#and i think a lot of their relationship comes down to simplicity and beauty and love. and that was the inspo behind this

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

I guess since I always write about X-Men when drunk, let me talk to you about Scott Summers.

Now look, Scott has a lot of haters, many of them my friends. I even agree with them. There's no easy way to take in Scott Summers. Because more than anything, Scott Summers is a question.

What do you do when they take it from you?

The answer can be many things. If you're Xavier, the answer is, you deny people their childhood. Scott, you're a child soldier by 13. You have just survived a traumatic plane crash in which your family seemingly all died. If you look at people, they die too, and it's your fault. You wear a literal filter to interact with everyone. Sometimes they tell you they're mad and you don't understand. The filter isn't thick enough. Xavier pats your head and tells you this is how it is. You have to be better. You have to be better than them. You have to be better than everybody.

If you're Magneto, the answer is your life. He had everything taken away from him so thoroughly, so long ago, that you, Scott, can't even fathom it. He's introduced to you while stealing nuclear warheads to threaten people who hate you. Every word Xavier has ever told you stings in your brain, like a worm. This is wrong. This is the enemy. He's doing it wrong. He's getting a bad grade at being a mutant. These feelings will poke at you for the rest of your life. You will come to disagree with them. By the time you're 40, you couldn't imagine a more steadfast ally than Magneto. He gets it, you see. No one else gets it like Max does.

If you're Jean Grey, the answer is fire. Create fire. Look for fire. Date a guy who can shoot fire from his eyes. Who can spit fire from his mouth and raise the dead with his words. Who can stand before the apocalypse and burn, burn as hard as fire can burn, as hot as a volcano, enough that the police are involved, that the Avengers are involved, that the gods are involved. Burn and burn and turn to ash and burn further until they stop telling you you're worthless. They never will. But Scott will never be one of them. He would rather burn everlasting than tell you you're less than what you think you are.

If you're Emma, it's kill them from the inside. Become part of the problem to make the problem go away. Meet the problem in their house. Fuck the problem. Buy the problem. Kill the problem by giving them a stroke. Emma thinks you, Scott, could be so much more. You could end the problem in a day, two days tops. You could rally them and radicalize them and make them see how insidious the problem is. But you never would. You tried, and it didn't agree to you. It got weird. You got weird.

If you're Logan, the answer is drinking. You drink and you try to forget, but you never do. You can't. You hang out with this guy, this beautiful, certain, consistent man, and you can't forget what you've lost, but you can make new memories. You can be someone else. You can put on a robe and lay down on a lazy chair and drink near Scott, overlooking the Earth, and you can think, I never want to forget this. I never want to not be here, with Scott, looking over everything. Feeling like I do, doing the things I do, having the relationship I do with him. But eventually it all goes away again, and you remember, right, I'm a violent person, I'm made for battle, I don't deserve love, I don't deserve Scott, I don't deserve anything. I deserve the woods. The wolves. The simplicity. The desire to forget, but never quite getting there. If you're Logan, you don't actually have an answer. Your whole life is a question without an answer.

And then you're Scott. You wonder what you should do when they take it from you. You're surrounded by people radicalized by their choices on how to react to that. You're radicalized by your mistakes. You're radicalized by the fights, the torture, the betrayal, the time in space, the time in hell, the time suffering. Every year of your life was the worst year of your life. Everything you've ever done is a thing to be mocked and used as a standard at the same time. No one knows who you are aside from the guy to listen to. You're 40. You're a father. You're tired. Your first instinct upon being given everything was gathering your family and moving; to the moon, even, where no one could hurt you. And then they took that away from you, too.

So, what do you do?

There's only really one answer.

You sigh, you put on the suit, you do some voice training, you call some friends. You do a speech. You suppress the feeling that it's futile, because that feeling is the oppressor, too. And you say it, like you've said it a thousand times, like you'll say it a thousand times more, like you were made to say, like you were taught to say, like your entire legacy will revolve around how you say this single phrase.

You will say this from your chest. You will say this when no one else is around and no one else is listening. You will say it because it's the right thing to say, and god damn it, at the end of the day, you will never acquiesce. You will never compromise. You will, in fact, always say it, for the rest of your life and beyond. When you're dead and buried and not coming back on the regular, people will still talk about how right you were when you said it, how righteous you sounded when you said it, and how certain you were when you said it.

You say it when they're attacking, you say it when you're attacking, you say it as a defense, you say it as a response, you say it as every figure of importance in your life has given way to compromise or disappointment; as everyone has left you, and has moved on, and has decided oppression doesn't equal a life poorly lived, and has asked you to lose their number because they can't do this anymore, it has taken too much from them and they don't want this to be their lives.

You say you understand, you lose their number, you stop relying on them, and you start saying it to others. Sometimes to people who are too young, but they get it. This is the only appropriate reaction, after all. You were Scott and you were 13 years old when you were a soldier. They can do that, too.

What do you do when they take everything away from you?

Scott Summers sighs and fills his chest with air.

When they take it all from you, Cyclops says "To me, my X-Men."

[newathens]

posally

[rainyorca]

I'll swim down with you 𓇼 Kenji Sato X Reader

Content warnings: F!reader, Established relationship, childhood friends, kissing, fluff, a little bit of smut.

Words: 1,916

Notes: Rewatching Ultraman made me realize that Kenji does in fact have pools on his deck but I don't know if they're meant to be swam in, however, i really wanted to write something involving them soooo…..I am very deeply in love with this man and have seen this movie more times than I’ve seen my dad this summer.

𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼ ꩜𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼ ꩜𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼ ꩜𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼

The setting sun casts beautiful rays of golden light on the Earth, blanketing everything in warmth. It’s mid-June, which means baseball season is at its all-time high right now. For Kenji, it’s rather exciting but for you, it’s a little upsetting. You don’t get to spend as much time with him anymore due to practice and his games, but you still attend his games, all of them in fact as long as your work schedule doesn't overlap. As well as his duties as Ultraman, sometimes you don't even get to have him in bed next to you. 

You sit in one of the pools on his wooden deck, bathing in sunlight. You like to sit in the water and watch the sunset over the ocean, the view is out of this world. It's one of the many things you like about living with him. Ken is currently at practice, which he has practically been at all day in your mind, then again you left for work early this morning so you haven't seen him at all today. You close your eyes, sinking further into the pool and letting your head rest on the edge. The wood is smooth beneath your head, but you slide your hands under your head for more cushion. There's music playing softly in the background, one of your favorite songs from your favorite playlist. This was your idea of relaxing after work, especially with such a hectic day you had. 

“Ken is home,” Mina’s voice erupts softly from behind you, making you jump. You turn around to face the floating supercomputer. “I'm sorry, did not mean to startle you,” she says, her tone flat as usual. “It's okay,” you smile softly, “thank you for letting me know, Mina.” The floating circle gives you a nod before flying off to greet Kenji. You turn back to the sunset, waiting for Kenji to come by. You can hear him talking to Mina inside but it stops momentarily before starting up again. Kenji’s footsteps could be heard approaching you now, but you're too lost in thought to turn around or even notice.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asks, you can practically hear the smile in his voice. You turn around, smiling when you see him. “I’d enjoy it a lot more if you joined me,” you respond, tilting your head at him. He shakes his head with a smile, “I know, that's why I put my swim trunks on.” You watch him lift his shirt over his head, the golden light hitting his toned body perfectly. He looks warm, and the light makes his skin look supple and soft. He dips his feet in the water, pulling back from the slightly coldness but slowly easing himself in. The water isn’t too deep, he can stand perfectly straight and it only goes to his waist. He rests his back against the edge just like your doing but he follows your movements when you turn around to face the sun. He squints a little, turning his head to look at you rather than the bright sun. “How was your day?” he asks, his voice as soft as silk. You peer into his big gray eyes, resting your head on your hands again. “Hetic,” you respond simply, “How was practice?”

He picks up on the simplicity of your answer quickly, dropping the subject knowing you don't want to go into detail. “Practice was good, but I was a little distracted today,” he responds, reaching up and brushing a water droplet off your face only to get more on you. “Why’s that?” you ask, giggling softly at his failed attempt. “Because I kept thinking about you,” he smiles, almost teasingly because he knows what you’re gonna say. “You’re so corny,” you scoff, smiling brightly, “why were you really distracted?” He shrugs, “I'm serious, I was thinking about you.” There's humor in his voice and his expression is rather playful. You roll your eyes, turning your head to face the sun again. 

His eyes linger on you for a moment, taking in the softness of your face and admiring how your eyes look in the sunlight. A few thoughts from the past show up in his mind, like how upset you were when you found out he had to move back to Japan, or the sweet moments in high school when you went to all the school dances with him. You have always been a special person in his life and for so long, he feels rather grateful that you're back in his life as his lover rather than just a friend. He snakes a hand around your waist, turning you around so you're facing him and not the sun. Your back is pressed up against the edge again and he's standing in front of you, staring down into your eyes. 

“You’re so warm,” he says softly, running his hands up your exposed torso. “I’ve been out here a while,” you respond, reaching up and resting your arms on his broad shoulders. “I can tell,” he hums, reaching up to cup your face with his large, wet hand. “You’re warm too,” you point out, tilting your head a bit so you can melt into his touch. He drops his hand, sneakily lifting you so he's carrying you. You wrap your legs around his waist, holding onto him as he backs up from the wall of the pool. He smiles, spinning you around slowly in the water. You close your eyes, throwing your head back and hanging off him a bit as he spins you. 

There's a mischievous look in his eye, but it all goes away when you dip underwater. He surfaces you quickly, laughing at your surprised expression. “Oh you asshole,” you splash him with water, wetting his hair and face. “I couldn't miss the opportunity, sorry,” he lets go of you, protecting himself from your splashes. You give him your best angry expression, but it doesn't last long. You can't resist his charms, and that award-winning smile always makes you smile. He swims up to you, reaching out to grab you again and pulling you into his chest before you can get away. “I won't do it again, I promise,” he says, shaking his hair and sending water flying. “If you do, we're going to have problems,” you respond, pressing your hands into his chest. 

His eyes glide over your face, his smile still plastered on his lips. He cups your face again, making you tilt your head upwards so he can have access to your lips. He tilts his head a little, leaning in to place a soft kiss on your lips. You kiss him back almost immediately, sliding your hands over his shoulders as you have done before. The soft, pillowy feeling of his lips is enough to send you into a trance, parting your lips for him. Your heart rate spikes a little when you feel him pull you in tighter, his brows furrowing and what seems to have started off as an innocent kiss was now becoming something more euphoric and titillating. He tilts his head a little more, deepening the kiss with a quiet grunt before moving you back to the edge of the pool. Your back hits the smooth edge, the coolness of it suddenly more noticeable. 

His grip on you tightens, his knee coming up to part your legs slowly before pressing into your clothed cunt. The sudden shift in demeanor, and movements, makes you gasp a little. He pulls away slowly, a new look in his lidded eyes. He leans down to kiss the line of your jaw and then your neck. “I haven't been able to give you much attention lately,” he says softly but sensually, “the attention you need and crave.” You tilt your head back just a little to give him more access to your neck. His breath is warm and it fans over your neck, the tickling sensation making goosebumps rise on your skin. His knee presses up against your cunt again, a little harder this time making you squeak in surprise. You lift a leg slightly, opening yourself up more. 

Ken moves his hand down, further and further until stopping at the waistband of your swimsuit bottoms. He slips his lithe fingers underneath the fabric, inching closer and closer to your cunt. His lips find yours again in another aggressive, hungry kiss as if he's trying to devour you through the kiss alone. One of his fingers brushes over your sensitive clit, causing you to startle, and a sharp gasp erupts from your throat. The sound is like music to his ears, the noises you make are just perfect to him. You brace yourself, one hand on the edge of the pool, the other digging into his shoulder while he holds you still. He rubs agonizingly slow circles on your clit, drinking in your expressive behavior, soft moans starting to slide off your sinful tongue. 

You were his weakness, just like he was yours. It was hard to resist him really, a struggle you’ve had since your younger years with him. In moments like these, it was even harder. The sun was still setting on the horizon, however only half of it was visible. The night sky started to pool in, blanketing the sky with specks of stars. He couldn't help himself, hearing your delightful and heavenly moans, he needed to hear more, to feel more. His fingers speed up, rubbing a little harder but oh so perfectly. You part from his lips with a rather pathetic gasp, your mouth staying slightly open as he continues to draw his fingers over your clit. 

He leans in, mouth open against your soft neck, tasting, feeling, the area with his mouth. “I wanna memorize every part of your body,” he hums, breath ragged, “I wanna touch you everywhere, make you mine.” He blabbers, his words digging deep into your core, making you squeeze around nothing. He lifts his head to look at you now, bumping noses as he continues his movements against your clit. His eyes bore into yours, lovingly but lustful. You keep your eyes open, or at least try to. You can't help but close them every time a shock of pleasure rushes up your spine. “I wasn't lying when I told you,” his lips curl into a smug smile, “that I was thinking about you. I’ve been thinking about this all day.” 

“Ken,” you breathe, your moans melodic and messy. “You seem more sensitive than usual,” he points out a little teasingly. That warm tingling feeling starts to build up in your stomach, pleasure shooting up your spine as your climax starts to work its way out of you. Just as you're about to release, Mina’s voice sounds from behind Kenji causing both of you to stop. 

“A phone call from your father, Ken,” she says monotone. Kenji sighs, looks back at Mina, and then back to you, his fingers still positioned on your clit. “Before you try to put it off, it's urgent,” Mina continued before Ken could even speak. He groans, clearly irritated, and then gives you an apologetic look. “I’ll be back,” he says, kissing your forehead before releasing you gently. Your body relaxes, and you catch your breath, watching him get out of the pool and follow Mina into the house. A sigh escapes your lips, irritated but otherwise calm. You decide to stay in the pool until the moon comes up.

𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼ ꩜𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼ ꩜𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼ ꩜𓆉︎ ☼ 𓇼 ☼

[000-pawz]

how riwoo loves ( zodiac series ) ˚ · .

how i think riwoo would navigate relationships/love/communication based on his natal chart/birth chart!

wc: 1k+

more under the cut!

riwoo is the definition of "thoughtful, doting, and stable" <3

he's such a stable lover, it's actually insane. riwoo is one of the most sincere, loyal, and honest people ever. with his moon sextile venus, i feel like people fall for him very easily? he's very charming, well-mannered, and polite, so many people have puppy crushes on him. if he has a crush on you, i feel like he'd be very reserved, but deeply sensitive and caring. he'd show that he likes you in little ways. he's very thoughtful and remembers things you would've never thought he'd remember.

with his libra sun, he's very romantic at heart. combine that with his venus in scorpio, and he will have full tunnel vision on his partner. he wants his partner to confide in him. because of his virgo moon, he's amazing at offering support, lending an ear, and helping his partner navigate their struggles. he wants to lift as many stressors from you as possible and he doesn't mind taking them on himself.

his main goal is to make his partner feel special, so i think he'd like those stay-at-home intimate dates like a candle lit dinner, or picnics at the beach and stuff! i think he'd also enjoy relaxing dates, like a puppy cafe or paint and sip ^___^

he's an introverted feeler, no doubt. that phrase "i want to be alone with you" is literally riwoo in a nutshell. he needs quiet time away from the world to recharge and process, but he wouldn't mind his partner being there with him. he prefers to stay out of the limelight when it comes to his personal life, so he may want to keep your relationship relatively private.

i feel like riwoo is most compatible with those who can balance out his reserved nature with emotion, or people who can resonate with his need for stability. he would like a partner that can "take the lead" and set boundaries well. he also has a big thing for aesthetics because of his libra sun, so he'd prefer a partner that is fashionable or shares the same taste/style.

tbh i think he might prefer a partner that is older than him or has a sense of emotional maturity. riwoo is very faithful, but he sometimes has low confidence when it comes to navigating relationships, so he needs a strong and stable foundation for him to feel the most safe. <3

he appreciates the little things in life; those often overlooked every day moments like waking up beside his partner and seeing how beautiful they are. holding hands while walking down the sidewalk. seeing the stars reflect in their eyes. he values simplicity and doesn't need lavish shows of affection to feel loved!!!

he's full of so much adoration for his partner. i see him as the type to take a lot of pictures of you in soft moments, like when you're sleeping on his chest, or if you get frosting on your cheek, or when you're running up to him after not seeing him for a long time <3 he thinks you are the cutest thing ever and wants to cherish every single moment because there's never enough time, so he wants to spend it all with you.

although riwoo has a pretty healthy attachment style, that doesn't mean he has no flaws. because riwoo is such a deep and gentle feeler, he internalizes many of his negative emotions. he has a tendency to over-analyze his partner's behavior and therefore, he overthinks a lot. one thought leads to another, and then he can easily be overridden with his own assumptions. he might take things really personally sometimes and although this doesn't necessarily stem from insecurity, he can fall into deep doubt and self-pity. he can go from being extremely talkative and social one day, to completely silent and detached the next simply because he was thinking for too long.

sooo how can you make him feel loved? this is probably the easiest answer. praise praise praise! ^___^ because his moon is in virgo, riwoo has an innate desire to serve others. he feels most fulfilled when he feels useful, so i see his love language as acts of service and words of affirmation. tell him that you appreciate everything he does for you and that you feel safe with him. he'll give you the world if you let him. alsoooo because of his libra placements, he's pretty sensitive around his lower back, so back massages and back hugs are everything to him!!! even rubbing his back while cuddling can lull him to sleep in like three seconds ><

with his mars in pisces and his mercury in libra, riwoo's communication style is... how do i put this...>< very, very passive? he tries to avoid conflict as much as humanly possible. he feels uneasy when there is conflict, but he has difficulties with asserting himself and always seeing both sides, so he never has any strong opinions on anything. this can be frustrating for his partner when trying to seriously resolve an issue.

he hates being in the wrong and he hates when his partner thinks he's in the wrong because he just wants to make them happy. i feel like his go-to lines are "okay, you're right." or "i'm sorry." without even addressing anything specific </3 he may sometimes let his true feelings on a situation stew because he takes so long to understand them himself and because of his libra mercury, he can be a messy communicator when he finally does speak his mind, usually going off on tangents to explain himself or giving a thousand disclaimers before making an opinion.

riwoo has a hard time confronting his emotions verbally, but he opens up like a flower when his partner provides a safe, understanding, and non-judgemental environment for him. he's his most authentic, raw self when he feels understood on a deeper level. hold him and remind him that you are there for him no matter what. <3

reblogs are greatly appreciated! lmk what u think or if you have any other takes!!! i'm always open to learning more :o thank u...<3

series masterlist

masterlist

[thatgirl4815]

Ray's Feelings

Ray's process of falling in love with Sand has such nuance to it that I think gets horribly overshadowed by his actions alone, not their context. Yes, Ray mistreats Sand. Yes, Ray has a lot to apologize for. But I think Ray is a broken person who has a lot to apologize for because he's in a situation that he is grossly under-equipped, both mentally and emotionally, to handle.

@victorialovesstiles' post here includes a great discussion of the moment Ray becomes fully aware of Sand's feelings for him in Ep8. Up to this point, I don't think Ray tried to pin down exactly how he felt for Sand because the situation didn't necessitate it. He and Sand were "friends," and that label was always fine with Ray, until it wasn't enough anymore, until Sand couldn't put up with it. Looking back on all of this progression, I'd argue Ray has had feelings for Sand for as long as Sand has had feelings for him, but he hasn't been in a place to confront them the same way Sand has. It makes sense given that Sand is the one in the bad spot, watching Ray chase after Mew. If their situations had been reversed, I think Ray would've had to contend with his feelings much more directly much earlier.

Ray makes comments like this that point to the depth of his feelings, but he never truly vocalizes them outright until later in Ep9. Ray realizing how happy he is with Sand and admitting to that is the first step in the recognition of his true feelings, that he sees Sand as more than a good friend who takes care of him and just so happens to sleep with him.

Ray's feelings are strong, but they are also delicate, as demonstrated by the fight at Sand's apartment in Ep10. This dialogue in particular:

Ray thinks he deserves to be upset for having his emotions played with, which says more than anything how much Ep9 meant to him. It's also important in the context of money, because Ray's self-worth is so heavily influenced by what he can offer other people: if nothing else, he has always had his wealth to fall back on. And here is Sand claiming to love him, but all Ray can see is someone who accepted payment. Every conversation they’ve about the separation of feelings and money is being put into question.

At the end of Ep10, Ray echoes his dialogue in Ep8. I personally like that Ray makes a point of saying how happy he is with Sand; what stands out to me here is that Ray is confessing this to imaginary Sand, so he's technically only really admitting it to himself. He makes me happy and I keep screwing it up. He does care, and he's always cared, but I can't do anything but ruin it. I was made to ruin things. Those are all thoughts that seem to lay at the core of his dialogue at the end of Ep10.

I guess my main point here is that we witness Ray returning to this idea time and time again that when he's with Sand, he's truly happy. Sand sees beyond his problems, beyond the brokenness. Even with how complex their situation is, there's something so beautiful about that simplicity. Sand makes Ray happy. That’s what it’s always boiled down to.

"I know now that you want nothing from me" -> I have a feeling this entire speech from Ray is going to form a deeper trust between Ray and Sand. Ray knows now that Sand is true. He knows that he has overthought everything. The reason why Ray skews the situation with Sand is because Ray is so used to viewing himself in a negative light, but he was clinging to the hope that Sand didn't see him that way. Even when other characters insult Ray for his behavior (which isn't entirely undeserved), Sand was always there to explain why he was wrong, to encourage him to be better. When it's Sand, it's about growth, not just recognition.

The ending scene in Ep10 is such a catharsis because Ray is finally coming to terms with the fact that virtually all of the doubts and complexities surrounding his relationship with Sand were created by him. But Sand has always been true. Sand has always loved him. And now that he sees that, he knows just how important it is that he clings to that love and never lets it go.

[twistedcharismaaa]

Silk Dreams: Temptations

General Summary: The creation of Masego.

Summary: A deeper glimpse into the past of Masego and Charisma's relationship that leads to their awaiting future.

Author's Note: Hi guyssss! How are ya? I hope you guys are well! I miss you guys and love you guys so much! I’m here with a little update! I hope you guys enjoy it it! I know it’s been ten thousand years since I’ve last updated this. Please feel free to re-read as a refresher. I’m still rusty. I’m really insecure about this update to be transparent lol. So I really, really hope you guys enjoy this. I love y’all! Don’t forget to leave a comment for ya girl! I liveeeee for the commentary! Enjoyyyyy!

*Flashback*

She didn’t know what captured her first - his smile, his laughter, or his eyes. She swore he had the warmest eyes she’d ever seen. And he was absolutely clueless of the power that rested in those dark brown orbs. She saw her fantasies in them. She saw vast possibilities, endless resolutions, and more importantly, freedom. She wondered how many versions of herself that she could be around him and she wondered who he was outside the confines of these four walls that they both seemed to frequent every Friday afternoon. The Smoothie Café on 15th Street was quaint and quiet. It was something that she had been lacking recently. The art of simplicity. She wondered if he lived a simple life and she wondered what he wrote about when he typed on that laptop of his. Whatever it was, held a lot of importance. She figured it was important enough for him not to notice her. 

Neglect was never a stranger to her, but it still hurt all the same. She figured this is just the life of an attention seeker ever insatiable for the spotlight or maybe ever insatiable for love. Silently, she sighed before taking another sweet swig of her fruity delight of a drink. Carelessly, she stole one more glance from Mr. Pretty Brown eyes. But this time, to her surprise, his eyes were already resting on hers. Again, he had the warmest eyes she’d ever seen but yet, they were able to send a chill down her spine. She smiled timidly and he did the same. Slowly, he stood up from his table and began gradually walking her way. 

She pretended to busy herself with some random app on her phone. Again, she took another sip of her smoothie and waited impatiently for his arrival. Moments later, he stood in front of her table. 

“Excuse me,” he said politely. 

“Yes,” she responded, kindly. 

“I’ve noticed that we both seem to come here a lot. The drinks here are amazing,” he said, as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck. 

“They are,” she agreed. 

“I figured it’s time for me to introduce myself. I’m Ambrose. All my friends call me Ro,” he replied, smiling. 

“Charisma,” she answered. “That’s a pretty name. Doesn’t it mean immortal or something like that?” She quizzed.

“Yeah, it does. It has Greek Origins. Thank you,” he replied, chuckling. 

“You’re welcome,” she replied, smiling. 

“Since we’re on the topic of pretty things, I think you’re absolutely beautiful,” he admitted. 

And just like that her smile grew even wider. 

“Thank you,” she answered. 

“If you’re not busy or anything. I would love to take you out to dinner sometime. Or maybe we can get a smoothie together?” He suggested.

Before she could answer, The sound of reality buzzed in the palm of her hand. Masego was calling. Quickly, she ignored the call. 

“I would love to,” she replied, eagerly.

“Bet,” Ambrose stated, happily.

Gleefully, they both exchanged numbers and then exchanged goodbyes. 

She watched Ambrose exit the Smoothie Café with a small smile on her face. Once the door behind him closed, she returned her attention back to her phone. It buzzed again, and again, and again. Her phone was flooded with missed calls and unread texts. Reluctantly, she read Masego’s last message. 

“I’m back in town …. I want to see you. I missed you,”

Instantly, she was reminded of how courteous her lover was. He was just so mindful. How mindful and considerate he was to announce his arrival back home after not speaking to her for over a month. She was completely ghosted. His prized jewel on the shelf collecting dust. He was absolutely polished and pristine. How kind he was to update her on his well-being overseas through Instagram stories and Twitter posts. It would only be right for her to match his chivalry. She left her lover on read and tossed her phone in her purse. She gathered the rest of her belongings and exited the cafe and entered a new state of illusion. 

——-

*Present* 

The crowd sounded like roaring lions. Their cheers echoed loudly throughout the building. Even with the door closed you can feel their adoration pulse. She couldn’t blame them though. She loved watching him perform on stage too. Quietly, she sat down and tried to think about all the things she loved about him. She even tried to think about all the reasons she had to stay and all the reasons she had to go. 

Breaking her many thoughts, she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. It was Ambrose calling. Hesitantly, she ignored his call. Seconds later, he followed up with a text. 

“Did you end it with him? Have you talked to him? Call me baby, please,”

She read his text and instantly her heart broke. Ambrose didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve this. 

“Fuckkk,” she groaned. 

Tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks as she texted Ambrose back.  

“No, he’s performing right now. Didn’t catch him. Will call later,”

Quickly, she locked her phone and tossed it to the side. She closed her eyes and tried to quiet her mind. 

——

Several moments passed and Masego quickly entered his dressing room sweaty and breathless. A sense of relief washed over him the moment he saw Charisma’s face. She was still there. He smiled widely and sat beside her on the couch. 

“You’re here,” he whispered. 

“I am,” she replied. 

“Are you ready to talk?” She questioned, sternly. 

“Yes,” he answered. 

“Good,”

———

How quickly dreams can turn into nightmares….

Part 3

@ghostfacekill-monger @geriixox @sapphichottie @chaneajoyyy @isisafrofairy @mooon-berry @savagescorpion @nzia-writes @nelleana @blackburnbook @fendionmyfeet @neewrites @themajesticnigerian @theycallmechanty @teardropzih @xxariaxxaxx @shewrites02 @straightouttasimulation

[harborpointeblvd]

This is BL challenge for you (if you choose to accept them).

1.a) Please write your top 3 or top 5 favorite tropes in BL.

b) From each trope, write at least 3 BL that you love.

(Feel free if you want to write the reasons or not of why you love them).

2. a) What is the first BL that make you want to know more about and eventually love BL?

b) What is that one BL that have a special place in your heart (for whatever reason)?

3.) Who are your top 5 (or top 3) seme & uke from your favorite BL media (both can be from the same BL or different from each other )?

The BL can be in in the form of manga, manhwa, manhua, danmei, books, tv series or movies.

Thanks so much if you want to answer this long ask.

Challenge accepted!

So lately I've been watching a lot of Thai dramas, but I started with manga/manhwa, so I'll be talking about both.

1. I'm gonna do top 3 favorite tropes, because I can't think of 5.

Hidden Agenda. Not like the Joong/Dunk series. I'm talking about when a character comes onto the scene with a secret personal mission but foils their own plan by falling in love. This, of course, leads to a snowball of lies, followed by the inevitable dramatic fallout. For example:

Not Me - Honestly, just fucking outstanding. I love this series so much. The guilt that White feels the longer he keeps the lie going, and then Sean's confusion and refusal to accept when shit unravels is just devastating. It's what I live for.

Tale of Thousand Stars - What makes this one extra devastating is that we the audience can see the full picture. The villagers only know what Tian tells them, and Tian's own perspective is clouded by survivor's guilt. So while we can see where everyone is coming from, it's clear that Tian doesn't deserve the punishment that's being piled on him.

Unintentional Love Story - There is a manhwa and a K-drama adaptation, but I'm talking specifically about the manhwa. The dynamic between the leads is so cute, it's almost like the author is trying to make you forget the relationship was built on a lie. Until, of course, it all comes crumbling down.

Third Act Breakup. I know, everyone hates this trope. But something you should know about me is that when I get into a story, I want it to ruin my life. Okay, not really, but I might like angst a little too much. I find it extremely cathartic to experience heartache vicariously through fictional characters. Admittedly, this trope often relies on characters acting in ways that don't make sense. But when it works, it works.

Blueming - The simplicity of Blueming is what makes it beautiful, and that includes the breakup. It's not some convoluted drama or people acting out of character, just humans making human mistakes and needing time to reflect on them.

Dark Blue Kiss - Speaking of convoluted drama. I can't even defend myself on this one.

Last Twilight - Oh god, this is gonna be my most controversial pick. I liked the breakup scene in Last Twilight. It was gut-wrenching, but it felt necessary. Like, they both needed time apart in order to grow independently. I mean, they kind of squandered that opportunity for growth, but we're not here to talk about episode 12.

Unrequited Love Reversal. There is just something so satisfying about watching the pursuer become the pursued. The character who initially took the other's love for granted suddenly has to work to get it back. I think it's a wish fulfillment thing. It's probably unhealthy how much I like this trope.

The Best Smell - This manhwa is kind of a hard sell, but trust me, it's so good. It's about a boy named Kanggo whose sense of smell is so powerful, he can smell emotions. He despises the smell of lies, so he initially hates Kamin, who is very withdrawn and secretive. But Kamin has a secret crush on Kanggo, and his affection smells so sweet, that Kanggo starts to do anything to be near Kamin. But the closer Kanggo tries to get to him, the more Kamin's guard goes up.

The Third Ending - The first season, specifically, because I didn't like the second season. Yoonseul reconnects with Jun, a guy he rejected in high school, believing it will fix his karma. When the two become closer, Yoonseul becomes confused about his feelings for Jun. After rejecting him for the second time, Jun pulls away, and Yoonseul realizes too late that he's fallen for Jun.

A Shoulder to Cry On - Specifically the manhwa. While I thought the drama was a pretty good adaptation, my favorite scene played out much more satisfyingly in the manhwa. After rejecting Dayeol and pushing him away, Taehyun regrets his decision and tries to make up with him. But Dayeol decides his life is easier without Taehyun in it, and he tells him, "I can handle my feelings for you, but I don't think I can handle you." And it's on their graduation day, so he just straight disappears from his life after that.

2. I first started reading manhwa in 2020 when I was in quarantine and needed a distraction. I'd been reading Haikyuu or something, and someone on YouTube recommended Someone Else's BL Manhwa. I instantly fell in love with it and to this day it's still my favorite BL manhwa.

I transitioned to dramas when I watched Blueming, which is one of the few k-drama adaptations that I thought was much better than the manhwa it was based on.

Aside from those two, a BL that holds a special place in my heart is Bad Buddy. It was the one that started my great GMMTV binge-watch, and I've watched it three times since then. It's my comfort watch.

3. I don't really like the seme/uke labels, but I can just tell you some of my favorite BL main characters.

I tend to be drawn to two kinds of characters. The first are those who are not very smart, but very passionate and sincere.

Gun - My School President

Heesu - Heesu in Class 2

The second are those who are stubborn and kind of bratty. Even better if they're only bratty to the love interest, because that's good stuff.

Seunghee - Someone Else's BL

Team - Between Us (Between Us wasn't very good, but Team can stay. And no, I haven't watched UWMA.)

Day - Last Twilight

[astromechs]

Rules: pick an artist or a band and share your favorite song from each of their albums, then tag some mutuals!

tagged by @batmurdock ; thank you!

i'm doing it. taylor swift discography, let's go. my blog, my fucking rules 😤

taylor swift (2006): cold as you; so, like, girl was 16 when she released this album, and a lot of the songs show it, but i think this one has shades of her later songwriting maturity, and still remains an underrated deep cut on her discography.

fearless (2008): untouchable; so, i know i picked the song on this album that's technically a cover (and actually the only cover she has recorded!). but — i've heard the original song, and while it's good, too, taylor just really makes this song her own. she completely changes the tone, and makes it something special, in my opinion.

speak now (2010): ours; this is just a really sweet little country love ballad. i love it.

red (2012): all too well; red is one of my favorite albums, and there are so many standout songs on here, but i think all too well is just, objectively, a very fine example of songwriting craft. "and you call me up again just to break me like a promise/so casually cruel in the name of being honest", like, still goes hard. come on, even if you don't like her music, you have to admit this!

1989 (2014): clean; i love the simplicity of this song, sonically, but how it's like, anything but simple in message — and it feels like a catharsis. i may have a personal bias for choosing this one, because it got me through a particularly rough time, but.

reputation (2017): dancing with our hands tied; i've long called taylor swift the queen of doomed relationships, but i actually think this is her best doomed relationship song. it just... captures the desperation, the pizzaz. "i'd kiss you as the lights went out/swaying as the room burned down/i'd hold you as the water rushes in" like, whew. this song is why my mattelektra (taylor's version) playlist exists LMFAO

lover (2019): cornelia street; this song is so underrated that it's actually criminal. it's just... such a beautiful portrait of the uncertainty and ferocity of falling in love. DON'T @ ME!!!!!!

folklore (2020): august; this may actually be my favorite song of hers, period. lyrically, this song is beautiful; musically, it fits the vibe that it's trying to convey. it's really just an incredible composition; you just really get transported back to teenage summer love in a wistful way.

evermore (2020): ivy; okay, i love. all of evermore. but i hAVE to pick ivy as my favorite, because i can't not. this song has sapphic vibes all over the place.

midnights (2022): the great war; the metaphor game in the lyrics is off the charts. i love the production.

tagging: @jaqobis ; @loisfreakinglane ; @latrodectal ; @bvcksmunson ; @mari--lace ; @seek--rest

[anitosoul]

My Favorite Albums of 2020

9. Adrienne Lenker, songs/instrumentals

Favorite Tracks: zombie girl | come | not a lot, just forever

This album is really special to me because it’s tied to one of my favorite days of 2020. Amidst the chaos that was the global pandemic, the lead up to the 2020 election, and attempting to continue with life despite all of the external strife, I decided to have a “treat yourself” day alone in the Bronx. I had wanted to check out the Bronx Zoo and NY Botanical Garden since I moved to the city and always saved it thinking it could be a good idea for a date or something, but my solo day in the Bronx ultimately ended up being consolation for the (trying not to be pathetic) fact that I didn’t have anyone to go with. I couldn’t be more grateful, though, that I ended up spending it alone, as this album guided my journey and helped me reflect on a lot of my life and insecurities.

The day I decided to do my Bronx excursion ended up being rainy and dreary, immediately adding a wave of melancholic introspection (and slight disappointment) to my plans. I started off at the zoo and wasn’t really feeling it. It was just weird walking around a zoo alone as a 23 year old and seeing the animals just wasn’t as exciting as I’d remembered it being as a kid. After cutting my losses and walking over to the Botanical Garden, I was immediately more interested in the beautiful plant and flower arrangements throughout the grounds. I got a hot chocolate and walked around until I found a part of the botanical garden that was preserved and protected land, allowing visitors to experience what the area would look like without human development. I found a log and sat down, feeling overwhelmed from the day so far and relieved to take a load off. I remembered that songs had released a few days prior and started playing it from my headphones.

From the moment I put on the album, I was instantly put at ease, feeling a sense of relaxation and calm that I had been seeking all along. Adrianne Lenker recorded the album entirely analog directly to tape in a secluded cabin. In the liner notes, it mentions that the album features “Lenker’s vocals and her playing acoustic guitar, as well using a paint brush and the needles of a white pine tree as instruments. It also features recordings of the rain, the wind, the fire from a wood stove, the chimes on her front porch, the birds, and the insects of the forest.” songs/instrumentals are the ultimate expression of complexity in simplicity: despite the sparse instrumentation, Lenker delivers a rich, gorgeous project filled with deep musicality.

songs is an album drawing upon lived experience, but at its core is a representation of individual interpretation of solitude. In this write-up I don’t want to do the album injustice with some pretentious analysis of the meaning behind Lenker’s thoughtful and deeply personal lyrics; you can read Pitchfork reviews for that. I do want to write about some of the things I ruminated on in the rainy botanical garden forest based on one lyric from my favorite track, zombie girl:

oh, emptiness tell me ‘bout your nature maybe i’ve been getting you wrong i cover you with questions cover you with explanations cover you with music - Adrianne Lenker, “zombie girl”

As I walked through the forest, I thought a lot about what it means to be alone. I thought about the stigma I felt about being out in the world by myself: in so many ways it feels as if the world pushes those who are alone out of sight, as if activity can only be enjoyed with company. I always felt insecure about being alone, realizing the pangs of envy when I would see a couple in the park or through a restaurant window. I felt the pressures from all kinds of sources to fear loneliness, that as a young person I should be constantly seeking sex or a relationship and filling the rest of the time with a vibrant social life, that being single and dating is just a hurdle before finding some sense of security and settling down with someone forever. Ever since I could develop crushes, I found myself feeling an inexplicable longing for fulfillment from another person, but this year I’ve finally started to unpack that feeling. This was the first year I truly felt satisfied just being myself and spending time with myself: the space from work, school, and social life gave opportunity for reflection and connection to the environment, allowing me to realize that I feel just as alive sitting under a tree in the rain as I do moshing with friends at a music festival, that my own self-love can be as affirming as that of a partner.

I also thought about solitude in terms of family and how lucky I am to have the life I live. My parents were both born into poverty in the Philippines, which is basically the least privileged position to be born into in the world given the developing status of the Philippines. Recognizing the amount of struggle that was required from my parents, and all my ancestors long before them, to provide me with such an opportunistic life allowed me to view my situation in a different light. My solitude was powerful and gave me reflective space, but I was not alone: I’m bonded through a beautiful, rich culture that continues to thrive despite the impacts of colonization. The awakening of this ancient connection has spurred powerful healing and inspired a relationship with my heritage that I have never felt before.

By giving emptiness and nature its own space and not covering it with questions, explanations, or music, I’ve gained more wisdom than I’d ever thought possible. I considered the fact that the world is a living system in and of itself and it doesn’t have any expectations for us humans—we’re exploiting it, but it continues to nourish us and give us life. Trees don’t have to establish some elaborate rule system about how not to destroy each other like us humans do, they just exist and help each other. Hearing songs on that rainy forest day was the first step towards my 2021 resolution: be more like trees. Thinking about solitude and nature and the process of recording this album also spurred me to commit to building a sustainable off-grid cabin with my dad, something he’s always talked about and that we’re finally turning into a reality. Overall, this album became much larger than a musical body of work; it became a teacher, perfectly capturing my range of reflective thoughts and inspiring action. To me, this album is like looking at a plant—truly noticing the natural grace of its colors, shapes, and textures—and taking that appreciation a step further, planting a seed to inspire that beauty for others in the future.

[velvet-umbrellas]

Top Ten Bon Iver Songs (cause I've been thinking about it for too long, also first post!)

10. 33 "GOD"

I may not be the biggest fan of Vernon's later work just because I'm not engaged with the autotune, but something about this one always just hit hard.

"How to know who to write / How to know how to cull up all these questions"

9. Perth

Bon Iver's sophomore, self-titled album is an improvement on the very first (FEFA) album in almost every way. That's apparent from the very first track, "Perth." Keeping in the signature falsetto, but adding badass new drum beats really makes this song one worth listening to.

8. Skinny Love

The most popular one (and a song that's spawned a million covers) is still really great. Love how Vernon sounds like he's desperately putting together the pieces of a once whole relationship:

"Come on skinny love what happened here?"

Won't say I haven't been in that position before ;)

7. Michicant

A beautiful and soft lullaby that puts me to tears as well as it can put me to sleep (really a compliment). It's such a beautiful and memorable tune where Vernon's falsetto really shines.

6. 29 Strafford Apts

As I've said before, I'm not the biggest fan of Vernon's later work. After working with Kanye, he loses a lot of that acoustic sound that hooked me in the first place.

However, "Apts." takes full advantage of a more experimental and grand production. It's a memorable wave of sound that manages to overwhelm with its vulnerability:

"I know you buried all your alimony butterflies."

I may not appreciate the "unique" beauty of 22, A Million quite yet, but I feel I will soon.

5. Holocene

Ahh yes a classic favorite. The acoustic plucks at the beginning and the message of taking in the grandeur of life when feeling insignificant is one that's gotten me through uncountable tribulations.

As I'm sure it is to many people, "Holocene" is a personal song to me. A delicate light in dark times. One that seems like it needs to be gently held or else it'll be smothered by the all-consuming darkness.

4. Towers

Bon Iver's one true rock song; Towers is a rather uplifting and joyous entry in Vernon's canon.

Again another personal song, but Towers is more triumphant and energetic. It's just a fun thing to listen to when I'm down.

3. Re Stacks

Used emotionally at the end of HouseMd's famous episode "Wilson's Heart" (where the doctor sidekick's misunderstood girlfriend dies one of television's most gut-wrenching deaths), Re Stacks seems to be the anthem of delicate and somber loss.

Once again another very personal song (probably a distinction I'll be making for every song from here on out to be honest), but Re Stacks is particularly special. It's elusive lyrics yet emotionally resonate sound makes it a favorite to cover. And it's one that brings me to tears every time for some reason.

2. Flume

"I am my mother's only child"

A simple, homophonic ballad that introduced us to the natural cottegecore world of Bon Iver, Vernon's "Flume" sings his heart out.

It's very simple, but yet still very powerful. Partially due to its lyrics and partially due to just how effective it is in delivering its simplicity.

1. For Emma

Emma isn't a person, it's a place.

Iconic for its triumphant trumpet accompaniment and somber lyrics, it's a juxtaposition that's become the classic anthem for loss and forlorn nostalgia. It perfectly hammers home Vernon's "cabin in the woods" feel that is established throughout the whole album and on the cover itself.

Again, but this is probably my single most personal song in Vernon's entire discography. I've listened to this countless times. When I'm happy. When I'm sad. When I'm tired. When I'm horny. When I'm thinking about the future. And more often than not, when I'm thinking about the past.

Emma is not a person. It's a time. It's a place that harbors all of my pain, pleasures and all the tricky emotions in between.

Do I know how to navigate them? No. But it sure seems easier with a song that can bring them all to light as effectively and emotionally as "For Emma" does

[queenof-snakes]

Okay, I don't talk about my personal life a lot but I'm at a loss right now and I could really use some advice. This might be kind of a long story but if you get around to reading it I'd appreciate any words of wisdom you could offer.

TW: romantic shit, some mention of mental health issues

First, some kinda important information about me. I have never been in love, I don't know if I'm in love with this person or if I'm just being irrationally obsessive. I'm 26 years old and I have little to no experience with romantic relationships because I was never really interested in commiting to anything like that.

And now to the story:

I met him 7 years ago. He (I'll just call him B for the sake of simplicity) was my best friend's best friend (let's just call him J) and it was J's birthday so he invited everyone to celebrate.

One of the first things B said to me was that I looked like a slut which is obviously a great first impression. Safe to say we didn't like each other and neither of us tried to hide that. We spent most of the day bickering and rolling eyes at each other. I thought he was arrogant and he thought I was shallow.

Since we both were really close to J, we started spending more time with each other during friend group meet-ups and while the bickering never stopped, I caught him watching me and I found myself smiling at his (seriously stupid) jokes more often than not.

About a year after the first meeting, he asked me to come over for a smoke. It was the middle of the night, we're both insomniacs and he lives like five minutes away from me. I didn't really have anything better to do and by then I actually started looking forward to seeing him so I went over to his place. We sat outside, listened to music, smoked way too much, looked at the stars and talked about everything and nothing. We didn't even notice how much time had passed until the sun started rising.

And then that happened again. And again. At least once a week, sometimes several times a week, sometimes we'd get coffee and breakfast at this little bakery around the corner.

We started talking about ourselves, he told me about his abusive father, I told him about my mental health struggles, things neither of us had ever shared with anyone else before that. He showed me songs about beautiful girls and told me they reminded him of me. I told him he had the most fascinating green eyes. But neither of us took the other seriously. We both had severe trust and commitment issues and maybe bickering and harmless flirting was the only way we knew how to communicate.

That went on for about another year. In that time, he started drinking a lot and I didn't mind because I did too. Being with B seemed to be the only time I could be truly myself, truly honest with my thoughts and interests. Nothing I ever told him scared him off and vice versa.

So, at this point I'm 21 and crumbling under the pressures of society. I couldn't hold down a job because everything was so unbearably dull that I would rather smash my head into a wall. I had a bit of a mental breakdown and my mother decided to get me help. I went to a clinic, stayed there for 9 months and figured out a loooot of things about myself and the way my brain works.

Another thing about me, I suck at texting back. He does too. So we didn't talk much while I was gone. When I came back, things were weird between us. He was still in the same mindset he had been in 9 months ago and I had changed a lot. So we drifted apart. I told myself that it was for the best, that he'd only drag me down and that I didn't need him. He stopped showing up to group hangouts and I moved on.

Until I saw him that year on J's birthday. And then it all came back. But we'd never really talk. Just lots of tension.

And then another year passed of us not talking, saw him on J's birthday again, same thing. Year after year after year. And I always start thinking that maybe he has moved on but then I say something and he does that stupid chuckle-while-shaking-his-head-thing that he always used to do. And I always think that I moved on but then I catch myself watching him and wanting to talk to him like we used to and wanting to hold his stupid hand.

J's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, B was there too obviously. He grew out his hair and it looks stupidly good on him. It was the same as always; I stared at him, he was annoyingly charming (or charmingly annoying).

And now I don't know what to do. Do I text him? Do I tell him all of this? Do I just do what I usually do and avoid any feelings at any cost? Do I just spend the rest of my life anticipating J's birthday because I know that's the only day of the year I get to see B?

If you actually read all of this, thank you so much 🫀

Feel free to reblog this or message me with any advice or questions you might have. I have no idea how comprehensive any of this is so just let me know.

[alltheflair]

The Creative Side: Rafael Arturo Shabazz

Courtesy Photo: Rafael Arturo Shabazz

Rafael Arturo Shabazz, an Afro-Latino photographer, published author, poet, musician, and visual artist, has quite the portfolio.

“Less is more and after all there is beauty in simplicity when you think about the art of photography. My mission is to magnify the visions of my collaborators, my clients and create images that reflect everyday life and beyond,” Rafael said on the Instagram account for SKIN & BONE, his company.

Born and raised in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Shabazz grew up in low-income housing with his mom, who worked a part-time job for $9 an hour. His mom worked hard to maintain the household, but it was unstable, and domestic violence was present.

“I’ve gone through bullying most of my life. I’ve had a speech impediment growing up because my primary language was Spanish, but then I had to adapt to the Boston public school system and learn the English language.” Shabazz said. “In the process, I fell in love with literature as literature became a bridge to gap the alienation of where I come from and how I grew up. Falling in love with literature introduced me to poetry, and introduced me to Langston Hughes, so journaling became a safe haven for me whenever I felt too different or couldn’t fit in certain places, or I felt alone or I felt like I needed to express myself… I resorted to poetry.”

Fast forward to high school, Shabazz continued painting, but took on sewing and designing pieces. He still kept his love for poetry, and found himself listening to jazz and expanding his music taste. Out of high school, Shabazz packed up and moved to Paris and got his first full-time job cleaning floors in a hospital. He took his mom’s camcorder with him to Paris, just like how she brought it to the Dominican Republic to capture moments with her family.

“I figured out that me and my mom have the same mentality when it comes to recording history. You know, documenting history, documenting ourselves. Growing up, there’s a battle between me and my mom low-key because she doesn’t let me do what I wanna do. There's a similarity between us. That’s a relationship I reflected on. While she was building a life for us and the struggles sort of prohibited my freedom into the world, we shared a lot of similar interests. So my mom is someone who has been very influential in my life.” Shabazz said.

Q: How did you come up with the name SKIN & BONE? What does it mean to you?

A: I came up with the name SKIN & BONE because I wanted it to relate to just the basis of fashion photography. And that is a person right in front of the lens expressing themselves through their clothing. SKIN & BONE has always been about fashion. The root of how I started was with landscape photography and documenting the times. So, I still wanted to incorporate that and that rawness of capturing time is embedded within the metaphorical meaning of skin and bone. It’s just raw. SKIN & BONE on a more technical aspect, is like, yes, I’m capturing people, you know, I’m capturing different kinds of people in different ways. So, it’s pretty much I came up with this slogan “SKIN & BONE: Show us you, show us who you are”.

Q: How would you describe your style of photography?

A: My strength is portraiture work, that’s something that I’ve recognized, I think within the last few years or so. My strength is capturing faces, literally faces, anything above the chest. So, I would describe my work to be sort of intricate, and sort of intimate in a way, but also natural and colorful.

Q: What do you think makes a perfect photograph?

A: What makes a perfect photograph is understanding what camera you’re using. I think once you understand the mechanics behind the camera and you understand yourself because now you’re able to filter out, or filter down, what type of photograph you intend to capture. I mean it really all just depends on how much time you spend with your hobbies. A perfect photograph depends on repetitive practice.

Q: Within this year, or the next two or three years, what goals do you want to achieve?

A: I got some big goals in my life. I feel like this is a way of manifesting it. That’s why I was so excited to pop on because I’m manifesting this. My goal is to do a Vogue cover, and also to be on ID Magazine, and O32c Magazine as well. These are the magazines that I resonate with, my type of style, and once that’s said and done I’m retiring. I’m done with photography, I have nothing else to prove.

Q: Are there any photographers that inspire you, or that you admire?

A: Yes, yes, one of them is Tyler Mitchell. He inspires me a lot. Another one is Helmut Newton. Newton is the guy who photographed this really infamous editorial of Yves Saint Laurent. It’s this woman in a full suit trying to pursue this other woman, and Newton plays a lot with different aspects of sexualities and incorporating fashion into both of those worlds and merging them. Mitchell focuses more on distorting reality with his backdrops, and telling intimate stories about boyhood or girlhood stuff like that. I really like that.

Q: Is there anything else you want the people to know?

A: I believe that I’m one of the best photographers in Massachusetts. Period. I really feel like, you know, the amount of time I’ve spent learning my craft has really proven itself over time. Even in that aspect it’s distinguished itself amongst other photographers. I like that because that’s special to me, to stand out sometimes in the art world. That is something I wanted to get off my chest. Another thing is obviously if you love what you do and invest 100% into it, it’ll come right back to you. Something else I wanted to share is SKIN & BONE is not a magazine. It’s just photography, and I don’t want people to get it confused because of the branding now.

These past couple of months, Shabazz has made big waves to kick off the year. Back in February, he sat down with host Paul Willis at the Frugal Bookstore and discussed Shabazz’s journey and SKIN & BONE. And just earlier this month, Shabazz landed his first art gallery exhibition at the Urbanica Gallery in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

“This exhibition is dedicated to Dorchester, Roxbury, my friends, loved ones, and the art of repetition.” Shabazz said via the SKIN & BONE Instagram.

If you want to learn more about Shabazz, see more of his work, book a photoshoot or consultation, or buy his book, “I.S.A.A.C,” click here.

[lotusbxtch]

Whew. Okay. If you all haven't read this fic by @for-a-longlongtime yet, you absolutely should.

It's devastatingly bleak but incredibly beautiful at the same time. The relationship between Santi and Frankie is so palpable, raw, vulnerable, and real, and for that reason alone, you should read it. The way magical realism is woven into the story as well as the plethora of references to Norse mythology is striking. And if you didn't know already, @for-a-longlongtime writes stunning works, always. I've been privy to her working so incredibly hard to get this out, and boy, was it worth the time!

I am usually a fluffy & spicy fic kind of gal, maybe with a splash of angst, but I will tell you -- the emotional gut-wrenches of this story are completely worth reading. My heart!

Okay, let me dive into some of the details I'd like to scream about (SPOILERS & EXCERPTS AFTER THE CUT):

First off, the way your writing morphs as you go along, mirroring the simplicity of being a child to the more complicated emotions of adulthood... amazing. Your writing as always is so immersive, and this is just another way of you doing that.

The way you explain what's going on outside of Santi and Frankie is very well done too. It bring a wholeness to the sense of the world you've built in there, and puts things into perspective.

The characters are all so separate and different as well. At no point did any of them seem to meld into the others unless it was intentionally done.

Finally, the dream sequences are phenomenal. The way that you weave them into the story, and how they increasingly become part of reality, until they meld together at a time when it makes total sense for them to mix with reality.

The second time Frankie read those words to you, about a year or so later, you realize it isn’t about going to hell for the work you do. It’s about not being alone in hell since you’ve got someone by your side.

Hi hello it's me and I'm crying. I love these babies.

Someone’s steel toe boot lands in your stomach, startling you with the hit of pain, and this time you yell at Frankie as they drag you away - that it will be okay, that he has to lay low and look after himself. The same way Joel had yelled at you when they had ripped you from your home and thrown you in the back of a van.

The way Joel and Santi both become protectors of those that they love!

Out of that cell, his warm body under yours, it really sinks in what you’ve known deep inside already for months, despite knowing the risks and consequences. There’s no way you can ever give this up. Give him up. Not even if they try to beat it out of you.

Crying again. THESE TWOOOO

Most people fear him and it doesn’t take you long to figure out why. The man moves and fights like a killer, striking without hesitation, and you can’t help but wonder if he has had military training. He was right about what he had told you at the start - he did make you better and stronger, in physical combat as well as verbal expressiveness.

Love how you talk about how dangerous, cunning, and smart Ezra is! I feel like that's overlooked a lot with him.

You know he tries to not show you that side of him because it scared you the first time; it was still Joel, but mostly just bones and muscles and tendons, someone who stands half in the world around you and half in the underworld. Worse than a ghost. But still Joel.

The details! The way you wove the mythology in is fanastic.

But Ezra will always opt for a much cleaner kill; out in the street, in a bar or at a roadstop when it’s least expected. If it didn’t all come down to the same thing - killing people and moving coke or arms -, you would almost call it more ethical.

Again with the mythology. You do such a great job at showing the differences between Ezra and Tovar/Lorenzano.

“What keeps happening here, buddy?” “Trusting the wrong people has consequences.” You look up when you think you hear Joel’s voice from nearby, except it’s not him - but your father leaning against another palm tree, his face solemn as he looks back at you.

Girl, the way I SCREAMED when I read this scene!

News spreads fast through the camp, and by the time you catch up with Frankie that evening, you can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows. Of course he does. He’s the only one you’ve never been able to lie to.

i STG every time these two get protective over each other, I squeal.

“Oh.” Her voice is light, tingles like icicles, and she laughs softly, sounding surprised. “Yes. You really are his.”

AGAIN: I cryyyyy

Okay I'm going to stop here because I could literally quote the entire fic, and really what i want to tell you is: YOU DID THE DAMN THING, BABE! I'm soooo proud of you!!!

Little Beast

Written for @perotovar 's writing challenge 'An Offering of Frith'. The P Boys they had planned were already taken, so I asked for Santiago Garcia and got Fenrir assigned! Pairing: Santiago 'Pope' Garcia x Francisco 'Catfish' Morales Word count: 18.5K Warnings: Explicit, 18+ only, MDNI. 🏳️‍🌈 (DDDNE) DARK fic, AU. Extreme angst from A to Z. Lots of violence (guns, knives, beating, kicking), swearing, hate crime, homophobia (repeated use of a slur), abuse, repeated assault and murder, kidnapping, many mentions of blood and injuries, raiding, (body) horror, nightmares, substance use/abuse (alcohol, cocaine), smoking, arms trafficking, sex work, mental health struggles, trauma. M/M pairing, frotting, masturbation. Norse mythology meets Santi + P Boys meets magic realism in Colombia in the early nineties (so: Narcos related references like Escobar, the Castaño brothers and the Cali cartel).

A/N's: Written in Second Person - not reader insert, but Santiago's POV (aka you are Santi). Not gonna lie, this one is A LOT; writing it turned into some out-of-body experience. More about the gods & characters (and thank you’s) in foot notes.

main masterlist | read on AO3

Bogota, Colombia. 

You’re five years old and your name is Santiago. The house you share with your brothers and parents is small, deep in the comunas, and most people know where to find it. Lots of them will stop by, because of papi’s work, sometimes very early in the morning or really late at night. When you ask what kind of work he does, mama hushes you, and your brother Jay looks away. Your brother Joel however will quietly stare at your dad - too calm, while his eyes are so angry.

You’re seven years old and you still don’t know what your father’s job is. Not a teacher, or someone at the market. Not one of the guys who cleans up the trash on your corner. For a while you thought that maybe he was a butcher, because mami was often cleaning the blood from his clothes. “It stains so bad.” But you’d never seen him in the market, selling his wares.

Every few weeks he is gone for a long time, and often the police will visit the house, which always makes your mom cry.

Every now and then a new face will show at the house, asking to speak to your mother. The girls are always very pretty, dressed in bright colors. The guys often have shiny guns; some of them will let you hold it when mami isn’t in the room.

You see your father all the time when you’re waiting with her at the store. Often he’ll wear a funny looking hat, and sometimes his face looks different. But you know it’s him, always, by the smile and wink he gives you. When you tell mami, she never sees him and starts crying again, so you stop telling her about it.

Jay doesn’t come home often anymore. When you ask Joel if that is your fault, if you made him cry too, he shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re okay.”

You’re not sure if you are.

When it’s your eighth birthday, your father suddenly shows up with presents that make you the envy of your friends. Boxing gloves, a large pocket knife - that your mom right away tries to take away from you -, and you all eat so much dulce de leche cake.

You wake up in the middle of the night because you hear your father arguing. The loud bangs that follow are unmistakingly gun shots, and you find one of the casings the next morning near the front door. When you ask your mami about it, she gets so angry that you run away from home for the afternoon to hide, until it gets dark and she’s had the drinks that make her happier.

When you got the boxing gloves, you didn’t know that they would also give you more time with your father - but they do. He teaches you how to throw a punch, how to avoid an attack, read someone’s body language. When to attack someone if you need to defend yourself. Which parts of the body are most vulnerable, and where to stab somebody to make them bleed out quickly.

He’s proud, always, as he tells people about how good of a fighter you’re becoming. “Takes after me.” You don’t - not really, but you do your best to make him continue to believe that. Until you start to believe it too and knock out a guy who is twice your age.

When you’re ten, they try to burn down your house. You don’t know exactly who ‘they’ are, but you’ve heard the name El Gran Señor Lorenzano often enough to know that you should fear him.

The first time it happens, your dad is just in time to stop the fire from escalating. The second time, he’s not home, so you do put out the flames together with Joel.

The third time starts with a flaming bottle being thrown through a window, and as you all stare at the sight, the door gets knocked down and men with masks on their faces storm into the house

Your father runs away, seems to escape the men somehow. Your mom is hysterical and won’t listen to anyone, not even when the tall guy hits her in the face, and you want to beg her to not cry because you know it makes men more angry at her. Not even with your fight training do you stand any chance, and all you hear when somebody shoves a bag over your head and drags you outside and into a van, is your brother’s voice - Joel yelling at you to not fight the men and just protect yourself.

You’ve been away from home for almost a year when you turn eleven, to the point that you don’t think of it anymore as an actual place you can go to. You think you’re still in Bogota but you’re not sure. Sometimes they make you get in a truck again, or a car. Almost always you have to hide; you know that they don’t want people to see you. Sometimes there are other people, or even kids, and you’re pretty sure that you’ve seen at least a dozen dead bodies over the past months.

It’s when they send you to training camp that you realize there’s no way they’re ever going to let you go. The training unit is not the army, but it feels like a military group somehow. Maybe this is like the guerilla fighters you’ve heard about, defending your country.

This time you fight without the boxing gloves, using only your hands or sticks, just like the other kids your age are also being trained.

There are five of you, and Ramiro explains to each of you how to get to the location. The white powder isn’t heavy, tightly packaged in plastic, and every step of the way to your contact person you’re terrified of losing it somehow. You know the consequences - have seen the boys who were shot in the head, and the ones who weren’t lucky enough to die so quickly.

The man who is waiting for you is tall, fat and smells like grease and blood. You don’t remember much of what he says, your heart thumps so loud that it feels like it’s inside of your ears as you accept the package he hands you in return.

You’re one of the four boys who make it back.

Gustavo, the fifth boy, shows up two days later. His lifeless body is covered in bruises and blood, and when someone dares to ask what happened, the answer is that rats will be dealt with accordingly. “Exterminated.”

After three nights of solid nightmares and another mutilated body that’s found outside as a warning, you stop trying to think of ways to escape.

You’re almost twelve when you meet Francisco.

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He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but he’s not shy. When some of the older boys mistake that for fear, deciding to taunt him, he doesn’t respond initially. Only once the biggest bully steps right up to him, a sneer on his face, does Francisco lift his eyes to him and stares him down - and you can feel the tension.

You see the twitch of Francisco’s jaw, and even before the other guy takes a swing you know this is not going to end well for the bully.

It’s impressive how fast the new kid tackles his attacker to the ground, blood streaming from the boy’s noise as he scrambles to get away. But Francisco’s hand closes around his throat, keeping him pinned down. In a flash you see a piece of glass held against the boy’s neck, and that’s when you know for sure Francisco learned to fight the way you did. Your father’s voice echoes in your head, “If you stab someone there, it’s all over.”

You want to be his friend.

Not because he’s a good fighter; he’s far from the only one around here. It’s because he seems to be one of the few kids who doesn’t want to fight, just like you.

By the time you’re twelve, you and Francisco - Frankie - have become inseparable. You know that he’s never known who his mother is and that his father was recently killed by Pero Tovar, one of Lorenzano’s most feared men.

While the other kids try to get their hands on cigarettes, or booze, Frankie is just interested in books.

You like watching him read. On the very rare occasion that nobody else is around, he’ll often read something out loud for you. Mark Twain. Something about going to heaven for the climate, and hell for the company.

The first time Frankie reads that aloud, you have your eyes closed while listening to his voice. It makes you think of the ‘business’ your dad would do, or the way Lorenzano’s men would refer to ‘the company’ and ‘the big boss’. Bullet casings and dried up blood, the smell of your mami cooking beans with pork, and how some nights you fell asleep listening to her cry when your father still hadn’t returned home.

The second time Frankie read those words to you, about a year or so later, you realize it isn’t about going to hell for the work you do. It’s about not being alone in hell since you’ve got someone by your side.

The runs you’re sent on to drop off the product are not that bad at first. It’s a relief to be able to walk the streets, not be holed up inside or be in training.

Most of the kids that work for the cartels still live with their families in the comunas. You, Frankie and the others don’t have that freedom.

There are curfews to follow, gun practice, different kinds of training. It’s not the army, but it might as well be.

There often is discussion about the ACCU, Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá run by the Castaño brothers. But when one of the other boys mentions FARC, he’s immediately silenced with a hard slap to his face by the instructor. “Those fucking communists. They’re the problem, you understand me?”

Pablo Escobar, however, turns out to be one of the few topics that’s welcomed for discussion by your instructors. Sometimes you have to think of the prayer candle your grandmother would light at the small altar in her living room, the framed picture of Escobar on the wall almost as large as the one of your late grandfather.

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Frankie is the only person you confide in, and you listen to the stories he tells you about his father. In return, you tell him about your brothers, Joel in particular - but the nightmares you have that night are enough to stop you from bringing them up again. It’s better not to think of your family; keep them locked away in small boxes in the back of your mind, where you can pretend they’re okay.

You’re both still not sure how you ended up here. When Frankie points out Tovar one time in passing, you recognize the man with the scar on his face as one of your dad’s frequent visitors. And the person who tried to kill him that night they took you away.

You’ve been getting some attention from the girls, but it’s nothing to the amount that is directed at Francisco - not just the girls in your group, but even during a drop-off in the brothels at times.  That’s how you’re both urged to ‘take some time with a girl you like’ when you join Juan for a drop-off. While you’re fucking a brunette who is a few years older than you are, Frankie is getting busy with a pretty red head on the other side of the room. You try to sneak a peek every now and then, but you know you have to be careful. If anyone catches you looking, you’ll get your ass beaten up - but you still can’t keep your eyes off him. 

The girl - Rosa? - under you moans, calls you ‘papi’ as she asks you to fuck her harder, and you do so. She’s tight and wet around your cock, and pretty, and you like her small tits, but your head is too focused on not openly looking at Frankie, making it hard to come. Once you do, Rosa kisses your cheek as she gets up, gives you a towel and she tells you she’s gonna clean up. Frankie finishes up not long after that.

When you’re both waiting in the dark alley out back for Juan to wrap up business inside, sharing a cigarette with Frankie, you can’t help but ask him. “Was it good?” You’re hoping he says no - that you’re not the only one who barely got off. Because maybe you’re not the weirdo if there’s at least one other person who feels the same, who isn’t thrilled like you know the other boys would be. “The girl.”

Frankie shrugs as he inhales the smoke, closing his eyes. “She was friendly. Nice.”

You wait for more words, but they don’t come from Frankie. So you try to force your own words out. “Yeah. Friendly.”

When Frankie opens his eyes again, he looks tired and conflicted. Unsure perhaps. He lifts the cigarette to his lips again, and your guard is down too much to stop your eyes from following that movement. 

His mouth.

Fuck, now you’re really hard. 

“We’re friends, right?” Frankie’s voice is hoarse, and somehow that sound makes your dick throb even more. 

You nod, then clear your own throat when you realize it’s not really all that clear in this dark street. “Yeah, of course,” you manage, trying to remember how long it’s been since you two met. Four, five years?

More of Frankie’s lips around the cigarette, and more tiredness in his eyes. Perhaps the uncertainty in his expression is more like the fear you’ve had beating in your chest now for half an hour already.

“Good.” Frankie nods, and before you can ask him why, he pushes you back against the brick wall, covering your mouth with his. You groan softly, your breathing suddenly so fast as he kisses you in a way you’ve never experienced before - in a way that, until now, you’ve never wanted to kiss anyone.

The sigh that escapes from Frankie’s mouth into yours is quiet, but you can feel the relief in his body when you kiss him back, feel how he grabs your hips and presses closer against you. You’re so hard that for a moment you can’t think straight, not until you feel him grind his cock against you, and then everything just goes electric in your head, because he’s just as hard as you are, and there is no time, because anyone can walk in on you two right now. It’s such a fucking dumb thing to do here - or anywhere.

He whispers your name, making it sound like a question, and when you nod and suck on his tongue, his hands slip from your waist to your ass, grabbing you tight and oh - fuck. Fuuuck. 

It’s not even a minute of desperate kissing, panting, the uncomfortable but so fucking good rub of his cock against yours through your clothes, and before you know it you’re whispering his name too, the word turning into a plea, because please, Francisco, please - and then it’s no longer just rubbing against each other, it’s Frankie actually fucking you against that wall, right through your clothes, neither of you breaking the kiss until you both come just like this. Right in your pants, not even having put a hand on each other’s dick, just pressed so closely together while you’re drowning in the taste of his mouth.

“Hey, assholes. You ready to go?” 

Juan’s loud voice booms through the alley, and Frankie immediately lets go of you like he’s been burned by fire. He moves several steps away, nearly tripping over his own feet, and the fear in his eyes is as loud as the fear beating inside of your rib cage. 

You drop down to one knee and tug at the laces of your sneakers, pretending you’re tying them, giving you just a few more seconds to catch your breath before you need to look Juan in the face, who seems completely oblivious about what he almost walked in on.

“Shithead. Took you long enough to keep us waiting.”

You’re both eighteen when someone catches the two of you. Your hands and mouth on Francisco in places they shouldn’t be, and his hands and mouth all over you. The fact that you’re both still fully clothed is probably the only thing that saves you from a much worse treatment. 

You beg them not to hurt him, tell them to give you the beating twice, even swearing that you were the one forcing yourself on Francisco. 

Somehow you manage to convince them, and it’s the comfort of knowing Frankie isn’t hurt that helps just a little against the abuse. Against the ringing in your ear which lasts for almost a week, the bruises on your ribs where they kicked you. You let it happen, know that it would be better if you didn’t fight back even though you could probably take out at least three of them. It would be one thing if it were just some guys bothering you - but a few of them are part of the leadership, and there’s no going around that. 

You see the anger and helplessness in Frankie’s eyes, the way he balls his fists and looks like he’s ready any moment to tackle the guys. But you know there’s no point in letting him get in between them and you, because you know better than to show any sign of weakness.

It is only once the tallest and older guy grabs you by your jaw, his other hand undoing his dirty pants, that you fight back. In less time than it takes him to growl “let’s see how good you suck my dick”, you kick out another guy’s legs from under him and swipe his knife, knocking your assailant down in the same move. 

“You want me on your dick?”, you yell as you grab him by his balls, jerking his pants down roughly so his dick and balls flop out. Your knife is against the base of his cock before he can even blink, and you stare him down, pressing the razor sharp blade against his skin and not caring if it draws blood. “Dare me,” you hiss at him as you spit into his face. “I’ll fuckin’ cut it off you right now.”

The other men jump you before you can slice into the man’s sweaty pale skin, just a hair away from cutting off his pathetic excuse for a dick and shoving it into his mouth to choke on. Frankie meanwhile has had enough, now launching himself at the biggest men who are holding you back - and if these were any normal circumstances, you’d welcome the help. Instead you just shake your head, begging for him to see that you’re dead serious about not wanting him to interfere.

“No,” you mouth wordlessly, then gasp out loud as you bite your lip until you taste blood, working hard to swallow your cries as someone pulls your arm behind you and breaks at least two of your fingers. There’s no way you’ll give them the satisfaction of hearing you cry, so you just stare at Frankie until you trust your voice to not crack. “Fish, get out. Go back. I’ll be-...”

“Fuckin’ fag.”  

Someone’s steel toe boot lands in your stomach, startling you with the hit of pain, and this time you yell at Frankie as they drag you away - that it will be okay, that he has to lay low and look after himself. The same way Joel had yelled at you when they had ripped you from your home and thrown you in the back of a van.

“You need to be smarter.”

The voice is suddenly so close that it makes you wince. Especially after having been locked up in silence and darkness for two days, without anyone coming to let you out or even say a word to you. “Please, just stop, okay?”, you manage as you get up to your feet, leaning against the cement wall as your head won’t stop spinning. “I haven’t done anything since. Can you…”

“They feed you?”

You stare at the man who interrupted you, trying to focus on the vague outline of his body as you can see - no, feel - him move closer through the darkened cell. “What? Who are…”

“Esdras-... Ezra. I asked you something, boy.”

“No. They didn’t.” You raise your chin up in defiance, even if he can probably not even see it. “I’m fine.”

The stranger hums, pushing some food into your hand. “You need to stay strong. Get stronger, and smarter.”

You can’t help but shove it right into your mouth, and by the time you’ve swallowed all of it your stomach is already hurting. It was a stupid move, and you usually know better; small, slow bites are the best way to eat after having gone without for a while. But the hunger and loneliness had gnawed at you these past two days, making it hard to think straight.

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You’re locked up for a week, but Ezra keeps showing up daily with food. With conversation, too, even if it’s mostly him talking. It remains unclear how he fits into the organization you’ve been with for years now. When he mentions ‘El Gran Señor’, you suddenly remember Lorenzano, the fires at the house, your father as a fading face in the crowd. 

After they took you away, your father never showed up anywhere again for you. Not in your dreams either. You wonder if it’s because you failed him, because you didn’t fight well enough - even though Joel told you not to fight, keep yourself safe. Maybe if you’d been more like Jay, this wouldn’t have happened. 

You only get a decent look at Esdras’ face once. 

His eyes remind you of Francisco.

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Once you’re finally released and sent back to the barracks, it takes just a few hours for you and Frankie to sneak off somewhere. When he kisses you, both of you pretend to not notice the tears that are flooding your eyes. 

Out of that cell, his warm body under yours, it really sinks in what you’ve known deep inside already for months, despite knowing the risks and consequences. 

There’s no way you can ever give this up. Give him up. Not even if they try to beat it out of you.

When Ezra shows up one night, standing at the back of the communal dining area, Frankie tenses up in the seat next to you. He nudges your leg with his foot as he continues eating, then draws your attention to the other side of the room with a barely noticeable flick of his index finger. 

Even when you tell him this is the guy who gave you food when you were locked up, he won’t take his eyes off Ezra. Frankie has always been taller than you, broader, and when Ezra passes your table you can tell by the way he sizes him up that Frankie has already considered at least three ways to take him out.

“Santiago. Tell your guard dog to stand down.”

Slowly you close your fist around the fork you’re holding, your anger right under the surface, but the smirk tugging at Ezra’s lips makes it clear that his words were a test rather than a challenge.

“I can train you. An hour every night. You’re good - but I can make you great.” Ezra nods at Frankie without taking his eyes off you. “If anyone besides him finds out, we’re done and they’ll probably take you away.” 

“And do what?” Francisco is still staring at Ezra, and you’re sure he’s figured out at least one more way by now to take him out. 

“Kill me,” you say, with zero doubt about that outcome, at the exact moment Ezra also says, “Kill him”.

Frankie’s eyes narrow immediately, the muscle in his jaw flexing as he tries to control himself. “What if he says no?”

“He won’t,” Ezra replies simply, at the same moment that you nod and tell him you’re in.

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Ezra is a study in contrasts. He speaks like someone from Francisco’s books, with a slight accent that makes him stand out as much as his blond patch does, and often more candidly than most people are expecting. It’s only much later, when you hear him speak to an American guy, that you realize he’s likely not from Colombia.

“The origin of my story is fairly irrelevant, Santiago.” He waves off your question when you ask him about himself. “Besides, people are never quite so hard pressed to go find Parson on a map.”

He’s worked for Lorenzano for many years now, initially a mercenary who became one of the people highest up in the system. The nickname most people use for him is The Judge, or, if you are to believe the most wild stories about it, La Venganza - The One Who Brings Retribution. 

Lorenzano and Tovar primarily run the organization, neither of them shy about the opulence and violence around them. But Ezra is a third pillar whose sober green-brown clothing often makes him blend in anywhere. Anything but quiet, but focused on other things than his two partners. He’s not keen on having a public face as he prefers to move quietly, getting both the impossible and the unspeakable done.

Most people fear him and it doesn’t take you long to figure out why. The man moves and fights like a killer, striking without hesitation, and you can’t help but wonder if he has had military training. He was right about what he had told you at the start - he did make you better and stronger, in physical combat as well as verbal expressiveness.

Frankie notices it too, even only a few weeks in. “When you get back here, you always look like you’ve been fed,” he remarks one night as you sit on the rooftop with him, gazing out over the thousands of city lights sparkling in the dark sky. “He said yet what he wants in return for all the teachings?”

You shake your head. “I’m sure that’ll come later.” And see, that’s something you still haven’t learned in all those years. It’s hard to look ahead when you don’t know what to expect and don’t have something specific to look forward to.

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You’re still eighteen - or so you think, because it has become impossible to keep track of the days - when you realize that you actually love Francisco. 

As you slice the throat of the guy who tries to attack him, you know that you would do anything for him. It doesn’t matter that it takes you hours that night to wash your blood soaked clothes.

Your mother was right all those years ago. Blood stains are hard to get out of fabric.

Once killing becomes a regular thing of your work for the syndicate, so do the nightmares. It’s not like you didn’t have them before; they’ve always been there, ever since Lorenzano’s men took you away from home. But this time you keep seeing the faces of the men you’ve killed; sometimes one by one, other times all of them together in a room. 

They keep coming back, unwilling to let you rest. 

Sometimes they try to speak to you, other times they can’t. Occasionally you need to kill them again, but their screams get drowned out by Frankie yelling for him - but you can never find him, see him.

You see your brother Joel every night that you dream of the people who died by your hand. 

Half of him looks normal, even though he’s older now: a man instead of a boy, still several years ahead of you in age, and you wonder if this is really what he looks like now. The other half of his body he keeps out of your sight if he can help it, turned towards corpses or soon to be dead bodies that are bleeding out. 

You know he tries to not show you that side of him because it scared you the first time; it was still Joel, but mostly just bones and muscles and tendons, someone who stands half in the world around you and half in the underworld. Worse than a ghost. But still Joel.  

Every time you see him, he tells you to keep yourself safe. “It’s not your fault.” But unlike when you were little, he doesn’t try to tell you that you’re fine. You both know that you aren’t.

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Others also notice how good you’ve become over the past year. How training exercises are a breeze for you, how much faster you are at tactical planning than most others. Now you’re eighteen, both you and Frankie are being watched carefully to see if you have potential to move up in the ranks - something Ezra had already mentioned and prepared you for. 

“Beat them at their own game, little beast. You’re smarter than almost any of them.”

At first you hate the nickname, because it feels like he is mocking you. But that was not Ezra’s style; he is always upfront and open, at times to a fault. Too many years in this place have made you hyper vigilant and protective, quick to attack with bared teeth and intention to take the other person down. But around him that’s not necessary. So you reluctantly accept the nickname, work to do justice to it.  

Once they start sending you off on serious engagements, you find that Ezra tends to be in charge of many of them - the raids, the more undercover missions, occasionally dealing with conflict among stakeholders rather than just being there to clean up a mess. It’s not surprising that you and Frankie work well together in the field whenever you’re teamed up; you both know each other so well, including limits and strength, to the point that you can easily anticipate each other’s moves, and that puts you front and center for effectiveness. 

On the rare occasion the two of you are split up in different teams, Ezra is always assigned to Frankie’s group - something none of you comments on. They’re not exactly on friendly terms with each other, particularly to Frankie always being cautious, but then again they don’t need to be. The mutual respect is reassuring, especially because you’re sure Ezra knows there’s more going on between you and Frankie than the syndicate allows for.

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The next time you dream of Joel, there’s a black wolf cub playing at his feet, gentle and even tempered, playfully nipping at Joel’s fingers. When he sees you, he immediately bounces over to smell you, then happily paws at your legs - just like he’s just any other stray puppy, excited to get your attention and become familiar with your scent. His joy is contagious, and it’s not long until you’re sitting down on the ground to play with him, where eventually he falls asleep in your lap.

When something in the darkness catches your eye, the pup stirs almost immediately from his sleep, picking up on your body language. In the blink of an eye he’s put himself in front of you and Joel, suspiciously eyeing the wisps of smoke that curl from the darkness. He growls low, baring his small fangs as he tries to make himself bigger than he is to face the unknown.

Joel hushes it gently, assuringly. “Little Beast, you’re okay.” When both you and the cub simultaneously look at him, you wonder which one of you two he is talking to. 

Even if the days have become more bearable and lighter since you met Francisco, you still don’t think you’re the one who is okay - and sometimes you wonder if you ever will be again.

Ezra fights dirty. 

Knives, guns, hand-to-hand combat; he always has an extra card up his sleeve somehow. But it’s not the moves or weapon mastery you learn from him that make you better and faster. 

It’s the resilience he teaches you. Clearing your mind, striking without hesitation. Thinking ten steps ahead and not giving away what your next move is. You’ve seen him out on the streets or during raids, and unlike Lorenzano and Tovar he tends to hang back, take a moment to take in the scene. While they go in guns blazing, often blasting an actual path through people to get what they want, Ezra is more deliberate. If he can take out just a single target to get the job done, he’ll opt for that - he knows that other syndicate members will deal with the rest of a DEA team, guerilla fighters or a competing cartel. 

He’s also one of the few in leadership who makes calculated decisions regarding the location that he will take out a target. You’ve seen Gilberto kill more than a few sicarios by simply showing up at their houses - no regard for any wives, children or elderly people who either get into the crossfire or are witness to it. But Ezra will always opt for a much cleaner kill; out in the street, in a bar or at a roadstop when it’s least expected. If it didn’t all come down to the same thing - killing people and moving coke or arms -, you would almost call it more ethical.

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One night, you hear the pup whining before you see it - a low, unhappy sound that chills your blood. It takes too long to find him in the darkness, and you’re tripping over things in front of you, something telling you it’s probably for the best that you can’t quite see what or who they are.

You finally find the pup when his eyes open and look right at you, the golden pupils and white of his eyes a stark contrast to the darkness around you. As you kneel down to examine him, you see the golden cords wrapped around his fur, and a wave of terror washes over you. He didn’t just get tangled up in them; somebody deliberately put those bindings on him. 

You hush him softly as your fingers slide over the cords, trying to find any knots or weak spots where you can start prying them off him. “I’ll help you, okay? We’ll get you out of this.” But as you do so, the wolf starts wriggling around, his sharp teeth snapping at the cords around until they all break and disappear into the darkness, along with the rest of your dream.

“I’m moving to Cali in a few weeks.” 

Ezra offers you a cigarette, and you take it from him, your head working overtime as you digest the news dropped on you. “Shit. Alone?”

He shakes his head, sharing his lighter with you as he brings his own cigarette to his lips. “There are some relocations happening in the structure of - well. You’ve seen it out here,” he gestures at the city you’re overlooking from the hill you’re standing on. “The Army is withdrawing support from ACCU. Some new government people are acting surprised about the Field Workers Self-Defenders ties with the Castaños, which is bullshit. But dynamics are changing in Córdoba and Urabá, which also affects Cali.”

“Does that mean-...”

“Do you want to come along, Santiago?” Ezra blows out the smoke before he looks at you. “You can stay here, of course. Nothing much should change aside from my… influence.” You both know that means Lorenzano will make the decisions, and that without Ezra’s influence, life becomes a lot more unpredictable in the syndicate. “But Cali will give both of you the opportunity to move up. Be in charge of operations, eventually.”

You don’t miss the casual reference of ‘both’ that he uses, and you feel relieved that you don’t have to ask the question out loud - if Frankie would be able to join you, too. Part of you wants to say no, because leaving Bogota would also mean leaving behind the scraps of life you remember before the syndicate kidnapped you that night and roped you into their organization.

“Think about it,” Ezra interrupts your thoughts before you can respond. “Your choice to make, your consequences to bear. I know you never asked for all of this - neither of you did, of course. But owning your choices and what results from them makes all the difference.” 

When you ask Frankie later that night, he doesn’t hesitate for a second. “I’m in.”

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The move to Cali is uneventful in a good way, and the new living space is both brighter and larger than Bogota. Some things don’t change though: there are still about ten of you per sleeping quarters, but at least the beds are better and the facilities aren’t as old. 

It surprises you how it feels a little easier to breathe. You hadn’t expected it, but there’s a relief in just seeing the city as it is - not thinking about who had died on that corner, which house is a drop off spot or a brothel, or where you’d gotten beaten up. Even when you know it won’t last long.

The warmer weather means longer evenings outside, too. New spots that you and Frankie discover, where there’s just enough privacy to be together for a few minutes. You kiss him in new alleyways, let him press you against the wall behind a quiet church. Let your hands roam and grab when you’re on the rooftop and you’re sure that nobody is around. 

It’s never enough, and the waiting in between opportunities is torturous. Sometimes it takes weeks until you can take him in your mouth again, have him slide inside of you, or when you can fuck him - rushed and hard and frantic -, leaving marks that were made within minutes but that last for days as dark bruises on your hips and shoulders and thighs.

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Your nightmares remain the same in Cali as they were in Bogota. A constant every single night, at times in different settings than before, matching the buildings and streets of this new city. 

You dread all of them, but Joel’s presence in those dreams makes it manageable. Even when he’s not around, the wolf cub is always there with you. Protective and affectionate, at times bigger than you - but never intimidating.

Part of you wants to tell Frankie about your dreams. Not just about the cub, but Joel too. You just don’t know where you’d even begin to explain it without sounding insane.

Ezra gives you more space those first couple of weeks in Cali, training only every other day with you, then informs you that you and Frankie will be joining him on an assignment out of town. You’ve done this before and know that lodging is always together with leadership in the same room. Except this time that seems to be different.

“It appears there has been a miscommunication. They didn’t have any rooms with two beds, only singles,” he informs you, his face uncharacteristically neutral as he hands you a room key. “You two are across the hallway from me and will have to share a bed.” 

Your jaw nearly drops as you stare at him, and you can feel the disbelief radiating from Frankie, too. But Ezra pretends to not notice it as he turns away. “I trust there will be no disappearing, Little Beast. You know the fatal consequences of that.”

The room is shitty, there are only three channels that work on the tv, and there’s a concerning smell coming from the toilet if you don’t close the lid completely. The bed is a full size though instead of a twin, creaks every time you move, and has some threadbare sheets and two thin pillows.

It’s perfect.

It has never happened before that you and Francisco had more than half an hour of privacy to yourself in a locked room - let alone nine hours in one that also has a bed.

You fuck so, so very much that night. 

It’s deliriously intoxicating, having each other in every possible way you can imagine - and a few more ways you hadn’t even considered before. By the time it’s 5:30 am, neither of you can move anymore. Sore, exhausted and beyond spent you fall asleep, curled up against each other.

For the first time in eight years you don’t have any dreams, let alone nightmares.

The newness of Cali lasts about three months. By then, the city has gained the same marks and blood all over it that you had left behind in Bogota; the drugs, fights, but this time there are also bombs. 

It’s a lot more damage than you’re used to, the number of victims making your stomach turn when the news reports on it later those nights. Some of the other guys are thrilled when they see the result of their work on tv, bragging about it, but it sickens you every single time.

It’s bad for you, but it hits Frankie even harder. He has lost family and friends in the past because of bomb attacks, and you know that when he wakes up at night screaming, it often tends to be exactly that which replays in his mind.

You’re both used to helping each other through hard times, but you see his eyes become more distant as the weeks pass. You do what you can, from stupid jokes to trying to find him new books, but you can’t help but feel it’s your fault.

Maybe he wouldn’t be in such bad shape if you two had stayed in Bogota.

Maybe you did this all wrong.

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Frankie is fast. Really fucking fast.

Not when it comes to running, although he does well if needed. But it’s when you see him behind the wheel of a truck, with Ezra, you and a handful of other guys, that you realize just how good he is. Driving a getaway car, chasing down another truck through the city, diversion techniques. You don’t know where he even learned them, because it’s not that often that any of you get to drive. 

It’s Ezra who decides that this is going to be a regular thing for Frankie. “I want you as our transportation guy next time we venture out on an endeavor,” he says, eyes sharp as he observes Frankie switch gears, avoid a child who runs out into the road, then rev the engine to catch up with the other vehicle in your party. “Are you interested in cars?”

Frankie just nods affirmatively, his eyes locked on the terrain in front of him. You can’t help but chime in, also realizing this could mean that the two of you won’t be assigned to different teams anymore. “His uncle had a garage, so he grew up in it. Learned how to work on cars before he was eight,” you offer. 

It earns you a warning look by Frankie, who is clearly not thrilled about you offering that information - but you know it only helps his case. Ezra only asks things for a reason, and you know it would not be to fuck Frankie over. “He really knows his shit.”

“Good. That will get you far.” Ezra pulls out two guns, checking the ammo, then suddenly looks at Frankie like he just got a bright idea. “Francisco. Did you ever fly a helicopter before?”

This time Frankie actually takes his eyes off the road, and you can tell by the twitch in his jaw that he’s very hard trying to not show his enthusiasm. You know him well though, and his eyes suddenly look more radiant than you’ve seen in a long time.

“Not yet. But I bet I can with some training.”

The first time they put you in charge of a raid, you end up puking behind a bush once everything is over. More than just a few bodies are scattered across the property that’s about to be set on fire, and that’s not new - but being the leader of a raid hits so much harder than any time you had to merely participate. The only relief you have is that you don’t need to deal directly with the losses, or gather the money and drugs. 

When one of your men calls you over, he points his rifle at the three kids huddled against each other on the back porch, and you can only get yourself to look right at them once you feel Francisco’s hand on your back.

“Not worth the trouble,” you inform the guy who called you over, ignoring the way your stomach turns, and you turn back to the children once he has left. A six year old girl is the oldest of the kids, her eyes blank as she holds a baby in her lap and a four year old boy pressed against her side. Something about that look in her eyes reminds you of Joel - not the brother you grew up with, but the one in your dreams with that side he tries to show you as little as possible. 

“Are they dead?”, she asks you, still not showing any emotion despite the crying boys clinging onto her, and you nod. Whether it’s her parents or someone else she’s referring to, none of the adults in the raided house are still alive. 

She nods back at you, no sign of surprise on her face. “Please don’t hurt the boys,” she then says, sounding so much older than her age. “They didn’t–...”

“We won’t.” 

You breathe in deeply when Francisco speaks for you, then reach for the wad of money that you had put into your pocket a few minutes earlier. Stealing from El Gran Senor always ended badly, but these raids were the only options you had to get your hands on anything of value. 

The girl flinches when you reach for her, and once again it’s Frankie who reassures her. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Do you know how to get to the village?”, you ask her as you put the money in her hand. She nods, and for a moment you could swear that you see a wolf cub staring at you from the trees. “Find someone to help you. Don’t show them the money.” You bite back the words of apology that are on your tongue, knowing that they won’t help or would even be believed. “You can do it. Be brave.”

“We have to go.” Francisco’s voice is tight but decisive, and you nod as you let him tug you along, back to the men who have loaded up their cars with all the valuables they could gather. Drugs, money, guns. 

Like the next raid will be. And the next. And the next.

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“You exceeded expectations, little beast. A mission well planned and executed. Congratulations are in order.” The look on Ezra’s face is one of pride as you debrief him. As he scribbles down some more notes to wrap up his report, you hesitate for a moment, considering one last thing.

“There were three kids.”

Ezra’s eyes flick up at you much faster than you expect, but then he shakes his head. “It appears that you are mistaken about this,” he says as he resolutely puts away his paper and pen. 

“I saw them. I…”

“You’re exhausted.” Ezra’s voice cut you off sharply, the tension in his jaw suddenly clear and reminding you of Frankie. “I appreciate you doing the debrief at this late hour, but you should probably rest. There’s nothing more I need for the final report.”

You know when to take a hint; know that the walls have ears, too, so you take the dismissal in stride. The walk back to the barracks is short, and most of the other guys are already fast asleep as you get in.

Francisco’s bed is only a few feet away from yours, one of about a dozen in the room. The moonlight offers just a small stream of light into the room, and as you start to take your clothes off, you can feel Frankie’s eyes on you. You’re both showered and cleaned up hours earlier, but somehow you still feel the smoke in your lungs and ashes on your skin, like some kind of phantom feeling.

Frankie watches you quietly as you strip down to your underwear. He knows that you’re aware of him looking at you, and you swallow hard when you see him shift under the blanket - see his hand move down to touch himself.

There’s no privacy here - there never is, maybe even less so than there was in Bogota. But at least there’s this, knowing your bed is just a few feet away from his. Being able to see glimpses of him in the moonlight. His hand moving further down, still under that blanket, and when his eyes close momentarily you know he’s got his hand on his cock. 

You get into bed and pull the sheets up over yourself, laying on your side so you can still see Frankie. When his eyes flutter open again, you slip your hand into your underwear to touch yourself too, and you see his eyes flick over your body as he realizes you’re joining him. 

It’s hard to control your breathing, especially when it’s so quiet at night, but you’re both experts at this by now. Hungry eyes focused on eachother in the mostly dark sleeping quarters. You pretending your fingers are his - him pretending his fingers are yours. It’s not much, but it’s something; anything to make you feel alive during nights like these. 

Frankie is in your dream.

And Joel is looking at him. 

Right at him - both Joel’s living half as well as the one that is in decay. It chills you in a way that’s so startling that the fear grabs you by your throat out of nowhere.

This isn’t supposed to happen. Frankie isn’t supposed to be in any of your dreams that are also occupied by Joel. It happens all the time that you hear Frankie scream in your dreams, but it is always separate from where you are - like he’s in a different space and the sound just happens to carry.

Not now. At least he’s not screaming, but he and Joel are looking at each other from a distance, before Frankie’s glance meets yours. Full of questions. 

You try to keep your voice calm, but you hear the trembling when you speak. “Don’t take him from me.” 

You don’t know how you would do it; prevent Joel from taking Frankie with him the way he does with the other people, the other bodies. All you know is that it can’t happen.

“I never would.” Joel shakes his head. “Besides, he’s a warrior. And she wouldn’t allow me to. She’s the one who owns his head.”

“What does that even mean?”, you ask, suddenly noticing the woman behind Frankie. She’s taller than he is, dressed in a style that seems very out of place, not in the least because of the brown fur that’s a prominent part of the outfit. But something is familiar about her.

When she puts her hand on Frankie’s shoulder, he glances at it for a second before he brings his eyes back to you.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Joel says, and you shiver from the cold wind that blows past you.

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By the third raid you lead, you understand why Ezra assigns you to these missions. You’re good at planning, leading your team, getting the work done, taking down the people that need to be eliminated - but you’re pretty sure that it’s really about the children. 

There never is any mention of them in the information you get beforehand; those reports are only about the adults, the snitches, dealers who don’t hold up their end of the deal, or the sicarios who have taken wrong steps. And you’ve seen what happens at other raids. Many of the others won’t hesitate to shoot a child, use them as collateral, and you don’t doubt that there are situations that end even worse than those two options.

You quickly develop the habit to let the others chase the targets while you - and most often Frankie too - will explore the premises to find any children. In some cases, they’re barely teenagers, the fear in their eyes clear enough to indicate that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other times, they’re infants, toddlers, held close by siblings who are barely older than them.

Getting them out becomes a priority for you, particularly when after every mission you see Ezra’s relief when you make a subtle remark about any kids. There’s a lot he can’t say out loud, not just because of his position in the syndicate, but also because wiretaps have become frequent these days. So you keep it very brief, often will only mention it when the two of you are alone - a quick update on what happened to the kids.

“She was brought to her older sister.” 

“They ended up at the neighbor's house.”

“Someone knows where her other relatives live.”

You always swipe money from raids when given the chance, stashing it away in an air vent in your sleeping quarters that only you and Frankie know about. But as the raids occur more often, each leaving behind an even bigger impact than the one prior, you start to put most of the money in the children’s pockets before whisking them off to safety.

It never stops feeling like you’re trying to fix a broken dam with a band-aid, but it feels like the best possible option. Especially when you think back of how you landed in this position, and how you’d been taken away from your home. In an ideal world, you could decide to defect – find a way out for you and Frankie, take the money and run. But throughout the years you’ve seen that almost every single person who attempts to get out of this world will end up dead; not just murdered, but tortured first, before it’s all inflicted on the people closest to them, too. 

So you run the raids. Find a way to get the kids out. Have nightmares - then repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more.

The problem is that you’ve gotten really good at this.

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The next time you see the tall woman covered in furs, you’re not dreaming. 

It’s the middle of a raid, and you and Frankie are chasing down a guy who is trying to escape from the rooftop. He jumps over to the next building, and Frankie is about to leap the same distance between the roofs, when you suddenly see that woman right next to him. 

Calmly she puts her hand on his shoulder and Frankie stops abruptly, turning around to look behind him with a bewildered expression. “Santi, we-...”

A terrible scream sounds from the other roof, and when you look over, you see your target scrambling to hold onto something, while the roof shingles under his feet are slipping away. With a loud noise, the foundation of the roof falls apart, yanking the man’s body down with brute violence and you hear him scream more until a loud bang silences him.

“Fuck,” Frankie croaks, staring at the destruction, and you grab his untouched shoulder tightly, needing to feel him under your hands, that he’s really still here by the grace of not having made that same jump as the man did. “I think he’s impaled.”

The tall woman on his other side looks right at you, then nods as she steps away, disappearing into thin air in that same move. 

These days, when Tovar and Lorenzano make a stop in Cali, it happens more often than not that one or both of them will talk to you; an extremely rare occurrence for somebody in your position. 

Sometimes they’re there for a debriefing with Ezra, other times one of them will remark that bigger things are waiting for you in the near future. Trying to find a balance between doing the work that’s expected from you and keeping your head straight has become increasingly difficult, and you’re not the only one struggling with it.

Francisco oscillates between extremes most of the time. As a co-pilot, he’s mastered skills that very few in the syndicate actually have to offer, not to mention his skills when it comes to engineering and fixing up vehicles. Flying clears his head, grounds him in his body in the best possible way it seems. But once he’s back on the ground, especially when they need to go on raids and he’s dealing with anything but transportation, you often see him shut down and try to dissociate, something that’s hard to bring him back from. It gets even worse during moments when he decides to partake in the cocaine that’s always easily available.

A year later, you still haven’t figured out a way to get the two of you away from all of this. The money in your stash isn’t enough, and you know Lorenzano has men everywhere across the country - there was no way to make it anywhere without being shot in the head sooner or later. So you work. You learn from Ezra. You take the praise. And the nightmares - during the nights and during the days - keep getting worse.

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Leaving Cali happens in a rush, with none of you expecting it - including Ezra. ‘Reassignment to a rural area’ is the official message, which in practice means a camp right in the middle of the jungle. 

“We’re here to take out those fuckin’ communist guerillas,” was the more extended explanation that everybody who relocated from Cali to officially join ACCU. Also known as ‘Peasant Self-Defenders of Córdoba and Urabá’, the group had been founded by the Castaño brothers after their father was kidnapped and killed, in retaliation to the left-wing Marxist guerillas. ACCU was knee deep into the drug trade, and, as you had discovered years earlier, a lot of people fighting for them got here the same way you and Frankie had.

FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia known as the guerillas, stood out because they did employ tactics like kidnapping, but weren’t involved in the drug trade. Instead they fought for ‘social justice and the rights of the poor’, which in practice meant a whole lot of enemies.

“These aren’t the usual raids,” Ezra told you in the first couple of days on the ground, as he’d been filling you, Frankie and the others in on the different stations, people in charge, and what to expect. “This is a lot of combat, sometimes involving hostages.”

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‘A lot of combat’ is an understatement, as you and Frankie find out right from the start. The amount of assault rifles was overwhelming, as were the number of casualties per week. No more flights for Frankie for the time being, now mostly driving trucks of various sizes. What perhaps is the worst of it all is the complete and utter lack of privacy, even by the low expectations you already had.

With all the communal areas even more exposed than in Cali, there barely was any opportunity to sneak off. Here, finding a good hiding spot meant doing so in the jungle, risking death, because the odds were too high that you’d run into FARC members.

At times there were reports coming in from the major cities. Whispers about a pact between the DEA and some narcos, competing cartels. American reports on what was happening in Colombia, which often had barely anything to do with what was really going on. Rumors about the commies having grown massively in numbers. Everything is urgent, all the time, but now with a constant threat of being hit severely worse than would be the case in the city. 

Sometimes you wonder if you and Frankie should’ve stayed in Bogota all along.

The second time you dream of the wolf cub in bindings, you immediately notice something is wrong - even before it cries out for you. This time they look like proper chains, the metal scraping against the cub’s fur and skin, and your first thought is that these are going to be much harder to remove than the first ones.

They’re also not merely restraining the wolf; this time it has properly been captured, the chains secured to a palm tree like the ones you see every single day around you. The pup howls, clearly more agitated this time, and you hush it gently, petting his fur while examining the restraints. “What keeps happening here, buddy?”

“Trusting the wrong people has consequences.”

You look up when you think you hear Joel’s voice from nearby, except it’s not him - but your father leaning against another palm tree, his face solemn as he looks back at you.

Your FATHER?

The wolf cub growls, and this time it’s not the usual angry growl of caution that he tends to make — it’s more like a snarl, layers of rage and destruction underneath. It yanks hard at the chain that has him tethered to the tree, sharp teeth biting at it until the chain breaks, and before you can do anything, it bolts over to where your father is standing, leaping up to attack him viciously.

You wake up screaming so loudly that you wake up all the others in the sleeping quarters, only calming down somewhat once Frankie physically shakes you out of it.

Going back to sleep turns out to be impossible, and it’s only after you try to skip sleep for the next two nights that your body finally caves in, knocking you out into a deep sleep, while you’re exhausted and scared of the dreams that might come back to you.

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Choices have never been an option with the syndicate. Either you do what you’re being told, or chances are that someone puts a bullet into you. That’s how you find yourself leading a team that is much bigger than you’re used to, not to mention with more challenging missions than you’ve done before.

Running drugs or arms in a city is pretty easy - even collecting it by force, or dealing with money. When raiding a building, there’s always a clear plan beforehand: assign people to specific spots, have a backup plan, keep the escape routes in mind, and make sure there’s enough ammunition.

Taking over a small FARC outpost is an entirely different thing. The unpredictability of the jungle, poorer communication methods, and with sightlines often being blocked, it’s not all that straightforward to take out a group of guerillas.

If it hadn’t been for Ezra’s training over the past years, you wouldn’t know where to start. But as always, you adjust - particularly with Frankie by your sight. The outpost gets conquered, another group of armed fighters elsewhere is taken down. But the guilt you were sort of able to remedy in Bogota and Cali, by helping to get some of the kids out, gnaws at you constantly here in the jungle. When twelve year olds are as heavily armed as you are, and even more eager to put a bullet in between your eyes, there’s not much of a chance to find some redemption.

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Just because Ezra is a good killer doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with it, you’ve noticed. You can see it eating away at him, just as it does with you. He still talks plenty to you about everything, but you can tell the isolation out here in the jungle is getting to him as well.

“I did a lot of work as a freelancer, Little Beast,” he replies when you ask him one day while you’re training with him. “I’m a floater, and some might say a merch, but I’m not merely a hit man. To be completely candid, this situation out here has… proven to disappoint.”

You want to ask him if he’s ever thought about getting out, but you don’t dare to - not with the lack of privacy around you. It’s not like you expect him to just offer you a way out; you know it’s not that simple, but throughout the years you’ve considered every possible option. Being here in the jungle has led you to consider defecting and joining FARC’s side, but you’re not naive enough to believe that will be a solution in the long run.

The one thing you’ve been able to keep secret out here is the money you’ve saved throughout the years. You carry it on you most days, as there is no proper hiding spot out here, carefully folded into a small pocket bible as that’s the one thing that won’t get searched during inspection.

Sometimes you try to remember the prayers your mother would say as she’d ask for help and protection. Even when you’re pretty sure none of her saints would listen to you, after everything you’ve done.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Something snaps inside of you when you find Frankie doing coke.

He swears it’s not a common thing, that it has only happened ‘two or three times’, that one of the guys - that bastard David - just offered it to him to be able to make it through a mission he was dreading. You know Frankie has been struggling, has just as many nightmares as you do, and the complete lack of privacy here is making it so much harder to find moments to sneak away and find a moment of peace together. But you also know it always ends very badly when anyone starts doing coke to be able to make it through the days.

The next day it’s hard to control your anger - not at Francisco, but at everything regarding ACCU. You make him stay back in the camp, despite his protesting, leading your team on an afternoon attack, and the blind rage that takes hold of you in the heat of the battle is all consuming. It takes less time than expected to carry out the siege with your team, with more casualties due to wrongly estimating how many rebels you were attacking, and just when you shoot their leader you suddenly realize David is on your left, fighting someone else.

Fucking David who gave Francisco that coke.

You aim your gun without even thinking twice and shoot him straight through the head.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Tovar is not amused when he finds out David didn’t make it. “He was one of our best. What the fuck happened?”

“I’m not sure. Didn’t have eyes on him.” You calmly look at him, giving him an opportunity to respond, and you know that you’re too good of a liar to give anything away. When he doesn’t say anything, you continue with the rest of your briefing. News spreads fast through the camp, and by the time you catch up with Frankie that evening, you can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows. Of course he does. He’s the only one you’ve never been able to lie to.

Ezra also doesn’t ask you what happened.

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When you were younger, running around with Joel and Jay in the neighborhood, your grandmother would always be the one to tell you boys to get home before dark. “It’s not that I don’t trust you - I don’t trust others to not get you into trouble,” she’d say.

You trust Frankie when he told you he wouldn’t take coke again. But now, you understand what your grandmother meant.

David’s buddy Arturo is the next person who offers some coke to Francisco, clearly hoping to make a deal. When Frankie turns it down, he keeps pushing, then eventually tries to persuade you.

You give it six days. Then, when you’re out in the field, you send him into a situation that you know is going to get him killed. He gets ambushed by two kids who take him out with their knives. Even though you could’ve taken down both of them with your rifle, you don’t shoot, and you see the relief in their eyes as they run away.

Arturo is still breathing when you check on him, but your own knife quickly deals with that before anyone else finds him.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This time when you dream, you don’t see the wolf cub in chains. It’s you who is tied up, and after struggling in disoriented panic, you realize that you are the wolf. Thick dark fur where there should be your arms and legs, claws instead of your fingers, but the overwhelming feeling are the bindings wrapped around all of your limbs and the rest of your body - so thin that you can barely see the golden shimmer, but so sharp that it feels like it’s made from razors, pressing into your skin. 

You can’t scream - or howl -, you can’t even move. And all you see in front of you are Lorenzano and Tovar, each heavily armed, dragging your human body along with them up a mountain, leaving a trail of blood on the rocks.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“I want them all DEAD.” Tovar nearly spits the words out at the group of you, banging his hand on the table with the map that has several FARC camps drawn onto it. “All of them. I don’t know how the fuck they got their hands on the product, but if it doesn’t all come back here…”

He’s terrifying like this, especially because you know he won’t hesitate to act on his threats. Somehow FARC had gotten a hold of internal intel, it seemed, not only being able to avoid being attacked for almost a week now but also having confiscated a massive amount of Lorenzano’s cocaine that was being packed and processed at a nearby facility.

The first two missions that week are done from the sky, and unsurprisingly Frankie is the co-pilot. You have a select team that goes up in the air with you and Ezra, two of your crew each armed with a M60E4 machine gun and one person with a Mk 153 SMAW launcher. It’s not your first time running an attack with this kind of artillery from the sky, but it still makes your stomach turn to see the damage that’s inflicted, the only small relief being that at least it’s not happening up close like would be the case with a ground attack.

On the third day, it’s back to the ground with your team, and you manage to overtake a building that holds at least half of the missing cocaine. At least half of the FARC fighters that are assassinated are still practically kids, who had been repackaging the drugs in the building. You and Frankie, as always, try to focus on the adults rather than the young teens, and at the end of the day you see Ezra’s expression is similar to how you feel: not just empty, but hollowed out.

Whether it’s the exhaustion setting in or bad strategizing, you’re not sure, but on day four the mission goes awry, and your team barely manages to pull through. Tovar is with the group though and aggressively moves in on the remaining cocaine that someone finds, but seeing how a large amount of it got shot up during the attack makes him absolutely furious. Eventually, he splits the team, sending half of your crew back to your camp with the repossessed drugs, while you have to do another sweep of the premises to make sure everything got covered.

It’s when Frankie pulls open a side door that seems to have been overlooked, and you step in with your gun ready, that you stumble into her. She’s young, younger than you, bruised and bloodied, but what stands out the most is that she’s pregnant - and very far along, it seems. It’s extremely unusual to come across someone in her position, here out in the jungle, because you all know that FARC does not exactly allow any of their fighters to start a family.

You see the hysteria on her face as she realizes that she’s been discovered, know she’s about to scream and fight, so you move on instinct, putting your gun behind you as you hush her and urge her to not yell. “You’re okay, you’re okay- I’m not gonna hurt you, alright? We’re not…”

She stares at the both of you with wide eyes as she nods, and you hear Frankie curse behind you. “Fuck, Santi, no – they’re gonna fucking see her, man. This place is going to get torched in five minutes from now.”

“Please, don’t hurt my baby, I’ll do anything.” She’s sobbing, on her knees now, and you turn to face Frankie as your head is working overtime.

“But we can’t– she’s pregnant,” you say to him, and he nods sadly, his jaw clenching as you can see him think. You curse, peering outside to check if anybody is watching, then close your eyes as you say a quick prayer. Please let this work. Not for me, but for her. “You need to get to the others and tell them it’s clear,” you tell Frankie as you nod to the front of the building. “I’ll get her out of here and to the back of the premises. Just tell them… something, okay? I’ll join you soon.”

“I don’t fucking like this.” But Frankie nods and disappears back outside, while you help the girl to her feet and explain to her how you’re gonna get her out.

“You can’t make a sound. You can’t trip. If they catch us, we’re both dead, okay?”

She nods as tears are rolling down her face, then tries to take a few deep breaths to calm herself. Meanwhile you listen closely to what’s happening outside, hear Frankie’s voice louder than usual - but not exaggerated - as he’s calling out to some of the team members. There’s no time to overthink matters, so you grab the young woman’s hand as you tug her outside, making sure to keep her covered with your own body as you rush her towards the trees that are at a small distance from the building.

Your heart is thumping so loudly that you feel like everybody in the vicinity must be able to hear it - but finally you get her there, pushing her behind a palm tree as you press the handle of a small knife in her hand. “Stay out of sight until we’re gone. Not a fucking sound,” you hiss at her, and she nods again at you, tears brimming in her eyes. She mouths a silent thank you before you turn around, and you don’t look back as you rush back to the property.

Somehow you manage to make it back to the front without raising any questions. Tovar is directing some people around, distributing gasoline, and mere minutes later the whole place is on fire. You’re exhausted, and not fully aware of how you all get back to the base camp, where you do a quick briefing with Ezra, then go find your sleeping spot in the tent to pass out even though it’s still early.

You wake up by Frankie sitting down on your makeshift bed, his hand on your back briefly as he hands you a plate with food. “Told them you got hurt getting back here and needed to rest,” he says, and you’re so grateful that you could almost cry. “Good job.”

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The next two days Ezra puts you, Frankie and the team on rest, giving you the opportunity to catch up on sleep and deal with the bruises and injuries most of you have. Then there is patrol duty, and you’re separated into pairs to guard between your camp and the other ACCU location. It’s hot, as always, but the vegetation mostly offers some shade which makes it more bearable.

Once you’re at least twenty minutes away from your camp, you tug Frankie behind a large tree and kiss him, unable to go on any longer without feeling him against you. You can feel him sigh in relief as he returns your kiss, his tongue eager as he takes over your kiss and presses you against the tree trunk.

“I thought this week was gonna fuckin’ kill us,” he whispers, and you nod as you brush his curls back, twirling a few around your index finger. You want him, in each and every way, but at the same time you feel so utterly drained that you can’t even imagine doing more than kissing and letting your hands roam for now - and you can tell he feels the same way.

You stay like that for a few minutes, just kissing each other, glad to have the slightest bit of time together. The tiredness ebbs away eventually, comforted by the touch of his body against yours, and just when you start to feel his hands drift lower, you realize that you need to stop this now before it gets to the point that neither of you can dial it down anymore.

“We gotta get going,” you make yourself say, and he groans softly, not happy about it, but he lets go after giving you one more deep kiss.

The path to the other camp is mostly easy to follow as you’ve walked it so many times before, a few tree trunks in the way here and there, and eventually the scenery around you changes, going up a hill to higher ground. Francisco talks about the helicopter maintenance that’s scheduled later this week, and you’re glad that they’re keen on keeping him in that aviation position - he really is good at it and still enjoying it, a welcome change from most of the field work.

You halt when you suddenly hear a sound that isn’t common around these parts, and you look around at you try to locate the sound. “Did you hear that?”

Frankie shakes his head. “What?”

“I heard a… Almost like some kind of howling.” You stop abruptly at the edge of the path, grabbing Frankie’s arm as you stare at the sight thirty, forty - maybe fifty - feet away from you, at the bottom of a steep slope. Surrounded by the lush rainforest vegetation stands a large adult wolf, eyes locked on you but not showing any signs of intending to approach you. You blink repeatedly, for a moment wondering if you’re making things up. “You see that?”

You stop abruptly at the edge of the path, grabbing Frankie’s arm as you stare at the sight 30 or maybe 50 feet away from you, at the bottom of a steep slope. Surrounded by the lush rainforest vegetation stands a large adult wolf, eyes locked on you but not showing any signs of intending to approach you. “You see that?”

Francisco gives you a questioning look, then follows your line of sight. “No. Somebody there?”

“The wolf, Frankie.” You have a hard time taking your eyes off the animal; you’ve never before seen one in real life. Meanwhile Frankie is looking at you as if you’ve grown three heads.

“A wo-… Santi, there are no wolves in Colombia.”

“Yes there are, look.”

Frankie smacks the back of his hand against your cheek, the frown on his face growing deeper. “Oye, pendejo. There’s nothing over there. You sure you’re okay?”

“No,” you say absentmindedly as the wolf tilts his head, and for a moment you wonder if it will attack you. Then you hear it; the sound of branches breaking behind the two of you, several pairs of footsteps, and you realize the wolf is not a threat but a warning. And for some reason you can’t explain, you just know that one of the guys behind you will be Tovar.

You take a deep breath as you take one more look at Frankie, drinking in every detail of his face and presence next to you. You wish that you could kiss him one more time, but you don’t dare to risk it.

“Something is very wrong, go back and find Ezra,” you say quietly, and you see his eyes widen as he reaches for his gun, but you stop him immediately as you shake your head. “No. You can’t win this, I’m so sorry - I love you.” Then you shove him, hard, so he trips over the edge and falls down the slope of dirt and vegetation, towards where you saw the wolf moments earlier.

You turn around while you pull out your spare gun, shooting down the guy closest to you without even blinking, then aim at a second and third person. You’re determined to do as much damage as possible to give Frankie a chance to get away.

Tovar’s eyes are dark and furious when they meet yours, and within moments he has overpowered you, dragging you away from the edge of the slope as he bangs the metal of his gun against your fingers. The pain is so sharp and hard that it makes you scream, and you drop your guns involuntarily, blindly reaching for your knife.

“You son of a bitch,” he hisses at you, but your fingers close around the hilt of your knife and you sink it into his leg with all of your strength, before you get hit over the head and lose consciousness.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When you regain consciousness again, there’s arguing, loud banging against things, and yelling happening all around you. It takes effort to focus when you open your eyes, but finally you can make out some of the faces around you. Tovar, unsurprisingly, a gun in his hand as he’s leaning against the wall. Lorenzano, also armed. And surprisingly - Ezra. On the floor, half kneeling, and with Lorenzano’s gun pressed against his head.

“You made him this way!” Lorenzano practically spat at him, looking like he’s about to have an aneurism out of rage, but Ezra merely looks at him all calm. “You… you conspired. With those faggot boys. And now you’re trying to take me-…”

Tovar cleared his throat. “Us,” he said sharply.

“Yeah, and now you’re trying to take us down,” Lorenzano continued, moving the gun from Ezra’s temple to his forehead.

“I’m afraid I must interject. I did no such thing, boss. Neither did Sant–” Ezra’s words are cut off as Lorenzano hits him hard across his face, and you wince at the sound of what possibly is a broken nose.

“Don’t. Lie. To. Me.”

Ezra takes a moment to compose himself, then shakes his head again, wincing as it seems to hurt him. “I am not a greedy man. You of all people should know that after all this time.”

“Then how did those fuckin commies get their hands on that stash?” Tovar speaks up, looking irritated. “They clearly had intel. Not to mention that ambush the other day.” He wanders over to you, and you groan as you try to sit up on the floor, but your hands are cuffed behind your back and your ankles also tied together. “And you. You let that whore escape the other day. Did you really think you could get away with that?”, he sneers. “Did you deliver Esdras’ messages to her or something?”

Your head is spinning as you’re trying to follow the conversation even though the pain is making it hard to listen and speak. “I didn’t do — I never tried anything like that,” you manage, trying to keep your eyes open. “Please. You have to believe me. Ezra never…”

Tovar grabs you by your neck, pressing his gun up against your chin. “We found your money stash,” he hisses. “Do you know how many of your comrades were eager to speak about the shit you pulled in Cali and Bogota? Letting people get away from raids while they should’ve been six feet under?”

You fight the urge to argue that it wasn’t just people, that it was mostly children and some women, because you know that’s not gonna help your case. “I’ve done as I’ve been told to do. All of my missions. Every single one of them was successful and profitable…,” you wince when you hear Tovar take the safety off the gun, and you close your eyes as you speak faster, trying to focus more on convincing him. “Ezra was just training me so I would be better working for the syndicate. That’s all, I swear. He never… we wouldn’t.”

“What about your faggot boyfriend, huh?”

“What about him, gentle man?” Ezra speaks up before you can even begin to think of an answer. “He didn’t do anything. Neither of them did, nor did I. If we had, you’d have concrete evidence, my friend.”

Tovar ignores his words, and you feel the gun barrel press even harder into your chin. “Where is he? That pilot boy.”

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. Clearly that’s not a good enough answer, because a moment later you’re kicked in the stomach and collapse, gasping for air. “God, I swear, I don’t…”

“Are you religious, Santiago?” Lorenzano walks over to you with slow, menacing steps. “Because you’d better pray to your god that they won’t carry you out of here in a body bag.”

Nausea rolls around your stomach, and you brace yourself for what you know is going to be another kick or punch. You manage to hang in there at first, but when another blow lands on your head, your dizziness quickly overtakes you while the sound of an electric tool whizzes in the background. You hear Ezra scream as the smell of burnt flesh fills the room, and then everything goes dark again.

It’s so dark.

You’re not sure where you are, but you know you haven’t been here before. It doesn’t feel like a dream either, not with the briny ocean air that you smell all around you.

Painfully slowly the darkness begins to clear eventually, showing that you’re standing somewhere high up on a cliff. There’s a man near the end of the cliff, his back turned to you, dripping wet like he just got out of the ocean. 

It’s your brother Jay.

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him in a dream. You know it’s him, even from the back, and even if that looks nothing like how you remember him. When he turns around to face you, something wells inside of your chest and crowds your throat - tears of fear or relief, it’s hard to tell. You just know you’re exhausted, and in pain, and bleeding profusely.

Jay reaches out to you, seemingly offering something he’s holding, but when you take a step closer to him you see it move and realize it’s an animal. A snake, or - no, a sea serpent, biting its own tail, immersed in water that Jay is able to hold in his hands somehow. 

“Brother. It is time. Come join me.” You hear Jay say the words, even though his lips don’t move, and you notice that his eyes are swirls of blue and white. Like waves in the ocean, or a stormy sky.

You know this is Jay, but none of it feels like when you’ve been seeing Joel in your dreams. Something is seriously wrong. 

All of a sudden the choked up feeling in your throat turns into a sharp, blinding pain. It’s like someone jammed a knife into it, or a sword, that goes all the way up to the roof of your mouth. The taste of blood takes over your senses as an alarming amount of it begins to pool into your mouth.

“Were you not looking for me?” Jay’s voice grows louder while the serpent in his hands grows bigger, wriggling in the water. Again offers it to you, stepping even closer, and the ocean smell grows stronger. “Come. Take its tail out so he can breathe and live.”

The words are a bitter irony since you’re nearly choking on your own blood. You feel delirious, your head spinning as you’re already nauseous from the pain. Right when you’re about to reach out and grab the creature from Jay, you hear someone screaming behind you - loudly. 

It’s Frankie. And it’s not even the screams that you would normally hear in your dreams with Joel. This is much, much worse. It reminds you of raids gone wrong, sicarios going after you, and that time the both of you almost died falling off a roof. It’s the kind of screaming that’s full of despair instead of just fear, only rivaled in intensity by the sudden sound of a helicopter that you can’t see. It’s so foreign in this setting that it shakes you out of your delirium, just long enough to see three men step out from behind Jay’s back. 

Tovar. On the right. Teeth bared, the scar on his face looking an angry red color, a M16 in his hands that’s aimed at Jay’s head.

Lorenzano is standing behind Jay, the expression in his eyes dead and vacant as always, with a barely concealed sneer on his face. There’s a Beretta in his hand that’s aimed at the back of Jay’s head, and for some reason you know that if there’s anyone who wants to kill Jay - it’s gonna be Lorenzano.

“Little Beast.”

Your attention gets pulled to the left of your brother, where the third man stands: tall, a familiar shock of blond in his hair, green brown clothing. Ezra. Unarmed and chillingly calm in contrast to Lorenzano, Tovar and your brother, he extends his left hand to you.

"Every moment of our lives is filled with choices, Little Beast. Your choice and your consequence to bear."

“BROTHER.” Jay’s eyes flash in anger at you, the blue of his pupils turning almost black. “Do not ignore me. Come join me. Kill him as it has been prophesied in word and song.” 

Somehow you know ‘him’ isn’t about the men on either side of him. It’s about Lorenzano, still behind Jay, now staring at you as his finger rests against the trigger of his handgun. But before you can respond to Jay, something soft pushes firmly against your leg, followed by the low warning growl of your wolf cub.

You can feel the bindings around the cub before you even look down. It’s like they’re chaining you too, the pressure thin and sharp around your chest and legs, feeling both impossibly delicate and permanent in how strong they are. For a second it shifts your focus of pain away from the blade that’s still lodged into your throat and mouth, but as the wolf cub looks up at you, you can tell that you’re not going to be able to help him with these bindings - and it feels like the biggest failure.

The cub isn’t deterred though, his eyes locked on Jay as he grows loudly at him, and you wince when you feel the wolf’s claws scrape over your leg - you know it doesn’t intend to hurt you, it just wants to protect and be close to you. 

Jay furiously yells at you, the expression on his face asinine and enraged, and Lorenzano suddenly no longer standing behind him. So you don’t think - you just reach out for the hand Ezra is offering you, clutching on to him for dear life as you also swoop up the wolf pup in your other arm. 

The screams of your brother turn into the roaring sound of the ocean, overtaking all the other sounds around you, and you watch in horror as water starts pouring from his mouth in excessive amounts, in the same way you feel blood pouring from yours.

Jay’s fingers wrap themselves around each side of the serpent, scraping over its scales as he pulls and pulls and pulls with all his might. It doesn’t work initially, nor the second time - but the third time proves to be a charm at last. He forcefully rips the snake’s tail out of its mouth, releasing a loud hissing sound from the creature as it contorts and starts to grow bigger.

Several claps of thunder sound in the air at the same time, and as Ezra’s hand closes around yours and pulls you over to him, you see the assault weapon in Tovar’s hand has turned into a massive hammer.

When the hammer hits Jay, the flash of lightning on impact is almost blinding, cracking his skull, and Jay screams as he throws the serpent at his attacker. The creature immediately wraps itself around his calves, and when its teeth sink deep into Tovar’s leg, it pulls a scream from him that rivals all the other deafening sounds around you. 

Tovar stumbles away from Jay and the snake - four, five, six steps, and when his eyes meet yours, you feel another wave of nausea rolling through you.The rage in his eyes when he sees you with Ezra is terrifying, and his path abruptly changes and he moves towards you, one step followed by another. But as he takes one more step, he suddenly pales, grabbing at his leg where the serpent bit him moments earlier. 

The creature still has its fangs sunk into Tovar’s leg, acidic looking venom now dripping out of the wound, and it seems like all of a sudden Tovar realizes that this is not something he can beat. 

He is a tall, broad man, his right hand still gripping tight onto the large hammer - but when he falls, you can tell there is no way that man is getting up again. The massive hammer hits the ground, making everything shake as a crack forms into the ground, zipping from left to right as more additional cracks happen faster than you can even count.

Then, the tip of the cliff just… breaks off. A moment of complete destruction, happening much faster than seems possible, because within seconds it just plummets all the way down, dragging Tovar and Jay along with it. So fast that you don’t even hear them scream; the only sound you hear is the massive thud as everything crashes down into the ocean, being swallowed up whole by roaring waves that pull it down into its depths to never be seen again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This time you're not sure that you are even fully conscious when the room around you comes into focus for a moment. The air smells metallic, like blood and burnt things, and the floor around you is red.

"Little Beast," you hear Ezra gasp, and you want to look at him, but the darkness pulls you under again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Everything around you turns red. Dripping with blood, which then turns into bright orange flames, leaping up to the sky like it was their only purpose in life. But the wolf cub is now taller than you, wrapping its tail around you and Ezra as he tosses you onto his back.

You scramble to hold onto his fur as you grab Ezra’s shirt, making sure he won’t slide off. But then you see his right arm is missing, he’s bleeding out all over the three of you - and you don’t know what to do.

“It’s the consequences, Little Beast.” Ezra is calm as ever as he looks at you, the blond streak barely visible in his hair as it’s also covered in blood. “The choice was mine to make. Certain actions ferment the threat of appropriate reactions.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Somewhere there’s the sound of guns. There’s screaming, and then you hear a voice that you’d recognize anywhere. 

Francisco.

“Is that…” Ezra’s voice is shaking, unable to talk without wincing and gasping from pain. “Fuck. Frankie?”

More gunshots sound and just when the door is slammed open, you once again lose consciousness, your head hurting so much that you wonder if this is the end of it all.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’re cold.

Everything is white, but you can still smell the flames.

You know the fire is finally gone when the white begins to weigh heavy on you like snow.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When you open your eyes, brought back to consciousness by the sound of the wolf cub whimpering against you, there’s a large wolf standing across from you two. Not black, like your cub - brown, like the color of trees, and Frankie’s eyes and hair.

Francisco.

You black out again. 

When you finally come to your senses again and open your eyes, there’s a small arctic fox standing next to the brown wolf in the snow. It raises its head when it sees you move, then looks at something behind it in the distance.

It’s only when you see the bloody knife in the crisp snow in front of you that you realize it’s no longer lodged into your throat, and that there’s no blood pooling in your mouth anymore.

Heaven for the climate, hell for the company. 

“Frankie.” His name slips from your lips as you start to cry, and the wolf cub whines softly, now  curled up against your chest. His paws are bloody, and you’re not sure if it’s his blood or yours, nor where the large piece of bloody meat came from that’s staining the snow between you and the brown wolf who is still standing in front of you.

Brown fur.

Brown curls.

The tall woman in front of you is covered in brown furs, keeping her warm against the snow. She kneels down in front of you as she picks up the piece of bloody meat and puts it in her pocket. Then she reaches out of you, and as you feel the wet brush of her hand on your forehead, pushing back your hair, you feel yourself starting to lose consciousness again.

“Oh.” Her voice is light, tingles like icicles, and she laughs softly, sounding surprised. “Yes. You really are his.”

There’s even more blood than before. Your hands, all the way up your forearms. In your mouth. Hair.

Frankie’s face. His legs. So much blood, and he’s crying.

Someone’s dismembered arm lays on the floor, not too far away from you. You try to figure out if it’s yours, but everything hurts too much - you’re just not sure.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’re not sure how you make it to the truck, delirious from blood loss - you just know that somehow you do, Francisco’s hands on you almost the entire time. Once you’re in the vehicle, you promptly black out, coming to your senses later while Frankie drives the truck like he is possessed, several guns in the passenger seat next to him.

You want to ask him what happened - how he found you, and where Ezra is, but every time you think you’ve found the words to ask him that out loud, you black out again, and again, and again. Sometimes you wake up screaming, other times the pain throughout your entire body and head is almost too much to stand - but each and every time, there’s Frankie’s reassuring hand on you.

Somewhere between reality and dreams, or maybe even a worse place than that, you’re drowning in a river of foaming blood. The current is rough, making it incredibly hard to hold on anything  as you try to hold onto rocks, a tree trunk, and anything else that’s near you. 

The pain in your head is stabbing, overwhelming, and you can’t tell if the blood around you tastes the same as the blood in your mouth - whether it’s both yours, or if some of it is Frankie’s, or maybe even Ezra's.

After what seems like hours it starts to rain, while you’re still trying to stay afloat. At first you’re convinced it’s going to be the final push that’ll make you drown, but somehow as the rain mingles with the bloody river, it starts to dilute the thick red blood little by little, until eventually the blood has disappeared and there’s only water surrounding you, while the sun breaks through the clouds, warming your skin at last. You grit your teeth as you try to make it to the shore once again, and this time you’re successful, finally getting your body out of the water as you lay down into a wheat field, the wolf pup suddenly by your side.

You lurch up when the truck Frankie is driving comes to an abrupt stop, gasping for air as you’re jostled into consciousness for a moment. The wolf cub whines softly, licking your face, and you can’t figure out if you’re actually in the car or in that field next to the river. You hear voices somewhere nearby, and when somebody talks who is clearly not Frankie, the pup bolts up with his teeth bared.

That’s when you see the horse in front of you, just a few steps away, his dark brown coat looking almost black as it shines in the sun. You don’t understand how it’s possible, but you can swear that the horse smells like freshly baked bread and some grain alcohol - maybe it’s whiskey. The horse slowly starts to change shape, and eventually looks like a man wearing yellow aviators and tight jeans, standing there with a cocked hip and an expression somewhere in between annoyance and concern.

“Peña,” you hear Frankie say, but some part of your brain struggles to accept that name for the man. 

“Freyr,” you mutter as you close your eyes again, burying your face against the soft fur of the wolf cub curled up against you. You’ve seen that man before, you just don’t remember where. Bogota? Medellin? Maybe talking to Ezra? Fuck - Ezra. Where is he? Is he still alive? “Esdr-...Tyr.” Your head hurts so much that it feels like it’s going to explode.

“Santiago. You’re going to be okay.” 

Your eyes fly open when you recognize Joel’s voice, so nearby that for a moment it feels like he is right next to you. Until everything goes black again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Every time you dream of Joel, you ask him.

Every time you ask him, he has no answer for you.

“He’s not here, Santiago.”

“Please. You must be able to find out somehow.”

“I don’t know where Esdras is, hermano.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The medication that Javier and Frankie got for you makes it hard to focus on anything, but at least it keeps the pain away. It makes the nightmares worse though, so you find yourself desperately trying to stay awake. 

This is what you understand: 

You’re at the El Dorado airport in Bogota, with Francisco and Javier Peña, who is a DEA agent. The three of you are getting on a small plane that’s headed to the United States, but you’re not quite sure where. At some point, you’ll be testifying anonymously about Lorenzano, Tovar and the rest of the syndicate.

“Ezra set this up a year ago,” Javier tells the two of you as he hands you each a passport and some paperwork. “Residency and work permits. The rest will come.” 

Francisco is staring at him, looking just as confused as you are feeling. “I don’t understand.”

“Ezra is an American citizen. Was.” Javier hesitates, and you can tell by his expression that the man genuinely doesn’t seem to know whether Ezra is still alive as he looks at you. “When Frankie found you two… well. He should tell you about that some time. But Ezra sent him to me, so I got things moving. Most of this was already set up.” 

“Why?”, you manage to ask, and Javier sighs as he takes his yellow aviators off.

“Insurance policy. I know Ezra wanted out, but he didn’t quite seem to think that he would survive that,” he then says. “He figured that if shit hit the fan, at least you two could get out and start over.”

You close your eyes, trying to process the words, but it’s impossible to understand. The idea that Ezra is probably dead is just as unbearable as the thought of what state he might be in if he is still alive. 

“Did he lose his arm?”, you ask, and you don’t recognize your own voice - but you can tell the words sound slightly hysterical. “Frankie, where…”

“You should rest. Both of you,” Javier gently but firmly interrupts you, then gives you some pills and a bottle of water. “These will help. You’re safe for now.”

The woman, Lydia, apologizes for the small apartment, saying that’s all she was able to arrange on such short notice. Javier and Francisco assure her it’s perfectly fine, and you can only nod, your tongue and brain still heavy from the medications.

Once Javier had checked all the entrances and exits, feeling good about how secure it is, he leaves you and Frankie alone, saying something about Lydia picking up groceries and clothes for you soon. Only when he’s gone, you’re able to take in the apartment. Lydia may have apologized for its size, but to you it feels like a palace - and you can tell by the expression on Frankie’s face that he feels the same way.

Somehow it reminds you of your childhood home, and when you two sit down at the small kitchen table, you suddenly don’t feel twenty-two anymore but only ten years old at the most. You’ve never had someone give you a place to call home, even if it would be temporary. Hell, you’re never even been in a place that had locks and was intended for only you and Frankie, with exception of that one motel night a long time ago. 

You watch Frankie get up from the table and grab two glasses, filling them from a bottle of water in the fridge - the only thing that’s in there. As you drink from it, you take in his appearance. He looks as exhausted as you feel, some cuts and bruises on him, but not as many as you have fortunately.

He lets you look at him, the soft smile on his face indicating he understands you’re still loopy from the drugs, then touches your hand softly as he gets up. “This looks nice,” he says, gesturing around him, and you laugh without meaning to - because if there’s one thing Frankie normally doesn’t do, it’s small talk.

“Shut up, pendejo,” he says as he rolls his eyes at you, but you can tell that he doesn’t mean it. “I just mean - well, this is fucking huge.”

You shower together, mostly because you can’t stand up straight without swaying, but you realize that you quite like it. The water is hot and plentiful, neither of you having soap or anything, but just washing the dirt off your skin already feels like a blessing.

“I can walk,” you object when he seems inclined to help you to the bedroom, and you do so, ignoring when you almost fall twice. The sheets seem old but are so soft against your bare skin, and you drift off so fast while you hear Frankie moving around and letting someone inside the apartment. When he returns, it’s with a small pile of clothes and a bag with deliciously smelling food.

You’re both starving and eat mostly in silence, still trying to understand what happened in the past forty eight hours. When your eyes become too heavy, you curl up under the sheets and breathe a sigh of relief when Frankie does so as well. His naked body is so warm against yours as he wraps an arm around you, laying against your back, and you both fall asleep this way.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“America.” A smile tugs at Joel’s lips, and for a moment you’re not sure if you are actually dreaming. Everything indicates that you are, except for the way Joel looks. There is no decaying half to his face, or his body - he’s all in one piece, standing in front of you. Even looking relaxed, which is not exactly a characteristic you associate with him. 

There are no dead bodies anywhere near the two of you. 

Nobody is bleeding out on the ground, or screaming. 

It should be comforting, a relief, but after so many years of always having dreamt of Joel one way, your brain is struggling to understand what’s happening.

“Are you okay?”, you ask Joel, feeling stupid asking the question when he’s clearly looking better than he has before. “I mean…”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Santiago.” The expression on Joel’s face softens further, looking almost wistful, and suddenly you know with alarming clarity that this is the last time you’re going to be dreaming about him like this. “You got out.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The footsteps down the hallway are firm and moving closer to the room where you and Frankie are seated. He gives you a short nod as you both get up from the chairs, standing straight as you wait for the door to swing open.

A tall blond man dressed in uniform enters the room, and you can tell that it takes him just a second to size up the two of you - make a quick judgment about what he sees too, probably. 

He closes the door behind him, then walks over to shake your hands briefly. He gestures at the chairs you were seated earlier as he takes a seat of his own, behind the desk.

“Mr. Garcia, Mr. Morales. My name is Captain William Miller. What can I do for you?”

A/N II: I need to give a nod to @oliveksmoked’s incredible 'Nothing That We Need' (Narcos x Supernatural with Javi x OFC) and @ohforficsake’s The Margay' (Frankie x Audrey, POC OFC) which ended up influencing this fic a lot, and are both absolute must reads. Finally, thank you to @sin-djarin @lotusbxtch @qveerthe0ry @mountainsandmayhem and @magpiepills for all the support and feedback (and letting me cry when I needed to for many reasons). Dividers by @saradika!

Here’s a little overview of Santi + the PPCU characters in this fic, plus and the Norse Gods that Erin assigned to them. Click on their names to go read the other Frith stories written by some amazing writers! @perotovar, thank you so much once again for organizing this incredible event, love you so much!

Santiago Garcia → Fenrir. Most famous of all the wolves in Norse Mythology, bringer of Ragnarok a.k.a. the end of the world. Joel Miller/Santi’s brother → Hel. Goddess of death and guide to the underworld.  Jay/Santi’s (oldest) brother -> Jormungand. The serpent banished to the ocean, will rise at the end of the world. 

Francisco Morales → Skadi. Goddess of winter, skiing, bow-hunting, and mountains. Ezra / Esrads → Týr. God of victory, law, and justice.

Maxwell Lord/Lorenzano → Odin. The All-Father. God of wisdom, magic, war, death and trickery. Pero Tovar → Thor. God of thunder, lightning and the protection of humankind. Max Phillips/Santi’s father → Loki. The Trickster God of mischief and chaos. Javier Peña → Freyr. God of fertility, harvests, and peace. Rules over weather.

main masterlist | follow @longlongtime-updates for updates

[whatsemilyreading]

TITLE | anyone’s ghost

AUTHOR | august thompson

RATING | ★★★★★

goodreads | storygraph | bookshop.org

It took three car crashes to kill Jake.

Theron David Alden is there for the first two: the summer they meet in rural New Hampshire, when he’s fifteen and anxious, and Jake’s seventeen and a natural; then six years later in New York City, those too-short, ecstatic, painful nights that change both their lives forever—the end of the dream and the longing for the dream and the dream itself, all at once.

Theron is not there for the third crash.

And yet, their story contains so much joy and the glorious, stupid simplicity of a boyhood joke; the devastation of insecurity; the way a great song can distill a universe; the limits of what we can know about each other; the mysterious, porous, ungraspable fault line between yourself and the person you love better than yourself; the beautiful, toxic elixir of need and hope and want.

Anyone’s Ghost is August Thompson’s debut novel, a coming of age story about grief, surviving, first love, and coming to terms with who you are. It closely follows Theron David Alden, our protagonist and narrator, who spends the school year with his mom in Los Angeles and summers with his dad in the small town in New Hampshire where he grew up. It’s there that he meets Jackson Siegel – Jake – over the summer that he turns sixteen, the summer that changes him forever.

Readers go into this novel knowing Jake and Theron will be involved in three car accidents – the first two they survive together, and the third takes Jake’s life, fifteen-hundred miles away from Theron, nearly a decade after the two of them speak, really speak, for the last time. So it’s not his death that shakes us, takes us by surprise, but the slow, tender way that their relationship develops over that single, fateful summer, in between shifts at the town’s lone hardware store and drunken evenings spent parked at the local Walmart, Metallica and Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie soundtracking their lives. The way it shifts into something less corporeal, something solid, during a blackout in Manhattan. It’s difficult not to preemptively trace the path of their involvement in one another’s lives – though it’s predictable, it doesn’t bore. I sat up and read the second of this book over the course of four hours, cried my way through the final part, laid awake at 1:30 in the morning, unsure of how I was supposed to just…go to sleep after all of that.

To say that this book was good would be an understatement. It’s more like it completely rearranged me. Its reflections on love, on power imbalances, on grieving what you still have, on hesitancy to act for fear you’ll lose it all – all of it was so, so powerful. Theron’s internal strife, his inability in his youth to come to terms with what he feels for Jake, only later in life able to call it what it really is. It’s all what makes Anyone’s Ghost beautiful.

In the acknowledgements, Thompson thanks Metallica, The National (from whom I believe he nabbed the book’s title), Kacey Musgraces, even “Call Me By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino, but it was the mention of Charlotte Wells, who wrote and directed the 2022 film “Aftersun,” that stopped me in my tracks and led me down (yet another) “Aftersun” rabbit hole. I know this book had to have been written before the film came out, but it’s not a stretch, I think, to be able to draw a connection – the protagonists of each living on borrowed time with their loved ones without really knowing it. I stumbled across an interview between the filmmaker, The xx’s Romy Madley Croft, and Document writer Megan Hullander, in which she writes that, for Wells, “joy and grief are inextricable,” and I think the same can be said for August Thompson. Many times throughout the novel, Theron ruminates on something similar, a string that ties it all together, that you can’t lose without having loved, that you can’t love without the promise of losing.

This also led me to a lot of listening while I was writing this review – to Metallica’s “Orion,” and to The National’s album High Violet, in particular. Almost every song on that album was a punch to the chest when I thought about it in connection with this book and its characters. From “Anyone’s Ghost”: “Didn’t wanna be your ghost / Didn’t wanna be anyone’s ghost / But I don’t want anybody else.”

Jonathan Safran Foer said this book will make you cry – and he was right. It’s impossible not to feel the emotion seeping out of these pages. The intimacy between the characters becomes an intimacy between author and reader. Their joy, rage, sorrow, wildness, all of it becomes ours. I know Anyone’s Ghost will haunt me for a long time to come. It’s out in July, and though I’ve recently become more and more hesitant to recommend books – I know we all have limited time, energy, and resources to devote to books we might not like, but fuck it. This book was so incredible, and I see it releasing in the summer to triumphant praise. It’s extraordinary, exactly as the summary of the book says. I’ve never read anything that made me feel quite like I did when I read this.

[mypoisonedvine]

𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 || helmut zemo, bucky barnes and sam wilson x reader

(this is a sequel to 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭-𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞, I recommend reading that first although it’s not 100% necessary... it would make this make a lot more sense though)

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 : it was just a matter of time before he upped the ante, all four of you knew that, but taking you all on a vacation specifically for this was a bit over-the-top.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 : 7.9k (hoo boy)

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : smut (foursome/group sex + a scene that’s just zemo/reader, cockwarming, d/s dynamics, brief oral f receiving, a touch of dubcon/cnc but it’s very subtle and the reader is 100% consenting), established zemo x reader, sugar daddy relationship, ‘sir’ kink (with zemo), ‘daddy’ kink (with sam), orgasm control/denial, overstimulation, creampie, praise with light degradation, possessiveness (but also sharing, lol), exhibitionism/voyeurism, choking, brief anal mention, once again technically cuckolding but not in the typical sense, slight corruption kink?, too many robes, latin sokovian (or as I like to call it, serbukromanian), also assume that whenever the reader and zemo are alone they are speaking sokovian even though I write the convos in english for the sake of simplicity

thank you for being my beta @nsfwsebbie​ !!

                   When your Baron told you he wanted to take you on a vacation, you immediately assumed it would be to the mountains or some European city full of history and culture.  Instead, you were a bit surprised to hear he was interested in a beach resort, a private villa he had purchased in French Polynesia.

And then you found out he wanted to bring Sam and Bucky along too… and you were simultaneously more and less surprised.  More, because who brings tentative coworkers one barely gets along with on a romantic vacation?  Less, because of course he would do this.  Of course he had plans to dress you up in the tiniest bikinis he could find and show you off to the men who had already become pawns in his perverted game of social chess.

Not that you minded; you were the Queen of the board and it didn’t bother you if it was what the King wanted.

~

You spent the first night in the villa alone with him, which you appreciated.  It had been a while since you two had some real quality time together, and you were craving him more than ever, in every way.

After a beautiful day spent swimming in the crystal blue ocean and enjoying the sights your new temporary home had to offer, you took a shower and tried not to get too excited about how you might be spending the evening with him.  But, of course, you were only a few minutes into washing the saltwater off your body when you began to imagine his tongue on you, god that man could use his tongue to destroy you any way he wanted: with his words, with his kisses, or perhaps best of all with it tasting every inch of your cunt.  It was amazing how he could get on his knees for you and still have all the power.  He liked to make you keep eye contact with him while he did it, make you beg him to let you come, whatever it took to remind you that you were thoroughly and properly owned.

And you loved every second of it, you loved being helpless to him.  He made you feel so safe that being vulnerable with him by now felt like no risk at all.  You could remember early on when your fears and insecurities made you more hesitant to submit to him, and it was only with gentle patience that he coaxed you into it, never pressure or anger.  You weren’t a virgin when you met him but, sometimes it felt like you might as well have been since you were so inexperienced and undersexed then.  In fact, he was the first man, the first person other than yourself to make you come… and he made you come more ways than you had known possible.

Okay, so maybe the plan to not get your hopes up wasn’t going so well… you were already struggling to keep your hands from between your legs. Frankly, you would’ve already done it if you didn’t know that touching yourself was against the rules.

You’d gotten so used to taking care of yourself while he was in prison, at which point he obviously suspended that rule, and it was a hard habit to break at times.

You emerged from the bathroom in the fluffy robe you found on the door, smiling when you saw him lounging on the bed in a matching one, reading Анна Каренина (known by the West as Anna Karenina).  He looked contemplative, as always, and you always thought he looked especially sexy in his reading glasses.  You slipped into the bed beside him, resting your head on his chest as he found a position where he could read comfortably with his arm around your shoulders.

“You must’ve already read that book a thousand times, Helmut,” you sighed.

“And it gets better every time,” he mumbled back, turning the page.

You pouted slightly, nuzzling into his shoulder, and he chuckled.  “Is my little lutka in need of some attention?”

You nodded, and he kissed the top of your head softly.  

“Why don’t you keep me warm while I finish this chapter, hm?” he offered, and you involuntarily clenched your thighs together at his words.  He phrased it like a question, but it felt more like a gentle demand, and you were happy to agree either way.

“Yes, sir,” you hummed as you sat up and straddled his legs, undoing your robe and opening his to wrap your hand around his half-hard cock.

He reached his full potential with only a few slow strokes, and you found yourself absent-mindedly licking your lips as you saw the way your fingers just barely met with your thumb and imagined how your body would be pushed to its limits to take him.  Good thing you were already dripping wet even though you’d just been in the shower.

You indulged in rubbing your pussy over his shaft for a moment, enough to coat him in your wetness, before you lined up his tip to your entrance and sunk down onto him with a sigh, feeling like you could never tire of being stretched open by his thick cock.  

When your hips met his, and the tip of his cock brushed against the deepest parts of you, you had to bite your lip to suppress a whimper.  After so long apart, you were still readjusting to taking him and being on top didn’t make it much easier.

Honestly, you really weren’t trying to move; you just found your hips rocking slightly, seemingly of their own accord.  You moaned under your breath as your clit rubbed against his body, but you were pulled from your trance with a whine as he slapped your thigh.

“No moving, draga, I think I made myself clear,” he reminded you sternly.

“Yes, sir,” you breathed.

You were pretty sure that at some point, you were a patient person. But you couldn’t imagine that now, not when all you could think about was how amazing it would be to just ride him right there, memories running through your mind and making your inner walls ripple unintentionally.  He either couldn’t feel it or didn’t care, stoically continuing to read even as you were struggling to stay still.

Your plan was to be good for a while and then hope that you could convince him later… but you know what they say about best-laid plans, so you ended up cutting straight to the convincing pretty fast.

“Can I move yet, sir?”

“It’s hardly been a minute,” he frowned.

“Please,” you sighed, just barely moving your hips without even meaning to.

“Not yet,” he asserted, sounding a bit annoyed, but you needed this more than anything.

"Please let me move, please; I just wanna ride you so bad,” you begged.

He sighed, clearly irritated, and just when you thought you’d made a grave error, he finally put his book aside and looked up at you with a grin.  "If I had known you would be so whiny, I would have had you keep me warm with your mouth.”

You opened your mouth to respond but let out only whimpery moans when he ran his hands up your body, toying briefly with your nipples before wrapping a hand around your neck and pulling you down into a rough kiss.  Moaning into it, you couldn’t hold back any longer and started to rock your body atop his, savoring that perfect drag of his length along your walls that you’d missed so much.

Before you got a chance to really set your pace, he grabbed you tight and rolled the both of you over, pinning you under his weight as he fucked you in that way that was somehow rough and slow at the same time, moving his kiss to your neck and holding you down by your wrists.

“Fuck, th-thank you, sir,” you sighed, your cheeks warming when he chuckled against your skin.

“You really are too sweet, draga,” he whispered.

Your arms wrapped around his neck while your legs did the same to his hips, keeping him deep inside you while his lips and tongue teased your collarbones, his fingers interlacing with yours.

He spent the entire night somewhere between making love to you and fucking you within an inch of your life, making you come more times than you could count, only taking breaks from fucking you to eat you out like a starving man (and one time for a quick drink sometime around 3 a.m.).  It was no wonder, then, that you passed out just a few moments after he finally came inside you, sleeping soundly in his arms until well into the morning, nearly noon in fact, when the sun was streaming in through the massive window.

After a relaxed breakfast of champagne and fruit (the native pamplemousse was unlike anything you’d ever eaten before), Helmut encouraged you to shower again and meet him at the pool, which was a bit surprising since he normally liked to have you keep his come in you as long as possible.  “Our guests should be here this afternoon,” was his only explanation, and you had a few ideas about what that meant, all of which made your gut sink in an oddly pleasurable way as you were filled with anticipation.

“Wear that bathing suit I bought for you, the new one,” he added finally as he stepped out onto the back patio.

~

It might seem silly to have a pool on a property right by the beach, but on days like today, where the ocean water was just a bit too chilly, you were thankful to have the heated pool to take a dip in.  Honestly, you were a little surprised that Helmut didn’t make you swim in the ocean to see your nipples get hard through the tight black bikini, but then again, they were already getting there just from sharing a pool chair with him.

He was lying against the cushioned chair; your body sat between his spread legs as the back of your head rested on his chest.  And, this is entirely unrelated, but you really liked how he looked in the round sunglasses he had on.

You hummed contentedly as you reached up behind you to touch him, rubbing his shoulders and pecs.  You wiggled a bit, slowly, and imagined how it would feel if he got hard right against the small of your back.

"Mm, what's gotten into you, lutka?" he purred, rubbing your arms.

You rolled your eyes playfully.  "You know the effect you have on me, don't act surprised."

Just before anything exciting could happen, Sam and James entered through the fence, apparently already having changed into their swimsuits; you wished you had thought to wear sunglasses so they couldn’t catch you ogling their muscular bodies, but instead, you just tried to keep your cool as you waved hello.

“Welcome!” Helmut called out, both of you getting up to greet them properly.  “I hope your flight was alright…?”

“Yeah, it was great,” Sam nodded, “thanks.”

“You really own this whole place?” James added, glancing around.

“Yes, would you like to have a swim?  I hear it should be warm enough tomorrow for the ocean, but until then…” Helmut trailed off.

Sam went right ahead, diving in and smiling wide when he popped back up.  That man had such an infectious smile, you thought he should charge people to see it or something because you felt spoiled seeing it for free.

James jumped in behind him but seemed a little surprised when he returned to the surface to see you back in your chair with Helmut.  “Care to join us?” he asked you.

“Um, no, I already swam a bit this morning,” you remembered, suddenly shy, “I think I’ll stay by the pool a while longer.”

“Aw, I was looking forward to getting to know you better,” he pouted, and everyone else raised an eyebrow at that statement.  “Um, verbally, I mean,” he added, cheeks flushing slightly.

“What would you want to know?” you asked, sighing as you relaxed against Helmut’s chest.

“Well, what’s your story?” he shrugged, swimming up the edge of the pool to hang his arms over the edge.

“I… suppose it’s a rather short story,” you realized, “I was born in Sokovia, but my parents were immigrants.  I was a bit of an ugly duckling as a child, I think.”

“You look like quite the swan now,” James winked, and you hoped Helmut wouldn’t notice how much that affected you.  

“Oh, thank you,” you mumbled.

“Which reminds me, that’s a cute bikini you have on,” he complimented.

“Do you like it?” you hummed coyly.  “Helmut picked it out.”

“Why don’t you give them a better look, darling?” Helmut prompted, and Sam swam up to hang over the edge too as you stood up and fought the urge to cover yourself with your arms.  The Baron motioned his finger in a circle, silently instructing you to twirl so they could see the back, and you did though you felt a bit self-conscious about it.  Finally, once you were sure they’d had an eyeful, he let you sit back down in his lap.

“Cute, isn’t it?” he cooed as his fingers travelled slowly up your sides.  “It’s Chanel.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Sam dismissed, unlatching himself from the edge of the pool and falling into a backstroke.  “This is weird.  I just wanna swim.”

“You didn’t think this was seriously a free vacation, no strings attached, did you?” James shot back, getting up out of the pool and shaking some of the water off of himself before sitting down in the chair beside you two and letting his eyes wander over you.  “So, Chanel, huh?” he prompted, and you nodded.

“Helmut says I should only wear the nicest things,” you explained, sitting up slightly.

“Why does it matter?  You’d look beautiful in anything,” James cooed, and you felt a little dirty for how much you liked his attention.  Good thing you liked feeling dirty.

“And a rare wagyu steak would taste just as good served any way, but you wouldn’t put it on a paper plate, now would you?” Helmut countered.  “Well, maybe you would…”

James rolled his eyes but brushed off Helmut’s insult, returning his attention to you.  “I guess I’m just… hungry enough that it doesn’t make much of a difference.”

You reached up to trace your fingertip over the silver chain dangling off of his neck, biting your lip as you hooked your finger around it and pulled him closer.  “Are you hungry enough that you don’t mind that it’s another man’s meal?”

His blue eyes went wide for a moment before glancing down to your lips and back up to your unwavering gaze, your brow raised as if a challenge while his furrowed as if he were considering accepting it.

“If he’s willing to share…” James whispered back.

“Then kiss me,” you requested softly, pulling him closer by his dog tags one more time until your lips met.

The way James kissed you was… difficult to describe.  Gentle, but with this edge of intensity— like he was restraining himself, like there was so much more passion teeming beneath the surface.  You wanted to bring that out if you could; you wanted to see how far you could push him until he lost it.

As James carefully ventured his tongue into your mouth, only to pull back and nip your bottom lip with his teeth, Helmut kissed you too— on the back of your neck, that spot that always made you wet and desperate right away.  You moaned, and you couldn’t be sure exactly who it was for, but James sure decided to respond to it either way, tilting his head more to let his kiss explore you deeper.

Helmut’s teeth dug into your shoulder right as James nipped at your bottom lip like they had somehow explicitly coordinated to make you desperate; your right hand reached up to weave into James’ hair, your left squeezing Helmut’s wrist at your side.

The kiss ended just a moment too soon, and there was a delay before you blinked your eyes open to look back at James, who seemed quite proud of himself.

“Touch me,” you pleaded in a whimper.

“Where?” he asked, somewhat innocently.

“Y-you know where…” you mumbled.  

He grinned wide, all trance of innocence gone.  “I know, but I want you to say it.”

“My cunt,” you whispered, and he snarled just a bit at the word.  “Please?”

“Of course, which one do you want?” James prompted with a grin, showing you his hands as your eyes instantly gravitated to the metal one.

“I think you know which I’m going to choose,” you mumbled shyly, and he smirked as he reached forward with the vibranium arm to brush his fingertips over your stomach, moving down to the top hemline of your bikini bottom.

You just barely gasped when the metal digits swiped over your clit and began to rub gentle circles, almost too slow as if he wanted to tease you… which, of course, he did.

"Do you like the way he touches you, draga?" Helmut whispered.  His voice in your ear was like honey on your tongue, like honey everywhere.

"Yes, sir," you nodded, looking down at James' hand buried into your bikini.

"Hey, tell me you like it, too," James protested, "I'm the one doing it after all."

"I like it, James," you repeated, looking up at him.  "I… don't have a title for you.  Should I call you something when you touch me like this?"

"You can just call me Bucky from now on, okay?  I think we're well past close enough now for that."

"Okay, Bucky," you sighed, watching the way his jaw clenched when you called him by name, "please put your fingers inside me."

"Both?"

"Yes, please," you breathed.

"But my fingers are thick, they're hard metal, and you're so small and delicate…"

"I want them to stretch me out, just please—"

A loud moan of shock jumped out of your mouth when he pushed the fingers in all at once, and though it reawakened some of the soreness from when Helmut had fucked you the night before, it felt wonderful enough to make your back arch up from the strong body behind you, his erection now digging into your hip.

It was certainly loud enough to get Sam's attention, who suddenly appeared beside the chair while he towelled off his chiselled chest.

"Damn, what are y'all doing to her over here?" he wondered aloud as if he were concerned for your health.

"Just playing with Zemo's little doll," Bucky answered.  "She's really fucking tight, can barely fit two fingers."

"Wait, move over, let me see," Sam insisted, making Bucky pull his fingers out and Helmut holding you more firmly as Sam slipped his hand into your bikini as well, poking his fingers at your entrance before pushing them in.

His fingers were even thicker and longer than Bucky's, just by a slight margin yet enough to make you mewl and arch your back as your eyes fluttered shut.

"Fuck, yeah, you were right," Sam breathed, and you felt more hands running over your body but you couldn't even tell anymore whose they were; you knew one that reached to pull up your bikini top and expose your breasts was Helmut's, because only he would be so bold, but the fingers teasing your nipples, the rough palm running up your legs… they could've belonged to anyone, and that realization made your clit throb.

"Okay, okay, that's enough. I was here first," Bucky mumbled as you felt Sam's fingers slip out and the metal ones push back in— not to mention the thumb reaching up to circle your clit slowly.

He wasn't just exploring you this time; you could tell he had a mission.  The way he instantly curled into your spot, the way he moved quickly yet deliberately, all made your thighs begin to quiver.

Helmut kissed your ear, gently tilting your head to access your neck better where he began to suck hard enough to leave a mark, mumbling something in Sokovian about how good you were being for him and his guests.

You loved being good, and the praise made your hips lift a little so you could rock yourself onto Bucky's fingers; the three men chuckled proudly.

"Feels that good?" Bucky pressed, and you nodded quickly.

He fingered you even faster, harder, and you cried out.

"Ohhh fuck, Bucky!" you gasped.  "Bucky, I'm gonna come!"

"Oh no, you're not," Helmut groaned, giving you a quick spank on the inner thigh as you whined and jolted.  "James, take your fingers out."

"Do I have to?"

"You do if you want a chance to fill her with more than just your fingers…"

That worked right away, Bucky pulling back as you pouted at being empty again.

“Let’s take her inside, and we can continue this there,” Helmut suggested, and Bucky lifted you up into his arms as the Baron led the group back to the master suite.

The convenient thing about bathing suits is that it takes so little time to get naked, which is why the second the patio door was shut, Bucky and Sam were stripping as their hard cocks bobbed up against their stomachs.  As if that weren’t overwhelming enough, Helmut stepped away for a moment (which left you feeling more alone than usual) just as the men began to help you strip; Sam untied the back of your bikini while Bucky knelt and pulled down the bottoms, leaving you feeling exposed as you were totally bare before them.  Bucky smiled up at you and kissed along your thighs while Sam grabbed a handful of your ass and growled a bit under his breath.

When you looked over at Helmut, you saw he had actually dressed in his robe rather than stripping, nearly making you whine with disappointment.  But you couldn’t focus on that long as hands moved all over your skin, both of them still just slightly wet from the pool, and you shivered for both of those reasons.

You gasped when Bucky suddenly licked a thick stripe right over your folds, and if it weren’t for Sam’s arms holding you up, you might not have been able to stay standing.

Looking down at where Bucky was devouring you, he looked back up at you with a lot less dominating intensity in his eyes than you were used to seeing.  Not that you minded; after all, no one could do what Helmut did as well as he could, but maybe Bucky could do something different, and it would be just as enjoyable.  His tongue lapping at your clit was certainly wonderful so far.

Sam guided one of your hands back behind you to stroke his cock, your mouth falling slack, which he took advantage of by turning your face and capturing you in an open-mouthed kiss.  You heard your moans stifle against his tongue, felt his cock flex a bit as you smeared the precum you found at his tip.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Helmut interrupted, and everyone turned to look at him.  “Darling, come here,” he instructed with a curled finger that pointed to the bed, “hands and knees.”

You nodded and pushed the other men away, taking your place on the bed and looking up at him as he held your jaw gently.

"How long has it been since you had another man inside you, lutka?" he asked lowly.

"I can't even remember,” you admitted, “it's been so long…"

“Are you willing to try it?” he asked gently, no hint of domination or pressure in his tone, and you found yourself searching his eyes for the right answer.

“What do you want?” you asked him instead of answering.

“Draga, I’m asking what you want,” he reminded you, but you were afraid he would be hurt if you showed interest in the other men.  Sure, previous evidence indicated that wasn’t an issue for him, but your gut instinct was to deny your attraction.  So, you compromised. 

“All I want is you,” you answered first, “but…”

“But?”

“But is it awful if… if I want them to fuck me, too?”

He smiled, kissing your forehead.  “No, I don’t think so.  Only as awful as it is that I want to watch them fuck you.”

You looked up at him and smiled back, brimming with gratitude that he was so gentle with you.  It was fascinating how he wielded complete control over you and yet never used it against you.

“I have one rule, draga,” he added firmly, “you cannot come for them.  You only come for me.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And stay on your hands and knees, so I can always get a good look at you, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

He kissed you one more time before pulling away and sitting back in the chair in the corner with his ankle over his knee, looking at Sam and Bucky expectantly.  Every chair he sat in seemed to look like a throne as soon as he was in it.

“Well, get on with it, then,” he instructed, motioning to you.  The men looked at you and looked at each other before some kind of silent agreement took place and Bucky stepped up first.  Sam sat down to watch you as you felt Bucky stand near the bed behind you, flesh and metal fingers running over your back until you shivered.

Then he pressed his cock against you, coating himself in your wetness, and that made you shiver, too.

You braced yourself as he lined himself up, whimpering slightly as he pushed his cock into you as well as hearing him moan lowly.  The hand at your waist tightened as he hissed in a breath through his teeth.

"Fuck," he breathed, holding you still so he could fill you completely.  “S’tight…” he slurred.

“How does it feel for you?” Helmut asked you, raising an eyebrow as he examined your expression, your mouth fallen slack, yet your brow furrowed.

“It feels… different,” you stammered your answer.  You gasped loudly as Bucky started to move, and yes, this was very different.  His cock was curved differently and though it didn’t exactly reach any new parts of you (you were sure Helmut had already touched every part of you physically accessible), it did stroke them in new ways.  

He gained speed rather quickly, clearly too on edge himself to stay patient, and you didn’t blame him although it sent you moving faster toward the edge than you would’ve liked.  At first you wondered if it would even be a challenge to keep from coming like Helmut had demanded… you chided yourself internally for ever being so hubristic.

His legs pushed yours apart, spreading them wider, and he began to really fuck you in earnest, fast and needy and each slam of his hips against your ass harder than ever.  “O-oh fuck,” you choked, forcing your eyes shut and scrunching up your nose for a second when he slammed the tip of his cock right into the deepest spots inside you.  This position left you with nowhere to go, put your whole body on display for him along with giving you no escape from his onslaught of pleasure.  Worst of all was that you were pretty sure he wasn’t even trying that hard to make you feel good, and yet feeling used like that only turned you on more.

"Bucky, please, slow down," you whimpered.

"Absolutely do not do that," Helmut interjected sternly.  "Don't let her tell you what to do."

And, possibly just to spite you, he actually fucked you faster.  You sobbed and bit down on your lip, fighting everything building up inside you.

“You’d better not come,” Helmut warned through his teeth, “you’d better not fucking come.  You know how bad it would be for you if you came for another man.”

“Y-yes, sir,” you nodded.

But Bucky was slamming right into your spot, and he knew it, too. He knew how desperate you were becoming, and apparently, he didn’t mind at all that you’d be punished for it.  He leaned down to growl against your ear, “I know how close you are.  Don’t you think it’d feel so good to just let go and come on my cock?”

You shook your head, tears streaming down your cheeks as the force it took to hold back your orgasm became painful.  “No, it would only feel good to come for Helmut…”

“C’mon baby, just stop fighting it and come for me,” Bucky taunted, “squeeze me tight with that sweet little pussy; I know you need to so bad.”

He wasn’t wrong, but you blinked with teary eyes up at Helmut and wanted nothing more than to please him and make him proud of you.  “Please, m-make him stop,” you begged, “I won’t be able to hold back anymore…”

“He’s not going to stop until he comes, lutka, and you need to stay strong,” he explained, his voice soothing you slightly.  “You need to be my good girl.  Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir,” you whispered.

Bucky held your hips tight as he pulled your body back onto his cock, and you forced your eyes shut to try to focus on not coming.  No other man had made you come in your life but Helmut, and you had no intentions of breaking that streak.

“Think you can make me come before I make you come?” Bucky challenged.

“I have to,” you answered breathlessly.  “And I want you to come… I wanna make you come so bad, Bucky, please…”

“Mhmm?” he encouraged.

“Please, I want it, please come for me,” you whimpered.

“Fuck, I will,” he promised darkly, fucking you even harder.

Helmut interjected a brief instruction: “Pull out.” 

Bucky nodded a little, breathing heavily as you felt his cock throb slightly, especially at the base where each movement stretched you out even more.  It was so beautifully erotic and you were tensing every muscle inside you to try not to come, which helped speed him up quite a bit since you were gripping him so tight.

“Fuck,” Bucky grunted, “fuck!” 

He pulled out and instantly painted your back with a roar, sliding his cock over your ass as he pumped stream after stream of come onto you.  You sighed happily, satisfied that you had managed to stave off orgasm with perhaps only a few seconds to spare— you’d never been so happy to make someone come before because this time it brought relief that you had done well for your Baron.

Then again, you always felt that way when you made the man himself come, but this was different because you had been moments away from failing him.

Speaking of the Baron, he stared down at you proudly the whole time, kneeling down slightly to swipe his finger through the cooling spend on your back and bring it to your open lips.  “Mm, you really are my perfect little girl,” he mumbled as you sucked his finger diligently.  But he turned his attention away from you to call out across the room, “Sam!  It’s your turn.”

Your eyes went wide.  “W-wait, Helmut, I’ll come!”

“No, you won’t,” he hissed, eyes darkening again, “because I told you not to.”

And Sam was already behind you, taking Bucky’s place who had already cleaned himself up a bit and returned to his seat, letting the Baron pour him a drink which he gulped down in one go.

When Sam pushed into the end of you, your natural instinct was to arch your back up to try to keep him from going too deep, but he growled and pushed your back down again with a strong hand that made you feel so small for a moment.  “No, baby, no running away… you’re gonna take it all.”

“Yes, daddy,” you breathed, yelping a little when he roughly shoved in that last inch.

From then on, he went much harder on you than Bucky had, spanking you and gripping your ass while he fucked you, and the most embarrassing part was how much harder it made it to keep from coming.  It was clear that he realized making you come would give him power over everyone else in the room for different reasons, and he was determined to gain that power.

“Does he fuck you this good, huh?” he groaned.  

“He fucks me better,” you shot back right away, making Helmut chuckle slightly.

“If your plan is to make her switch allegiances, you’ll have to do better than that,” Helmut taunted, and Sam doubled his efforts as one hand pinched your clit and the other groped your breast.  You almost lost it right there but managed to pull yourself together, your whole body shaking with the effort to keep the pleasure at bay.

“Well, if he can fuck you better then why doesn’t he?” Sam continued his leading questions, even though you could barely keep up a conversation at this point.  “Why does he keep pimping you out to us if he’s fucking you right all on his own?”

“Don’t you understand?” you breathed, your head falling down onto the bed as you were almost able to look back enough to see his face.  “This is my punishment.  He knows I don’t want anyone else; that’s why you’re here.”

Sam smiled, perhaps in pity, and yet you honestly had to close your eyes because his smile was so lovely that it could’ve brought an end to your restraint.  “Poor thing, he’s really got you whipped.  I… still can’t believe I’m doing this, but you feel too good to stop now.”

He yanked your head back by your hair for emphasis, making you yelp as he fucked you brutally.  Your toes curled and your fingers dug into the sheets, and you had to close your eyes because the way Helmut was staring at you made this all much too difficult.  Maybe it was just that he didn’t seem jealous at all, or angry; but he didn’t seem like he was getting any excess pleasure out of this, either.  It was… almost neutral, but something burned behind his eyes brighter than maybe you’d ever seen it, his legs crossed and his fingers interlaced as he waited for you to either hold or break.

With the top half of your body fallen limply onto the bed, you reached out above your head and felt Helmut’s hand grab yours, squeezing slightly, and it helped keep you grounded as you held his fingers.

“Oh fuck, ‘m gonna come,” Sam groaned out his warning, “gonna cover this pretty ass in my come, you want that?”

“Yes, please,” you shuddered. 

“Keep begging for it,” he demanded, rushing his words as you felt his cock start to throb against your walls with his impending orgasm.  

“Please come, please come, please come on me, Sam, please,” you chanted, over and over, struggling not to come and hoping that if you could speed him up, then you could make it.

He grunted through his teeth as hot ropes of seed covered your ass; though your body was left wanting, dangling on the edge so close to your release, your mind was satisfied that you had managed to follow your Baron’s rules.

Sam stepped back to admire his work, finding another spare robe to cover himself with as he rejoined the other men across the room.

“Would you like a drink as well?” Helmut offered to Sam, unfortunately letting go of your hand in the process.  Sam was still catching his breath, running his hands over his short hair as if he was processing everything.

“No, but are those cigars up for grabs?” Sam replied, pointing to the ornate box propped open, and Helmut nodded.

“Of course; what’s mine is yours,” he answered, presenting the box and lighter to him.

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Sam added flatly, the three of them all looking at where you were sitting, covered in come and waiting patiently for your next command.

Just as you feared they’d all have their cigars and whiskey and ignore you completely, your Baron knelt down to look at you face-to-face, smiling proudly.

“You did so good for me, darling,” he cooed, and your insides clenched as if you could come just from hearing that.  “You don't think I'm horribly cruel, do you?"

"No, sir," you smiled weakly.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised with a kiss to the tip of your nose as he stepped away to the master bathroom.  

You glanced at the other men— Bucky with his crystal glass of whiskey, Sam puffing at the cigar stoically— and wondered what, if anything, you could possibly say.

“So, how’s your weekend been so far?” Sam asked you plainly, breaking the silence.

“It’s only Friday night,” you realized, sighing as you tried not to imagine how much debauchery the Baron had in store for you.  Right now you were so exhausted that it sounded like too much work; and you were so desperate only for Helmut that the idea of anybody else being involved intimidated you.

Helmut returned quickly with a washcloth, sitting beside you on the bed and placing it gently on your back.

“As pretty as you look covered in come, I’d rather not make too much of a mess,” Helmut explained as he wiped you down with the damp cloth, your skin tingling and your body crying out for more of his touch.

“Will you fuck me, sir?” you mumbled, somewhere between an honest question and a desperate plea.

“Yes, I will,” he answered, making you hum happily, “and I’m finally going to let you come.”

You bit down on your lip, trying not to moan just from hearing that.

“But I’m not going to let you stop.”

The lump in your throat was impossible to swallow, but you tried anyway as he tossed the rag away and circled the bed, standing behind where you were laying limply.  He grabbed you by your ankles and pulled you down to where he needed you, covering your body with his as he kissed the back of your neck slowly.

“I bet you’ll come the moment I’m inside you, draga,” he whispered.  You nodded in agreement, gasping a bit as you felt his cock teasing your swollen, sore pussy.  Just the tip bumping into your clit was enough to make you think you could come right there, you’d been on the edge so long.

But then he pushed into you in one stroke, not rough yet enough to reignite the soreness of being filled by two men already, and your walls started to pulse around him.  A million words swirled in your mind, words about how perfect he felt and how you’d missed him so much and how no one could fuck you like he could, but none of them made it to your mouth where you could only moan loudly.

He wrapped his arms around you, he kissed everywhere he could reach, and waves of pleasure washed over you until tears filled your eyes.  You lost count immediately, coming on his cock over and over as you became a limp, whimpering mess right away.

“You two really did miss out,” Helmut taunted the other men between his own moans, “it feels so fucking amazing to be inside her when she comes.  She gets tighter every time… blyat, so tight I can hardly control myself.”

It was already hot to hear him speak to you like that in these moments, but for him to speak to someone else, to keep you from forgetting that you weren’t alone and that these men had just fucked you and were watching you come right now?  You hadn’t even imagined before what that would be like.

“Please, please, sir, please,” you chanted, your voice breaking until you could barely whisper.

“What is it that you want, lutka?  Do you even know what you’re begging for anymore?”

“I want whatever you want, sir, please,” you cried.  He reached around your body to rub your throbbing clit, and you all but screamed.

“I know you do, beautiful, I know,” he breathed, kissing your back and shoulder tenderly to calm you.  “I love you so much, draga, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I love you too, Helmut,” you whispered, “more than anything.  I love being yours.”

“Aw,” you heard Bucky briefly sigh.

“Dude, shut up,” Sam corrected him harshly.

“It’s sweet!” Bucky defended.

“It’s weird; this is all so weird,” Sam frowned.

“You didn’t seem to mind before…” Bucky trailed off.

Two of Helmut’s fingers swiped over your open lips and you immediately sucked them into your mouth with a satisfied hum, the taste of his skin always comforting you.  When he rolled you onto your side, it was so much easier for him to touch you wherever he wanted and it only did more to keep you overwhelmed with pleasure until you worried you couldn’t take much more.  But you kept sucking his fingers, tears still falling which he occasionally kissed away, until he took his hand away to wrap around your neck instead.  You nodded a little to let him know it was okay to choke you, and your loud moans fell to sudden silence when he tightened his grip.  

It made your eyes roll back, it made your walls flutter and your toes start to go numb, it made you wonder if you were going to pass out whether or not he let you breathe again because your body was already ready to give in.

You sucked in a gasp when he let go, sobbing his name as a particularly deep thrust knocked you right into your peak again.  He kept one hand on your neck as the other reached between your legs to play with your abused pussy as he fucked it harder than ever.

“I can’t come anymore,” you assured, shaking your head and trying to push his hand away from your sore clit.  “I— I can’t…”

“Yes, you can, draga, I know you can. Just relax and let me keep making you feel good,” he instructed, somehow both gentle and demanding all at once.

“I… I can’t…” you breathed, nearly incomprehensible between thick sobs, but you were already coming again in spite of your words, shocks of pleasure electrifying your body from the inside out.  He choked you out into silence again, praising you all the way through it.

“There you go, shh, it’s all right,” he soothed, “you’re so beautiful, darling, so good for me, just keep going…”

You reached back to lace your fingers into his hair and tug, which did nothing to deter him from kissing your neck just beneath where his thumb gripped it, same as your hand wrapped tightly around his wrist didn’t stop him from quickly rubbing your clit.

Breath filled your lungs when he let go, and you were so desperate for relief that you felt like you weren’t even in control of your words anymore.

"Please come inside me," you begged mindlessly, "please, I need you so bad, please…"

“Is that what you need?” he groaned.  “You need to be full of my seed?”

“Yes, please, want it deep in me— fuck, Helmut, please!”

He growled and bit your ear lightly, mumbling his promise to fill you up in Sokovian— sometimes you thought he spoke Sokovian when he was about to come because he was so distracted that he forgot English, but you didn’t think that at the moment because you were currently too cockdrunk to think about anything.

His low moan echoed right through your body as you felt his cock flex and throb with each pump of come, just as deep as you’d wanted, and you sighed happily at the familiar feeling, finally relaxing into the mattress.

But perhaps you relaxed a little too soon because he made you come one more time after he’d filled you, whispering something about he wanted to use your pussy to milk every drop from his cock, but after that finally he pulled out, and you collapsed face-down onto the bed, ready to pass out even though the sun was only just beginning to set and you’d slept until noon earlier.

“Well, I think we sufficiently knocked her out,” Sam chuckled.

“‘We’?” Helmut repeated, sounding a bit offended yet bemused as he redressed.

“Okay fine, you did most of the heavy lifting, but only cause you wouldn’t let her come for us,” Sam relented with a frown.

“I swear, I was this close to getting her to break,” Bucky interjected, sighing before taking another slow sip of his (third) drink.

“Yeah, what would’ve happened if one of us made her come, anyway?” Sam wondered aloud.  “She seemed pretty worried about whatever punishment you had in store for her.”

“Nothing too terrible,” Helmut shrugged, “I just would’ve fucked her in the ass.”

Bucky choked on his whiskey as Sam tried and failed to suppress a smirk.

“She lets you do that?!” Bucky blurted out between fits of coughing.

“She lets me do whatever I want,” Helmut replied, “I’m surprised that hasn’t become abundantly clear to you by now.”

“I guess we’re still adjusting to it, that’s all,” Sam explained.  “I don’t know about you,” he looked at Bucky, “but this is new for me.”

“I was born in 1917; everything is new for me,” Bucky frowned.

“Well, this is new for us too,” Helmut assured, “especially her, she was so inexperienced when she met me…”

He paused for a moment to reminisce before glancing at you lying prone on the bed and looked totally fucked-out.

“But look at her now!” he finished.  “She takes it all in stride.”

“Yeah, she’s a trooper alright,” Sam agreed.  “Be careful with her, Zemo, ‘cause I think if you hurt her too bad, Bucky here is gonna be waiting in the wings to steal her.”

“I— what?!” Bucky snorted defensively.

“Don’t think we can’t see you giving her googly eyes, not that I blame you or anything… getting deepthroated for the first time will definitely make you catch feelings,” Sam smirked before taking a puff of the cigar again.

“It’s not like that, I’m just… listen, I guess I’m just a bit more conventional than you perverts,” he frowned.  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful or anything, I just can’t imagine having a girl like that all to myself and letting anybody else lay a finger on her.”

“Not everyone is as insecure as you, James,” Helmut shrugged.  “Women can’t be stolen.  They can only go where they want to.  And she wants to be with me.”

He turned back to ask you if you agreed, but you were already fast asleep.  Smiling slightly, he grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and unfolded it to drape over you; you instinctively cuddled up under it without waking up, letting out a quiet sigh.

“Goodnight, draga,” he whispered with a kiss to your forehead.  “Rest well, you’ll need it for the morning.”

[captains-simp]

Wanda Maximoff ~ Fake It Till You Make It

Wanda version of this fic as requested by @yeetus-thyself

7.7k words

Warnings: shitty family and homophobia

[ masterlist ]

Buy me a coffee ☕

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Pleeaasse, Wan" You pouted once again. You had been begging Wanda for the favour for an hour now; her stubborness was proving hard to overcome.

"I'm busy." Wanda said, her accent strong as she walked around her appartment to collect things for her next mission.

"But will you be busy on the 10th?" You asked from the couch where you watched her disappear into various rooms as she talked.

"I thought you said it was a few days." Wanda quipped, seemingly only giving you half her attention.

"It is." You confirmed with some hope.

"So I'd need to clear my schedule for more than just the 10th." You huffed and rested your head on the back of couch.

"Yes you would. I'm sure Natasha can manage without you for a few days."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that." She muttered.

"Please, Wan." You tried. "I need a win." Wanda stopped by the kitchen counter and gave you a long, considering look. You had long given up on your puppy dog eyes and instead copied her expression as you chewed on your bottom lip.

"I'll think about it." Wanda finally said before grabbing something from the cupboard. It was the best response you had gotten all night and you knew you wouldn't get anything more. So you accepted it and hoped for the best.

Your parents had invited you to their cabin for a few days just like they did every year. It was a beautiful place. You could spend your whole visit in the forest along the back. Or swimming in the clear lake that was a short walk away. The cabin itself was the cosiest place you had ever been and had been where some of your best memories had happened as a kid.

As you got older things changed. Being around your family, especially your parents, wasn't as enjoyable. They had high expectations for their children, expectations that your siblings had met without a problem but ones that you had struggled with. You enjoyed your life. You had the kind of relationships you had always hoped for, you loved your job and you had the perfect balance of the two. But you could never shake the feeling that you had failed.

Your brother was a surgeon who always told you all stories of the lives he saved and the close calls he had swooped in to save people from. One of your sisters was some hot shot lawyer who had done great things like help people wrongly convicted but still put dangerous people back on the street. And your other sister was the CEO of an energy company that you never quite understood. They even all had equally successful partners who loved to talk about themselves as much as your siblings did. You didn't have any of that. But you did have Wanda.

Knowing the Avengers was the only thing about you your family took interest in. They were always subtly hinting at wanting to meet your friends. But you knew the Avengers had to endure enough fan service and didn't want to push your family onto them, especially with how annoying they all were.

However as your family's unrealistic expectations reached their all time high you were sure you wouldn't be able to handle another trip with them without a win, and you were far too petty to take the moral high ground and just not go. Not to mention that was a huge part of you that was dying to see what the Wanda girlfriend experience would entail. Yep, that was what you were asking of Wanda. To pretend to be your partner for the duration of the trip.

You knew it wasn't a smart choice. That if Wanda agreed your crush on her could get out of hand. You knew you would end up getting too caught up in the act. You could have, no - should have - asked Natasha or Yelena or even Carol if she was around. But your family knew you were the closest with Wanda and she would be the one it felt the most natural with, and the most believable. At least, that was what you told Wanda.

"When are you going?" You asked, changing the subject in hopes that Wanda wouldn't suddenly conclude she didn't want to do it (then you really would have to ask one of the others).

"Tomorrow." She answered, keeping her focused tone.

"When will you be back?" You attempted to keep the concern out of your voice but the glance the redhead gave you told you you hadn't done a good job.

"The day after." She said, softer this time. You nodded as you looked down at your lap and tried not to think about everything that could possibly go wrong on her mission.

"Be safe." Wanda strolled over to you and placed her hand gently ontop of yours and gave it a quick squeeze.

"Always."

*

"Got any plans Saturday night?" Natasha smirked knowingly at her friend as they preped for their mission.

"No." Wanda replied as she adjusted her earpiece.

"Nothing with y/n then?" Nat asked, partly genuinely but mostly knowing Wanda would still say no.

"Nope." She said again, biting the inside of her cheek in consideration before speaking again. "Not this Saturday."

Natasha raised an eyebrow in surprise and interest. Wanda rarely made any kind of special plans with you as you would always hang out casual and it was never anything fancy or different. She had always wanted to though.

"Plans for another time?" Nat continued as she double checked her pack.

"Maybe, I'm still thinking about it." The redhead turned fully to her friend at her words, confused at why Wanda was hesitant to spend time with you. "She wants me to go to the cabin with her and her family." Nat had heard all about the infamous cabin and your family.

"That sounds fun." Nat nodded. The cabin sounded fun. Your family did not.

"As her girlfriend." Nat's eyes widened excitedly but before she could speak Wanda clarified. "Her pretend girlfriend."

Nat paused and looked as though she was going to speak for several seconds until she stuck to just giving a confused look.

"Yeah." Wanda sighed. "Thinks it would seem impressive." Wanda had tried not to be hurt over that. She knew you weren't just friends with her to show her off to people, because you never did. But it hurt her to think the only time you could see her in a romantic way was when you were pretending.

"Well," Nat muttered as she adjusted the zip along the front of her catsuit. "Fake it till you make it." It was Wanda's turn to give Nat a questioning look. "Maybe it'll be an eye opener for her."

"You think I should do it?" She asked, fully open to hearing and accepting her friend and mentor's advice in that area.

"Definelty." Nat confirmed. She wasn't sure about it for the reasons she said though. Wanda's crush on you was obvious to everyone except you, just as it was vice versa.

*

You had been overjoyed when Wanda told you she would come with you to the cabin and play along as your girlfriend. She had told you when she came back from her mission, in fact it was the first thing she said after she had let herself into your appartment. It was never really brought up after that, but you couldn't deny you were incredibly anxious on the week leading up to the visit.

On the drive up to the cabin you and Wanda stayed in a comfortable silence most of the time, clearly both lost in thought. You had the radio on for background noise more than anything else, but you would occasionally lightly tap the steering wheel if there was a tune you recognised, oblivious to Wanda's acknowledging smiles.

"So what's the plan?" Wanda asked as she looked at you expectantly. Right, of course the Avenger wanted a strategy.

"Keep things simple, I guess. They know how we met already so we can just say at some point we took things a step further than friendship." Wanda didn't seem convinced at the simplicity of that. "Look they're not going to want to hear about us, not much at least. They prefer the sound of their own voices, they'll be trying to impress you is all."

"Impress me?" Wanda asked.

"Yeah, hope you warm up to them so one day they can invite you to their snobby parties." Wanda chuckled her heart warming laugh as she glanced out of the window, knowing there was a lot of truth to what you said.

"And what are those like?" She enquired curiously.

"I wouldn't know, I've never been invited." You said simply. You had gotten over that a long time ago, gotten used to being forgotten. Wanda clearly hadn't though.

"It will be an honour to turn them down." Wanda said. You shook your head and smiled at her. That did sound pretty nice.

When the cabin came into sight between the trees your nerves spiked. You figited in your seat and bit your lip when you saw some of your family gathered outside, their attention instantly on you. You shot Wanda a quick smile which she returned before you got out of the car.

"Y/n! So nice of you to come." You mum said as her eyes flickered to Wanda more than you. She opened her arms for the shortiest hug in human history before turning to Wanda. "You must be Wanda, we've heard so much." You mum insisted as she brought the redhead in for a hug too. She raised her eyebrows at you over your mum's shoulder and you bite back a laugh.

The others came over to greet you and mainly Wanda in a rush, overwhelming both of you.

"You two will be in the upstairs bedroom on the left." Your mum told you as you went to grab your bags. You did a double take, convinced you had heard her wrong. That was the best room in the house. A big difference from being in the small room in the basement every other time you had been there.

"First one on the left." Your dad confirmed. There was no way your parents were going to be in the basement so you wondered who else had been moved around but didn't ask, knowing whoever it was wasn't going to be happy.

You and Wanda made your way up to the room and you couldn't help but smile at the sight of the spacious room and the door you knew led to your en suite.

"That was...a lot." Wanda summarised as she said her bag under the bed.

"I would tell you it gets better but I don't want to get your hopes up." You sighed as you got a couple of things out.

"It's just a few days." Wanda said despite the fact you should have been assuring her.

"Yeah." You nodded and stared down at the floor. "Now c'mon." You suddenly said as you took ahold of Wanda's hand and laced your fingers together. You missed the startled blush that crept onto her cheeks when you turned around.

Your family were sat outside whispering amongst themselves when you returned. Their interested gaze fell to your entwined hands in an instant.

"So you work with the Avengers?" Your brother, Dalton, said as soon as you both sat down.

"I do, I'm one myself." Wanda said as she continued to hold onto your hand.

"Must be crazy, what are they like?" He enquired.

"They're good." Wanda said simply. Everyone clearly expected something more but Wanda pretended not to notice making you smile.

"I almost did business with Stark once, decided against it in the end." Claire announced proudly. You and Wanda exchanged knowing glances. Stark had told you all about his encounter with your sister, it definetly wasn't her turning him down.

"I was invited to one of his parties." Anna said quickly. "I was busy that night unfortunately."

Bull. Shit.

"Yes I remember working with Doctor Strange when he was still in the medical profession." You gave Wanda an I-told-you-so look as your family erupted into conversation over who had the most contact with the heroes. That had to be a new record of how quickly they started talking about themselves.

They continued like that until your mum called everyone in for dinner. The food smelt undeniably amazing as you took your place at the table next to Wanda and eyed the dishes infront of you. Your parents efforts to impress the redhead weren't all that bad.

Your family continued to catch up and and you and Wanda half listened as you ate. They were all doing as well for themselves as ever and still hadn't learnt any modesty.

Although you were proud of your siblings for what they had all achieved, Wanda had contained four potentially devastating bombs from going off in the space of half an hour a week before but she wasn't going to bring that up anytime soon. Eventually though, the attention turned to you to bring you out of your silence.

"And you're still working in that little café, y/n?" Your mum asked curiously.

"I own it, mum." You corrected quietly as you stabbed some pieces on your plate.

"Ah yes, quite the contrast though, isn't it. Between you two." She said as she pointed at you and Wanda with her fork. You didn't say anything to that because you felt there really wasn't anything to say in response. It wasn't like you hadn't thought that exact thing every now and then.

"The team loves it." Wanda said suddenly making everyone, including you, look at her in slight surprise from speaking up. It hadn't taken your family long to learn Wabda wasn't much of a talker, not to them anyway. You couldn't get her to shut up half the time. "At least one of us goes everyday. If we're lucky we all can. Nothing beats it." She defended simply before turning back to her food to show she wasn't going to say anymore. You smiled down at your plate at her words and the truth of them.

No one said anything in response, clearly shocked from this new information until Dalton spoke up.

"But doesn't Stark like fancy, top of the line, restaurants? I can't imagine him in some random coffee shop, no offence sis." He nodded towards you though you knew he didn't mean it. He couldn't let you have just one win.

"That random coffee shop has catered some of Stark's parties. Not that many though." A smug smile crept onto Dalton's face as he opened his mouth to make a snarky remark but Wanda cut him down again. "Because y/n's invited to the rest as a guest and a close friend." Your family stared at you with open mouths.

"You've been invited to Stark's parties?!" Anna exclaimed. In your defence, your family never wanted to hear about your life so you never got the chance to tell them anything.

"It's not really my crowd." You shrugged. "I just go to hang out with them after." Dalton's jaw clenched in annoyance and he didn't say anything for the rest of dinner. It was only really your mum who kept talking. Telling everyone about her latest travels that fell on death ears.

It was certainly a first for your family.

When everyone had finished their food you and Wanda excused yourselves and said goodnight before retiring to your room. Wanda shut the door gently as you collapsed onto the bed on your back and glared at the ceiling. The redhead shuffled around quietly to get her toothbrush and toothpaste and some other things you weren't really paying attention to and went into the bathroom.

When she came back out she was in her bedclothes and lifted your feet off the floor to turn you so you could fully lay on the bed. You smiled at her weakly.

"You should go get changed." Wanda said as she got her laptop out her bag. "Then you can pick a movie." She announced when she had gotten under the covers and started her laptop. You smiled more and nodded.

You tried not to think about your family and everything they had said at dinner as you got changed but it proved difficult. Everything they had said echoed around in your head but most of all you couldn't shake the disregarding ways they said it. It was as though you could do no right with them. Maybe they would never be proud no matter what you did.

You placed your toothbrush back I'm the holder and rinsed your mouth before heading back into the bedroom to an awaiting Wanda.

You got under the covers next to her and rested your head on her shoulder as you glanced at the Netflix screen and pointed to one of the comedy movies.

About ten minutes into the movie Wanda spoke. "You okay?" She whispered as she continued to look at the screen although that wasn't where her focus was.

"Yeah." You whispered back.

"You can talk to me." She said after a second." You moved your head away so you could see Wanda clearly.

"I'm so glad you're here." You said honestly. She smiled and nodded as her eyes searched yours.

"I'm glad I'm here too." You knew Wanda wasn't glad she had to spend the time with your family. She was glad that she could support you despite their efforts to bring you down. You were incredibly lucky to have her.

You rested your head back on her shoulder and neither of you spoke for the rest of the movie. Or the rest of the night. You must have fallen asleep about half an hour in.

*

Wanda was one of the most intimate people you had ever met. It was mainly something she aimed towards you and Natasha but didn't refrain from comforting others and giving hugs to anyone who would take one. She never held back at all with you, as far as you knew. But when you woke up and couldn't tell where your limbs started and Wanda's ended, you were still surprised to find yourselves like that. Butterflies flew around in your stomach in a way you knew was dangerous but couldn't help but love.

You were resting your head on her rising chest and had your arm slung across her stomach. Your legs were tangled together and her arms were holding onto your waist. A warmth spread through you and you decided to settle back into her hold and closed your eyes with a content smile.

You had about ten minutes to enjoy that before Wanda woke up. You could feel the moment she realized you were so close, she physically froze. You waited in anticipation for something for several moments until your friend very slowly unhooked her legs and guided your body to lay against the mattress and pillows as she slipped out of bed towards the bathroom.

You sighed when you heard the door close and rubbed your eyes slowly, knowing you should get up but wishing more than anything that you could return to how you woke up.

"Morning." Wanda croaked when she left the bathroom and saw you sitting up in bed.

"Morning." You said back with a smile and tried not to focus on how ridiculously attractive her voice sounded.

You gathered some random clothes into a bundle and went into the bathroom to change again and brush your teeth. When you came out Wanda was pulling her shirt over her head and gave you a generous view of her toned stomach. That training with Natasha really was paying off. Your face heated up when you saw it and you turned away to pretend you hadn't seen when Wanda noticed you.

"Don't make a sound." Wanda warned. You glanced up at her with some confusion. "I don't think your family's awake yet, that means we get the kitchen to ourselves." She grinned and you did too.

You and Wanda had gotten so used to getting up early for your jobs you forgot other people would still be sleeping. It was hard to break out of the habit but it proved useful.

The pair of you made a quick breakfast and ate it outside thanks to the warm weather even at that time. But soon enough your parents came downstairs and ruined the peaceful atmosphere with the clanging of pots and loud convosations.

You wandered around the side of the house and saw the old table tennis table that bad been folded away years ago and hadn't been set up since. You went over and started setting it up when Wanda joined you and eyed the table with a glimmer of mischief.

The redhead wasn't all that competitive, in fact you were pretty sure she let other people win games on the regular to make them feel better about themselves. But there was an undeniable spark of mischief in her eyes when she saw the table.

"You played this before?" You asked convosationally.

"I have." She said as you both automatically took up your positions of opposite ends of the table.

"Me too." You said confidently. "A lot." Wanda hummed in acknowledgment and swivelled her bat in her hand and stood ready. You smiled at her seriousness for the game.

You served surprisingly well for someone who hadn't played in a few years and Wanda was able to hit it back with ease. Once you had developed a steady pace you started hitting the ball more daringly to Wanda who was caught off guard before she started doing the same.

The moment you missed the ball a small smile tugged at the corner of Wanda's lips, her celebration was short lived when you suddenly sent the ball back her way until it was too late.

"That wasn't fair!" She exclaimed childishly.

"That was tables tennis." You said seriously but started smiling again.

Wanda huffed dramatically and flipped you off as she trudged back to the table and served the ball with force. You managed to send it back but took a step away from the table in caution.

You continued like that for a while. The competition tension rising as you picked up the pace, one of you occasionally getting a point before the other evened it out.

At one point you were vaguely aware of Dalton sauntering over to see what you were doing and arched his brow at the sight of the table.

"We still have this thing?" He questioned and you hummed quietly in response, too focused on the game.

"Hey Claire! Get over here, we're playing table tennis." You rolled your eyes at the intrusive and could sense Wanda refraining from doing the same until an idea popped into your head.

You caught the ball in your hand and smiled at Wanda's protests as you moved round to her side of the table just as your sister came out.

"I didn't even know we still had this." Claire laughed as she picked up another bat from the box.

"Maybe we should take it back with us." Wanda whispered to you and you bit your lip to contain your smile because yes, yes you should.

Inevitably, your siblings sucked at table tennis. You had suspected as much you just never thought they would be as bad as they were. They missed almost every hit and everytime they did they got increasingly angry, which meant they ended up flaring their arms around like idiots. It was a memory you would be sure to treasure.

"Stupid game" and "probably broken" kept echoing across the table until your siblings finally stormed off to throw a tantrum.

The rest of the day went by quietly. You and Wanda sat by the lake for most of the afternoon to enjoy the sun and heat. You reveled in the most recent memories of your siblings embarrassment and had to keep hushing down to childish whispered whenever one of them was nearby.

Surprisingly, dinner went by peacefully too.

You weren't asked anymore questions at the table. Instead, your family were content with talking about their upcoming plans between stealing glances at you and Wanda that the redhead never failed to notice.

The pair of you slipped off to your room the first moment you got and easily fell into bed besides one another. Wanda picked out a DVD from her bag of an old Sokovian show she used to watch as a child and had you hooked on as well as teaching you the language.

She settled down beside you and within the first few scenes she wrapped an arm around your shoulder so you could sink into her further like she did sometimes when you watched things together. You were barely paying attention to the series after that.

Despite trying to keep your focus on understanding what was happening in scenes of the show, you couldn't help but want to melt under the warmth of your best friend. You hoped it was something you got to experience more, you felt safer than you ever had in Wanda's arms.

Little did you know that having you in her arms was the most comforting feeling Wanda ever experienced and she always tried to do it as little as possible to refrain from falling for you more. It never worked.

*

You had thought waking up in Wanda's arms the morning before had been the best thing to awake to. But that day when you woke up not only were your legs tangled together again but the redhead was slowly stroking your hair while your head rested on her chest.

It was a gradual gesture that maintained a perfect rhythm and made you want to fall back asleep. But you were afraid you would mistake it for a dream later on. No, it was definitely real.

Luckily, your head was already tilted upwards slightly so when you secretly opened your eyes to risk a peek at your friend you saw her staring out the window as though she was in a trance. She was clearly so deep in thought she hadn't noticed you wake up, you had never seen her like it. But the feeling was too good to ignore, too compelling.

Soon enough, you found yourself drifting off back to sleep.

*

When you woke up again Wanda was gone. Her absence left an emptiness you knew wasn't good for you. As the days of your visit went on your fake relationship with Wanda was going to effect you even more when it was over.

Over...you couldn't think about that.

Once you got up and got changed you found Wanda in the kitchen looking at the news on her phone as she sipped her coffee.

"Morning, honey." You grinned. Wanda blushed slightly into her coffee, something you thought was undeniably adorable.

"Morning yourself." She tried to play off smoothly making you grin more.

You made breakfast for you both just as your mum came into the kitchen and greeted you both with an overplayed smile, already talking to Wanda about an upcoming party that she should go to. Wanda mumbled something about a busy schedule as you managed to whisp her away outside with your food.

Eventually, you and Wanda became bored with sitting around in the house when you had such amazing surroundings on your doorstep. You declared that you were going on a walk with the redhead and left before any of your family could invite themselves to go with you. Especially as you had told your friend to wear her swimwear underneath her clothing as you had a surprise for her.

You made a point of holding Wanda's hand as you left and once you were far away from the house went to take it back only for her to hold on tighter.

"You never know where they could be lurking." She joked as an excuse, so you starting swinging your arms playfully as to assure her you wanted your hands to stay linked together too.

You spent hours in those woods and was thankful for having a spy best friend who of course knew to pack the essentials like food and drinks so you could stay away from the house as long as you wanted.

The redhead brought so much you were able to have a small picnic on top of a hill that overlooked the large lake that stretched out all the way back to the house. You remembered thinking up stories as to explain the strange shape and curves to it as a child.

"It's beautiful here." Wanda said as she picked some grapes from the bunch between you.

"It is." You agreed with a fond smile.

"I used to want to live in a place like this." She muttered, sparking your interest.

"In the woods?" You asked curiously and she nodded.

"I thought I could retire to the woods and get a small cabin and I could grow my own food and that was all I needed." You hummed with a smile as you studied Wanda's features.

"Sounds lonely." You thought aloud.

"I'd have a cat." She said simply making you laugh. "I never used to think that but now when it crosses my mind and I picture that life... I picture someone else there with me." You knew she was imagining it as she spoke and you wished you could see exactly what it was she wanted.

"We could always downgrade the holiday house." You half joked as you nodded in the vague direction of the house. "Make it a simple cabin."

"We?" Wanda asked hopefully, the emotion clear before she had a chance to conceal it.

"There's no one I'd rather run away and live in the forest with." You joked although there was a lot of truth to your words. The redhead considered you for a while before smiling and nodded as though she had reached her own internal conclusion.

"Come on." You said suddenly as you stood up and dusted yourself off.

"You want to go back?" Wanda asked and you grinned.

"I'm going to show you that surprise." You declared and packed the remaining food away. Wanda did the same, eager to see the surprise you kept secret the whole way.

It was quite a way back to the house. The whole time Wanda kept asking more questions about it but you wouldn't say. She could only make guesses based on the swim wear which should have left only a few options, non of which she got right.

Finally, you arrived where you wanted to and grinned at Wabda before starting towards the edge. The redhead frowned as she watched you approach the ledge and became worried when she invisioned the steep slope that didn't always lead to water straight down. If you were to fall... your friend didn't have to wait long to see that. You slipped along the edge and disappeared from her view as she gave a startled cry and sprinted towards the edge and knelt over with wide eyes, expecting to see something that could haunt her forever but instead she saw you on a wide ledge but seven feet below her.

To your left was part of the ledge that had been dug into randomly and acted as perfect aid to get back into the woods above.

"Come down here." You beckoned as you starter to take your top off. Wanda's eyes widened more and quickly turned around and dropped down next to you steadily.

She glanced over the side of the small ledge to glance at the fifty foot drop into the water. There was nothing in the way to fall onto but there was no telling how deep that water was.

"You can't go in like that." You laughed as you kicked off your shorts and pushed them to the side.

Wanda's face heated up at the sight of you in your y/f/c bikini as you assessed the view. But even in her flustered state she was able to put it all together.

"You want to jump down there?" She exclaimed making you laugh.

"I've done it tones of times." You assured. "It's fun."

"It's a death wish! What if the waters not deep enough?" She questioned making you laugh more.

"Are you scared, Wan?" You teased as you took a step towards her making her avert her eyes from your form. She scoffed to play it off.

"Of course not." You hummed in faux belief.

"Well then I'll see you down there." You grinned and took a couple of steps back until your feet were no longer on the platform and you were plummeting down towards the water where you landed with a splash.

Wanda held her breath as she waited for you to resurface for a few agonising seconds. When you did with a gasp and started kicking around frantically to keep yourself afloat with your built up adrenaline the redhead sighed in relief and started taking off her own shorts and shirt and placed them next to your things.

You've jumped from higher. She told herself as she rocked on her feet. And you have powers! She argued back before she shoved those thoughts aside and threw herself off the ledge and into the water below. You laughed as she came back up and pushed her hair away from her way. You swam closer to her and saw her wide smile.

"Fuck." Wanda whispered with a laugh as she looked back up from where you had both come.

"Told you it was fun." You teased as you tried not to focus on the low cut on her bikini bra.

"Yeah yeah." She laughed and paused when she looked past you and saw you were surprisingly close to the house. She could see the outline of your family sat outside.

"They're looking." Wanda muttered. You could tell by the look on her face who she was talking about. It wasn't like there was anyone else around either.

"Do you think they've caught on?" You asked nervously as you stared at Wanda's brown eyes to stop you looking at your family.

"Maybe..." She considered and glanced around. "It's not like we've been acting like that much of a couple." You scoffed at that.

"At home everyone assumes we're dating and the one time we need it be believable it isn't." You rolled your eyes but couldn't help the smile.

"I know." Wanda laughed for a second but then paused. "Then let's give them something believable." She gently placed both her hands on your waist and pulled you slowly towards her. You let her guide you and took extra notice of the water droplets across her face. You almost trembled when your bare stomachs pressed together in the water lightly.

Wanda's soft hands left your waist and gripped your thighs to pull you up to wrap your legs around her own waist. You couldn't help but giggle at the gesture as you wrapped your arms around the redhead's neck and held onto her waist with your legs in a lock.

"Can I?" Wanda whispered when she lifted your chin with her finger and her other hand came round the back of your neck.

"Just shut up and kiss me." You demanded with a playful smile and leaned in to do it yourself.

You smiled into the kiss and felt Wanda do the same. It was everything you had ever imagined it to be. Her lips were soft and fell into place perfectly against your own as they moved together. Your mind was hazey and your stomach was doing flips at the realisation that you were actually kissing your long time crush. You forced yourself to remember that it was all a show. That Wanda didn't mean it. But she put on a believable act and kissed passionately, even slipping her tongue through your parter lips to explore your mouth further.

When she eventually pulled away you rested your foreheads together to catch your breath and grinned as you closed your eyes.

"You're a really good kisser." You blurted out making Wanda chuckle.

"Not too bad yourself." She teased.

"I hope not, we're gonna have to do that again." You smiled and instantly realized that sounded like a confession you desperetly wished you could claim. "You know because...Once probably wasn't enough to make it entirely believable." You rambled and Wanda nodded somewhat stiffly and let your legs drop back down. You wanted to say something to her, anything but it was all stuck on the tip of your tongue.

Just as you opened your mouth to speak, a small murmurarion of starlings flew across the lake, some of them skimming the water then gaining height again as they got closer to you and Wanda. You both ducked instinctively as they flew over your heads and off towards the forest again as you watched them in awe until they disappeared. You glanced up at the sky and noticed the sun had gone behind a cloud, ableing you to continue looking up at the other birds higher up.

You kicked your legs up slightly so you could lay on your back and outstretch your arms to keep you afloat in the water so you could stare up at the sky without hurting your neck.

You didn't realise Wanda mimicked you until her hands brushed against yours. She withdrew it as soon as you touched and went to murmmer an apology but you smiled and held onto her hand as you both lay watching the birds.

Neither of you had to say anything. It was a comfortable and peaceful silence that was occasionally filled with birds chirping or the sound of a calm breeze. Of all the things you expected to feel on that trip, relaxed was not one of them.

You stayed like that for a while until you were both snapped out of your daydreams by the distant yell that declared dinner. Well, you had to go back to them eventually.

Both of you took your time swimming back to dry land and only felt a shiver when you left the water and the breeze hit you. Wanda spotted and reached the towels before you and wrapped yours around you tightly. You thanked her with a small blush as you both sauntered up to the house where the mouthwatering smell of a barbecue greeted you. Your dad was leaning over it while shooing your brother away as he tried to offer his 'help'.

You and Wanda went inside to change swiftly and came back outside as the food was being placed on plates and your mum finished setting up the buffet. Everyone starter helping themselves and you piled as much food as you could onto the plate. You parents had asked what food Wanda liked and when you gave them a brief list you added in a few things you knew you both loved.

"You gonna eat all that?" Anna asked as she eyed all the food on your plate. Guilt and insecurities washed over you until Wanda purposefully grabbed a large handful of small sausage rolls and put them on her plate that was piled with a considerable amount more food than your own. You smiled at the reassuring gesture as she sat down with a satisfied grin on her face when she saw Anna close her mouth to stay quiet.

"Thanks." You whispered to her as you sat down.

"If you don't eat all that I will." She declared. You were pretty sure she went back for seconds.

Instead of disappearing back to your room like you did the previous nights, you and Wanda stayed with your family for a while after dinner. It wasn't to do with their company, more the mesmerising fire in the firepit you all sat around. You were cuddled up into Wanda's side with a blanket over both of you as you stared at the flames, smiling at their small flickers and dances.

"So Wanda," one of your sisters began, "are any of the other Avengers...you know." She nodded her head in the direction of you both.

Oh boy you though.

"I don't think it's my place to say." Wanda said because yes, a lot of the Avengers were queer.

"Oh come on, you can tell us." Anna encouraged as she sat forward eagerly.

"I could, but I'm not going to." Wanda continued to defy.

"Lay off it guys." You mumbled but was ignored. Your family took it in turns saying her teammates names in hopes of sparking a reaction, clearly forgetting they were facing someone who had been trained by Natasha Romanoff.

"Stark!" Claire said but was instantly shut down by the others.

"He's married!" Dalton objected.

"Could still be bi though." Claire tried but Dalton just scoffed.

"I suppose there's going to be more surprises."

"What does that mean?" Wanda asked with narrowed eyes, feeling protective of her teammates. Dalton met her gaze with his own challenging one.

"I just never thought one of the Avengers would be a dyke." You felt Wanda stiffen as you all held your breath. There was no way to tell what was going through the redhead's mind, especially as after all those years of friendship you still didn't even know what team she batted for. She was an ally at least, but would she see this as her battle to fight?

Upon getting no reaction, Dalton continued. "It makes sense why you'd hang out with y/n though, we always knew something was wrong with her but-"

"That's enough." Your mum snapped with a guilty expression she failed to mask. You swallowed hard and moved to get up, deciding you had heard enough.

"Then you're idiots." Wanda stated as she glared daggers at your brother while you sunk down.

"I'll have you know I have a doctorate-"

"Your idiots." She repeated. "There's nothing wrong with y/n, which is impressive considering she's grown up around you lot." You looked at your friend in awe as she continued.

"She's the most amazing person I've ever known, including any of the Avengers. She's everything that you're not and I'm lucky to call her my girlfriend. It doesn't matter what any of you think of her, I love her and I always will." She declared as shot daggers at each individual family member who had fallen silent. She took your hand and pulled you up from your seat to take you inside.

You couldn't get her saying she loved you out of your head. You reminded yourself over and over again on the way to your room that it was just an act. That the redhead was making her point. But God, how you wished it was real.

She was so gentle with you as she guided you through the house. When you got to your room and broke down sobbing she held you on the bed for a long time until your cries turned to sniffles. The thing was, you weren't sure what you were crying over. Sure, what Dalton had said had hurt. As did the confirmation that your whole family had always looked down on you. But you had known that was the case for a long time, you had moved on from it.

Instead, you may have being crying over what you didn't know and didn't have. How much of what Wanda said was true? It was all based off of something that wasn't real. What if she saw you the same way your family did?

When you stopped crying you became aware of Wanda gently stroking your hair as she rested her head on yours and held you close to her. You remembered the memories you had accumulated over the past few days with her. The kisses, the hand holding, the nights together, how she stood up for you like no one ever had. You loved her so much.

"I think we should go tomorrow." Wanda mumbled and you nodded into her shoulder.

"I'm not going to leave you though, you know that right? You can stay at mine and we'll watch more of those crappy American movies you like." She mocked lightly making you chuckle against her. "Whatever you want."

"I just want you." You said honestly. You knew you shouldn't have said that, but you were too emotionally drained to care.

"I just want you too, y/n." You pulled away from the redhead to look at her clearly.

"I don't think you know what I mean." You sniffed and she smiled at you fondly.

"I mean what I said earlier, around the fire." Your eyes widened slightly and you held your breath.

"It was all an act though." You whispered and Wanda chuckled as she exhaled sharply.

"No y/n." "I think I am inlove with you." She said as she took ahold of your hand and searched your face for any signs of a reaction to her confession.

"Me?" You questioned, not quite believing it.

"Yes you, idiot." You smiled and sighed in relief, not being able to find the words to express your overflowing happiness and numerous other emotions you couldn't quite pinpoint. You let go of Wanda's hand and brought them both up to cup her cheeks. You had done a lot more handholding than kissing in the previous few days. It needed to be evened out.

You closed the gap between you and kissed Wanda with just as much passion as you had in the lake, except all hesitation and questions were gone. Because you knew she loved you. Oh God she loved you. You grinned into the kiss at the thought and felt her hand fall to your hip while the other caressed the side of your neck in the most gentle manner you had ever seen from her.

When you eventually pulled away you rested your forehead against hers, a smile still playing on both your lips.

"Told you we'd have to do that again." You said and and laughed. "I love you too."

"Well I hoped that wasn't a pity kiss." She joked and you smacked her arm playfully.

"It definetly was not and I'll prove it to you by taking you on a date when we get back." You promised as you sat back to look at her clearly.

"Oh yeah?" She asked with a playful smirk and leaned over so her face was inches away from yours.

"Yeah." You said back.

"Well until then, my real girlfriend should definetly just keep kissing me." She said as she pushed you down gently and kissed you again. You smiled against her gleefully.

"Your girlfriend would love to."