#bella-writes

[bitterrfruit]

kerosene

ghost x f!reader. 17k words. cw: noncon. kidnapping. gun violence. free use. smut. mentions of involuntary groinal responses lol. simon is a smug asshole and reader is into it you get robbed at gun point while working the lone register at a nowhere petrol station. the money in the till is not the only thing he takes with him. or [read on ao3]

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so they say. 

The devil should have been busy with you, then. Malignant boredom had taken root in you, rankled in every crevice and swell, metastasized like knobbly tumours that parasitised on your will to live until only the gritty alluvium was left. 

You began your shift behind the till at the Gulf station in the late afternoon, shy of four p.m., as you had done yesterday and as you would tomorrow. You took over from Mitchell, who worked the morning shift, the old man with a wiry grey beard and eyebrow hairs like corkscrews sticking haywire out of his forehead. You’d work until midnight, when you would be replaced by Charlie, a pinguid twenty-something with legs like beanpoles and eyes so sunken they were hollow as caves in his skull. 

They had been your co-workers for the better part of three years, yet they might as well have been strangers to you. The scant exchanges you would share with them were a few words at shift change, if that. Mitch would prattle on about some rude geezer and tell the same story about his ex-wife that he had every other week. Charlie, bedecked in his cheap headphones and carrying an egg sandwich cling-wrapped by his grandmother, would only give you a nod and ask been busy? with little attention paid to your answer. 

You had been offered the morning shift when you first started. 

The owner of the franchise station, Dave, was uneasy about the prospect of a ripe (his word) young woman working alone behind the register after dark, at a nowhere white-pole station in the sticks, where the only customers were long-haulers and on-the-way-home farmers. A just concern, you supposed, and a part of you had considered taking him up on his offer. 

You refused, in the end. 

Told him that someone like Mitch (frail, near-blind, on the cusp of Alzheimer’s) would far more likely be victimised by the ilk of patrons that trudged through the station. In your experience, anyway, most of the late-night customers that came through the push-door understood the implication of a burly old man being served by a young woman on her own. They’d tread more carefully, offer you kind smiles, sometimes mention their wives to make sure you understood they were not a threat to you. 

There was always the odd lecher, though. Goes without saying. 

The kinds of yellow-toothed men that would lean too far over the counter, talk to you like they knew you, overly familiar. The type to ask you to smile for them, or for a discount, or for your number. Ones that would joke about coming back, just to visit you. That would say you’re too pretty to be working in a dump like this, you should be in a bar instead. Maybe on a pole. Maybe in the passenger seat of their truck, to keep them company. 

It never frightened you, really, because nothing ever happened. You stuck with the late shift because it offered the fanciful possibility that something interesting might come to pass. Maybe, if you were lucky, there would be a car wreck outside the station, or a patron threatening enough to justify hitting the panic button, or a fire set off by the fuel pump and you’d finally be able to put the ten-year-old extinguisher to use. 

But you were confident that every shift would be the same, as always. 

Nothing would happen, you would drive home to your shoddy seventies cottage in the pit-stop hamlet of Dunhill, eat a frozen pastry, sleep alone, and do it all over again. Days came and went like empty boxes on a trundling conveyor belt, your life a deserted factory, only still whirring because the last attendant forgot to switch off the machinery when they left. 

Today was no different. 

You perused the grocery shelves with cheap earbuds stuffed in your ears, the kind with squishy mushroom plugs that made it sound like you were underwater. Shuffling through the same playlist you had been slowly adding to over the last year — you liked the songs you already knew every word to, creature of habit that you were. Busied yourself by twisting the canned foods so that their labels all faced outwards, then backwards, just for a laugh. 

It got to half-nine, the sun had long since set, and you had served one customer since your shift started. A middle-aged man with a muddy van, who bought three RedBulls and a pack of Chesterfields, and half a tank of diesel. He scarcely acknowledged you, a hi when he walked in and a cheers when he left. 

Your meal for the evening was a pack of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps and a bottle of chocolate milk, plucked from the shelves and not logged. Leaned back in the plastic chair behind the till with your Chucks propped up on the counter, some Sally Rooney book with its spine broken folded in half in your hand. 

You had milk in your mouth when you heard the characteristic thud of a closing car door, a harsher slam than you were used to. Attuned to the noise even while your ears were plugged. You swallowed it hard when you heard the chime of the bell, the swing of the door, the thuds of boots. New customer. 

Sat upright, you peered over the register to see who had entered the station, and you were flummoxed when there was nobody there. 

You grabbed your earbuds by the flimsy cord and tugged them from your ears with a pop — there were footsteps, someone was there, you weren’t crazy. You could hear the sound of provisions being swept from shelves and shoved into a bag, the bonking of cans and the crinkling of plastic. 

Only once you stood did you see the head above the shelves. 

Black hood up, you only saw the side of him as he wandered down the aisle, towering beast shuffling along and torpidly picking things up just to put them down again. A foot taller than the racks he meandered between. Wore a black leather bomber over his hooded sweater, well-worn hide, turned tawny brown in the creases and at the edges. All bulky, padded up. His shoulders swayed with the bravado of a gladiator who spent his life unchallenged.

Had you any remaining hospitality in your system you’d have greeted him, but you circumspectly held your tongue. 

There was something in his presence that did not augur well. Something crooked, something bent. Turned the tired air inside the station dyspneic, too dense and thick to comfortably breathe. 

Call it a woman’s intuition, if you believed in such a thing. 

Simon hadn’t accounted for a bird at the till. 

He’d have expected some ruddy-cheeked man with buck teeth and brown-bordered sweat stains on his shirt. The typical clerk at a shithole backroads petrol station, in his experience. They’d shoot him a grimy look, eye him up-and-down with a curl in their lip, all ruffian until he brandished the Sig Sauer he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans. 

That was what he had prepared for. He came to stick the gunmetal barrel in the face of the old bloke behind the register, demand every stack of cash from the till drawer and anything valuable he had on his person, maybe fire at the ceiling if he moved too slowly. Piece of cake. In and out. 

Instead, it was you. 

Sneakers propped up by the register, sucking the crisp dust off your fingers with pink lips. Reading a book as disinterestedly as you might watching paint dry. 

Unlucky for you, it didn’t make a difference that you had a pair of tits. He wanted that money. 

Your chary little head poked up from behind the counter once he was done collecting his supplies. A few cans of Baked Beans, couple bags of crisps, some vacuum-sealed biersticks. A roll of gauze and a bottle of Dettol for the flesh wound in his thigh. Pack of tissues. Bic lighter. KitKat for a treat. All shoved in the duffle bag he held in his fist, heavy with the wads of cash he had already collected from the last pit-stop on his trip north — an offy in a piss-stained back alley in Cheltenham. Grabbed a few pilsners for the road from there, too. 

He forsook his urgency as he approached the register, measured pace, duffle in hand. Eyeing you up with each step as if you were a candybar on a display rack. 

Pretty wee thing. 

He hadn’t even shown you his gun yet, and your eyes were already peeled wide, glistening in the bright fluorescent lights hanging overhead. 

None of the goods he intended to pay for. He didn’t need to make that any clearer to you, the assumption was already plastered on your face as he loomed towards you. Had his mask on, after all; thick black ski mask pulled over his head, jagged holes cut out for his eyes. No doubt that made quite plain his intentions. 

You stood pin straight, curling the purple cord of your earbuds between your fingers as if some attempt to ground yourself. Not a drop of makeup on, he could see the satin sheen of sweat on your forehead, the plum rings unconcealed under your eyes. Nobody to impress out here. Still pretty. 

“Um, which pump?” You asked flatly, tone meek, in denial of the obvious. 

Your stupefied stare followed his hand as it ventured to the base of his sweatshirt, a frown fluttering in your brows as you all but tilted your head in anxious confusion. He reeled up the heavy fleece, white t-shirt underneath — but that wasn’t what your eyes clung to. 

His hand curled around the grip of his handgun, plucking it out from the waistband and holding it insouciantly at his side. No need to point it at you, not yet. 

Your skin turned cadaver grey as your blood flooded to your feet, eyes bulging with the instantaneous panic that wracked you as though you had been smacked in the face with it. 

“Oh my god — ohm — oh my god,” you squeaked, tongue knotting in your mouth, tears quick to fill your kittenish eyes. “Oh my god — y-you—”

It was this, the histrionics, that he hoped to avoid. The tears, Christ, the fucking tears. There wasn’t anything to cry about, not yet, but your eyes glowed sanguine, and the tears that oozed from them were clear and glittery. Rolled dramatically from their wells and dripped from your chin, seeped into the corners of your trembling mouth. All flushed and glossy and he hadn’t even spoken yet. 

There was no blood-curdling outburst, though. You didn’t scream, didn’t wail, didn't scurry around hysterically like a decollated hen. You were stiff as a board, arms pinned flat to your sides. Merely whispered the Lord’s name in vain over and over as if he might answer your call. 

“Please — ohmygod — please don’t hurt me,” you cried, lungs seizing with every word, hiccuping and spluttering like you had just been pulled ashore. “What do you want, you can — you can take anything. P-please—”

“Shut up,” he barked, and you flinched at his aggression. “Just open the fuckin’ till.”

You nodded so vehemently he thought your head might roll off your shoulders, and your pallid hands began raking over your body in desperate search of the pocket you kept your keys in. His glare followed keenly as they ran over your hips, waist, unabashedly caressing your arse in the search. After finding them in a back pocket you tried to orient the keys in your grip, but your fingers trembled so vigorously that you immediately dropped them to the linoleum floor. 

“Fuck — I’m sorry,” you bleated as you bent down to pick them up, eyes still riveted to him, “I’m sorry, let me just — please, I’m sorry—”

He let out a grunt of exasperation as he marched around to the other side of the counter, your feet remained planted still as though you were bolted to the floor, leery eyes following him while your head kept rigid. 

A deer in headlights. Fawn, more like. Small and doe-eyed and too stupid to get out of his way. 

You only whimpered when he jostled you away from the till, physically driving you to the wall with his hands under your arms, clearing his path. He took your shaky little hand in a fist and peeled it open, plucking the keys from your sweaty palm. 

The register was old, something from the nineties, yellow-faded plastic with cube-clacky buttons. He shoved the tiny key into its slot on the drawer, gave it a good shimmy to loosen it up, and it popped open with a ding. 

Pretty much empty. 

“The fuck is this?” He growled, fingering through the notes in the drawer — all twenty-two of them. “There’s fuckin’ nothing in ‘ere!” 

Your face screwed up like a wrung cloth when his glare shot to you. Great gulping sobs, your eyes squeezed into fleshy little crescents and spewed tears from either corner, terror rilling from your nose and making your lips all wet. 

“I’m sorry — it’s not my — I think Mitch m-must have done the cash drop this morning,” you wailed, “Please — it’s not my f-f-fault!” 

“Shut up,” he snapped, jutting the mouth of his Sig Sauer at you, callously reminding you of the fate he held in his grip. 

He snarled to himself as he plucked out all of the notes, flipped through them to count it up. Nine fivers, six tenners, five twenties, two fifties. A few quid worth of coins floating around unorganised between the compartments. A prodigious spoil of three-hundred-and-five pounds. 

Fucking joke. 

He rancorously shoved all the paper in the bag — left the coins, ego too tall to fish out the petty change. 

“Piss take,” he grumbled as he slammed shut the till drawer. “What else y’got.” 

You blinked up at him timorously as he tucked his gun into his jeans and marched towards you, almost buckling over as though you could curl up into a shell to protect yourself from him. 

Only cried as he spread your arms, shamelessly smearing his hands over your body to feel for something in a pocket. Down your waist, stomach, hips; all pillowy under the pressure of his hands, soft even through your t-shirt. Prodded the undersides of your breasts with shameless fingers, checking for anything tucked in your bra, and your lips curled in disgust as you looked away from him. 

He almost cracked a smile at your diffidence. Maybe another time, pretty thing. 

He flipped you around, manhandling you until your nose pressed into the wall. Hands smoothed down your back, before finding something rectangular tucked into the tight pocket of your skinny jeans. You squeaked in dispute as he stuck his fingers in the pocket, flush with your arse, but he had no time to enjoy it. 

Little red wallet. 

He flicked through it — a visa debit card, expired Primark gift card, two quid in the zipped pocket and a tenner note folded in a card sleeve. Eyed your license for longer than necessary — cute little photo of you, a tiny smirk in your lips as you gazed at the camera. 

“Pretty name,” he said wryly, and you only huffed with your forehead pressed against the wall. 

He didn’t bother taking any of the change. Looked like you needed it as much as he did. You winced when he pushed a finger in your back pocket, tugging it open so he could shove your wallet back in. 

He instead returned his attention to the checkout, scouring the counters for anything else that could be deemed at all valuable. Nothing, obviously. Merely cardboard display racks of chewing gum and cheap candies. There was a cigarette cabinet behind the till, at least — after some fiddling he found the key on the chain that fit the lock, broke open the steel door, and swept an entire rack of cartons into the duffle bag. 

As a last resort, he dropped the bag and crouched down, wiped underneath the countertops with gloved hands, hoping for a vault, a hidden compartment, or—

His fingers brushed plastic, creasing and soft; something wrapped in film, taped to the underside of the counter. He tore it off with a zip, held it in a tight hand; a stack of notes, more than a centimetre thick, wrapped with a hair tie and shoved in a zip-seal sandwich bag. 

You let out a remorseful sob as you sunk to the floor with your back against the wall; thighs tucked to your chest, head dropped to your knees. 

A grin peeled his lips from his teeth as the realisation settled. “This yours?” 

“No,” you chirped, a pitiful attempt at a lie — he was unsure why you wouldn’t admit to it, it wasn’t as though he’d have informed your boss. 

“Skimming, eh?” He snorted, peeling open the yellow seam of the plastic pouch and fishing out the stack. Flipped through them — mostly tens and twenties — easily a couple grand, at the very least. 

“I just—” you sobbed, shoulders hunched, “I was just saving up. It doesn’t matter. Just t-take it.” 

“Saving?” He asked incredulously, voice thick with amused derision. “Little thief. No better than me, are ya?” 

“Whatever,” you bellyached, arms wrapped around your knees, snivelling on the floor. 

He sucked his teeth as he dumped the stack in his bag. Too bad. His now. 

As he went to stand, though, he went dead still — eyes hooked on a flashing blue light under the counter. Squinting, he leaned closer, to substantiate his hunch—

A fucking panic button. 

His rage burst like a purulent blister, apoplectic with it, he ripped his handgun from his jeans and steamed towards you. 

“You fuckin’ hit the alarm?” He roared, and you shrieked in terror as he took the collar of your t-shirt in a fist and heaved you up from the ground. 

“I — I’m — I didn’t—”

Your spluttering only enkindled his fury. You cried out in despairing dread when he shoved the mouth of his pistol into the soft flesh under your chin, and he held his teeth to your cheek. 

“Why the fuck would you go and do that, eh?” He growled, inexplicably disappointed. Thought you were smarter than that. 

“I’m sorry,” you bawled, shaking your head, wet eyes bolted to the ceiling. “I didn’t know what to do, I just — I thought I was s’posed to, I’m s-sorry. Please — god, please, don’t kill me.”

He huffed, jaw rigid. 

He wouldn’t put a bullet in you, pretty thing. Too lovely to mire with lead, that butter-soft skin. 

It was a shame you were such a thorn in his side, fractious girl, because otherwise he would have just left you be. Would have taken his cash and been done with it, left you in your piss-wet jeans to cry to your boss about the ordeal and rightfully request some weeks off to escape to somewhere more therapeutic for the soul than fucking Dunhill. 

“Would be a damn waste,” he grunted, finally pulling his gun from under your chin, sticking the barrel into his jeans. A moan of relief leaked from your throat once the instrument of your imminent death was no longer kissing your jaw. 

Premature relief, love. He grappled you away from the wall, and with a shove, had you in front of him. You yelped when he collared you with a tight hand around the back of your neck, stumbled over your feet as he began driving you forward.

“What are you—”

“Use those legs, girl,” he barked, as he reached to hoist up his duffle bag from where he left it on the floor. 

You blubbered like a toddler, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, as if your tears might engender pity from him. “Are you t-taking me?” 

“Not gonna leave you to blab to the cops, am I?” 

Another sob. “No — I wouldn’t — I won’t say anything, I don’t even know what you look like. Please—”

“Christ, you’re a whinger, aren’t you?” He rumbled, barrelling through the swinging door and hauling you across the asphalt of the forecourt.

The air was thick with the greasy smell of petrol seeping from lousy fuel pumps, amalgamated with the distant fumes of factory farms and cow manure that hung in a blanketing smog from there to Birmingham. Only the corrugated metal infrastructure of beef and dairy industries for miles in any direction out there. 

He couldn’t fathom what a bird like you was doing with her feet in the mud, stagnating in such a miserable shithole. Maybe he was doing you a favour. 

He tore open the passenger door of his twenty-year-old Mitsubishi L200 — a rusty black pickup he bought with cash from a shrivelled old man on Gumtree, with hopefully just enough life in it to last the drive north. 

You stuck your hand out and planted it on the edge of the door as he pushed you towards it, vigorously shaking your head. “No, n-no — I’m not going with you, I’m not—”

He snorted, and when you didn’t capitulate with a shove, he swept an arm under your knees and hoisted you upward before dumping you into the passenger seat whether you liked it or not. You landed with a squeak, and before you could spew out any more vacant refusals he slammed shut the door. 

He stormed around to the drivers side and hopped in beside you, tossing his duffle bag back between the seats, hastily igniting the engine as he shut his own door. Hit the central lock button and the entire truck locked shut with a clunk — you whimpered when you heard it, and turned your knees away from him.

“Where are you taking me?” You cried, as he revved the truck and rapidly accelerated, tearing out of the forecourt and over the curb, landing on the road with a sharp bounce and a tire screech. 

He paid little attention to your whimpering as he sped off down the dilapidated country road, eyes flicking to the rearview every odd second to make sure he saw no flashing lights in pursuit. The vehicle dipped and recoiled over every pothole on the crumbling old road — motorway would be preferable, but he decided heading in the opposite direction to loop back around would be the safest bet. 

You only sobbed quietly to yourself in his silence, no doubt his lack of response was a threat in itself. 

He had no issue frightening you. Served you right. 

Took some morbid glee in considering what you imagined he planned on doing with you. Whether you considered weighing up your chances. Might you survive if you were to attack him? Would he go easy on you? Might he enjoy the struggle? 

Perhaps you were girding yourself for what he might do next. 

Truth was, he hadn’t decided yet. 

His decision to take you was as impulsive as it was inexorable. 

You weeped until your tear troughs were droughted and nothing more could bleed from their ducts. Cheeks had gone sticky with it, salt dried gritty on your flushed skin, lips shrivelled and thirsty. 

Transient thoughts of rebellion had been ignited and snuffed out in the ten minutes since he had abducted you from the station — you could have reached over and pulled the gun from his waistband, could have tried to kick through the passenger window, could have thrown a nuclear tantrum and bucked and screamed until he was forced to pull over. 

All would have been futile. You weren’t stupid. 

He had that gun in his immediate reach; in fact he kept a heavy hand resting high up on his thigh, prepared to yank it out of its nest above his crotch at any given opportunity. He had made abundantly clear the shortness of his fuse, and that his reflexive reaction to annoyance was to threaten your life. 

Best you settle down, you thought — wait until his guard was down, until he pulled over somewhere, then consider something more drastic. While you were trapped in a car with him such an opportunity was unlikely to present itself. 

There were no streetlights out this way; your abductor had bypassed Dunhill entirely, sticking to unmaintained back roads that had you bouncing up and down in your seat. Not the motion alone that made you queasy, but the fact he was driving even deeper into nowhere, where the only sources of light were the headlights of his truck, illuminating the dark road ahead like something out of a found-footage horror film. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” you croaked, voice abraded to the point of gurgling stones. 

You felt his head turn to look at you, but you kept your stare pointed out your window. Knees turned so far away from him that they burrowed into the door. 

“Eh?” He huffed dryly. 

Sipped a cautious breath before repeating yourself. “Where are you taking me?” 

“I’m ‘eaded north,” he said, no elaboration. 

“Where north,” you asked more firmly, warily frustrated. 

He let out a breathy chortle, as though surprised you’d interrogate him. “Scotland.” 

You cocked your head back in bewilderment and turned to glower at him. “Scotland?” 

“S’what I said.” 

“I don’t want to go to Scotland,” you whined, realising quickly the length of the drive — easily six hours to Glasgow if he stuck to the motorways, but you got the sense he was avoiding them. 

“That’s a shame,” he said. 

“I don’t understand,” you pleaded, terror thick in your throat. “What do you — what do you want from me?”

You regretted the question as soon as you uttered it, because there was some comfort to be found in uncertainty — that is, the possibility that he wasn’t going to throw you into the bed of his truck and rape you in the pitch dark of the backcountry night. 

He looked at you again, eyes tar-black in the shadows of his balaclava, and you held shut your thighs on instinct. 

“Dunno yet,” he said. 

You might have cried if you had any tears left to give. Instead you blinked at him uneasily, petrified into a surreal state of milky numbness — maybe you were in shock, you had heard of that before. 

“So you — you just took me because you felt like it?” 

He shrugged with a single shoulder. “‘Spose so.” 

A minute of stodgy silence settled in the cab as you stared blankly ahead down the spotlighted country road. You weren’t sure what you should do with yourself, and it made you itch all over. From the pits of you echoed screams to put up a fucking fight, to do something — instead you sat quietly, vacantly, erosively indecisive. Waiting for something to happen. For the other shoe to drop. 

“Are you going to shoot me?” You timidly asked, words eking out like dripping water from a tight faucet. 

“Hopefully not.” 

“Then — then why did you take me?”

His head rocked back and bounced off the headrest as he let out an exasperated puff of air. “Y’make a lot o’ noise, don’t you?” 

“Well there would be no noise if you hadn’t.” 

He laughed at that, you could see the fine lines creasing in the corner of his puckering eyes through his mask. “Got me there.” 

“So then why don’t you just let me out?” You pestered, only emboldened by his droning indifference. Apathy exuded from him like serum from an open wound, oily yet salutary, and you found it grotesquely reassuring. 

“Don’t want to,” he bluntly replied. 

“Why not?” 

He was twitchy. On a razor edge. He lasered a glare at you and it stung, and you shrunk into yourself under the heat of it. 

“Because I don’t want to.” He repeated, jaw tight. 

You should have heeded the venom in his throat as a warning to shut up, but despite effort to wire your jaw shut, your compulsion to fill the silence was pathological. 

“Are you — are you going to—” Couldn’t bring yourself to finish the sentence. The tail of it sat heavy and sour on your tongue. 

“Goin’ to what.” 

A quivering breath leaked through your teeth. “Rape me.” 

He sighed heavily, languidly rocking his head to the side, and you felt his hard eyes on you. Excoriating you from legs to lips. 

“Thought about it,” he said. 

Ribs closed like dog jaws around your lungs. 

Said with such torpor that it didn’t cut you like a threat. Instead it made your heart tight and hot, shuddering rather than beating, pumping out needly adrenaline that made your hairs spike up and your stomach drop heavy. 

“And?” You creaked, voice scratching in your trachea. 

“Wouldn’t mind a fuck,” he grunted indifferently. “But I don’t like crying.” 

A mortifying heat feathered over your cheeks. Something pre-programmed, an evolutionary reaction to the suggestion of sex at all, consensual or otherwise — that’s what you told yourself, when you felt a reflexive shiver between your legs, and your ears turned hot. 

“So that’s why you took me,” you mumbled anxiously. 

“To fuck?”

You shot him a pointed lour in place of a response. 

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Fucking weird girl. 

Your curiosity was potently unsettling, riveting in the same breath. Didn’t make sense to him, that you’d ask him so unabashedly whether or not he intended on defiling you. What answer were you hoping for? Did you simply want to make sure he said no? 

You blinked at him vacantly after his candid response. No use in lying to you. 

It wasn’t his style to brutalise himself into a bird, to bulldoze through wails and shrieks of refusal, physical capability to do so notwithstanding. He simply didn’t like tears. Felt beneath him, really, the impotent sadism needed to enjoy milking them. The only wetness he liked in a girl was a wet mouth and a wet cunt. 

He was partial to a hisser, though. Liked his spitters and scratchers. The kinds of girls that would gripe and grouse about his brutishness but turned treacly sweet when he inevitably overpowered them. 

Perhaps you’d be a hisser. 

He would have liked to find out. What noises you might have made. What the skin of your thighs might have felt like when free of their denim sheaths. How your nipples might spike up in the invasive cool of the September evening, or under the unwelcome brush of his fingers. 

There was a glimmer in the pools of your eyes, fretful yet inquisitive. He was probably only seeing what he wanted to see. 

You went quiet after that, at least. For the best. Kept your little knees nailed together as you glowered out your passenger window, pleasantly pacified for the time being. Sulking like a fucking child, but he supposed he couldn’t blame you. 

He wasn’t stupid enough to expect that you’d be cheerful after he kidnapped you. And he wasn’t in denial, either — he did kidnap you. There was no dancing around it. He threatened to kill you and then he abducted you, because he felt like it. Because he liked the look of you. 

Not remorseful, though. It would be a cold day in hell before he ever felt sorry for anything. His brain just didn’t function that way. If he wanted something, it was his. No use wasting time feeling guilt over something not even he could prevent. 

He spent his time in your silence considering how to make it worth his while. Whether he would, in fact, drag you all the way to Scotland with him. Whether he’d have you aid and abet his next robbery to make up for the piss-poor spoils he purloined from your petrol station. Whether he would find a way to fuck you on the way, or perhaps once he got to his destination. 

Maybe he’d let you keep some of your savings if you showed him your pussy. He looked at you briefly as he thought about it. Wondered how badly you needed the money. 

“What were you savin’ for, eh?” He asked suddenly, and you flinched at the sound of his voice. 

Soft little girl. He’d need to harden you up. 

“What do you mean,” you murmured, hardly a croak. 

“Don’t play dumb,” he gritted.

You sighed warily, eyeing him before you answered. “Doesn’t even matter,” you grumbled. “You took it, so now I haven’t saved anything.” 

He glowered at you, and something in his dissatisfied stare must have compelled you to elaborate. He had that effect on people. Birds, especially. Intimidation coursed through his blood and emanated out of his skin, it didn’t take much effort. 

“I wanted to leave Dunhill, obviously,” you groaned, reluctant to spill every word. 

“Yeah?” He asked, “where were y’off to?”

“Fucked if I know,” you muttered. “Literally anywhere else.” 

He snorted at that. “Couldn’t do that without skimming, eh?” 

“What, do you disapprove?” You hissed, scowling at him. “At least I don’t kidnap people when I need money.” 

“I’m not judging, sweetheart,” he crooned through a grin. “M’only impressed.” 

“Whatever,” you groused, crossing your arms and glaring out the window. “I only took it because I owe a bunch of money.” 

He quirked a brow at that. “To who?” 

“Why do you care.” 

He shrugged. “Boring drive.”

You let out a petulant huff before you inevitably decided to answer him. 

“I’m behind on rent,” you said, through gritted teeth. “Like, four months behind. And I’m still paying off my car, which I just needed to get repaired, so now I also owe money to the mechanic who did me the favour. Fucking owe money to the government, too, because they found out I was on the dole while I was working at the station.” 

A curl tugged in his lips, brows raised in intrigue. No surprise you had managed to find yourself burdened by so many favours — landlord giving you grace, mechanics fixing your cars without payment upfront. Pretty thing like you, though, he’d expect you’d get everything for free. Couldn’t imagine what kind of penny-pinching wankers would still demand money from you when you looked like that. 

Shame you didn’t cross his path sooner, he’d have fixed your car for you. No charge. Might have even let you squat at his place rent-free, assuming you made it worth his while. 

Started to imagine it, despite himself. Pictured having a pretty thing like you to come home to. Standing in the kitchen in his t-shirt, nothing under it. He’d bend you over the counter and fuck you right there while you stirred your tea. Wouldn’t have taken much to get your cunt nice and wet, he thought. You seemed like you’d be easy to please, bored little thing, hopelessly awaiting a man like him to show you what’s worth living for. 

Maybe he would take you all the way to Scotland, after all.  

“What about you,” you asked dully, snapping him from his reverie. “Why do you need the money.” 

He glanced at you, you picked your fingernails and glared at his hands on the wheel. 

“Must need it pretty bad,” you muttered, scorn bubbling in your throat. 

He tapped the steering wheel. “Long story.” 

“What, are you a fugitive, or something?” You asked, contemptuous eyes raking over him. 

“Is it that obvious?” He asked, through a chortle. 

You gulped, almost cartoonishly. So scared of him. He was sure the mask didn’t help, but he didn’t feel like taking it off yet. 

“What’d you do?” You questioned, that pang of anxiousness never quite leaving your voice, despite your attempts at feigning bravery. “Kill someone?” 

“Worse than that,” he said frankly. 

Your brows knitted together worriedly, fingers knotting. Nervous fidgeting. “Some kind of rapist, then?” 

“Not quite,” he replied facetiously, certain you must have found his amusement at the prospect ill-placed. 

“Then what?” 

“Got in trouble with people you shouldn’t get in trouble with,” he explained, purposefully vague. He enjoyed your inquisitiveness. 

“A gang?” 

“Could call it that,” he jeered. “Special air service.” 

Probably shouldn’t have told you that. Couldn’t help himself. 

“Special — wait, you’re in the army?” 

“Not anymore,” he said. 

You frowned uneasily. “What happened?” 

“That’s a tale for another day,” he grunted, and you turned to glare out the window again, spiteful now that he left your curiosity unsated. Little brat. 

Twenty uneventful minutes passed uninterrupted, then, and Simon focused on the route he had set out to follow. Had successfully avoided main roads for the better part of an hour, now electing it safe enough to return to the highway. Took a few dark turn offs, and every time the truck slowed, you visibly tensed up; so terrified that he’d pull over for a rest stop and drag you into the grass on the side of the road.

He didn’t like the streetlights. They were confrontational, accusatory, as though their beams of light were enough to alert every cop in the vicinity to his presence underneath them. 

The highway was largely empty, at least. Only one car passed in the opposite direction as he cruised along the smooth asphalt, decidedly more comfortable to drive on than the tattered backroads. Meant he could drive a lot faster, too. Might have been able to cut his trip by an hour, if he stuck to eighty-five miles an hour for the stretch between there and Birmingham. 

Your girlish little hands clutched the armrest of the door as he accelerated, the speed of the vehicle pushing you against the window as he followed a curve in the wide road. 

“You’re driving too fast,” you said quietly. 

He cracked a grin. How endearing that you thought to warn him. You were lucky he was trying to keep a low profile, in any other circumstance he’d be brushing a hundred. Then he’d really scare you, wouldn’t he? You could do with some toughening up, he thought. 

“Now you’re worried about the law, eh?” He sneered. 

“I just don’t want to die in a car wreck,” you bit. 

Seemed his docility was emboldening you. Perhaps you were a hisser, after all. Wondered if he needed to correct your behaviour. Maybe you’d spit on him if he reached over the centre console and fixed his hand to your thigh. 

“You’ll be fine,” he said. 

He avoided the arterial motorway that cut through Birmingham, choosing instead to stick to the A roads that bounced between exits and junctions in a zigzag. Hardly efficient, such a route would tack on an extra three hours of travel between there and Manchester, but at least far less monitored than the M5. 

He got cocky, he supposed. 

Saw the flashing red-and-blue lights before the sirens started blaring, and you jumped like a bunny — your head wracked around with a speed that made your neck crick, glaring at the cop car through the back windscreen. 

“Fuck,” he barked, through a clenched jaw, eyes jumping between the cruiser in his rearview and the highway ahead of him. 

He could have shoved his foot down, pressed the accelerator flat to the floor and fled the likely jaded cop patrolling the country highway at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday. There was a chance the fat old bastard wouldn’t give chase, but that chance was slim. Simon didn’t need the attention. 

He sunk his foot into the brake and slowed to sixty, veering into the shoulder. “Fuckin’ tosser.” 

And didn’t you perk up? Itching all over to bounce out of your seat, head swinging back to look at the police car twice a second. All twitchy and riled up. He could see what you were thinking, it was printed in your cheeks, bright in your eyes; now’s your chance. 

He hoped you weren’t that stupid. 

“You gonna be a good girl?” He asked rigidly. 

“What do you mean,” you squeaked, panicked, eyes peeled wide and skin glossy with sweat. 

“Means keep your fuckin’ mouth shut,” he snapped, lifting up his jersey, and you gawped at the gun against his stomach. “You make a scene, I’ll have to shoot him. And then I’ll have to shoot you. Y’understand?”

You nodded tightly, wiping under your eyes with your palms, some paltry attempt to collect yourself. He sincerely hoped you’d behave. He didn’t want to kill you. Would be a waste of a pretty bird. Not to mention a fucking pain in the arse to hide not one, but two bodies. 

“Good,” he muttered, as he tore off his mask and tossed it on the ground between his feet, slowing the car to a stop on the side of the highway. Rubbed his hand over his buzzed head on instinct, cropped hair velveteen under his palm. Hopeful the knit didn’t leave suspicious imprints in his skin. 

Your lips went a little slack when you looked up to see him unmasked, and a grin creased in his cheeks. Saw plain as day that glimmer in your little eyes, as they scoured over his face as if reading the pages of a book. 

Didn’t think he’d be pretty, did you? He was not ignorant of his looks, and wasn’t humble about them either. So blatant in your flustered expression that you liked what you saw, only too virtuous to admit it to yourself. 

He wound down his window before the policeman approached. He was adept at pretending to be a good boy. Spent decades licking boots in the military, and cops were even easier to please. 

The officer was middle-aged and saggy-eyed, just as jaded as Simon had predicted. The truck was taller than him, so his hatted head peered through the center of the open window, assessing the cab with his lips in a line. 

“Evenin’,” Simon said simply. 

“Heading home, are we?” The officer asked, eyeing up the bird next to the driver, lathering you in more attention than necessary. 

Could’ve clubbed him in the nose for so shamelessly drooling over you — as far as the cop was likely concerned, you were his bird, not some slapper along for the ride. He had king-hit men for less. 

“You bet,” was all he said. 

“Must be in a hurry,” the cop said derisively, glare finally returning to the driver. “Any clue how fast you were going, mate?” 

Mate made Simon twitch. Swallowed back the urge to spit not your fucking mate, instead offering a placating grin and a pat of the steering wheel. 

“We are in a bit of a hurry.” 

“Yeah? Enough of a hurry to be going twenty over the limit?” 

“Bird tells me to hurry home, I hurry home,” Simon jeered. “Y’know what I mean.” 

The officer almost tutted, until your voice cut across from the passenger seat, and Simon’s knuckles turned white on the wheel. 

“Don’t blame me,” you snapped. “It’s not my fault you can’t control yourself.” 

To Simon’s surprise, the cop chuckled at that. 

“Need to rein your fella in, love.” 

“I tried,” you lamented. “I told him he was going too fast and he was going to get pulled over. I told him so. Bastard doesn’t listen to me.”

Simon blinked in your direction, to see you sitting upright with your arms spitefully crossed over your chest, cheeks red-hot with panic and knee bouncing in frustration. If he didn’t know the root of your unease was the fact he had abducted you, he’d have believed you were a contemptuous bird itching to castigate her reckless partner for getting in trouble. 

Seemed the cop believed that, too. “Bird’s smarter than you, eh?” 

Simon snorted, deciding to play along. “That she is.” 

“Looks like you’re in plenty of trouble, then,” he taunted.

Simon looked at you, again, to see you scowling at him before you glowered out the windshield. “Mh. Think so.”  

“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to do the paperwork,” the policeman said sternly. “I’ve got your plate, though, so slow down, yeah? Way down. No excuse for eighty-five in a sixty.” 

“Understood.” 

“Don’t let me catch you again, eh?” 

Simon smiled politely, concealing the chortle that curdled in his throat. Cop wouldn’t be seeing him again at all, ever, because he was fucking off to a different country and intended to stay there for as long as he remained under the radar. 

He’d have to dump the car, though. With the plate on the record it was fated for the scrapyard. 

“Appreciate it,” Simon said through an artificial grin. “Have a good one.” 

The cop only nodded, patted the car door with a flat hand, before waddling back to his cruiser without another word. 

Simon was humiliated to admit the relief that doused him was sobering, letting out a ragged sigh as he rolled up the window and twisted the keys in the ignition. He was certain that the encounter would have been far uglier — felt his hand twitching towards the gun on his stomach more than once, imagined how quickly it could have been over if he simply tore it out and pointed it at the wanker’s forehead. 

You, strange girl, saved his arse. Whether or not you had intended to help him, you did. His eyes fixed to you as he pulled back onto the motorway, speedometer creeping back up to sixty and staying there, while the police car was still in sight. 

“‘Bastard doesn’t listen to me’?” He quoted with a brow raised, incredulous amusement rich in his tone.  

“What,” you muttered derisively, staring rigidly out of the passenger window, arms tightly interlocked. 

“Think of that on the spot, did ya?” 

Seemed you were avoiding eye contact with him now, glare fastened out into the moonlit countryside and head bolted still. Ashamed, perhaps, that you had thwarted your only real opportunity to escape him. Or, worried that if you looked at him for too long, your fear of him might have mutated into something far more difficult to justify. He smirked at the thought. 

“You should be grateful,” you grumbled. 

“Should I?” 

“You didn’t get arrested because of me.” 

He chortled at that. Maybe your tactic to ingratiate yourself was to help him, but he got the sense that wasn’t your intention.

“In that case, ‘course I’m grateful.”

“Then say thank you,” you spat, finally swivelling your head on your neck to pin your grouchy little lour to him. 

“Thank you,” he crooned, grin sharp. 

“Whatever,” you griped, slumping back into your seat with a huff. 

He wasn’t sure if he preferred you whining and crying to pouting like a teenager, either option tested his patience. He at least found the latter vaguely amusing, only slightly more endearing than a whimpering abductee in his passenger seat. 

“Thanks not good enough for you?” He asked mordantly, and you scoffed. “What, do I have to lick your cunt to prove it?” 

Your stare cut to him out of the corner of your eyes, head impudently bowed to avoid facing him head-on. 

“Don’t say things like that,” you murmured uneasily, eyes glittering under the streetlight that passed by.

“Like what?” He sneered, “don’t want me to talk about licking your cunt?” 

“Shut up,” you chirped, stiff-lipped, tipping your knees away from him and once again scowling out of your window. 

He snickered at you, couldn’t help it, watching you get all tight and restless when he said it again. Certain you were involuntarily picturing his head between your legs, whether you liked it or not. 

“Don’t like the word cunt?” He teased, winding you up for his own enjoyment. “Or don’t like thinking of me licking it?” 

“Stop it,” you whined, shrivelling up like a raisin. 

He grinned. “I can call it your pussy instead.”

“You’re disgusting.” 

“Uh-huh,” he laughed. 

You turned to tug at the door handle, yanking at it unrelentingly, and it only thumped as you failed to break through the lock. “Let me out.” 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” 

“Open the fucking door,” you spat, spite simmering in the back of your throat. “Let me out.” 

He liked this better. Hissing derision, contemptuous attempts to escape, to demand your freedom. Much more enjoyable than your earlier weeping, all snotty and puffy-eyed. 

“Not gonna happen,” he said.

“You’re a pervert,” you growled.  

“So?” 

“Let me go,” you repeated, glaring daggers at him. 

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said candidly, tone as rigid as he intended it to be. He meant it. 

Again stymied, you slouched over and turned away from him, and went petulantly silent. Simon drove ahead unruffled, took another exit off the motorway — once again trundling over a poorly kept rural road, heading in the direction of the next highway junction half an hour north. 

It was evident being off the beaten track put you on edge, pellucid in the way you tightened your arms around yourself once the streetlights became fewer and further between. He couldn’t blame you, it was certainly slasher-esque to cart you around backroads, where the only buildings were abandoned barns and grain silos. Lucky for you, he wasn’t a murderer. Not anymore. Besides, all of his past killing was government sanctioned. Most of it, anyway. 

You kept your mouth shut for the next long while, huffing and puffing every now and again, making sure not to let him forget how unhappy you were with your circumstances. Strangely enough, he found it endearing.

“I need to pee,” you said suddenly, a squeak, shy to say so. 

He snorted. “Think I’m thick?” 

“I — I’m being serious,” you stammered. Unconvincing. 

“Hold it,” he said unsympathetically, turning a left corner, the momentum making you tip into the centre console, your shoulder nudging against his before you spitefully tugged yourself away.

“I can’t,” you grouched. 

“Piss yourself then,” he sneered. “I’m not keepin’ this car.” 

Your brows scrunched up in disappointment. “I don’t want to — to pee on myself. That’s just gross.” 

He smiled. Something cute about you. 

“You can piss when we stop for the night,” he said. “How’s that?” 

“We’re stopping?” You asked quietly, blinking at him charily, as if he’d change his mind if you spoke too loud.  

“Been a long fuckin’ day,” he grumbled. “I’m not driving for nine hours straight.” 

“Nine hours?” You pestered, “I thought we were going to Scotland?” 

He couldn’t help but grin at that. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip — we. Maybe you had come to terms with it already, the ineludible fact that you were stuck with him for however long he wanted to keep you. So far, that looked like a good while. 

“Taking the long way,” he answered. 

“What the hell, how many people are looking for you?” You asked, pouting in worry. 

He sucked his teeth. “Not enough to find me.” 

You didn’t need to pee at all. 

In fact, your nerves had sucked up every drop of water that remained in your body after your deluge of tears. They were glutted with it. All swollen and pinging with panic every odd moment, when you remembered you were supposed to be in fight-or-flight. 

You were seething, though, that you had failed to convince him. 

The plan was poorly conceived, in fairness — you only imagined getting as far as an unlocked door, girding your legs to bolt off into the endless fields on the side of the road in whichever direction they took you. Didn’t spend a moment considering whether you could outrun the goliath, or how rough he’d be when he predictably tackled you. Maybe he’d simply have shot you as you ran away, turned it into a game of target practice for his own amusement. 

There was shame brewing within you, now. 

Sweltering, emetic, frothy as it crawled up your throat — you were disgusted with yourself, at how pathetic you were being, at how little you had done in the interest of your own escape. How you had let all of it happen. 

You always imagined yourself a fighter, it was easy to imagine such a thing. In hypotheticals you would kick and scream, could easily overpower your assailants by sheer will, your resolve to survive so strong that capitulation was inconceivable. 

Reality stung. 

You weren’t a kicker or a screamer. You were a sit-and-waiter, and that realisation was sobering as it was disappointing. 

Humiliated that you had forsaken a real opportunity at rescue for no discernable reason. No reason you could truly justify. Perhaps you had done it to save the police officer; if you hadn’t intervened, your deranged captor would have shot the innocent man for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and it would have been your fault for making a fuss. 

Terror was the next excuse, but that didn’t quite justify it either. If you were so terrified that the man would shoot you, you would not have uttered a word. No, you would have been quiet, a good girl, just as he ordered you to be. 

It assuaged your fear, you thought, to see his face. 

You were surprised to see a face at all beneath the mask, forgetting he was a man and not some caricature of chaos and violence. He looked like a soldier, too. All scarred and cynical, disillusionment was inlaid in his features despite how caustically he grinned at you. 

His hair was freshly buzzed, sandy blond velvet coating his head, long pink cicatrices carved lines into his scalp as if someone had attempted to cut through it and peel it from his skull. He was tattooed, you could tell, by the teal-black engravings that crept up the side of his neck, the rest concealed by the thick hood of his sweatshirt. Nose a little swollen at the bridge, fractured once and poorly healed. 

The shame was even more potent when you caught yourself eyeing him for too long, flicking over to him every now and again just to get a glance, the shortest possible eye contact to ensure he didn’t catch you staring. 

Fucking mortifying that he was good-looking. 

That your mind even allowed you to think so, that your eolithic subconscious had considered your abductor’s appearance at all. The way he had rakishly smirked at you was arrogance manifest, you could see in his russet-brown eyes a patent awareness of your attraction. As if he could smell it on you, goading you to admit it, ego stroked every time you caught his eye. 

So you didn’t. 

You kept your body tilted away from him, gaze locked out of your passenger window, sweaty hands clamped together. Every now and then you felt his glare on the back of your neck, heard him breathing in your direction — it felt as though you were counting down the minutes until he felt compelled to reach over the console and touch you. 

It was only a matter of time, undoubtedly. That’s what he took you for, you were certain, despite his supposed ambivalence. The thought made your heart sit fat in your throat. Stopping for the night was a deadline.

“Where are we stopping?” You asked weakly, voice aimed at the passenger door. 

He let out an exasperated breath. “Not sure yet.”

“Are you going to sleep in the car?” 

He seemed to find that amusing. “I might not look it, love, but I’m a creature of comfort,” he said. “I’ll get us a bed.” 

Us. You shivered when he said it. 

A scornful refusal knocked at the back of your teeth, but you knew how he’d twist it, would mock your aversion. He’d make another foul little quip about your pussy, you thought. 

You didn’t want to give him the chance to say the word again. Not simply because it was revolting to listen to the degenerate joke about eating you out — licking your cunt, it echoed in the sauna of your skull — but because the mere mention of it turned your cheeks claret-red and the back of your neck all clammy. 

What was worse, is that you knew he could see it on you. Plainly emboldened by how much it ruffled you. Could decipher your unease as an effort to conceal some biomechanical reaction, one provoked by the mere suggestion of it, by the vibrations of his voice as he said it. 

“Do me a favour,” He suddenly demanded.

You refused to turn and look at him. “What.” 

“Grab me a fag, will ya?” 

Animosity congealed in your mouth. The fucking gall to request favours of you. “From where?” 

“Bag in the back there,” he said simply, “light’s in there too.” 

“Fine.” 

You peered behind the headrest, his unzipped duffle bag was dumped on the back seat; just out of reach if you were to extend an arm between the gap. Instead you had to twist your entire body and contort yourself through the middle, waist between the front seats as you climbed over the console.

You resented being in such a position, arse jutting out towards the windshield, unable to see the driver that sat so close to you — so you were quick about it, burrowing through the sack, stuffed to the brim with junk, and myriad different brands of cigarette cartons. 

“Which ones do you want,” you asked impatiently.

He huffed as he thought about it. “What’ve we got?” 

“Um,” you murmured, digging through the cardboard cartons. “Mayfairs, Richmonds… uh. Embassies, Davidoffs—”

“Mh. Gi’s a davidoff,” he interrupted. 

You followed his instruction and plucked out the trim red box, and an orange Bic lighter once you found it at the bottom of the bag, wedged between wads of cash. You peeled away the thin plastic covering and flipped open the card lid as you reeled your body back between the seats — immediately you caught him lavishing your rear in attention. He sniffed casually when he caught your eye, utterly shameless. 

Heart shuddered in your ears as you sat back down in your seat, gooseflesh prickling up in your skin as you held the carton out for him to pluck out a roll. 

He pinched the end of one and stuck it between lips curled over his teeth, before gesturing wordlessly for you to give him the lighter. 

“You’re a doll,” he said, muffled by the filter in his lips. Jaw jutted out to angle up the cigarette, he flicked the lighter in his fist with his thumb, little orange flame hovering under the end of the roll as he sucked it. 

“Whatever,” you grumbled, swiftly turning away from him to return your attention to the road out the window. 

Seemed he was approaching some area of population, little brick houses began popping up on the side of the street, lampposts peppering the road ahead. A surge of adrenaline made your hackles spike up — bystanders, you thought, people who might have heard you if you screamed loud enough. 

“Want a puff?” He asked indifferently. 

“I don’t smoke,” you snarked, distracted. 

He snorted. “Goodie girl, are ya?” 

“No,” you said curtly. 

“Mh, that’s right — you’re a little thief,” he taunted. “Not a good girl at all.” 

There was no response that would spare you his teasing, so you kept your mouth shut. Stayed silent for the remainder of the drive, in fact, a solid quarter-hour — until the car bounced over something and you jolted in your seat. Quickly realised he had pulled up into a parking lot as the truck began to slow. 

A two-star Travelodge, evidently, one planted directly on the side of the northbound highway. It looked barren, coral bricks all grimy with lichen and sludgy brown water stains, every window blocked by shut curtains. Not a single light glowed from within a hotel room, only the dim yellow lantern bolted to the wall above the sliding door at the entrance. 

You held your tongue in your teeth as he drove to a park at the very back of the lot, under a low-hanging tree branch, concealed by shadow. Your skin began to itch, crawling with bugs and alight with adrenaline — you could run, now, if he opened your door. Maybe you could sprint to the nearest building and hammer on the door, shriek that you’d been kidnapped, and to please please call the police. Or, maybe you could try to snatch his gun from him and shoot him in the fucking head. 

Instead you sat still in your seat. Felt your chest breaking out in a panic rash. 

“Righ’,” he said casually as he killed the engine, the suspension of the truck bouncing under the weight of him as he adjusted in his seat. “Look at me.” 

You shook your head in refusal. Entire body stiff as wood. Anticipation frayed your nerves and made your hairs stand on end. It was suddenly real. 

You kept your eyes pinned away from him, but it was futile, because he reached a massive arm across the gap and seized your jaw in a single hand. Fingers dimpled your cheeks as he twisted your head to face him, and you attempted to scowl at him, but your quivering lip made plain your alarm. 

“You gonna make a fuss?” He asked stiffly, pinching his cigarette with his free fingers, silvery smoke clouding out from behind his teeth. 

You just about said no on reflex, but bit down on it instead, because it likely would have been a lie. Only pouted at him scornfully and shivered in his grip. 

“What d’you think will happen if you do.” 

You swallowed. “You’ll shoot me.” 

He shook his head. “Would be an uncomfortable night for you, though, I can tell y’that.” 

A crease pulled between your brows. “Are you going to — to beat me up, or something?” 

He chuckled at that, a cocksure grin; you suddenly felt a weight in your chest, burning hot, made your ribs sink and your heart flutter. 

You hadn’t yet seen his face up close. His cheeks were stubbled, skin peppered with freckles and the creases of early aging. Teeth were sharp and unexpectedly white, raffishly crooked with pointed canines, a silver cap on a premolar. His lips were full, pale, a single scar running through the top one, white stripe in the ruddy pink. 

The shame returned with a kick to the stomach when you noticed yourself staring at his mouth, and you tried to look away from him, but he riveted your head in place. 

“Don’t plan on it,” he said, after a beat too long. 

Sweat pricked along your hairline. “Then what.”

“I’d like to have a nice long snooze,” he grumbled. “I don’t wanna be up all night wrangling you. So if you throw a tantrum you’ll be sleeping tied up with a sock in your throat. S’that what you want?” 

“No,” you chirped. 

He nodded approvingly. “I don’t want that either. I like the sound o’ your voice. Be a shame to snuff it out, wouldn’t it?” 

You attempted to nod, and though his hand kept you still he understood the intention. With a ragged sigh he finally released you, giving you a condescending pat on the cheek. 

With a grunt he suddenly twisted and leaned between the seats, gargantuan body taking up the entire cab as he reached behind you to grab his duffle bag, and you wedged yourself against the door to avoid touching him. 

Clambered about as he reeled the giant bag back to the front, before snatching the car keys out of the ignition and unlocking the driver side door. He kicked it open and hopped out with a huff, immediately slamming it shut behind him — only unlocked your door with his keys only once he was directly outside it, pre-empting any of your attempts to slip away. 

He opened the door for you with a clunk, and the biting air of the late autumn night made your entire body tighten up. 

“Get out,” he said.  

You nodded, swivelling yourself on your bottom and sliding out of the truck cab, landing directly in front of him. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and left the stub smoking on the concrete. 

“C’mon.” He fixed a hand to your bicep and yanked you away from the car, shutting the door with a slam. 

You were light on your feet as he ferried you towards the entrance to the cheap hotel, his other fist white-knuckled around the strap of his bag. 

“You don’t need—” you chirped, almost tripping over your feet, “—to hold me so tight.” 

“No?” He snorted. 

“I’m not gonna run,” you spat, hushed despite yourself. 

“Obviously.”

The sliding glass doors trundled open as you approached them, a tired ding echoing out to welcome you. The reception was quiet, poorly lit by vibrating fluorescent bars, stunk of fresh linen toilet spray and floor cleaner. 

Your abductor let go of your arm abruptly when he noticed the receptionist — a teenage boy with headphones on, who disinterestedly looked up from a Nintendo Switch to address the tall brute that sauntered in with you in tow. 

“Y’after a room?” The kid asks monotonously. 

“Standard double.”

The receptionist clicked around on the computer, smacking chewing gum between his teeth “How many nights.” 

“Just the one.” 

Click click. “It’s sixty-eight for the night.” 

“Y’take cash?” 

The kid frowned dubiously at that, jaw hanging open as he rolled the wad of white gum along his tongue. “Sure.” 

“Lovely,” your abductor grunted, unzipping the flap of his duffle bag and fishing out a thick wad of paper notes. 

Jaw gaped as you watched him unashamedly finger between the notes to pluck out three twenties and a tenner, slapping them on the counter of the reception before tucking the stack away again. As agog as the receptionist at his brazenness, all but showing off his spoils, plainly stolen. 

The kid pouted skeptically as he swiped the notes and counted them again, tucking them aside, and you wondered if he used the same technique as you. 

He dropped a keycard on the counter. “Room thirteen,” he said. 

“Cheers.” 

Your abductor scooped up his bag and planted his other hand on the small of your back, nudging you ahead of him towards the narrow hallway, never allowing more than two feet to grow between his body and yours. 

You glanced around feverishly as you wandered meekly down the corridor, identical doors mirroring each other for as far as you could see, until the hall turned a corner. Eyes clung to the glowing green emergency exit lights dotted along the ceiling, as if they might lead you to your salvation. 

“Can’t believe you actually paid for a room,” you murmured spitefully, when he nudged you forward by the arse as if guiding a ewe. 

“Wouldn’t want to break the law,” he chuffed. 

In any other circumstance you would’ve giggled. You might have found him funny if he weren’t the deranged fugitive who had kidnapped you. 

A yank of your shirt stopped you in your tracks, tugging you back — your abductor had flippantly taken your t-shirt in a fist, as he shoved the key card into its slot under the handle of a door behind you. 

“In,” he snipped, shoving you through the door once he had pushed it open. 

The room was small. Hardly enough room for the double bed in the middle of it, skinny end tables wedged on either side. The only amenities were a shin-height fridge and a kettle on a bench, tucked into a nook by the door. It was hot in there, too — radiator bubbling all day, you guessed, to counteract the cold weather. 

Immediately you fixed your stare on the window by the bed; a good metre across, brown aluminium trim, lumpy textured glass that distorted the view of whatever sat directly outside the hotel room. Ground floor, you thought, easy to slip out, if you could open it —

Noticed, then, that there was no indication it could be opened at all. No hinges, no frames, no handles. Simply a flat plane of glass stuck in the wall. 

Your stomach wrung itself, and you did your best not to keel over. The air was suddenly infinitely stuffier, sweltering, torrid in your lungs. 

He flipped shut the bolt on the door, and landed a pat on your shoulder. You could unlatch it, obviously, but the old thing was squeaky, clanking old brass, and undoing it would certainly alert him. 

He nudged you out of his way and dumped his duffle bag on the floor beside the bed, evidently claiming the side closest to the door, as if prepared to catch you should you try to slip around him. 

In truth, the notion of escape was scarcely a whisper. Supplanted by a nauseating docility — a survival instinct, you thought, to simply behave. To do as you were told. 

He began undressing himself, uninterested in whether you observed him; shucked off his old leather jacket and hung it over the back of his bag, unlaced and kicked off his muddy old boots. Your toes curled involuntarily into the soles of your shoes, watching him like a degenerate, as he tore off his hoodie and t-shirt and tossed them to the floor. 

Something out of a movie, you thought; gargantuan beast of a man, broad-shouldered and cladded in such a dizzying mass of muscle and adipose bulk that he looked encumbered by it all. The icteric light of the sconces by the bed carved out the divots in his back, the valley of his spine, the symmetrical dimples above the waistband of his jeans — you felt sick with yourself, that you even let your eyes venture there, but they cleaved fast to him despite your chagrin. 

He was slathered in tattoos as you had imagined, all flames and skulls and barbed wire, broken up by the occasional stamp of something more meaningful — a sacred heart, serif-font numbers, somebody’s name with a date beneath it. You could read it from where you stood; Johnny, 11/2023.

You were only thankful he hadn’t turned around — couldn’t see you leering at him, and spared you having to see him from the front. 

“Still need to piss?” He asked roughly, and your lips twisted. 

“No,” you said, still standing awkwardly by the door. 

He snickered. “Seemed pretty desperate before.” 

“I — yeah,” you stammered, “I don’t know. I’m fine.” 

Gave you a shrug as he lumbered into the ensuite bathroom, and you heard the unbuckling of a belt and zip of a fly, the clunk of metal on a counter, then the steady stream of his piss landing in the toilet water. 

You scoffed in revulsion. Fucking pig. Couldn’t even close the door. You heard him rinse off his hands at least, though you couldn’t be sure he had used any soap. 

He emerged from the bathroom rubbing his shaven head and with his belt undone, leather straps hanging loose from his hips, zipper of his jeans wide open. His gun was gone. Plaid boxers bunched up, distended by the mass within and protruding through his fly — you felt yourself turn berry pink, more repulsed by yourself than him. 

This time he caught you staring, and he was manifestly pleased about it. A smug grin pulled in his lips as he shuffled towards you, and you rested your weight on your back foot. 

“Y’want a Valium?” He asked you, and you frowned at him bewilderedly. 

“What?” 

In front of you, now, you panted like a cornered animal in the shadow he cast. “Might help you sleep.” 

You grimaced at him. “You just want to knock me out.” 

He snorted. “Why would I do that?” 

The daggers you stared at him served as your only reply, and he half-heartedly rolled his eyes at you. 

“You reckon I’d want to fuck a sleeping bird?” 

“Probably,” you muttered, averting his gaze when he uttered the word. 

“No fun in that,” he said simply. “No nice noises if you’re asleep.” 

You scoffed, perturbed by how he discussed it happening with you as if it were an inevitability. “What, like screaming?”

He cracked a grin. “Screamer, are ya?”

Your blood went runny. “Stop it.” 

He brushed a knuckle under your chin, and you flinched — but to your relief, he relented. Turned away from you and squeezed the back of his neck as if to release tension. 

“Get into bed,” he grumbled, plodding towards the bathroom, returning swiftly with his gun in hand. 

You went cold. “Why?” 

“The fuck do you think?” He replied curtly, shoving his pistol under his pillow, before he pulled his jeans down and your mouth went dry. 

“I don’t want to,” you squeaked. 

He chuffed at that. “Christ, fucking is the only thing on your mind, in’t it?” He taunted, “don’t get all worked up.” 

“I’m — I’m not worked up, you—”

“I’m too tired for this shit,” he grunted, “‘n I’m not havin’ you up and about while I’m sleeping. Get into bed or I’ll put you in bed.” 

There was no give in his expression, it was a final order. He did look tired — eyes were sunken and beset with aubergine rings, lids heavy with frustration and exhaustion. He stood with hands hooked on his hips as he impatiently awaited your acquiescence, and you sensed you were on a short timer.  

“Fine,” you murmured, shuffling around the end of the bed with your arms crossed tightly, eyes averting him.

He watched you, though. Scrutinised your every move as you bent over to untie your shoelaces, pulling off your converses and dumping them on the carpet. 

“Sleepin’ in your jeans?” He jeered, when you reached to pull back the blankets.

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” you retorted, sitting on the mattress and swiftly tucking yourself under the covers. The mattress was foamy, soft, sunk deep as though permanently impressed by all the bodies that have ever slept in it. 

“Hardly comfortable,” he said, smirking, decidedly amused. 

“Don’t care,” you groused, rolling onto your side away from him, blanket up to your ears. 

He chuckled. “Suit yourself.”

You bounced on the mattress as he fell into it, springs moaning as they sunk deep beneath him, and you felt your body tip back towards him — you curled up, as close to the edge of the bed as you could get without toppling over the side. 

He switched off the sconce above the bed, and the room was abruptly black as pitch. 

The mattress recoiled as he adjusted himself, settling into bed with a gruff sigh, and you felt his warm breathing on the back of your head. 

He seemed to find comfort quickly; exhales turning deep and languid, you sensed he had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. 

There was some relief in that. Temporarily escaping him while he was unconscious. 

With your heart thundering in your ears, though, sleep was impossibly out of reach for you. You could hardly keep your eyes shut, they fluttered and twitched as you tried to close them, and they’d bolt back open as though spring-loaded. 

Now’s your chance — it echoed ad nauseum in your skull like the chiming of a clock, over and over until your ears rang. 

You could have slithered out of bed and scurried to the door, unbolted it and ran down the hallway if you were quick enough. You could have used the steel-legged chair in the corner to shatter the window and sprint into the night. You could have slipped a hand under his pillow nice and slow, snatched his gun from under his head and shot him while he slept. 

Instead you lay dead still, save for the trembling that never quite subsided. 

You tried to vivisect your own mind while you stagnated in the bed. Attempted to determine why you failed to enact your own rescue, why you actively avoided pursuing your freedom. 

The answer eluded you, in concrete terms anyway. 

Truth was, you didn’t know where you’d go. 

Literally, of course — you had no idea where you were, no phone with you, no sense of direction. You could run to a bystander and ask, of course, but you didn’t want to do that either. 

It was as if you didn’t want to go back. 

The thought of it nauseated you almost as gruesomely as the uncertainty of the path ahead. Of being dragged back to Dunhill, of being back to square one, of having no money, no prospects, no future. 

It was the obscurity, you thought, that kept you there. Something new. Something different, albeit terrifying. The ambiguity of any future, however short, was somehow preferable than the certainty of not having one at all. 

Worse to admit was whatever churning you felt between your legs. What seed he had planted when he took you had taken root, tendrils burrowing into the recesses of you and tumescing with a reluctant anticipation. You all but throbbed with it, as if your body were preparing itself for the inevitable, manipulating your mind into assenting to it. 

It made you feel sick, and your skin was febrile, sticky with apprehension. 

You were baking — the air was thick with it, stifling heat, though in truth it was likely your thundering nerves that set your body alight. Too anxious to release yourself from under the covers, or to roll into a cooler position, or to flip over your pillow to the cooler side. 

You lay cocooned for as long as you could bear the heat, but your blood was molten and your head began to ache, and you resorted to uncovering yourself. 

You did it desperately slowly, peeling the cover away from you inch by inch, and even in the air you found no relief. Your last resort was to turn off the radiator — if you could — but you’d need to get out of bed for that. 

Slinked a leg over the edge of the mattress, whisper-slow, used your elbow to prop yourself up—

You felt a hand grab at your hip, and you were unceremoniously yanked back into the bed with a squeak. 

“Where d’you think you’re goin’,” he grunted, voice gratingly hoarse after a half-hour sleep. 

A ten-tonne arm was suddenly hooked over your waist, and you were flush with his back, his knees folded in behind yours. 

“I just wanted to turn the heater off,” you whispered, hoping he wouldn’t hear you. 

“Too hot, eh?” 

You exhaled shakily. “Yeah.” 

“Y’know why you’re too hot,” he murmured, and you felt him stick his fingers into the back of your skinny jeans, tugging the stretchy waistband and snapping it against your lower back.  

“I just can’t s-sleep when it’s warm,” you stuttered, tongue tangling in your mouth. 

“Bit restless, are ya?” 

You felt his hand glide over your belly, and your muscles turned to stone, entire body tensing up with the touch. 

“I’m not havin’ you tossing and turning all night,” he grumbled, thumbing at the button of your jeans, unfastening it with a pinch. 

“Don’t do that,” you breathed, heart plugging your trachea, unable to swallow a real breath. 

He persisted unimpeded as if he had not heard you, pushing down your zipper and stuffing his hand unhesitantly down the front of your underwear. 

You squeaked in fright the moment his fingers brushed your mons — every millilitre of blood in your body flooded out of your extremities and pooled between your legs, a reflexive reaction that fired off every nerve ending under your skin. 

“No, d-don’t—” your whimpers of refusal eked out between your teeth on instinct, but their root lay more in humiliation than fear. 

His hand was icy against your feverish skin, and goosebumps bristled out from his touch — your vision went foggy as a cold middle finger the size of two of yours slid along your seam, lips went slack as the tip burrowed deeper. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he grunted, his stony voice tickling the hairs on the nape of your neck, “you are warm, aren’t ya?”

“Stop it,” you whined, half-heartedly, defeat viscid on your tongue. 

His finger snaked deeper between your legs, the others flush with the puffy outer lips of your cunt, thumb burrowing into your groin as he wedged his hand in the tight gap between your pussy and your jeans. 

He chortled under breath when the tip of his finger broached your entrance, dipping into the mortifying abundance of your fluid that had pooled there. God, there was so much of it, you were humiliated — you had been in denial, ignoring it, even as you felt it slicken the gusset of your underwear, maybe even the inseam of your jeans. It was only instinctive, you told yourself, it wasn’t like that—

“Jesus Christ, girl,” he chuffed, breathless, and you could not for the life of you tell whether he was proud or disgusted. “Made you wait too long, did I?” 

You shivered, cunt pulsing around nothing, felt the nettle sting of adrenaline crawling down your spine. 

“N-no, I—”

Bit down on your tongue as his slippery finger dragged up between your folds, catching your clitoris with a swipe and making your legs clamp together in a vice. 

He only scoffed in awe. “Sensitive thing.” 

“Stop doing that,” you mewled, so embarrassed that your cheeks were aflame, ears burning red-hot, heart galloping in your chest. 

He didn’t believe your attempts at refusal, and you weren’t certain you did either — not when he stroked your clit with the palp of his finger, up and down, all of his movement honed in on the one spot that made you choke on air. 

“Not so bad, is it,” he sneered. 

You curled up like a cat, but he kept you fastened to him, immovable hand burrowed deep in your jeans. His finger slid between your folds effortlessly despite how hard you pressed your legs together — there was no escaping it, every brush of his fingertip against your slippery clit burned more than the last, igniting an inferno in the core of you that seemed inextinguishable. 

Fucking humiliating, degrading, shameful, that the brute who had abducted you could make you feel that good, do so little to have you so, so—

“You’re a fuckin’ furnace,” he jabbed, and he swiftly tugged his hand from between your legs and out of your jeans. 

Whatever remorseful noise spilled from your mouth was beyond you, high-pitched and so wanton it made you sick to hear it, but he only snickered. 

“Quit whingein’,” he chided, taking your waistband in a fist.

He hiked your jeans down with a violent tug, tearing them down to your thighs, underwear pulled down with them. What little abnegation you had left turned to sugar on your tongue, dissolving in your saliva and sliding down your throat. 

The blanket was gone, then, pulled off and pooled at the end of the bed — the slightly cooler air biting at your bare skin scarcely settled your tempers, even less so when he roughly shoved his hand between your legs again, now unobstructed. Three avid fingers prodded against your hole as if to collect the syrup that pooled there, slickening themselves before they dragged back up. 

You yelped like a kicked puppy when he kneaded your clit, pads of his fingers pressing and pulling in firm circles, bud swollen and shuddering and so sensitive it was sore. 

You could only whine about it, now unwilling to fight him off and likely incapable even if you wanted to. He had you riveted to him, chest solid against your back, heaving arm locking you in place. Your compunctions had melted, deliquescing into the stodgy recesses of your mind; usurped by the revoltingly animal, blood-thinning want that thundered in your temples and made your mouth all wet. 

“Don’t, p-please, you’re—”

“Tha’s it, girl,” he rumbled, directly into the back of your skull, and it made you dizzy. “Let it happen.” 

Your core tightened up, cunt constricting as tight as a vice, painfully empty — the surge was as sudden as a flash flood, just as violent, and you drowned in it as it swept you under. You came beneath his fingers with a winded whimper, so forcefully you bucked your legs to evade him, bullied clit ablaze and spasming in waves that made your heart stop with each contraction. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he chortled, easing his infliction but not yet stopping. “Listen to you.” 

“Shut up,” you whined, unable to catch your breath. 

“That’ll help you sleep, eh?” He teased, fingers finally retreating, trailing your slick up your mons before he landed flat on his back with a huff.

You were molten, sweaty hair clinging to the nape of your neck, and you wanted nothing more than to take off all your clothes and have a cold shower. All you could muster was your jeans, though, already half-off — you used your feet to peel them down to your calves, kicking them off into nowhere. Your shame had dissolved, now, utterly irretrievable. 

The stale air was cool against the wetness of your inflamed cunt when you rolled onto your back; a potent relief, despite how unbecoming you felt it to leave yourself so exposed in the company of a bedlamite.

“Now stop fussing,” he grunted, settling into the mattress, hand resting on his stomach. “Don’t want you wakin’ me up again.” 

You couldn’t have fussed, even if you tried. Body utterly siphoned of all energy, mind as foggy and blank as smoke. 

It took you less than a minute to fall asleep. 

Morning came with rain. 

The glow of daylight through the embossed window was powdery white, you heard the gentle patter of raindrops landing on the pane, the loud dripping of a leaky gutter pipe somewhere outside. 

Your mouth was chalky, tongue swollen, vision too blurry to identify where you were at a glance. 

The realisation rinsed you like cold water when you heard the gruff breathing from beside you. Heavy and deep, the warmth of a body lying too close to you, you felt the hirsute skin of a leg against yours. 

You were nauseous as you remembered the night before, when your legs brushed together and you noticed they were bare — no underwear on either, the sheets tangled up between your feet and your hair greasy on your forehead. Your cunt was still sticky and it made you wince to move and feel it, remembering how he had touched you, that his fingers were likely still covered in the dried residue of the orgasm he had milked from you. 

The remorse was as pounding as a migraine. Brontide in your skull that made the room spin, and you wanted nothing more than a glass of icy water and some ibuprofen.  

You peered over your shoulder at your abductor; lying on his side with an arm folded under his pillow, shoulders rising and collapsing with each heavy breath, scarred face somehow peaceful in his slumber. It was surreal to witness him like that, observing him in his most vulnerable state — you knew his gun was under that pillow, but the thought of trying to steal it faltered as fast as it came. 

Instead you slipped out of the bed, pattering on the soft soles of bare feet to the tiny kitchenette, and filled up a brown glass mug with tap water. You drank it all in three hard gulps, then filled up another. 

He didn’t stir, not even slightly. In such a deep sleep that you likely could have put your jeans back on and unbolted the door without even waking him. 

Instead you went into the ensuite, shutting the door behind you. The bulbous knob had a push-button to lock it, but it was loose, and no matter how many times you pushed it, it failed. You gave up quickly, though — didn’t want to wake him up yet. 

The bathroom was arranged nonsensically — the toilet sat by the door, the vanity across from the shower that was tucked into the corner. Its glass walls were grimy with limescale, every amenity made of faded ivory acrylic and stained brown at the edges where the janitors had failed to clean it.  

You flushed the toilet when you saw that he hadn’t and swore under your breath in disgust. Fucking animal. You quickly peed, rinsed out your mouth with water from the sink, then turned on the shower. You only had a t-shirt to take off, revolted that it was all you had worn during the night. You hung it on the towel rail. 

You kept the water lukewarm, too sensitive for cold and too feverish for hot. An array of cheap mini soaps and shampoos lined the tiny in-built caddy, and you were not frugal in using them. Used almost the entire bottle of body wash to lather every crevice of your body, washing away the sweat of panic and ignominious lust that mired your skin. Shampooed and conditioned your hair with products that smelt like pine and citrus with an undercurrent of battery acid. 

The water was cleansing, a pleasant distraction, and you shut your eyes as you rinsed off your face, rubbing the grease off your skin. 

You rubbed your eyes before you opened them — immediately spotted a silhouette outside the shower, and a blood-curdling scream erupted from your chest as you sprung from the ground. Almost slipped over when you landed on the PVC floor, but you managed to catch yourself with your hands on the glass.

“What the fuck!” You shrieked, heart galloping so rapidly you worried it would break a rib. 

He was blurry through the spray of water landing on the shower walls, but you could see him lumber towards the shower door. You shrunk into the corner when he cracked it open, back firm against the square tiles as if you could slip through the fractures in the grout. 

He stepped into the shower as if he hadn’t noticed you there, leviathan that he was, his body took up two thirds of the space in the narrow glass box. Boxers were gone, his cock hung heavy and unashamedly, and your stare caught on it like a fish on a hook. Fucking bludgeon of a thing; it swung as though prideful, thick from root to head, roped with veins and sheathed in rosy foreskin. Half-hard, it jutted out from his bed of wheaten curls at a forty-five degree angle, and it bounced as he took a step. 

You looked at it for too long, breath caught in your gullet, and he noticed. 

“Settle down,” he taunted, hardly a croak, morning voice abraded and gurgling from his throat. He shut the shower door behind him. 

You had a plethora of disputes to mount — get the fuck out, how dare you, you didn’t even knock — but they all fizzled at the back of your throat, when he hauled you out of the corner by the hips, swivelling you around until your nose was flush with the shower wall. Kept you there with a hand cuffed around the back of your neck, wet hair knotting in his fingers. 

“You can’t—”

“Prettier than I thought,” he murmured to himself, a rough hand smoothing from your hip to your ass, brazenly taking a handful and squeezing hard enough to make you chirp.

“Get off—”

You choked on the rest of your dispute when he packed his hand between your legs, the gap tight where you held your thighs together — he gave no warning when he snaked his finger between your folds, nudging for an entrance. 

It happened so fast you couldn’t catch a breath — he found it quickly when your hole twitched at the intrusion, and you yelped in shock when he unhesitantly pushed it inside you to the knuckle, palm flush with the base of you. 

“Lovely little cunt.” 

And despite every effort to maintain some dignity, every bulwark you had attempted to erect against succumbing to your baser appetites, came toppling down in the quake of his words. Scruples sloughed off from you like the shed of a snake, and whatever slithered free was as shameless as she was hungry. 

“Mh, still nice and warm after last night, in’t she,” he crooned, flexing his finger to push it deeper before raking it out. 

He was priming you, evident in how he stretched you open around his thick finger, pumping it in and out of you as though assessing how deep he could go. You pressed your forehead against the cold tile, toes curling into the plastic shower floor, whimpering like a wounded animal.

You felt like one, when he tried to push a second finger in — he had to wriggle it to wedge it in, bully it deeper before your hole could stretch to fit it. It stung where the fragile skin pulled taut, but it was a delicious pain, like the burn of liquor or the sting of pulled hair. 

“Christ, that’s tight,” he grunted into the shell of your ear, and a chill prickled down the side of your neck. 

He ran out of patience, you supposed, because he slid his fingers out of you and your cunt spasmed in protest of its emptiness. He had spun you around then, handling your body like a ragdoll, moving you right where he wanted you — had his hands under your ass in a blink, and he deftly hoisted you upward, back grinding against the tile wall. 

You hooked your legs around his hips on instinct, arms slung over his shoulders when he put them there, his face level with yours. Water ran in rivulets down his face, dripping from his hairline and off his chin. Pupils distended and black as tar, beady as a shark, and glaring into the depths of them made your tongue even wetter. 

His titanic arms held you up without exertion, and one released your thigh to scoop underneath you — held his cock upright in a fist, and with no pause he lodged the clubbed head of his cock against your opening. He pushed in with his full weight, reaming you open on the girth of it, and your eyes glassed over. 

The noises you made were animal, mewling and gasping, coughing when he landed against the spongy plug of your womb, cock as hard as a gun barrel and just about as threatening. 

“Fu-hu-huck,” he chuffed into your cheek, voice oozing ardent satisfaction, vibrating directly into your skull. “Tha’s heaven.” 

It tracked that he was a talker, given how chatty he was for the duration of the drive — but you liked it. God, you liked it. Mortifying, yet liberating to admit to yourself, that you wanted to hear him talk; you wanted to hear him tell you how lovely, how pretty, how perfect you were. 

“All sweet now, aren’t ya?” He purred, bouncing you upward as he rutted hard. “Just what she needed, mh?”

You almost said it aloud — yes crept along your tongue and prickled at the tip, but you weren’t quite ready to let loose the confession. It escaped instead as a moan, head rocking back and knocking against the tile, and he let out a low chuckle, because you said it in all but words. 

“Yeah,” he grunted, panting, pelvis grinding against yours as he pistoned into you, somehow deeper every thrust. “Fuckin’ knew it. Barmy for it the second I walked in, weren’t ya?” 

He grabbed your face by the jaw, angling your head to look directly at him, the squeeze of his fingers forcing your lips to pucker. His cheeks were ruddy, blood fresh and hot under his skin, eyes rabid with hunger and pride. They scoured every feature on your face and you melted beneath their attention. 

“Gorgeous girl, aren’t you?” 

He rutted with purpose, chasing his own end with no mind paid to your squeaks of sore rapture, grunting as his cock reeled out and stuffed you full again in steady rhythm. You could only burrow your fingernails into the meat of his back, carving into his wet skin as if holding on for dear life. 

“Just fuckin’ perfect,” he grunted, a tirade that persisted through every thrust, 

“Sweetest thing I ever stole.” 

“Who needs fuckin’ money, eh?” 

“Hit the jackpot with you, din’t I?” 

“Might just keep you forever.” 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t ya, sweetheart?” 

Perhaps your brain had been knocked against your skull one too many times, turned soggy and stupid in the heat, because you whimpered; “Y-yeah.” 

His brows shot up at that, shocked — but that surprise quickly gave way to a lavish conceit, a vicious smile that oozed pride for having conquered your inhibitions without even having to try. You’d have been embarrassed if you had the capacity for it anymore, but all shame had been bled from you. 

“Yeah?” He goaded, grin wide and jaw loose, panting through his teeth. “Want me to steal you away, eh?” 

You nodded as much as he would allow you to, and his lips planted on your chin as though tempted to bite you. 

“I can do that, love,” he crooned, “I can take y’where no one will ever find ya. Keep you all for m’self.” 

You whined when he only fucked you harder, tender skin of your back chafing against the grout with every jolt. Seemed he was approaching the summit of his own pleasure — huffing like a bull, thrusting with anger, not nearly as chatty as he had been for the rest of it. 

“Agh, shit—” he groaned, mouth landing on your shoulder, teeth catching your skin. “Fuckin’ hell—”

He hastily reached underneath you to unsheathe his cock from your hole, leaving your cunt bitterly empty and convulsing in its sudden vacuity — his entire body jerked against you as he came, you felt his cock jolt beneath the cleft of you as it spurted ropes come against the tiled wall he held you to. 

His climactic groans were music, to you, little lecher that you were. Some foul part of you was remorseful he hadn’t come inside you instead, hadn’t carelessly pumped you full of it — not a drop of rationality left within you, evidently. 

You didn’t expect him to kiss you, but he did; planted a slovenly kiss on the side of your neck, pillowy lips wet with saliva and the water of the still-running shower. 

He released you, then — didn’t quite drop you, lowered you as gracefully as he could before letting you land on your feet with a thud. Gave you a pet on the head as though to praise you, a prideful kiss into your scalp. 

He shut off the water with a shove of the chipping lever, and the showerhead continued to leak fat drops of water despite it being shut off. He pushed opened the shower door for you, and you slipped out, sodden feet landing on the bathmat. 

There were scant words exchanged as you handed him one of the towels, using the other to dry yourself off. You couldn’t help but watch him as he rubbed himself down with the teal-blue cotton, polishing his head like a bowling ball, flossing under his arms, unabashedly rubbing the towel under his balls to dry between his legs. Something in his nonchalance, unapologetically going about it all as if it were normal, was endearing to you. Made your hackles soften, if they were still at all raised. 

You put your t-shirt back on, wishing you had a change of clothes, and ventured back into the bedroom — the air was still thick with the dusty warmth of the heater, and ripe with the musk of both of the worked up bodies that had spent the night in it. 

“Get dressed,” came a demand from behind you, followed by a coaxing pat on your bare arse. “Need to hit the road.” 

You looked over your shoulder at him, watching as he pulled on his boxers, tucking his cock away and snapping the elastic waistband around his hips. You picked up your knickers from where they had landed on the carpet the night before, shimmying up your legs. 

Couldn’t yet believe what you were girding yourself for. What you had already accepted as the next step you would take. 

You caught his eye, a pout in your lips; 

“Can we get breakfast first?” 

i've got a pinterest board for this one. the vibes have been stewing for a long while

[robinstome]

Jerry Seinfeld says that you could never do Seinfeld today but one time when I was really high I fell asleep and dreamed a new episode where Jerry came out of the closet as a trans woman and Elaine wanted to be supportive so she gifted Jerry a dress that she didn't really like but when Jerry wore the dress out she got tons of compliments and Elaine gets super pissed about it because she never got any compliments when she wore it but couldn't say anything because she didn't want anyone to call her a fake ally.

[thekinslayed]

Edge of Desire

summary | Your efforts in the marital bed stayed fruitless after many moons married to your uncle, and Aemond wants to change that. (based on these requests.)

pairing | aemond targaryen x niece!reader

tags | 18+, MINORS DNI! unprotected sex, oral (f), lovemaking, morning sex, medieval conception practices, awkward pining, enemies to lovers kinda, cockwarming

song rec | Edge of Desire - John Mayer

wordcount | 5.5k

note | something softer with aemond this time around :)

(special chapter -> Show Me Your World)

likes, comments, reblogs are much appreciated!

“Ow! My hair!”

“Stay still, woman.”

Aemond readjusted his weight above you, grumbling as he leaned on his elbows. He huffed out a hot breath of air, which fanned your face while you lay on your back. His length softened within your walls the longer you stayed connected, preventing any seed from leaking out per the maester’s orders.

It had been nearly a whole year since you proclaimed your vows to your uncle under the eyes of the Seven. Your hand had been offered as a gesture of good faith, arguably a desperate attempt between both sides of your family to mend the rift that has been growing for years. It had worked somewhat, but as the moons passed and your relationship with your husband refused to warm, there have been growing concerns on either side of your family. Your animosity towards each other was no secret, with the vile insults Aemond had thrown against you and your brothers regarding your questionable parentage throughout your youth, which ended of course, in the incident. You had no part during that horrific night in Driftmark, but you were not saved from the consequences of that night. 

Barely a moon after you had turned eight and ten, you sailed towards King’s Landing, to your fate. Your only comfort was the sight of your dear dragon flying above you, watching over you like a guardian. After you were draped by your lord husband with the dark, dragon-embroidered cloak, you made an agreement with each other. Aemond shall have his space, and you will have your own. You shall not bother him, and neither will he. However, you are expected to keep up appearances, at court, at the feasts, and even at the dinner table where queen Alicent pestered you both endlessly with any progress on your efforts in the marital bed. With the lingering friction still driving you apart from your husband, it was no surprise your womb still bore no fruit. He would call you to his chambers to perform your duties for one night each week, sometimes twice, for extra measures. Your efforts remained futile, for his seed never took and you remained childless many moons after your wedding. This growing concern has led to an intervention by the maesters, who recommended a myriad of methods that would aid in your conception.

You were to lay together every morning. Not at night, unless you wanted a girl.

The princess must clench her fist while her husband “did nature’s work”.

Your bed must face the east while you coupled, to ensure it is a boy.

The prince must remain inside the princess for an hour after he has finished to guarantee the seed is taken.

The last measure was absolutely dreadful. It was painful enough to have your womanhood assaulted by a man you rarely saw eye-to-eye with, but to stay there for an hour? Gods be good. 

Aemond let out another grunt in your ear when his left arm grew sore from carrying his weight, shifting to lean onto the other arm instead. You turned your head to look at the hourglass on the nightstand. There was still a good amount of time left, and you silently prayed that the sand passed through the glass faster so you may escape this awful predicament. Your tailbone was starting to grow numb from the lack of movement, causing you to subtly shift your hips upwards to relieve the pressure from your backside.

“Stop it,” your husband hissed, making you huff in annoyance. Aemond rolled out his shoulder to relieve the soreness from the joint, before shifting his weight to do the same to the other. His long, silver hair enclosed you like a curtain, soft and light like the touch of a feather. You would be tempted to feel it under your fingertips if only it wasn’t tickling your face, adding to your aggravation. You moved his hair away from your face, letting out another huff. “Stop acting like this inconveniences only you, wife, I would’ve been much happier spending my mornings down in the training yard. My arms are getting too fucking tired,” Aemond grumbled.

You could feel his muscles start to tremble from the exertion of holding his weight up, unwilling to touch your skin by even a hair. You bit back a snarky response, starting to feel bad for him.

“Can’t we switch positions? Perhaps I could be on top,” you recommended, to which your husband only responded with a grunt.

“No, the maesters said we must stay this way. Any other way would make the seed fall rather than stay in. I do not want to do this any longer than we have to.” 

You snickered at his words, turning your head away to subtly roll your eyes. Despite your irritation, his subtle quivering was making you feel sorry for him. You bit your lip as you thought about what to do. 

“Here, why don’t you…” You placed a hand on his back, urging him to lay against you. Aemond had started to refuse, but you insisted, assuring him he wouldn’t crush you under his weight. With a sigh, your husband relaxed above you, finally letting his arms rest. He laid his head right beside yours, and with only a small turn you could smell the remnants of smoke in his starlit hair, coupled with the rosemary oil rubbed into his tresses every night. His lips ghosted over your shoulder; the skin exposed from when your nightgown had shifted askew. His warmth engulfed you like a warm blanket, his weight surprisingly comfortable. It was quite nice actually, despite your reluctance to admit the fact.

“Is this better?” you asked, your tone simmering down into a softer tone. Aemond hummed in response, turning his head to the side. His lips were now positioned right under your ear, and his every breath fanned the side of your face like a warm breeze on a summer’s day.

“Quite. Though this whole ‘laying for an hour’ nonsense is still quite dreadful, in my opinion,” he muttered. His voice buzzed directly into your ear, pulling a strange twinge in your chest when he did so. You trained your gaze on the embroidery on the roof of the canopy, studying the two dragons seemingly entwined against each other. It was almost like you and Aemond, funny enough.

“It is easy for you to say when men often find the act more enjoyable,” you commented almost bitterly. Aemond was silent momentarily upon your words, before seemingly snuggling even closer to you, though you assumed he was only trying to make himself comfortable.

“Is it so horrible?” your lord husband asked, a subtle hint of concern in his words that you barely caught. You turned to look at the hourglass again. Still quite a bit to go.

“Well, it hurts, more than anything.”

Another silence passed. Aemond’s mind ran a league in a minute at your words, reflecting on the pain he unknowingly inflicted upon you on the times you did your duty. As much as he harbored no love for your family, especially your bastard brothers, you were still his wife. His mother had instilled in him since he was a boy that any woman he would take as his wife should always be treated with respect, for she was an image of the Mother. Granted, Alicent was surely not picturing Rhaenyra’s only daughter beside her favored son upon the altar of the Sept when the day came, but the sentiment still extended to you all the same. 

Aemond shifted his weight back to his hands as he lifted himself once more, so he may look upon your face. It was then he granted himself to really get a good look at you. He may be half-blind, but Aemond knew you were beautiful, there was no denying it. His good eye studied your features, noting the absence of the crease between your eyebrows whenever you were displeased, which was most of the time you spent by his side.

“I have no wish to hurt you,” he whispered.

“I know, ‘tis alright. I am tougher than I look,” you replied softly, your lips turning into a downward smile. Before you could stop yourself, your hands moved to tuck a stray strand of silver behind his ear on instinct. You looked into the purple of his good eye, the other covered by a patch of leather. “Besides, Daemon always used to say men have it much worse on the battlefield, for there is far less mercy when facing your enemies than your own wife,” you added to which Aemond only scoffed in response, shaking his head. Your chest rumbled with a laugh at his reaction, especially after his lips pursed into his signature feline-like pout.

Of course, Daemon would think that way, Aemond thought. His uncle was hardly the image of chivalry for any married couple across Westeros, and it was rather gauche of him to be bestowing any words of wisdom to his stepdaughter about the matters of matrimony. 

All of a sudden, there was an odd feeling in his chest when your eyes seemed brighter than they had even before when you looked at him. He’d seen that light before, when you looked at your brothers, his half-sister, even at Helaena, but never him. You had such beautiful eyes, ones he could swim in their depths forever. Aemond faltered, unsure of what to do with this newfound flutter in his otherwise stone heart. He opted to lower himself to your warmth once more, burying his head into the junction where your neck and shoulder met. The scent of your flesh was naturally sweet, making him subtly press his nose into your skin.

“I am not your enemy,” he said, with a rather unfamiliar softness. He felt your hand come up to rest on his back, resting on the space in between his clothed shoulder blades. A small smile lifted the corners of your lips, one hidden from his view. You turned to look at the hourglass, which had already emptied. You made no move to tell Aemond to get up, but instead, you pressed the side of your face against his own, breathing in the scent of his hair.

“I know, husband.”

Walking through the halls of Maegor’s Holdfast, Aemond thought back to all the depraved remarks Aegon would make him listen to about his experiences in the Streets of Silk— how the whores would touch him, and how he would touch them, making them mewl and sigh in delight. He knew not whether they were doing it only for show, but perhaps in some way his brother might have learned a thing or two in the many years he frequented the stinking streets of Flea Bottom just for a taste of flesh. 

Despite better judgment, his feet led him to his brother’s door. His fist had raised to rap against the old wood, but then he faltered. Though seeking Aegon’s insight would surely be far less embarrassing than continuing to follow through with whatever the maesters have him and his wife doing in the marital bed, the endless jests and amusement the elder shall find in the matter would definitely haunt him for a long time. Your husband did not wish to humiliate you any further, not when the matter has already involved too many people. With a hair’s breadth between his fist and Aegon’s door, Aemond sighed, dropping his hand and turning on his heel to walk away.

He and his brother have had their fair share of women who have warmed their beds, Aegon more so than himself, but they have only ever fucked. It was for their pleasure, to quench the fire in their cocks. It wasn’t tender or sweet, or gods forbid… loving.  He knew he couldn’t treat his wife the same way he did a whore if he wanted your partnership to prosper; he couldn’t treat you this way.

He thought about asking his mother, though letting her know of your problems in bed, even more than what she already knew, would probably do them more harm than good. Perhaps Cole? No, that wouldn’t be a good option. Matters of the flesh are a touchy subject for Aemond’s mentor and father figure, perhaps even more so when the blood of the woman who shunned him is involved. 

It had always been like this for him. A plethora of questions would boggle his young, curious mind, yet there was no one to indulge him. It had hurt him, of course, but he had learned that some things would have to be acquired by his own volition. This is how he had become such a prolific scholar, had come to claim Vhagar, and proven himself a man worthy of praise.

A laughter through the halls snapped him out of his exasperating worries. The glimmery shrill of youth, unmistakenly that of his sister’s babes, beckoned him like a beacon towards the nursery. There he found little Jaehaerys riding his wooden pony, mimicking a horse’s bray as he rocked back and forth. Helaena watched on in amusement, little Maelor clutched in her elbow. And then there was you, tickling his niece’s belly on the floor, a joyous laughter of your own adding to the symphony. You bent to pepper kisses into the crook of Jaehaera’s neck, making the girl squeal and kick her legs in delight.

You were so good with the babes, this Aemond couldn’t deny. You would offer to help Helaena watch over them on most days when she would grow weary and Aegon was away on the council. As much as your husband would try to look the other way, he couldn’t miss the way you looked at them with fondness, how you would press your nose into the youngest’s hair to smell that sweet, milky scent of his skin. Perhaps he would like to see you with a babe of your own. Yours and his, he wondered what they would be like.

“Oh, Aemond, come!” Helaena exclaimed, beckoning him over. It was then he realized he had been standing in the doorway like a fool, and so the prince stepped into the nursery. Jaehaera, after having spotted his approach, jumped to her feet in excitement. Aemond greeted her with a fond smile and a pat on the head, kneeling to her height. You moved your skirts to let your husband settle by your side, your knees slightly pressed against each other.

His eyepatch had been knocked askew when the young princess had gleefully embraced her uncle, and you had quickly righted it in its place. Your touch was light on his scarred cheek, a foreign featherlike caress that sent a slight shiver down his spine.

“Thank you, wife,” Aemond whispered, turning to you. There it was again, that little look on your face. You regarded him with a budding warmth he hadn’t quite known, a smile that rounded out the apples of your cheeks, though he figured it was one you directed to the little girl in his arms. He returned his gaze to Jaehaera, who had handed him a dragon toy to play with, willing himself to pay little mind to your lingering gaze burning the side of his cheek.

You couldn’t quite recall when your affections towards Aemond had started to change, all you knew was your heart didn’t hold the same twinge of displeasure in his presence, nor did you dread having to keep up appearances in court. There were some instances where you even sought him out, had peeked out the Keep’s yard to watch him train some mornings, all without his knowledge of course. Your coupling was still as unpleasant as ever, but you had grown to not mind the feeling of his weight on yours once the hourglass had been turned to start the hour, the pair of you descending into a comfortable silence most times. Going through the motions had gotten easier by the day, a well-practiced dance between the two of you.

You would wake with the sun’s rise, and then make your way to your husband’s chambers. He would be already awake, always, awaiting your arrival. The bed would be quite warm from his heat, thanks to his dragon blood, and it was a pleasant comfort to have. Once the deed was done, you were off to your separate duties for the day. It was routine at this point; therefore, it was quite odd when you were summoned to your husband’s chambers late into the night.

“It is nighttime,” you said when you entered as if it wasn’t quite obvious from the darkness that enveloped his apartments. Your husband was clad in his cotton tunic and breeches, sipping on a glass of wine.

“I know,” Aemond replied, turning to you. He could chuckle at the look of confusion on your face, with your furrowed brows that creased the skin between them, if it weren’t for the odd nerves swarming in his belly.

“Was there something you need?” you asked, accepting the cup of red that was handed to you.

“No, well… perhaps,” he muttered. You gulped your wine, a droplet spilling over the corner of your lips. Before you could act, Aemond’s thumb darted out to wipe away the tear of red that was on its way to run down your chin. You stopped yourself from jerking away, though you couldn’t deny your perplexion. “I just… I figured we could try something.”

“Try what?” you asked again. He was acting odd, with the way he was looking at anywhere but you, a contrast to his usual sharp form. This was starting to grow concerning; gods, he’s not about to kill you, is he?

“Do you trust me?” Aemond asked. He had gotten closer to you, quite close enough that you could feel the warm waft of his breath on your cheeks. His large, calloused palm cupped your jaw, warming up your cheeks. You stared up at him, wide-eyed, nodding your head meekly.

You trusted him, you really did, in an inexplicable, convoluted way. The past would tell you not to, but your time as his wife had shifted your connection into something intimate. Away from the endless troubles within your kin, all the terrible infighting with burning words and stares sharp as knives, you and Aemond found little trouble with each other, especially with the arrangements you agreed upon. After you had said your vows in the great Sept, you spent your first moons as the one-eyed prince’s wife with a guarded vigilance. You blocked the entrance to Maegor’s tunnels with your vanity, had given the first bite of your food to the rats in search of poison, and had even slept with a dagger underneath your pillow in case your uncle came to you in your sleep. There was none of that. Granted, the Hightowers weren’t the warmest, most welcoming bunch, but they treated you well— some of them, at least.

You weren’t sure where you stood with Aemond. You didn’t hate him, not anymore at least, and you would like to believe he wasn’t coming for your head anymore. The pair of you were… fine. You figured this was a comfortable position to be in, and you dared not utter the wish in your heart of hearts, in fear of rejection. The budding light in your chest as he looked at you now, in the dim glow of his chambers, made known what had been growing over the days you spent in his presence. It couldn’t be helped.

And now, as you stood toe to toe with him, your face cupped in his palm, you knew the balance was about to tip over; for better or for worse, however, you didn’t know.

Your breath came out as a shudder as his face descended upon yours, the time moving all too slow in your perception. Your hands tightened into fists in anticipation, your pulse thrumming in your ears so thunderously you could only hope he didn’t feel it. Just as his lips were a mere hair's breadth away from yours, Aemond stopped, sensing the rigid tension in your spine. With a sigh, he leaned his forehead against yours.

 “Aemond, w-what has gotten into you?” you whispered, cautious to not break the solemn air in the room. Your hands came up to rest on his biceps, squeezing at them in question. He was silent for a moment, his eye closed in thought. You waited, patiently.

“I want to make you feel good,” your husband finally uttered in a whisper. You sputtered half words in shock. He did not need to do that, you expected little as a woman and were doing your duty in bed just fine. Why would he willingly want to do so? By the gods… why did he want to?

His thumb caressed your cheek ever so softly, pressing on the supple plumpness under the pad of his finger. He had leaned away, not too far, just enough to gauge your reaction.

Your throat felt dry, and you longed for the cup of wine you had set aside. Your mind ran a league in a minute, the proposition he was offering was one many women would kill their spouses for. Truthfully, you didn’t know what making you “feel good” would entail, your lack of knowledge and experience from your sheltered upbringing limiting your mind on the art of the ways of the flesh.

“Will you let me?” he asked.

You could say no and he would dismiss you, and the night would be over. You would pore on what could’ve been if you had said yes, and you would never know what would have transpired. You could say yes, and this whole thing would be a disaster, an embarrassment if it ended in proving how incompatible you truly were. Or… you would enjoy it, you both would.

You nodded your head again, still untrusting of your own words. Aemond walked you backward to the bed, urging you to lay back once the back of your knees hit the frame.

As his deft hands lifted your nightgown to your hips, you fisted the sheets tight in your hands in angst. You watched him as he watched you, or your womanhood, rather. Your husband’s tongue ran over his bottom lip, his good eye twinkling under the subtle warmth of the dimness in his chambers.  

You felt open… exposed. The urge to cross your legs shut threatened to overwhelm you, but his hands caressing the meat of your thighs prevented you from doing so. He descended upon you, planting a trail of kisses down the inside of your thigh. Gooseflesh rose all over your skin, and you gasped when he came close to your flower, making you grip his shoulder to stop him.

“Aemond…” you breathed out.

“Let me do this for you,” he whispered, taking your wrist to direct his kisses there. “Have faith in me.”

You retracted your hand from his firm shoulder, leaning your weight on your elbow to watch him. His breath was hot against your slit, making you involuntarily clench. He started with light kisses on your mound, then little licks against your slit. His good eye flickered to gauge your reaction, where you had started to bite your lip. Two fingers split your folds open, baring all of you to his hungry gaze. His tongue delved deeper into your slit, penetrating you.

“Oh,” you exhaled, tilting your head back. With a surge of confidence, your husband began to devour you in earnest, licking and sucking. Sweet sounds, ones unheard of before, had started to spill from your lips, and what a delightful song it was.

A finger soon replaced his tongue, entering your gummy walls as though it were his cock. It thrust in and out of you the same way, and when he bent to feel up a rough patch within your walls, your toes clenched as a jolt ran up your spine.

“Good?” Aemond asked, to which you could only respond with a nod and a whine.

His lips found your pearl, and then another finger had joined the other. The prince soon found a rhythm, one that had you writhing and moaning unabashedly. What an odd sensation it was, yet utterly delicious as it was depraved.

The pressure in your stomach built in a steady rise. It sparked your muscles to twitch in Aemond’s hold, growing spasmodic as you were hurled closer to your precipice. You came with a whine, your head thrown back into the feather mattress as your husband guided you to your end.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” you asked, breathless. Black spots danced around your vision of him, swarming around the otherworldly sight of his flushed, glimmering lips and the loose silver strands that framed his face. It quirked into a small smirk as he regarded you, his arms caging you in between his hold. His hair draped around you like a curtain, the wispy ends tickling your nipples through the cotton of your dress.

“I am quite diligent in seeking the knowledge I might find useful, dear wife, and it seems they have proven to be so,” Aemond responded. You dared not ask what he meant, unwilling to learn who he had sucked and licked the way he did you to be so proficient in the act, how he had learned to poke all the right places to earn such lewd sounds from you. You merely hummed, tracing the line of his jaw in a trance.

His deft fingers had grabbed a hold of the straps of your nightgown, pulling them down to bare you fully. You let him, willingly so, encouraged by the look in his good eye that promised you more. His good eye was glued onto your breasts immediately before his warm, calloused hands took them into his hold. They fit perfectly in his palms, much to both of your delight. You bit your lip as he squeezed them, massaging the supple flesh and rubbing on your sensitive bud. Aemond could do this for hours, and if it weren’t for the throbbing in between his thighs, he would’ve done so.

His cotton tunic soon followed, then his breeches, and as he stood before you, cock stood stiff in attention, you get a good look at him. He was utterly handsome like this, bare and unguarded. You beckoned him closer, pulling on the strip that held half of his hair up. Soft fingertips trailed his jaw, his scar, before circling the leather patch that masked his left eye.

“Can I?” you whispered, looking into his good eye as he studied you. Aemond paused for a moment, almost faltering. The warmth of your thighs caged onto the sides of his waist was a welcome comfort, luring him closer to wanting to nestle in your ever-loving heat.

“Tis not a good sight to gaze upon,” he mumbled. You had cupped his jaw when he started to look away, keeping him close with a small smile.

“You are my husband. I wish to have you, all of you, as you will have me.”

A promise. An agreement.

A solemn echo of your vows upon the altar.

I am his and he is mine from this day, until the end of my days.

He had pulled the patch off from the clasp on the back of his head. The sparkle of the sapphire had stunned you in awe, and as you cupped his jaw, the look of wonder on your face and the lift in your lips couldn’t be helped.

“It is beautiful, husband,” you said, beaming up at him. “You are beautiful.”

He had huffed in amusement, planting a kiss on your cheek before mumbling into your skin, “I should be telling you that.”

His stiff length was hot and heavy as it sat against your hip, a reminder of the fire that still coursed through your veins. Aemond pulled away, the look in his eye taking a warmer, softer tinge as did yours. The smile on your lips had melted away to something sincere, hopeful. With a nod, you watched him take hold of his shaft, lining it upon your entrance. His breach was much smoother this time, no stabbing pain that made you scrunch your face, all thanks to his efforts in preparing you. It was rather delightful, a delicious stretch that made you bite your lip as he grunted above you. He would have asked you about the pain, but the deep kiss you had pulled him in to let him know there was little of it.

Aemond’s hips took on a steady pace, rocking into you gently and slowly. It was nothing lewd or animalistic, but rather sensual, intimate. You had never felt closer to him the way you did now, your connection transcending that of something physical. Your husband’s face was buried into the crook of your neck, his grunts and moans traveling straight into your auricle. You fared no better, your mewls echoing into the quiet of the room. Aemond had taken hold of your fisted hand, the godsdamned instructions from the maester taking on memory in your muscles, and he had pried them open. His larger, rougher fingers intertwined with yours, holding onto you for dear life as he took you deeper, and deeper, poking a spot within your womb that made you shiver in delight.

“Aemond,” you breathed out. His aquiline nose pressed into the side of your face, breathing into the sweet scent of your dampening flesh.

“Say it again… say my name again.” His voice was growing raspier by the second, but his tone was ever so soft with you, only you. His lips closed around one of your nipples, sucking on the stiff bud in a way that made you moan.

“Aemond, oh, Aemond! My lord husband,” you whined, holding onto the planes of his back as his pace hastened. His pubic bone rubbed on your pearl, sending shoots of fiery pleasure up your spine. Your grip on him was tight, almost numbing, but he relished in it. He wanted to feel you everywhere, kiss on every ounce of flesh he could, you were his after all.

“My wife, my dearest darling. Will you come for me again? Spill around my cock, hm?” You nodded fervently at his dirty whisper, wanting nothing else to do exactly as he asked. His forehead was prickled with salty sweat when he had pressed it against yours, his lips barely an inch away from yours. The silver-haired prince’s breath mingled with yours, and you had chased him when his tongue darted to lick a swipe across your bottom lip. Your release washed over you the moment he kissed you again, your moans swallowed by his hungry mouth. His length drove into you still, chasing his own release, and your spasming walls massaged him to guide him to his end. Aemond pulled away to look at where you were connected, committing the sight of his cock, painted with a white ring around its base, disappearing into your sweet cunny. His pace grew rhythmless as his hips began to sputter. He was close, evident from the way his eyebrows scrunched together. With a hand on your breast, the other on your jaw, your husband came with an open-mouthed groan, spilling his hot seed into your womb.

Aemond had moved to collapse by your side, but you had pulled him close to your chest, letting him lay on you with his softening length still nestled in your walls.

“Stay.”

You lay there together in silence, breathless, boneless. His hand rubbed on your waist, as did yours on his muscled back, comfortable in the silence you were in.

“I am sorry,” your husband had whispered, before shifting to lean on his elbow to look at you. “For…”

He need not say everything, or anything at all. You knew what he meant. That was all too long ago, almost a lifetime that scarcely felt yours. It was different now between you and him. The world could descend into flames and tear itself inside out, but you and Aemond would not lose each other.

You nodded, tucking a loose strand of silver behind his ear. “I am sorry too, deeply so.”

Slumber had found you while you were wrapped in your husband’s embrace, the heat emanating from his bare body pressed against yours a comforting blanket. In the morn, he had taken you again, slipping into your welcoming walls as you both stayed laid on your side. Aemond had left Cole a waiting fool in the courtyard while he missed his training, a curious deviation from his otherwise strict routine.

You were both learning how addicting this could be, though it seemed neither of you wanted to complain. You could hardly separate from your husband’s hold to dress to break your fast, and the pleasant glow on both your faces at the dining table with the rest of the family was a dead giveaway of the progression in your relationship. With the frequency of how much you latched onto each other every moment you found yourselves alone, it came as no surprise that by the end of the moon, the realm celebrated the growing babe in your womb.

A life forged by your own hand. Yours and his.

[tacticalprincess]

bouncing on nerd!könig’s cock while he gushes about how pretty you are, his rambling dipping in and out of german because your pussy has fried his brain so much he’s practically incoherent. glasses all foggy, not knowing which part of you to hold onto because he’s so overwhelmed so he ends up groping every bit of skin he can reach, inexperienced hands mapping out all the dips and curves of your body with rough squeezes. he doesn’t let go of you even after he cums, unintentionally overstimulating himself because you just feel so good wrapped around him, he doesn’t want it to end :( he even starts sloppily meeting your thrusts, trying to get his dick deeper than your cunt has room for, too pussydrunk to worry about breaking you.

you decide to put him out of his misery by giving his mouth something to do that isn’t make a fool out of himself, shoving his face into your chest. it only makes his moans and whimpers louder as he sucks your sensitive nipples so hard you almost start to think he’s expecting milk :(

[koolades-world]

being sick sucked. the only good part about being sick in the devildom was not being able to infect anyone other than solomon, and the extended breaks you got after you came down with something.

one of the many privileges you were given was full control the the tv in the living room. you'd been sick a couple times while in the devildom at this point, so the brothers had already had their major freakouts over minor things. you were in the ideal stage of being sick right now: the brothers were still unsure enough to know if you were exaggerating your symptoms (to get what you wanted, of course!) but sure enough to know you're not about to keel over and die.

it was a saturday, and everyone was home. you didn't go to rad the past few days because you came down with something solomon had contracted while off in the depths of the devildom. nobody really knew what it was, but the most notable symptom was that your sweat now sparkled. it was only a little alarming to lucifer and barbatos, but since they couldn't figure out what the hell solomon had given you, they deemed rest to be the most appropriate solution. however, to you, this was the only sign you needed to put on the twilight saga.

at first, only asmo seemed interested in actually watching it with you. he'd somehow never seen it, so you quickly put it on. asmo was bundled in one of the many blankets that surrounded you at all times, while you sat in the middle of the nest, sweating- half because you were constantly overheating, and half because you were watching twilight.

mammon passed by the living room several times while completing tasks around the house, and made comments about the movie every single time. it was "this movie is stupid" and "yer seriously still watchin' this?" at first. then, it morphed into him lingering just behind the couch you were seated on, holding something he was in the middle of polishing. when you'd turn back to look at him, he'd pretend he wasn't paying attention whatsoever. when you finally invited him to join after catching him staring for the fifth time, and patted the seat besides you, he objected quickly, claiming "ya can keep yer vampire slop."

he returned in five minutes.

when beel got home from his workout, he tried to join you right away. asmo made him go take a shower first, which you felt hypocritical agreeing with. your oddly sparkly sweat stained whatever fabric it came into contact with. once the sweat evaporated, the sparkles were the only thing left behind.

once jasper came onto screen, mammon made a comment about his stare reminded him of lucifer's. you and asmo burst out laughing harder than you'd laughed in a long time. unfortunately for mammon, lucifer happened to be walking by at that very moment. you managed to talk lucifer out of punishing mammon when you claimed he was helping you out as your emotional support demon. sweating sparkles for an unknown reason was stressful work, after all.

satan walked by with a thick book, and promptly paused once he saw what you were watching. he'd read, and loved the books. he shoved mammon aside to sit next to you, so the two of you could excitedly chatter about the movie and book differences.

once the part where edward sparkled in the middle of the forest came on screen, you dramatically reenacted it in the middle of your living room, while getting beel to hold a flashlight over your head. you had the entire living room doubled over laughing, making the exertion worth it. the only one sensible to ask you to sit back down was lucifer, who had decided to watch the movie by standing at the back of the room, and denying that he even was. and upon seeing the baseball scene, all the brothers present (minus lucifer) wanted to do that immediately.

oh boy, what had you started?

[littlemissmentallyunstable]

title: fix you

pairing: aaron warner x (first person) reader

synopsis: aaron returns from a meeting with his father, but something is off… (prior to the ignite me tattoo btw)

warnings: mentions of abuse, a bit suggestive at the end ;)

a/n: first aaron warner fic ever… thanks for reading 🤍🤍

tag list: @wish-i-were-heather @midiosaamor @sweetlikeanangel @maybxlle @whatsamongus @elysianwayy77 @bewitchingkisses @emelia07 @inmyheaddd @sweetreveriee @azysmate @anintellectualintellectual @off-to-the-r4ces

I hear someone stumble in and immediately panic seizes my chest. Aaron Warner doesn’t stumble, so logically it must be an intruder. But who the hell would’ve found a way into Aaron’s private quarters? I don’t care, I grab the gun from under the floor board and slowly approach the door. My heart bangs in my chest, crawling its way to my mouth. It’s so dark that I can barely see a thing. I hear a second step taken and I can tell by the way the weight is hitting the floor unevenly that it’s a shaky step. I take my chance and swiftly rush out, gun pointed towards the figure.

“You’re holding that all wrong, love,” says a dry voice.

“Aaron?” I ask, my voice catches in shock. I squint through the darkness in attempts to recognise him.

“Care to explain the gun?” he replies, eyebrows raised at my questionably aimed weapon.

“I thought you were an intruder,” I say, dropping my arms down to my side and playing the gun down.

“I am not,” Aaron tells me bluntly.

“Obviously,” I smile, attempting to touch his arm. But just as a go to clasp my hand around it, he moves.

Swiftly and almost silently, he walks past me. I feel his body brush against mine softly.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“I need to shower,” he replies.

There’s something off about him. He stumbled in, his voice is uneven, he wants to get away from me. Something happened and I have this horrible feeling that it was something horrible.

“Are you okay?” I say, trying to seem casual.

“Fine,” he replies. His tone is blunt but cut-throat. He can tell I’m fishing for what’s really wrong and he’s making it clear he doesn’t want to talk. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong girl if he wants me to shut up and move on.

“Did it go okay?” I continue.

“It went how it usually did,” he tells me, his voice low.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. I knew who his dad was and how he was treated, I knew the traumatic stories of his childhood and the bad memories that would haunt him at night, I knew I wanted to kill the man who’d given them to him. But one thing I never knew was anything to do with the meetings held with his dad.

“You know my father, love. He isn’t a pleasant man and nor are his meetings,” he says plainly, “now I’m going to wash.”

He walks towards the bathroom, flicking the light on. The brightness is fluorescent and artificial. I begin to follow him and then I see it. I stop in my tracks. Reams of crimson ribbon decorate the back of his white shirt, jagged lines of the deepest blood red. The fabric has soaked in the liquid and it’s splayed out all across the white. My stomach turns.

“Aaron…” I say, my voice barely a whisper.

“Please, love,” he sighs, running a hand through his perfect hair, “I need to shower.”

“He hurt you,” I murmured, “again?”

He freezes suddenly, realising he’s bled through his white shirt. He’s too exposed to hide it from me this time. He can’t brush it under the carpet when the stains are on the surface. He lifts his head up, back still towards me.

“Don’t,” he says harshly, his voice so low it sounds dangerous.

I don’t say a word as he walks into the bathroom, but my legs can’t help but follow even though my brain is telling them it might be a better idea to not. I step inside quietly and I can feel his body tense.

“Aaron-“

“I said don’t,” he repeats, the bitterness in his tone making me flinch.

Something that resembles anger flickers in my chest. An amber flame of fury.

“Sit down,” I say, my voice firm and unwavering.

He stills, staring down. I don’t say a word and neither does he. In the silence, the air grows heavy and thick, weighted with unspoken words. I don’t know how long we stand like this until slowly he sits down on the lid of the toilet. I wait a few beats, then slowly crouch down, level with his knees and his eyes shooting straight to the floor.

“He hurt you again, didn’t he?” I ask for the second time.

He’s silent.

“Please Aaron,” I beg, “you can’t keep doing this.”

The desperation in my tone makes his heart ache, but still he doesn’t look at me as he says, “he’s hurt me my entire life, love, today he was no different.”

“Show me,” I murmured.

“I don’t want you to see this,” he grits through his teeth, still refusing to meet my eyes.

“I don’t care,” I say, “you can’t keep shutting me out.”

“I can and I will,” he replied curtly, turning away.

“Warner,” I snap, in an attempt to get his attention.

He looks up sharply. His green eyes flicker with some sort of hurt. I never called him Warner, he was my Aaron. Warner was for everyone else, but Aaron was for me.

“Let me help you,” I say firmly, “you need to let me in like I let you in, this goes two ways.”

He stares at me saying nothing for a while. I wonder when he’s going to get up and walk out. Maybe leave completely. Forever. That thought scares me the most. Aaron shuts down when he can’t share his problems. He shuts down and shuts me out.

I am surprised when he slowly takes his shirt off, revealing his battered back. I bite back a gasp and conceal the shock and horror from being displayed on my face. Amongst the jagged scars that ripple across his back, the ones I already knew of, the ones I had once traced, there were fresh wounds. Long, distorted shapes are looping across him, oozing fresh hot blood. Great purple bruises splayed out of the sides of each lash mark, creating some sort of sick and twisted abstract art piece.

He must be in so much pain.

“It’s a shame really,” he murmurs, “I quite liked that shirt.”

I pull myself together, “you have a dozen others like it.”

“I liked that one,” he replies quietly.

“I like you without a shirt better anyways,” I grin at him.

“Well,” he says cracking a half smile, “I suppose I can spare it then.”

“I suppose you can.”

I grab a wash cloth from the cabinet above and soak it with warm water. Gently, I dab his new lashings, trying to wash them. The deep red bleeds through the white of the cloth, spreading through it, like a river of hate. With each stroke I see his face contort.

“Does this hurt?” I ask tenderly.

“I’m fine,” he replies, his voice hard.

“You’re wincing,” I say flatly.

He glares at me. It’s hot.

“I’m fine,” he states.

I drop it and continue to clean. When I am satisfied that I’ve done the best I can, I return to the cabinet and pull out antiseptic and bandages.

“Not antiseptic,” Aaron grumbles.

“Don’t be a baby,” I retort with a laugh, cutting the bandages to the right size.

“I’m not!” he says, a bit too defensively.

“I’m not letting those wounds get infected Aaron, I’m using antiseptic,” I tell him, unable to suppress my smile.

He rolls his eyes and reluctantly lets me press antiseptic into each open gash. He hisses each time, refusing to cry out so I attempt to be as quick and efficient as I can.

When I am finished, I move on the bandages. I stand in front of him and work around. Gently, I wrap the bandage over his back and torso. His hands suddenly clasp my waist, his grip is firm. I bite back a gasp. His hands are so hot I can feel them through my clothes, though in this moment I wish I didn’t have the barrier of clothes.

I try to ignore the distraction he knows he’s making. Softly and methodically I continue to bandage his back and once I make the final wrap I lean down and press my lips on his. He kisses back eagerly, pulling me onto his lap. I wrap my thighs around his hips and continue to plant tender kisses all over his mouth. I’m dizzied by the sensations of passion. We pull away finally when neither of us can think straight and his eyes lock with mine, the delicate green tainted with something I couldn’t quite place my finger on.

“How do you feel?” I ask, brushing a strand of blonde that had fallen, out of the way.

“After that,” he murmurs with a grin, “on top of the world.”

“Your back,” I deadpan.

“I don’t care about my back,” he groans, “kiss me again.”

“Aaron,” I say, my tone accusing.

“Please, love,” he begs, closing his eyes, “I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms here.”

“Aaron,” I laugh.

“Just one kiss, it won’t hurt,” he says quietly, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. His touch so airy I almost don’t feel it.

“I’m not kissing you until you answer me,” I reply.

“You like to make my life difficult don’t you?” he sighs.

“Ditto,” I poke my tongue out.

“It’s much better now you’ve worked your magic,” he answers my question, gazing at me.

There’s a long pause, but it feels like our eyes carry on the conversation. But every time I look into those emerald voids, I feel his pain. And it makes me see red.

“He shouldn’t do this to you,” I murmur, anger lacing my tone.

“I know,” he replies.

“I hate it,” I practically growl, my face all screwed up at the thought of someone hurting Aaron. My Aaron. I hadn’t had time to get angry earlier, I’d been too worried about the wounds. Now they were clean and dressed, I have the opportunity.

“I know,” he says again.

“I want to stop it,” I tell him, then falter, “but I don’t know how.”

“I’ve been trying to work that out for a while, love,” he says, nuzzling into my collarbone.

“Just,” I pause and sigh, “please let me help you, you don’t have to hide for everyone you know.”

“It’s what I know how to do,” he murmurs, looking up, “opening up is the opposite of how I was trained to be.”

“But you’ll try?” I ask hopefully.

“I’ll do anything for you, love,” he smiles, tucking my hair behind my ear.

I smile, my cheeks glowing a soft pink.

“I love you,” he whispers with another kiss.

“I love you too,” I giggle, melting into him.

He cups my face in his hands and kisses me slowly, tenderly. The motion is long and drawn out, each millisecond testing my self control. Desperation claws at me, all I want to do is kiss him harder and faster but I stay patient. My hands find their way to the back of his neck and comfortably into his hair.

“Let’s go to bed,” he says against my lips.

“You don’t sleep until three o’clock in the morning,” I scoff.

He turns and looks at me, a twinkle in his eye and a smirk placed comfortably on his lips, “who says we’re sleeping?”

a/n: this is my first aaron warner fic and cut me some slack bc I have not read shatter me in months, I really should do another reread… but hopefully I captured the characters okay. But tbh after reading it back I kind of hate it, it feels rushed and weird but yolo so I’m posting it anyways!!

and I know what you’re thinking ‘bella you promised us the mysterious blonde part 4’… I know it is being written, it’s just really long and I want it to be perfect so there are a few little fics in between

shatter me masterlist

[linkedin-offficial]

chimera vivi batch of stuff #1million

[bellabean24]

A/N: First time writing a SMAU or text messages for a character and reader so hope it’s good 😛

✩Boxer!Ryomen Sukuna x Reporter!Fem!Reader

✩Tags:SFW, flirty Sukuna

✩Boxer!Ryomen Sukuna M.List | Jujutsu Kaisen M.List

Sukuna the whole time he was texting you

Taglist: @emoedgylord @sukubusss @satowuuu

©Bella2025

[laughingoutcast]

Edward: Bella I’m dangerous for you, I could kill you instan-

Bella: oh my god EDWARD. So can literally anything else. Jessica almost killed herself the other day because she mixed Clorox and Fabuloso together in her windowless bathroom. You’re not special.

[andreafmn]

Requite | Chapter 1

Word Count: 3.9k

Summary: When everything seems to fall into place in Forks, Washington, a string of mysterious deaths call the attention of both vampires and werewolves in town. As the redheaded vampire returns with her mind set on revenge, (Y/N) and Bella Swan find themselves in the center of danger once again. With secrets still lingering between them about their past best friend, they will find themselves stuck in a whirlwind of love, betrayal, and the hardest choices they’ll have to make. But one thing is certain: no one will go a day without a taste for vengeance. 

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Calm in a town like Forks was a mirage. Or, at times, it was simply a distraction. While the supernatural walked amongst the land, there would never be calm and tranquility. Their existence was enough to shift the balance of the universe, and it would always find a way to rectify itself. Even just a couple of days could send the small town down a whirlwind, regardless of who got caught in the middle of the current.  

(Y/N) Swan didn't know that yet. At that moment, she thought she had faced her worst battle yet. She had survived a vampire attack; she had saved her sister from drowning in the ocean, and she had even endured an abusive relationship. There couldn't be anything else thrown her way that could be worse.  

Or so she thought. But of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty.  

Finals were approaching, and (Y/N) had never wanted to go back to homeschooling more than at that moment. For the better part of a year, she had been able to focus on her schoolwork at her own pace. In school, she had to submit to her teacher's pace. If she had it her way, she would have already been done with her year's curriculum. Instead, she was buried up to her nose in her and Bella's books.  

“So, dad gave me another letter from Jacob,” Bella muttered as she closed her history book, seemingly over the topic. “Seems he really wants to talk. Although it seems he's not sure about what.”  

Bella passed the piece of paper to her sister, her eyes searching for any answers on (Y/N)'s face. But the younger Swan remained stoic as she perused the letter. Jacob had started over seven times, angrily scratching over every sentence until he left a vague plea to see the older Swan and explain everything that had gone down behind her back. In between strikes, he said he felt like a schoolboy asking Charlie to hand over notes. He asked her to pick up the phone. He begged her to talk to him before he talked to her own sister. Most of all, he asked her not to choose Edward. 

Every letter for the past few weeks had been the same. Angry and desperate requests to see Bella before (Y/N) told her the truth of what he had done. Every letter was accompanied by a frenzied call, his voice always distressed and anguished over the receiver and always picked up by Charlie. And every time, he received the same answer. Bella didn't want to speak to him, and (Y/N) had not said anything.  

The younger girl wasn't sure why she was protecting him. Jacob had done atrocious things deliberately. He had manipulated, belittled, and dismissed her for months. He had quite literally left her for dead when she had faced a murderous vampire. He had used her feelings for him to get closer to her sister. Jake had chewed her up and spat her out when he had been done with her. And yet, she couldn't bring herself to turn her family against him—much to Paul's dismay.  

(Y/N) had made Paul promise he would not tell anyone what Jacob had done. Not when Bella cornered him at night when he snuck in, not when her father tried to coax it out of him when he joined them for Saturday breakfasts or Sunday dinners, and definitely not when he had asked her to his senior prom in front of both Swans.  

“When are you gonna tell me what happened?” Bella asked as (Y/N) folded the note back up. “Don't you think I should know if I'm ever gonna talk to him again?”  

“There's not really much to say,” the younger girl shrugged as she closed the books in front of her. “I won't stop you from being his friend, Bella. Whatever happened between us happened—it's not gonna change no matter how much we talk about it.”  

“What if I just ask him about it?” her sister offered. “Will you be fine with that?” 

“You can do whatever you want, Bells,” she said. “But believe me when I say he’s not gonna tell you anything.” 

“Don't you think I should know his true character if I'm gonna associate myself with him?” her sister pushed, exasperated. “(Y/N), the things I know he did are bad, but I need to know the whole truth if I'm ever gonna start to think to forgive him.”  

Before she could answer or even give herself time to make up her mind, her attention turned to a peculiar smell in the air. The sisters exchanged a questioning gaze before leaving their books on Bella’s bed and following the scent all the way to the kitchen. There, Charlie was fanning smoke coming from the stove, the open window blowing the cloud back inside rather than helping to keep it out of the house. The smell of wood and pine mixed with the smoke in the kitchen created a choking and uncomfortable environment.  

“What are you doing, dad?” Bella exclaimed as she opened the microwave only seconds before a catastrophe while (Y/N)turned off the burner their father had neglected. “Trynna burn down the house?” 

“Oh! Girls!” he exclaimed as he finally noticed their presence. “I, uh, I was trying to make dinner.”  

“You put a jar of sauce in the microwave,” the older daughter sighed. “With the lid on. Yeah, metal and microwaves don't really mix well.” 

“Did I at least get the pasta right?” Charlie questioned expectantly. “It's just boiling water.”  

“Well, yeah, but you should stir it too,” (Y/N) chuckled. “And maybe add enough water for the noodles inside. That usually helps the pasta not stick to the pot and burn.”  

“I'll take that into consideration for next time.”  

Bella and (Y/N) exchanged a worried look, knowing their father would not have been caught dead in the kitchen had he not had something to say. It was written on his face—something was clouding his mind. His brow was furrowed, his shoulders were tense, and there was concern plastered across his features. Charlie had something to say, and he was trying to let it go down with a plate of burnt spaghetti.  

(Y/N) was the first one to talk, curious about her father's behavior. “What's going on, dad?” she inquired as she tried to clear out the burnt sludge in the pot. “Why the sudden need to cook us a meal?”  

“It's not illegal for me to make a meal,” he argued. “Especially not in my own house.”  

The sisters exchanged the same look once more, unsure what it could be that he was hiding. He was avoiding their gaze, focusing on the last bits of smoke that disappeared into the rainy day. 

 “You would know, huh?” Bella teased, staring at the badge shining on his jacket.  

“Yeah,” he chuckled dryly. “Good one.”  

Charlie was quiet after that, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it on the rack that had housed his gun sling for the better part of the week. Ever since the pack didn't have to investigate the odd slaughtered hitchhiker, no one had reported sightings of the massive, mysterious wolves. Of course, the man didn't know that, but he was glad the semblance of calm had returned to the small town.  

Silence rained in the Swan household as Charlie sat at the table with the newspaper and Bella worked on cleaning the rest of the pasta pot. (Y/N) couldn’t handle the tension, feeling herself drowning in the unease of the room. There were too many unspoken words between the three of them, and there didn’t seem to be a confession coming from any of them.  

“Well, why don’t I run out to the diner and get us some food?” (Y/N) offered. “Dad, thank you for trying to make us some dinner, but I would like to eat something tonight—something edible.”   

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said, clearing his throat. “Is, uh, is your, uh, boy, uh, friend, uh, your friend Paul coming over tonight?”   

“During stipulated visiting hours,” she chuckled, “yeah.”  

“Alright, get him something too, then,” her father instructed before moving his gaze back to the paper in his hands. "Take some money from my wallet. It's in the inside pocket of the jacket.”  

“Cool. I'll be back soon.”  

“I'll call ahead, so the order is almost done when you get there,” Bella announced. “Make sure they pack my order of onion rings.”  

"Will do,” (Y/N) said, slipping on her jacket and pulling up the hood. “Be right back.” 

She pulled her phone out as she made her way to her van, clicking on the number three on her speed dial. But before the line could ring more than once, arms wrapped around her, and she was lifted off the ground. An undeniable warmth engulfed her, and she couldn't help the laugh that left her throat. “Paul,” she shrieked joyfully as he spun her around. “You're early.”  

“And you're on your way to get some food,” the boy smiled brightly as he turned her to face him. “I'll go with you.” 

“How could I say no to such a tempting offer?” (Y/N) smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck before giving him a small kiss. “And you should be wearing a jacket in this weather. I know you don't need it, but others don't know that.”  

“Well, I would have worn the hoodie I left in the van, but it seems like it has a new owner.”  

“I told you, whatever's left in the car is mine,” she grinned. “Not my fault you can't keep track of your belongings.”  

“Let's just go get the food before your dad starts to wonder what's taking so long,” he chuckled. “I think I'm finally winning him over.”  

 (Y/N) laughed as they got into the vehicle. She had started getting used to Paul appearing out of nowhere, filling her quiet and empty moments with his laughter and wild occurrences. He had become a welcome constant in her life, and she couldn't remember a time when he wasn't in it. “I don't think dad will ever warm up again to the idea of another guy dating one of his daughters,” she teased. “But if anyone has a chance, it would definitely be you.”  

“Thank you for the vote of confidence. And here I was thinking I had a leg up on everyone.” 

“Hey, he's getting you food,” (Y/N) laughed. “He likes you enough. At least he likes you more than Jacob. Even Bella sorta likes you.”  

“I take it you still haven't told them what happened,” Paul asked, taking her hand in his and giving it a comforting squeeze. “At least your sister should know what that idiot really did to you to cut him out from her life completely.”  

“And what good would that do?” the girl sighed. “It won't change what happened, nor would it serve her to lose one of the only people she can call a friend.” 

“Do you really think he's the kind of friend Bella should have? Should she really keep someone that would have let her sister die by her side?”  

“Can we not talk about him?” (Y/N) argued, turning the van into the diner parking lot. “I don't want to waste my time on him anymore—not now and definitely not later.”  

“(Y/N)...”  

“No more talk about him, Paul,” she said firmly as she killed the engine and turned to face him. “If you mention him again, there will be consequences. Starting with locking my window at night.”  

"You drive a hard bargain,” Paul replied while cradling her chin in his hand. “And it seems I don't have another choice but to agree.”  

With a chaste kiss, they left the van, walking hand-in-hand into The Lodge like they had done it a million times before. It was easy for everything to feel natural with Paul. Being with him made her heart feel at peace. And after all she had been through in the short time she had resided in Forks, she more than welcomed it. In hindsight, (Y/N) knew she had played a hand in all the hardship that had befallen her. She ignored how she felt about Paul; she pushed him away over trivial miscommunications, and she had stayed with Jacob for far longer than she ever should have.  

“Is this gonna become a weekly thing, huh?” Cora, the waitress who always took their order, said with a smile. “What is this now three weeks in a row that you two have come in?”  

“Something like that,” (Y/N) chuckled. “This time is because dad tried to cook dinner. And well, that never goes down as well as it should.”  

“What'd he burn this time?”  

“Spaghetti,” the girl smiled. “And he tried to microwave a jar of sauce with the lid on.”  

“Charlie should really just stick to the police work,” the woman laughed. “And you came in just in time. Steak with cobbler; a double medium-well Lodge burger with extra bacon and onions and cheesy fries; a single bacon cheeseburger with cheese and bacon friends; and a veggie burger—which has surprisingly become a best-seller since we put it on the menu last year—with onion rings. I threw in a couple of slices of apple pie slices in there for you guys. On the house.” 

“Thank you, Cora. But could I trouble you with replacing two of the slices with some chocolate cream pie?” Paul asked, sporting his award-winning smile. “As good as it is, (Y/N) here is allergic to apples, and I wouldn't want her to miss out on dessert.”  

“Oh my goodness, sweetheart. I completely forgot!” Cora exclaimed as she scrambled to the pie display. “Tell you what, you keep those extra slices, and I'll give you three of the chocolate. And I'm gonna leave a note right here so no one forgets.”  

“You don't have to do all that, Cora,” (Y/N) said. “It was an honest mistake.”  

“Nonsense, (Y/N),” she smiled. “I'm happy to do it. And between you and me, I like the chocolate one better. Your boy here has really good taste.”  

“That he does,” the younger Swan replied as she felt heat flush to her face. She paid for the food, handing Paul the bags as she put away the change, ignoring the teasing stare the waitress was sending her way. “Thanks for everything, Cora. I’ll see you next week.”  

“See you, sweetie,” she called back. “Say hi to your dad and your sister for me.”  

“Will do!”  

(Y/N) felt stupid with how much she was smiling. Paul had remembered her apple allergy, he held doors open for her, he remembered her favorite pie. They were bare minimum standards, but she couldn’t help the joy that overtook her when he did them. Paul knew her in the most simplistic of senses, and she couldn't believe she had stopped herself from feeling that way.  

“You remembered my apple allergy,” she smiled, bumping his shoulder as they walked back to the van. “Thank you.”  

“I should be able to remember the fact that my girlfriend's throat could close if she eats apples,” Paul chuckled. “It's not a fact I should gloss over.”  

The girl stopped in her tracks at his words, realization sinking in. “What was that?”  

“What?”  

“What you just said.”  

“That I should know apples could possibly kill my girlfriend?” he chuckled again, unsure what he had said wrong. “What about it?”  

“You called me your girlfriend, Paul,” (Y/N) stated. “You've never called me your girlfriend before.”  

“Oh, uh, well, you know, I didn't... we haven't had the talk but... you know,” he stammered awkwardly, his skin growing red as he scrambled for the right words. “Is it okay that I call you my girlfriend?”  

(Y/N) smiled before standing on her tiptoes to place a kiss on Paul's lips. “It is more than okay,” she beamed. “I like the sound of it. Especially when it's said by my boyfriend.”  

“That does sound good, huh?” Paul circled his free arm around her shoulders before kissing the top of her head. “Now, let's get this food to your house before your dad thinks I've kidnapped you.”  

Like mere minutes before, Paul and (Y/N) were back in her van, the smell of diner food filling the cabin, and heading back to the house. Just the month before, the youngest Swan could never have thought she would be where she was. With Jacob, she couldn't see farther than a couple of weeks down the road—not that it mattered in the end. There were so many parts of her that had become overwhelmed with the darkness of their relationship, lost in the endless void that came with being close to Jake.  

None of that mattered now, though. Happiness had found itself back in her life, and it seemed to start infecting the rest of the Swans. Charlie and Bella cheered when the couple arrived with the food, making space on the table for the bags. The older Swan girl placed the food on plates as Paul and (Y/N) served drinks for the table. Peering into the windows of the house, no one would have guessed all the pain that had led to that moment.  

By the time they had reached the desserts, Bella had picked up her discarded Wuthering Heights book while Paul and (Y/N) whispered amongst themselves. It was a rather normal scene for a less-than-normal family.  

“So, um,” Charlie cleared his throat as he wiped his mouth, “I did have a reason for cooking dinner for you guys, as you may have guessed.”  

“Is that what that smell was?” Paul mumbled.  

Trying to stifle her laughter, (Y/N) placed a hand on his forearm and whispered, “Not right now, Paul.”  

“Anyway, it's regarding your grounding, Bella,” the man continued, focusing his gaze on his oldest daughter rather than the boy who’d seemed to invade his new family dinners. “I’m not very good at this whole grounding thing, and you are far too good a kid for being grounded. You haven't complained, you've come home at curfew, and that boy hasn't stepped foot in my house since he came back—which I much appreciate.”  

“You did say he couldn't come over,” Bella stated, a hint of a laugh hiding under her words. “But I don't want him over—not for now, at least.” 

“Well, good. I think it's about time you were up for some parole,” Charlie said, a tentative smile tugging at his lips. “I just hope you take this time to reconnect with your old friends and focus on something other than those Cullens.”  

Bella finally set down her book, saving her spot with a clean napkin. “I've been trying to do that, dad,” the girl admitted. “I know I haven’t been myself these last few months, and I broke your trust by leaving with Alice, but I do want you to know I’ve been trying to change.”  

“I know, Bells, and I've seen that,” he smiled. “That's why I think it's time you get some of your freedom back. As long as you're prudent with it.”  

“Right, no one wants a repeat of the past few months,” she laughed. “But I do appreciate you trusting me again, dad. I promise to do my hardest to make you proud, even if it takes forever.”  

“I'm already proud of you, Bells,” Charlie said. “I'm proud of both of you girls—no matter what. All I want is for you to be happy and fulfilled by whatever you want in life. Especially you, Bella. Now that you're about to enter a new stage in your life.”  

The man slipped an open envelope toward his oldest daughter while he tried his best to conceal the smile that threatened to stretch across his face. “You opened it,” Bella noted. “That's a felony, Sheriff.”  

“Couldn't help myself,” her father beamed as she pulled the papers out of the envelope. “Congratulations, kid.  This is just the first of many.” 

University of Alaska Southeast had been one of the only colleges Bella had personally applied to. Unlike some of the schools (Y/N) and Charlie had sent applications to using some of her old essays, she knew she could get in. And it did help that Juneau was overcast most days of the year, given she didn't know just how long she had before she had to face the inevitable. Regardless of what Edward had told her, there was no way to know when the Volturi would come to make sure their word had been made law.  

She received her sister's congratulatory hug and Paul's words, unsure how else to respond. The girl knew she should have been happier—it was her future after all. But she couldn't help the dread that filled her as she thought about giving it up. There wouldn't be any human experiences she would be able to live through—emphasis on the human. Once she was turned into an immortal monster, that's all she would know.  

“What about you, Paul?” Charlie asked, clearing his throat and breaking his oldest daughter out of deep thought. “What're your plans after school, kid?”  

“Uh, well,” the boy stammered, straightening his posture. (Y/N) stifled a laugh as she shared a knowing look with Bella. Their father loved interrogating anyone who stepped foot in his house, and it was Paul's turn to get a grilling. “I was, um, accepted at Western. I'm still undecided, but I'm thinking of getting a degree in Manufacturing Engineering. Still, I'll have to defer for a year.” 

“Why's that?”  

“Financial aid only covers so much, and I don't really want to get loans,” he explained. “The counselor at school said I could accept Western's offer and defer for a year while I worked with my dad to save up some money. That way, I'll have something to tide me over my freshman year.”  

Paul squeezed (Y/N)'s hand under the table and fought back a smile when squeezed back, mentally repeating the script he had practiced the night before with the youngest Swan. If there was one thing she knew, it was that her father was predictable.  

“Well, it seems you've got a good plan there,” Charlie said, sounding almost impressed. “That's good. So, engineering, huh?”  

The boy droned on about what he liked about the degree when Bella's phone chirped twice with a text message. Invested in their conversation, Charlie and Paul did not notice the frown that pulled the corners of the girl's mouth, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips. (Y/N) noticed, though, and she pointed toward the living room. The two sisters left the conversation about college and hoped they were just out of hearing distance for privacy.  

“Is everything okay?” (Y/N) questioned. “Who texted?”  

Bella handed her younger sister her phone, allowing her a moment to read. “Edward sent a picture of today's newspaper,” she said. “Apparently, the deaths that have been happening in Seattle that have dad grouchy are newborn vampires running rampant.”  

“And Jacob wants to talk,” (Y/N) added, feeling a knot forming in her throat. “He's really persistent, huh?’  

“(Y/N), you need to tell me what happened between you two.”  

“God, it's not gonna change anything,” the girl groaned. “Why can't everyone just let it go?”  

“Fine, I'll drop it,” Bella said. “I'll just go over to La Push and get his version.”  

Next ->

A/N: teased y'all for long enough with that little prologue, but strap in. This book is gonna be one hell of a ride 🤭 If you used to be tagged in Speak and would like to be tagged in Requite, you will need to fill out the form below. Once Tumblr stops allowing the tag list, I will be closing it. If you’d like to be tagged: click hereMake sure you have my notifications on so you know every time I post!

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[bitterrfruit]

iron tide [1]

fisherman price x reader cw: noncon undressing/bathing, dubcon touching. 11k words. 18+ mdni the crew aboard a deep-sea crabbing vessel rescue a woman adrift in the north sea. you wake up on a boat surrounded by men you don't know, with no memory of where you came from. or: john price rescues you from certain death and decides that you belong to him [masterlist]

Jonathan had long forsaken his godliness; but if he were to deify anything, it would be the Sea. 

Great big blue, infinitely vast and infinitely deep. She was sweet when she was still, gentle, little ebbs like kisses against the barnacled hull — formidable when she was angry, titanic swells like mountains that crashed and shattered and sucked irreverent men down into the depths of her. 

She took as much as she gave, demanded sacrifices for her gifts. Stole his father when he was a boy, swept off the deck of his ship by a rancorous wave and cast out into the expanse before she inevitably swallowed him. But what she purloined she returned in abundance — a cornucopia of life; fish, lobsters, molluscs — and enough crabs for John to make his living for the better part of his life once he retired from the Navy. 

In more recent years, though, he had begun to lose faith in her, too. 

The seas were violent and only getting rougher, warmer when they needed to be cold to let the crabs get meatier, colder when they needed to be warm so they could replenish their numbers. 

A burgeoning resentment had rooted in his crew like a spreading cancer, minute at first but steadily swelling — every year they were paid a little less and damaged a little more, and who else was there to blame but their skipper? 

Wrong spot, wrong depth, wrong time of year; he seemed to keep getting it wrong, despite decades and decades of seafare. As though the Sea was punishing him, as though he had taken too much — only a matter of time before it was his turn to give. 

She made known her spite as he leaned over the paint-chipped railing of the deck-facing balcony, watching his crew haul in pot after pot from the raging ocean. Each cage more vacant than the last, the crabs smaller than he had come to expect from the once generous North Sea, soft brown shells where they should have been thick, ochre red, and thorny. Half of them too small to keep, so were begrudgingly tossed back into the deep.

The sun had set not ten minutes prior, hidden by black cloud and dense fog, the sea and sky smudged into a uniform shade of gloaming blue. The waves were tempestuous, whitecaps high and valleys low — the Iron Tide was a resilient girl, and she carved through the bulk of the swells, but even she could not avoid the plummets and climbs of an ocean this rough. He felt the mist of the cracking waves on his cheeks, the wind blistering cold and forcing him to squint. 

As the Captain he had outgrown the need to get his hands dirty, he could stay in the comfort of the wheelhouse if he wished — but he still liked to venture down to the deck to pull ropes and haul pots when he could, if only to show his crew how it was properly done. He liked to ensure his callouses stayed thick and his mettle hadn’t turned soft. 

“This’s a fucken’ suicide set, captain!” Roared Johnny from the deck, work-worn voice barely audible over the bellows of the waves on the hull. Lead deckhand with the attitude of a first mate. 

The first mate himself, Simon, had begun ascending the rusty steel stairs with an uncharacteristic urgency, the hood of his fluorescent orange jacket around his shoulders, kept there by the wind. 

“How many ‘ve we got?” John asked him, jaundiced, having to shout over the gale. 

“Thirty-two,” Simon said rigidly, “from twenty pots.” 

“Fuck’s sake,” John grunted, aggravated, smacking the rail with his palm. He cynically observed the next pot as it was hauled up, even emptier than the last one, and he made up his mind. “Alright, set ‘em back.”

“They’ve been soaking for twenty-four hours,” Simon disputed, but the pith of his irritation resided in the knowledge of how much labour had already been wasted. It was an inexorable fact, though — there was little point in retrieving them now, as empty as they were. 

“It’s a waste of time to haul them all,” John barked. “What have we got, seventy to go? Set them back.” 

Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb, exasperated. “Alright.” 

He echoed the Captain’s command in a roar down the stairs, deckhands looking up to listen before they obeyed — John watched, disenchanted, as they began launching the string of pots over the side of the deck one by one, throwing loops of yellow nylon rope and the bright red marker buoys out to follow them. 

It was easy for John to fall into a sour mood, and after the abysmal stew Nikolai had thrown together for their supper, his fuse was cut even shorter. Seemed the Russian mechanic’s turn to cook always landed on the harshest nights, left everyone crotchety and indolent. 

He needed nicotine. 

He made his way back to the helm with a crease in his brow and his jaw in knots. The bolted windows spanning the length of the bridge were near impossible to see through, the battering of sea spray distorting the view of the dark ocean that extended unendingly past the bow. He glared out into the abyss for a beat, stoically watching the black waves, wondering what next the Sea would punish him with. 

A blink of red pierced through the mist. 

He almost ignored it, at first, rubbing his forehead as he twisted his spinning chair behind the helm — until it was there, again; a pin-prick of bright carmine, cutting through the blue sea fog and disappearing behind a wave. 

Frowning as he leaned into the radar screen, his eyes scoured over the bright blue disk and immediately caught on a tiny yellow blip. Due north, twenty degrees west. It was faint, flickering every odd moment, and he stared at it vigilantly — a spot he would normally dismiss as sea clutter, if not for the blinking light he thought he saw on the horizon. 

He reeled down the window by the seat and stuck his head out into the winds, squinting through the spray — at the top of a crest shone the little red light, blinking at half-second intervals, clear as day. 

The realisation rinsed him colder than seawater. 

A lifeboat. 

He snatched the intercom radio from its hook by the wheel and held it to his lips. 

“All hands—” He barked, “Secure the deck. Got a lifeboat up ahead. Prepare for rescue.” 

Simon’s crackling voice quickly came back through the radio, from the call point on the deck. “D’you say a lifeboat?” 

“That’s what I said.” 

“Roger.” 

John could hear the yelling on deck from the wheelhouse, all that fervour frothing up at the prospect of an emergency; a new challenge. He immediately spun the wheel to adjust the rudder, steering the boat in the direction of the blip on the radar. Gently pushed the throttle to catch up and felt the roaring engine quake through the boat, the sharp bow of his ship cut through the swells like a fist through a wall. 

“See it,” Simon called through the intercom. 

“What’ve we got?” 

“Life raft.” 

He tugged the throttle lever back to halt the boat on approach, aligning the vessel so that the lifeboat was portside, knuckles white on the wheel. He set the engine to hold station before marching out to the deck, bracing for the wind as he hurried across the steel balcony and down the ladder, knurled steel stairs clanging loudly with every thud of his boots. 

“Any survivors onboard?” John shouted, joining his crew where they peered over the railing, as another wave cascaded over the gunwale, greenwater flooding the deck before gushing out of the scuppers. 

There it was, neon orange and climbing up a steep swell. Hardly a lifeboat — an inflatable raft, little red light blinking atop a rounded corner. From the deck he could tell it was ancient, the bright skin of the raft peeling and blistering, exposing the ballooning black rubber within that kept it afloat. Modern regulations demanded modern lifeboats — fully enclosed boats with their own motors, search and rescue transponders equipped. He struggled to imagine the kind of vessel the raft had even come from; certainly not a cruise ship, or any legally operating fishing or passenger boat. 

“Only one,” Alex answered, yelling over the roar of the ocean. 

Nik let out a grunt, dismissing it all with a sweep of his hand. “That woman is dead.” 

John squinted at the raft, and quickly determined that Nikolai wasn’t unreasonable for thinking so.

The woman aboard the raft lay face down in the orange bed, bare-footed, nothing on but a saturated ivory dress that clung to her skin like glue. Sodden hair webbed across her back, tresses floating in the inch of water that filled the basin of the boat. 

Even if she were a corpse already, though, he wasn’t going to let the Sea digest her unchallenged. 

“Alright,” he declared, chewing on his plan before he uttered it. “I’ll strap on the lifeline, jump in and grab her, then you lot can reel me back in.” 

The disputes were quick to gush from his crew, all cursing and shaking heads. 

“Get fucked,” Alex scoffed, appaled, “skipper jumping overboard? What world are you living in?”

“You gonna do it, then, Keller?” John retorted, lips in a line. 

“I can,” Soap yelled, already shucking off his heavy jacket. Daredevil that he was.

John gritted his teeth. Wasn’t sold on the risk of losing his lead deckhand; but as he considered it, he would never be prepared to risk losing any of them. 

“You sure?” 

“Ah’m the best swimmer,” he boasted through a grin, now down to his thermals, shoulders raised in the cold and rubbing his hands together. 

“Good man,” John nodded approvingly, and the crew quickly went to work strapping him in — hooked the harness over his shoulders and secured it in the front, fed the end of the long blue rope into the winch so he could be retrieved after the catch. 

Came the thudding of boots on the deck, running towards the commotion; “Fuck’s going on? Why’s the engine idle?”

Kyle, the ship’s engineer, finally emerging from the engine room with a smudge of gear oil on his cheek. Must have had his earbuds in when the Captain issued the all hands directive. 

John let out a huff, not prepared to give a long justification to the designated safety officer, conscientious as he was.

“Oh shit—” Gaz chirped, discovering on his own the gravity of the situation, as he glanced over the railing and spotted the raft. “Is she alive?”

“We’re about t’find out,” Soap said keenly, bouncing on the balls of his feet to warm himself up. 

“You’re jumping in?” Gaz balked, “That’s — you’re fuckin’ mental.”

John let out a sharp huff. He didn’t disagree, but he thought it counterproductive to express any reluctance. “Got a better idea, lad?” 

Gaz sighed anxiously as he clutched the guardrail, head hanging from his shoulders. He knew as well as John that this was the only option — it was that, or leave the woman adrift in the ocean to die, if she weren’t already. 

John held fast to his pragmatism, but his morals were unyielding. Nobody gets left behind. 

Men took turns giving Johnny good luck pats on the back as he climbed over the railing. He hung off the other side like a monkey with his fist around the bar, looking down into the furious ocean and taking an anticipatory breath. 

The crew watched raptly and let loose a strident cheer as he launched off, diving into the waves with knife-pointed arms and sinking out of sight. Nik remained steadfast by the hydraulic winch, ready to set it off at any indication of either success or failure. 

Soap reemerged from the water with a visible gasp ten-odd metres out, breaking through the white foam and powering ahead in a freestyle stroke. He reached the raft quickly, and climbed aboard like a wet dog, hauling himself up over the ballooning sides and almost pulling it under the water with him. He kneeled beside the woman once he was in, pulling her by the shoulder to assess her — he gave no indication to the crew as to her status before he hoisted her up and held her tight to his chest, arms hooked under hers so that she wore him like a backpack.

He pushed himself back into the water with an eager holler; “Got ‘er!”

Nik immediately pulled the lever on the winch and it zipped loudly as it began spinning, winding up the rope and hauling Johnny through the swelling sea. The crane arm of the davit extended far enough beyond the gunwale that he didn’t slam into the hull on his ascent, and he clung to the limp woman for dear life — John and his deckhands leaned as far over the railing as they could without toppling overboard, hooking the rope that suspended the swimmer and heaving he and his cargo onboard. 

Soap coughed out a splatter of seawater as he gingerly lay the woman on her back, before rolling over and wiping down his face, dripping wet.

“Found yerself a mermaid, cap,” he sputtered, sniffing and shivering violently as he pushed himself to stand. 

“Nicely fuckin’ done, Soap,” Alex lauded, smacking him on the back and earning a screech from the Scotsman. 

“‘S too cold,” he bit, grabbing at his genitals through his sodden thermals. “Ma fucken’ balls are gone.” 

“Go in and get dry,” the Captain barked, as he hurriedly crouched beside the woman, sweeping locks of drenched hair from where it stuck to her face. 

“Jesus,” Gaz muttered concernedly. 

Her skin was bitterly cold, but soft on her cheeks; some indication that resuscitation might have been possible, that her skin wasn’t as stiff and waxy as corpse skin would have been. Eyes were lightly shut, her thick lashes clumped together by seawater. He used a gentle thumb to lift up an eyelid, and her pupils were nice and black — blown out, but not clouded over. Laces of capillaries meshed through her white scleras. Blood still bright red.

“How’s she looking?” Alex asked, crouching beside John, pessimism in his throat. 

“She’s frigid,” John said grimly.

“Could be hypothermic,” Gaz said from behind him, worry leaden in every word. “That water is barely higher than zero.” 

“Mh,” John grunted in agreement, hastily pressing the palps of his fingers under her jaw into a spongy jugular, held there for a few seconds — no pulse. “We’ll worry about warmin’ her up once we get her breathing.” 

He leaned back and interlaced his fingers, laying his hands knuckles down between her breasts. Pushed his weight into her sternum with a hard shove and her ribs sunk underneath him, bouncing back up when he released the pressure. Repeat. Over, and over, grunting with each desperate compression.

The heaving bodies of five men caging her kept the bulk of the angry waves from dousing her, the spray crashed over John’s back and dripped from him, beads landing on her body. Solemn silence hung heavy between them, as though fearful that expressing any hope would condemn her to certain death. Simon clutched John’s shoulder, grip encouraging. 

He counted his compressions until he reached thirty, before he urgently keeled forward and pressed his mouth to her cold lips, pinching her nose and lifting her chin — pumped air from his lungs into hers with a forceful breath, then another, then another. Her chest rose as it filled up with his air, sunk again as he let it seep out from behind her teeth. 

Returned to compressions. Push. Push. Push. He pressed so hard into her sternum that her ribs threatened to snap under the weight of him, but they were rubbery enough to withstand it. 

Continued the next round until he reached twenty-one — when water began to rise up her throat, sloshing about in her open mouth and trickling out of its corners. He urgently halted his compressions to flip her onto her side and tip out the brine, hammering into the midline of her back with an open palm. 

“C’mon, love,” John growled, teeth gritting. “Cough it up for me.” 

As though she had heard him, a gurgle eked from her throat, torso retching as an eruption of water gushed out of her mouth and sprayed over the deck. A few weak coughs followed the first, and she shuddered — the men roared in shock and celebration as John returned her to her back. 

Her eyes fluttered open for less than a second, shrinking pupils fixed on John for a heartbeat — wet, glittering under the beaming of the deck lights, carving straight through him and taking root in the marrow of his skull. Vacant and yet swollen, the glow of life anew, as though glaring right into the heavens — and with a little sigh, they feathered shut again. 

He held a hand to her cheek, gave her head a soft shake; prepared to continue the chest compressions, but as he curled forward and held his ear to her lips, he felt her breathing, shaky and weak against the cartilage shell. 

“She breathin’?” Simon asked bluntly, laden with apprehension. 

“Yeah,” John huffed, relief potent as liquor flooded hot into his chest and made his temples throb. 

“Good shit, cap’n,” Alex commended, releasing a puff of pent air, just as relieved as the lot of them. 

John nodded dismissively, hands on his knees, before he pushed himself to stand. He stood over the girl and hoisted her up with his hands under her arms, before delicately draping her over his shoulder.

“Gaz, help me with her, will you?” He grunted, before marching toward the stairs up to the superstructure. “You three — fun’s over. Get back to setting the pots. I’ll send Soap back out once he’s in his dries.”

“Aye aye,” Alex said facetiously, shaking out his hands as he and the others returned to the stack they had just tied down. 

“What’s the plan?” Kyle asked stiffly, in quick pursuit as John steamed up the stairs. 

“Gotta get her warm,” John said. 

“Yeah—” he agreed with a hesitant tone, “what d’you want me for?”

John’s eyes rolled into his skull. “You did a couple years of health science, didn’t you?” 

“One year,” Kyle corrected. 

John could have said that he wanted Gaz specifically because he was the ship’s assigned safety officer, or because he was the only man aboard with a university degree. But, in truth, he wanted him simply for the fact he was the least likely of all of his crewmen to make stripping the girl into something needlessly lascivious. 

He carted her to the head in steady stride, passing Johnny through the narrow corridor as he dried himself off with a towel around his neck. 

“She’s alive?” He asked hopefully. 

“Uh-huh,” John rumbled. 

Soap triple-smacked the veneer panel of the wall with a flat hand in excitement, all but bouncing off the ceiling with it. “Halle-fucken’-lujah! Need help warmin’ her up?” 

“No. Get your skins on and head back out to deck, Johnny, y’got more pots to drop.” 

Johnny groaned like a teenager, but he went off as he was told.

The head was small — enough room for a toilet, a shower, and a three-inch wide sink, not quite the floorspace to lay her down gracefully. John tore back the curtain and propped her up against the wall of the shower, nestling her into the corner so her head leaned against the perpendicular wall. 

No sense in wasting time. He clinically peeled the sodden fabric of her white dress up her thighs, lifting her limp leg to tug the skirt out from under her. 

“Christ—” Gaz grumbled, disquieted, he turned away. 

“Will y’hold her arms up for me?” John monotonously requested, uninterested in the boy’s reservations. 

Gaz sighed as he obeyed the order, taking her cold hands by the wrists and holding them above her head. John hiked up her dress without reservation, revealing the saturated bra and underwear she wore underneath, as he lifted it her arms up above her head. 

“This’s fucked up,” Gaz mumbled. 

“What is.” 

“Taking her clothes off,” he said, reluctance poignant. 

“You’d rather we let her freeze to death, eh?” John bit, not even dignifying the engineer’s aversion by turning to look at him. 

He tugged her flaccid body towards him, and her head fell against his shoulder — he reached under her arm into the space between her back and the shower wall, unclasping her bra with a single hand. 

“No,” Kyle acquiesced. “Do we really need to take off her underwear, though?”

“She’s not gonna get warm in wet knickers, is she,” John grumbled, frustration blossoming, releasing it in a sharp sigh. “Y’need to grow up, Garrick. Go and grab my jersey and a towel from the laundry, then.”

“Okay. Sure, yeah,” he agreed, marching out of the head like he might trip over in his haste. 

John bit down on nothing as he pulled the straps of the girl’s bra down her arms, adding it to the pile atop her drenched dress. Didn’t help that she was a lovely thing — pudding-soft curves, pretty little face — might lend an explanation to the young engineer’s discomfort, couldn’t reconcile the attraction he felt to a near-dead woman while she was incognisant of her nudity. 

John did not care, he had no qualms. 

A pragmatist, through and through. He felt no shame for admiring her as he leaned her back against the laminate wall, nipples grey-purple and hard as pebbles by virtue of her palpable hypothermia. Soft lips were slack, not as blue as they had been when she was fished out of the ocean, now that her blood was pumping again. 

He wasted no time ogling her, though, he was no reprobate. His only priority was getting her warm and awake. And that happened to involve hooking his fingers into the waistband of her knickers, saturated in seawater and cleaving fast to her skin. 

He hooked an arm around her to lift her from the shower floor, used the other hand to tug her underwear over the swell of her bottom before he set her back down to reel them down her thighs. 

Pretty cunt, too. Unshaven, how he liked them. 

He reached up for the shower head, held it in a fist as he switched on the water. Already nice and warm, preheated by the engine-powered calorifiers. He held the stream of warm water over her chest, watching as it cascaded over her breasts and flooded between her thighs. Didn’t care if he got himself wet in so doing. Checked her pulse every odd moment with the pad of a finger on her wrist, ensured her chest continued to rise and fall. 

Rubbed his free hand over her skin to scrub off all the salt; started modestly with her arms, shoulders, back — but was unhesitant in rinsing and scrubbing her armpits, down her belly, between her legs. Didn’t touch her pussy, though, even John felt that was a step too far. He simply rinsed it. Let the water run over her mons and channel down the cleft of her unaided. 

He tilted her head back and ran the warm stream over her hairline, careful not to let too much water pour down her face. He combed thick fingers through the tresses, scrunching her hair into a ball to wring out the brine before rinsing it out again. 

As he carded his fingers through her scalp, though, he felt a lump; just above her hairline, concealed by the locks. A squishy protrusion from the skull, with a frayed ridge through the centre of it. Only then did he see the diluted blood in the water that puddled at the bottom of the shower, originating from the ends of her saturated hair. 

Add that to the list of ailments, he thought. Poor wee girl. They’d need to tend to that. 

Kyle finally returned with a cautious knock on the door, a single knuckle. 

“D’you fall overboard, Garrick?” John murmured — he had been gone far longer than it should have taken to find the items he requested. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t figure out which fleece was yours.” 

John said nothing. 

“She warming up yet?” Gaz asked tightly, likely not even looking in the direction of the shower, now that she was entirely nude. 

The girl’s skin was now plush and pink under the heat of the water, and felt warm to the touch under the back of John’s hand; so with a satisfied nod he shut off the water and hooked the showerhead back into its fastening. 

He reached backward with a gesturing hand, and Gaz handed him the crisp towel he had brought from the laundry without a word. 

“Looks like she got hit in the head,” John commented, as he draped the towel over the girl's front, rubbing her down to get her dry. Arms, shoulders, armpits, thighs, feet. He was thorough. 

“Shit,” Gaz said morosely, half-hearted. Soft young man, soft in a way John was almost envious of. Sometimes he wondered if he had grown too rough around the edges, too abrasive for his own good. “What the fuck happened to ‘er?” 

“Not a clue,” John said. “Nothing good.” 

“That life raft was — that was non-standard,” Gaz pondered aloud. 

“Thought the same thing,” John replied, as he scrunched her hair in the towel, twisting it up to wring out the water. He was careful with the top of her head — dabbing her scalp gently, leaving dark red smears in the blue fibres. 

“Ferry capsized, maybe?” 

“We would’ve heard about a ship capsizing nearby,” John said. “‘Specially a passenger vessel. They’d have blasted the distress call out in every direction.” 

“Mh,” Gaz agreed. 

“She had no shoes on,” John remarked, tone sombre. “No gear, no jacket.” 

“Running away from something?” asked Gaz, picking up what John might have been suggesting. 

“Maybe,” John said, before hanging the towel around her back and hauling her up from the floor with an arm around her ribs. 

He hung her floppy arms over his shoulder, kept her body tight to him, the towel just long enough to conceal her buttocks from Gaz, sensitive lad. He kept her up with a forearm under her rear, bounced her to adjust. She was impossibly easy to lift; John could have carried her one-handed, if he were less concerned about avoiding brandishing her nudity around the ship. 

Gaz followed him out of the head, towards the galley. 

“She had no belongings with her, eh?” Gaz asked, “no wallet, nothing?” 

“No.” 

Kyle let out a long sigh, worry oozing from his every pore. “Don’t wanna imagine how long she was drifting for.” 

John nodded, as he sat her down on the bench seat of the dining table, the thin vinyl cushion squeaking underneath her. He dumped the towel, and grabbed his jersey from Gaz — one of his heavy Patagonia fleeces, fabric thick, plush like sheepskin, dark navy with a zip collar. He pulled it over her head, fed her arms through the long sleeves and adjusted it down her torso. It was long enough that it reached her mid-thighs, hands two-thirds of the way through the sleeves — big enough to conceal everything, and cozy enough to keep her warm. He pulled her hair out from inside the collar and lay it to one side over her shoulder. 

“Grab me the first aid kit,” John ordered dryly, as he leaned her against the seat, holding her head upright with a hand at the back of her skull. 

He fingered through her locks of damp hair, looking closely for the contusion that he felt ballooning out of her scalp — found it, eventually, dark purple and swollen, sticky burgundy blood coagulating around the open wound and gluing bits of hair together. 

“Think she fell?” Gaz asked, as he returned with the red polyester pouch after rummaging through the galley cabinets, unzipping and unfurling it. 

“S’there betadine in there?” John asked, before he had acknowledged the engineer’s question. “Hard to say, it looks rough.” 

Kyle handed him the little brown dropper of iodine solution, popping off the cap for him. “You don’t think someone hit her.” 

John’s jaw tightened. “If they did, they hit her bloody hard.” 

“Fuckin’ hell,” Gaz grumbled, upset, watching with his arms crossed as John tipped over the little bottle. He squeezed out several rust-brown drops, they landed squarely in the wound in her scalp, emulsifying with the tissue. “This’s all — just wrong.” 

“Least she’s alive,” John murmured, through a huff, as he put down the betadine. No use in attempting to bandage it, the laceration was small enough that it would heal on its own if left unbothered. 

“Wonder where her home is,” Gaz mused, tone dismal. 

“We’ll ‘ave to see what the bird says when she wakes up,” John said, laying the girl down on her side, tucking up her knees. 

“What if she doesn’t?” 

“She will,” John asserted as he stood, rapping an appreciative hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, will you? I need to get back to the bridge.” 

“Okay,” Gaz nodded tightly. 

“And get her a blanket,” John ordered on his way to the ladder. “Call me if anything changes, yeah?” 

“Will do, Captain.” 

You tasted salt on your tongue.

It was dark, and your body was so heavy — your neurons fired off to raise an arm, and all they mustered was the twitch of a finger. Skin felt warm and viscid, lacquered in a tepid layer of tar as though fully submerged in gooey black pitch, too thick to move around in.

Your eyes perceived nothing but deep, liquid burgundy, and the sparking of white-and-red stars that encroached on the borders of your vision, writhing and swirling in the abyss of your blindness. 

Still, salt on your tongue. 

It was foul, overpowering, all consuming — that brackish grit in every corner of your mouth, between your teeth, crystallising in the back of your throat. It filled your nose, stung where it adhered to the delicate mucosa of your nostrils, every breath hurt to take in. 

You could feel it in your lungs, too. Shards of salt embedded in your bronchioles, saline glutted alveoli, trachea plugged with viscous brine. 

Your diaphragm spasmed beyond your control, body seizing as you erupted into a coughing fit — wet and phlegmy, salty fluid gurgling in your chest and hucking out of your mouth with every ragged splutter, you almost choked on it as you heaved in as much air as your lungs could imbibe. 

Your eyes shot open, then, vision so blurry that you had to wrench them closed a few times before the membrane over your corneas began to dissipate. 

A rubbery cushion under the side of your head, fuzzy fabric enveloping your arms and chest, something scratchy and heavy over your legs. Warm, sore — you ached everywhere, every joint stiff, every muscle burning, every organ twisting and floundering inside you. 

Dizziness wracked through your head, brain swimming free within your skull, spinning around in circles and bouncing against the walls of its cavity as though you were being tipped forward and backward and forward again. 

Nausea swelled up quickly, filled you up to the ears and made your stomach cramp and contort — bile rose up your throat and burned on its way up, you leaned over the surface you lay on and let it spill out from your teeth. Hardly any vomit, merely an oozing stream of chartreuse bile that dripped in strings from the corner of your mouth. 

You heard a voice, a man’s voice, at first too disoriented to understand it. 

“Shit — oh my god, you’re—”

A hoarse groan escaped your chest in response, not a noise you made on purpose, as you tried to roll onto your back. 

“Are you okay?” He asked urgently, and suddenly you noticed a pair of knees under a table beside you, only as they shifted when the person stood. “Hey — you’re okay, you’re—”

You moaned again, squinting under the bright light above you, vision distorted by vertigo and brine. Tongue too fat to form any words yet. 

“You’re okay, let me — let me get you some water.” 

You heard the hurried thuds of boots away from you, and you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your palms, finally able to see properly once you opened your eyes again. Shakily pulled yourself upright with a hand on the table, muscles quivering so violently that they could barely hold you up — but fired adrenaline began to kick in, thumping out from your chest and buzzing in your fingertips as you glanced around the room, utterly alien to you. 

“Where…” you croaked, soaking in your surroundings. Panelled walls of honey oak, an ugly veneered table in front of you, you sat on its bench seat. A small circular window sat above the table, bolted around its borders, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. 

The room smelled like dish soap and body odour, fetid with the scent of an unwashed sponge and a hovering note of fish carcass. A small kitchen, as you turned your head around to check behind you — the man towered over a sink, you heard the hiss of running water. 

“Where am I?” You finally asked, finding your words, but your voice was as frayed as if you had swallowed glass.

The man turned then, and you did not recognise him. Not at all. A complete stranger, with a furrow in his brow, and an awkward smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

You bolted up from the seat then, tossing aside the blanket that rested on your knees, fight-or-flight reigniting your muscles and setting your heart into overdrive — your head spun with it, and your balance was completely off kilter, you had to continually readjust your feet to keep yourself upright. 

“Hey — hey, easy,” he said edgily, voice soft. 

“Who the fuck are you?” You barked, immediately defensive, you tried to keep your eyes pinned to him while you made note of your peripheral surroundings. 

“I’m — I’m sorry, I didn’t — I’m Gaz. Kyle. I’m Kyle.” 

You scowled at him, panting, hackles raised high as you shuffled away from the table. “I don’t know anyone called Kyle,” you hissed. “Or anyone called Gaz.” 

“We haven’t met before,” he said, body twisting to face you as you inched around him. 

He put down the glass of water he held in his hand, and that only further enkindled your terror. Now his hands were free. He could tackle you, if he wanted to. Tall man that he was, muscular under his black jersey, his big doe-eyes did nothing to soften you to him. 

“We found you in the water,” he tried to explain, “we thought you were dead. But we rescued you.” 

“The fuck do you mean, found me?” You spat, now approaching the kitchen, your eyes scoured around for something to grab. 

He could detect your scheming, inched closer to you on quiet feet, attempting to flank you. 

So you dashed — bolted towards the small cooktop, where a magnetic strip mounted on the wall held an array of kitchen knives. 

“Fuck—” He cursed, through teeth, failing to grab you in time before you snatched one by the handle, and held the blade in front of you with both hands. 

You jabbed it at him as you backed out of his reach, arms so shaky you almost dropped it — but you kept it tight, holding onto it with vicious devotion, as though dropping it would be your death sentence. 

He held up his hands, not in surrender, but as if he were attempting to settle a wild animal. “Okay, love, take it easy.” 

“Stay away from me,” you shouted, trembling, backing away cautiously. 

“Captain!” The man roared worriedly toward the ceiling, and you flinched. “Look, love, I’m not going to—”

“Fuck you,” you bit, before you spun on a heel and flew towards an archway. 

“Shit.” He cursed as you escaped, but he had not yet pursued you. 

You scurried down the narrow corridor, bare feet aching with every step, knife extended in front of you and prepared to slash at anything that got in your way. You were wobbling all over the place, as though the ground beneath you was rocking back and forth; you toppled into the wall on your right, yelping as you tried to get yourself upright again. 

You reached a great big industrial door, painted blue and with a tiny circular porthole too high for you to see through. It had a wheel in the centre of it, connected to a series of bars that spanned it from top to bottom. Not a door you had ever seen before, but you inexplicably knew to twist the wheel — left, first go, and the bars shrunk away from the top and bottom, the steel door unsealing with a clank. 

Now you heard the thuds of running boots, fast, growing louder, closer — you shouldered open the heavy door and leapt over the lip at the bottom, immediately blasted with an ice-cold wind that made you shrivel up and almost retreat back inside. 

The sky was stark black, and you were blinded by floodlights. You stumbled towards the railing, hanging onto it for dear life as you almost slipped over on the frigid metal grating under your feet — it felt like barbed wire on your soles, and you whimpered with every step. 

Your fierce desperation to escape trumped any pain, though, you burned hot as a boiler, thundering adrenaline keeping you aflame. You spun your head around to determine where you were; a pitch-dark abyss surrounded you on all sides — no sky, no ground, no lights on the horizon, nothing. You peered over the balustrade and realised then that you were on a ship, now seeing the building-tall waves that cascaded over the floor below, bedizened in ropes and grates and metal cages and buoys, populated with a few people in neon jackets. 

“Hey—” Came a bark from behind you, and you shrieked — immediately scurrying towards a steep staircase, pole-narrow, almost toppling down it as you bounced to every second step. 

The floor of the deck consisted of slippery water-logged wood, and the soles of your feet struggled to find any grip as you sprinted across it. You weren’t even sure where you were running, just away, from the man who had followed you — but it became quickly clear you had no escape, and the orange-jacketed men on the deck had turned their heads to spot you.

“Oh, fuck—” One barked. 

Another erupted in bewildered laughter; “She breathes, alright!” 

“Oi — girl—” Called one. 

“C’mere, hen!” Shouted another, Scottish. “We don’t bite!” 

You sobbed as you ran, ravaged by a fear so potent it made your heart shrivel up like a raisin — you were sprayed by a crashing wave, blinded by the salt, and your feet slipped out from under you. Collided into the hard ground with a slam, a bounce, you skidded across the wood and your knife tumbled out of your grip, sliding out of reach. 

Only as you flopped around on the greasy floor did you realise your nudity under the sweater you were wearing, bare thighs slick with cold sea water, ass bitten by the arctic wind. You scrambled to get yourself back up, crawling on your hands and knees towards your only weapon — until a thick arm hooked under your belly, swiftly hoisting you up from the ground with yank, and you squealed. 

“Easy, now, woman—” Gritted the man, the hoarse growl of an old dog, and he held you flat to his chest. “In such a hurry to go back overboard, eh?” 

You wailed, attempted to buck yourself free from him while your feet dangled off the floor, but he only secured his grip with another mammoth arm. The other men on the deck approached hastily, concern and confusion etched in their cold-ruddy faces, looking between each other as though waiting for somebody to decide what to do with you. 

“Let me go,” you sobbed, paltry voice broken by hiccups, you spluttered and cried and kicked when you could muster it. “Please, please—”

“Put her down, Nik, for fuck’s sake.” Came the roar of another man, approaching from further away, an authoritative fury that your captor swiftly obeyed. 

You landed on your bare feet onto the wet floor with a squelch, and a sob, but he kept a firm grip of your shoulder to prevent you from fleeing. You wouldn’t have, though — now, it was clear to you — there was nowhere to run. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Yelled the evident commander, “All of you? Christ, look, you’ve scared the shit out of her.” 

You saw him, then, as he stood in front of you — towering, heaving, you felt the vibrations of his heavy feet on the deck with each step. Broad shoulders cloaked in a rugged navy jacket, the hood pooled around his neck, a pair of roomy yellow overalls strapped over the waterproof layer. A black knitted beanie sat on the top of his head, folded just above his furrowed brows. His lips were in a snarl under his dense beard while he addressed the other men, but they softened into a neutral line when he looked at you. 

There was something familiar about him, not that you could place it; a face you might have seen in a dream, or crossing the street once. A face you could imagine with a glowing light beaming from behind it, as though the moon eclipsing a sun. You had no memory to tie to it, and yet, it settled you slightly. 

“Y’alright, love,” he said, voice honey-warm and thick with gravel, he held a hand in your direction and gestured to follow him. “Come back in, will you? Too cold for you out here, eh?” 

You sipped a shaky breath, shivering in the bitter wind, glancing at the men surrounding you from under your brow. Returning to the man that gestured for you, you gave him a feeble nod, and waddled in his direction. 

“Tha’s it, c’mon,” he said gently, hovering a hand at the small of your back. He turned over his shoulder to shout at the others; “You lot have more pots to set, don’t you? Get back to fuckin’ work.” 

He guided you gingerly towards the stairs, close behind you to ensure you didn’t slip over on the way up. Opened the weathertight door to let you in, but walked in front of you down the same corridor you had escaped through. You held your arms tight around yourself, left soggy footprints along the vinyl floor. 

“Got yourself all wet again,” he said, an edge of irritation in his tone. 

“D’you get her?” Came a call from the kitchen you had awoken in, and the man — Kyle — appeared at the end of the hallway. You froze. 

“Go finish your work, Gaz, y’still got an hour on the clock.” He ordered flatly, and Kyle looked at you past him. 

“Yes, Captain,” he grunted disdainfully, shouldering past the man in front of you, and squeezing around you where you pressed yourself into the wall. “Hope you’re feeling okay,” he mumbled sheepishly, before disappearing down a flight of stairs. 

The captain looked back at you, flicked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “C’mon, let's get you dry.” 

The kitchen was much smaller than you remembered it being not a few minutes prior — cozy, much warmer than outside but still not quite warm.

“Siddown,” he said from the kitchen, not as forceful as a command but just as compulsory. You gingerly sat yourself on the same bench you had woken up on, watching him carefully, lips sealed. 

He approached you with a tall cup of water, held by the rim with the tips of his fingers. “Drink it.”

You took the cup timidly, but once it was in your grip you did not hesitate; tipped it into your mouth and skulled it down desperately, a dribble escaping the corner of your mouth. You had no idea how thirsty you were until fresh water touched your lips — fresh, not salty — you panted like a dog when the cup was empty, half-quenched. 

He took it from you, filled it back up at the sink before bringing it back, and you drank the second cupful just as quickly. 

“Better?” He asked, and you nodded, wiped your mouth with your hand. 

“Thank you,” you said quietly. 

You watched as he grabbed a light blue towel from the tabletop, and for a moment you thought he might hand it to you — instead he crouched in front of you, and took your leg by the ankle. 

You immediately chirped and attempted to tug your foot free on reflex, but his grip was firm; entire hand wrapped tight around your ankle, he gave you a tut. 

“Settle down,” he snipped, resting the sole of your foot on his collarbone. “I’m only dryin’ you off.” 

Said with such certainty that you began to doubt your instinct that it was inappropriate for him to put his hands on you — tempered by the feeling that he knew what he was doing, that he was only taking care of you. 

He looked at you impatiently until your tensed muscles eased, before he nodded in satisfaction. He hooked your foot over his shoulder so that your ankle rested on his trapezius, before he bunched the towel up in a fist and ran it up the length of your leg. 

You leaned on your arms behind you, heart in your throat, beating so fast that you could hear it buzzing in your ears. 

He was focused, wiping the seawater and muck off your skin, up and down your thighs, down the underside of your leg. 

“Took a tumble, did you?” He asked plainly, dabbing a fresh graze on your knee with the towel, making you flinch with the sting. 

“Yeah,” you said meekly; you were sure it would bruise eventually, but it was largely painless for the time being. 

He tutted you, but continued, wiped down your calf and dried off your foot last; he was fastidious about it, pushed the fibers of the towel between your toes, engulfed your foot in the cotton, scrubbed it along the sole of your foot and your toes curled with the tickle.

He set that leg down once he was done with it, and wordlessly demanded the other with a curl of his fingers. 

Confounding yourself, you did as you were told, and offered him your other leg; he repeated the procedure, resting your foot on his shoulder and scrubbing your leg with the crunchy towel, unabashedly wiping up to the top of your thigh, between your legs, under your knees. 

It didn’t escape your notice that you were naked underneath the jersey, and if he were to look a little higher his eyes would be square with your pussy. The thought made you tighten, and he gave you a disapproving glance when he felt it — but he finished with the other foot, and set your leg free again. 

“Thank you,” you muttered, tight-lipped, dizzy with confusion. 

“D’you want a new jersey?” He asked as he stood, swiping a hand over the sleeve shoulder, where seaspray had beaded on the outside of the fleece. 

“I’m okay,” you said timidly, tucking your legs together. 

He nodded, dropping the towel back on the table. “Alright, pet,” he said. “Let’s get you a cuppa, yeah?” 

You were quiet, but he busied himself in the tiny kitchen anyway — followed the rumbling of a water boiler and the slosh of hot water, the opening and closing of cabinets and drawers, the tinking of a spoon in a teacup.

“Hope you take it with milk and sugar,” he said. “You’re getting it whether you like it or not.” 

“That’s fine,” you croaked. 

“Good girl,” he said, as he returned with a brown glass mug and set it down on the table in front of you. “Gotta get some sugar in you. You remember the last time you ate?”

You shook your head. 

“Mh, well, let’s get you fed.” 

“I’m not — I’m not hungry right now,” you said hesitantly, and when a divot pulled in his brows, you clarified; “don’t think I can keep much down yet.” 

He nodded. “No problem, love,” he answered, with a pacifying grin. “How’s the head?”

“Where am I?” You asked pointedly, cutting to the chase, unwilling to take a sip of your tea out of lingering suspicion. 

He sat down across from you, landing in the bench seat with a grunt, interlocking his fingers on the surface of the table. His glare was scrutinising, albeit gentle, as though checking rather than inspecting. 

“You’re aboard the Iron Tide,” he said candidly. “We’re fishing for crabs in the North Sea.” 

“Iron Tide?” 

“That’s the name of the ship, love,” he answered, a little patronising. “I’m her skipper, I’m Jonathan. You met Gaz, he’s our engineer — he gave you a fright, I bet, but he’s a good lad.” 

You nodded edgily, looking askance at him. “Okay… but, how did I get here?” 

He smiled sombrely at that, crow’s feet pinching in the corners of his tired eyes. An oceanic blue, you noticed, little round seas reflecting the light that bounced off the table beneath him. 

“Was hopin’ you could tell me that, pet,” he gibed, nodding at your mug. “Drink your tea.” 

You took a sip, as you were told. Just cooled enough to sip with a slurp, blanketing your salty tongue, warm and saccharine, hot as it went down your throat. Earl grey. The taste made you feel tucked in, as though a blanket were over your legs, a pillow behind your head — but the murky memory was as fleeting as it was vague. You swallowed it with a sigh, and he looked pleased. 

“So?” 

“So what?” You asked, with a frown. 

“How’d you end up on the high seas, hm?” 

“I—” You cut yourself off, as you stared into the steaming surface of your tawny-coloured tea. 

Words danced at the tip of your tongue, amorphous and flavourless, nothing you could place. Notions that, if you were to reach for them, would drift away, or turn to smoke. 

You didn’t have an answer. 

“I don’t know,” you said, voice shaky, glancing at him with worry knitting in your brows as though he might be able to remind you. 

“You don’t remember?” He asked carefully. 

A piteous heat swelled beneath your eyes, tears welling from their ducts and pooling in your eyes, your vision went blurry with it. You shook your head. 

“S’alright, pet,” he said, fixing a hand to your wrist across the table. “It’ll come back to you. Do you remember anything at all? If you were on a boat, what country you’re from?” 

Again you shook your head, sniffling, you wiped an errant tear with the soft sleeve of the oversized fleece you have no memory of putting on. “No.” 

Concern cracked through his stoic expression, and it only made you more upset.

“Do you know your name, love?” 

You vacuumed in a slow and trembling breath, eyes bouncing between your hands, as if they might hold the answer. You could think of names — Jessica, Lucy, Nina, Anna, Rebecca — but they were only that, random names floating about in the air around you, and you could not pin any of them as your own with any certainty. 

“No,” you eked, followed swiftly by a sob, despite your effort to swallow it. 

He exhaled, long and beleaguered, stroking the back of your hand with his colossal thumb. Hands as big as saucers, calloused and molten hot to the touch. Made your hand look like a pixie’s underneath it.  

“Don’t fret, eh?” He said, failing to comfort you. “Y’got plenty of time to remember. Just finish your tea.” 

“What do you mean?” You asked weakly, plenty of time comment making you uneasy. “Aren’t you going to take me to — back to land?” 

He smiled, bemused, as he released your wrist with a pat and leaned back against the bench seat, hanging an arm insouciantly over the back. 

“Not heading all the way back to port yet, love,” he said frankly. “We only left a couple days ago. Got a lot more crabs to catch.” 

“I’m — I have to stay on this boat until you’re done fishing?” You asked, fighting back the tears that threatened another cascade. 

He tilted his head. “This’s my job. If I don’t get crabs, I don’t get paid. Neither do the other lads, ‘n they won’t be letting that happen.” 

You pouted, lip quivering and face scrunching, and he let out a huff. 

“Look, sweetheart, what would I even do with you if I took you back now?” He asked, tone rigid. “Y’got no ID, no passport, no papers, nothing on you but that bloody frock. We don’t even know what country you belong to. You’d get snatched up by the authorities and tossed around immigration services until your head is on backwards.” 

You sniffled, wiped your cheek with your sleeve. You had no argument, and even if you had the energy to muster one, you had no knowledge of how such a system worked, or where you would possibly go if they allowed you free movement. You’re sure you’d have a house somewhere, a family, someone out there must be looking for you…

The thought made you cry again, head falling from your shoulders and landing in your hands, you sobbed unremittingly into the dense fleece. 

Jonathan sighed at that, evidently growing impatient, but he pushed himself to stand — he was suddenly next to you, planting himself on the bench with his thigh against yours, and he draped an arm around your shoulder. 

“S’alright,” he crooned, voice as deep and rumbling as an engine, and you found yourself curling into him on instinct. Tucked up under his arm, head on his chest, a warm hand rested on the side of your head and smoothed down your hair. “We’ll sort it out.” 

“I don’t even kn-know where my home is,” you blubbered into him, muffled by his jacket, still speckled with beads of sea mist. “Or if — if I’ve got a family, or a husband—”

“Y’look a little young for one o’ those,” he remarked, with a chortle. 

“What if I don’t remember anything? Ever?” You cried, and he stroked the shell of your ear with his calloused thumb, fingers woven in your hair. 

“None o’ that,” he grumbled, you couldn’t determine if he was rocking you or if it was simply the motions of the boat tipping over the waves. “No wallowing on my ship. Keep your chin up, and you’ll be fine.” 

You whimpered, but nodded, and he petted your head like a cat. 

“We got another nine or ten days at sea,” he said, comforting hand retreating from you, resting on his lap. Kept his heavy arm coiled around you, though, and you were daftly grateful for it. He patted you on the far shoulder with a stiff hand. “You’re a tough girl, yeah?”

“I dunno,” you sniffled, sitting yourself upright and reeling away from him. He released you, then, arms crossing over his chest instead. 

“Well you survived God knows how long floating around in the North Sea, pet, I’d call that pretty tough.”

You attempted to compose yourself, sucking deep a breath and wiping down your face with your sleeves. Hoped that whoever’s fleece it was didn’t care about tears and snot being smeared over the cuffs. 

“Is there somewhere for me to sleep?” You asked cautiously, in an attempt to come to terms with reality — nine or ten nights of sleeping on a fishing boat. It made you sick to think about. 

He curled his lips as he thought for a moment. “You can sleep in my bed,” he said. “Skipper’s cabin is a lot nicer than the crew berths, I’ll tell you that.”

You blinked at him, uncertain — it was unsettlingly vague whether that meant he was offering you the bed to yourself. 

“Or you can ask one of the lads to share a bunk with them, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

You shook your head hastily, and he cracked a grin. “No, thank you, skipper’s cabin sounds good, please.”

“Alrighty,” he concurred, with a nod, the deal done. “Sleepy already, eh?”

You nodded sheepishly — for the most part, you just wanted to be alone, somewhere quiet and enclosed, out of sight. But you were utterly drained, left ravaged by receding adrenaline, body battered and bruised. Curling up in a bed sounded luxurious, and heaven only knows how long it had been since you slept in one. 

“Y’only been awake for twenty minutes,” he joked. “And you’ve hardly touched your tea.”

He flicked his head towards the mug, and his imperious expression made clear that he wanted you to finish it. 

So, if only appease him, you clutched the mug and tipped it into your mouth, sucking down the now luke-warm tea in five hefty gulps. Licked your lips when you were done, and dumped the mug back on the table. 

“Happy?” 

He smiled wide, let out a haughty chuckle. “Nicely done,” he said. “Alright, then, let’s get you tucked in.”

He pushed himself to stand with a grunt, finally freeing you from behind the table, and you followed him. 

“Y’sure you don’t want a bite?” 

You shook your head. “Maybe in the morning, if that’s okay.” 

He laughed as he made his way toward an upward staircase. “Morning’s fine, but I’m not having you starve yourself.”

“I won’t.”

As you climbed to the top of the stairs you reached the bridge — a large control station with many screens, all showing different radars and panels and numbers. The wheel was there, too, a spinning chair with a sweater thrown over the back of it tucked in front of it. Sea spray made pattering rain-like noises on the thick windows, but very little light came in from them. The air was thick with cigar smoke and terpenic air freshener, the everpresent ghost of saltwater lingering in between. 

“Just through here,” he instructed, and you followed him around to the other side, through a door, and down a shorter staircase. 

There you were met with a bedroom; it was intimate, stuffed full of bags and boxes and papers. A fold-out desk jutted out from an warm-wood wall, covered in maps weighed down by protractors and a drawing compass. Coats hung over hooks, boots lined up by the door. 

A cot bolted to the wall, perhaps a king single, unmade — a thick duvet with a red-and-navy plaid blanket tossed overtop, heavy wool that you could ascertain would be itchy without needing to touch it. A single pillow in a navy pillowcase, cream-coloured fitted sheet likely toned off-white due to age or overuse. 

It was rich with musk in there, the single porthole window not able to be opened, and the heady scent made you dizzy. You imagined it was only a marginally diluted version of the same scent you’d get pressing your nose into his armpit. It was only tempered by traces of toothpaste and cigarettes, and the potent smell of Imperial Leather bar soap. Daft that you remembered that, and little else. 

“Not a five-star hotel, eh?” He gibed, nudging you with his elbow. You didn’t have a response, at first, and he chided you; “Don’t be a sourpuss. No room for being fussy here, love.”

“No — this is perfect, thank you, I’ll sleep anywhere.” 

He smiled and crossed his arms, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Alright, well, you get yourself comfortable then,” he said. “Loo’s just through there, if you need it. Use my toothbrush if you like, just give it a wash after, eh?”

You almost grimaced at the thought of sharing his toothbrush, but the lingering bile and salt in your mouth had you looking forward to the taste of toothpaste. 

“Need anything else, pet?” He asked, still gruff. “Paracetamol? I can get you something else to sleep in—”

“I’m okay, thank you,” you insisted, perhaps too plainly eager to get him out of the room. 

“Alright, love,” he said. “G’night, then. I’ll just be up there, still got some steering to do.”

“Okay.”

With a firm nod, he turned around and headed out of the cabin, shutting the door behind him. 

You let out a pent breath once you were alone, potent exhaustion suddenly crashing into you like a train. You stumbled into the tiny ensuite — a small toilet and a sink, the shower head jutting out from the wall above the commode — rinsed his frayed toothbrush under the tap and globbed on some colgate. 

Brushing your teeth made you feel marginally human again, and you spent a good five minutes scrubbing out every crevice of your mouth. You washed it afterwards, like he said, and stuck it to the wall with the suction cup on the back of it. 

There was no mirror, and you found yourself glad of it. You couldn’t yet confront the fact that you did not remember what you looked like, an existential dread that simmered in your belly, but too tired to churn up. 

Only then, as you glanced at his bar of soap (it was Imperial Leather, as you had guessed), did you realise how clean you felt — you wondered if he had washed you, and now you were certain that he had changed you. The thought made you shiver, and you tried not to think about it. 

His bed was squeaky underneath you, and the mattress so soft that you sunk deep into it; the weight of him permanently embedded in the springs, you settled into the divot like a cat, curled up towards the wall. It was bitterly cold in the cabin, much like the rest of the ship, so you tugged the blankets up your cheek, rubbing your icy feet together to warm them up. 

The sheets reeked of him, of man and musk, the pillow smelt of scalp and salt. It was unusually comforting. Such a human smell, and as you tucked yourself under his layers of blankets it swirled around in the front of your head and made you dozy. 

Sleep called to you, dark and ebbing, and you slipped willingly beneath the surface. 

You were roused, only slightly, at the sound of a door handle. 

Not alert enough to open your eyes, you still floated deep in slumber, soft and warm. Your consciousness ascended close enough to the shallows to acknowledge the opening of a door, the footsteps across a hollow floor, but the sounds conveyed no meaning to you. 

Sleep pulled you downward but you floated languidly back up at each noise; the fizz of running water, the scrubbing of brushing teeth, the spit of toothpaste.  

A zip being undone, velcro being ripped open, boot laces being untied. The clunk of a shutting door, a cough, a grunt, and you finally broke the surface. 

Now entirely awake, you remained completely still — not out of fear, you didn’t think — perhaps in the hope that he would leave you alone to keep sleeping, absolutely not ready to get up yet. He made no effort to be quiet, as he dumped his boots by the door, rummaged around in his belongings for a moment, coughed again. 

You kept your nose close to the wall, eyes barely open. He flicked off a light switch and the room was abruptly drowned in darkness. 

The blanket was lifted from you, then, and you flinched — with the cold air nipping at your skin, you realised your long jersey had been hiked up in your sleep, and your bare bottom half was starkly exposed. 

You froze, curled up, tongue in your teeth; until a sudden weight plummeted into the mattress, bouncing you up before sinking deep behind you, causing you to slide into the dip.  

With a grunt and a huff the blanket was pulled back up over you, scratchy wool brushing your cheeks. A titanic arm hooked over your stomach, and you squeaked — he paid no mind, yanking you backwards until your back was flush with his chest, ass nestled into his lower belly, his thighs tucked up behind yours. 

You held your breath, skittish, not yet daring to move; he let out a deep sigh into the back of your head, warm breath seeping through your hair and into your skull. 

His entire body was a furnace, burning hot, and you felt yourself melting into him whether you liked it or not. A mammoth hot water bottle, wrapped around and behind you, keeping you soothingly warm. 

His hand ventured nowhere untoward, arm only hanging listlessly over the divot of your waist, forearm tucked into your chest. He felt clothed against you, sweatpants and a thermal on. 

There was something wrong about it — something off, a survival instinct that buzzed around you, humming like a mosquito, a ringing in your ear, annoying and persistent. 

But his pyretic warmth made you lightheaded, so comfortable tucked into him that it felt like you were already dreaming. 

With a heavy blink, and a deflating breath, you sunk deep into him and let slumber swallow you whole once again. 

[zzzssleeping]

The Other Swan

Emmett C. x male reader

Bella Swan's unexpected older brother visits and discovers he's soulmates with a vampire.

Fluff, attempted humor, ooc Bella, part two

Forks was…an experience. Not exactly (Y/n)’s first choice of places to visit, let alone stay in, but hey, life had a funny way of throwing curveballs. The town was all rain, gloom, and had quiet streets, something out of a murder documentary. Not that he minded the weather. He actually liked the rain. But the lack of city noise, the absence of people-watching opportunities, yeah, not really his thing.

Still, he supposed he couldn’t complain too much. Being here meant spending time with Bella, and honestly, who else was going to annoy her? Judging by their last few phone calls, she’d found a new distraction anyway, some guy named Eddie? No, Edward. Right. Not that he’d been paying attention.

Hands into his pockets, he walked through the halls of Forks High, feeling the curious stares. One unfamiliar face and suddenly, he was the gossip. Unlike Bella, who preferred to keep her head down, he drew attention. Few people stared, wondering who he was, and in return, he threw a lazy wave before spotting a familiar head of brown hair sitting at a lunch table.

A smirk crossed his face. Time for a proper sibling reunion.

Light on his feet, he crept up behind her, ignoring the confused glances from her friends. A girl with dark curls opened her mouth to warn Bella, but it was too late, he jabbed his fingers into her sides, earning a sharp yelp and an immediate glare. Bella nearly jumped out of her seat, spinning around so fast she almost knocked over her lunch tray.

"Oh my God, are you serious?" Bella flushed with embarrassment.

He grinned. "Nice seeing you too, little sis."

The cafeteria hummed with quiet murmurs, (Y/n) barely noticed, too busy enjoying Bella’s misery. Her friends, on the other hand, had mixed reactions, some relieved that he wasn’t a random psycho, most amused, trying to cover up their snickers.

"Wait, sis?" A girl with glasses muttered, glancing between them as if trying to spot the resemblance. "Yeah," Bella sighed, scooting over to make room for her brother. She did not look thrilled. "The better Swan, actually," (Y/n) added, wiggling his brows. Jessica giggled. Bella, in true little-sister fashion, stomped down hard on his foot without hesitation.

"Ow!" He yelped, jerking away like she’d personally betrayed him. "After weeks of not seeing each other, this is how you treat me?"

"We saw each other a month ago."

"Exactly. Too long."

She rolled her eyes. Typical. The two of them were complete opposites, Bella was all quiet sarcasm, (Y/n) was all loud dramatics. And yet, despite their differences, their bond was solid, close friends maybe. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t torment each other at every opportunity, it was only part of the sibling experience.

"So," he drawled, glancing at the table, "who’s this Eddie guy I keep hearing about?"

Bella groaned. "His name is Edward," she corrected, already bracing herself for whatever nonsense he was going to say next. He paused. "Edward? Seriously?" He let out a small laugh, making a face. "What year is he from, the 1950s?" A few of her friends let out quiet laughs, clearly liking (Y/n) already while she silently questioned all her life choices leading up to this moment.

"Can you not judge him for one second? You haven't even met him," she complained, exasperation clear in her voice. She wished, for once, he would take something seriously. He raised his hands in a mock of surrender. "Whoa, easy there. As your older brother, it’s my duty to make sure he’s not, oh, I don’t know, planning to suck your blood or something."

She let out a nervous chuckle, having her hand change into a fist. If only he knew. He can be incredibly oblivious at times, one of the few things working in her favor right now.

"Funny," she mutters. "Just give him a chance, okay?" She grabbed his arm, almost pleading, hoping to wear him down. As much as she hated him to admit it, Bella did look up to him. This was important. Edward was her forever, and (Y/n) was one of the most important people in her life. If they didn't get along...well, she really didn't want to think about that right now.

"If it helps, he's really cute," Jessica chimed in, making heads turn her way.

"What?" She defended at the stares. "It's true."

He let out an exaggerated sigh, clearly debating his options like this was some huge sacrifice. He never imagined his sister having a boyfriend before him or even never. Finally, he shrugged, trying to keep from saying anymore comments. "Okay, fine-but if he tries anything funny, I'll kick him where the sun don't shine."

As the days passed, the inevitable moment finally arrived. And, of course, (Y/n) spent the entire car ride complaining about every single thing. "Why do I have to meet his whole family, am I the one dating him?" He grumbled, arms crossed. In the drive seat was Bella who pressed her lips together, gripping the wheel a little tighter, annoyance growing in her veins. "Can you ple-"

"I wanna go home."

She inhaled sharply, just a little longer. Finally, they pulled up to the Cullens’ house before she completely lost her patience and threw him out on the street and leave him stranded. Not that she would, Edward was waiting for them, and she wasn’t about to test her boyfriend’s vampire speed over a sibling squabble. Pulling up to the Cullens’ house, if you could even call it that. (Y/n)'s eyes widening as he took in the large mansion.

"Okay…this is a house?" He blinked, eyes wide, taking it all in. Bella shot him a warning glare. "Can you not embarrass me?" He merely shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets casually. "No promises."

Waiting there patiently at the front of the door, she didn't have to knock as the door opened, because, of course, the vampires waiting inside already knew they were here thanks to their weird abilities. A pale woman with soft features and warm eyes greeted them, smiling sweetly.

"Hello, Bella. It’s lovely to see you. Please, come in."

(Y/n) hesitated for a second, caught off guard. She was…weirdly welcoming? And stunning, but that was beside the point. He cleared his throat, stepping inside, not to shocked to be greeted by another tall, handsome man standing beside her, equally attractive. So far, the Cullens were all too good-looking, like they belonged in a high-end fashion ad rather than a small-town house. They almost didn’t seem real.

"This is my husband, Carlisle," she introduced. "And I’m Esme." She turned gracefully toward the kitchen, the click of her heels echoing in the quiet space. "I hope you like spaghetti and meatballs, this won’t take long." As soon as her back was turned, (Y/n) leaned toward Bella, whispering softly: "they’re gorgeous." She opened her mouth to shut him up, that's when Edward appeared in time, looking effortlessly handsome but the brother didn't seem that impressed.

He approached with a polite nod, his dark gaze drifting toward the other Swan sibling, raising his hand for a polite handshake.

"Hello, you must be (Y/n). Your sister has mentioned some...nice things about you."

He narrowed his eyes, shaking Edward’s hand but clearly suspicious. "Did she tell you to say that, or did she secretly complain about me? Blink twice if you’re being held captive." Edward’s lips twitched, amusement flickering in his eyes. He hadn't expected for him to be so different from his lover, not that he minded. He did enjoy their unusual conversations on call, hearing their gossips and whatnot.

Wanting to push further until the sound of light footsteps caught (Y/n)'s attention, he instantly froze. Golden eyes met his, and it sent a surprised shiver down his spine. For a brief, heart-stopping moment, his chest tightened, his heart fluttering in a way he definitely wasn’t prepared for. For the first time in his life, the always obnoxious Swan was completely, utterly speechless.

Holy shit.

[thekinslayed]

A Moment's Reprieve

summary | Aemond just can't seem to get a moment alone with you, driving him to the point of madness.

pairing | aemond targaryen x wife!reader

tags | 18+, MINORS DNI!, lil quickie, rough sex, aeggy cameo <3, slight exhibitionism, semi-public sex, not proofread :P

wordcount | 3.3k

note | hi, it's been a minute <3 feeling kinda meh about this but i hope u guys like it!

likes, comments, reblogs are much appreciated!

It was hard to fuck while wearing leather. The heat from Aemond’s body was so easily trapped in its wall, dissipating into fat droplets of sweat cascading down his back. Moving around was no easy feat either, but the momentary suffering would have to suffice. He was easily lost enough in the fire in his loins that burned hotter than the damp flush creeping up his chest. His thrusts were hasty, his grip on your exposed breasts tight as he slammed himself in and out of your core.

On better days, he would have taken the time to take you apart piece by piece, perhaps starting with his mouth on your sweet cunny, but you both hardly had time to even undress. Your skirts were carelessly rucked up to your hips, neckline haphazardly unbound just enough to free your teats, while your husband had lowered his breeches just enough to expose his hard, swollen cock before he drove into you. Your grip on his bicep was tight, while your nails dug into the bedpost with the other for support as you stood by the bed’s edge. The pulsating of your core was enough to drive him mad, the dizzying haze of desire overwhelming his wife just as it did with him. 

“H-husband, I’m so close,” you moaned in his ear, head leaned back into his chest. He must have grunted something in response, though he wasn’t sure he even heard himself, voice lost in the din of loud smacking of his trim hips against your plump arse, and your sweet melodic mewls. The rising heat in his belly let him know he was right with you, only a few thrusts behind the release that threatened to overtake him. It was easy to get lost in it all— in you, in your warm, perfect walls. So much so his thrusts turned even more desperately erratic as his body moved in its own accord, his usually alert mind hardly registering the creaking of wood and the sudden breeze into his marital chambers.

Then he heard cackling.

“Seven fucking Hells, brother!” 

Aegon stood at the threshold, one hand still on the doorknob and the other clutching his stomach as he doubled over in laughter. The younger whipped his head at the intrusion, eyes widening before shifting to cover you with his body. He heard you gasp, before scrambling to cover your exposed chest away from Aegon’s curious eyes. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Aemond barked, turning to move to storm over where the idiot stood when he caught his brother eyeing the exposed flesh of your upper thigh, but your firm hand on his wrist kept him where he was to save yourself the last bits of dignity. 

“I… ha!” the elder snorted, laughter finally dying down into low chuckles that rumbled from his chest. He exhaled a deep sigh, dramatically wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Mother sent me to call on you because court starts in five minutes and she believes the Seven Hells have cooled over when she found me ready before you, but I guess you were preoccupied, eh?” he shrugged, amethyst eyes twinkling with a mischievous glint that irked Aemond to no end. “Dear me, fucking before noon? And I thought I was oversexed.”

“Shut up before I make you,” Aemond seethed. His wife sighed, peeking over his shoulder to speak to Aegon.

“Would you give us a few moments, brother? Let Her Grace know we will be right out,” you asked softly, smiling sweetly enough to earn a tight squeeze on the hips from your dragon in warning. 

“Of course, best to, uh, finish up then,” he responded, wagging his finger mockingly before turning to leave, snickering. “Good to know I had you taught well, Aemond!”

“You fucke–”

The door slammed shut before Aemond could finish, sighing against your temple in exasperation from the ruined moment. The soft kiss on his cheek was hardly enough to make up for it, the humiliation in his chest killing whatever drive in his gut. He begrudgingly tucked his softened length back into his breeches before helping you with your laces. You turned to face him once your dress had been rightened, hugging his waist and leaning your chin against his chest. 

“Such a shame, everything was feeling so good,” you pouted up at him. Aemond grunted in agreement, head still running hot in annoyance.

Surely, the court wouldn’t be too curious if his brother strolled in with a bruise on his face. He’d been in worse shape before, what was a little marked-up cheek?

There must be some sick game the gods were playing on Aemond. They were teasing him, testing to see how long he could withhold being unable to have a moment alone with his wife before going completely mad. Court took up a better part of his afternoon, long hours of appeals and hearing whatever problems their people wished to voice. It took much of him to keep his eye forward, ignoring the heat radiating off the flesh of your arm that was warmed by the sticky air of the mid-summer sun filtering into the throne room, while you stood by your husband’s side, his nose engulfed by the flowery sweetness wafting from your hair.

Supper was just as torturous, though having you sat by his side slightly made up for it, and teasing you under the table was a good way to pass the time. Aemond’s rough fingertips crept up your skirts and took hold of your thigh, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t relish in the way you swatted his hand away in panic, cheeks growing adorably flushed. With dessert promptly served and devoured, the one-eyed prince all but jumped from his seat, your hand in tow to lead you back to the privacy of your chambers, but the deep drawl of his grandsire’s voice halted him before anything else, inviting him to the Tower to speak on a matter of the utmost discretion. He let your hand go with a scowl, helplessly watching you walk off into the direction of your apartments.

His grandsire sat him down to talk until well into the night, speaking in hushed tones of a matter of concern in the Reach. He was to fly to Oldtown to settle brewing disputes in the Hightower seat in his grandsire's stead, a task entrusted to him that required his sharp eye and his partiality to matters of politics. 

His steps were heavy on his return, his chest even heavier, and when he finally crossed the threshold of your spacious apartments, you were deep into your slumber. You snuggled up into his side of the bed, arm extending to where he should have been. When a responsibility like this would’ve once had Aemond eager to fly out at first light, he found himself unable to tear himself away from you when duty called, having found a home in your arms that sheltered him with warmth and lightness his reality was so deeply void of. 

He was gone for a sennight—a slow-passing, cruel week.  

The separation was torturous, and not a moment passed where your husband’s mind didn’t wander to his sweet wife. He’d tucked one of your handkerchiefs into his pocket before his departure, tracing the embroidered curves of your initials with his thumb when he grew agitated within Oldtown’s walls. They had given him a comfortable accommodation, a bed much too large to sleep in alone. Aemond had grown spoiled with your warmth, and with this temporary withdrawal, sleep came miserably.

At the week's end, disagreements were smoothed and hands were shaken. Aemond took to the skies, not a second too soon after the Lord Hobart thanked him for the crown’s aid, his longing for home shamelessly showing itself in the tension in his shoulders every minute he was there. Daeron would have to forgive him for not flying together as much as the younger wished, but his brother, ever the kindest out of all the dragon princes, saw him off with a nod of understanding and a firm pat on the back, whispering the promise of his own return to their family. 

Vhagar traversed the horizon at a speed unexpected for her size and age, but his old girl shared her rider’s wish for home. They cleared the distance in a day, and the returning prince was greeted by Ser Criston and a wheelhouse that would take him back to his home, to you.

But the gods wouldn’t grant Aemond reprieve that easily. 

The streets bustled with life as the carriage rolled through the cobbled streets. He had returned just in time for his father’s nameday, a week-long celebration for the ailing king that called for the grandest celebration, with music, wine, and dancing for guests hailing from all over the realm. Aemond watched through the thin slits of the carriage— faces passing in a blur, voices of every pitch overlapping the other. His brow furrowed in perplexion when they took a sudden turn, an unexpected route that led him away from the hill leading to the Keep, but right to the middle of the celebrations— the melee.

“Queen’s orders, my prince,” Cole explained, standing stoically in front of the brooding prince. “She wished to have you join the celebrations as soon as you returned, have the family all present in front of the people.”

Aemond grumbled under his breath all the way up the steps to the royal box, plopping exhaustedly into his seat beside Aegon. The elder patted him hard on the back, adding to his aggravation, clearly oblivious to his dampened mood. “Good to have you here in time to join us, brother, Reyne’s just about to fuck Tarly up,” he cackled, taking a big swig of his wine. 

“A change of clothes first would have been nice,” Aemond huffed, ignoring the battling knights as he looked around for his wife. He twisted around his seat in confusion at the absent sight of you, earning a look from his grandsire that had him uncharacteristically slumping in his seat.

“She’s with Helaena,” Aegon said, whose eyes stayed glued to the violent display before them. “Orwyle said it was ill luck for pregnant women to look upon violence or whatever he was on about. Your wife’s keeping her company.”

Aemond sighed defeatedly, his chest twinging with annoyance. Of fucking course. Everything seemed to be working against his wishes, toying with his already short patience. Gods be damned, they would know better to keep a man like him away from his wife. Perhaps this made him seem like an addict, no better than a drunk stuck to his bottle or a pervert to a whore, but he was well past the point of denying it. You were a part of him, whether either of you could help it or not.

He turned to his mother, who sat frowning with a hand half-covering her face as she watched on, muttering some half-excuse of wanting to freshen up and be rid of the smell of dragon on his skin before enjoying the festivities. The queen granted him leave with the ghost of a quirk on her lips and a knowing look, waving him off dismissively with a ringed hand.

He all but dashed the way back to the Keep, strides large and booming through the halls back to Maegor’s Holdfast. His pulse thumped heavily in his ears, his chest sparked with a renewed lightness with every step closer. Aemond found you in his sister’s apartments, sat on the settee as you embroidered. 

Your head shot up as the door swung open, eyes brightening like a starry night when they landed on him. “Aemond!” you gasped, promptly jumping up from your seat and into his arms. With how tight your arms wound around his neck, it was clear his dearest wife was just as tortured as he. 

Aemond nuzzled his nose into your hair, breathing in the sweet scent of your skin he had missed dearly. With you back in his arms, right where you belonged, everything felt warm. He felt near bursting at the seams, his body immediately responding to the heat of your body pressed against his. His lips found yours on instinct, hungrily devouring the sweet taste he’d grown starved for. Large, calloused hands wandered on their own, finding purchase on your rear with a tight squeeze. It made you whine, pulling away in haste to glance at a sleeping Helaena.  Her third pregnancy often had her weary, as she was now, laid on her bed, with the twins tucked on either side as they slept through the peaceful haze of the late afternoon.

“Come,” your husband ordered, grasping your wrist to pull you out of the room. The growing fire in his loins left him too impatient to lead you up another flight of stairs where your apartments were, urgency nagging at him to hasten lest someone called for him to return to the melee. He led you with quick steps to the end of the hall, in a quiet alcove where he pressed you against the wall, caged between his arms.

His mouth devoured yours, tongue slithering into the warm cavern and dancing with your own. It soon descended onto the length of your perfumed neck, nipping and biting at the spots that pulled deep, pleasant sighs. Your hands gripped his doublet, subtly pushing him away as you called his name.

“Husband, h-here?” you asked, mewling as he sucked on a particularly sensitive spot below your jaw. You were right, this wasn't exactly an ideal location for your reunion, but he was pressed for time, and having to wait to have you until nightfall would drive him to insanity.

“There’s not one soul around, dearest,” he said into your skin, parting with a kiss on the fresh mark. With the inhabitants of the Keep all away at the tournaments, the halls were empty enough, save for the occasional passing servant and the knight standing guard outside Helaena’s door. With the near ravenous state Aemond was in, he could give less fucks who could witness him taking his wife. Your skirts were messily rucked up to your hips, wandering hand dipping past your smallclothes and finding your heat, already dripping in sweet arousal. “Did you miss me this much, wife? You’re already soaked,” your husband chuckled devilishly, eye darkening when you bit your lip as he teased your slit. 

You nodded at him eagerly, a whine rising from your throat when his fingertip brushed against your pearl. “You were gone for too long, husband. It has been miserable without you. When I saw Vhagar fly over the city I could have dashed to the gates myself if Helaena didn’t need me,” you pouted. His heart swelled at your sweetness, peppering adoring kisses onto your hairline as you pulled him in even closer.

“I have been tormented just the same, my love. Every day that passed, you were all I thought about,” he whispered. “No one will keep me away from you now, sweet girl, I promise you.” 

Somewhere in the frenzy of tongue and spit, your smallclothes fell to the stone floor and his breeches were aptly unlaced. Your smaller, dainty hand wrapped around his hardened length, stroking his leaking cock. Gods, it was pathetic how he could come from your slightest touch. He grasped your wrist to stop you, gulping as he continued to twitch in your hold.

“Wait,” he huffed. The need possessed him with a primal urge, prompting him to grab hold of both of your thighs to lift you off your feet. With you pressed against the wall and holding onto his shoulders for dear life, Aemond sunk you onto his cock, down onto the hilt. There was little time to savor the subtle pulsating of your walls, his hips taking on a steady pace from the start. “Fucking... finally,” he grunted.

You bounced in his firm hold, lower back rubbing against the rough stone, but you didn’t seem to mind one bit. Quite the opposite, rather, with the way you openly moaned, your voice echoing through the dim hall. “Gods!” you whined. Your husband’s pace suddenly shifted, hips starting to slap more ferociously against yours. Any soul who would have the misfortune to walk these halls at this very moment would hear you from the opposite end from the resounding rhythm of skin against skin.

“There are no gods here, wife, just you and I,” Aemond growled against your ear, before biting down on your shoulder, making you squeal even louder.

“I– mmph! Ah, Aem–” Any semblance of coherence on your usually pretty head dissipated in a heady jumble. It made your husband smirk, despite the heat starting to tingle in the back of his neck.

“Something to say, my love? Or have I already fucked you into a loose whore, hm?” he taunted, chuckling under his breath when you merely whined in response. He was starting to overheat in his leathers, the sharp warmth in his nape slowly trickling down his spine to signal the start of his end. Something deep within his core made his abdomen flex, the ache in his thighs no match for the utter bliss of the warm embrace of your lovely cunt. With your legs wrapped around his trim waist, his hand raised to the back of your head, fingers wrapping around your hair to pull your forehead against his. He quickened his pace to spur you to your end first, thumb rubbing your pearl in tight circles. “Come for me, wife. I want to feel you spill around me. Go on,” he rasped, breath hot in your ear.

His wife was a moaning mess. You were never this loud, even in the privacy of your own chambers, but the separation had you desperate, heart sticky with need in a way you had never let yourself be before. He and you were both the same in this way, never too forward with what you wanted, until desire ate away at you from within and you started to lose better thinking.

With a particular harsh thrust, your release broke with a moan that Aemond was sure had echoed to the White Sword Tower. He came no second later with a lower, quieter grunt into your neck, spilling thick ropes of his warm seed into your quivering cunt.

You both stayed there for a second, breaths heavy and minds still in a cloud. Aemond placed you back onto your feet, though wobbly. He huffed amusedly, earning a warning smack on his chest as you furrowed your eyebrows playfully. His lips placed a kiss on your damp forehead, and you kissed his scarred cheek in return. For a second, you only looked at him, your flushed cheeks lifted in a smile, and it made him happy. 

An echo of clinking steel let Aemond know his time was up. He made sure your dress had been rightened and your hair smoothed before tying his breeches back up. The prince peeked to see Cole coming up the staircase, no doubt sent by his mother to take him away again. He sighed heavily, nuzzling one last time into your neck as you rubbed his back comfortingly. “You should go. Mustn’t let your mother fret,” you said softly. Your husband merely grunted in response, savoring the feeling of your fingers running through his hair. 

A clear of the throat from the knight made Aemond finally pull away, frowning despite the pleased smile on your lips as you smoothed his doublet. He parted with a kiss all-consuming, and whispers of a promise to fetch you the moment he could. 

His return to the royal box came with much reluctance, though his demeanor visibly changed. The tension was gone in his shoulders, his aura different, and his face not so grim anymore. He settled back into his seat with a deep exhale, directing his attention to the faceless lordlings swinging swords much too large for them, though his mind stayed in an alcove somewhere in the Keep. 

Beside him, Aegon yawned loudly, having grown deathly bored with the melee. Sensing the younger’s subtly brighter demeanor, he snickered under his breath. “Feeling rather refreshed now, are you?” he teased. 

Aemond’s gaze flickered to him in a glance, turning back to watch the young Bolton land the winning blow. “Hm, yes, quite.” He lifted his hand to a squire for wine, taking a small sip to quench his parched throat.

“Even without a proper change of clothes?” Aegon pushed, raising his brow mockingly. He cackled as Aemond shifted in his seat, a warning glare in his lone eye. The elder, unbothered, merely patted his brother’s knee as he shook his head. “Good for you, brother.”

[tacticalprincess]

simon and könig being unable to stop bickering for a second, even when they’re balls deep inside of you. they’ve got you in an Eiffel Tower, könig’s cock filling your glossy pussy while simon stuffs your mouth. it took ages of convincing for them to even consider this position, but eventually they decided to put their discrepancies aside for the sake of you, their precious, spoiled little thing. it didn’t last very long though…

“jackhammer much, mate? you’ve got her choking on me over here.” simon points out, his heavy hand stroking your hair soothingly. könig’s using your hips as leverage, bucking into you at a rabid pace, each of his thrusts lurching your body forward and forcing you to take more of simon’s dick down your poor throat. “what happened to treatin’ the princess with care?”

“it’s okay, she likes it. isn’t that right, maus?”

your cheeks warm up as you hum around simon’s dick noncommittally. nothing gets passed the l.t though, and suddenly he’s gripping you by your hair, pulling your mouth off his cock.

“wait, you let him fuck your face?” he asks, sounding genuinely offended.

you wipe the line of spit that trails from your swollen lips all the way to his still hard dick, hovering just out of reach. you huff. “he’s more sadistic than you…” you say sheepishly in response, voice staccato from könig’s thrusts.

“you tellin’ me i’m the soft sex guy? the aftercare fuck?”

“‘s alright, mate.” könig reaches over your naked body to pat his comrade on the shoulder. “youve got boyfriend dick. happens to the best of us.”

[zvdvdlvr]

Twilight Crack Scenarios with Mildly Unhinged Reader

(You’d easily fallen in step with the Cullens after accepting an internship position for Carlisle Cullen. You were a witty seventeen year old that- surprisingly- got along relatively fine with Rosalie to literally everyone’s surprise. You figured out about their condition, but didn’t really care. READ: BELLA DOES NOT EXIST IN THIS!!!!!!)

“Hello, my fellows!” you shouted into the house as you nudged the door shut with your foot. “It’s movie night, if any of you forgot- and it is my turn to pick.” After toeing off your shoes, you took both of your coffees to the living room to wait for the Cullen clan.

Rosalie and Emmett appeared in the blink of an eye, curling up onto the couch as you chug caffeine and turn on the Peanuts movie. “How was your day, kid?” Emmett asked, making Rosalie turn to give you a wry smile.

You shrugged, thinking of running around and doing labs all day for Carlisle. Nothing too eventful- oh! “There was this crazy old lady that came in wanting drugs,” you shrugged. “Brought a knife, did the whole, ‘Do you know how much I’ve invested in this town?!’ speech. Other than that, nothing.” As you finished your recap, Alice and Jasper flopped onto the couch beside you.

“Did she get her… drugs?” Jasper asks, handing you the chunky knit blanket that you’d fallen in love with during your first visit at the Cullen house. He let you lean your head on his shoulder as you kicked your feet- clad in extremely fuzzy Christmas socks- onto Emmett’s lap.

“Nope!” You slammed one of your freshly empty coffee cups onto the cofee table. “It was kinda funny seeing Carlisle go sicko mode, though. He did the whole,” you cleared your throat before going on in a deeper voice in imitation of the immortal, “‘get back, y/n, this isn’t safe. You could get injured-‘“

“Well, you could have!” Carlisle remarked defensively as he walked into the room. “And I do not sound like that.”

Emmett snorted. “Nah, dad, that’s a perfect imitation of you.” The hulking vampire reached over and gave you a high five as you and the other vampires (minus Carlisle) dissolved into laughter at Carlisle’s frowning face.

Do you think I look hot? Edward. Edward. Eeeddddwarrrrrrrddddd! Look at me Eddie. Ooh, I saw your nostril flare. Do you think I look hot, Eddie? I think I look stunnin’!

Edward Cullen had been listening to you pestering him for the past half hour- almost the whole class period. The immortal took great care to not glance over at you, who was doing God knows what from the desk across from him. His eyes closed and he tried to listen yo the teacher speak, but no.

Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. Eddie-ward. Edddddieee! Edd- Oh, shoot, I have an essay due next hour.

Edward couldn’t stop the smile slowly twisting his lips as you frantically panicked about the essay that you apparently hadn’t gotten done. Edward was almost certain you had gotten over whatever it was you were doing that requires him to look over at you to see if you looked hot.

I don’t even care, you finally thought. Edward! Eddie! Eddddwaaaarrrrrrdddddd! Do you think I look hot?

With one minute left in the class, Edward heaved a massive sigh before turning his head to look at you.

A pair of scissors was perched carefully on your nose a tiny claw clip was holding some of your hair up in a way that made you look like a unicorn. Markers were taped haphazardly to your face. You looked like a pitiful Christmas tree.

The bell rang just as Edward started laughing, eyes closing as your giggling filled the room. Edward heard the teacher’s internal complaints about the two of you, but Edward was too busy laughing to care.

The Cullens had been out for the day: the weather was bright. You knew that the vampires were taking the day to hunt and stay away from humans. Though, you still drove straight to Carlisle’s after school because it was your second home.

You heard their voices filter through the door a couple hours laster. Heaving a sigh, you slipped your shoes onto your feet and padded out back to watch The Great Cleaning™️. Of course the immortals had known you were at their house- they smelled your familiar scent and heard your heartbeat.

Carlisle picked up the pressure washer and started cleaning off Esme first. Emmett waved his grubby, blood stained hands at you in greeting. Rosalie also looked up and gave you a smaller but equally warm smile.

Beside them stood Edward, Jasper, and Alice. Alice was closest to Esme, but she was talking animatedly to Jasper. Edward- noticing the two in conversation but also seeing and waving to you- nudged the couple and gestured over to where you were watching in amusement from the porch.

“Hi, y/n/n!” Alice yelled over the noise of the pressure washer.

“Hey Al!” You said back, knowing she could hear you with her hightened ability.

Jasper and Alice returned to their conversation. You assumed that Edward was picking at the crusted blood and soil under his nails as Rose and Emmett chattered. Esme had just stepped away from the stream of the water.

Alice, who was not paying attention and did not have her knees braced for the onslaught of water, was sent flying backwards.

Your mouth dropped open as Alice’s fairy-shaped body slammed so hard into a tree that she made an indent in the middle of the trunk when her marble-strong limbs crashed to the ground. Emmett and Edward were guffawing at the sight of Alice. Rose glared sharply at Emmett while Jasper walked- not ran- to help a laughing Alice to her feet.

No one seemed surprised: not even Carlisle (he just looked like he’d spent a millennia with zero sleep and somehow acquired these mentally unstable individuals who happened to be frozen in time just like him). The doctor just shook his head with an impatient expression.

When the vampires were done getting hosed off, Alice bounded over to you. She wrapped her soaking wet arms around you. “Hi!”

“That’s not the first time you’ve… flown into a tree, was it?” You asked, having an energetic Emmett elbow you in the side.

”Nope!” He howled with laughter. “You shouldve seen Alice when-“

“Hey!” Alice shrilled. “Don’t tell her that!”

Emmett laughed and laughed.

It was your turn to plan Mother’s day. At least, that’s what you claimed when you insisted on taking the lead of one of the hundreds of Mother’s Day celebrations that Esme starred in.

So after a month of planning, sneaking around, and scheming, you and the others are waiting on the sound of Carlisle’s car to bring out the woman of the day.

“Happy Mother’s Day!”

Esme acted surprised as you let confetti stream down from the ceiling and all greeted her at once. She immediately pulled everyone (including Carlisle) into a hug wuere ahe promptly started crying. “You guys. . .” She said.

Rosalie pulled away last, wrapping an arm around you. “It was y/n’s turn, this year.”

When Esme threw her arms around you and squeezed you gently, she felt a warmth where her heart should be beating. In such a short span of time, you had managed to make your mark on the family that would remember it for the millennia to come. “Thank you, my darling,” Esme’s voice cracked.

“You’re welcome,” you replied.

“Time for cake!” Emmett hollered after wiping his own leaking eye.

“But we-“

“We can all look at the swirling frosting designs in awe,” Rosalie cut in sharply, glaring at Edward. “Y/n can tell us how it tastes.”

You smiled lightly at Rose’s jump to defend you. You hadn’t forgotten that the vampires couldn’t eat- but you didn’t really know how else to make it feel like a party without cake.

“Lead the way, my sweets,” Esme said, a glowing smile lifting her features.

[littlemissmentallyunstable]

bella PLEWSDE WRITE A GRAYSON HAWTHORNE BLURB OR WHAYEVER WITH READER WITH LOW IRON AND LIKE SHE ALMOST FAINTS BECAUSE THERES LITERALLY ZERO. ZERO FICS THAY HAVE THE READER WITH LOW IRON SO PPELAPSPESLLEPWDLEEL

AHHHHHH BELLE LET ME JUST BEGIN WITH AN APOLOGY BECAUSE I AM SO SO SO SO SORRY THIS FIC HAS TAKEN ME THREE BILLION YEARS TO GET AROUND TO WRITING!! THANK YOU FOR YOU REQUEST AND I PRAYYYY THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED…. (if not I will redo)

title: I’m fine

pairing: grayson hawthorne x reader

synopsis: a story where ‘I’m fine’ means ‘I’m totally not fine but I’m not going to admit that’

warnings: dizziness, fainting

a/n: dedicating this to the beautiful @midiosaamor 💖💖 ily <33

taglist: @lovethornes @whatsamongus @wish-i-were-heather @inmyheaddd @never-enough-novels @fleuriosa @midiosaamor @sweetreveriee @emelia07 @f4iry-bell @zaraaaabear @thoughtdaughter3 @benny1989fredd @elysianwayy77 @maybxlle @sheisntyou @anintellectualintellectual @aleatorio1234 @adalia-jaycee @off-to-the-r4ces @lyra-kane @reminiscentreader @lyrakanefanatic @imaseabear @elizaa31 @loveinalocket @lanterns-and-daydreams @hermesenthusiast @eternal--dream @shattered-glass-roses @book-nerd-emi @peppapigsposts @foreverwinter22

It only started as a headache, not bad enough to be classed as a migraine but bad enough to be considered more than your average headache. Still, I carried on typing the words out on my computer, my brain pulsating in pain.

I didn’t have time to rest off a headache, there was too much to do. I’d only started working four hours ago and if I didn’t get this done by tonight then my boss would not be happy. I mean it wasn’t exactly my fault she decided set me an assignment with a deadline on the same day but still, I had to work it all out and push through.

The tasks seemed endless, I typed word after word, in a state of not really registering what I was writing, just making the robotic movements to write. Clicking the keys and forming coherent sentences without anything being properly processed. It wasn’t unusual, I was used to my brain working faster than my body sometimes.

Still, my head throbbed on. For a second, I stopped the incessant tapping on my keyboard and pressed two fingertips softly to each temple. My hands were ice cold. I breathed in and out deeply a few times with my eyes shut before beginning to work again, praying a tiny reset would be what I needed. I knew I was lying to myself, I knew it would take more than that to soothe any pain but I carried on like I didn’t.

“Are you alright?”

As small gasp escaped my lips as I looked up to see Grayson standing in the doorframe, one hand at the top taking most of his weight. I wondered how long he’d been stood there and I hadn’t noticed.

“Mmmm,” I hummed in reply, going back to finish the sentence I was typing before I lost my train of thought. Then I looked back up at him again, “why?”

He walked in slowly looking at my face intently, “you look a little pale.”

He took my face into his palms and rubbed my cheek with his thumb. Small, gentle, long strokes, that made me lean into him further. I wanted to just curl up in his arms and sleep, but my work clearly had other ideas.

“Just a headache,” I brushed it off, pulling away from his touch reluctantly, “is there any aspirin?”

“There is,” he nodded slowly, his eyebrows pinching together in concern, “but I really think you ought to lay down if it’s this bad.”

“I don’t need to,” I shook my head stubbornly, standing up to look him dead in the eye, “I’m fine.”

What a lie.

“You don’t look fine,” he told me softly, the anxiety rippling across his perfected features. His hands curved around the small of my back and I tried to enjoy it instead of thinking about the throbbing of my head.

So despite my ache, I smiled, “well I feel fine.”

Sometimes I lied so easily and so well it worried me. I shouldn’t be this good at something so cruel. But maybe more than him, I was lying to myself to convince a part of me that I wasn’t as feeling as bad as I thought I felt.

Grayson gave me another worried glance, thumb running up and down the base of my spine rhythmically, the softness of his touch sending a chill through it.

“Have you eaten today?” he asked me, the tingling up my back dying down.

“Earlier,” I nodded, my eyes flicking the time in the bottom corner of my screen realising my ‘earlier’ actually meant six hours ago. On cue, my stomach seized in a hungry protest, sending a tight knot like sensation across my abdomen. I prayed it wouldn’t grumble, betraying my lies to Gray.

“I haven’t seen you eat or-“

“Stop the fussing,” I grinned to bear it, “I’m fine, just need a tablet and some water.”

“Maybe lay off the work then,” he suggested, cocking his head towards my computer screen.

“Grayson I need to get this done,” I sighed gently, “a little headache can’t stop me.”

“Okay…” he said unsurely, hesitating for a few seconds.

“Stop worrying,” I forced a laugh through my searing brain, glancing up at him and looking through those truth-reeling gray eyes.

“I’m not,” his right hand twitches at my side. Liar. “Sit down and I’ll go and get you the aspirin, okay?”

“Okay then,” I nodded, sitting down. Another chill ran through my spine, though this time it was because of the empty place left where his hands had just been.

I took a few more deep breaths, feeling a little out of it all of a sudden. It was like I was in the room but I wasn’t at the same time. I closed my eyes and let the weight of my skull fall into my palms, breathing even deeper, heavier.

I let myself hang, like a lifeless marionette forgotten by her puppeteer, everything leaden and dopey. When I heard Grayson coming back and quickly opened my eyes and sat up a little bit straighter. If he saw me like that he’d get stressed and that’s the last he needed. It was only a headache after all.

Just a really bad headache.

“Thank you,” I kissed him on the cheek as he passed me the aspirin pill and a glass of water.

He cupped my face in his hands, “you promise me you’re fine?”

“I promise promise promise you,” I whispered, feigning another smile. My jaw was starting to ache. I don’t know it’s it from the guilt of lying or the forceful action of smiling or maybe it was just the headache transferring.

I took the tablet between my fingertips and put it at the back of my mouth before swallowing it quickly with water. I shivered afterwards. I hate taking tablets.

Grayson squeezed my shoulders softly, “do you want me to stay here?”

“Didn’t I just ‘promise promise promise’ you I was fine?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

He looked at me and sighed. Worry ran riot across his eyes, swirling anxious thoughts into pools of grey. How bad did I look?

“I haven’t got much work left to do, okay?” I said, “I just need to get through this.”

He took his time walking out and although I didn’t look at him I was convinced he kept looking back every through steps to check on me. Finally he left and I downed the glass of water.

I sat still for a moment, analysing how I felt. I didn’t think it was possible but my head had worsened. I internally groaned as dread filled my body. It wasn’t supposed to worsen. I prayed the tablet would kick in, after all I hadn’t really given it a chance.

I took a long breath out and continued tapping away at the keypad. After a while the continuous clicking and clacking was beginning to irritate me. Like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch. My already pounding head felt pounded with the small noises over and over like they were making a mockery of it. Still I continued, there wasn’t much left now and if I could just finish it l, all would be okay.

After about a billion spell checks - seriously why does psychology have a ‘p’ and ‘h’ in it, it’s so irrelevant - I thought I might be ready to finish when I realised I’d missed a whole section.

By now my head was almost unbearable. Torturous agony was creeping up behind my eye now as well as the front of my head. A whole section felt like it would be the death of me. And I’d noticed something weirdly unnatural about my breathing. Every breath in didn’t feel like enough oxygen. So I began to breathe more deeply and when that wasn’t working, more quickly.

That only fuelled my rising panic about the weird nature of these symptoms. They were familiar. Why couldn’t I breathe normally? What was wrong? Maybe it was more than a headache? Questions raced through my head faster than it had time to process them all.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My head pounded on and like the idiot that I am, I carried on writing. My vision blurred out for a fraction of a second then cleared shortly after. I rubbed my eyes. It was just the screen. Just the screen.

It happened a few more times, so I cleaned my glasses with the bottom of my jumper for good measure. More notes, more notes, more notes, more notes. I quickly hit save in the document for fear if my computer crashed I would lose it all. I sighed as I then went to drink from my water glass only to realise it was empty.

“Gray!” I yelled, “could you grab me another glass of water please?”

I barely registered his reply, my only focus being the stupid piece of work. ‘I can last a little longer’ I repeated over and over in my mind. Until I was bored. Until I was delirious. Until I was too brain dead to care.

I could hear Grayson approaching so got up to meet him at the door. I wanted a ten second break from staring straight at the glowing screen. Suddenly, mid step, I stumbled. Straight away Grayson had one hand around the small of my back gripping tightly and the another on my upper arm, steadying me. I try to laugh it off as a I mistake but even that sounded weak.

“Woah sweetheart,” he said, his hold firmer as he set me straight, “what’s going on?”

“I’m fine,” I shrugged, trying to get back to my chair, my legs feeling too much like jelly for my liking.

I could see he didn’t believe me completely, he didn’t have to say a word. Grayson, instead, took me in his arms. I couldn’t ask to sit down after that, then I’d be admitting that something was wrong. So I stayed standing, my body against his. The only thing holding me up was him.

He looked at me, tender eyed and consumed with concern, “you’re clearly not my love.”

“Gray, I just tripped,” I said smoothly, praying he’d let me twist the truth as I tried to stop my legs from shaking.

“Don’t lie to me,” he murmured in a low voice, curling his other arm around my waist for support.

“I’m not lying,” I shrugged, continuing to be in denial as I gripped to his shirt so tightly my knuckles went white, “I’m fine.”

As soon as the words left my lips everything spun. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against his chest, hoping it would all just go away. My feet swayed a little and panic seized my throat at the unsteadiness. I made a choked sound, halfway between a gasp and a silent scream.

“It’s okay,” Grayson whispered softly, “I’ve got you.” He brought a hand up through the back of my hair and gently held onto the back of my head to steady it.

“Dizzy,” I murmured into him, my voice slurred and slowed. I felt so out of it.

We stayed like that for I don’t know how long. My concept of time was as hazy as my vision. I just remembered staying very still, Grayson’s hands not leaving my body and how hard my forehead was pressed against him.

After a while, I tried to stand back on my own, thinking the dizzy spell was over but as soon as I did the room became a whirlpool of colours and blob-ish shapes. I felt myself lose my footing completely and before I knew it was falling backwards.

Strong arms tensed around my torso and quickly caught me, “oh sweetheart,” I heard Grayson say as he safely lowered me to the ground.

My legs became lifeless pieces of flesh, heavy as led but weak as a flimsy childhood doll. My head felt heavy in his lap as it pounded on. I sewed my eyes shut, it helped a little with the dizziness. His cold fingers tentatively touched my forehead and I leant into them ever so slightly with what energy I had left.

“I’m going to carry you to bed,” he told me gently, as I felt one arm around my back and the other under my legs.

“But my work-“ I groaned, feeling a little nauseated from the dizziness.

He held me tightly, “no sweetheart, forget about work, you need to rest.”

I didn’t reply and instead feebly gripped my deadened limbs around his neck and prayed for all of this to just go away.

“Gray,” I murmured into his chest.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not fine,” I said, somewhere between a sob and mumble.

“I know sweetheart,” he whispered, pressing a shaky kiss on my temple, “I know.”

He scooped me into his arms and carried me to the bedroom, laying me on the bed, before tucking me under the covers. Not letting go of my hand, that gripped him so tightly I don’t know how he didn’t complain. I heard him dialling a number.

“Who are you calling?” I slurred.

“Someone to come and help you,” he responded swiftly.

“Mhmm,” I could only muster in response.

His thumb rubbed circles up and down my hand, “I’m going to stay right here okay?” he comforted, “can you still hear me?”

“Don’t go,” I whispered, feeling quite pathetic but not self-conscience enough to care.

“No I’m staying sweetheart,” he squeezed my palm in his, “I’m staying.”

My eyes fluttered open as my head lazily lolled to one side, “I’m dizzy,” I groaned, not remembering if I’d mentioned already.

“I know,” Grayson whispered, a hand pushing my hair out of the way, “I know.”

“Can I rest my eyes?” I asked him, closing them anyway.

“No, you can’t go to sleep,” he told me.

“No just rest my eyes…” I trailed off, pausing for a long while, my train of thought wavering, “…to stop the spinning.”

“Squeeze my hand every three seconds then,” he said, “so I know you’re awake.”

“Deal,” I barely managed to whisper before I felt the need to increase my breathing rate. It felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in my system.

I squeezed his hand every three seconds, just about keeping track of the numbers. But with every squeeze I could feel myself growing weaker and weaker, like all of my energy was being drained slowly and mercilessly. The only thing that kept me from closing my eyes was Grayson’s gentle touches. His soft fingertips trailing over my face, tracing the contours or drawing spirals on my upper arms and neck.

I opened my eyes for a moment, when the darkness was just as bad as the light, when I felt dizzy no matter whether my eyes were closed or open. Things blurred and cleared, darkened and became normal again over and over and over. Until, a piercing ringing coursed through my ears and everything other sound seemed to be submerged under water. I knew what that meant I was close to.

“Gray,” I murmured shakily.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to pass out,” I told him, a single tear trailing its way down my cheek, “I can feel it.”

I knew the signs well enough and every sign was pointing that way.

“It’s okay,” he said, positioning himself behind me, so my back was pressed against his torso and he could support my head, “I’ve got you.”

“I don’t want to pass out,” I sobbed, black spots dancing across my vision in mockery.

The worst part is always before you passed out because when you’re out you feel and remember nothing. But before, you know what’s coming and you know you can’t stop it.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” he mumbled into my hair, slowly, comfortingly, “you’re safe, if you need to pass out, you can and your body will, whether you like it or not.”

My hands were shaking, fingers rocking back and forth, bumping into one another clumsily, “I’m scared,” I said between uneven breaths.

I grabbed Grayson’s forearm to attempt to still them, my fingers so brutally desperate in their clinging that they constricted his blood flow. No matter how many times I’d passed out,, I always felt just as scared.

“You don’t need to be scared,” he soothed gently, “I’ve got you, I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You promise,” I panted, looking up at him, chest rising up and down harshly.

“I promise,” he leant down and planted a sweet of kiss on my nose.

I kept looking up, until his gray eyes clouded with dark spots, until calm expression replaced with an endless see of nothingness, until the whisperings of sweet words ceased. My breathing was heavy, growing heavier by the second and then… then there was black.

***

I felt thick and heavy with drowsiness. My body felt so weighted it ached. My back was against the mattress, my head flat on the pillow, I was anchored to my bed. The covers had been adjusted to just under my neck and I could feel someone’s hand in mine.

I winced as I opened my eyes, the light attacking them too viciously. Immediately Grayson dimmed it down, holding my cheek tentatively in his palm.

“Hey sweetheart,” he whispered, kissing my forehead.

“Gray?”

He traced a soft thumb over the bone where my eyebrow sat as he asked, “how are you feeling?”

“Tired,” I mumbled, stifling a yawn.

“Here,” he said gently, “have some water.”

Slowly he helped me prop myself up, his hand pressed up against my back, the other tipping the glass towards my lips. I swallowed, the water feeling odd against the dryness of my throat.

“How long was I out for?” I coughed.

“Only a bit,” he said, laying me back down, “the doctors have come and gone, they say you’ll be okay with some rest.”

“Why did I pass out?” I asked tiredly, “do they know?”

“You hadn’t taken your iron tablets in three days,” Grayson explained, cocking his head towards my table.

I glanced to my bedside and gasped. Three days worth of unconsumed tablets sat there. I never usually forgot, one day maybe but three whole days. That was unheard of. Guilt permeated me, all the stress I’d probably put Grayson under could’ve been entirely prevented.

“I must’ve forgotten,” I sighed leaning deeper into my pillow, “work has just been so hectic lately and-“

“Hey, hey, hey, I didn’t tell you to worry you, I told you so you wouldn’t overthink what was wrong,” he said softly, “but it’s okay, you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”

“But it’s not okay because it’s all my fault,” I bursted into tears, the shock wave of random emotion leaving me senseless, “I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you I wasn’t fine and then I just passed out and that probably really stressed you out and I could’ve stopped all of that if I’d just taken the stupid tablets.”

“Sweetheart,” he pressed a palm flat on my chest, “breathe, it’s okay.”

His voice was the constant in my current of chaotic overthinking. This had happened before many times, my low iron deficiency had always been an issue, but even the very first time I’d passed out he was so much calmer than I’d expected.

He kept calm for me.

“God I feel like an idiot,” I choked out a pathetic laugh, wiping my eyes roughly with the back of my hand.

“You’re not an idiot, love,” he soothed, taking my hand gently into his and replacing with with the pad of his thumb, as he gently wiped away the tears that were left, “it happens.”

“It shouldn’t happen,” I shook my head defiantly.

I don’t forget things. I never forget things.

“Hey,” Grayson said, “look at me, you’re fine, I’m fine and that’s all that’s important.”

He held my face in his palms and looked at me like I meant the world.

“I’m sorry,” I let the weight of my head fall into his hands, taking the ache from my neck.

“Don’t apologise,” he said, “there’s no need for you to, just relax.”

I closed my eyes, his palm warm and comforting against my cheek. His fingers found their way to the top of my head, soothingly running through my hair over my scalp.

“Do you want me to get in with you?” he asked.

I nodded sleepily and watched as he slipped into the bed beside me. I was quick to snuggle close, intertwining my legs with his and burying my face into his chest. I inhaled and exhaled slowly.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he whispered in a low voice in my ear as his arms curved around my waist.

“Tired,” I mumbled.

“It’s okay,” he ushered, “you can go to sleep.”

“What if you go?” I asked, like a child.

“I won’t, I promise,” Grayson said, “I’ll stay here with you.”

I smiled to myself, and squeezed his arm, “I love you,” I murmured, “so much.”

“I love you too sweetheart,” he planted a kiss on the top of my head, “more than this world. Get some rest now.”

So I shut my eyes and fell longingly into sleep’s arms.

a/n: hope you enjoyed guys, sorry I haven’t posted much 💖💖

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