan just as deeply as him at the tight stretch.

You hear him swear when you clench around him, watch him lean over you. His arms shake as he supports himself, refusing to succumb to his heat even as he chases his relief. You seek out his gaze (just as in your dreams, facing each other, intimate), and his neon eyes catch on your eyes for a brief, breathtaking second—

—before he looks away.

There's a flash of—you don't know what, maybe pain? Or fear?—in his irises as he does. A twitch of the brow, a tell he'd normally rather die than let slip. You have the realisation, as Aventurine moves inside you, that even while you're muzzled, even while he has complete control over you—he still can't stand having sex with you. Probably because he can't stand being in heat in general, you tell yourself. Don't touch me, don't touch me, don't use it anymore, don't use me anymore. He'd have this reaction to anyone.

Still—you didn't expect him to have this reaction to you.

Your hands twitch, possessed by an old instinct to cover your eyes. But you'd probably scare Aventurine if you moved your arms, so all you do is dig your fingers into the sheets and squeeze them shut. You tell yourself again and again that he'd hate having sex with anyone in these circumstances—not just you. And then you tell yourself, as a desperate, broken moan leaves his branded throat, that he would also come inside anyone in these circumstances, caught within the cruel grip of his heat.

Aventurine stills inside you as he finishes. He pants, sweat dripping down his temple as he shudders in his ecstasy, his spend hot and thick inside you. You can feel his fever break as he comes down from his high, the heat coming off his body easing into a manageable warmth.

Do you feel better, you try to say, but you can't move your mouth while your mask is on. So you wait patiently for Aventurine to come back to himself, watching him carefully as he pulls out and rolls onto the mattress beside you. He finally glances at you then. His eyes narrow once they land on you, confusion flicking through them. Then displeasure. He reaches for the remote.

To your surprise, he immediately punches in the code to unlock your muzzle. Aventurine has apparently remembered the numbers after all these years, as if the moment he freed you has been since seared into his memory.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing you say, and Aventurine gives you a confused look. He’s still panting, dazed, so you ask, “Can I check your temperature?” And when he nods, you confirm your suspicion: he's still much too warm.

There is an ache between your legs and a strange hollow in your gut (because you aren't very experienced with receiving, you think—your body likely just isn't used to the feeling of it), but you quickly forget them. All you can think of is Aventurine, and how he’s still unwell, and how you need to comfort him. The instinct is so strong that you don't even say anything as you get up, straightening out your clothes.

“Are you leaving?” Aventurine asks. His voice is neutral, completely unbothered, but the thought is so horrific to you that you turn back to him with wide eyes.

“Of course not. I'm going to get you water and medicine.” A beat. You stare at Aventurine’s eyes, then think about how he hid them from you during sex. The hollow feeling comes back, but it's mostly eclipsed by your anxiety at the next thought: “...do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to?”

“I—” I'd rather die, you think. Being forced to leave him right now would feel like tearing out a piece of yourself. You don't know if there's an alpha in this world who could leave their mate in the middle of a heat. And even if he is unmarked, unattached to you—you still think of yourself as his mate. (His, always his, even if he doesn't want you.) “I would prefer not to. I am your heat partner. I'm supposed to take care of you.”

You hear a quiet breath. “Right. Of course. You're always so conscientious.” Aventurine nods, as if convincing himself of something. “Try not to take too long.”

“I’ll come back soon,” you promise, and the air sweetens. Encouraged, you add, voice gentle: “I’ll bring that medication, and then we can have sex as many times as you need after I come back. I'll make sure you're not in any pain anymore.” You pause, studying him. “Is there anything else you need to feel better?”

His fragrance changes once more, this time in a way you don't totally recognize. “No.” His voice sounds strange. His scent is still foreign, fluctuating, possibly hinting at some kind of pain. The heat must be getting to him again—and of course it wasn't enough, what you just did, what you can provide. He likely needs to be filled to get any kind of lasting relief, but you left him empty. “No, that's all I want.”

You nod, forcing yourself to look calm. Ignoring the emptiness in your gut. It didn't feel bad, but you hope it'll feel better next time you have sex. You think it will. Alphas are supposed to be filled with an insatiable lust near omegas in heat, after all. And even though you’ve never felt that before—never felt anything sleeping with all those omegas in your mistress’ house—you are sure you'll eventually feel it around Aventurine.

But the feeling never comes. Even though you can tell that his heat has returned by the time you're back—sweat beading his temples, laboured breaths at his lips, his bottoms now discarded, with full evidence of arousal between his legs—you don't feel much of anything as you reach for your mask again.

“Don't,” Aventurine says, before it can clasp around your face. You give him a curious look. He explains, “Don't. I don't want to have sex again. Not yet.”

You stare at him, shifting. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. Not knowing how he wants to use you. “What can I do?”

He gives you a long look. “Come here. I… I want your scent gland.”

It's a sensible request. If there's a way to seek relief without fucking someone—without fucking you, which he clearly hated doing—you're sure Aventurine would prefer it. So you climb into his nest, holding your wrist out for him, and—

“No.” His voice is quiet. “I want the one on your neck.”

“...oh.”

You stand there, not sure where to move. If he wants you in his nest again, or if he’d rather do this standing. You’re relieved when he demands, “Lie down.”

You expect him to get on top of you when you do. Assume that he wants complete control—but he instead lies down beside you. Presses his body into yours, and then his face into your neck. His nose and lips brush against your scent gland, a full-body shudder running through him, and—

—and now you know for a fact that it is a lie that alphas want nothing other than to fuck an omega when they're in heat. Because even like this, with his lips sweet on your neck, with the sheets soaked with his slick, with his spend leaking out of you—you do not want to have sex with Aventurine. You only want to hold him. You only want him to keep scenting you. You only want to scent him back.

You only want him to feel safe.

You breathe in deeply, lungs flooded by honey. You think of what it felt like to hold him in that cold basement, when he was delirious with fever and pain, and you think about how different his scent is now. How much sweeter it is. How much calmer he feels.

“Do you feel better?” you ask, and he doesn't respond, but you know the answer. His hands come up to dig into your shirt, and he presses into you like you're a sweater in his nest. Silence blankets over you both, calm and warm. His laboured breath starts to improve.

He does eventually speak.

“Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “what you smell like?”

You stare at him. Your master used to say that you smelled good, but he'd never elaborated, and you hadn't wanted him to. “No.”

Aventurine breathes in.

“You smell like—” A little sigh, shaking and feverish, leaves him. “You smell like rain.”

Your eyebrows tick up. “Rain?”

“Yes. Or not just rain, but”—he pauses, next words quiet—“more Iike after it rains. You smell like the desert after a rainfall.”

“Oh.” You don't know what to say to that. Feeling distinctly like it's a silly question, you ask, “Is that a good scent?”

“Some would think so. Especially to people from the desert. You probably smell like a blessing to them. Although…”

Aventurine goes quiet again. You stare at the chandelier above you, all crystal and white gold, and wait.

“Although?” you prompt.

“...although I wouldn't really know,” he says. “It’s just a hunch. I bet it's why so many omegas on this planet like you.”

You couldn't care less about those other omegas. All you care about is Aventurine. “And?” you say. “Do you like my scent?”

His reply never comes. He just breathes deeply again, seeking relief from your neck—not intimacy. Any alpha’s scent would work; that doctor told you so. Any alpha’s touch would work, too. There are no special feelings involved here. Your place in the world is one of a tool, and tools are never especially liked nor disliked. Their value exists only in how they can be used.

You don't know why you even bothered to ask the question.

But then something strange happens: Aventurine curls against you, pressing even further into you. His lashes flutter against your pulse again; it ticks up in response, beating fast against his lips.

“I do,” he says quietly. “I do like it.”

You swallow. “But I guess that's because you're in heat. Any alpha would smell good to you, wouldn’t they?”

“No.” His fingers dig into the fabric of your shirt. “No, I like it because it's yours.”

You know better than to read too much into his response. Aventurine had already said it earlier: No foreign scents. He's only tolerating this whole arrangement because you don't smell unfamiliar to him. Only able to use you because you are the least threatening option.

But the words break something in you—break the thing that made you unable to throw out that little pouch of copper coins that you were saving up for Kakavasha’s freedom, the part of you that made you wear that carbon-steel mask for him. It is this part of you that has your eyes squeezing shut and your arms wrapping around him. You know he’ll recoil, reject you, but just this once—you need to try.

Aventurine doesn't push you away.

He melts into you instead, inhaling deeply. Your scent gland tingles with the warmth of his breath, the feeling of his lips. He seems—comfortable.

You can't fathom why he’s staying in your arms. Perhaps he's simply desperate for some kind of relief from his heat, just like when you held him in the basement while he was delirious from pain. But Aventurine had spoken to you with clarity just now, and his skin doesn't feel scalding so much as warm, and his scent is so different than from that moment. So sweet and so gentle, without a trace of fear. It makes your heart squeeze. As much as you've always wanted Aventurine to feel safe, you'd never imagined that his scent would be so beautiful when he is.

It makes your heart ache. You've never held anything so lovely before, and you’ve never felt so warm before, and it all makes up for how badly it hurt to let Aventurine inside you. How hollow it made you feel to let him use you. How none of that matters as long as you can keep him safe like this, because you belong to Kakavasha. You'll always belong to Kakavasha, in a fate that was chosen for you on the day you met him.

You're his, always his—even if he’ll never want you.

end part i

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additional end notes

[celiime]

—> gojo satoru is just so fascinated by everything you do, and when you do makeup? oh, he’s just so entranced. and now he’s decided, he wants you to do his makeup!

warnings —> fluff fluff fluff, gojo gets overwhelmed by how much he loves you, a kiss but nothing descriptive! he just loves you and youre also smitten with him 🙂‍↕️

ps —> this was inspired by those tiktoks where someone is doing their makeup and their pet just stares at them with wonder the whole time…ouuu gojo is a big dog T_T

from the corner of your eyes, you could glimpse, gojo, your husband, sitting on the edge of the bed, a small glimmer of admiration in his eyes—thankfully uncovered—as he watched you do your makeup. It was a bit unnerving, if you had to be frank.

the way his eyes were watching your every move so intently, pursing his lips as if he was going through the thought process of gathering a solution for the most complicated issue in the world.

your brows furrowed, the lipliner held delicately in between your fingers as you traced over your lips, stopping for a second in order to look at him through the vanity mirror, “what’s with that look?” your tone left your lips amused, a bit of curiosity wrapped in it.

he was watching you like a puppy waiting for his owner, while still managing to look so fascinated as if you were performing some sort of parkour stunt or some sort of magic trick—almost like you were pulling a bunny out of your hat right infront of his eyes.

but no. you were merely only doing your makeup.

“you…” be started, the focused look not quite leaving his features as he squinted his eyes a bit, “now are you so precise? does it not tickle when you draw over your eyes like that? or when you draw on your lips?” he blinked, question after question fired rapidly—expressing his eagerness to get behind this apparently ground breaking mystery.

you stilled, liner in your hand pausing with your lack of movement, before a small giggle erupted from your lined lips, “tickle? what are you, five? it doesn’t tickle, no.” you hummed under your breath, focusing back on your lips as you lined over them.

you couldn’t help yourself, “why? want to try?” you teased, tone joking and playful, not really intending for any seriousness to be misinterpreted behind it.

“yes.” he blurted out, tone serious and devoid of any playfulness.

a sigh left your lips.

“gojo satoru, sit still so I can—!” your annoyed groans rang through the room, eyes narrowed in concentration—and a bit of annoyance, frankly—as you attempted to trace the tip of the eyeliner onto your husband’s eyelids, hand gripping the pen so tightly you were afraid it would break.

as you readjusted yourself on his lap, a small pout rested on his features, his glossy lips curving downwards as tightened his grip on you, hands sitting on your hips lovingly, “i’m ticklish!” he whined, scrunching his eyes shut, making it near impossible for you to seamlessly draw on a neat wing like the one you currently have on your eyes.

ugh, this child.

“i’ve never met someone who’s ticklish from an eyeliner.” you huffed under your breath, hand gripping his broad shoulder tightly as your other hand worked to draw the wing, coming all jagged and not straight, “‘toru!”

you seriously hated when your eyeliner wasn’t perfect, and surprise surprise …you hated it even more when your husband’s eyeliner wasn’t perfect.

his hands squeezed your hips, thumbs finding purchase in gently smoothing over the skin under your—his—shirt, finding a strange domesticity in the moment. his wife, all pretty and dolled up in your own makeup, giving him the experience of a lifetime by applying makeup on him.

and the best part of it all? you’re seated right on his lap, where he can place his hands over your waist without needing an excuse.

to help you stabilize, of course. or at least—that was the excuse he used, hehe!

“hey hey! be gentle with me.” a small grimace rested on his features as he felt your thumb press on the corner of his eye and swiping, probably erasing a smudge or a mistake, “i want to be all pretty like you when you’re done!”

your hand stilled, fingers almost loosening their tight grip on the eyeliner pencil as soon as his words reached your ears, carried by the serene and cozy atmosphere in the room. despite all the frustration you felt, you couldn’t help but feel fondness, fondness at how enamored he seemed by you, how genuine his love was—how the words flowed so easily from his lips.

as if he didn’t even have to think about it.

your eyes softened, a cozy warmth filling up every crevice of your body, filling you up to the brim and almost suffocating you, “you’re already prettier than me even without all this.” You huffed under your breath, tone genuine despite your earlier annoyance.

despite the way you huffed your words out, there was still the unmistakable fondness that any one could distinct.

at your words, he fluttered his eyes open, choosing to dismiss the little protest flying from your lips—all in favor of being able to look at you, to show you the love and admiration clouding his gaze, he may as well be rendered a blind man whenever he’s in your presence. your heavenly presence.

it’s instinctive, the words that flow from his lips, it’s all so effortless—he doesn’t even need to think about it.

the words bang on the base of his throat, begging to be let out, to leave his lips and travel all the way to the crevices of your heart, to bury itself in between your ribs and any place it could reach. this was merely how he was around you.

“so sappy, eh?” his tone lowered, a mere whisper traveling in the air around them, his hands tightening their hold on you, tugging you closer to him, “my baby thinks I’m pretty?” a coo left his lips, gazing up at you with the softest eyes a man could ever muster. you above him—he thinks he would’ve went on his knees to worship if you if he wasn’t sitting on the bed.

you’re just so pretty.

you swallowed the lump in your throat, the hand that was on his shoulder now taking it’s rightful place on the side of his face, barely cupping his cheek, thumb smoothing over his sculpted features, in rhythm to his own thumb that was stroking your hip bone. “very.”

Ah, shit.

he had to keep himself from completely crumbling right then and there, from burying his face in his hands and melting, “you—“ the most he could do right now was clear his throat, a distinct red color staining the back of his neck and his ears, making its way to his cheeks. “you can’t just say that…” he grumbled under his breath.

he secretly hoped you would say more; to fluster him until he combusts, until you’re left with a man who cannot comprehend anything beyond the warmth of your affection and sweet compliments.

“can’t handle a small compliment, toru?” you cooed, enjoying the way the red on his cheeks intensified. a small chuckle left your lips, gently placing down the liner in your hand—the one you made sure to be extra careful with due to how you always complained about how expensive it is—

instead, you picked up a tube of lipstick, a pretty shade that you always smeared on your own lips. “it’s time for lipstick, since you’re allergic to eyeliner, apparently.”

it’s not like he needs it anyways. he’s still inexplicably pretty without anything, you mused in your head.

his eyes immediately drifted to the tube in your hand, his flustered state forgotten. his gaze drifted back to your lips, a small frown on his glossy lips as he contemplated for a few seconds, “is that the same one that’s one your lips?” he questioned, pushing you down firmly onto his lap as he tried to distract himself from how plump and inviting your lips looked.

you furrowed your eyebrows, head lolling slightly to the side in confusion, “yeah? why?”

his eyes seemed to light up for a second, glimmering with unconcealed excitement, like a big puppy being presented with treats. a smile perked up the corners of his lips, laced with eagerness and…mischievous intent. you knew your satoru, you could tell when he was up to something.

“wait— what are you—!”

your words, spoken in a hurry of what was to come, were soon muffled as you felt large hands travel from your hips all the way to the soft skin of your cheeks, delicately cupping the fat in his palms. you were rendered speechless, in shock of the sudden action coming from him.

however, you couldn’t say you despised the sudden movement, not when it was followed by a soft sensation placed upon your lips.

a soft exhale left his lips, all but making you shiver as the tube of lipstick fell from your hands, immersed into the sensation you could never tire of. his lips moved in tandem with yours, sweet and delicate, passionate—taking his time with you, his intentions clear; the need to show you just how much his affection for you stretched, how he needed you to feel how much he loved you.

his lips pressed upon yours, soft and fulfilling in its own way, the proclamations of undying love and affection flowing from his lips to yours—no words exchanged.

you could only blink as he parted from the kiss, a smile—filled with undeniable smugness and fondness—forming on his lips, that were now stained the same color as yours, “i’m helping you save product.” he hummed, clearly proud of tje strategy he had performed, “the color looked better on your lips than in the tube. i wanted mine to look like that too!”

ah…this…lovable idiot.

your eyes drifted to his quirked lips, the color from your lips had transferred to his own, messily smudging on his glossy lips, it was messy—unlike the way you would’ve applied it from the tube, all clean and smooth—but…you think you prefer it that way.

“it’s so messy, satoru.” you could only groan, trying to mask the obvious embarrassment and giddiness you felt.

he perked up at that, eyes rounding in excitement as his hands landed on your waist, eagerly tugging you closer, “let’s fix it then!”

before you could utter another word, his lips were placed upon yours once more.

[tyunkus]

all txt members r so cute, but i have them all stuck in my head in different ways like yeonjun fucking your throat while taking a video of you doing it just bc !! and soobin continuously sending you videos and photos of him cumming in ur panties bc u can’t please the poor boy as ur in public, and beomgyu being all tough but then acts oh so different in bed w whimpers and loud moans coming out of him, then taehyun .. i feel like taehyun would fuck you any place he could and when hes out in public w u he teases u like by rubbing his hand up and down your thigh, getting a little too close for comfort tho .. and when i think of kai i think of him trying to be gentle at the start but then has u moaning his name !! or umm .. kai being shy for his size even tho like damn thats the biggest uve seen wtff !!

AHHHHH u have the biggest brain ever anon (more under the cut!)

yeonjun who runs his hand through your hair while you suck him off and thinks to himself wow my girlfriend looks pretty fucking hot. casually taking his phone from the nightstand n starts recording you - youre a fucking vision like this, kneeling between his thighs, hands placed primly on your own while u suck him off T_T and yeonjuns fingers still threaded in your hair and he uses his gentle hold on your head to push you down further n further.. slowly breathing out these scratchy n pitchy moans, the sound of your throat constricting around his dick only riles him up even more

soobins so fucking insatiable ugh! what a needy pet always ruining your panties with his cum and hes not even ashamed, sends you visual evidence while ur out at work or running errands!!! shaky camerawork but you get the gist - soobin fucking his thick cock with his hand, letting out all these wobbly whimpers n pretty noises while he strokes himself to completion right on your pretty lace panties >:( hes so gonna get it later, acting like such a slut in your notifications, so many typos and choppy sentences cuz you know hes fucking himself silly while hes typing them

bratty beomgyu <3 such a pain during the day, teasing you and provoking you in all sorts of ways... sneaky hands drifting up your legs or his lovely lips pressed against your neck before he leaves a bite there..... but even if you scold him he doesnt care, just smirks at you and murmurs, "what're you gonna do about it, princess?" what you'll do is this - straddle his thighs and spread his legs all nice and pretty for you, leave him pretty much unable to move while you set your legs on top of his and start playing with his cock like hes just your plaything! see how he starts crying, so loud and messy, cant even talk properly, your dumb lil pet >:)

taehyun is such a horndog i swear you cannot have even a moment of peace with that man theres always something with him! whether its his hands sneaking up your thighs or his hot breath on your neck or his fingers sliding underneath your panties to cup your pussy taehyun is always up to no good, just loves to rile you up n overstep a line juuuust a little bit, cuz its fun and it always leads to him fucking you someplace where anyone could walk in - maybe with his fingers, from behind and underneath your skirt, or maybe on his cock, against a wall while he leaves marks all over ur pretty skin <3

hyuka trying and failing miserably to be a sweet considerate boyfriend because your tight lil cunt just feels too good :( dont be mad at him okay he cant help it, gets so lost in the feeling, eyes rolled back n head tipped back to expose his throat, you'd think he forgot about you but nope, he still has his clever fingers playing with ur clit :3 oh and seeing his cock for the first time GOD you know how the tips of his ears get red when hes embarrassed yeah he'd look so cute all flushed when you're on your knees in front of him, pumping his cock n telling him how you never thought hed be this big .. <333333

[certifiedsexed]

Okay question: how much pain is "normal" for period cramps? I know what I had before birth control was def abnormal (first day or 2 of my period I was basically bound to my bed, either curled up and experiencing an extremely pain "flash" of pain every 15 minutes because I wasn't on my back or a high amount of pain because I was on my back with few "flashes" of pain) but now I'm on bcps there is very little pain? It's usually just pressure unless I've been stressed (glares at my RA job) but idk if that's abnormal or not.

(When I mentioned my extreme pain, my friend with endometriosis was like "have you considered endometriosis?" while my other friend was like "have you considered PCOS?" lol I love (/pla) them both but idk guys)

Answer: I'm really bad at pain "ranges", so take this with an extreme pinch of salt!

It's hard to define generally but I'd say anything from "Oh that feels kinda bad" to "Ugh, this is annoying" is in the normal range. But if it's keeping you bedbound or debilitating you in any manner (or even if it's just extreme pain that you can "handle"), that's not in an appropriate range!

You want your period to be as painless as possible, so its great you're feeling less pain now, even if stress aggravates it. (Stress commonly aggravates menstrual pain, so that's fairly standard.) Birth control is also known [and commonly used] to help with menstrual pain, so its good you're on that and its helping! That's fairly standard as well.

Your extreme pain was not in an appropriate range, I can tell you that. That's the type of pain you should be getting checked out for and probably going on something, if you can [which you did!]. Endometriosis and PCOS are actually fairly common causes of pain like that, so your friends are definitely in the right range, I'm thinking.

It's actually still worth getting checked out, if you have the resources, because with things like that it is good to know what specifically is causing it if you can. (Mostly because sometimes you need to be on something as well as birth control or besides birth control to get to the actual root issue.)

Not sure if this helps (because I'm so bad at pain ranges T_T) but I hope so! Let me know if you have any other questions, or if I need to explain further on any of this. <3

[sammyluvr]

season 1 sam. i need him so bad and i mean romantically. his gentle but prodding looks, puppy face when he’s listening to someone, soft soft hair, gentlest and sweetest voice, big smart geek, sassy and occasionally playful. he’s so boyfriendcore i’m actually upset. wanna kiss both cheeks and all of the beauty marks on his face. wanna gently play with his hair while he’s nice and bundled up in the motel covers and snuggling against me. he gives the best hugs and he tucks his head on top. he’s so so respectful it’s actually really cute. season 1 sam was traumatized but not as much as later seasons sam. the fondness he holds in my soul. you can write headcanons for this or you can just fuel my yap but. season 1 sam is so so special and lovely

it feels too long since i've seen season one to write proper headcanons BUT I'M EATING THIS UPPP SO MUCH because so real and so true and i want him more than anything ahhhh T_T . okay but i did go a little overboard here LOL

season one puppy dog eyes + gentle voice sam HAS ME IN THE BIGGEST CHOKEHOLD. ugh you said it all. polite gentleman facade hiding the most judgmental sassy remarks HAHA. and i actually NEEEEDDDDD more than anything to kiss his beauty marks!! they are everything to me!!! i'd kill to make them soft and mushy and flustered that way hehehe

just getting him all soft you... knowing all his weak spots (which could really be anything you do because he's absolutely smitten). but he especially loves getting his hair played with and it will make him melt into you every time <3 hehe .. the idea of tucking him into bed is making me sob he's like. why are you even doing this i am a grown man. but you don't care and he secretly likes it because duh. it's silly and cute and soft and you kiss him on the forehead and then ruin the perfect way you smoothed out the covers by climbing in with him while making fun of the look on his face. and he smushes you against his chest and kisses your forehead and says "go to sleep, dork." <3 screaming crying sobbing on the floor

sam hugs T_T what i wouldn't do to have him pull me into his chest and tuck my head under his chin. and he'd just hold you there, soft and quiet and hoping the love in his chest transfers straight into yours if he holds you close enough :(((

sam seeking out your physical comfort too. trying to eye his sad eyes, but he looks at you and you just know. you motion him over to the bed and lay his head in your lap and brush the fringe from his eyes. you smooth your thumb over his features and tell him to close his eyes. he'll tuck his face into your tummy and wrap an arm around you wherever he can and just stay there until he's either asleep or it's not quite so horrible anymore.

or you pulling him into a standing hug and he just slumps into you. his shoulders sag and his big arms wrap around your waist underneath your jacket and his nose gets smushed awkwardly into your skin when he tucks his head into the crook of your neck. he kisses the slope from your neck to your shoulder to make himself feel a little better, feel more loved and loving.

wAGH ANYWAYS !! can't get enough of him turns out maybe i could go on and on enough for a full set of headcanons we'll see! <333 just want to answer this now too... it's so perfect <3

[merakiui]

*keyboard smash* Omg I need to gush about Rollo. Love the man and his unhinged self behind that strict personality he hassss. I knew I was gonna love this guy but UGH I wasn't expecting to simp for this degenerate. I feel like this man makes point prayers between grunts. I made an hot oc and let me say making her tempt him by being unabashedly girly.

YES YES AAAAAAAAA more Rollo appreciation!!!! <3 he is so perfect. I love him and his unhinged, delusional tendencies. You know he's downright horrendous if even Malleus Draconia is scared of him. T_T I just love everything about Rollo. He's the type of man I would write sonnets about or carve marble sculptures of or paint murals of if this was the Renaissance. I honestly wasn't expecting to like him as much as I do, but he deserves the love hehe. I hope your oc drives him positively mad with temptation. >:D

I also like that he enjoys visiting cafés because just imagine how many café meet-cutes can be written with him. It may be cliché, but I like the trope a lot, especially when you think it's completely normal until you realize he's actually insane and very obsessed. orz meet-cute in the café where perhaps Rollo takes up a part-time job there so he can be closer to you in a work setting instead of just limiting himself to a customer-server relationship........

In short: live, laugh, love Rollo Flamme.

[mislamicpearl]

Monkie Kid S5 first two episodes thoughts

It's 1 AM but I wanna get my thoughts down quick before I forget (but likely this will just turn into a list of my favorite moments and with a whole lot of squealing because omg the FLUFF in these episodes alone!)

SPOILERS under the cut:

Nooooo MK isn't sleeping, Lego stop punishing your boys with sleep-depriving trauma! T_T

Wukong is really trying harder to be a better mentor to MK ;_;

OMG THAT ENTIRE WUKONG AND MACAQUE CONVERSATION ASDSGHHSASDFD WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT MK???

And just... how far we've come, with Macaque genuinely caring about MK this much.

But also stop deflecting Macaque!

AwwwWWWW everyone building Wukong a house was so sweet!

And of course we gotta cover the walls with adorable pictures~ My favorite was the Mei and Wukong one, omg if I don't see anyone redraw that I definitely will!

WUKONG HUGGED MK!! HNNNNNGGHHH!!

Holy FUDGE the DADSY content! It just wouldn't stop!! He sat with MK, gave him some fatherly advice/life lesson, and knew exactly what would put the kid to sleep, and then carried him to bed... and then we get-

"I don't know how I ended up with you, but I'm so glad I did" "I love you, son"

Me during that scene:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

Wukong fixing the origami figures of his friends was so cute DX

And the baby monkeys still being all clingy to Macaque ahahaha!

Just... loving Wukong and Macaque being in the same room together with MK and not fighting tbh, their expressions throughout his whole lawyer routine were hilarious XD

I will never get tired of Wukong treating Nezha like a little brother/cousin that he constantly makes fun of XD

AND OMG HE CALLED HIM NEZHY THAT'S SO CUTE!!

So of course I knew about the circlet angst but WOW I did not expect Macaque to have that big a reaction to it, he sincerely doesn't want Wukong to get hurt, UGH THESE MONKEYS ARE KILLING ME!

Yoooo that little look exchanged between Wukong and Macaque after he sends out the hairs, these guys are totally back in sync again like nothing happened and I LOVE it!

Bahaha Wukong doing the Tang story-telling was great!

MK kicking his legs during the story, why is this boy so adorable dangit-

Nezha's utter confusion at MK's antics was probably the funniest bit of the episode for me ahahaha

Also the three clones just going "I'm a clone" in unison XD

Again, the teasing-the-younger-cousin behavior with them double faking Nezha was so on point, and his angry "WU KOOONG!!" was just the icing on the cake.

"Why is it always like this when you come here?!" Seriously, nothing to add besides that I just LOVE seeing the monkeys together, like their teamplay in taking out the head guard - I saw that smile Macaque!

Macaque or Nezha angrily shouting Wu Kong's name will never get old

"Only thing I know for sure is that I don't trust anyone who isn't standing here right now." MACAQUE'S LOOK AT THAT PART! YES HE'S INCLUDING YOU BUD!

Is... is this the first time we hear Wu Kong say Macaque's name outside of a flashback without ire??

Also NOOOO MACAQUE!! (He's fine, I just don't want him disappearing for the whole season but I'm sure he'll turn up again. Also, proud of him for being the hero in this scene :')

[succcession]

Maybe you could do a Connor Roy Smut Headcanon??💗 Really been living your work

Currently rewatching and I forgot how much of a genuinely sweetheart he is!

Sweet Connor who is always buying you insanely expensive gifts imported from all over the world but hidden in each item would be a page long handwritten love letter explaining every detail of why he chose it for you.

Despite claiming to be an old fashion type of guy, I think he would loveeee sexting! Send him a random picture of your ass, and you would get a 2 min long voice message back from him describing how hard you make him and how lucky he feels.

His lap is actually the comfiest place to sit.

Wants you to sit in his lap while he sucks and teases your nipples and you play with his hair.

Innocently sitting on his hips right below his lil squishy tummy as you two chat about your day. But would quickly becoming your grinding on him as he squeezes your hips pulling your tighter to him

I believe with my whole heart he is amazing at foreplay. He spent year fucking girls just for his own pleasure, now he really likes to take his time. Covering your face and neck with kisses before he was even trying to get your shirt off. 

This would occasionally lead to him almost ruining the moment. You would be begging him to put it in already, and he would dramatically  respond something like “I have to take my time…i don't know how much i have left”

Really Really likes lingerie! Especially if it's super feminine, anything with lots of lace, flowers, and pink

Always coming home to some lacy set placed on the bed with a little card :,)

Please give this man some praise. Tell him how good he feels inside of you, how nobody can fuck you like him, and as basic as it is, pleaseee tell him he's the best you've ever had. He won’t be able to stop blushing and will hide his face in your neck but you can tell how much he loves it as he starts pounding you harder.

Gentle loving sex 70% of the time

Intense passionate pounding the rest

I think he would probably want you on top a lot. Of course he has no problem being on top but loves watching you ride him as you use his cock to make yourself cum, his large hands squeezing your ass helping to guide you up and down 

Also loves doggystyle!

Wouldn't get rough with you too often but when he did, he was usually taking you from behind one hand pulling your hair as the other wraps around your neck. Not squeezing just using it as leverage to fuck into you harder

Shutting him up from conspiracy theory rambling by unzipping his pants and pulling his dick out

Would get a vasectomy just to cum in you as much as he wants

I don’t think he would be a big fan of degradation, calling you his little slut would make him feel “like your pimp” he would state

Aftercare would sometimes be you holding him in your arms reassuring him how much you love him and how happy he makes you as you lightly scratch you back with your nails. He just gets so worried that he doesn’t truly please you so your soothing voice reminding him would almost make him cry T_T ugh he's so cute

[mochizz]

GUYYYSSS I GOT AN EARLY BDAY GIFTTTT YALL UGH let me fill you in on this, the thing is, almost a year ago I unfortunately lost my Apple Pencil, because my dog chewed on it AND SOOO I couldn’t draw digitally anymore, so I had to stick to traditional, AND NOWWW I GOT A NEW APPLE PENCILLL so I can go back to digital, but it’s been a while so I got to get used to it again T_T BUT YEAHHH y’all get ready because we are going digital soon (obv I won’t stop traditional because I love it too much to let it go)

[nicosraf]

hi rafa!!! first of all i absolutely love your writing! i consumed abm&aam so quickly, and im usually a very slow reader (dyslexia, adhd, yadda yadda). im sure you get this a lot but just wanted to say how much both books mean to me!! i was especially in love with how you describe the giants, and also samyaza and azazel make me absolutely crazy. they felt like such good polyam characters to me, how they loved their humans but also eachother... how much they loved and cared for each others kids and how deeply they loved their human families... UGH! T_T ever since i finished angels and man a few months ago i still think about how the book ended!!! not many books make me weep but samyaza and azazel at the end really made me lose it and i still think about it at least once a day and just wither away for a minute lol.

that being said!! i was wondering if you have any random thoughts about those two! i know you get a lot of questions about the demons (for obvious reasons, i love them all so dearly esp for all their flaws) but i dont see a lot about the leads for book 2! like, what would they do together before the war? and for sillies: what would they say if their kids wanted mcdonalds? who is "we have food at home" and who is also chanting mcdonalds?! i legit cant decide and usually im on the ball with that meme. (though i kinda think eitan would be chanting mcdonalds with the kids.....)

(also sorry for the long ask!! im feeling rambly i guess haha!)

hello! thank you so much!! im glad you like abm and a&m! that means a lot to me :) I'm happy you enjoyed it!

I'm especially happy that you like Azazel and Samyaza. Theyre so messy and I love them deeply.

I think about them a lot. I think about Azazel looking at Samyaza and looking so gorgeous that Samyaza gets flustered and stomps away. I think about Samyaza trying to paint his eyes, his hand shaking, and finding himself thinking of Azazel and maybe letting himself think of him for once. Azazel yapping and yapping at Samyaza one day theyre both in a living area. Samyaza pouting over a coffee that Azazel forced him to share w him. Samyaza healing Azazel and Azazel thanking him softly. Them sitting on the floor and playing a game with marbles and Azazel winning over and over while Samyaza puts his face in his hands and screams, and maybe when Azazel teases him, Samyaza launches at him and grabs him, and once their faces are close together, they just stare at each other for a bit.

Azazel knows there's a part of Samyaza that's soft and sensitive. He knows it. He liked that part of him so much. Each time Samyaza gets visibly frustrated and ashamed, Azazel wants to ask whats wrong. They usually let the silence linger though. Answers are scary

[gergthecat]

Since I've done this before and y'all loved it...

Shatter Me Incorrect Quotes Generated by AI (Google Gemini):

Juliette: Warner keeps staring. Should I electrocute him again? Aaron: (Sighs dramatically) Can we not make public displays of affection a habit, love?

Juliette: (Staring intently at a plate of food) I can't believe I used to think electricity was the only thing that could shock me. Aaron: (Raises an eyebrow) Is this about the mystery meatloaf?

Juliette: (Trying to braid Aaron's hair) Why is yours so much harder to work with than Kenji's? Aaron: Because unlike Kenji, I actually brush mine.

Juliette: We need a distraction. Any ideas? Aaron: (Smirks) Leave it to me. (Proceeds to sing off-key karaoke)

Juliette: I can't believe Warner challenged me to an arm-wrestling match. Aaron: Don't worry, I have a secret weapon. (Pulls out a comically oversized foam arm)

Juliette: (Looking at a map) Ugh, these directions are useless. Aaron: Let me guess, north is wherever Warner is standing? Juliette: Exactly!

It doesn't know that Aaron and Warner are the same person. T_T

[soranker]

fav character dynamic of trigun?

it’s probably bc i saw a tweet abt it recently and agreed wholeheartedly (but also bc i truly do love this dynamic and these characters) BUT WOLFWOOD AND ELENDIRA LMAOOOOOOOO oh my god it’s kinda sparse and short but their interactions are SOOOO FUNNNY elendira gunsmoke’s no. 1 comedian ☝️☝️☝️ we need her back 😩

AND THEN ANOTHER but putting this under a readmore bc massive manga spoiler………

vash and livio T_T how quickly they bond and trust each other over shared grief… it’s so beautiful to me and i find a lot of comfort in them after having been thru smth similar… ugh love them so much 🥺