#buried desires chapter 1

[dracarialove]

📄 F it, I'm posting my finished fics here, too 📄

Buried Desires

A mishap during one of their missions forces Shadow to confess the feelings he's been hiding from Rouge.

Ship: Shadow/Rouge

*Originally published Feb. 10th, 2023

[Chapter 1: Early-Morning Company]

Dark eyelids rose as the black hedgehog stirred from his slumber. In the dimness of a small wooden room, he looked up at the slanted ceiling and let his eyes adjust until a yawn escaped him.

Once again, Shadow was waking up in the hidden attic of Club Rouge, lying flat on the extra twin mattress his partner always offered.

It seemed she even kept it out permanently, as frequently as he decided to crash there after admitting it was a better sleep than snoozing on the grass or on a rooftop.

"Maybe you wouldn't be so grumpy if you got a proper rest every night," she'd said, finally coaxing him to ditch his loner tendencies.

And she was right, he realized. The days after he slept at Rouge's place always seemed more pleasant. This one was no exception, the Ultimate Lifeform already feeling lighter of heart as he sat himself up; but since it was still dark in the room, he had to wonder what time it was.

He looked to his right, where the bed sat against the wall, and pushed aside the curtain that covered a little window. It was completely dark out, the midnight blue color of the sky only brightened by a few dots of light coming from other buildings' windows.

It was so quiet at this hour – more enjoyable than the interrupting traffic or wildlife he would hear while sleeping outdoors. And as Shadow's gaze trailed the other way to survey the room, he twisted his torso to release the tension that had built in his back during the night.

One of the only flaws in his design was that his form stayed still while sleeping, something he hadn't realized caused a lingering stiffness until he started caring more about his comfort. A couple of pleasing cracks sounded out from the base of his spine, making the speedster sigh in relief.

At the same time, his crimson eyes dragged over to his friend's side of the room, where her bed sat against the opposite wall and closer to the hatch that led into the club.

He expected to see the hostess sleeping peacefully, but instead, her mattress was empty. There was an open space between the blanket and pillow where she'd gotten out of bed.

It wasn't unheard of for Rouge to wake up so early – as her sleep schedule was constantly shifting – but he couldn't help but wonder where she was, nonetheless.

Unhindered by the darkness, he turned to place his feet on the floor, then stood and took a few steps towards the skinny door on his left. It led outside, and when he nudged a sheer white curtain aside, he saw the jewel hunter through the single-pane window, her back to the entrance while she stood looking out from the tiny balcony. She was leaned forward a bit, seemingly placing her weight on her elbows and resting against the banister of the white platform.

She wasn't dressed for the day yet, wrapped up in a mulberry robe with heart-shaped slippers on her feet. But she looked to be in a place of tranquility, soaking up the sight of the dark sky above the city and the even darker plains past the outskirts; visible thanks to the short buildings whose roofs sat lower than hers.

Shadow smiled to himself, content at the prospect of early-morning company, and opened the door to join her. Pretty white curls drifted to the right side of her back as the woman turned to watch him exit the attic, and a friendly smile grew from her unglossed lips.

"Morning," she greeted, her voice warm already – she must've been awake for a while.

"Good morning," replied Shadow as he approached the balcony to occupy the space on her left. "You're up quite early. Did you sleep well enough?"

She cocked her head and nodded, answering, "Yeah, I did. How about you?"

He mirrored her nod and rested his left hand on the banister. "It was nice. Thank you for letting me stay."

"Of course." Rouge let one brow lower in a cheeky expression. "But you don't have to thank me. It's not like it's a bother or anything."

"Right. I know that. I just want to express gratitude, considering it's technically unnecessary."

She then rolled her eyes, her smile pulling into a smirk, and shook her head. "I accept your appreciation, Shadow. But it's been long enough that I think you can drop that now. I mean, I practically had to beg you to stop sleeping outside so much, right?"

"Hah," the stoic man huffed. "You're exaggerating. It didn't take that much convincing."

"Well, regardless, this arrangement is leagues better than what you had going on before. And you deserve better! Besides... I like having you around here, anyway."

With that, her head cocked towards him, leaving little space between them on the small gazebo-shaped balcony. Her turquoise eyes stuck to his and Shadow could see a charming twinkle within them when she added, "So, my reasonings for offering a bed aren't completely selfless."

'I like being around you, too,' the lifeform thought to himself.

He wished he had the gumption to say it outright, but it felt so personal. So... intimate. They'd known each other a long time, but he certainly didn't feel they were on that level. Adventure after adventure, their relationship was mostly friendly with a huge helping of business.

And until their team vowed undying loyalty – after a tricky mission filled with shortsighted planning and reckless decisions – the business had outweighed anything else. But with their deepening bond had come an emotion stronger than care, one Shadow hadn't been able to place for a while.

Though Rouge recognized how much she liked him at a steady pace, the realization of his own feelings didn't happen until much later in their friendship. And as the bat hadn't taken the reins to tell him anything about it herself, he assumed she didn't feel the same way.

Through his nature of taking things far too seriously, the hedgehog was overanalyzing their dynamic and holding himself back, while she was going about things more casually. He didn't know she was working towards the same step he was afraid to take.

'You're pathetic,' his conscience echoed. 'Saying out loud that you have more affection for her than she realizes? That should be effortless. You've accomplished more difficult things in a single afternoon. It should be easy.'

It should've been – but it wasn't. Shadow still didn't like all the complex emotions he was capable of feeling. Most of them were uncomfortable, some of them painful, and there weren't enough that made up for it.

He didn't even know what he would feel if she turned him down. Surely, she wouldn't be harsh in doing so, but it would still hurt, wouldn't it?

Being friends didn't hurt. Being partners didn't hurt. But trying to push for more than that? He had no way of knowing how it would turn out, so it was actually easier to say nothing.

There was no way Rouge would act the same way around him if a confession ruined their bond. And the unsettling possibility of that was stronger than the appeal of the alternative.

Shadow just didn't know how wrong he was, or how much he was psyching himself out for no real reason. Smiling at him and leaning a little closer than she was before, the ivory treasure hunter expected his confession at any moment.

She could've said something herself, but that was less romantic; although, if he took much longer to spit it out, she thought she might have to.

Did he like her back as she did him? Probably. And she wasn't so worried about tainting their partnership, because their connection was unbreakable. But she also had no idea how much importance he was putting behind his emotions.

Rouge couldn't read his expression beyond the content smile he still held, so when he didn't respond, she broke eye contact to look back out into the distance.

A faint layer of orange was peeking from the horizon to coat the bottom of the dark blue sky. The sun was starting to rise, and the sight made her lips stretch from a smirk to a more genuine smile of enchantment.

Shadow copied her action, trying to find the same joy; but his grip tightened around the banister as he fought with himself inside his head.

"You know," Rouge started, "as invasive as the sun can be, it sure is beautiful when it rises."

"... Yeah. I wish Maria could've seen it. She would've loved this."

The bat's brows upturned, switching her expression to one of solemn endearment as she looked over at him. "I bet. But you know what she would've loved more?"

Shadow turned his gaze to her, as well, silently waiting for the follow-up. Her pretty lips answered, "Seeing you enjoying it, too. I know, because it warms my heart to see you appreciating things like a sunrise; you wouldn't have done that before."

He couldn't meet her gaze anymore as the words overtook him. Ruby eyes, tinted orange by the ascending brightness, dragged downwards in contrast to his mouth, which curled instinctively. "A lot has changed, hasn't it?"

She nodded slowly, still softly staring at the hedgehog while he repositioned his weight to lean against the banister instead of holding it. His arms crossed and he was able to look at her again, causing a flutter in Rouge's heart, and she couldn't help but let out a slightly nervous chuckle.

But before she could say anything else, their conversation was interrupted by a mechanical beep sounding out from beneath the sleeve of her robe. She pulled it up to reveal the communicator she wore around her wrist, and they both saw the small screen flashing from green to blue.

"Oh, the Commander's calling," Rouge said.

The faintest tinge of annoyance entered Shadow's voice. "This early?"

She gave him a glance that showed her vague irritation, as well. "Good thing we were already up, eh?"

Her ungloved finger tapped the screen and the human man's digitized voice came through the solid blue glow. "Rouge, come in, Rouge-"

"Yes, Commander, I can hear you," she replied, rolling her eyes and making Shadow smile. "To what do I owe the interruption of my morning?"

"Your next assignment. And Shadow's, if he's willing-"

"I'm here, Tower," spoke the lifeform, leaning closer.

"Ah, good to know you stick together. This mission is rather pressing, I couldn't very well wait. We were recently informed that an experimental and dangerous piece of technology was illegally acquired from overseas."

The Mobians shared an intrigued glance while he continued, "Now, thanks to our informant, we've been able to track it; and now that it's stopped moving, we know where it is. So, I need the two of you to infiltrate an establishment belonging to Doctor Golvin."

"Golvin?" Rouge cut in. "Isn't he a scientist, or something? I think you've mentioned him before."

"That's right, he is. But apparently, he isn't as adherent to the laws as we thought when we worked with him previously. This item he's essentially stolen is a weapon, one we haven't given clearance to obtain outside of guarded military bases. And Doctor Golvin has it stashed in one of his private homes, away from the public. I don't need to tell the two of you how risky it is to let him keep it, so you see why we need your skills immediately."

"Hmm," mused Rouge, pursing her lips and tapping her chin with her finger. Shadow smirked as he knew he hardly had to speak, as capable as she was of carrying the conversation. "Sounds like you want us to break-and-enter someone's house, Commander. You know, that's a crime we'd be committing."

"Consider yourselves preemptively pardoned for an act of bravery in service of the people's safety," he responded in a calculated manner. "And I assume your next comment will be about payment."

She teased, "You know me so well, boss."

"I'm prepared to offer five thousand, untraceable – you can split it how you like."

The jewel thief's eyes widened and her smug smile dropped. She looked at Shadow again and he raised his eyebrows to mirror her surprise. He verbalized the thought he knew was going through her head. "That much for a retrieval, sir?"

"I'm not complaining, just to be clear," his partner quickly added. "I love that you recognize the worth of our services."

They heard the man snicker through the screen, and his calm timbre followed. "It's an important assignment, and I have no way of knowing what setbacks you might encounter. So, I think it's only fair to compensate you on that basis."

"Hey, I'll take it," Rouge accepted, her smile returning, and she turned her attention to the hedgehog. "For all we know, this guy could have security bots around every corner!"

"Fair enough," Shadow conceded, shrugging and nodding at her.

Tower spoke again, "It's pressing, so you'll be doing this the minute he vacates his property. Report to my office ASAP and I'll give you what you need to finish the job."

"Yessir!" Rouge chimed, visibly eager at the promise of a huge payout.

The screen turned green as the human ended their connection, then the watch was hidden again as she slid the mulberry sleeve of her robe back down. Instantly, her bright eyes locked onto Shadow as she turned to face him, leaning forward and planting her hand on the banister.

"Five thousand, can you believe it?" Her face was closer to his than he'd been prepared for, illuminated on one side by the ever-lightening sky as the top edge of the sun became visible. He tightened his grip on both of his arms, still crossed over his chest, and held his breath while she beamed. "For a simple grab-n-go! I knew working for the government would be my ticket to fortune."

She pulled away and he let his breath out in a reserved chuckle, his heart rate higher than he liked. "What happened to 'security bots around every corner'?"

"Oh, p'shaw!" she scoffed, dramatically swatting the air. "We can handle any guards, you know that. I just didn't want Tower to think it would be easy and lower the payment."

She walked over to the thin door and opened it, talking over her shoulder at him as she went through. "Let's get a move on, handsome – duty calls!"

Shadow followed, holding onto the warmth he felt when she complimented him. It was nice, but he also kept his mind grounded by reminding himself that flattery was customary with her. He tried not to also think that it was all those words would ever be.

[seriiousgiirl]

𝐼𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ݁𝒿𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓈 𝓈𝓊𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇𝓁𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓍 𝓉𝑒𝒶𝒸𝒽𝑒𝓇!𝓇𝑒𝒶𝒹𝑒𝓇.⊹ ₊ ݁.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. alternate universe - canon divergence, post-silent Hill 2, angst and fluff and smut, touch-starved, redemption, grief, mourning, psychological trauma and horror, mutual pining, James adopted Laura, age difference, smut, vaginal sex, rough sex, rough kissing, aftercare, daddy kink, James deserves his happy ending, James is desperate and pathetic, based on the Silent Hill Games and mostly the remake

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ 𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎 . ⊹ ₊ ݁. Three years after the harrowing events in Silent Hill, James Sunderland has survived the haunting memories of his past but carries the heavy burden of grief and guilt. Adopting Laura, James strives to create a normal life for them both, but the echoes of his former life linger, haunting him in moments of solitude.

As he navigates the challenges of fatherhood and a corporate job, James grapples with PTSD and the lingering shadows of his late wife, Mary. His daily interactions are fraught with anxiety, especially when it comes to Laura's teacher, Y/n. Young, vibrant, and filled with warmth. But as Y/n becomes an unexpected source of comfort and tension in James's life. He is drawn to her kindness and beauty, yet he feels undeserving of her attention, burdened by the ghosts of his past.

When Y/n reaches out with genuine concern for James's well-being, he wrestles with feelings of guilt, lust and longing, torn between the desire for connection and the fear of betraying Mary's memory. As James's pent-up frustrations bubble to the surface, he finds himself navigating a complicated emotional landscape where love, loss, and redemption intertwine.

❛ Part 2 ⋅ masterlist ⋅ ao3 ⋅ requests ❜

➜ ┊ a/n: Hello everyone! After years of being more or less in the Silent Hill fandom, the remake rather inspired me... :') After seeing how cute James is in it, I felt like I was rediscovering his character. The story is a bit different from what we usually see, but I hope it will appeal to the (few, I don't think many would be interested in a silent hill fanfic) people who read it.

➜ ┊: chapter 1/?.

James woke up again, his body snapping upright in bed, his breath ragged and uneven as if he had just surfaced from drowning. His chest rose and fell with frantic breaths that refused to calm, his heart hammering against his ribcage like a prisoner desperate to escape. The room around him was silent, still, and blanketed in shadows, the faintest silver glow of the moon seeping through the thin, worn curtains. It painted his surroundings in an eerie light, enough to make out the vague shapes of his furniture but not enough to chase away the weight of the darkness.

He knew it was early—much too early. The alarm on his nightstand wouldn’t go off for hours, not until the unforgiving numbers clicked over to 7 a.m. He set it religiously, every night, clinging to the hope that one day he’d wake naturally to the sound, as if that simple act could restore some semblance of normalcy to his broken life. 

But that never happened.

James never woke peacefully anymore. His body, his mind, refused to grant him that mercy. Instead, he jolted awake in a cold sweat, his body rigid, his pulse racing. Each time, it felt as though he was being pulled from some unseen nightmare—ripped out of a hellish dreamscape that he couldn’t remember clearly but always left its mark. The fear, the panic, the suffocating sense of dread stayed with him, lingering like smoke in the air long after his eyes had adjusted to the dim glow of his bedroom.

He pressed his palm against his face, wiping away the sheen of sweat that clung to his skin. His body felt tense, coiled like a spring that had been wound too tightly. His muscles ached from the constant strain, from the battles he fought every night within the confines of his mind. The nightmares weren’t just dreams. They were fragments of a past that refused to stay buried, haunting him in the dead of night when the world outside was quiet and his mind had no distractions to keep the demons at bay.

The medication bottles on his bedside table gleamed faintly in the moonlight, their labels worn from use. He reached for them out of habit, his fingers brushing the cool surface, but he didn’t open them. No matter how many pills he swallowed, how many prescriptions doctors wrote, nothing ever worked. Sleep was supposed to be a sanctuary, a refuge from the waking world, but for James, it had become another battleground.

He let his hand drop back to his lap, staring down at his shaking fingers. He could feel the tension still coursing through him, the residue of whatever nightmare had dragged him awake. His body hadn’t yet realised he was safe, that it was just a dream, and the adrenaline still pumped through his veins. Every night, it was the same—this restless terror that clung to him, trapping him in a cycle he couldn’t escape. He longed for sleep, yet feared it in equal measure, knowing that the darkness of his subconscious held more horrors than the light of day ever could.

For a moment, he considered lying back down, closing his eyes, and trying again. 

But the thought alone made his stomach twist.

With a sigh, James decided to give up on sleep altogether. There was no use lying there, waiting for his heart to calm down or for the remnants of his nightmare to fade. His legs still trembled as he swung them over the side of the bed, the cool floor beneath him grounding him just enough to pull himself up. The shadows in the room seemed to shift as he stood, though he knew it was his mind playing tricks again. He had long stopped trusting the darkness.

He moved carefully, trying to stay silent as he made his way to the door, not wanting to wake Laura. She was the only constant in his life now, the only reason he hadn’t completely unravelled. But even the thought of her, sleeping peacefully down the hall, wasn’t enough to ease the tremor in his hands. As he stepped out of the bedroom, the familiar creak of the floorboards echoed too loud in the silence of the house, and for a fleeting moment, his breath hitched.

Sometimes, in these quiet hours, he could swear he heard them—the monsters. That same sickening creaking sound they made, their grotesque forms dragging across the cold. Or worse, the heavy, slow scrap of metal—a blade being dragged along the ground. His body tensed, instinctively waiting for the ominous presence of that thing— he came to call Pyramid Head. He hadn’t seen it in three years, but its presence still lingered, like a ghost lurking in the corners of his mind. His chest tightened as he imagined that scraping sound growing closer, louder, but he knew… or at least, he tried to convince himself it wasn’t real. Not anymore.

On the worst days, though, it wasn’t just the monsters. 

Sometimes, he would hear her—Mary. Her voice, soft and sweet, like the Mary he remembered before everything went wrong, calling out to him. It always started the same way, a gentle whisper at first, like she was in the next room, waiting for him. And each time, it grew louder, more urgent, until it was a siren’s call, relentless and cruel. It was enough to make his heart stop, to make him question everything, and then he’d remember—he knew where that call would lead. Straight into oblivion. Straight into the abyss of his own guilt.

On other nights, he could swear he felt Maria—her warmth next to him in bed, the way her body would press against his. It was so vivid, so painfully real, as though she hadn’t died in his arms multiple times, as though Silent Hill hadn’t swallowed her whole. She had been a ghost, a reflection of everything he had lost, and yet… sometimes she felt alive in those moments. His doctors told him it was all hallucinations, the remnants of trauma deeply embedded in his mind. Certified and explained away in clinical terms, but knowing that didn’t change how real it felt in those fleeting, terrifying seconds.

Even now, as he stood in the hallway, his breath uneven, James couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere—beneath the layers of his fragile reality—the horrors were still there, watching, waiting.

James padded quietly into the kitchen, his bare feet brushing against the cool tiles as he reached for a glass. The water flowed smoothly from the tap, cool and refreshing, and he drank it straight, the crispness washing over him. It helped clear his mind, if only for a moment, pushing back the lingering echoes of the night’s terrors. 

After finishing the glass, he flicked on the small lamp in the living room, its soft glow spilling light across the space, chasing away the oppressive darkness. He made his way to the couch, settling himself in front of the window, where the city still lay shrouded in early morning silence. Outside, the world was just beginning to stir, but here in this moment, everything felt suspended in time.

They had moved far away from Silent Hill, away from Maine altogether, as if he was still trying to escape the town’s haunting pull. When Laura had expressed her desire for a place near the coast, saying she wanted to feel the warmth of the sun and breathe in the salty scent of the ocean, he had obliged her wishes. It was the least he could do for the little girl who had become his lifeline, the one bright spot in his otherwise dark world. It had taken time, but he had learned to appreciate the small things—like the sound of waves crashing against the shore and the way the sunlight danced on the water’s surface.

He pulled his journal from the side table, the worn leather cover familiar against his fingers. The pages were filled with thoughts, memories, and an ongoing dialogue with himself—one that his doctor had encouraged. Writing was meant to help him sort through his feelings, to separate reality from the nightmares that still clung to him like shadows. It was a way to document the moments that felt tangible, grounding him in the present.

With the pen poised above the page, he took a deep breath, letting the silence of the morning wrap around him. 

Date: [XX/10/1993]

Another night of waking up in a cold sweat. The dreams feel heavier lately, more vivid. I can still hear Mary’s voice sometimes, like she’s calling out to me. I know it’s not real, but the longing… It’s hard to escape. I need to remember that I’m here now. That I have Laura. She needs me to be present. I need to plan my day—take her to the beach, show her the tide pools, maybe? She deserves to explore, to laugh, to feel alive. Maybe it will help me too.

James paused, staring at the words he’d just written. The ink was still wet, and he felt the weight of each line pressing against his chest, a mixture of hope and dread swirling within him. 

He continued, allowing his thoughts to flow onto the page.

I’ve been thinking about the way the ocean looks at dawn. It’s a beautiful sight, the horizon slowly illuminated by the first light of day. I want to share that with Laura. She deserves to see the world as it is. Maybe if I can show her that, it’ll help me remember what it feels like to be alive, too.

He turned the page, feeling the familiar texture beneath his fingertips, grounding him in a moment that felt too fragile. The nightmares are starting to blur again. It’s like I’m drifting between memories and dreams. I know I should talk to Dr. Fischer about it, but I hate feeling so exposed. Every time I sit across from him, it’s like peeling back layers of skin. I don’t want to keep reliving the past, but I also know I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s a part of me now—part of what makes me who I am.

But sometimes, I wonder if I’m doing enough. If I’m enough. Laura is so full of life—she deserves happiness, yet I feel like a ghost in my own home. The laughter that fills this place is often followed by a silence that weighs heavily on me, as if I’m a spectator in my own life, watching a play where I don’t belong. 

He paused, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, fighting against the swell of loneliness that threatened to overwhelm him. 

Some days, I can still hear Mary’s laughter, the way it used to light up the room, but now it’s a whisper in the wind. I wish I could reach out to her, ask her for forgiveness, tell her how much I miss her. But she’s gone, and I’m left with nothing but my guilt and the memories that won’t let me go. It’s a bitter irony—I have another chance at life with Laura, yet I feel more alone than ever.

I thought time would heal me, that the scars would fade, but each day feels like a new reminder of what I’ve lost. I watch Laura play, her laughter cutting through the silence, and it fills me with joy and pain all at once. I want to protect her, to shield her from the darkness I carry. But how can I do that when I’m still fighting my own battles?

Anyway, plan for today: Take Laura to the beach, explore the tide pools, and have a picnic.

As he continued to write, the rhythm of his thoughts began to settle, the initial chaos giving way to clarity. He documented everything he hoped to achieve that day, the things that could distract him. 

After some time, the soft patter of small feet echoed in the hallway, and Laura emerged from her room, her hair tousled and her eyes still heavy with sleep. She settled next to James on the couch, curling her legs beneath her as she leaned against his shoulder, still waking up. 

“Did you even sleep at all?” she mumbled, her voice thick with the remnants of slumber. 

James chuckled softly, the sound warm and gentle. “Just a little. You know how it is,” he replied, glancing down at her. The early morning light filtered through the window, illuminating her features and casting a soft glow around them. 

“Not again,” Laura sighed, shaking her head in mock exasperation. “You should really take better care of yourself, you know.”

James smiled, closing his journal and setting it aside, feeling the comforting weight of their shared silence. His relationship with Laura had evolved significantly since that first day they met. In the beginning, there was an undeniable tension, a wall between them built from grief and uncertainty. Laura had been sharp-tongued and defiant, often testing his patience with her stubbornness. But over time, that wall had crumbled, brick by brick, revealing a bond that had become more profound and genuine. 

“Maybe I just like the quiet,” he teased, nudging her lightly with his shoulder. “It gives me time to think.”

Laura rolled her eyes, though a smile tugged at her lips. “Yeah, right. More like you spend it worrying about everything,” she shot back, her familiar sass coming through. But he could sense the softness in her demeanour, the way she had begun to let him in, and it filled him with gratitude.

There were still moments when she wouldn’t call him “Dad”—it felt too heavy, too final—but there had been instances where the word slipped out, once or twice. The first time he had felt a rush of warmth and something almost like fear at her words. It had caught him off guard, pulling at his heartstrings in a way he hadn’t expected. It was one night after a particularly rough day at school. 

The kids had been relentless, and when she had come home, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. She had cried so much that night, seeking solace in his arms, and in that moment of vulnerability, she had whispered it—Dad—like it was a fragile promise, something she wanted to believe in.

He had held her tightly, whispering reassurances as she poured out her heart. It was one of the hardest days for both of them, but that single word had changed everything, reinforcing their bond in ways he never thought possible. 

The shrill sound of James’s alarm cut through the quiet morning, signalling that it was finally 7 a.m. He groaned softly, the sudden noise pulling him from the lingering remnants of his thoughts. “Time to get moving,” he muttered to himself before swinging his legs off the couch and standing up.

“Laura,” he called out gently, “you need to get ready for school.” 

Laura groaned but slowly pushed herself upright, her hair sticking up in tousled spikes. “Do I have to?” she whined, rubbing her eyes.

“Yes, you do,” James replied with a chuckle, heading into the kitchen to start breakfast. He could already hear her muttering under her breath as she dragged herself away from the comfort of the couch, but he couldn’t help but smile at her antics. As he prepared breakfast, the scent of eggs and toast filled the air, mixing with the cool October breeze that slipped in through the slightly ajar window. 

He could hear the soft shuffle of Laura getting ready in the background, her footsteps echoing through the hallway.

When breakfast was ready, he set the table, placing a plate in front of her just as she joined him. They ate together in comfortable silence, the clinking of forks the only sound between them for a few moments. 

“So, there’s this kid in class…” Laura began, her voice a mix of enthusiasm and worry. As she recounted her stories, James listened attentively, nodding along as she shared her concerns about a class project and the kids who were teasing her again. She spoke with an earnestness that made him proud, she was a smart little girl.

“...and I do think the teacher likes me a lot,” she finished, her voice dropping slightly, smiling shyly.

James reached across the table, placing a comforting hand on hers. “You’re doing great, Laura. I’m so proud of you,” he encouraged, hoping to convey his support. 

Once they finished breakfast, he cleared the table while she dashed back to her room to grab her backpack. The familiar morning routine helped ground him, a stark contrast to the chaos that often filled his mind.

Then, James returned to his room, feeling the familiar weight of his thoughts returning. He turned on the water for a shower, the warm spray washing over him, almost as if he were trying to cleanse himself of his sins and guilt. Each droplet felt like it could wash away a little more of his guilt, his pain, and his memories.

After his shower, he stood in front of the mirror, towel drying his ash-blond hair and tidying it up, shaving his stubble. The cold air from outside seeped through the window, sending a shiver down his spine as he dressed for the day. He pulled on a simple shirt and jeans. 

But as James stood in front of his closet, the morning light filtering through the curtains, his gaze fell upon his signature khaki jacket hanging quietly amidst his other clothes. For a moment, he hesitated, his heart tightening.

The jacket felt heavy with the weight of the past. He recalled the feel of it against his skin as he navigated the fog-laden streets, the chill of the air contrasting sharply with the warmth it provided. It had shielded him from the elements, yes, but it had also cloaked him in the pain of his choices, the guilt that clung to him like a second skin. 

James swallowed hard, staring at the jacket, the muted fabric whispering secrets of the past. He could almost hear the echoes of Mary’s voice, feel the pang of loss that accompanied every memory. It was as if the jacket was tainted, infused with the blood and tears of that time—but also her scent, her warmth and gentle touch.

Perhaps… Today, he could indulge himself.

He took a deep breath, fighting against the swell of anxiety that rose within him. This jacket is just a piece of clothing, James, he reminded himself, yet it felt like so much more. With a decisive moment, he pulled it from the hanger and slipped it on, the familiar weight settling comfortably on his shoulders. 

James looked at himself in the mirror, the reflection staring back at him was a man still fighting battles. With a shameful sigh, he adjusted the collar, feeling the jacket’s fabric against his skin. When he stepped outside, the brisk October wind greeted him, a sharp contrast to the warmth inside. 

Laura stood at the door, a look of surprise mixed with concern crossing her face.

“Why are you still wearing that jacket?” she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly as she gestured to the fabric. “You know… after everything that happened in...” She couldn’t bring herself to say the name of the haunting town.

James shrugged, a faint smile creeping onto his face. “I still like it. It’s comfortable.” 

She rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress a grin. “You’re so weird, James,” she teased, nudging him with her shoulder as they made their way down the path toward the car.

“Weird or not, let’s get you to school on time little girl,” he said, his tone quite firm. Together, they stepped into the brisk morning air, ready to face whatever the day had in store.

‧───────────────

Dropping Laura off at school had become a routine, but for James, it was anything but simple. As they approached the bustling entrance, he felt a familiar tightening in his chest, a sense of dread creeping over him like a heavy fog. It wasn’t the school itself or the noise of children chattering and laughing; it was the attention he attracted.

In a small town where traditional family structures were the norm, a single father with a daughter who didn’t even remotely resemble him stood out like a sore thumb. James had chosen to keep his past private, and he was grateful that Laura’s adoption remained a secret. He avoided any conversations that might lead to questions about their relationship or as to why he was alone, fearing the scrutiny that came with revealing the truth. After all, in the eyes of the world, he was just a man dropping off his daughter, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

As they parked and stepped out of the car, the sun shone brightly, but it felt cold against his skin. He could already sense the gazes of the mothers lingering on him as he helped Laura with her backpack. Their eyes were sharp, curious, sizing him up like sharks circling prey, ready to pounce at the slightest sign of vulnerability. James kept his head down, focusing on Laura as she adjusted her straps and prepared to head inside.

“Have a good day, okay?” he said, forcing a smile as she turned to him, her enthusiasm bubbling over as she waved goodbye.

“Bye, James!” she called, her voice full of cheer as she dashed toward the school gates, her ponytail swinging behind her. 

With her back turned, James felt the full weight of the mothers’ stares. He could almost hear the whispers beneath their breath, speculating about him—why he was alone, where Laura’s mother was, and why they didn’t look alike. It was all too easy to imagine the conclusions they would jump to, and he wanted no part of it. 

Every step he took toward his car felt like walking through a minefield. He avoided eye contact at all costs, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground as he navigated through the throngs of parents and children. Conversations buzzed around him, but he focused solely on his breathing, trying to ignore the anxiety tightening around his chest.

As he passed a small group of mothers standing near the entrance, he couldn’t help but catch snippets of their conversations, even as he tried to block them out.

“Did you see him? He looks so sad,” one of them whispered, her voice dripping with faux concern. “Who could leave such a handsome man alone?”

James felt a familiar flush creep up his neck, a mix of embarrassment and irritation. He quickened his pace, but their comments followed him like shadows.

“I know, right? A single father is so sexy,” another chimed in. “I wish my husband was as committed to our son’s school life.”

He clenched his jaw, biting back a retort. The last thing he wanted was to be part of their gossip, yet he was helpless against the words that floated through the air like smoke. Each compliment felt like a reminder of everything he wanted to avoid—attention, scrutiny, and the inevitable questions.

As he reached the edge of the parking lot, he heard another mother say, “I heard there’s a parents-teacher meeting tonight. Can you imagine? He’ll probably be all alone again. It’s such a shame.”

The words hit him like a cold slap, and he paused, taking a moment to gather himself. The thought of attending the meeting, sent a fresh wave of anxiety crashing over him. Why did they have to bring that up now?

He finally reached his car, fumbling for his keys in his pocket as he tried to push the whispers from his mind. The weight of judgement lingered in the air, but he didn’t look back. He slipped into the driver’s seat, exhaling slowly as he gripped the steering wheel. “Just another day,” he murmured to himself, willing his heart to calm. 

James had avoided women religiously since he came back, erecting barriers around himself that felt both protective and suffocating. The loss of Mary had left a gaping hole in his heart, one that he couldn’t bear to fill with anyone else. Allowing himself to indulge in the warmth of another felt like an insult to her memory.

In the years following her death, he had retreated into himself, building walls high enough to keep the world—and the painful reminders of his past—at bay. He threw himself into fatherhood, pouring all his energy into raising Laura and ensuring she felt loved and secure. She was his anchor, the one bright spot in the dark fog of his grief. Yet, in avoiding connections with women, he had inadvertently created a deep well of pent-up frustrations within himself—frustrations that simmered just beneath the surface, threatening to boil over at any moment.

Every time he caught himself looking at a woman, whether it was a fleeting glance at a passerby or—especially a longer gaze at Laura’s teacher during a school event, he felt a wave of guilt wash over him. What am I doing? He would ask himself, immediately diverting his eyes, as if the very act of looking was a betrayal of the love he once held dear. He had convinced himself that he wasn’t ready to move forward, but in truth, he was terrified of what that would mean. 

In the quiet moments, when he was alone with his thoughts, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the weight of his solitude. The nights grew long and lonely, and sometimes he found himself longing for the comfort of another person—a hand to hold, a voice to soothe him. 

But the thought of crossing that line felt insurmountable, like stepping onto a precipice with no way back. He often wondered if this self-imposed exile was healthy or just a way of avoiding the inevitable. Deep down, he knew that if he ever did let someone in, it would come with a torrent of emotions he wasn’t prepared to face—the guilt, the grief, and the fear of moving on without forgetting.

Sometimes, when the darkness of the night enveloped him and the oppressive solitude weighed heavily upon his chest, James found himself struggling to resist his deepest, most shameful urges. Alone in the dim light of his bedroom, the air thick with silence, he would reach for the only source of warmth he had left—his own body.

But every time he started to jerk himself, trying to think about anyone other than Mary, he would falter. His thoughts would slip, no matter how hard he tried to redirect them. The moment he ventured into the realm of fantasy, attempting to conjure images of the warmth he longed for, his mind would betray him. Instead of the embrace of another, he would see Mary’s face—her soft smile, the way her eyes sparkled with mischief, the lightness in her laughter that had once filled their home. The memory of her enveloped him, suffocating and punishing him in its intensity, and he would feel a deep-seated shame clawing at his insides.

But jerking off while thinking about his dead wife, the one he had killed, felt utterly wrong. 

With a trembling hand, he'd stroke his hardening cock, trying to drown out the memories that haunted him. But no matter how hard he tried to push them away, they always crept back in, taking over his mind and filling him with an overwhelming sense of guilt. Images of Mary would flood his vision, her soft smile and sparkling eyes etched into his mind, along with the lightness of her laughter that once filled their home.

As he stroked faster, his breaths coming in ragged gasps, he could feel the pressure building inside him. But just as he was about to reach the edge of ecstasy, he would see her face again, and the guilt would consume him. How could he possibly find pleasure in this, knowing what he had done to her? 

The guilt was overwhelming, flooding his senses as he would try to push it all away, but it clung to him like a shadow. Tears would fill his eyes, hot and stinging, blurring his vision as the shame washed over him. He would cry, feeling pathetic and broken, as if indulging in his own body was another betrayal on a long list he had made in his mind. How could I even think of anyone else? He would chastise himself, the guilt wrapping around his heart like a vice, squeezing tighter until it became unbearable.

Knowing that he could never truly find solace in this act, James would eventually release his warm cum spilling onto his hand and stomach. But even in the aftermath of his orgasm, the guilt remained, and he would lie there, spent and broken, wondering how he could ever redeem himself.

It was a cycle of longing and despair that left him feeling more isolated than before. He would swipe at his tears, but they would keep coming, relentless and unyielding. The echoes of his cries seemed to linger in the air, a haunting reminder that he was still trapped in a cycle of grief that he could never escape…

‧───────────────

The day had finally drawn to a close, and the muted hum of office chatter began to fade as the fluorescent lights overhead flickered in their final moments. James gathered his belongings, the familiar weight of his briefcase resting heavily in his hand. The corporate world had wrapped around him like a well-worn coat, the same job he had held before, one that felt both calming and predictable. 

It paid well enough to keep the bills at bay and provided a stable life for him and Laura, allowing him to indulge her little whims—the occasional treat, a new book or doll, or even a day out at the beach. 

As he waved goodbye to his coworkers, offering polite smiles and half-hearted chuckles, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of isolation. Their lives seemed so vibrant, filled with laughter and casual conversations about weekend plans, while he felt like an outsider peering in. Part of him wished he could simply slip away unnoticed, disappearing into the anonymity of the evening. But the thought of the upcoming parent-teacher meeting loomed over him like a dark cloud, the spectre of his insecurities rising to the surface. 

What if Laura’s teacher had concerns about her progress? What if she brought up issues he was completely unaware of? The prospect of engaging in a discussion that could highlight his shortcomings as a parent filled him with an unfamiliar anxiety. He recalled how he had struggled to help her with her homework due to his absent mind, the frustration evident in both their faces as they would argue over James’ implications. Laura would always end up saying that she wished she had a better family…

As he walked through the now empty parking lot, James’s mind drifted to the scenario of the meeting. Maybe it was a bit late, and he secretly hoped Laura’s teacher wouldn’t want to linger past the working usual hour to talk with him. He envisioned himself slipping away, feigning an urgent call or an unforeseen obligation, but guilt gnawed at him, tugging at his conscience. 

He couldn’t let Laura down; she had come to rely on him, and he owed it to her to at least try.

“Just get through it,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head as if to clear the impending doubts swirling in his mind. The crisp October air washed over him like a cleansing wave, invigorating him for just a moment. Inhaling deeply, he felt the coolness slice through the tension that had built up in his chest throughout the day, if only temporarily.

Sliding into the driver’s seat of his ageing car, he turned the key in the ignition, the familiar rumble reassuring him, if only slightly. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard; he still had a little time before he needed to pick Laura up from school. As he drove toward the school, the streets blurred by in a rush of colors, and he allowed himself to mentally prepare for the meeting. 

Maybe he could muster enough courage by the time he arrived, but deep down, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that this meeting would push him closer to confronting the ghosts of his past—something he had been desperately trying to avoid.

Thoughts of Mary flitted through his mind, uninvited yet persistent. What would she think of him now? Would she be proud of how he was trying to raise Laura, or would she shake her head in disappointment? These questions haunted him as he navigated the familiar streets. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, trying to steady the whirlwind of emotions roiling within him. 

The school building came into view, and he parked in a spot near the entrance. As he sat there for a moment, staring at the looming structure that housed his daughter’s daily adventures. With a deep breath, he pushed open the car door, stepping out into the cool evening air. 

As he approached the entrance, he reminded himself that this was part of the job of being a parent—a role he was still desperately trying to fully embrace. After all, it was true she deserved more than a father lost in his own grief.

As he approached the school gate, he spotted her standing there, the last child waiting to be picked up. His heart sank at the sight; he had hoped to arrive earlier, to be there for her when the final bell rang. A wave of guilt washed over him, but when Laura turned and her face lit up with a smile, that guilt was momentarily pushed aside.

At least she wasn’t angry. 

“James!” she called out, her voice bright and cheerful, as she stretched out her hand toward him. He could see a small backpack slung over her shoulder, and his heart swelled at how she looked—so much like a little girl embracing the world, unbothered by the worries that often plagued him.

“Hey,” he replied, kneeling slightly to take her small hand in his. 

As he thanked the school attendant, a friendly woman with kind eyes who had watched over Laura, he glanced around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her teacher. He didn’t see anyone lingering by the entrance, and a relieved sigh escaped him. Perhaps she had decided to leave, not waiting for him to discuss whatever concerns she may have had about Laura. That was one less thing for him to handle, and he felt a slight weight lift off his shoulders.

“Let’s go home, shall we?” he suggested, his tone light as he turned to lead Laura away. The sight of her eager nod and bright smile made his heart feel lighter, even if just for a moment. He began to walk toward the car, feeling a sense of normalcy return to him—until a soft voice called out behind him.

“Mr. Sunderland!” 

Here’s an expansion on James' perception of you:

James turned, the sound of your voice pulling him back from his thoughts. You were striding toward him, your expression a mix of determination and urgency, the late afternoon light catching in your soft hair. 

There was something striking about your presence that always made his heart race, even amidst the rising anxiety he felt at these interactions. It was as if you carried a warmth with you, an energy that seemed to radiate in the space around you, igniting a flicker of something long dormant within him.

“I was just about to leave,” you said, a hint of breathlessness in your tone as you approached. “I wanted to talk to you before you went. Is this a good time?” You looked unsure.

James glanced at Laura, who was watching the exchange with curious eyes. He felt the familiar knot of anxiety twist in his stomach but nodded, trying to mask his apprehension with a calm demeanour. “Sure, I have a moment.”

“Laura’s been doing really well, by the way,” you continued, your voice lightening as you spoke about his daughter. “She’s incredibly bright and has made some good friends this semester. I’m really proud of her progress.”

James felt a flicker of warmth at your praise. He was grateful to see Laura thriving, especially after the rough patches they had navigated together. “Thank you. I know she’s been working hard,” he replied, glancing down at her, who was beaming at your words.

“But…” you paused, your tone shifting slightly. “There are some areas where she might need a bit more support. I think if we work together, we can help her really shine.”

James felt a wave of gratitude and unease wash over him. While he wanted to support Laura, the idea of deeper involvement with her teaching felt daunting. “What do you suggest?”

Your eyes met his, and he felt a strange mix of comfort and vulnerability in that gaze. You began outlining a few ideas, your passion for teaching evident in your animated gestures. He found himself hanging on your words, drawn in by the way you spoke.

As you began to speak about Laura’s progress, he couldn't help but take in the little details—the way your eyes sparkled when you talked about the kids, the way your hands moved animatedly as you explained your thoughts, and the curve of your soft pink lips. It struck him how youthful and beautiful you looked, filled with a vibrancy that he found both comforting and terrifying. 

He had known you for years since Laura started school, but he had always kept his distance, avoiding lingering too long in your presence. Every encounter felt like a double-edged sword; he wanted to connect, to know you better, but the fear of what that meant held him back. Your passion for teaching shone through, and it was evident that you genuinely cared for each child, especially his daughter. 

Yet, for James, that made you all the more dangerous.  It was a kind of warmth that he couldn’t dare to approach or touch, as if it would burn his skin. Your laughter and bright smiles were like sunlight piercing through the clouds, illuminating the shadows that loomed over his heart. 

But it also reminded him of how far removed he was from that happiness. 

The innocence and light you carried felt worlds away from the darkness he had endured. It made him question if he was even deserving of your kindness, let alone your attention—even if it was strictly professional. You had a purity about you that felt both inviting and forbidding. It was the kind of innocence that reminded him of everything he had hoped for once—everything he felt unworthy of now. How could someone like you, who radiated joy and hope, ever understand the darkness that clung to him? The guilt and despair that wrapped around his heart like a vice? 

Yet, as you continued, he realised that part of him didn’t want this moment to end. Just a short while ago, he had dreaded this conversation, but now he found himself wishing to listen to your soft voice all night long.

As you concluded your thoughts about Laura, your smile remained bright, and for a moment, James caught himself wishing he could linger just a bit longer in your presence, absorbing the warmth you exuded. But the instinct to retreat kicked in, a familiar defence mechanism rising to shield him from the vulnerability he felt around you. 

“Thanks for the feedback,” he said, forcing a smile as he tried to mask the storm of emotions brewing inside him. “I appreciate you taking the time.”

You smiled back, but there was a flicker of something in your eyes—curiosity, concern? 

He couldn’t quite decipher it. 

As you stood there, a moment of silence stretched between you, and James noticed a flicker of hesitation in your eyes. You looked shy, as if you were unsure whether you were crossing a line by speaking up. 

“Mr. Sunderland,” you began, your voice soft, “are you okay? I’ve noticed you’ve looked... a bit tired lately.” 

The question caught him off guard, and for a fleeting moment, he found himself wondering if it was painfully oblivious or truly observant of the details that everyone else seemed to overlook. But quickly, he concluded that he must have been projecting his exhaustion more than he realised, and he must definitely look tired. 

The question wasn’t intimate.

He forced a smile, trying to shake off the weight of your concern. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied too quickly, dismissing your worry as he nodded almost vigorously. “Just, you know, work and everything.” 

For a heartbeat, you searched his face, perhaps hoping to see something more, a glimpse of the truth that lay beneath his carefully crafted exterior. But after a moment of hesitation, you seemed to accept his response. You nodded, though there was still a hint of worry shadowing your features. 

“If you or Laura need anything, please let me know,” you insisted gently. “I’d be more than happy to help.” 

The kindness in your offer made his chest tighten, his heart pounding with a mix of gratitude and desire. He appreciated it, truly, but it also fueled the raging fire of lust that had consumed him. Here you were, simply trying to be helpful, and yet he couldn't help but imagine what it would be like to have you all to himself, to explore every inch of your body and lose himself in your embrace.

His mind raced with vivid, graphic images of you—unbuttoning your shirt, revealing your tantalising curves; running his hands over your smooth skin; kissing and licking your neck, tasting the salt of your sweat. He could almost taste the sweet moan that would escape your parted lips, the moan of a woman ready to surrender to his sinful, wanton needs. The very idea of it made his breath catch in his throat and his cock twitch in his pants.

He felt like a beast, a predator stalking its prey, as he watched you. Every move you made was a tease, every word you spoke a seductive whisper that echoed in his mind and stoked the flames of his desire. You were a forbidden, irresistible delight that he craved with every fibre of his being.

“Thank you,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper and his voice painfully strained. “That means a lot.” He managed to nod, hoping to convey his gratitude without revealing the turmoil churning inside him.

James' lips curled into a polite smile, but his dark thoughts raged like wildfire beneath the surface. He tried to ignore the forced gentleness of his own tone, reminding himself that he was only being polite. Yet, every word he uttered was weighed down by heavy lust for you, and the knowledge that he should never let these desires surface again.

As you stood there, a mixture of warmth and uncertainty radiating from your presence, he felt a pang of regret. You were offering him a lifeline, yet he felt as though he was dragging you into a murky depth he didn’t know how to escape. The moment hung between you, a fragile thread of connection that he wanted to reach for, yet feared would only end in disappointment. In your eyes, he saw kindness, concern, and a spark of something he dared not acknowledge. But with every passing second, he also felt the walls he had built around himself begin to tremble, as if you might be the catalyst for change he had been both longing for and dreading.

“I should go,” you said, breaking the silence, and James felt an odd mix of relief and disappointment wash over him.

“Right,” he replied, forcing his mind to focus on the present. “Thank you Miss, and have a good night.”

You offered him one last warm smile before turning to leave, and he watched you go, feeling the weight of what had happened. The kindness you had shown him stirred something deep within—a longing he couldn’t quite satisfy.

[netherfeildren]

FABLE OF THE DOG : 3. Little Freak

Series Masterlist; Chapter: 1, Chapter: 2,

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Parental Neglect; Angst and Fluff; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Possessive Behavior; Brat Taming; Extremely Bossy Old Man; Rough Sex; Size Difference; Spanking; DD/lg Dynamics; Dom/Sub Undertones; Forced Orgasm; Dirty Talk (like really forreal); Small Boobie Rep; Biting; Over Stimulation;

A/N: really sticking my finger in the father wound and wiggling it around in this one :))))))

Word Count: 10.3K

Read on AO3

3. Little Freak

You pull your sticky fingers from the damp bed of your underwear, the not enough little orgasm you’d been able to rub out still pulsing hot and cold through your cunt. 

Horrible man—you’ve never wanted anyone or anything as badly as you want him to need you. And no, not a wanting sort of thing, not a wanting sort of desire—that’s not what you’d demand from him. It’s specific, this thing: it’s that you want him to have no choice in the matter, you want him to be forced, to see no other recourse but you because that’s just how necessary you feel to him. 

You want there to be no thought, no compunction in him—only you. 

Even more, because lies are worth nothing here in your own mind in your cold bed—

—You want him to love you. 

The way your father never did. The way no man ever has, not really. 

Face buried in the dark for a moment, you groan softly before sliding belly first off the silk bedding onto your knees, pushing yourself up off the floor unsteadily. You toe your boots off and then step tiptoe on the end of each sock to pull them from your feet. It’d not been a lie—you’re not drunk, limiting yourself to only one tonight, and no liquor, because you knew you needed to be able to focus on the taste of his tongue when you inevitably got your hooks in him, hoping, knowing he’d take your bait and follow, but now, it’s a wholly different sort of buzz zinging through you. 

All him. All man. All Joel.

He’d been flavored of smoked whiskey and mint, a hint of tobacco, and you wish you could’ve been more faithful in your pursuit of enjoying the chewing of the leaves he always has, you’d tried for years but couldn’t bear the texture, the green gnashed between your teeth, earthen and organic. It’s not for you, your tastes veering to something hotter and sweeter. But you’ve always wanted to be just like him anyway, and every endeavor at a connection, no matter how small, had always seemed like a valiant one. 

Stupid birthdays. Disgusting leaves of mint. Dead fathers and daughters and all the different ways we hurt each other. 

Stumbling coltish and uncoordinated, newly birthed down the staircase, you push your way out the back door. He’ll have gone to bed now, you know they’re going up the mountain early tomorrow morning to check on one of the herds, but you’re desperate for one more second of him, being spit out of the house of your dead parents, hunting for the last hint of his presence riding on the fresh air off the Tetons and all this land that’s all yours now. 

You veer left then right, a zigzagging dance across the green lawn until you’re far enough away from the house it’s like you can pretend to ignore the ghosts you’re readying to exorcize. One knee hits the ground hard and stinging, limbs loose and strengthless, you feel the stab of a little rock against the curve of round bone beneath easily broken skin, catching yourself on a palm, another too hard scrape and then you’re rolling over into the grass, settling on your back to look up at the stars. 

There are so many, an infinite number of lights winking like watchful eyes back at you, and you wonder at the sort of childhood that lends itself to laying in the grass like this beside a parent that loves you and wants you and carves space in their life for a child they'd forced into the world. It should be some sort of crime, you think, immediate execution sort of barbarity, to have a child and not love it the way it demands. 

Back of your hands open at your sides, palms to the watching sky, you close your eyes and imagine what it’d be like to have the hand of a father holding it, one that would want you—not a mother because what is she in reality to you but an imagination figure you can’t even truly conjure up? That much of a stranger is what she is—such an alien thing you can’t even bother to dream her. 

Drawing your knees up, you press your bare heels into the earth and the wet placket of your panties is ice cold and sticking uncomfortably now, breeze against it. You shouldn't be thinking about this shit, but you think you might cry anyway, sucking in too fast breaths, forcing them out in attemptedly slow little puffs through your nose. A wave of sudden grief, then a plateau, the nauseating up and down of it all. You should be thinking about him, about your victory tonight, about making him so angry he can’t help himself, about what’ll come next—his skin. But that’s the thing about him, Joel, isn’t it? Always has been—the incongruous, make-no-sense feelings he’s always pulled out of you since you’d first set eyes on him, fourteen years old and tender and so alone you didn’t even know there was another way to be but abandoned. 

A laugh then—huffing and sardonic and again, incongruous, because now you really are crying. Tears leaking back, hot and fat to pool in your ears and salt the earth beneath you—unloading your grief into the grass as if God were beside you. Nothing will grow here again because of you if you’re not careful, and that’s the next worry—

If he never needs you the way you’re demanding of him, you won’t be able to stay here. 

You won't be able to live here and love him and not have him, and you could force him, perhaps, in your own ways. But you’ve done so much of that your whole life—forcing unloving men to look at you and take you into their arms when they’d never really wanted to give you the thing you’d always wanted most. 

The tender truth: it would be so much better if Joel decided to need you because he wants to, because he can’t fathom another way than just that. 

And you don’t think you’ll ever be able to live with anything else besides such. 

Another forced out laugh again—just to feel the feeling of it, go through the motion, mountain air a roundabout gust in your lungs, then to your left:  “What’re you laughing at, weirdo?”

Ellie, long and loping and beautiful, come to your rescue. She throws herself down onto the ground beside you and doesn’t even have to ask a thing about it when she places her rough hand in your soft one. 

Working girl, mover of mountains, changer of lives. 

Ellie has always known how to know you, and it has always been an incredible comfort. 

The two of you lay there for a few quiet moments. Friendship as an entity has always been a strange thing to you who have never understood love in a non-transactional way. But the thing that Ellie has always given you, it has always been an incredibly straightforward sort of understanding, simple—that of one abandoned child to another, perhaps. 

“Are you drunk?”

“Why’s everyone always fucking asking me that?” Said with another laugh but of the real sort this time, despite the bite in your voice. 

“You’re a hazard. What can I say?”

Undeniable. “Oh, shut up.” You dig your nails into the back of her hand, trying to scratch her but probably ruining your manicure instead, she squeezes your knuckles in sideways, hurting you way more than you could manage her. A yelp, and you say, “You know what I’m excited for?”  

“What’s that?”

“Skijoring.”

“Fuck no, dude. I almost died last time.”

You snicker, “Yeah, that was the fun part for me.”

Elbow to the ribs, and, “Asshole,” she laughs. And then you’re quiet again together, still gripped by the hands, and it’s the sort of comfortable only two girls who’ve been together since they were truly girls can be. 

“You see Cassiopeia?” She points her finger way north. 

“Do you think I should stay?” You see it, and easily, and you know if you were somewhere not here, it wouldn’t be so simply found. Maybe that’s a good thing.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Because of Joel.” It isn’t a question. You’ve never said it with words to her, but she’s always known. 

You hum instead of answering, can’t say it out loud anyway just yet. “So you finally asked her.” Dina, she knows what you mean.

And Ellie hums now in turn too. The both of you are so fucked up. Can’t say a thing out loud. 

“And?” 

“It’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Good.”

“Just good?”

Ellie groans loud and long, baying goat, and you tell her so, which gets another knock to the ribs. “Turn around and don’t look at me so I can tell you.”

You roll over towards the mountains and feel her face the house where she doesn’t see ghosts like you do. 

“But you’re not allowed to say anything—just say okay. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I think—well, you know…,” she gruffs, voice dipping low and dropping off before she can say the words out loud again also. Everything’s a secret code here, even the stuff that shouldn’t be.

“You think?”

“You’re such a fucker. I know.”

You hum again but the good and happy sort, pressing your lips together to keep the misty eyed smile at bay. “Okay,” you say back just as low and just as gruff. 

“S’why I think you should stay,” she adds. “If I can find happy here, so can you.”

“I’ve never been able to before.”

“But you’re different now.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah—can see it, you know. And this place is different now too—will be different.” 

“I was afraid to come back for such a long time. It seemed like the worst thing in the world.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, before she says: “You’re not supposed to be afraid of your father.” A very obvious thing—or at least it should be. 

You feel her turn to look at the back of your neck, and you peer over your shoulder at her and when your eyes meet, she looks so sad, like she’s so sorry for you but without the pity, and you do understand what it is she’s saying despite never having had that fearless experience. 

“Aren’t you?” A shrug of your shoulder and a helpless laugh but also maybe with real humor accompanying it. Because yes, you’re not supposed to be. You always were anyway. It’s funny in an impossible to understand way. 

A beat and then, “Can I say something fucked up?”

“Yeah.”

“He isn’t here for you to be afraid of anymore.”

Funniest of all, you’re the most sad about this. And what you don’t say to her, perhaps for shame or that child’s feeling of having done something wrong but not necessarily understanding what that wrong is—sometimes it’s inevitable, missing the monster. 

“Maybe you needed him to die.” Yeah, fucked up. You’d already thought the same thing and were chock full of guilt for it. “Maybe it was like—like I don’t know. It was never going to be the way it should have between you, but now you can remember him, fuck, I don’t know—different. Not that you wanted him to die, but now the reality of him isn’t here for you to see, so you can just remember it all however you like or not.”

“So I should lie to myself?”

“Why not? There are worse things you could do. There are worse things you do do.”

You snort. “Is this what your method is?”

“Yeah. Like—like sometimes, when I’m so happy I can’t believe it’s me feeling it because she makes me that happy, Dina,” she says her name with love, “I pretend nothing from before was ever the way it was, and it’s only here and now and me and Dina and the ranch and there was no shitty, abandoning father and no dead mom and no nothing and only Joel is my dad and it’s all always been okay.”

Joel. 

At the center of everyone’s happy dream, why is it always him? 

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’ll try it.” She reaches behind her back then, pawing at your hip until you give her your hand again, and you were wrong. She’s changed too. She can say things now. She’s always had those too perceptive eyes and that too big heart, and she’s changed now in a way that makes her not afraid to let it out and use these things anymore. 

You tell this changed Ellie now: “You know that like— that like… I don’t know how to say it. When a person’s life seems like it should be perfect, and you have everything. Everything should be good, right—but it’s just not. Your parents should be kind, they should be loving. They should be attentive and give a shit what happens to you, and it probably seems that way to the whole rest of the world except for the people that have to witness the humiliation behind closed doors, but it’s really just not, and then they probably look at me and wonder how my life could be anything but rose colored, and it all just seems a little silly and empty. Doesn’t it?”

“Nah—don’t know. My life was always shit before I came here and found Joel and Dina and all of them and you. And I'd seen enough to recognize what you were and how it was. Nothing ever looked rose colored to me—just looked like more shit.” You laugh again out loud now and for real, squeezing more tears out over your hot cheeks when she joins you in the sad hilarity as well. 

When her voice is finally steady from the belly laughs again, she says, “It’s a grief pyramid, we’re all just going around hurting each other in the name of our ghosts and call it an excuse, an offering to their memory and act like it’s okay. But it’s fucked up. That’s why I decided to stop. I stopped pushing her away, I told her—well, you know. I told her.”

“Say it, loser.” You bump your butt into hers. 

“Not to you—leave me alone.”

Say it, say it, say it, you sing. 

“I love her, fuck off.” And a little clog of emotion sticks wetly in your throat.

That’s the real question, honestly: How do you make someone love you? How do you make yourself into someone people can love?

“It’s a grief pyramid,” she repeats. “You have to choose to stop adding to it.” And she’s quiet again for a long time, and you can’t fathom how it is one stops building onto something they’d been born into. You think on it so long the feel of her palm clutching yours starts losing itself to sleep in the grass and the breeze comes off the mountains like a blanket over the two girls who’d become women before them until she says again, “Anyway, that’s usually the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid.���

-

“Joel?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothin’.”

“Nope. You’re definitely doing something.” He angles the phone away from her prying eyes, trying to shield his shame with the palm of his hand. 

“Mind your own damn business, kid.”

“Is that an Instagram account?” Ellie howls like a banshee, Tommy coming up behind him to reach over his shoulder to try and rip the phone out of his hand. He holds it out of his reach. 

It’s just that he couldn’t help himself. He’d heard the boys all talking about it on the ride back down after their long day of work—your Instagram page—as if he knew what the fuck that was. He’d had to search it up on the internet when he’d gotten a moment alone in the bunk, cracking open a beer, muscles exhausted from the hard ride and having to haul a heifer out of a bramble she’d gotten herself caught in, he’d realized it was a thing young people put photographs and such on, a social media thing. But when he’d gone to search your name, it’d told him he’d needed to make an account of his own. Growling in frustration, he’d slowly made his way through the process, too big fingers punching at the too tiny keys of the stupid phone you’d forced on him. 

“Can you shut up and just show me how to work this thing. And stop your goddamn howling—Dina’s gonna think she’s dating a hyena not a girl.” She slides into the seat next to him, taking the phone from his grip to finish setting up the account and type in your name, a deck of pictures loading up for him to hunt through like a vandal. Photographs of you in all sorts of different places, draped in fine clothes and jewels and your fucking perfect ass right there for everyone to see. 

Oh my God.

“How many people can see this shit?” He asks Ellie, angling the phone back towards her. 

“You’re so nosey, man,” she chastises. “Thirty-seven thousand followers.” And a long, impressed whistle from Tommy who he’s going to punch in the face after he’s done with this. 

He swallows hard. “What’s that mean?”

“That thirty-seven thousand people are following her and looking at her pictures, Joel,” his brother says. “Man, how fuckin’ old are you?”

“Yeah, you’re not that old, Joel. Come on.”

“Go away now. I’m busy,” he tells the both of them, going back to doom scrolling through your pictures. One’s of you in barely any clothes at all, an itty bitty orange bikini, hands on your ass and sand where his tongue should be.

Joel feels insane again. 

“Pervert.”

“Joel… I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think there’s steam comin’ out of your ears, man.”

“Fuck off.”

Blessedly, they leave him to suffer in peace after a while, and thank Christ for that because eventually, the ex-boyfriend shows up in the scroll of pictures too. There for everyone to see in posts dated several weeks back—even one of the two of you kissing, you on his lap, fuck that. Good looking, shiny-boy sort. Joel’s left eye twitches at the sight of the sort of man he has never been, could never be for you, someone of your caliber. 

The memory of your cunt grinding against him last night flashes through his mind and his cock throbs once and hungry. He stretches his long legs out in front of him, adjusting in the suddenly too tight seat of his jeans. 

A clusterfuck is what it is—this sudden melding of the memory of the girl-child you used to be, the one that up until only recently lived in his mind, good and golden, and the woman you are now. With both figures meeting together with all the characteristics he’d always admired in you, your kind heart, your honesty, your generosity. You’ve turned out to be an exceptional woman, and it’s difficult to let the distant perception from before meet the lust he feels for you now and grapple with it without feeling sick to his stomach about it all.

It’s all an inevitability though, anyway. He knows this just from the rewind memory play of last night, the taste of your mouth and the little sounds you'd made for him, because of him, the way your hips had rolled over his lap desperately seeking. 

You’re ending up on his cock one way or another—inevitable. 

He’s never claimed to be a good and honorable man—never played the part of one either. He’s not about to start now. 

Clicking on the picture of your sun bronzed ass in the tiny bikini again, he imagines himself biting and eating it, shifting his legs restlessly, taking another long pull of his beer. Tapping twice on the image, he tries to zoom in to the apex of your thighs—he’s going to hell, he’s so fucked up, doesn’t matter—when a little heart appears in the center of the image. He clicks it again and the heart appears once more, refusing to zoom into what he wants to see up close. Fucking piece of shit phone and fucking Instagram—frustrated and hard and pissed off at the fact he’s yet to see you all day, he locks the phone, slamming it face down on the kitchen table, and downs the rest of the can. 

If he doesn’t get a hold of himself soon he’s going to burst, gut all twisted up into a hot knot of coal. Sick with jealousy and anger and lust, aggressive, the taste of your sweetness ringing in his ears and the sound of your moans on his tongue—his head is not on straight and he better get it fixed quick or all this pent up frustration is going to come out with teeth to take a chunk of flesh out of you. 

Groaning loudly, he lets his head fall back, thumbs digging into the sockets of his eyes until he sees stars and not the sight of your slick swollen mouth made that way by himself. He wonders if you slept well last night, if you thought of him, if you’d made yourself come the way he’d ran home to the little foreman’s cabin Kelly had given him years ago, to do himself. Jumping in the shower to jack his leaking cock to the image of what it would’ve been like if he’d been brave enough to pull that flimsy little tease of a thong to the side, let his cock out and force it inside of you, make you take it until you were crying and coming so hard you’d never think to even look at another man again, much less kiss him. 

He should’ve hit that fucker harder. He should’ve kissed you longer. 

He needs to force you to take all of those goddamn half naked pictures down. No one should get to look at you like that except for him, and he doesn’t give a fuck how insane he sounds. 

Outside, he can hear the cowboys hooting and hollering at something, egging each other on louder and louder, the scuffle of them shoving each other and horsing around. He sighs once and long, too tired to deal with their shit right now. All he needs is an evening of peace to get his head on straight and relax and will his boner down for a few hours. He’s acting like a goddamn randy teenager, walking around hard and aching half the day. 

Heaving himself out of the chair, back hurts, he grabs another beer before he’s pushing the bunk door open to the sight of half the team huddled together and peering around the corner of the bunk towards the house. 

“The hell’s got y’all clucking like a bunch of hens?” He asks, coming around them to stop dead in his tracks when he lays eyes on what it is that’s got them all worked up. 

That same ass he’d just been trying to zoom in on, right there in the flesh for the whole ranch to ogle at. Stretched out on one of the sun loungers from the deck, dragged out into the center of the lawn with a little table set up next to you. You’d even gotten someone to scrounge up a huge umbrella, a misting fan spinning lazily, spitting a damp sheen of water every few minutes, a drink and a speaker playing some girly song, whole goddamn set up for all of these fuckers to stand here and take an eyeful of your perfect ass. 

Joel tries to take deep breaths, counting back from ten in his head—fails. He’s going to be calm and cool and collected—not. He isn’t going to lose his temper—sure. 

Fuck that. 

He’s going to spank your ass so hard you can’t sit for a week.

“If you all don’t find something to do in the next thirty seconds,” he growls at them all through clenched teeth, “I swear I’ll have you slingin’ shit for a month.” The can in his grip pops loudly between his fingers. 

They all take one peek at the look on his face and scatter like chicken shit until it’s only Ellie left smirking beside him.

“Take this,” he shoves the can at her and starts towards you. 

“Bro—” He ignores her. Hey! She calls after him, voice demanding now, stopping him in his tracks before he can go get exactly what he’s been denying himself from the moment you kissed him two nights ago. 

Giving him that look she gets when she needs to remind him she knows exactly who he is and that he can’t ever hide it from her, she chews on her cheek for a second before she says, and he doesn’t mistake it, it’s a warning: “She’s a real peach. You know that. Pretty and soft and sweet, but easily hurt. Needs gentle handling, even when she wants to pretend otherwise.”

It pisses him off. Bad. “You think I don’t fuckin’ know that? I understand her—” thumb to chest. Because he did—does. Because he thinks that he really always has. It’s undeniable that he has what you have, what Ellie has. Even what Oswald Kelly himself had had and what he’d seen in Joel when he’d decided to save the life of a no good man in a no good spot with a no good future in front of him—that sadness, that lost doggedness about you all that makes you so like one another, even despite your immeasurable differences.  

The two of them look at each other for another long moment, and Ellie knows, Ellie always understands. With a roll of her eyes she spins on her heel, muttering to herself, slugging back Joel’s discarded beer.

Slowly, he rounds back towards you, afraid as if he were looking down the barrel of a gun, just as dramatic, as well. Objectively, he knows you’re doing this on purpose, to piss him off and rile him up and get a blow out reaction out of him. He tries to remind himself of it as he marches towards you, and if he were smarter or less inclined to take your bait, he’d take a beat to finish that count to ten reversal in his head and calm the fuck down before he gets to you—but honestly, he just doesn’t feel like it. 

All he sees instead is the baby pink barely there string bikini you’ve got on, the slope of your back gleaming in the sun, slicked in something shiny, the damp from the mister, the lush curve of your ass and the shine of your hair resting face down on your folded arms. 

You’re all sunkissed everywhere, and he’d really rather just give you what you want already. 

“Get up,” he growls down at you. 

One eye winks open, peering up at him before you press up on your elbows to take in the sight of him scowling down at you, and he can’t help it when his eyes flit down to the sight of your breasts cupped precariously in the tiny bikini, skin all sun flushed red against the soft baby pink fabric. You look like you’re made of sugar and sweet fruit and like you’ve come here specifically to ruin him and his whole life and all his self control. 

Hmm? You smile up at him wide and teasing. Oh, he’s feeding right into your shit, and you piss him off so badly. 

He’s never been this hard in his entire life, he’s even made dizzy with it. 

The little wisps of hair at your temples are sweat soaked and curling, looking silky soft. A thousand little details about you and your body—the white of your smile and the flushed heat of your cheeks, sun burnished bridge of your nose starting to freckle—that he can’t help but notice. 

Get. Up, he grits through clenched teeth. No one in the whole world deserves to see you like this, looking so beautiful, especially not him. Shading your eyes with the palm of your hand, you scrunch your nose up at him, and he’s got half a mind to bark at you to not do that when he’s around or he’s really gonna lose it. Your smile beams brighter. 

“What’s wrong, Joel? Havin’ a rough day?”

“I swear to Christ, if you don’t get your ass up and in the house right this minute, I’m going to put you over my knee right here in front of your whole ranch to witness, little girl.”

You smile up at him again and a muscle at the corner of his jaw flutters madly, he’s about to crack a fucking molar. “Hmm, I don’t think so.” And you flop back down again so that the soft of your ass jiggles slightly, arching your back just a little so that he’s growling once, right before he’s gripping you by the elbow and pulling you upwards against his chest and dragging you all bare and slippery limbed to your feet. You smell like coconuts and sweet sweat and saliva pools heavy beneath his tongue. 

“If you wanna act like a brat, I’m gonna treat you like one. You get me?” He yanks you towards the house screeching like a banshee, let go of me, you fucking psycho, you howl. A too little fist swings towards his face, and he catches it in his palm, squeezing tight and feeling your thumb tucked inside your fist. 

“Stop that—you’re gonna hurt yourself.” More squawking and howling, skinny wrist slipping from his grip to take another swing at him. “Don’t even know how to throw a goddamn punch—Jesus fucking Christ. Don’t tuck your thumb.” He hauls you up higher against himself, getting a better grip around your waist so he can carry you bodily up the steps of the deck. 

You jam your heels into his shins, and he huffs and puffs, trying to keep his hold on you. I’m gonna kick your ass, you screech again, scratching and pinching at his forearms. 

Joel is too old and too goodman tired for this. 

“No, you’re not. And if you think I’m gonna let the whole goddamn ranch and all the boys stare at your bare ass all day, you’ve got another thing comin’ for you.”

“Well, I’ve gotta show it to someone, don’t I?” You sass back, trying to elbow him in the throat while you’re at it. Blood boiling, catching you by the small joint, he pulls your arm bent behind your back, other forearm banding against your stomach so that his hand is splayed at your hip, feeling the satin soft skin, slippery in your suncream. 

And sure, he might be too old or too tired for this, but his cock is still hard as anything at the feel of you all against him like this. 

Pushing the door open with his hip, he shoves you inside. The late afternoon sun paints the cool interior in shades of gold and beaming white; everything is beautiful and pristine as always, and yet tinged with the red of his temper and lust. His temples beat in tune with his too fast, pumping heart. 

“Where’s Dina?” He’s still got you caught in his grip. He does not plan to let go. 

“Let me go, you mother ffff—” He gives you one hard shake, hearing your teeth click and rattle. Little doll caught in his grip. He can do anything to you—and you won’t be able to stop him. 

“Where is she?” He asks again, and something in his voice must snap you alert because you settle for a brief second, a little shiver skipping down the length of your spine that he follows to your full ass. He tugs you back, barely moving and slow, just that little bit further into himself so that the lush curve presses against the hard length of his cock—and there it is, the little knowing gasp, finally understanding what it is you’ve gotten yourself into.

-

“She—” Your belly is suddenly so hot and tight, heartbeat starting up behind your navel. Suddenly knowing what it is this is about to be, and yet now finally confronted with the reality of it for the first time, you can’t even begin to imagine what it’ll be like. “She—I don’t know. She went into town, I— I think,” you stutter, brain short-circuiting, desperate to feel that hardness again. “Waiting for Ellie—they’ve got plans there tonight.” His entire hand is wrapped around your forearm pressed against the small of your back, long, thick fingers overlapping against each other, and you roll up on your tiptoes, trying to arch your back further into him. 

He grunts once, exasperated, and then shoves you forward again, rough enough you’re stumbling over your own two feet, full on aggressive panting bull at your back. 

That’s good, he says so low you barely catch it before he’s pushing you up against the wall by the front door, cheek smushed against the silk printed wallpaper. 

Your mother decorated this room years ago, melding the masculine taste of your father and her love for European decor. The walls, wrapped in hand painted English wallpaper on the top half, and paneled at the bottom with a mahogany so fine it gleams an amber golden glow when the afternoon sun shines in through the windows just so. 

Everything beautiful; still, even after all this time. 

He holds you there for a long moment, his breathing quick and shallow, bellows of hot air at the nape of your neck, disturbing the escaped hair from your claw clip curling there. 

“Joel?” You ask once, voice wavering just a little bit because he suddenly feels so large and imposing behind you that something like trepidation beats behind the soft of your kneecaps. You know he worked all day, and his big body is a steaming blaze of heat, waves rolling off of him to burn the naked length of your back and limbs. 

He pulls your arm trapped between his forearm and your stomach to the small of your back to join the other, holding you there in a lock pinned against the wall, reaching up slowly to let your hair down, long and swinging. You listen to the clatter of your clip against the hardwood floor, and then he’s circling the side of your neck, the tiny beating pulse held in the cup of his palm so that it feels as if it’s reverberating back into your head, a staccato rhythm, and echoing all through your body. A chiming bell, ringing and ringing and ringing, telling you that it’s time now. His hand smooths down the slope of your throat to your shoulder, and you listen to the rumbling half humming moan he lets out at the feel of your sweat sticky skin, then down the flat wing of your scapula, thumb nail scraping against the edge of your jutting bone for the way he’s got your arms trapped behind you. 

You let out a high pitched whine, almost a scream, another puff of sound in the assimilation of his name, pleading now, rolling up onto your tiptoes again to push your ass back against the hard of his cock. Everything is so, so sensitive. 

Quit, he snaps once and mean. Ordering. In a tone that says he’s in charge, and finally. 

It’s such a relief. 

You whine again, higher, needier, like you’ve never felt before, and there’s a nauseating thrum of electrified butterflies in your tummy, sticky sweet and cloying for attention. Joel, please, again and the wings beat faster. You’re sure he’ll enjoy the sound of your begging, it’s just something you know. Tiptoes straining higher so that the soles of your feet ache, he smooths that work roughened palm down the slope of your spine, thumb against your vertebrae, feeling the round little notches of bone beneath sensitive skin until he’s reached the twin dimples at the low of your back right above your ass, and presses there and hard—mean—so it hurts. Keening loudly, you crush your cheek harder, harder against your mother’s wallpaper until the bone aches, until there’ll surely be an indent of your shape left in the wall, and his thumb digs even harder anyway, gripping you tight enough to bruise. 

This is how it’ll be—surprising, but also not. In all your years of imagining, you still don’t know what it is you expected.

“You’re carved so fine,” whispered against your skin and gooseflesh spreads like wildfire, nipples going tight and aching. His nose skims the slope of your nape, smelling you. “S’like you’re made of sugar. Is that what you’ll taste like too?” And his words are slurred, drunk-like and you feel the same way also, legs on the verge of giving out.

You press your hips back again, desperate for any sort of pressure, and he jostles you once, hard enough you bite your tongue. Quit moving, he snaps, shoving his knee between your legs and spreading you wide and immobile, thigh hooked over his own so that the toes of that leg barely skim the ground and now you’re precariously balanced on one foot, held up and pinned entirely by him. 

 Caughtcha, he murmurs.

You couldn’t move even if you wanted to. 

The palm at the low of your back splays wide, his long fingers reaching from side to side and pressing hard against your skin and then all of a sudden he’s gone, and only for a second, before he’s back and slapping you hard and painfully stinging on the ass. A downward swipe of his thick fingers so that it really fucking hurts, and then the palm is back at the small of your waist, hooked thigh over his leg, unable to move, unable to do anything except take it. 

He presses your belly into the wall, and the pressure is so intense and so deep—his breathing is so rough behind you. You know he worked the mountain all day, he should be exhausted, but the strength he’s trapping you with belies the possibility. 

His hand goes away from your back again, and he’s spanking you once more, and you can’t tell if it’s harder or not this time, if it hurts worse than the previous, but the fire pain of it snaps all the way down from your thigh to your calve, pooling there in a knot of painful ache. An animal baying noise warbles in your throat, he tuts once, a cooing click of his tongue and cups your ass right at the rose of pain he’s left, kneading the skin gently, palpating the hurt like he’s looking for the physical imprint of it beneath your skin. 

“Yeah, baby? Like that?” You sing the little animal song for him again. “S’what you needed, right?” His voice now is not the Joel-voice you’ve always known, but it is the one you’ve always dreamed of. The kneading fingers slide whisper soft down the back of your thigh, up again, down again, callused skin scraping. On the up again, his thumb catches at the edge of your bathing suit wedged between the cleft of your ass.

And lest he thinks he’s bested you, you say, “Yes, that’s what I needed,” and he laughs a rough laugh that makes him sound like he’s been gutted. 

He squeezes the thick of your ass between his thumb and forefinger, an almost pinch and then smoothes his thumb beneath the pink edge along the curve, precariously close to danger. The sound of his name loses meaning, you’re praying it in a litany almost, over and over, begging. Hush now, he gentles, more in a sort of voice you recognize while your heart beats so hard against the wall it must surely sound like someone’s knocking on the front door for entry, like it must surely send echoes all through the ghost-house. 

His smoothing thumb continues its journey until it’s between your thighs, pulling the wet lycra wide away from your skin so that he can tuck the rest of his fingers flat against your cunt, and now he’s there. 

One of you says the word fuck another lets out a whimpering sort of noise—you’re not sure which is who, it’s all only a cunt-throbbing need you know he’s feeling leak and pulse against his hand. 

“You’re so wet for me,” he murmurs all reverence like. Joel—touching your cunt and sounding like he can’t believe it. His hand slides back along the curve of your sex, and you really are so wet the sound of it is slick and lewd, his fingertips at your entrance, a gentle probing and then forward again, a circling not touch around your clit, like he’s learning for himself this new little place that belongs to him now. Your mouth falls open on a spit-full moan, your eyes closed because you don’t even have strength now to keep them open and watchful. You’re so wet for me, he says again and again like he can’t believe it all either. 

He drags his finger flats against you once more and then another time and then taps twice with all four of them, two little almost slaps to your clit that make a sticky wet splashing sound. Good girl, and you don’t know which part of you he’s talking to. You’re practically leaking onto the floor, trying to widen your hips, arch your ass back further and present your cunt to him for fucking. And then his fingers side to side in a swiping motion and fast. 

Oh God. Oh God. Inside, inside, you need him inside. He needs to go inside. 

“Please, pleeease, Joel. Oh, please.” Delirious.

“Please?” His fingers move fast and your vision goes entirely away. “Please what? Please what? You, please.” He switches front and backwards again, and then two fingers draw a little ghost circle at your entrance. You, please, he says again. His hand flips over, palm facing downwards, and he starts to slowly, slowly press a single tip of one inside. “Please behave. Please don’t— don’t—fuck— please gimme a second to breathe, to think, to catch up. God, fucking tight little cunt. I’ll never fit in here, baby.” 

Your vision whites, then blacks, then goes blinding bright and colorless—zero frequency. Up to the first knuckle, and he wiggles the tip inside, making you cry and squirm, pulls out and then two fingers are pressing inside and downwards. “We’re gonna have to take it so slow in this little cunt.” Shit—shit.

“Oh my God, yes.” 

Your hips shiver and shake as he penetrates you, his forehead tucked against your shoulder so he can look down at what he’s doing, and drool slides along your mother’s wallpaper from the corner of your mouth as he pushes his fingers in and out of you so slowly, the slick slide, the pressure against your front wall so heavy, and spread so wide like this but held so immobile—it all makes you feel like you’ll wet yourself with such little control over your body. A few slides in and out again, “Good girl, just a little more,” before he’s wedging a third into the mix, trying to put it inside of you as well. A little more? The stretch is too much, burning, and you wail and cry, arching again but this time to get away instead of steal more. 

“Okay, okay. It’s alright,” he soothes. Hush. “It’s okay.” He pulls his fingers entirely out and covers the slick mess of your mound with his entire palm possessively. Rubbing soothingly at your wet, his fingers slide over the satiny smooth skin of your lips. 

“You’re all bare,” he whispers, shocked.

You swallow hard once, shoulders and neck starting to ache. “I— I got lasered.”

“Lasers?” Voice confused. 

“Yeah.” You swallow again, can’t catch your breath. “Yes.”

“Gotta see.”

He pulls you from the wall, shuffling you like gambling cards in his hands, that’s what this is, a gamble, so that you’re facing him as he walks you backwards, bikini bottoms askew and cunt bare to your parents living room; your dead father’s best man about to fuck it raw. 

Pressing up on your tiptoes at the same time that you’re tugging him low by the collar and the slightly too long hair that curls over it to press an open mouthed kiss to his lips with eyes kept open. You need to see his face, his reaction, that even though he’s all rough, he’s still Joel and he’ll still take care of you now. 

One strong forearm bands around your back, pressing you up high and close to his chest, fingers tangling in the bikini string at your back so that it pulls tight and bites into your skin, the other reaching around the back of your thighs to take a squeezing handful of you ass as he lifts you clean off the ground, lumbering slowly towards the couch while the two of you stare at each other with something that smells suspiciously of wonder. 

On the high ground now, you stare down at him, held as you are and kiss him again, for real this time, with tongue, an eating of his mouth. Trying to taste him as deep as you can go, digging your manicured fingernails into the rough whiskered planes of his cheeks until he grunts roughly.

Showing him that you can hurt him too. 

His knees hit the edge of the couch, one palm going to the back to hold himself steady as he sets you down, following your path to fold over you nose to nose. Watching each other for a blink, predator, predator, lashes tangling and then his mouth is sliding wetly over your burning cheekbone, drawn out groan like dying. Down to the hinge of your jaw where he sucks sharp once and his tongue flutters down the column of your throat, tasting your pulse, his palms everywhere at the same time too. Over your shoulders and down your goosefleshed arms, cinching at the nip of your waist to slide around your hips and to your ass, pulling you forward and open when he goes to his knees on the floor at the edge of the sofa between your spread thighs, with you draped diagonally across the cool leather that sticks to your sweaty, coconut flavored skin. 

One palm slides down your chest, dragging over your breast, the other catching at your nipple with this thumb, nail scraping and pulling the wet fabric along with him, baring you to the first glance of his eyes. A sound that’s a little like a whimper precedes his latching mouth, sucking hard and with teeth so you’re arching and crying and when your head rolls to the side, eyes bleary and barely seeing, he’s got your small breast in his mouth, jaw hinged wide and hungry. His teeth scrape, one wide palm sliding over your thigh to the back, pushing your knee up high and open to your shoulder, lips skim over your belly, smell so fucking good, sharp edge over your hip bone and the lave of his tongue, taste so fucking good.

“I’m gonna eat your cunt.” Bikini askew, one little tit bared to the cold AC, nipples hard enough to hurt, he pinches it once and mean and stretches the soaking wet center gusset of your bottoms wider.

He looks and looks and grins and everything inside of you pulses. 

Boyish smirk and a cocky glance up at you, oh, pretty, “Perfect little princess pussy, huh? I see now.” He sticks his thumb into his mouth, pulls it out with a pop to rub it spit slick against your clit. Yeah, yeah, like that, and you can’t help the whining cry. 

Pushing your other thigh up high, the grin turns to something a little more menacing before he bends to your cunt, whole mouth covering you there like he’d swallowed your breast. His thumbs dig painfully into the backs of your thighs like they’d dug in your back, leaving little spots of hurt all over your body is what he’s doing, spreading you wide open.  

Every touch is possessive, full of ownership. 

“What are you doing to me?” He groans as he eats your cunt, doing exactly as he said he would, flat of his tongue licking all over you, dipping inside. Purse of his lips then and he’s sucking hard and pulsing in quick successions, and there’s your first one—little gush of slick and your belly so tight it hurts, you need something inside of you so bad—your first orgasm forced from you and onto his tongue, swallowed down into his stomach. He groans like an animal—doubles his efforts, tongue spearing inside, pulling away to press two fingers in—fuck, fuck, and you grab hold of your own thigh to keep yourself open for him, knees trembling beside your ribs. 

The hand not inside slides across you, smearing slick over your belly, it’s everywhere, and presses down as he crooks those two fingers forward. His hair’s all fucked up, eyes glazed a maniacle shade of hazel that makes him more intimidating than you’ve ever seen him and also hotter than you could’ve ever dreamed, that boy’s smile again. 

His mustache is soaked in you. “Little pussy’s so small ‘nd wet, baby.” He wiggles his fingers, pets against the blindingly sensitive place inside of you. “Feel that?” Fingers twisting—almost too much, the stretch burns already and just like this. 

“Please, put it in,” you beg stupidly, a tear leaks and then another, not at all smart of self preserving. 

He clicks his tongue, and you can’t tell if it’s soothing or condescending or both, your eyes screwing shut at what he’s doing to you, trying to paw at his shoulders and pull him towards you at the same time. “Can’t—too small.”

No, no— His palm at your belly presses down, fingers petting forward, again, again, head bent once more to suck on your clit, licking it roughly if a tongue can be rough because it’s heavy and strong and intentional—I can take it. There’s your next one, obeying the come here order of his fingers. Mid-come and he’s forcing that painful third one from before inside, and now it’s split open and sloshing wetly—your cunt—hiccupping into another left over shaky orgasm, fucking hurts a little bit. More tears and his soft chuckle—you’re really in it now. 

When he slurps at your leaking again, fingers leaving you to gape empty and wanting, your hips shiver, trying to shake him away and rock against him at the same time. He says something you can’t make out, can’t even open your eyes, you just need a second, you swear, and then the clink of his belt, the shuffle of clothes, and he’s pulled his shirt over his head—you’ve enough mind left to open your eyes for this. 

He’s so strong, built for fucking and working and heaving. You knew this already, you hadn’t needed to see him without clothes to know. 

And all yours now, too. 

Your fingertips paw greedy at his chest, muscular, the thickly corded arms and shoulders. One hand wraps around the slim of your ankle, manacling you while he undoes his fly, your heart skips with the split of the zipper’s teeth and pulls his cock out, letting it fall heavy on your stomach—a threatening, aggressive thing. It drags against your cunt, so big it doesn’t stand up straight and jutting like the others you’ve been used to, but bobs low and hanging.

Reaching forward you flit the tips of your fingers over the wide head—barely there butterfly touch—and your hand looks comically small next to the thing as you pet at the dark head swelling out of the thick skin around it, soft and burning hot—he growls like a wolf at your touch.

 “I’ve never— I’ve never… with one like…”

He pulls your hand forward, wrapping it tightly around the thick length with his fist over yours. “Nah, baby. You’ve never had one like this. It’s alright—I’ll show you how to take it.” 

You’ve half a mind to roll your eyes at him, but he distracts you with the soft touch at the split indentation in your knee from your romp in the grass last night. “What happened here, little thing?” His words and his touch are so soft, eyes warm and caring, as if he weren’t threatening at all, as if that thing that’s about to split you in half and make you cry hasn’t started to slick itself back and forth between your legs, parting the lips of your cunt, sticky sound on every pass with his fist wrapped around himself—too many things happening to you all at once by his hand. 

“A rock hiding in the grass last night.” You start to roll your hips minutely against him, presenting your similarly torn palm for his appraisal, no, no, my poor baby, he kisses the little hurt while the fat head swipes over your clit, pressing against your hole—a little gasp and you circle his wrist at your knee, anchoring yourself. 

He frowns. “Last night when?”

“After you left me.” Pouting back. 

Cooing once and low, “You shouldn’t go out alone at night, anything could happen,” pressing again at the mouth of your cunt. Fuck, now— 

“Wasn’t alone—”

The head notches and stays, “Without me then— Deep breath now, baby.” He grunts on the first push inside, and your back arches tight as a bowstring, hand splaying wide at the center of his belly and his long fingers wrap around your breast tight, holding you in place, deep breath, he says again. 

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God.”

He pitches his hips forward once, just a little, just a small shove, and you tense, sharp whine hiccuping through you. “Oh, it’s too big,” pressing harder at his belly as he edges deeper again, an inch and then another, literally splitting your cunt open for himself, thumb swiping slow and gentle over your clit, forcing little shudders of pleasure out of you amidst the pain. 

“See, told ya.” It’s slow, slow until he makes it fit, watching himself sink inside of you the entire time, until you’re rooted on his cock, breath coming is quick, sucking pants, puffs out through your nose, body flushing hot and then even hotter. He folds over you, groaning loud and long, deep grinds and small shoves, and then it’s so much, too much until there’s no room left inside of you at all, that dull ache pain of his tip pressing against your cervix. 

You’re going to be so sore tomorrow, it hurts, it hurts, but he plays with that place anyways, covering you with his body to press his face against your breasts, mouthing wet and hot at your nipples, biting hard to distract you from the pain inside. Your fingers twist in his hair, hot and damp at the roots, sweaty musk smell of a hard day's work, masculine, making you wetter for him. “It’s alright… it’s alright. You can take it. You’re such a good girl.” And then a fuck, and he’s mumbling your name, how good you are again, how well you’re taking your fucking. 

“This what you wanted, right? To get caught on my cock?” The palm cupping your ass tips you up and forwards, forcing him inside just that little bit more. Your knees are at your shoulders, folded entirely under him, and the tip of his cock is still there where it hurts the most while he pants and sweats on top of you. A cramp of heat moves like lightning down your back and something goes loose in your cunt, your womb contracting once, accepting its fate as you start to come around him, milking him deep inside of you. You start to cry for real now too, fingernails dragging against his naked back looking for blood—sobbing, actually, not just crying. 

He bites your breast hard, grinds further not letting the orgasm stop, “God—I’m so fuckin’ deep. No one’s ever been this deep, right? Tell me, baby,” he begs, sitting back and dragging you boneless, still coming, into his lap, little girl splayed wide over his knees on the floor. You sink further down onto his cock, and he kisses your hot cheeks, letting your cunt drip down him. His belt digs bruisingly into the back of your thighs and it all hurts—he really is so deep now, head tucked firmly at your cervix, and he feels like he’s getting thicker, harder, like he just needs to be sunk deep like this, as deep as he can get so that all your cunt needs to do is work him until it milks the come right out of him. 

Your head lolls back on your neck, supported at the edge of the sofa. “No more—” You don’t know if you mean it, but it is just on the verge of too much now. You’re so sensitive. 

“Yes more.” He starts to lift his hips again, pulling back and shoving, not a lot, but enough that it’s like a little punch inside of you each time. “As much as I say.”

Whining, “No—I can’t.” You roll your hips against him though, the both of you moving, straining against each other, his wide hands around your waist shifting you up and down like a doll on his cock. Your eyes finally open again, and the sunlight spears in through the windows in buttery blinding shafts, sparkling dust motes dancing above as he fucks you. The sound is all so wet, everything from his lower belly to the open front of his jeans is soaked. “I don’t like it anymore,” you lie. 

“I don’t care,” and he gives you the first really rough thrust, not a pounding but with enough strength behind it that you get that heat cramp again, feel like you’re going to wet yourself again, there’s so much pressure in your belly. 

You’re going to come again. You are coming again. It feels like you should say thank you. 

He laughs, little cock sleeve, and you can’t understand how it’s so intense when the fucking is so slow—so good anyways—who cares about anything. His name slips through your lips without them moving, and he’s laughing again, a little mean and you tell him so, but still tender, still endeared by you. 

You push his face away weakly, a mumbled, “Nasty old man.”

Nuh uh, he hums, taking both of your wrists in his grip and pressing them back to the leather edge on either side of your head, forcing you into an arch so that he can latch his teeth at your throat and suck. The rolling of his hips pick up speed, just that little bit, the heat coming off him boiling up to steaming and his sweat drips onto your skin and disappears inside of you—everywhere you’ve got him inside of you. 

“Birth control?” All broken up with pants and your jugular between his teeth. 

Flexing fingers, hands going away to numbness, he’s got you held so tightly, not being so careful of his strength anymore, his cock drags and it’s so wet and sensitive and swollen inside of you, it feels like he barely fits even more than it did before, like there’s definitely no more space inside of you for him at all.. “Yeah—ye—ah, ahh,” can’t get your voice to come out right with your clit grinding against his pelvic bone like that. “Implant right here.” You turn your face towards your left arm, tipping your nose the hidden little bump right beneath your skin. He clicks his tongue, kissing it softly.

“Poor baby. That’s good. That’s real good, baby. Just be good and lemme come in you now. It’s okay.” He spreads his thighs wider, pushing up with his knees into you now. Oh fuck— “But you gotta give me one more. I want it—it’s mine.” And the way he’s got you arched, the spot he hits inside is more intense than the others. He grunts rougher now, biting your throat so hard you’ll be left bruised all over and on the inside too. One palm lets go of your wrist to grip your bottom, long fingers slotting on either side of his impaling cock, pulling you to him so tightly the orgasm is squeezed out of you forcibly and hurts all the worse for it. You’re limp and boneless now, and he starts to pump his come into you in thick spurts, belly all suffused with heat and your name a groan in his throat.

His fingers, parted around his splitting cock rub at the slippery skin of your labia, back and forth to your asshole, holding and cupping the place he’s claimed, and he comes so long, hunched over and rutting into you, filling and filling until the wet squelch is even louder and you can feel the thick come being forced out of your stuffed full cunt. 

You want to say his name, trying to move your lips, but your tongue rolls uselessly inside your mouth, all you are is a shivering cunt, a muscle spasming and spasming around him. He nuzzles at your throat, finally unlatching his teeth, licking away the hurt, pressing a soft kiss to the sore spot. You can feel him playing in the leaking wet now, fingering at your puffy cunt, well fucked and filled. 

You want to tell him you didn’t think that the bikini was going to make this happen, pull this out of him. 

At least not like this. You don’t think you could’ve ever imagined it’d be like this. 

His mouth, hot on your jaw once more before he finally picks up his head to look at you, and his eyes make you want to cry, all that manic heat is gone now, replaced by some softly smoldering ember. You don’t think anyone in all the world has eyes the color of hazel he’s got. Something that should belong to some fiercely guarded precious stone, they glow, amber opal like, burnished in the setting sun’s golden glow.

“You okay?” His voice is very soft, and only for you.

You nod, chin tipping to your sternum, face flushed with so much unbearably pleased heat you’re unable to find your own. 

Tilting his head to get at your mouth, he kisses you long and soft and open mouthed, licking your tongue, tasting you completely. And when he pulls back he has that same look you feel on your own face—that same unbearable pleasure. Shocked wonder sprinkled into it.

Look at what we’ve done and together and how good it is—

A smile and then a laugh from both of you, giggling like school children into each other’s mouths, and you’ve always thought he has some strange effect of appearing all man one second and then smiling and boyish for the flash of a single moment the next. And you don’t think you understand how someone who’s been through so much can still laugh the way he does. You smooth your finger over the arch of his eyebrow, thumbing at the smile lines at the corners of his eyes. Gorgeously strong man, and you suppose, looking at the wider picture, his life here, Ellie and the boys and a whole full life, you understand it, just a little bit—all the ranch’d given him. He has so much here—centered by the land as its heart. 

You’ve always wanted to be just like him anyway, and finally, voice found—the feel of his heartbeat inside of you—it’s like finding a dream, “I’m okay,” you tell him. 

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[elvirable]

Ambrosia (Act 1)

[ Astarion x f!Reader ] | ao3 link

rating: explicit | word count: 2k | status: ongoing themes/tags: vaginal sex, feelings realization, denial of feelings, light smut.. for now, and a whole lotta angst, will add more smut tho in the next chapters, soulmates, fluff, written as a glimpse into his mind during each act ———–

Astarion would never tell you, though - it was his little secret, one he hid away just for himself.

In other words: A delve into Astarion's thoughts, starting with the day he met you. *will update description at some point. ———– A/N: i wrote this as a peek into Astarion's mind throughout Act 1. plan to continue as i progress throughout the game. lmk what you think and if you like this style!

-------

Grief had a penchant for wearing different masks.

Phantom faces that slithered through shadows, white-hot wrath that clawed at the throat, an endless gnawing that swallowed one whole: all faces of a primordial monster that had existed before time itself.

Astarion knew all this. 

He had met them all – intimate with its simplest form, a cold polarizing solitude; a loyal companion for two centuries, teaching him to lick his wounds with malice. Others had taken everything from him, or they were too weak to lift a meaningful finger. It took several lifetimes to finally mend his precious pride back together. Why should he practice mercy when no one had shown him any?

And by some stroke of luck, he was free – at least for now. Opportunity had fallen before his feet; he could chase after power, clutch revenge in his pale fingers, walk amongst the sun. Red eyes clung to the light glimmering across the water and wavering leaves. A desperate urge pulsed up his spine, insisting he memorize each saturated detail before it faded away like the most ethereal dream. The exhilaration rose wildly before plummeting to the pits of his stomach.

Huh, that was odd. It had never dawned on him that grief could also bloom in the slow, golden sunlight.

Languid beams washed against his flesh and through the faint hem of his shirt. Every fiber of his skin ached, dull and shallow, at the sacred warmth that had been a stranger for so long. He felt this haunted and holy gift – the vigor of life from each ray of light running over his fair face. Reunited once again, like long-lost lovers.

It was the sound of boots thudding against dirt that pulled him back into the world, on the ravaged beachfront. 

With straight posture, a hollow smile painted itself across his lips. ==

“You have your mother’s eyes, you know.”

No, he didn’t know.

Quiet was this small voice that, for some odd reason, had grasped onto his conscience the night he died. It had sung loud in the beginning, but now it was just a whisper. Everything else had reduced to dust, long-buried beneath the cold earth. 

But if he could conjure the ghost of his mother, he couldn’t be bothered to. Astarion envisioned a sharp tsk , a scowl dripping with disgust if she could see the creature he was today: a thrall to his own hedonistic desires, wielding manipulation and seduction as an instrument. A vampire , taking solace amongst the shadows and draining the life around him.

Maybe he was the same, just calloused and rearranged by the fate spun for him. 

However, there was no need to exhume the past. It proved futile anyway; he couldn’t even recall the previous hue of his eyes, much less run his hands over his reflection. The only thing worthy of concern was survival. Memories had been shrouded by the same pivotal virtue, the one that carved the habit to become shapeless – to cater to every impulse and whim of those who could serve useful. Those who could protect him, at least for the time being.

And that was exactly what he tried with you, as his breath was inches from your slender neck and your eyes widened in hazy alarm, catching him by surprise. 

“Shit.”

You scuttered to your feet in the frantic silence, dozens of excuses fluttering to Astarion’s tongue. The fatigue of bloodthirst hindered his wit, but he raised his palms in reservation.

He had already taken note of your misleading presence – you were small, but heavens , would you put up a fight. Other companions had already turned towards you for guidance the past few days, and you were carved with a beauty that could intimidate. Though, there were cracks underneath that facade – ones with darkness in between. 

Peering into these cracks was his only outlet to earn your trust; after all, it was paramount for survival.

“I – I wasn’t going to hurt you,” exasperated breaths pushed from his throat. “I just needed, well.. blood.”

Basked in the dim firelight, your wary gaze studied him for what he really was: a vampire, a slave to sanguine hunger. He caught the stutter in your furrowed brows before they eased. Smug delight settled in his nerves when you, although with apprehension, allowed him to taste you.

Astarion eagerly obliged, immediately losing himself in the euphoria– the sweet vigor of your blood, how silky and rich. A low hum vibrated in his throat, and he barely registered when your palms pushed his broad weight off of you. Lush satisfaction that quenched his blood-thirst still coursed through him like a stimulant, but he still caught the tail-end of your groan.

“I don’t care that you’re a vampire. Just –,” you paused briefly to reel from your daze. “We’re all a team now, so I have to have some trust in you. Just ask next time.”

He felt happy, more alive – not only from the fresh blood still lingering on his tongue, but that you trusted him. Maybe not entirely, but the anchor had already been dropped; one step closer to wrapping you around his finger, even if you weren’t entirely flexible. He could feel it in your gaze, in the little quivers that rolled through you while his fangs sunk into your soft skin.

Once you had returned to sleep and his frenzied nerves quelled, he mulled over your parting words. You weren’t phased’ that he was a vampire, instead placing emphasis on trust. You were full of surprises – especially when the entire world met him with repulse.

Something that had been fossilized inside him tremored, as if it began to thaw. ==

There was a thin chill in the evening air, in the way nature prepares for a new season. And he hated you. 

Well, he didn’t hate you – frankly, he couldn’t get enough of you; that was the issue. 

You plagued his thoughts like a helpless addiction, better yet like a mirror; one he had repeatedly peered into, struggling to find the right angle and when he did – he was left staring at you.

Those careful eyes – a mocking reminder of everything he could have been. So different, so resilient, so disgustingly kind.

Since the day he laid eyes on you, he was the first to glimpse at your secret hidden in plain sight. Your habit of hiding yourself from everyone you came across, retreating behind stone-bared walls and tailoring a facade just enough to avoid drawing attention. Reserved lips were a mere confirmation you sealed away a vault of grief that you didn’t want – or need – clumsy, temporary hands to pry open. 

That discreet resolve particularly made you the sour dagger twisting between his ribs. Grief had been your companion as well, but its mark never trickled from anywhere else – not a warbled voice or frustrated bout. It was only noticeable through a fleeting glint in your eyes. Meanwhile, he had made this medley of rage and anguish his armor. It had fused to skin, and he no longer knew how to scrape it off. Astarion dedicated decades to cursing the Gods. You ignored them.

He knew he should despise you and eagerly await the day he could shatter this mirror you were – but all bitterness dissolved in your presence. You had become his wonderfully terrible affliction; withdrawals could damn near kill him if they were to happen.

Ribbons unraveled from his chest with each conversation, whether it pertained to the graveness of the journey or a simple ‘good morning’ from your lips. Strange yet blissful, he could feel himself surrendering every bitter pang for the peculiar sensation of… comfort .

Once laced with such harshness, his mind eased with familiarity. An interesting chord of harmony, he thought, the two of you. From the start of the journey until now, you shared an enriching balance. He would encourage you to be more outspoken, while you stirred him to be authentic and soft – even if you weren’t aware. 

You were stable like bedrock; never once expecting to be selfless or pious, instead only demanded transparency – at least to the extent he was willing to concede. Aside from the occasional brow-raise or retort, judgment never twisted your face. Respect was a new sensation to him, as you gave him yours.

This dynamic, this balance ; it was irresistibly and invariably warm. 

==

The rendezvous sort of just fell into habit. 

Every night he would savor the ambrosia from your neck, and one evening tension gave way to carnal desire. Whether it was a simple cathartic release or not, he didn’t care; tender moments bathed in amber firelight or the hush of the night had always left him craving more.

“You’re such a tease .”

You’d whisper those words every so often those sacred nights, and a rakish grin would slide across his face without fail. Lust gripped him, but never once weaved with routine; the way your legs parted to invite him in left Astarion with an insatiable urge to indulge in everything you were willing to give him. He could spend the entire evening with his head between your thighs, cold hands steadying your quivering legs as his tongue lured you to new heights of pleasure – giving you exactly what you needed. 

When he was with you – skin pressed together, desperate hums like honey – he began to relish in taking things slow. 

He preferred the nights where your bare body writhed beneath him and melted against his, while he eagerly coaxed wispy whines from your lips. No matter how wet and ready you were, his girth always met resistance as he parted your warm, sensitive walls. Your skin buzzed at the sensation of his cock splitting you open, like every time was the first you’ve been touched.

Desire laced every word he whispered into the curve of your neck, each encouraging and soft. His pace was slow, pushing into the depth of your core, buried deep enough to kiss your cervix with each thrust. Low, guttural grunts left his throat as your body’s natural instinct clenched around his throbbing cock. 

Despite his centuries of experience, he found himself struggling to restrain from succumbing to the all-consuming euphoria of it all: your lashes wet from your tears, precious gasps warm against his skin, the desirous ache to fuck you the way that pretty face beckoned to be fucked. 

The unbridled intimacy – which felt so real and tender was enough to send him over the edge. His veins hummed with yearning as he drank in the vision beneath him; your skin flushed, shaky whines that sung his name as he pushed you to pleasure. And when you wrapped your legs to press him deeper – he surrendered to the white-hot bliss. 

Although Astarion would never tell a soul, his most treasured moments were spent after desperate breaths calmed and the entire world stilled.

It was never long before you lulled into sleep, and your weight slacked against his broad chest. He lingered over each detail with softer eyes; the gentle curl of your lashes, a freckle he had missed the last time. Peace graced such beautiful features, ones that were usually still with resolve. There had never been another face quite like yours in the two centuries he had lurked amongst the earth.

Your chest rose and fell slowly before you would eventually fidget, still deep in slumber, to slink an arm over his waist. His gentle hand grasped the one that rested against his chest, careful not to stir you, as he ran his fingers over your silk skin. Such delicate hands, he mused, that had to grapple their way through life.

He pressed a silent kiss against the back of your palm before laying it back on his chest. 

In the silence, something washed over him – that rousing feeling that he never knew quite what to make of. 

His eyes swept once more to watch the shuffle of your face, buried now against his side. Your hazy sighs warmed his bare skin. Astarion could almost laugh, imagining your face reddening if he ever shared how affectionate you were in your sleep.

Though he would never tell you – it was his little secret, one he hid away just for himself.

[anna-357]

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M=smut, F=fluff, A=angst

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you thought your next-door neighbor was just being polite when he offered to help you carry in your boxes the first time you saw him, but as you adjust to your new home, you start to notice that joshua’s nice in other ways too: nice eyes, nice smile, nice arms, nice fingers, probably nice di—okay you get the point. but just how long can you go with lusting after your neighbor before giving in to your very much not-nice desires? well, lucky for you, joshua also isn’t nearly as much of a gentleman as he likes to let on.

Best friends brother m a @chocosvt

synopsis: joshua happens to be your best friend's older brother. he's pretty, and he's got a lot of cool details about him that you pay a concerning amount of attention to, but he’s just a friend (if you could even call it that). still, what does he think of you, anyway? that is—if he thinks of you.

Moon Junhui

sounds of the season f @junkissed

synopsis: when your university’s radio show hosts a matchmaking event to raise money, you figure, what have you got to lose? the question you should be asking is, what have you got to gain?

match of the season m f @1-800-hwahui

part 2 from sounds of the season

Something spicy, something sweet m f @onlyhuis

synopsis | the last few days you've been coming home from work exhausted, but now that you finally have a day off you have time for a little something sweet from your boyfriend.

Kwon Soonyoung

7pm ft. Seokmin, Seungkwan m f @onlymingyus

Four best friends, a sleepover, and drinks.

charity f*ck m @ncteez

Have you ever taken anyone’s virginity before? Well, yeah, your first time was both losing your own and taking someone else’s but, that was a long time ago. Have you ever taken the virginity of a twenty-six-year-old man who probably should have gotten laid by now anyway? Nope. Are you about to? Yep.

vowels and veracity m f a @hansolmates

summary: after a blind date that makes you feel like a giddy teenager all over again, you’re forced to grow up and take a chance when you realize that special someone is your daughter’s kindergarten teacher.

Jeon Wonwoo

Challenge me chapter 2 m @seokgyuu

synopsis: you have never been a person who turns down a challenge, but when your best friend challenges you to hook up with 13 boys in one semester you kind of wish you were.

the regular f @trblsvt

summary: wonwoo couldn't really recommend anything at the bakery he worked at, he couldn't even handle going in a couple days a week. that is until he found his new favorite customer.

Tell me m @fvllingflower

college!wonwoo, f!reader

Lee Jihoon

DON’T SWEAT IT m f @miraclewoozi

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you.

then you came f a @lovelywoos

in which you, the student council vice president, and lee jihoon, the quiet boy in the back of the class, fell in love despite your differences.

Mwah f @cheolism

summary: three times you said "mwah" at the end of a kiss and one time jihoon said it back

Xu minghao

Rush hour m @lovelyhan

summary: you used to be good friends with the newest dancer in your agency, but your competitiveness gets the better of you when he overtakes your spot as the top performer of the month—for three straight months.

Felix Felicis f a @blue-jisungs

summary. befriending minghao, the slytherin your friends (no one knows why) hated was horrifying at first. but after some time passed, you’d start wondering if it was some unknown side effects of felix felicis

Art project m f @1-800-hwahui

art major grad student bf!minghao x fem reader

Kim Mingyu

Champagne from your lips m @seokgyuu

You and Chan have been best friend for years. Little do you know he is incredibly attracted to you. When you tell him to help you bag him your dad's tennis instructor Chan only has one condition. He gets to join the fun.

the very first night m a @shuadrive

synopsis: the search for a new place to live takes a turn for the worse when the only person willing to split rent with you is your ex-boyfriend.

make yourself at home f a @celestiababie

Summary: After months of barely seeing your boyfriend, he offers a solution to a problem threatening the well-being of your relationship

Lee Seokmin

7pm ft. Soonyoung, Seungkwan m f @onlymingyus

Four best friends, a sleepover, and drinks.

I like you m f @seokgyuu

SYNOPSIS: After having a crush on Lee Seokmin for three years, he somehow ends up wanting to be your roommate. Instead of rejecting him, you decide to give him the vacant room - right after confessing your feelings for him.

Give & Take m @ncteez

It’s not weird that you and your roommate do certain things that others would consider, um, strange. It’s not weird because you don’t make it weird, and he certainly doesn’t go out of his way to make a big deal either. or the one where you and your roommate masturbate together casually until it becomes not so casual, and maybe neither of you can do it at this point without wanting more.

Boo Seungkwan

7pm ft. Soonyoung, seokmin m f @onlymingyus

Four best friends, a sleepover, and drinks.

you got it all wrong m f @seokgyuu

SYNOPSIS: One night of careless drinking with your 13 closest friends leads to Chan and Seungkwan finally finding out you have a crush on them. How lucky you are that the feelings are mutual and that they want to show you just how much they worship you.

his reward m f @cheolism

summary: after a long day, seungkwan decides to seek relief between your legs

Chwe Hansol

not a virgin m @ncteez

Vernon, a friend of your friend spills his spicy sex life and accidentally reveals to an entire group of near-strangers (including you) that he’s had sex one and a half times and that it was sick.

tangled in love f @starsstuddedsky

summary: there's nothing in the world that vernon loves more than cats. at least, that's what you think

Daybreak m @sluttyminghao

best friend!vernon

Lee Chan

Now spit, baby m @rubyreduji

summary: you accidently send a meme to the wrong person, fortunately for you it sparks a conversation

you got it all wrong m f @seokgyuu

SYNOPSIS: One night of careless drinking with your 13 closest friends leads to Chan and Seungkwan finally finding out you have a crush on them. How lucky you are that the feelings are mutual and that they want to show you just how much they worship you.

Champagne from your lips m @seokgyuu

You and Chan have been best friend for years. Little do you know he is incredibly attracted to you. When you tell him to help you bag him your dad's tennis instructor Chan only has one condition. He gets to join the fun.

@matchahyuck

[the-anonmaton]

Quivering Dance

Relationships : Sevika x Reader Characters : Sevika, Original Female Character Rating: Explicit Tags : Smut, Light Dom/sub, Strap-Ons, Vibrators, bottom reader, Top Sevika (Arcane: League of Legends), bottom sevika, Light Sadism, Overstimulation, top reader Chapters : 2 (both chapters in this post - reversed POV) Words : 1,531

Summary:

Chapter 1. How about reverse cowgirl Reader? Chapter 2. How about reverse cowgirl Sevika?

**********

CHAPTER 1 : Bottom Reader

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

You came home only to find her on the bed, propped up on the pillows against the headboard, a saccharine smile on her face as she was lying down naked and harnessed with her favorite hexstrap. One hand behind her head, the other stroking the strap and coating it with lube, the bottle forgotten beside her.

Your mouth agape as you took in the scene in front of you, already knowing what was about to happen. She caught your roaming eyes and a nod towards her lap was enough to pull you from the stupor she inflicted upon you. Hurriedly, you undressed yourself as you were making your way towards her. You reached the bed and crawled to her, put one leg over her and straddled her, both of you holding each other's eyes through it all.

The hand behind her head reached for your cheek to pull you in for a chaste kiss. The hand on her strap lifted to touch your pussy and found you already wet. You gasped an exhale in her mouth and pushed down on her hand with your whole body.

"Turn around baby, I want to see your back dance."

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

She could feel you through your touch. You were leaning forward, balanced by your hands on her legs and fingers digging into each muscled thigh. Your feet resting behind you, beside her torso, tapping at her body with each tremble, the hair on your legs tickling her skin.

She could feel you through her touch. Her hands roaming, from the backs of your spread thighs, to the meat of your ass, to your lower back where sweat was gathering, to your shoulder blades where muscles quaking beneath.

You could feel her eyes on you, her gaze transfixed by what was connecting you. With every forward move you made you were leaving behind a strap coated with your cum, only to push back and feel it buried inside you again, filling you, opening you up and making you momentarily shake above her, repeating your quivering dance.

She could hear your heavy breathing, she could hear your every movement, betrayed by gasps, moans, pleas, inhales and belated exhales.

"Do it, please, make me come."

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

There was a reason this was her favorite strap. Despite her desire to keep reverently experiencing what was unfolding all around her, she wanted to bring you over the edge you were teetering on, as a testament of her worship.

So she pushed the button at the base of the strap. The moment both of your ears picked the vibration, it was immediately drowned by your whines and cries. No longer able to keep the balance on your hands, you doubled over, your forehead resting against her leg.

She lost sight of your back, but was presented with a much better view of your connection. She couldn't help but feed her selfishness as her hands gripped your asscheeks, thumbs placed on each fold, spreading them, opening you up only for her to see, your movements never ceasing, your hips never stop canting, your walls never stop clenching, your cum never stop flowing.

“So wet for me.”

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

Your hips kept moving and kept chasing, the pleasure making you lose your rhythm, so she grabbed you by the hips and every time you moved away she pulled you back harder and deeper against her. It would not be long.

Another push of the button at the base was all it took.

Your feet lifted off the bed, knees pushing harder against the mattress. Your arms snaked to the back of her legs, hands gripping hard at the meat of her calves. Your whole body shaking on her lap. Your mouth open and teeth holding onto her leg where she could feel your breath warming her skin. Your heavy exhales filled her ears. Your wet folds quivering around her still vibrating strap, your thighs pushing against her, unable to close, while cum was dripping down your pussy and coating her own thighs.

“My good girl.”

**********

She can't turn it off, not yet, she is selfish. She will keep you there, with demanding hands on your hips. She will keep it on, see you shiver and quake trying to run away from her. She will see you leaking more on her strap until she hears your signal by the snap of your fingers.

"That's it, beautiful."

**********

CHAPTER 2 : Bottom Sevika

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

She came home only to find you on the bed, propped up on the pillows against the headboard, a saccharine smile on your face as you were lying down naked and harnessed with your favorite hexstrap. One hand behind your head, the other stroking the strap and coating it with lube, the bottle forgotten beside you.

Her mouth agape as she took in the scene in front of her, already knowing what was about to happen. You caught her roaming eyes and a nod towards your lap was enough to pull her from the stupor you inflicted upon her. Hurriedly, she undressed herself as she was making her way towards you. She reached the bed and crawled to you, put one leg over you and straddled you, both of you holding each other's eyes through it all.

The hand behind your head reached for her cheek to pull her in for a chaste kiss. The hand on your strap lifted to touch her pussy and found her already wet. She gasped an exhale in your mouth and pushed down on your hand with her whole body.

"Turn around baby, I want to see your back dance."

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

You could feel her through her touch. She was leaning forward, balanced by her hands on your legs and fingers digging into each thigh. Her feet resting behind her, beside your torso, tapping at your body with each tremble, the hair on her legs tickling your skin.

You could feel her through your touch. Your hands roaming, from the backs of her spread thighs, to the meat of her ass, to her lower back where sweat was gathering, to her shoulder blades where muscles quaking beneath.

She could feel your eyes on her, your gaze transfixed by what was connecting you. With every forward move she made she was leaving behind a strap coated with her cum, only to push back and see it buried inside her again, filling her, opening her up and making her momentarily shake above you, repeating her quivering dance.

You could hear her heavy breathing, you could hear her every movement, betrayed by gasps, moans, pleas, inhales and belated exhales.

"Do it, please, make me come."

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

There was a reason this was your favorite strap. Despite your desire to keep reverently experiencing what was unfolding all around you, you wanted to bring her over the edge she was teetering on, as a testament of your worship.

So you pushed the button at the base of the strap. The moment both of your ears picked the vibration, it was immediately drowned by her whines and cries. No longer able to keep the balance on her hands, she doubled over, her forehead resting against your leg.

You lost sight of her back, but were presented with a much better view of your connection. You couldn't help but feed your selfishness as your hands gripped her asscheeks, thumbs placed on each fold, spreading them, opening her up only for you to see, her movements never ceasing, her hips never stop canting, her walls never stop clenching, her cum never stop flowing.

“So wet for me.”

**********

You have been at it for a while now.

Her hips kept moving and kept chasing, the pleasure making her lose her rhythm, so you grabbed her by the hips and every time she moved away you pulled her back harder and deeper against you. It would not be long.

Another push of the button at the base was all it took.

Her feet lifted off the bed, knees pushing harder against the mattress. Her arms snaked to the back of your legs, hands gripping hard at the meat of your calves. Her whole body shaking on your lap. Her mouth open and teeth holding onto your leg where you could feel her breath warming your skin. Her heavy exhales filled your ears. Her wet folds quivering around your still vibrating strap, her thighs pushing against you, unable to close, while cum was dripping down her pussy and coating your own thighs.

“My good girl.”

**********

You can't turn it off, not yet, you are selfish. You will keep her there, with demanding hands on her hips. You will keep it on, see her shiver and quake trying to run away from you. You will see her leaking more on your strap until you hear her signal by the snap of her fingers.

"That's it, beautiful."

**********

taglist : @opropheticsoul @archangeldyke-all @wizard-pdf

Thanks for reading! :)

[godsfavdarling]

How could you? (pt.2)

my masterlist, part 1

pairing: Spencer Reid x gn!reader (established relationship) words: 1,8k summary: You're still hurt but you don't think you can let Spencer and your love for him go so easily. warnings: angst, hurt, spoilers for season 15! a/n: i'm so happy you guys liked the first part!!! i was asked to write part 2 and I was so flattered! thank you for all the love <3

The following days felt like walking through a dense fog, each step heavy with the weight of pain. You couldn't shake the image of JJ cupping his cheeks, and pressing her lips against his. It was a scene etched into your mind, haunting you like a relentless specter.

His lips. Lips that had whispered sweet nothings to you, that had traced patterns of love and affection on your skin. Lips that had promised forever in each kiss, now tainted by another's touch.

You couldn't comprehend how it had come to this. 

How could he allow someone else to invade the sacred space you had built together?

His lips for years had only ever kissed and worshiped yours. But now, everything felt ruined, tarnished by the image of her lips on his.

The questions swirled in your mind, each one more agonizing than the last. 

How could he betray you like this? Did he ever truly love you, or was it all just a lie?

The memory of Spencer's confession played over and over in your mind like a broken record, each word etched into your heart with painful clarity. 

You knew about his past with JJ, how he had loved her long ago, only to have his feelings unreciprocated. He had moved on from that chapter of his life, leaving behind the pain and heartache to build a future with you.

But seeing them together, so close, her hands on his beautiful face, her lips on his, it was clear that his feelings had not been one-sided.

He had bared his soul to you, laying bare the events of that hostage situation, recounting every detail with a raw honesty that left you reeling.

You remembered how he sat close to you with his hand on your lap as you cleaned his wound. Tears in your eyes as you played with his fingers and soaked in saline solution gauze. Staring at his hand you listened to every word, as he reassured you of his unwavering love. He had made it abundantly clear that his heart belonged to you and you alone. 

But did it?

The doubts crept in like tendrils of darkness, twisting and coiling around your heart with suffocating intensity. 

Had he truly moved on from his past with JJ? Or was it merely a facade, a carefully constructed illusion meant to shield you from the painful truth? 

The thought gnawed at you, clawing its way through the layers of your defenses until it settled like a lead weight in the pit of your stomach.

What if he still harbored feelings for her, buried deep beneath the surface of his professed love for you? What if JJ's sudden confession had reignited the flames of their past, offering him a chance to finally grasp the love he had always longed for?

The thought was like a dagger to your heart.

You wanted to believe in Spencer's love, to cling to the hope that his heart truly belonged to you and you alone. 

But what if it didn’t?

As you grappled with the pain and confusion, a part of you yearned for answers, while another recoiled from the truth you might uncover. But one thing was certain: the image of her lips on his would haunt you for a long time to come.

Could you ever forgive Spencer for what he'd done? And more importantly, did you even want to?

You couldn't help but wish for a sign of remorse from JJ. Spencer had reached out, extending an olive branch of love and reconciliation, despite the weight of his own guilt and regret. He had shown humility, acknowledging his mistakes and expressing his desire to make things right.

But JJ remained silent, her absence a stark contrast to Spencer's efforts to mend the fractured pieces of your relationship. Perhaps she was too embarrassed to reach out, too ashamed to face the consequences of her actions. 

How could she have the audacity to remain silent, to act as though nothing had happened? 

It felt like a slap in the face, a cruel twist of fate that only served to deepen the wound.

The silence between you and Spencer was deafening, each moment stretching into eternity as Spencer waited for you to reach out. He knew he had hurt you, betrayed your trust in the worst possible way, and the guilt gnawed at him like a relentless beast.

He wanted to explain, to make you understand that it wasn't what it seemed. But every time he reached for his phone to call you a wave of uncertainty crashed over him, freezing his fingers before they could dial your number.

Spencer watched helplessly as you withdrew into yourself, your walls rising higher with each passing day. It tore him apart to see you in pain, knowing that he was the cause of it all.

He longed to reach out to you, to hold you close and beg for your forgiveness. But he knew that he had to give you space, to let you come to terms with what had happened in your own time.

As the days turned into weeks, Spencer found himself consumed by a sense of desperation. He would do anything to make things right, to earn back your trust and rebuild what you had lost. 

But deep down, he feared that it might already be too late.

Spencer's heart leaped with a sudden surge of hope as he saw your name flashing on his phone screen. Without hesitation, he snatched up the device, his fingers trembling as he answered the call.

The sound of your voice washed over him like a soothing balm, filling him with a sense of relief he hadn't realized he was craving. Your words, a simple request to meet and talk, sparked a glimmer of optimism within him, a flicker of hope that perhaps all was not lost.

But even as excitement bubbled up inside him, a familiar pang of doubt niggled at the edges of his consciousness. 

What if this meeting was merely a prelude to the inevitable, a final farewell before you walked away for good?

He pushed aside the nagging voice of uncertainty, choosing instead to focus on the warmth and sincerity in your tone. Maybe, just maybe, this was his chance to make things right, to lay bare his soul and beg for your forgiveness.

With newfound determination, Spencer agreed to the meeting, his heart pounding. He knew the road ahead would be difficult, but for the first time in days, he allowed himself to hope that perhaps, against all odds, you were willing to give him another chance.

The air was heavy with unspoken tension.

As you walked in, your eyes were immediately drawn to the spot where JJ and Spencer had kissed. Despite your best efforts, you couldn't look away.

You settled into the silence, your gaze drifting constantly to the spot where they stood. Where they stood when they kissed. This was the spot you saw them in as you walked through the door, the image of Spencer and JJ still burned into your mind's eye. Her lips on his. 

Spencer noticed the direction of your stare, the weight of your gaze heavy upon him like a silent accusation. 

With a gentle touch, he reached out and took your hand in his own, the warmth of his touch a soothing balm against the ache in your heart. Surprisingly, you didn't pull away. Allowing him to touch you, to bridge the divide that had grown between you, sent a rush of warmth through his veins, making his heart flutter with a glimmer of hope. 

In that simple gesture, there was a silent reassurance that you were still willing to give your love a chance.

"Hey," he murmured softly, his voice tinged with a vulnerability that mirrored your own. "I know things are... complicated right now. But I want you to know that I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right."

The sincerity in his words washed over you like a wave, eroding the walls of doubt.

Despite the pain and betrayal, a flicker of hope ignited within you, a tiny spark of belief that perhaps, against all odds, you could find a way forward together. You loved him too much to let go without a fight. 

When you looked into Spencer's eyes that night, the night of the kiss, even then you saw not just the hurt and the regret, but also the love. Just as you do now.

Your mind was racing, your heart heavy with pain, but even then, you knew deep down that this couldn't be how your love story ended. It wasn't over yet. There were still chapters left to be written. And you still believed.

With a steadying breath, you squeezed Spencer's hand, the warmth of his touch grounding you in the midst of the swirling chaos of your emotions. "I want us to be okay," you confessed, your voice trembling with a mixture of vulnerability and determination. "I believe you. I just... I don't know what to do, Spencer."

Spencer's gaze softened with understanding, his thumb tracing soothing circles on the back of your hand. "I know," he murmured softly.

You could see the turmoil in his eyes, the fear of losing you etched into every line of his face. And as much as you wanted to hold onto your pain and anger, you couldn't deny the love that still burned bright within you.

"But... I love you. Only you. And I don't want this to be over. If you don't want this anymore... I'll understand. Well, I don't, but I'll try to. But I don't want to. I love you too much. I want us to be okay too. And I'll do anything..." Spencer's voice cracked as tears welled up in his eyes.

Without a word, you wrapped your arms around Spencer tightly, pulling him close in a silent embrace. You could feel the tension melting away with each passing moment, replaced by a sense of warmth and security that only he could provide.

"I'm sorry," he choked out between sobs, his voice heavy with regret. "I'm so sorry, I never meant to hurt you."

You said nothing, letting your actions speak louder than words. Gently, you brushed away the tears on his cheek.

You couldn't walk away, not when his love still held you captive, not when you knew deep down that you couldn't bear to be apart from him. 

You couldn't walk away. His love had woven itself into the very fabric of your being.

As much as your mind raced with questions and uncertainties, a quiet voice within you whispered that you believed him. You believed in the sincerity of his words, in the depth of his love, and in the possibility of you two being okay.

With every fiber of your being, you clung to that belief. 

[luminoustarlight]

As Fate Would Have It | DILF!Anakin Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker gets a new assistant, who also happens to be his favorite OnlyFans performer.

◂ previous ▸ chapter two

rating: explicit | pairing: anakin skywalker x afab!reader | wc:��3.7k | read on ao3

warnings: modern!au, undisclosed age gap, SMUT [use of toys (dildo and fleshlight), mutual masturbation, squirting, watching of pornography]

After midnight is Anakin’s favorite time of the day. His kids have been asleep since 8:30 pm— their weekday curfew— and he’s finally stopped working on the project he brought home from work. It kept him from watching 101 Dalmatians with Luke and Leia but “it needed to be done.” 

He completed it well after the twins went to sleep, his neck was aching, and he needed to unwind. Now, he’s settled on the left side of his king bed, back propped against the headboard and his tablet waiting for him on the nightstand. He’s been thinking about this all day. Ever since he got the notification at 1:48 p.m. that HoneySuckle uploaded a new video. 

While he was at work. On a very busy day, he might add. As much as he wanted to get away to watch it immediately, he couldn’t. But now he has uninterrupted time to enjoy himself and the woman he’s about to watch. 

Anakin watches HoneySuckle exclusively. For over three years now, he has been subscribed to her page for $7.99 a month, which is an absolute disgrace to the quality of content she puts out. That’s why he tips her at least $200 for each video. It’s a number that hardly means a thing to Anakin. But to HoneySuckle, it is everything. It’s a cushion for incidentals. For the flat tire on her Mini Cooper. The vet bill for her orange tabby, Panini. She has expressed her thanks to him in their private messages, but it never seems to be enough. 

Their casual conversations are never enough. 

It comes as a great surprise to Anakin to see that her newest video is dedicated to him. Him— Anakin Skywalker AKA skyguy81. AKA HoneySuckle’s biggest fan and number one supporter. 

Squirting for Sky 🖤

He’s never clicked on anything faster in his life. The edges of his brain are beginning to fog. The mere thought of Honey getting off to the thought of him makes goosebumps prickle along his skin and his cock begin to swell. But then he sees what she’s wearing. Or, not wearing for that matter. Usually, she’ll begin videos with a full set on. Whether it’s a lacy bra and panties, a teddy, or a babydoll, teasingly taking off her lingerie is part of her brand. 

Not in this video, though. In this new 23 minute video, she is wearing a black garter and thong with roses embroidered in the mesh along her hip bones. Sheer black stockings are pulled up to her thighs and as she spreads her legs— dear God— Anakin sees that her panties are crotchless. 

Every video is expertly angled so only the bottom half of her face is on camera. She’s mentioned to Anakin in the past that this is not her full time job and therefore some anonymity is important. He doesn’t need to see her whole face to know she is beautiful. 

“I bought this just for you,” Honey says directly to Anakin. “You said you liked black. I hope you like this.”  She goes to grab the vibrator next to the pink dildo on her bed. 

“I love it,” Anakin mumbles. Running her hand over one of her bare breasts, she turns on the vibrator. The familiar hum of the toy reminds Anakin to put on his headphones. Just in case. 

Now with that taken care of, Anakin can begin taking care of himself. It doesn’t take long for the guy to get hard when he’s watching Honey. Hell, he can just think about her and he’ll be horny. The melodic cadence to her voice, the angelic sounds she makes when she cums, the lustful desire to bury himself in her cunt. She is the only woman he has desired since his wife and he doesn’t even know her name. But he knows the curves of her body as if he’s felt them with his own two hands. God, how he wishes he could touch her, kiss her, pleasure her. 

It’s pathetic. He is pathetic for wanting the impossible. Anakin Skywalker is a smart man. A genius in many regards. Yet he’s delusional enough to think her messages might mean something. That this video dedicated to him means something.

Of course, it doesn’t. Everything about his conversations with Honey is transactional. It’s part of her job. That’s it. Nothing more. You’re not special. 

But fuck, does it make his cock hard thinking this is all for him. Well, this is for him. The title of the video says so. With her legs spread nice and wide, Anakin can see how wet she has become from the vibrator on her clit. 

Stiff and dribbling precum on his belly, Anakin wraps his long fingers around his equally long shaft. He swipes his palm over the tip to lubricate the rest of his dick. Honey has now turned off the vibrator and grabs the dildo. Despite its playful color, it’s a formidable size. A similar 7 inches to Anakin’s cock, she opens her mouth and the tip disappears. Then a little bit more… and a little more… until she’s gagging. She pulls it out of her mouth with a loud gasp. Messy strings of saliva fall on her chin and chest. 

“Fuck,” she breathes. “I love choking on your cock. Feeling it so deep in my throat until I can’t breathe.” 

This sends a jolt through Anakin’s whole body. His cock lurches in his hand and he knows all too well that his hand will simply not suffice tonight. He pauses Honey’s video and reluctantly gets off of bed to retrieve his Fleshlight from his hidden stash in the closet. Usually, his hand does just fine. He’s used to it by now. Being a single dad in his early forties and the CEO of his own company, he doesn’t have time to go on dates. He has one woman on his rolodex of hookup numbers and even then, he doesn’t contact her often. Usually it’s her who needs him. He prefers it that way, anyway. 

Anakin returns to his bed with the barely used Fleshlight in hand and immediately resumes the video. Honey continues to give the dildo a blowjob, making Anakin ache for it to be his cock in her mouth. He can only imagine how warm it is. How he’d make her relax so he can shove his entire length down her throat. How she’d sound choking on his dick and not some pink toy. 

Again, she holds it in her mouth until her lungs are screaming for air. Anakin ruts his hips up into his fist. He’s waiting to use the Fleshlight until she puts the toy in her cunt. 

Which is right now. She lines the tip of it to her opening, pushing the head in teasingly before removing it and dragging it along her folds. 

“Have you been good today? Do you deserve to fuck me?” The seductive nature of Honey’s voice is so familiar to Anakin, yet every time dirty talk drips from her lips, his spine tingles. 

“Please, Honey,” Anakin whispers, hovering the opening of the Fleshlight over his cock. “Put it in, baby.”

As if obeying his command, Honey pushes the toy into her hole. At the same time, Anakin lowers his own toy onto himself. The tight Fleshlight sucks in his dick and it damn near has Anakin’s eyes rolling to the back of his head. He’d forgotten what it feels like… how similar yet different it is to real pussy. Fuck, what he would do to have his cock in Honey’s actual cunt. The best he can do is use his overactive imagination. 

Honey is thrusting the dildo in and out of her and soft moans fill Anakin’s ears. He yanks the Fleshlight up and down—a lazy way of using it, he knows— but it does the job. “That’s it…” he breathes. His heartbeat is racing impossibly fast, chasing down an orgasm that is going to arrive far too soon. “I fuck you so well, don’t I, Honey?” 

“Mm…” she whimpers, pushing the toy deeper and further into her.  “Your cock’s so big… fills me up so well. Feels so good!” 

“You have no idea how good I could make you feel,” Anakin growls. In his mind she’s on her back, just as she is now. Her knees are pushed up to her ears and Anakin is thrusting into her tight hole to no end. He’s so deep, he can see himself in her stomach. He kisses her, finally tasting her on his own lips. Their tongues are doing a dance, his fingers are on her clit for maximum pleasure. And she’s screaming his name. She can’t believe how good he fucks. How he, at 42 years old, can last as long as he has. “I’m not fucking geriatric,” he’d say. He’d make her cum at least twice before he does, just to prove a point. 

Honey then takes the dildo out of her cunt and brings it back up to her mouth. Anakin removes the Fleshlight. She hollows her cheeks around it whilst reaching for the vibrator. She turns it back on and returns it to her clit. Her toes curl at the sensation and a moan is muffled by the cock in her mouth. 

“Let me hear you,” Anakin encourages, no matter how silly and pointless it is to do so. “Please, Honey. I love hearing you moan.” 

She takes the dildo out of her mouth to announce that she’s going to cum. “Oh, fuck. Fuck!” 

She’s squirming on the bed, mouth shaped in that glorious ‘O’. As her orgasm rattles through her body, she keeps the vibrator on her swollen nub and returns the dildo to her pussy. Anakin follows suit and sheathes his cock once again, thrusting his hips up to the speed Honey is fucking herself. 

“I hope you…fuck, that feels good,” she is interrupted by her own pleasure. It’s her authenticity that Anakin adores and enjoys the most. It never feels like she’s performing. “I hope you’re making yourself feel as good as I feel. Are you fucking your hand? Your mattress? A pillow? I bet you wish you were in my tight cunt. Don’t you?” 

“Yes,” Anakin breathes. He is on fire now. He’s not sure the coil in his belly could get any tighter. He’s going to cum soon and Honey hasn’t even squirted yet. There’s five minutes left of the video. “You wouldn’t believe—ah, fucking hell— wouldn’t believe how badly I want to fuck you.” 

“I’m gonna squirt! Oh my God…please cum for me. Cum while I squirt for you!” Honey removes the dildo as the clear liquid sprays from her cunt. Anakin abandons the Fleshlight and takes over with his tried and true hand. He’s pumping quickly, he’s mesmerized by Honey and how she squirts a little more each time she puts the dildo back inside of her and pulls it back out. Her back is arching off of the bed as she drops both toys and cums one last time. 

Anakin is cumming now, too. His sack twitches up toward him while he releases his load on his belly. He stuffs a fist into his mouth to silence his moan. He bites down on his own hand with fervor, and it hurts. He isn’t completely finished when he hears her utter the words ‘last video.’ 

Wait, what? 

He needs to go back. Surely, he didn’t hear her correctly. 

“I hope you all enjoyed yourselves while watching. I know I did. This is a bit of a last hurrah for me. I’m starting a new job next week and I just don’t think I’ll have the time to upload, so this might be my last video. Thank you for all of the support over the last three years. I had a great time. Kisses, HoneySuckle.” 

And that’s the end of it. Anakin is stunned. He watches her video again. And then once more. There's a lilt to her voice that makes Anakin think she is happy to be done with this. He should be happy for her. But he hangs onto the word ‘might’.  

Honey said this might be her last video. Anakin shouldn’t feel so fucking relieved that his favorite OnlyFans performer might still upload videos. What is wrong with him? He has no real connection to her whatsoever yet he feels disappointed by the idea of not having her videos in his life anymore. 

Fuck it. He sends her a $500 tip, a little message and goes to wash up. 

.

.

.

Panini is pressed against your side, purring contentedly while you stroke his back absently. You’re wrapped in a sherpa cozy in bed while watching The Great British Bake Off. It’s your bedtime show. You’ve probably seen every series at least 3 times, simply because it’s the show you put on to go to sleep. But most of the time, you end up staying up to watch it as if you’ve never seen it before. 

Your phone lights up with a notification. You glance at it but immediately do a double take. You grab your phone off of your nightstand and stare at the screen with your jaw dropped. 

Skyguy81 sent you a tip!

$500

You pause in the middle of Prue Leith giving her thoughts on someone’s Showstopper. You swipe right to open the message.

That was spectacular, Honey. From the lingerie to the beautiful way you cum. You certainly know how to put on a show. I must admit, I was a bit disappointed to hear that it might be your last video. You are the only performer I watch. I will miss you. I wish you the best of luck with your new endeavor. 

And I know what you are going to say. “It’s too much.” It is not. Please accept the tip as a token of my appreciation. You helped me feel less lonely on the days I needed someone the most. - Sky 

Why do you feel like you’re about to cry? Sky has been your top supporter since you began uploading videos during COVID. It was just supposed to be a way to make ends meet. To pay off the student loans and any other financials that came up. The tips started off relatively small. $50 here, $75 there. He was the first to give you a $100 tip. 

Then, after about a year, he upped it to $200 after each video. Your thank you messages to him turned into conversations. Short ones, never deep or personal, yet you feel like you know him. You feel like…no, it’s silly. You feel like he could be a friend. If you both weren’t hiding behind a screen and fake names, maybe you actually could be. 

You begin typing a response. 

Sky- I am going to say it anyway. THAT IS WAY TOO MUCH!!! You have been far too generous to me over the years. I don’t deserve it. 

 He replies in a matter of seconds. 

I have to disagree, Honey. I wish I could do more for you. 

Like what? 

I would take you out to a nice dinner. Perhaps share a bottle of wine while we get to know each other. 

Would you take me home after?

Whose home? 

Whichever you’d like. 

I’d take you back to your house and leave you with a goodnight kiss.

That’s all? 

You would like more? 

What the hell are you doing? Are you actually flirting with this man? He could be 60 years old and bald! Not that there’s anything wrong with being 60 or bald, but come on. You’re in your 20s. You have to have some limit. You stare at his username. Skyguy81. Maybe 81 is his birth year? So, that would put him at 42. 42 isn’t too bad… 

Oh, what the hell. It’s not like you’re actually gonna meet this guy, right? 

Well, I might wear something special underneath my dress. Something that I paid for with the money you’ve given me. Wouldn’t you want to see it? 

Yes. I would. 

What would you do if you took me home? 

When you don’t hear back from Sky after thirty minutes, you assume he fell asleep. It is nearly 1 a.m. on a Thursday night. Or is it early Friday morning? Regardless, he probably has work in the morning. 

With a rather loud yawn, you decide it’s time for you to go to sleep, too. 

.

.

.

Luke and Leia barge into Anakin’s room at 7:30, dressed and ready to go to school while their dad is still fast asleep. He must have slept through his alarm. Luke is poking him in the side and urging him to wake up. 

“Alright, I’m up,” he grumbles, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Have you two eaten?” 

Leia nods. “Eggos and orange juice.” 

“I wanted a Toaster Strudel,” Luke says. 

“And I told him we don’t have any Toaster Strudels,” replies his twin sister. 

“Yes we do! You just didn’t look hard enough.” 

Anakin pinches the bridge of his nose. He feels a headache coming on. He didn’t drink last night, so why does he feel hungover? “Ahsoka ate the last one when she was here on Tuesday, remember?” 

“Oh yeah,” Luke recalls. 

“Dad, we’re gonna be late for school if you don’t get out of bed,” Leia says. 

Anakin checks the time on his phone. Your message from last night is at the bottom of his notifications. He already has five work emails to answer. His calendar pings with reminders about meetings and his assistant’s retirement party. “Bring your things to the front door. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” 

In the rush of getting himself dressed, not only does he put on two different pairs of socks but two different pairs of shoes, too. He doesn’t realize this until after he enters the office and Dorothy, attentive as ever, points it out as he’s walking past her desk and into his office. 

Dorothy is 74 years old, a widow, and owl fanatic. She has been Anakin’s assistant since he started the company 20 years ago. “Did you get dressed in the dark, Mr. Skywalker?” 

Even after two decades of Anakin’s insistence on calling him by his first name, Dorothy continues to defy him. “I overslept,” Anakin answers. “I was rushing to get ready because you know how Leia gets when she’s late to anything.” 

Dorothy nods. “Yes, she is the most punctual 9 year old I know. I presume you did not eat breakfast.”

“No, I didn’t.” Anakin opens his emails. 

“Why don’t I get you an egg sandwich from Dexter’s after I retrieve a matching pair to one of your shoes.” 

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“You didn’t have to.” 

Anakin cracks a smile. Dorothy has always been two steps ahead of Anakin. She’s been somewhat of a mother figure to him over the years. She believed in him when no one else did. How many people are going to put their faith in a cocky 22 year old with wild engineering innovations? Dorothy was there when his wife passed away and nannied the twins off and on for a few years while Anakin regained his bearings. His heart contracts. He is truly going to miss her. “Do you have to retire, Dorothy?” 

“I’m afraid so,” Dorothy replies with a bittersweet smile. “You will be just fine. And I trust my successor will attend to your needs just as well as I have. I picked her myself. I know exactly what you need in an assistant, Mr. Skywalker.” 

Did Dorothy just wink at Anakin before leaving his office? What the hell does she have up her sleeve? 

.

.

.

Gold and brown leaves dance across the concrete in the courtyard of Skywalker Enterprises. The autumn air bites at your cheeks and you’re thankful you decided to wear a beanie along with your plaid pea coat. 

You notice Dorothy’s silver hair before the rest of her as she walks toward you with two cups of something hot in her hands. “Good morning, Y/N.” she hands you the cup. 

“Good morning, Dorothy,” you reply with a smile. You lift off the lid to smell the contents. The steam tickles your nose before recognizing the warm spices of Chai. “You remembered my drink order?” 

“Of course.” Dorothy sits across from you. “I trust you went over the files I sent you regarding Mr. Skywalker? How are you feeling about the job?” 

You take a meager sip of your Chai latte. It’s still too hot to drink. “I read all of them at least three times. He doesn’t seem too high maintenance.”

“Far from it,” Dorothy replies. 

“But…” you begin, wondering if you should even mention it. 

“What is it, dear?” 

“I just find it a little strange that I haven’t met him. I would’ve assumed he’d be part of the hiring process. Isn’t it important we get along?” 

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Anakin gets along with everyone! He’s a charmer,” Dorothy sips on her drink. “He entrusted me with finding a replacement for myself because I know him better than anyone. I know his needs better than he knows them. And you, my dear, have shown you are more than capable to take over. Your references spoke very highly of you.” 

Right. Your references— one of which was your best friend who pretended to be a famous influencer who you “assisted” for 2 years after college. The other was a family you nannied for for only 2 weeks while the wife was out of town and the dad thought he could pull off some fantasy of fucking the nanny. The only good thing that came out of it was him telling you he’d give you a stellar reference for your next job. Turns out he wasn’t lying. 

“So, I’ll start on Monday? By myself? No shadowing or anything?” 

Dorothy nods. “I will officially be retired by 5 p.m. today. After which, Mr. Skywalker is yours.”

Don’t you wish. You’ve seen photos of him in Forbes. It’s an understatement to say he’s handsome. And it would be a lie to say you didn’t apply for the job because of his looks. By some miracle you were chosen out of hundreds of applicants and hired. You’ve signed the papers already. You’re officially on the Skywalker Enterprises payroll. Of course, you’ll be on probation for 90 days but Dorothy seems confident you’ll be a good fit. 

Hopefully you will live up to Anakin Skywalker’s expectations.

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◂ series masterlist ▸ chapter two

[whisper-in-the-night]

Undesirable

Plot: Thomas is omega who will never find his true mate. Or no?

Warnings: omegavers; slight mention of bullying; deviation from the canon; omega!Thomas Hewitt, alpha!male!reader / Y/N

Note: it's my first work in this fandom and even first work in Omegaverse, so I hope it'll be fine. Thanks for reading. About 3-4 chapters planned here.

Part 1 | Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

•••

It's hard to be an omega. And it's even harder to be an omega when you don't fit the description of an 'ordinary, attractive' omega.

Thomas understood the essence of this system from his childhood, as soon as he went to school. And although, because of his strength and size, Hewitt thought he was at least a beta as a child, fate seemed to mock him. During one of the tests to determine the second gender, his results finally turned out to be positive. The young man nervously looked at the neatly folded piece of paper in the envelope. He carefully pulled it out and unwrapped it. Many of his health data were written on white blank paper, but what caught his attention was the green inscription in the middle of the sheet "Omega".

At first, the boy did not attach importance to this word, his childish curiosity and some naivety accepted it simply as a fact. Other children in the class were violently discussing their secondary genders, sharing their impressions and all that. A couple of minutes after the results were given, Thomas was approached by a group of children who had previously often mocked him because of his external features. As soon as they surreptitiously noticed the inscription in Thomas's results, mocking laughter broke out in the crowd. "Look at him! He's a freak! So also omega! No alpha in your life will look at you, monster," one of the boys said enthusiastically, grinning nastily.

That evening, Thomas locked himself in his room. After several unsuccessful attempts to invite her son to dinner, Luda went up to the second floor and gently knocked on the child's door. There was no response. Then she cautiously opened the door. The lights in the room were turned off and the windows were curtained. The woman cautiously went inside, when suddenly she heard a slight crunch under her feet. Picking up a crumpled piece of paper from the floor, Luda read the unfortunate word. She carefully sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled the child into her arms. The boy allowed himself to cry out loud, burying his face in his mother's chest, clutching the fabric of her dress in his fists.

As the years passed, the Hewitt family was left alone in this ill-fated town on the outskirts of Texas. They had to come to the current of life that we all know about. This family consisted mostly of betas, with the exception of the youngest, Thomas. And yet now, life seemed much easier for him. Since he left school, just for many years, his abusers have grown up and left, and Thomas has become a little easier. Although self-doubt and pain remained deep in his big warm heart. He really believed in their words. Thomas was too big and strong man to be a desirable omega. Too strong, too big, too wayward, too rude. The man has long accepted his place in society. Although sometimes he still sat in his room at night with a heavy heart. Sometimes he wished he had a mate he could rely on, a mate who could protect him and calm his heat, maybe even give him pups. But Thomas knew he didn't have time for that, he had to protect the family.

***

The sun seemed to come out of hell in Texas this year. The heat was incredible, there was a drought all around. The small grass turned yellow, and those rare trees turned into a kind of deadwood. There's not a cloud in the sky.

Thomas was helping his mother in the store, it was damn stuffy in the room. Recently, due to the intense heat, there were no visitors from the word at all, so he did not care about his appearance at all. The sleeves of a light-colored shirt were rolled up to the elbows, dark tangled hair was pulled into a low ponytail, only a few strands fell over a face in a leather mask. The man's brown trousers were slightly damp from how often he wiped his sweaty palms on the fabric.

Suddenly, a light ringing of the door bell was heard, followed by Luda's tired but pleasant voice.

"Hello, how can I help you?" the woman asked the man who entered.

"Oh yeah, hey. I'd like to refuel my car," you replied smiling, scratching the back of your head, "Do you have some gasoline?"

The woman smiled slightly, which caused fine wrinkles to run across her tired face, and turned towards the back room, shouting a short "Tommy!". A couple of minutes later, a dark-haired man came out from behind the shelves, holding a canister of gasoline. His gaze slid down on you, as if assessing you, and his eyes widened for a moment. You were a tall, muscular man, it seemed, even one and a half times bigger than Thomas himself. Your short sleeved high-collared shirt was unbuttoned at the top buttons, and because of the sweat, the outlines of your strong body showed through the damp fabric. You were also wearing beige breeches that hugged your toned ass beautifully. Thomas licked his lips almost instinctively and came out from behind the counter, handing you a can of gasoline. And indeed, you were almost a head taller than him, which made Thomas feel almost small, which had not happened to him for a long time. The man's nostrils were touched by your island fragrance. Something like an orange with black pepper and bergamot mixed with your body's natural scent. Your pheromones, even under a veil of suppressants, made Thomas feel heavy in his knees.

You smiled briefly and picked up the canister, lightly brushing the rough skin of Thomas's fingers. It almost made the man blush. You took your wallet out of your pocket and handed the woman some green bills, so she nodded curtly.

"Tommy, can you help the young man?"

He didn't need to be asked twice. Although Thomas hesitated a little at first.

Thomas followed you outside in case you needed help, which he clearly doubted. You looked like a confident, independent person who didn't need anyone's help. Besides, you were clearly an alpha, given the smell of your pheromones. It was an extra time for Thomas to be in your presence. He had met alphas before, at least because many of his victims were one, but he had never felt such a strange sense of comfort around an alpha before. Your presence calmed his inner omega.

"The summer is too hot this year," you muttered with a slight grin, sorting out the car and seemingly hoping to strike up some kind of small conversation with the big guy. There was no response. Thomas's head was too busy with your pleasant scent. "You're not the talkative type, are you?" There was playfulness in your tone, but you clearly weren't trying to humiliate another man. Thomas frowned a little at first, listening to your words, but eventually relaxed, nodding briefly. The scars on his face always made it difficult for him to speak clearly, but lately, due to the intense summer heat, every word he uttered seemed almost painful.

After ten long minutes of intense silence, you finally finished refueling the car and put the empty canister on the ground, brushing off your hands.

"Well, thank you. I think without you, I would already be stuck somewhere on the road in this wilderness..." You said, looking back at Thomas and smiling amiably. "Well, alright. I'm already a little late. I wouldn't like to be late for my sister's birthday. For missing her 'special day' one more time, she'll definitely stab me half to death," you said with a light laugh and patted Thomas on the shoulder, "Bye."

Finally, you went to the car door, got into the driver's seat and started the engine, driving away from the old shop.

Thomas watched your dirty beige car drive away for a long time. Your touch is still clearly felt on his hot skin, and his head is slightly dizzy from the citrus scent of your body.

[mmogurl]

Daddy Issues Part 3: Spoiled

18+ | 3k | Homelander X Reader |  protective homelander, reader’s back story is a little dark, reader might be a bit of a nympho, mentions of suicide, rape, assault, alcoholism, emotional child abuse.

My Own Writing Prompt: What if Homelander became your Daddy and was really good at it? There's so much fluff in this chapter, it hurts. But it hurts so good. Part 1: Savior | Part 2: Baseline | Part 3: Spoiled

Tags: @screaming-potato

Surprisingly, Homelander is true to his word. Even though he is a tad awkward at times, he seems to genuinely want to take care of you, providing you with a level of almost suffocating attention. Well, it might be smothering to most people, but for your love starved heart, it is absolutely refreshing.

While other men have made you feel pathetic for your desire to have their constant focus, Homelander never seems bothered by it. In fact, he seems to like that you engage him so much. He embraces your neediness wholeheartedly and you’ve never felt so spoiled before in your life.

You thought he’d be busy with work, and he often is, but he always picks up when you call him. He even makes time for stupid requests like getting you a slice of pizza from that place in Brooklyn that you really like. And you spend just about every minute of time that he is not working, together. At first it felt forced and strange, but day by day, it seems the two of you are falling into a pattern of relying on each other. Well, mostly it’s you depending on him, but he still seems delighted by it, almost proud of the relationship he’s forged with you.

But that’s been the real issue perplexing you as of late: the fact that you’re not romantically involved with Homelander at all. It’s actually kind of confusing to you because sex is the only thing that men have ever really wanted from you. What makes it worse is that the two of you share a bed, and so you’re reminded every night when he gets in next to you wearing nothing but tight red briefs, that you’re painfully attracted to him.

It’s obvious that you have some affect on him, but it’s difficult to tell what he’s thinking most of the time. For instance, when you cuddle close to him in bed or on the couch, he noticeably stiffens up which could mean he’s interested in you, but anxious about it. But, it could also mean that he doesn’t like your proximity or want it. You can often catch his gaze lingering on you when he thinks you’re not looking, but he keeps his emotions buried deep beneath a barrier of indifference, making it impossible to tell how he really feels.

He must feel something for you though or else he would have taken the chance to kick you out of his bed long ago, but he never opted to set you up in your own bedroom. You also recall, despite the shock of the evening, that he said something about you being beautiful on the night you first met. So, all of this together leaves you quite perplexed as to what his intentions are.

There is no doubt that he cares, but you’re just not sure if it’s in a romantic capacity, whether he’s attracted to your or not. You wonder at times when your self esteem is feeling especially low, if it’s because he’s disgusted by your past. You haven’t pushed to find out how much he knows, but can’t help but think maybe he doesn’t think you’re good enough for him. You aren’t sure if you’re good enough either, but it doesn’t stop you from hoping he might one day allow you to return the favor - in the way you know best to express your own version of love.

Instead of physical intimacy, he takes you out. Everywhere. Truth be told, you’re not much of an extrovert, except for when you drink, and it’s not been easy to spend so much time amongst the throngs of people in New York City while sober. But, Homelander tries to keep your social anxieties in mind and books the entire store or restaurant when you go out, so that the two of you can have privacy. He says it’s because he doesn’t want to get swarmed by fans, but you can tell by the way he aggressively blinks that he’s lying and that it’s actually for your benefit.

At least he has some easy tells, even if much of him remains an enigma to you still.

You’ve done so many things with this man, who up until last month had been a complete stranger to you, aside from his countenance being plastered all over the television, buses, and billboards. He took you to your first ball game at Yankee Stadium and even though you hate sports, you actually had a pretty good time. It’s insane how much Homelander knows about baseball and you can’t help but get a little excited by the atmosphere of cheering fans, hot dogs, popcorn, and beer. Although he won’t let you get a beer per your agreement, he reassures you that you’re not missing anything - that the beer at ball games is shit.

He notices how wide your eyes get when a ball gets cracked up into the stands and how you track it, intuiting that you were hoping to catch it. When later on another ball goes up over the grandstand, likely to be lost past even the VIP booth you’re currently seated in, Homelander flies up into the air and catches it. The crowd erupts into applause and that stupid camera focuses on him handing the ball over to you. You can actually see the red in your cheeks on the big screen and you want to hide your face from the embarrassment of it. But, secretly, you’re giddy with enthusiasm at his gesture.

But that’s not all he’s done, not by a long shot. He gave you half of his walk-in closet, tossing most of the ‘promotional crap’ he had stored in there aside and then proceeded to take you shopping for a brand new wardrobe. You blanch to think about how much all of the shit you bought cost, but can’t deny that it is nice to have quality clothing and not that cheap junk that always fell apart so quickly.

Homelander even made good on his promise to take you back to your old place and retrieve your gaming collection. Then when he saw how many video game consoles you owned, he decided the only way he could deal with that mess of cords and plastic, was to have a carpenter come in to build an entire containment system to display everything neatly. This had been a dream of yours for years and seeing it come to fruition makes Homelander’s sterile penthouse feel even more like home.

And speaking of the lack of personalization that had plagued Homelander’s place when you first came to live with him, you actually managed to get him to take a picture with you in one of those photo booths to help amend that. You didn’t even know they still existed, but once you spotted it, you had to drag him in with you. He kept making that rehearsed smile, until you grabbed him, pinching at his waist, and catching him so off guard that he turned to you with a confused half smile just as the last picture flashed.

You took that photo and cut it off from the rest of them and placed it in a cutesy little silver heart frame. You gave it to him as a gift and he looked so touched, you couldn’t help but blush at the adorable bashfulness he exhibited. Homelander displayed the frame prominently on the mantle in his bedroom, and you often come across him standing there just looking at it.

All of this had led to tonight. You sit beside a wrought iron firepit, watching as Homelander tries in vain to get a fire started. He thought it would be a good idea to take you to his cabin in upstate New York and do a little ‘camping.’ As he so eagerly put it, ‘Camping is the best way to spend quality time with your loved ones, away from the distraction of modern life.’ It sounds like he’s repeating some bullet point from a magazine article about family life and knowing him, that was probably the exact source.

For all of his effort, you can tell that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he is trying damned hard, and you really appreciate that. In the entire month you’ve known him, you’ve never heard him talking to any family and you have to assume that he doesn’t have any. It seems you are more alike than you originally believed, but where you had given up on the idea of ever knowing what a normal family life was like, Homelander seems determined to figure it out. With you.

You watch and can’t help but giggle as the wind blows out his kindling and he groans once more with frustration.

“Why not just use some starter fluid?” you ask, trying not to laugh.

“No!” he spits back with his jaw clenched. “I watched a video already. I know what I’m doing.”

Clearly he didn’t.

You fidget around with the campout swag that Homelander’s picked up for the two of you to share on this outdoors adventure. He’s even set up a tent, which is actually quite impressive, and you can’t help but wonder how much he swore while carrying out the task. It was a shame he’d already had it taken care of before he even brought you here, because you might have liked to help. You’ve never built a tent yourself either, so it would have been nice to learn.

He’s set up a big table next to the pit, beside your chairs, and there’s everything you’d need to make s’mores, hot dogs, with every fixing imaginable, chips, dips, and a bunch of different bottled drinks are in the cooler on the ground. Sadly, the beer is missing. You wonder if he’ll ever let you drink again, even if you could prove to be more responsible with it, but ultimately you can admit that it’s probably not a bad thing to get used to living without it for awhile.

You watch Homelander’s fire get sabotaged by nature and a lack of experience for the final time as he let’s out a yell of aggravation, cursing,”Fuck!” Red lasers cut through the night, creating two neat trails across the stack of wood. He smiles contentedly when the logs actually catch fire, shifting his shoulders with pride as though he’d actually meant to do it that way all along.

“Now we’re talking,” he exclaims, rubbing his bare hands together as he comes to join you. Using a lighter in leather gloves would have been impossible after all.

He picks a bag of long wooden skewers up and starts lancing a hot dog with it, taking care to keep it from sticking out the side. You get up from your chair and stand beside him, following suit, not exactly sure what you’re supposed to be doing.

“Just stick it on there?” you ask eying him carefully as you hold a hot dog in one hand and a skewer in the other.

“Yep,” he replies with a smirk. “Just stick that bad boy right on there.” He finishes the job and heads over to his chair, which is situated right next to yours. He takes a seat and holds his hot dog over the fire, which is not quite roaring yet, but it’s getting there.

You do your best to thread it onto the stick and join him beside the fire, holding the hot dog over the logs without getting it directly into the flame. You find a good spot to let it rest without your need to constantly hold and balance it, turning your attention back to Homelander.

He’s intent at the task of roasting his meal, his features glowing from the open fire and contrasted heavily by the dark of night.

“This is nice,” you say, suddenly finding the reprieve from the city almost overwhelming. “It’s so quiet here.” You look up and can see a million stars shining so brightly in the brisk autumn sky, revealed from the lack of light pollution. “I’ve never seen so many stars…” you continue, resting your head back in your chair and just staring upwards.

“Yeah,” he replies, sounding distracted. “I like to get away sometimes. When it all becomes too much.” He turns to you with a quick, but genuine smile.

You sigh, not making any effort to hide the feeling of discontent that is plaguing you. All of this is wonderful, it’s great, but you want more.

“What’s that for?” he asks with a knowing tenor. One thing about Homelander is that he is always very perceptive. Perhaps it’s because of how his hearing makes him acutely aware of every sound your body makes inside and out.

“I don’t know…” you begin to muse, but of course it’s bullshit. You know exactly what’s wrong. “Do you ever think… About us?”

“That’s kind of a vague question,” he answers, furrowing his brow in response. “I think about us all the time. Obviously.”

“Not like that,” you procrastinate, torn between wanting to tell him and being afraid to reveal what you’re thinking. “I mean… Us.”

“You’re gonna need to be a little more direct than that, sweetheart,” he grins almost smugly.

You’re pretty sure from the expression on his face that he knows exactly what you’re talking about and is being purposefully dense, although you’re not sure why. You’ve come across this a few times in life, and every time it’s been maddening. A guy who spends time with you, treats you very well, but doesn’t actually want you. It’s baffling behavior because you wouldn’t personally spend so much time with someone you didn’t intend to bang, but this situation with Homelander is a little different, a little stranger than normal ‘dating.’

“Never mind,” you offer up noncommittally. You can already feel the sting of rejection welling up and given you have to live with this guy, it would probably be best to avoid bringing that icky feeling to full blown resentment by asking him directly whether or not he’s interested in you. He might actually say no and that would be pretty awful. Not to mention, no matter how much time you spend with him, you’re still a bit intimidated by the fact that he is fucking Homelander!

You can feel the weight of his stare on you for a time and you try to distract yourself by picking up your hot dog again, turning it so that every part of it is equally black. At least charcoal isn’t bad for you.

When next you look at Homelander, he is stealing sideways glances at you, but his features look a little more tense now. You wonder for a moment if he’s mad at you, but he doesn’t say anything to confirm your fears. Instead he starts telling you an unexpected story.

“You know…” he begins, and he looks nervous. You’ve never seen him look so anxious. He typically acts as though everything he says is going to be the best thing you’ve ever heard, but not now. “I didn’t have a bad family like you... I didn’t have any at all. It’s hard to know which is worse.”

Homelander gazes into the fire, reflecting on long seated grief. He’s never been so forthcoming about his past and you want to hear all of it. “What about your mother?” you have to ask. It seems so strange that America’s biggest hero is an orphan.

“I never knew her,” he says blankly, almost seeming to fold in on himself emotionally. “I was raised in a Vought lab.”

“What!?” you find yourself crying out with incredulity. “How? I mean.. Why??” You really can’t believe that anyone could be saddled with such a fate, let alone that Homelander himself had been.

“Yeah,” his tone is dissociative. “I guess I’ve been company property for a long fucking time. Kept under lock and key until I was eighteen when I finally debuted to the public.”

“Holy shit,” you gasp, standing without any clear idea of what you intend to do until you’re already doing it. As he sits in his chair, you embrace him, blanketing his back with your body and wrapping your arms around his neck.

Everything about him makes more sense now. You don’t know the extent of how he lived life in that Vought laboratory, but you can imagine how hard it would be to adjust to society after being sheltered from it for your whole life. Then add to that, the complexity of being the strongest supe in the world and then living constantly under the scrutiny of that world. It was no wonder he was so awkward at times, so quick to snap at those he found annoying; he was under an insane amount of pressure with very little reserves to pull from.

You want to say you’re sorry for what he’s endured, but you know full well how hollow an apology can sound. “Fuck Vought,” you decide upon, remembering how way back when, he’d said the same thing about your parents. After all, Vought might as well be his shitty mother and father, far worse than even yours were.

You can’t help but kiss him right on his cheek, beside his ear. It’s an almost nurturing gesture, coming naturally, almost instinctively as a response to his pain. His hand runs over yours for a moment as he turns to look at you, your grip on him relaxing slightly so you can match his gaze. Homelander smiles wanly, but there’s some kind of heated purpose in his eyes, barely noticeable over the dim of the firelight, but definitely there.

“Thanks,” he says, replacing his natural smile with his usual veneer of safety. “Now, let’s eat. I’m starved!” He adds with more enthusiasm, acting as though he hadn’t just told you some really rough shit about his past.

You go along with it of course, because you know exactly how hard it is to disclose something so personal only to be treated as though you’re different or strange. It’s happened to you many times before, but you would never be so cold to him. You don’t feel pity for him, maybe a touch of sympathy, but it only serves to make you care more. It makes you want to protect him just as he’s protected and taken care of you.

The mood lightens as you both prepare your burnt hot dogs, hoping the excess of ketchup will hide the bitter taste of the char. Continue to Part 4

[whimsyfinny]

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Charlie discovers the Winchester boys to be struggling with keeping the bunker tidy, looking after themselves and being able to do their job simultaneously. Luckily she has a friend who’s from a Hunter family that is in need of work and can help them with research. Or so she thought that’s what her job would be. When Dean sees your more domesticated side, his head won’t stop swimming with all the wrong ideas.

Slow burn, enemies to lovers, smut

Warnings: big smut - oral (fem receiving), rough sex, PinV, angst, Dean being cute

Chapter Word Count: 3158

—-MDNI—-

A/N: ahhhh so back to the normal shenanigans. Nil this chapter is loosely inspired by the song ‘Fuck Away The Pain’ by Divide the Day. Also I’m making some changes to how I link in my chapters, because I have quite a few now and it takes fucking ages. Also it’s 1:30AM and I’m tired so I’ve proof read as best as I can, let me know if you see any errors.

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New readers start here: Prologue

Previous: Chapter 11

I’m Not Your F*cking Maid

Chapter 12

At some point during the quiet ride home I had fallen asleep, because when I woke up I was in my bed atop the covers, still fully dressed. Not knowing what hour it was I rummaged around for my phone, finding it placed carefully next to my books on my bedside table. The brightness from the screen made me wince, my sensitive eyes finally adjusting after a few moments to read 4:17AM. I couldn’t stop the groan from slipping out and I flopped back onto my pillow. I lay there, listening to the humming vents in the bunker, taking in the deafening silence as I took long, slow breaths. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Daniel. Just not the Daniel I knew. Not the boy who lived in band t-shirts and scruffy jeans, but the strange man who wore a three piece suit and sprouted fangs from his jaw. I didn't know that person, and I'm glad I never would. My mind then drifted to Dean; seeing his confused face and shocked expression towards the revelation that I KNEW the vampire about to be killed. My face scrunched like I'd tasted something sour at the thought. I couldn't place my finger on it, but the whole situation felt wrong - uncomfortable. Like I'd been unfaithful even though I'm technically not tied to anyone. It felt like I'd been unfaithful to Dean, and we all knew the last thing he wanted was commitment. Is that what I wanted? Dean? Something more than just carnal desire? A relationship? Security? Someone to call mine? My head felt like it was starting to spin as I spiralled down a rabbit hole I had no intention of venturing down. I shook the intrusive thoughts from my head, deciding that it was the very last thing I needed to be thinking about right now. Sitting up slowly I swung my feet over the edge of the bed, my socked-feet gently connecting with the floor as I quietly left my room, heading down towards the kitchen. The grumbling of my stomach reminding me that I've not eaten for about twelve hours.

My arrival to the kitchen turned heads. More heads than I anticipated being there. In all honesty, I thought everyone would have been in bed at this hour. Apparently not. Of course there was Sam and Dean, Charlie, and that strange angel - what was his name? Castiel? But there was also a woman who I’d never seen before. She had short dark hair and a kind face, but there was something sad and sorrowful about her smile. The five pairs of eyes scorched my skin and I stopped in my tracks, taking a tentative step backwards. The only thing stopping me from turning tail and running out of there was the soothing voice calling my name that somehow instantly calmed my nerves. It was like molasses; sweet and deep and as intoxicating as aged liquor. Before I even had a chance to change my mind about sticking around, Dean had swallowed the distance between us and enveloped me in a crushing embrace. A strange instinct took over and I buried my makeup-smeared face into his chest, feeling the devastatingly familiar burn of hot tears start to well up and spill over.

“Dean-” my voice was small and hoarse as I squeaked out his name, his arms tightening around me reflexively.

“It's ok sweetheart, you don't have to say anything.

I've got you.”

*

He'd walked me slowly back to my room, like I was something so fragile and the smallest knock would cause me to shatter. In all honesty it wouldn't be an incorrect statement - It felt like the softer Dean was with me the more delicate I became. My demeanour had the density of a feather and the brittleness of tempered glass; one wrong move and I'd burst into hundreds of little pieces that would have to be glued back together.

The door clicked shut behind us and he guided me to sit on the bed. I crawled into the middle and sat with my legs crossed, uncaring of the fact my micro skirt did little to cover what dignity I had left. The thin white petticoat tickled my thighs as Dean shuffled to sit in front of me, his large hands now resting face up in my lap, beckoning my small fingers to become entwined in his. We sat knee-to-knee, Dean's eyes tracking every movement I made - every breath, every blink, every nervous bite of my lip. He took a deep inhale and a slow exhale, like he was using those seconds to decide on what to say. His rough thumbs caressed my knuckles.

“Sweetheart; it's ok to cry.”

That softness radiating from him pulled a ragged sob from my chest, my bottom lip quivering as I made the bad decision to make eye contact with him. The tears started to stream again.

“D-Daniel- he- I s-saw him- he was hit b-by a f-fucking e-eighteen wheeler, D-Dean. H-he was on his motorbike and h-e was thrown a-bout ninety feet b-before h-he hit the g-ground. I went t-to get a FUCKING s-snack and t-the moment I-I came back o-outside he was- he was-”

Before I could carry on he had pulled me into another crushing embrace, my legs slipping over his as he pulled me to sit in his lap. Rough denim rubbed on my inner thighs as his arms tightened around me, my arms moving on their own to loop around his neck.

“We don't have to talk about it anymore if you don't want to.”

I sniffled.

“I just want to f-forget about him. I-I healed f-from this already. I don't w-want to h-have to do that a-again, Dean. I can’t. That person- th-that vamp- he wasn’t him. Please- I just- I just want to forget.”

I pulled back to look at him. I saw this way his eyes darted to my lips and I knew he tried to fight it, I knew he’d scold himself internally for thinking such thoughts in a moment like this. His evergreen gaze flitted across my face before my own eyes landed on his mouth. I saw the way his lips were parted. I saw how his pupils dilated and how his fingers tightened on the small amount of fabric at my hips. How he swallowed, almost nervously, when I moved my own fingers to tug on his hair - to glide over his scalp. I couldn't help but allow myself to sit heavier in his lap.

“(Y/n), sweetheart. We shouldn’t- I shouldn't - I don't want to take advantage of you. Not like this,” his voice was an unusual mixture of pained self-restraint and compassionate sympathy.

“Dean,” my own voice came out sterner than I intended and I felt him flinch beneath my fingertips. “I want to forget. Make me forget.”

It was like a spark had hit a lake of gasoline; one small thing had ignited us, and my face was still wet with tears when Dean threw me down onto the mattress, my head at the foot of the bed. Thick, slightly trembling fingers glided up my thighs and tugged down my underwear, throwing it into the depths of my room. Rough palms suddenly gripped the back of my thighs and pushed up, my knees almost touching my ears whilst he shuffled slightly, like he was getting comfortable. Right when I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing, I felt it: A lick. A warm wetness that wasn’t my own. Precision and practice had made this appendage a dear friend of the night, which I realised when I felt my brows scrunch together shortly followed by a breathy moan.

“Fuck-”

His tongue went around and around and around, occasionally grazing over my clit but generally taking great care to avoid it; to pump up the agonising sensitivity and make me squirm. I felt his lips move against me, his words fanning hot breaths over my most intimate area as his voice rumbled in his chest.

“Fuck, (Y/n) you're delicious.”

Dipping back down and tongue back at work, he continued his actions, starting slowly - oh so slowly - before speeding up, and up and up until he stopped. He stopped making little circles around my bundle of nerves, and before I could even whine about it he'd pressed the entirety of his tongue against my opening. I didn't think much of the hand releasing my thigh and dropping it on his shoulder until the pad of his thumb pressed on my buzzer, sending a singular shockwave through me whilst he continued to taste me. His thumb swirled again and again whilst his tongue carefully dipped in and out, seeming to know exactly where to press, when to do it and the amount of pressure needed. It had only been a few minutes but I already felt like a melting mess, my body starting to writhe as the pleasure started to build in the depths of my stomach. I felt like I was losing control of my thighs as Dean's fingers dug into the soft flesh of the one he was holding up, the side of his head leaning into the other one, stubble scratching at the soft skin on the inside of my thigh as his jaw flexed with every movement of his tongue. If he wasn't holding onto me like he was, I felt like I could crush him. Another moan passed through my lips when he sped up a little more, my fingers racing to tangle with his hair, pulling a satisfied noise from him.

“Dean- please- if you keep going like this I'm g’nna come-”

He ceased his actions and pushed up, leaning forwards so he was towering above me with my arousal practically dripping from his lips. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and there was an almost primal glint in his eye.

“Do you wanna come?”

The sound of his voice could have snapped that coil inside me there and then. Instead I groaned quietly, watching the way he slowly wrapped his fingers around my calf that rested on his shoulder, pressing a soft kiss to my inner thigh just above my knee. His dark eyes never left mine.

“I wanna come s’bad, but…” I paused and felt my face heat up.

“But…?”

“But I want to feel you inside me when I do.”

His eyes looked like they were about to roll into the back of his head before he caught himself and stared back down at me, chewing on his bottom lip slightly.

“Fuck sweetheart, those are dangerous words.”

“You're a dangerous man…”

There were a few moments of silence, racing heartbeats almost audible from the other side of the room. I hooked my other leg over his shoulder and linked my ankles behind his back, pulling him further down towards me.

“Dean- please. I need you. I need you to fuck me.”

I'd barely finished my sentence when his mouth pressed to mine, hot and panting. I could taste the bite of the whiskey he'd drunk at the club, the richness of it still on his tongue after all these hours - he must've had more when we got back to the bunker. I stretched my hands down and fumbled with the buckle on his belt, fingers frantically trying to undo everything just so I could feel him - touch him. Anything to focus on him and him alone.

“Do you still want to forget, darlin’?”

I nodded.

“And you’re sure you’re ok with this? I don’t want you to reg-“

“I won’t, I promise. I just need you to make my mind go blank; I need the… pain to go away.”

He pulled his T-shirt off in one swift movement before lowering himself to mere centimetres above me, our lips practically touching.

“Then use me however you need to.”

His words were electric. I didn’t give him a chance to pull away, my hands cupping the sides of his face and dragging his mouth down to mine in a frenzied kiss. I was starting to become familiar with how he kissed me - with how he moved his mouth; how he tasted. I was starting to get used to him. You could almost say that I was starting to crave him. With his intoxicating scent and how he tasted when we practically devoured each other. He was becoming my lifeline, somehow, and that thought alone made my heart race.

I thrust my hands down between us to finish what I started before with unbuckling his belt and jeans, eventually dipping a hand into his underwear and feeling him hot, hard, and heavy in my palm. He made a small noise in the back of his throat, unwilling to break away from my lips. I only pushed his clothing as far as I needed to before pulling him out, wiping my thumb over his tip to gather as much precum as I could before smearing it up and down his length in gentle strokes. I started to play him at his own game by starting tantalisingly slow, speeding up over time before he was grasping at my wrist and halting my actions.

“Please-” he almost begged, pulling away from me slightly, “please don’t make me come yet.”

“Then fuck me and we can come together.”

He didn’t waste another second as he lined himself up to my entrance and pushed in, getting lost in my comforting warmth as he groaned into the crook of my neck. I gasped at the stretch, a high-note moan slipping out as he barely waited two seconds before rolling his hips back and forth. Aside from heavy breathing and uncontrolled moans, the only other thing to be heard was the wetness between our bodies and the unmistakable sound of skin-on-skin.

“I wasn’t going to say anything because the timing was never right, but holy fuck (Y/n), your outfit is killing me,” he somehow managed to form a sentence between the panting, the almost crude compliment bringing a blissed out smile to my lips, my mind incapable of forming a coherrant reply.

My ankles unlocked from around his back as his thrusting became more erratic and my legs dropped from his shoulders. Dean took this as a cue to change positions as he grasped my ass and lifted it off the mattress, pulling my body on and off his cock over and over and over again, like I was his own personal toy to use. And the whore that lived deep in my soul loved every second of it. My eyes focused on Deans face, noting how his jaw clenched as his eyes constantly moved up and down my body - taking in every curve of soft skin and ruffle of my outfit. The occasional stutter of his hips was the tell that he was nearing his end, so I traced my hands up my body and pulled the front of my top down, letting my tits bounce free. I pinched and twisted my nipples between my fingers, biting my bottom lip as I felt my sex flutter at the extra stimulation. If Dean wasn’t salivating before, he certainly was now. Keeping one hand on my breast I moved the other one down. Down over the softness of my stomach and to the soaking wetness between my legs, my fingers pressing soft circles around my clit and making me clench even harder around Dean. I swirled and swirled whilst still playing with my nipples, bringing that ever-nearing storm closer to home. I know Dean could feel it too, because his grip on my ass was slipping and he didn’t seem to care; gripping me so tight I was certain I’d see bruises in the afternoon. Letting go of my tit I brought my other hand between us, feeling where Dean and I joined together; feeling how intimate it felt. I could feeling myself tipping over the edge as the noises tumbling from my lips kept coming, urging Dean to somehow fuck me harder and deeper than he already was.

“Sh-shit sweetheart, if you keep making noises like that I won’t be able to go on any longer.”

“Fuck - Dean please- please-”

It was when his eyes met mine, those mossy-green irises clouded with lust and desire, that the storm came crashing in and my euphoria struck me like white hot lightning. My own orgasm pulled Dean into his own one as a string of unintelligible curses fell from his lips before his thrusting ceased and he set me down gently on the bed. No words spoken, no movements made; just his eyes piercing mine as the sound of heavy breaths filled the room. I wasn’t sure how long we sat there for, not making a single move whilst regaining our composure. That was, until I reached out, unthinking, and traced my thumb over Deans bottom lip. My palm rested softly on his cheek and he allowed his eyes to flutter closed for a few short moments before opening them again. When I finally spoke, my voice was barely above a whisper.

“Dean I…I’m sorry.”

He looked puzzled.

“What for? I mean if anything, it should be me apologising.”

I shook my head, a few aches starting to settle over my body already.

“I feel like I’ve used you.”

He chuckled slightly, planting his hands either side of my head and leaning in slightly.

“I told you to.”

“No, like, today was rough, emotionally. It was my baggage and I feel like you’re the one I’ve forced to carry it.”

It was his turn to shake his head.

“Don’t be stupid. You think I’m here, helping you to forget two different versions of the same person against my will? Sweetheart, I want to be here, making you feel better anyway I can,” he smiled a boyish smile, “hell, I’d’ve made you hot chocolate with cream and frickin marshmallows if that would’ve helped. Or watched some dumb ass chick-flick. Maybe even both.”

I couldn’t stop the schoolgirl grin from blooming as I fought every urge to pull him down to me and kiss him. Kiss him like I fucking meant it.

“Could we still do that?”

He chuckled, the sound causing the butterflies in my chest to flutter.

“You bet you’re perfect ass we can,” he punctuated with a light slap to my rear. “What do you wanna watch?”

I pondered for a moment, wondering what DVDs the boys would have laying around in the bunker. In all honesty though, I had one box set to my name that Bobby bought me many moons ago.

“Is Lord of the Rings good with you?”

He looked up for a moment and I’m convinced I saw him mouth ‘thank you’ to the ceiling. But that would be absurd, right?

“Darlin’ it’s perfect. But first let’s get you cleaned up.”

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Up Next: Chapter 13

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@suckitands33 @jackles010378 @aliceeinwonderland420 @tina-theslytherin @deans-queen @hobby27 @sobearcowboy @girls-alias @selfdestructionandrhum @ericasabe @lacilou @littlemadamred @anneanirac @deans-baby-momma @swimregulas @ashdoctor @littlemarvelstan8 @atcamillanorrman @deangirl96 @zannemes @kr804573 @foxyjwls007 @divadinag @cookiemonstermusic258 @mysterialee @ababy-girl @joonseuph0ria @mxltifxnd0m @deans-spinster-witch @st4bl3-ch40s @feyresqueen @roseblue373 @clusterfuck-meup @urinternetmom @rachiem4-blog @ceeshellecee @mojos-hidden-castle @snowayumi @evzyi @mymuseisbipolar @magssteenkamp @koharuheartfilia @spookyysinsanity @safiyas-world @uncle-eggy @happyt0exist @supernaturalstilinski @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @mrsjenniferwinchester

[dracarialove]

Secret Desires

Rouge enlists Shadow to go on a treasure hunting journey, where a mishap in an underground cave coaxes her to reveal the romantic feelings she's been harboring for him.

(Reversal of Buried Desires)

Ship: Shadow/Rouge

*Originally published April 20th, 2024

A/N: This story exists thanks to @yokaishinari who gave me a more fleshed out idea for this reversal plot 💜

[Chapter 1: Come With Me]

Comforting darkness wrapped Rouge the Bat in a cool blanket of night air under a swath of stars twinkling in the vast indigo sky. She stared up at the thousands of tiny white specks glittering faintly behind crawling wisps of gray clouds.

A soft smile rested on her lips, and one heart-toed boot dangled off the side of her makeshift hammock; made from giant leaves and vines off the nearby trees, the hand-crafted bed kept her aloft between two solid oak trunks.

How tranquil it was, to be out in nature for once, never minding the noise of a city and letting the sights and sounds of wildlife fill her eyes and ears.

Crickets sang unabashedly, boasting creaky chirps from unseen places in the grass below. Fireflies floated about, doing nothing but adding a bit of golden light to the greenery.

And when a breeze blew by, leaves from the bushes and trees rustled together in a soft symphony of natural serenity, whispering secrets to each other that the bat would never understand.

It was rare for her to be out where she was now – by the plains; near the forest; just a half-day's trip from one of the biggest and least-explored mountains on the planet.

It was a tower of earth, that mountain, looking so obtainable from where she lay because it filled so much of the sky. It appeared to be just over the horizon, if one allowed themselves to be fooled by the illusion.

In reality, the gargantuan mound of dirt and stone was daunting when it was nearby, dangerous and looming, the sheer size of it enough to ward off many climbers and treasure hunters.

But to think of the jewel-lovers who'd been intimidated by the mountain's near-impervious outer edge, Rouge had to consider the ones who wouldn't be turned away.

How many had succeeded in exploring such an impressive mass of earth? A mass that was likely to be a tomb for many animals – and perhaps even explorers – who tried and failed to survive it.

If she tried, would she be a success or a failure? Would she make it out alive, with a bag of undiscovered gemstones and rare minerals to add to her very own gleaming collection?

The thought brought a sharp grin to the sly spy's mouth. If the mountain held treasures for her, she had to find them… after a quick nap in this peaceful place.

***

Now, if she was going to go on a jewel hunt in risky territory, it would be best to bring someone else along to keep her chances of survival high. Awakening from her nap between the trees, that was the first thing on Rouge's mind as she stretched inside her hammock.

She sat up and flattened out her wings on either side of her figure, flexing them to prepare for the trip, and raised a finger to her ear to activate her communication device.

"Shadow – come in, Shadow."

It was a gamble on if he would be awake or asleep at this hour. Sometimes the hedgehog stayed alert for much of the night, wandering or thinking; he could also be lounging at Club Rouge, helping himself to some of her stock; or, he could be slumbering in her spare bed, practically dead to the world.

But he was the best person to accompany her on this personal mission. What other options did she have, really? Omega was wholly uninterested in gems. Sonic and his friends weren't the jewel-plundering type.

And the only other treasure hunter who could match her skill, well… he already wasn't fond of her company. She wouldn't really want to share her findings even if he was up for the challenge, anyway.

Shadow, though – he could be persuaded to assist her, and he wouldn't ask for a percentage of whatever she found. Plus, his speed alone would make the 12-hour trip into a trivial one. For a moment, the line was quiet, and she thought he might not answer. Then, the Ultimate Lifeform's voice came through.

"Yes, Rouge? You don't sound like you're in trouble."

"Well, not yet," she answered back, lying against the big leaves and throwing one leg over the other. "And I won't be if you do me a big, gleaming, courteous favor."

"I don't like the sound of that…"

He gave pause for her to make her request, which she voiced in the sweetest tone she could manage. "Would you accompany me on a… well, I was going to say a 'little' treasure hunt, but… it's not really so little."

"Do I even have to ask why?"

"Not if you don't want to hear the same thing you did last time."

Another pause as Rouge's lifted foot bounced up and down in the air. A smile played on her lips, the one she always held when she knew she was about to get what she wanted.

Shadow inquired, "How dangerous is it this time?"

"Hmm, well…" She looked over at the distant dark mountain, just a silhouette in the midnight sky. "The location is one of the biggest mountains in the world. So, dangerous enough that I shouldn't go alone. Of course, I will if I have to, but I might not make it out alive without an exceptional lifeform looking out for me."

"Wait, one of the biggest mountains… where are you right now?"

"About half a day's trip from that cluster of tall peaks past the Forest Expanse. What is it called again?"

"The Macabre Cliffs… and you can guess how it got that name." There was a dark seriousness to his tone, but the bat was used to him sounding grave, so she paid it little mind. "Rouge, you should not go there. Why are you that far from the city, anyway?"

She answered casually, "I decided to be out in nature for once. Made myself a nice little spot between the plains and the forest, and I'm looking up at the stars right now! Pretty beautiful out here; all the more reason for you to join me!"

He sounded a little more annoyed when he asked, "You said you would go on your own if you didn't have backup?"

"Sure! You know how determined I am. Just thinking about all the potential treasure is enough to motivate me. So, how about it, Shadow? Will ya meet me?"

He huffed in irritation so she could hear his lack of enthusiasm. "Fine. Only so you don't die doing something stupid."

"Hurray, I knew I could count on you," she casually praised. "Let me owe you for it."

"That's a given. It seems you ask for a favor every week."

She clicked her tongue. "No, I don't. We help each other, that's how it's always been. Now get over here quick so we can start traveling ASAP!"

"Yes, Your Majesty," he replied sarcastically, and she could picture his eyes rolling as he said it.

***

The faint sound of shuffling grass grabbed Rouge's attention. She turned left in her hammock to scan the plains and spotted her partner on the other side, near the opposite border of another forest.

She watched him for a second, amused at the hedgehog looking around on the wrong side for wherever she was lounging. Then, the charming lady cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted out to him, "Are ya lost, handsome? Your date's over here!"

She saw his head turn, and squinted to recognize a bit of surprise on his face before it changed back into indifference. In a streak of orange light, he rushed to the grass beneath her, wind from his brief travel rustling the foliage in front of him and causing even her hammock to sway a bit.

"Woo, careful, Shad!" the bat teased. "Wouldn't want to knock me out of the nice little seat I made!"

"Can you just come down here so we can get going?" He was frowning up at her, eyes fiery red and impatient.

Rouge sighed and hopped off the giant leaves, floating down to his level and crossing her arms. "Jeez, have a little fun, will you? We're about to take on an exciting treasure hunt."

"Exciting for you," he grumbled, slipping one arm behind her back and the other under her legs to sweep the spy off her feet.

She enwrapped his neck and clasped her hands atop his shoulder, beaming at the hedgehog in a way he found to be smug; but it was also charming, the way her eyes sparkled at him while the curl of her pink lips shimmered, and he couldn't defy that look when she struck him with it.

Rouge knew that, and she used it every time she asked him to go out of his way for her. To keep the Ultimate Lifeform around was to achieve two things: complete whatever task she'd set for herself twice – and sometimes thrice – as fast; and spend more time with her favorite person, using her aspirations as an excuse to hang out with him.

She hadn't told him yet how he really affected her. That his presence made her feel warmer than anyone else's, even as he seemed cold to most people.

She thought there would be a right time to reveal it, some special moment where it would make sense to open up that deeply to the most reserved guy on the planet.

Rouge wasn't sure he felt the same, and she kept telling herself that she'd get it done eventually; that if she just said it, she'd be able to move on from the lingering longing that persisted to annoy her with its nagging, tugging insistence to confess, confess, confess!

But she hesitated, and tried to ignore the fact that she was nervous about being snubbed. It was easier to lock up her heart than to bare it to the one man who might be able to break it.

She didn't know that her caution was unnecessary. He was struggling with feelings for her, as well. And as if the ball of tangled emotions that formed in his stomach when he held her wasn't enough, that look of sly charm she gave him made Shadow shiver inside.

He had to focus on the destination ahead, on the tall shadowy peaks waiting in the distance, to keep from thinking too much about the plumpness of her thighs against his palm, or the intimate wrap of her arms around him.

But unlike the bat's slow progress towards being honest with him, he was stagnant. Emotionally repressed, he found it difficult to express feelings that could get him hurt.

He would find confessing any romantic affection to be easier if rejection was a purely physical pain – if it came in the form of a punch to the face rather than a strike through the heart.

The emotional pain he'd felt in his life was far more agonous than any hit he'd ever taken. He wouldn't be able to stand that kind of hurt if it came from her.

They arrived at the base of the mountain in record time, and Shadow realized when he looked up at the towering peaks that dark stormy clouds were creeping towards them. Keeping that in mind, he asked, "So, where is this fabled treasure you were talking about?"

"Deep underground," she answered, leaving his arms, then added, "supposedly."

"For your sake, something worth our time had better be there." He followed his partner along the jagged walls of the mountain, studying the stone and dirt building on each other.

"I've found jewels in some of the most unlikely places before!" Rouge chirped confidently. "Just look for an opening, a dip; anything that could lead us inside."

They walked around the mountain's edge for a bit, hearing the rumble of distant thunder slowly getting closer. If this trip ended up getting rained out, they would have to consider it a wash and leave – something the gem-hungry woman really didn't want to do.

Scanning the cliff sides with tunnel focus, she eventually spotted a section of the earth that looked uneven. Not naturally so, as if it built that way over time, but dented inwards with lots of rubble on the ground nearby.

She trotted over to it and discovered a pile of sizable rocks crammed into the crevice, arching on the edges as if they were stuffing a cave entrance.

"Bingo!" she exclaimed, her wings fluttering excitedly.

Shadow watched her brace herself against the rocks, turning her head and pointing one ear at the pile. It was interesting to see how she worked when she was hunting for treasure, utilizing her senses more than usual.

After a few seconds, she pulled away and took some steps backwards. There was an adventurous glint in her eyes when she looked at the hedgehog.

"Stand back, handsome. We're breaking in!"

He hopped away from the stones and watched as Rouge launched herself in the air, spinning into a Screw Kick before hurtling towards the mountain.

Her rapid, powerful kicks blasted the rocks away from the crevice, pushing most of them farther inside the cave they'd been concealing. She jumped back from the entrance in case it triggered a collapse of some kind.

When it didn't, her attention was drawn by steady clapping beside her, and she looked over to see Shadow giving her an impressed smile.

"Not bad," he said, bringing a touch of blush to her cheeks with his unexpected compliment.

She chuckled, "I'm so glad you recognize my skills!" and approached the mouth of the cavern.

Looking inside, it didn't seem too dark with the natural light spilling in. Though, that would change the deeper they went. Rouge didn't have a light source with her for this impromptu search, which made her wonder if her friend had something on him that could help when she was no longer able to make out shapes in the darkness.

That led her to mindfully question how much light one of his Chaos Spears casted before tucking the thought away to be brought up later.

Walking in first, her large ears twitched in multiple directions, picking up the sounds of wind bouncing off the walls and water dripping somewhere farther in. Her heels clacked and shifted dryly on the stone and dirt beneath her, and her colleague's footfalls followed.

"Normal-looking cave," she noted, spotting the narrower path off to the right that would lead them elsewhere.

Shadow appreciated status reports, especially as their tag-team treasure hunts weren't a regular occurrence. He knew he could trust Rouge to say what was typical or atypical during their time in a dark cave.

After all, it was sort of the least she could do to make his time assisting her easier. If there was danger, he'd be the first confronting it. He stayed near her as she entered the thin path, minding how close he could get without bumping into her if she stopped suddenly.

"Looks like it gets even narrower up ahead," she informed him as their light source became more distant.

"Be careful," chimed Shadow, keeping one hand in front of him in case she reached back to grab it.

He wouldn't want her to fall down an unexpected opening, or accidentally advance too far ahead of him when the darkness overpowered his vision.

Once they got to the progressively thinner part of the path, he just barely made out Rouge's posture turning sideways to slip between the rock walls.

He followed her lead, but before long, a knot formed in his stomach at the inevitability of not being able to see. The places they'd hunted in before were much more spacious than this.

He squinted at his partner's barely visible figure and said, "It's getting too dark."

"Oh, uh… okay, there's a bigger space up ahead. When we get there, I want to try something. But until then, here – take my hand."

He noticed a brief swish of gray as she waved her hand in the small gap, then it disappeared when he reached for it. He couldn't see anymore, but after a second of searching, his fingers found hers and they locked together.

They shuffled through the cramped, uneven hall of stone for a daunting stretch of a minute. Rouge could see why people would get discouraged having to go through here to explore the mountain, and she could guess it was similarly unnerving any other way in.

The bat was having more trouble seeing, but she could hear water dripping up ahead, and she knew they'd make it out of the tight squeeze before she needed more light.

Shadow was completely blind, seeing nothing but blackness no matter where he looked; the only thing that grounded him was their shared grip. And it helped to calm Rouge, too, knowing she was going through this cavern with the man she could trust more than anyone.

"Almost there," she commented, slinking out of the last foot of narrow path.

She kept a tight hold on his hand while he worked his way out, then looked at him when he stepped next to her. "Okay, now I want to know – how much light would one of your Chaos Spears cast?"

He gazed in the direction of her face, but couldn't make proper eye contact. "I'm not sure. I suppose we could try it."

"Please do."

She let go of his hand and took one step away from him, careful not to go too far in case there was a drop-off she couldn't see. Then Shadow quickly flicked his wrist towards the ground, wrapping his gloved fingers around the golden Spear that flickered into existence.

Yellow sparks of Chaos energy danced around the arrow-shaped bolt, giving off a bright glow that illuminated a few feet of the cave around him. Seeing that it wasn't much, he conjured a Spear in his other hand to make the area brighter.

"I can work with that," said Rouge, studying the space they were in and seeing there was indeed a drop-off not far from where they stood.

She cautiously approached it, as did Shadow, and he repositioned the Spears at different angles to try and see how deep it went, or anything beyond it. Unfortunately, it was too deep, and the stretch ahead was too wide, so nothing was shown to them.

His partner eyed the energy bolts and asked, "Would it do too much damage if you tossed one to see what we're working with?"

"There's only one way to find out. If it does, we can always escape back the way we came."

She gave him a smile and crossed her fingers, then he gently tossed one of the Spears down the cliff. Free-falling sideways instead of hurtling straight down seemed to work in not destroying anything; it revealed the steep drop of a stone wall, falling a long way before hitting the curved bottom and disintegrating into electric shards.

Shadow then made a new one and tossed it straight ahead. The arrow tip landed on a bronze-colored structure and caused a small explosion, which made Rouge gasp. A light rumble echoed through the cavern, but there weren't any signs of collapse or falling debris.

"Damn," Shadow said, then looked at the treasure hunter. "Sorry."

"I think we're okay." She waited a few seconds, listening for tumbling rocks or shakes in the earth, but heard nothing besides water dripping. "Just, no more throwing. But it looks like this drop-off leads to a cavernous dip in the earth. There must be tons of stone above us keeping this mountain sturdy."

"Should we search the area?"

"Yeah. I'll fly us." She turned and held out her hand for him to take. "I want to see what that thing was."

He held her hand again, keeping his other grip on the Chaos Spear, and allowed her to lift him off the ground. They slowly made their way across what seemed like a chasm, while Shadow gently dropped his Spears to illuminate the area without damaging anything.

They saw more glimpses of bronze, and it didn't take long for Rouge to recognize that the structures she was seeing were deliberately shaped.

They weren't just natural formations of the earth, and when she landed them in the middle of the chasm, her mouth dropped open at their discovery.

"Ruins…" she revealed softly, staring up at the arches and columns all around.

Holding up two Chaos Spears, Shadow lit up the space for her, watching Rouge graze her palm against a solid obelisk. Her voice was a near whisper when she spoke, "Incredible… these are undiscovered ruins of… something. A lost tribe? An ancient civilization?"

"Gods?" he suggested, receiving a surprised glance from his companion.

"There's no markings… no way to know…"

Exploring the area, they didn't find anything that would suggest who or what had erected the structures. What they did eventually run across was a dip in the center of a stone platform that covered the ground.

The dip led to an opening, where the earth seemed dug through like a tunnel. The brave pair looked down at the new entrance that led to something further unknown, then Rouge gave Shadow a coaxing smile.

"We haven't come across any real danger yet. Wanna roll some more dice?"

He shared her stare, feeling an adventurous sense of tension between them at the admittedly thrilling prospect of discovering more mysterious things with her. "We've gone this far. There might be treasure down there, right?"

Her smile widened into a grin – a pleasantly mischievous expression he'd really come to like – and she caught a flutter in her heart at her best friend being so committed to hunting jewels with her. She positioned herself behind him, hooking both arms under his shoulders so his back was against her front.

"That's my Shadow," she purred, and he could've sworn she was being sultry on purpose, because the smooth cadence of her voice made a shiver run down his spine.

She lifted the hedgehog off the ground with the powerful flap of her wings, holding onto him as they descended carefully down the earthy tunnel. It smelled much more acidic, the dirt looking more red than brown, but there was nothing else to be seen or smelled until they reached the bottom.

Once they landed on solid stone, they found the space being lit up was another cave; this one smelling of unclean water and plant life. And what they saw made Shadow absorb his Spears into nothingness, both of them staring silently in awe at the natural light source they'd discovered.

Rouge had never seen cave walls glow and glitter so beautifully before.

[m-ilkiee]

Deadly Affairs: Bonten! Manjiro ‘Mikey’ Sano x Bonten Reader, Bonten members x Bonten! Reader

“My name is BRUTUS, and my name means HEAVY. So with a HEAVY heart I’ll bury this dagger in the back of my enemy.”

Pairings: Bonten! Manjiro Sano x Bonten reader, Bonten! Members x Bonten Reader

Series summary: You’ve seen this story multiple times, where the girl does everything to end up as the wife of the king. In any other timeline, you would have done the same.

This time is different. You don’t want to marry the king. You want to be him.

Series warning: DARK CONTENT, NSFW, HEAVY ANGST, fem!reader Bonten timeline, virginity loss, power imbalance, gang bang, smut, misogyny, graphic violence, torture, noncon, dubcon, drug/alcohol use, parental abuse, domestic abuse, trauma bonding, baby trapping, forced marriage, major character death(s), time loop, canon divergent.

main masterlist||taglist link

Chapter 1: Genesis

Synopsis: your destiny starts on your 23rd birthday, at the back of Manjiro Sano’s car, with the loss of your virginity

cw: DARK CONTENT, NSFW, DUBCON, bonten timeline, fem reader, power imbalance, age-gap relationship, sexual harrassment/abuse, sexism and misogyny, implied torture, flashing, alcohol/drug use, slight manipulation, drunk sex, public sex, fingering (f. recieving), virginity loss (reader), unprotected sex piv, rough sex, dirty talk, degradation, slut shaming.

wc: 4.5k

Chapter 2: The Aftermath

Synopsis: you deal with the shame of last night, when you realize all the executives know what you have done, unknowingly stirring up dark desires in their hearts.

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Chapter 3: Consequences

Synopsis: when a business deal goes awry, all hands point at you. As punishment kokonoi hajime decides to give you a glimpse of your worst fear.

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Chapter 4: Redemption

Synopsis: determined not to be permanently be assigned to a sex doll forever, you decide to take matters into your own hands and clear your name.

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Chapter 5: Glory

Synopsis: You’re finally an executive of Bonten, but the rest are not happy with Mikey’s decision, including Mikey himself.

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Chapter 6: Judas Iscariot

Synopsis: Annoyed that his initial plan never worked, Manjiro decides to bait you into a deal that would keep you with him. Permanently.

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Chapter 7: The Fall of Man

Synopsis: Everything you’ve worked for, shatters before your very eyes when the pregnancy test reads positive. Manjiro is surprisingly, happy.

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Chapter 8: The Evil within

Synopsis: All along you’ve fallen for Mikey’s traps, over and over again. This time, is different. This time, you want him dead.

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Chapter 9: Beware the Ides of March

Synopsis: Hanagaki Takemichi comes to save Manjiro Sano, but there you are, with a gun, ready to push both of them over the edge and attain true glory.

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Chapter 10: I want to be YOU

Synopsis: The power is in your hands now. And you will do as you please with it. Including changing your daughter’s destiny.

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authors note: i do not condone any action comitted in this fic. comments, asks and reblogs are highly appreciated. this fic was rejuvenated by the buttress' - "brutus" and for some reason my obssession to be masculine

taglist (please turn on your mentions in 'settings' before filling the form.): @officiallyjaehyuns @haikyuusboringassmanager @cockonoi @rindou24689 @short-cxke @kokoch4n3l @genawi @getonite @anxious-chick @reiners-milkbiddies @gh0stgirl333 @raven-nevra

[s-lverwing]

02. VEIL OF BETRAYAL

pairing. aegon targaryen x velaryon (targaryen)!reader x maelor targaryen (aegon’s twin).

summary. queen alicent subtly weaponizes your buried fears against your deep sense of duty. And the twin brothers only deepen your sense of sin. Forbidden desires rarely earn the favor of destiny’s eyes.

word count. 5.3k (sorry, again…. why am i yapping so much). ao3 link

warnings. angst, mommy issues, targcest (niece and uncles?), toxic relationships. heavy pinning. kind of infidelity? religious guilt. internalized misogyny. bastardphobia? no aegon here. english isn’t my first language and i haven’t read the books.

a/n. it starts right after the end of chapter 1. please if you’re enjoying this leave a comment, reblog, whatever u want 🐛. and i plan to read fire and blood because i feel so dumb searching things on google…

— previous chapter

The hallways of the Red Keep stretched endlessly before you, each step feeling more distant, as though the very ground beneath your feet was slipping away. A high-pitched ringing filled your ears, drowning out everything but the erratic thudding of your heart, which seemed to shake your entire being. Your vision was blurred, and you scarcely registered Maelor’s firm grip on your arm, steadying you as you nearly stumbled down the stone steps.

A whirlwind of thoughts raced through your mind, yet it was impossible to grasp a single one. The summons from Queen Alicent had been unexpected, unsettling, a sharp contrast to the routine of your days. Rarely did the queen seek your presence — or was in your presence, except during the formality of dinners or the fleeting moments when she entered the room in the middle of a conversation with King Viserys. There was an unspoken distance between you, one that you could never bridge despite your strange fondness for her; in a way you pitied her. But in truth, you always wanted her to be fond of you, perhaps that was why you often found solace in the Sept.

The heavy doors of the Queen’s chambers loomed before you, guarded by Ser Criston Cole. He ushered you and Maelor inside, and as the doors closed with a resounding thud, the world seemed to narrow into a single point. The unease in your stomach grew sharper, cutting through the fog of your thoughts.

“Your Grace,” you murmured, curtsying as you met Alicent’s gaze. Her eyes, cool and assessing, flickered over you, taking in your tear-stained cheeks and the redness that rimmed your eyes. Maelor, standing at your side, addressed her with the casual ease of familiarity, “Mother.”

Alicent’s expression shifted to one of mild concern, though there was an undercurrent of something sharper, as she spoke: “Were you crying? Where have you been? Has something happened?”

The questions hung in the air, and for a moment, you struggled to form a coherent response. But before you could speak, Maelor’s arm snaked around your shoulders in an uncharacteristic gesture of closeness, silencing you. His touch was not comforting.

“I found her with Helaena,” Maelor said, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

Alicent’s brow furrowed, her eyes narrowing as she studied you. There was always something disapproving in her gaze, as though your very presence was a source of irritation; even when she was the one requesting your presence. You were an unwelcome reminder of things she preferred to forget—of the king’s favoritism, of a lineage she loathed. You were a symbol of her husband’s neglect of his own children, and worse, a bastard who had inherited Valyrian’s traits, in contrast to your bastard brothers. She preferred to be dead before marrying her sons to a bastard, but then again, she had no saying in those matters, because Otto Hightower made the decision for her.

She pursed her lips, her displeasure barely concealed. “But why were you crying?” she pressed, her tone dripping with mock concern. She savored this moment, relished the opportunity to remind you of your insignificance. She enjoyed every opportunity she had to remind you of your place, and oh how lost you looked since your mother left you here.

Her voice laced with false sweetness as she continued, “What could possibly have happened to you, dear?”

Her use of the word “dear” was nothing but a mockery, a blade wrapped in silk. Your gaze hardened as you looked up at her through your lashes, the hatred simmering beneath your skin, barely contained. Alicent noticed the defiance in your eyes, and it only seemed to amuse her.

“I—I just tripped,” you lied, your voice barely audible as you cast your eyes downward.

“Oh, then we shall have the maester—” she began, but you cut her off, your voice gaining strength.

“—That won’t be necessary, Your Grace. I am fine.” You paused, forcing yourself to meet her gaze, your heart pounding as you asked, “Why am I here?”

Alicent rolled her eyes, a gesture so dismissive it stung like a slap. “We have been discussing your future with your mother,” she said, her voice clipped and filled with irritation, as though the matter of your life was an inconvenience to her. “It’s… complicated.” She sighed, but her eyes burned with barely concealed anger, as if your very existence was the complication she wished to be rid of.

“Do you mean I will be sent to Dragonstone?” you asked, a sliver of hope creeping into your voice. The thought of leaving the Red Keep, of escaping the suffocating presence of the queen, seemed like a distant dream. Even when you dreaded the idea of marrying someone like your bastard brother.

But your hope was dashed when Alicent let out a choked laugh, echoed by Maelor, who tightened his grip on you, as though claiming you as his own — because he knew what was about to come. “No,” Alicent said, her eyes flicking to Maelor’s hand on your arm, a spark of something unreadable flashing across her face before it hardened once more.

The heavy doors to the chamber swung open, and you jumped at the sound, your heart leaping into your throat. Otto Hightower entered the room, his expression one of barely contained satisfaction, his gaze locking onto you with an intensity that made your skin crawl. But on his face was a ghost of a smile.

“It’s good to see you both already pleased with our decision,” Otto said, his voice smooth and calculated, a half-smile playing on his lips as he looked at you, his eyes gleaming with unspoken intent.

Though you longed for the warmth of a father’s care, Otto’s gaze offered none of that, in this moment. It was cold, calculating, and beneath his veneer of a somewhat paternal concern lay something far more dark. You could never quite see through his intentions, never quite discern the web of schemes he wove around you all. Yet, despite the unease he inspired, a part of you still craved the safety of his approval, blinding you to the danger lurking beneath.

You pushed Maelor’s arm away, taking a small step back, your mind rushing as you tried to make sense of what was happening. “What decision?” you whispered, your voice trembling as a deep frown crowned your stare. Your eyes, still red and glossy with unshed tears, darted between Otto and Alicent, searching for answers.

Otto regarded his daughter for a moment, a silent exchange passing between them before he turned his attention back to you. “It is a wise decision,” he began, his tone patronizing, “to unite our families… for you and Maelor to marry… each other.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and suffocating. Your breath caught in your throat, the room spinning as the weight of the announcement pressed down on you. “Maelor?” you repeated, your voice barely a whisper, the name tasting like sand on your tongue. Your gaze flickered to Maelor, who was grinning. “Don’t I have a say in this?”

“Go on,” The hand of the King said, his voice a smooth command, cutting off whatever protest Alicent might have offered. She looked as though she might be sick, the thought of you marrying her favored son turning her stomach. How could a bastard like you dare to consider herself more worthy than Maelor?

You swallowed hard, your heart racing as you summoned the courage to speak. “I—I think it would be wiser to marry me to Aegon,” you said, the words tumbling out before you could stop them. Your hands trembled, slick with sweat, as you feared they might see through you, see the truth you tried so desperately to hide. But there was no outcry, no immediate suspicion. Otto raised an eyebrow, and Alicent clutched her stomach, her face a mask of disdain.

“I am in the line of succession,” you continued, your voice a bit steadier now, though your insides twisted with dread. “I am the heir to the throne. It would be wise to marry me to the King’s firstborn son.”

Alicent’s scoff sliced through the tension, her eyes hardening with resolve. “Aegon will be married to Helaena,” she declared, the decision already set in stone. “She needs to stay close to her home.” Her tone softened slightly, as if explaining something that should have been obvious; but it also held the love she has for Helaena.

It was your turn to clutch your stomach, feeling the bile rise as fresh tears threatened to spill from your already swollen, red eyes. Your entire world was spinning. Every sacrifice you had ever made now seemed in vain, and it felt as though the Gods had turned their backs on you, rejecting your prayers. It wasn’t the loss of Aegon you feared, but the storm brewing on the horizon—the political games, the power plays that had once been distant now felt inescapable, you were always a pawn. And betrothal was far more than just a political arrangement. It was a prison sentence.

You weren’t ready to be caged within the Red Keep, churning out heirs year after year to secure the bloodline. Your mind scolded you for ever listening to Aegon’s empty promises. Promises of choice—lies, all of them.

“Maelor suggested—” Alicent began, but you cut her off.

“I have a petition,” you blurted, the words tumbling from your lips before you’d even fully thought them through. The ringing in your ears grew louder. The words barely registered in your own mind.

“You’re in no position to make petitions!” Queen Alicent shot to her feet, her voice sharp.

“I am in a position! I am in a position to demand everything!” Your voice rose, cracking under the weight of your frustration. “Wasn’t I born to be queen? Am I not the heir to the Iron Throne?” The room seemed to hold its breath as you threw down your claim. It wasn’t that you lacked faith in your mother’s right to the throne, but Aegon’s claim was backed by the laws of the Andals. You knew this, and that knowledge fueled your desperation to secure your own survival—to make yourself indispensable. If you were no longer necessary, you were expendable. Or at least know that the council isn’t planning to murder you.

Alicent’s eyes flared with rage, but there was something deeper there—a flicker of recognition, maybe even regret. You saw it. For just a moment, she wasn’t the Queen but a woman who had once been in your position—trapped by duty, by the demands of others. Now, like you, she was no longer warm, no longer kind. You could see the shadow of her younger self in her expression, the version of Alicent who still had hope, who hadn’t been tainted.

No one spoke, and the silence only fueled your resolve. You pressed on, your voice stronger now, staring at Otto. “Wasn’t I obliged to learn about politics and war strategy while other highborn girls spent their days gossiping and learning how to be meek and pretty? Have I not been loyal to this crown, to the realm?” You shook your head, the injustice of it all burning in your chest. “If I’m not to marry Viserys’ firstborn son, then I deserve more than this. I won’t be handed off to a second son without something in return. I want a seat on the council.”

“You insolent—” Alicent began trying to defend his son, now long forgotten in the room. But you cut her off again.

“I don’t want to hear it.” Your voice sharp now, like the edge of a blade, as you whip your head at her. “I fear what happens when Viserys dies. I know what war can bring to women and children. I’m protecting myself.”

Otto Hightower, who had been watching the exchange with a measured expression, finally spoke. “We can find you a spot,” he said, his voice cool, knowing full well the futility of it. A woman on the council—someone to be seen but never heard.

“It’s settled, then.” Your voice wavered slightly, but you held your ground.

“Leave us,” Alicent ordered, waving you off, her face pinched with frustration. She couldn’t hide her disdain for what had just transpired, but she knew as well as Otto did that there was little choice in the matter. You obeyed, turning on your heel, but not before noticing the weariness in Alicent’s eyes. She had once fought battles like yours and lost.

When the door closed behind you, Alicent turned to her father, her voice barely above a whisper. “Wouldn’t it be easier to marry her to Aegon?”

Otto shook his head, his expression unreadable. He understood what Alicent couldn’t bring herself to admit.

Easier, yes. But more dangerous.

There was something deep within you, a growing ache in your heart that no tale, no scripture, no ancient word of wisdom could ever soothe or shake off. The fire of guilt simmered beneath the surface of your soul, consuming you in its relentless heat. Even though you knew your suffering was nothing compared to the horrors others had faced, you feared—feared with a trembling certainty—that if war descended upon you, it would tear you apart. Not just in body, but in spirit. And where would that leave you? What would become of your heart, your mind, your soul?

Once, the future had been so clear. When you were younger, when Aegon barely noticed you, it was as if the path was already created. Everyone knew you were born to marry him, and there was a certainty in that—a weight that was lighter back then. You had been kind, proper, untouched by the cruel realities of the world around you. But now? Now, you were torn between rival claims, between lovers. It all felt so fickle, as if the life you had lived in the Red Keep was nothing but a distant dream.

You had wasted years trying to inch closer to Alicent, clinging to your faith in the Seven as though it would redeem you, as though it would make you worthy. Faith had consumed you, shaped you, made you believe that if you followed the path laid out by the gods, you would find peace. But peace eluded you now, and even the Seven-Pointed Star that hung heavy around your neck, the same one you wore as a brooch on your chest, could no longer protect you from your own self. In truth, you felt as if only pushed you down.

And whenever you looked at Alicent, it was as if you were staring at a reflection of your own turmoil. Her eyes mirrored your own fears, your own doubts. She had been shaped by duty, by faith, and by the expectations of others; by her father and by her husband’s expectations. In her, you saw what you could become, if you weren’t careful—a woman trapped in the chains of politics and piety, whose heart had been suffocated by the weight of sacrifice.

As you walked inside the Grand Sept, the echoes of your footsteps echoed through the empty space. Your dark green gown, grand and ostentatious, clung to your body, suffocating you in its fine silk and embroidery. It felt like a cage, like chains that bound you to your place in this world—a pawn in the endless game of power. The gods you had once prayed to now felt distant, indifferent to the turmoil swirling in your heart.

The Sept felt colder that day, its vastness more unwelcoming than usual. The chill seeped into your bones, making you feel as though the very grace of the gods was pushing you away, disgusted by your presence. Yet, deep down, you liked to think they had never truly been on your side. Perhaps the gods had forsaken you long before, or perhaps they had never cared for you at all. A bitter thought twisted in your heart—what if you had lived your life faithless, like your mother? Would it have spared you from this constant weight of guilt?

Your mother, so free of the shackles of this, had birthed bastards without shame. Would she regret it now, or had her love for them eclipsed any regrets she might have had? You had always known that she loved them more than she would ever love you. That’s why she had so readily accepted Viserys’ petition to leave you behind in the Red Keep. And even when she fought for you, it hadn’t been enough.

If you could strip it all away—your title, your duty, your faith—you would. You would tear it all from your skin and live as something other than this pawn. But now, it was too late. Too much had been said, too many decisions made. The gods had never offered you a choice. They had only demanded your obedience.

And Helaena—sweet, kind Helaena. How could you ever look into her face again, knowing the truth that gnawed at your soul? You were still in love with her soon-to-be husband, the father of her future children—their children. The thought made you sick with guilt, twisting inside you like a dagger. How could you stand before her, with this secret festering inside you? How could you ever offer her a kind word again, knowing that you longed for what was now hers?

Your hands felt clammy, slick with sweat as you knelt before the stone altar. It was cold, unyielding. Before you, candles flickered, their small flames struggling against the drafts in the Sept. You reached out with trembling fingers, lighting one of the candles. But your mind was blank. No prayer formed on your lips, no words rose from your heart. There was only the hollow silence of your thoughts and the suffocating weight of guilt.

“For everything that comes…” you began softly, a whisper so faint it would be lost unless someone stood right beside you. “Make Viserys’ sayings align with the Andal’s law…”

A chill crept through the Sept, a cold breeze brushing over your uncovered elbows and across your face. You shuddered, closing your eyes, grasping for the comfort of prayer. “Keep us away from our own madness… keep me on your path…”

Your whispered plea hung in the air, fragile and wavering like the flame before you.

“Does it ever help?” The somber voice shattered the silence, startling you. Maelor’s presence, unexpected and intrusive, made you jump, and the delicate flame of your candle extinguished with a soft hiss.

You didn’t turn around. The weight of his voice and the meaning behind his words made you uneasy. You could picture the expression on his face without seeing it—a hyena-like smile, sharp and calculating, masked beneath that smooth charm.

Why had he followed you here?

You reached up again, intent on lighting another candle, even though the act felt futile. The gods felt distant, absent. Rejection was all you could feel in this cold, hollow place.

Before the flame could catch, Maelor’s hand gently caught your arm, his touch soft but firm. He knelt beside you, his presence unsettling yet strangely familiar.

“You fear madness?” His voice, softer than expected, lacked the mockery you had anticipated. It was almost… tender.

You didn’t meet his gaze, eyes fixed on the unlit candle as your chest tightened with frustration. “Don’t you, Maelor?” Your words were sharper than you intended. “The stories—”

“Gods, you sound like Viserys,” he muttered, scrunching his face in mock annoyance. The sudden shift in his expression, the familiar way he said it, broke through the heaviness of the moment. Despite everything, a faint smile tugged at the corners of your lips.

“I think I spent too much time with him when I was younger…” you whispered, your eyes fixed on the flickering candles, their soft light casting shadows on your troubled thoughts. “Aren’t you afraid?”

Maelor’s smile was gentle, though his grip on your arm tightened, an attempt at grounding you. “What can truly happen to us?” His voice, warm and reassuring, echoed through the cold stillness of the Sept. “Sometimes things are bigger than us, yes, but I think we both knew what we were meant to be since we were children. We rarely get to make our own choices, or follow our own desires.”

His words mirrored the ones you’d spoken to Aegon so many times before—reminding him of the weight that came with being the king’s firstborn. When you had said it, it was always with a sharp edge, meant to cut, meant to hurt him.

From Maelor’s lips, it didn’t feel like a reprimand, but a shared burden. He wasn’t the heir, he wasn’t the one with a crown awaiting him, and yet he understood the constraints of being born into power. His words carried no bitterness, just quiet acceptance of a fate neither of you could escape.

You turned your gaze toward him, noticing how the candlelight softened his features, making him seem even more distant from the sharpness of court life.

You couldn’t bring yourself to voice the thoughts clouding your vision.

“I never wanted this for you,” Maelor said softly then, filling the silence.

“It doesn’t matter now… I don’t think it makes a difference,” you replied with a half-hearted smile, trying to mask the turbulence within.

“I know I’ve always been hiding behind Aegon’s shadow—”

You cut him off, the words spilling out before you could fully control them. “I’m sorry for what I said, Maelor. It wasn’t my intention to… offend you.” Your smile faltered into a pout, a gesture of regret that seemed to offer little solace. Maelor’s gaze was heavy with pity, his eyes reflecting a depth of sadness that made you feel even more isolated.

“There’s no need to apologize,” he whispered, his voice carrying a resignation that matched the flicker of the candles ahead. For the first time, his focus shifted away from you, absorbed by the soft, wavering light.

“But I do, of course I do, Maelor,” you insisted, your voice trembling with an urgency that bore a resemblance to his mother’s fervent pleas. “You didn’t deserve to be treated so cruelly… I wasn’t thinking—”

“I’ve always been second, in everything and to everyone. To Aegon. To the crown. To my mother… even if she seldom shows it. And now, to you,” he confessed, his tone devoid of sorrow but carrying a weight that seemed almost indifferent.

His words struck you with a force that was almost physical, like a harsh slap to the face. You had always believed that he was favored, that his place was secure, but Maelor had always lingered in his brother’s shadow, where his errors were forgiven with ease. “That’s not true…” you whispered, struggling to reconcile the depth of his pain with your own perceptions.

A smile crept upon his face as he turned to you again, his eyes glistening with a blend of melancholy and mischief. “You’ve always known where you stand, since we were children. You know where your heart and allegiance lie, and it’s with him.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” you lied, your voice trembling and barely audible against the stone walls of the Grand Sept.

“Don’t lie to me,” he said softly, his hand moving from your arm to gently cup your face. His touch was unexpectedly warm and tender, a stark contrast to the coldness of the stone around you. You felt an involuntary shiver, a deep, unspoken longing stirring within you, urging you to indulge in his embrace.

“It’s no use,” he murmured, his voice a soothing balm against the harsh reality. “Because whatever you want doesn’t really matter now. And it doesn’t change what I want, even though I know my place.”

Your pulse quickened at his words, a surge of heat flooding your insides. Your mind raced, struggling to ground itself in the present moment, both physically and mentally. But it was futile as his thumb gently traced your cheek, a touch so light it felt like a ghost’s caress. The sensation made you want to pull away, to put space between you. Despite your lack of interest in Maelor—he was, after all, Aegon’s twin—an unbidden thought lingered: if you couldn’t have the first, perhaps you could have the second.

“Maelor,” your voice trembled, a whisper caught in the fragile space between you. Words failed you, leaving you paralyzed with uncertainty about what to say.

His face drew even closer, your eyes widening in a mix of apprehension and anticipation. “What can happen to us?” he murmured, his voice sweet and barely audible, the question hanging in the air.

You opened your mouth to speak, but no words emerged. Your mind was tangled in a web of guilt and desire; Maelor’s touch was achingly familiar and inexplicably comforting. His eyes searched yours, not for an answer, but for some sign—any sign—that you wanted him to leave.

His breath was warm against your heated skin, and his lips were tantalizingly close. For a fleeting moment, it felt as though the burdens of your life were lifted, leaving you both enveloped in an equally forbidden and sacred space

In the quiet of words and stares, the gods keep watching.

You closed your eyes, resting your forehead against his. Your heart raced, thudding violently in your chest. You felt as if you were suspended in time, teetering on the brink of something both exhilarating and terrifying. As Maelor’s thumb brushed softly against your lower lip, a shiver ran through you, igniting a warm, electric sensation deep within your core. The restraints of duty and guilt seemed to melt away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of longing.

Forgetting your place, you dared to lower your face, your lips brushing his own with a tentative softness, almost as if testing the waters. But the blood in your veins surged wildly, and the fragile tension between you both shattered in an instant.

He deepened the kiss, his desire unmistakable, and you allowed it, welcomed it. His other hand slid to your waist, pulling you flush against him—and not only did you let him, you crumbled beneath his touch, surrendering to the warmth of his light hold. The desire that had long lain dormant within you stirred, taking form, your fingers instinctively tangling in his auburn hair. Every inch of your body responded to him as though awakened, alive with a hunger you hadn’t realized dwelled so deep.

The world around you seemed to dissolve into shadows, the sacred walls of the Sept now tainted by the weight of your shared desire. The sanctity of this hallowed place stood in stark contrast to the sinful pull between you. The air was thick, heady with a tension that felt both forbidden and intoxicating. Maelor’s hand slid down the curve of your back, his fingers tracing each delicate bone of your spine with agonizing slowness, as if testing how much you could bear before you broke. He drew you even closer, his breath hot and uneven against your skin, as though he, too, was consumed by this fire. His lips ghosted over the hollow of your throat, enough to make your breath stutter in your chest.

“Maelor…” the sound of his name slipped from your lips, nothing more than a trembling whisper, heavy with guilt and need. It sounded like a prayer, a plea. You couldn’t tell if the word was meant to halt him or urge him on, but either way, it left you exposed and vulnerable.

His hands tightened their grip on you, his lips pressing harder against your skin, teeth grazing your collarbone with a sharpness that made you shudder. You could feel yourself coming undone beneath his touch, unraveling like a thread pulled too tight. This wasn’t meant to happen—not here. Not with him.

He kissed the seven-pointed star hanging from your neck. His fingers found the edge of your dress, slowly gathering the fragile fabric, lifting it just enough for his hands to slide beneath and wrap around your naked thighs. The feel of his warm hands, soft and insistent against your bare skin, sent you spiraling. You hadn’t imagined this would ever happen, let alone now, in this place, under the watchful eyes of the gods. And yet, as his hands roamed higher, guilt momentarily dissolved into the air. A choked, breathless moan escaped your lips, betraying your deepest shame, and instinctively, your hands flew to grasp at his clothes, clutching at his waist—not to stop him, but to anchor yourself.

“Maelor…” His name slipped from your lips again, barely more than a sigh, the sound drenched in breathless need. His fingers dug into your flesh. You knew it was wrong—so deeply, impossibly wrong in every sacred sense, yet with each passing second, you found yourself yearning for more. Every touch, every stolen breath, only made you crave the sin even more fiercely, as though the very act of transgression bound you tighter to him.

His hands stilled on your thighs, as though savoring the moment, while his lips found their way back to your neck, pressing softly against your skin. He lingered there, feeling the wild, uneven beat of your pulse beneath his mouth, as though testing just how far you would let him go. Your hands trembled as they clung to him desperately, fingers twisting in his clothes like a lifeline, like you were to combust into nothingness if you let go.

“I–We shouldn’t,” you murmured, but your voice faltered, weak and thin, lacking any true conviction. You knew it, and worse, so did he. Maelor was no fool.

His head tilted slightly, just enough for his breath to tickle your ear, his voice a soft whisper. “Then tell me to stop,” he challenged, his tone thick with temptation.

But the words refused to come out.

They lingered on the edge of your tongue, trapped behind the weight of your own desire. The silence that stretched between you was louder than any confession you could have made. You couldn’t stop him, and in that moment, you realized you didn’t want to.

The moment stretched, suspended in a breathless stillness. His hands slid further beneath the fabric of your dress, inching slowly higher until they reached your waist. There, his fingers caressed your skin with a softness that both quickened your pulse and made your heart race ahead of any coherent thought. The gentle press of his hands against you was enough to make your body ache, silently begging for more. In that suspended moment, your body screamed to surrender, every nerve alight with the need to give in—but your mind, though fragile, still fought desperately to hold on.

Then, in a single heartbeat, when his grip tightened possessively around your waist, the weight of everything you had been ignoring crashed down on you with brutal force.

You pulled back sharply, your breath ragged and uneven. “We can’t… Maelor, we can’t do this,” you whispered, your voice barely audible as you forced the distance between you. Shame and desire swirled together in your chest, leaving your skin burning with the memory of his touch, each place his hands had been still aflame. The ache of wanting him, and the guilt that gnawed at your soul, tangled so tightly that you could hardly breathe.

His eyes searched yours, confusion flickering in their depths before he slowly released you, his hands falling to his sides. Yet, despite the distance you’d forced between you, the raw desire in his gaze lingered.

“I—” he began, his voice thick with unspoken words, but you shook your head, cutting him off before he could finish.

“Not here. Not like this.” Your voice wavered, fragile and trembling, each word tasting of heartbreak as it left your lips. The weight of what you were saying felt like it might crush you, but it had to be spoken. “It’s the only thing I have left…” The final words came out as a whisper, laced with pain, as though this last shred of control was all that tethered you to who you once were, and to the vows you had sworn.

— next chapter

a/n part 2: god how i LOVE to yap …. i’m sorry for no aegon in this. i’m thinking so many thoughts right now. i have so much to say… but i feel like nothing’s happening… anyways. and i don’t know how far i want to take this, because i was writing the blood and cheese scene and then i saw crazytom’s art of jaehaera and jaehaerys and i don’t want to kill him… so i don’t know. and also i wrote something of the reader and their dragon bonding but where the hell am i supposed to put that? so maybe i’ll add like an extra scene or something :3 because i thought it was cute.

[melancholicmelanin]

Compress/Repress | Masterlist

Four lives collide in a decades-long whirlwind of love, rivalry, and buried secrets. What begins as a chance encounter between seeming strangers quickly spirals into a web of hidden truths, shattered dreams, and the kind of messy relationships you only read about in the pages of Us Weekly. As the years pass, the bonds between them—fueled by ambition and desire—start to unravel, forcing each to confront a haunting question: Can you ever outrun the past, or will it inevitably catch up to you?

Chapter 1 - Sins of The Father

Chapter 2 - Sister, Sister Out Now!

Chapter 3 - Coming Soon

Chapter 4 - ???

Chapter 5 - ???

If your interested in receiving updates on Compress/Repress, please comment below and you will be added into the taglist.

Don't forget to like and reblog!

[genshinluvr]

Burning Desire 4

Pairings: Various Genshin Men x Isekai'd!Reader (Al Haitham x Isekai'd!Reader)

Summary: Awaken from your slumber due to the burning pit in your stomach, you decide to take a shower early morning, hoping it will cool you off. After your shower, you leave your bedroom to see a shirtless Al Haitham reading a book at your desk. You weren't sure why Al Haitham is in your bedroom, but he has his reasons for visiting you.

Note: I've been busy dealing with some things outside of my fanfics, and I haven't been able to type as much as I would like. Therefore, Al Haitham's smut is a bit shorter than the previous routes in the Burning Desire smut series. Again, the smut routes aren't supposed to be as long as the first "chapter" of the series and Crave. It's pure smut and has no plot, so some smut will be shorter depending on how it flows. As previously stated in my previous smut-fics, I tried to keep the story as gender-neutral as possible. All of my smuts do lean towards female!reader/AFAB!reader with gender-neutral pronouns. As usual, minors DO NOT INTERACT! I don't post anywhere else but on Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and on AO3 (Aaliah_exo).

Warnings: Horribly written smut, as per usual ✨ slight masturbation/groping (?), orgasm denial, mating press, fingering, handjob, cervix fucking, slight choking, doggy style, slight overstimulation, slight voyeurism

Word Count: 4.1k

Burning Desire "chapters"/routes: [1], [2], [3], [4]

You tried to sleep, but the burning pit in your stomach was unbearable. You’re worn out from getting dicked down by Scaramouche and Tighnari, and you can use some sleep. Unfortunately for you, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be happening any time soon. You would fall asleep for a few hours but wake up to the unbearable throbbing between your legs. You need someone to drill their cock into you, or else you will go crazy. 

The first thing you did when you wake up for the umpteenth time in the middle of the night is to masturbate. It provided a small amount of relief, but the same feeling will come back. The same burning desire will hit you like a sumpter beast, causing you to writhe around on your bed despite having your fingers buried deep in your entrance and cumming multiple times. Okay, well, ‘multiple times’ is a bit of an exaggeration— three times is the correct number.

Archons, you even went as far as taking a cold shower at four in the morning while everyone was still sleeping in their beds. You’re hoping the men who have a keen sense of hearing and smell don’t wake up to your activities. That would be even more embarrassing. The shower lasts almost two hours— your body’s really hot, and the cold water raining down on you feels so nice that it nearly makes you forget that you inhaled a large amount of aphrodisiac. 

You step out of your bathroom, hair still drenched from your shower. You stop in your tracks when you see the Scribe sitting at your desk, reading a book. You blink at Al Haitham and peek at the clock in your bedroom. It’s almost six in the morning, and yet the gray-haired man is in your bedroom, wearing nothing but gray silk pajama pants.

You rub your eyes and gingerly sit on your bed. “Al Haitham? What are you doing up around this time?” You ask, getting under your blanket.

You squeeze your eyes shut briefly when the ache between your legs spikes up when you press your thighs together. You’re hoping that Al Haitham either leaves your room soon or he buries his cock inside you until you wake up everyone in the abode. Your mind is constantly racing ever since you breathe in the aphrodisiac, and you can never get peace of mind. Al Haitham closes his book, turning to face you and spreading his legs wide open. You gulp and look away, running your hands through your damp hair to distract yourself from looking at the faint tent forming in his pajama pants. 

Al Haitham rests his arm on the armrest, staring at you intently in the darkness of your room. Light peeking through the blackout curtains of your room, illuminating your bedroom. You gulp and hug your knees to your chest, waiting for Al Haitham to say something. Al Haitham sighs and leans back in his seat; you can see his muscles ripple and flex whenever he moves. Archons, he is so handsome. 

“I wanted to check up on you. I didn’t think you’d be awake so early,” says Al Haitham, crossing his arms over his chest.

Archons. The way his biceps flexes when he crosses his arms over his chest. You gulp and lie down, not taking your eyes off the gray-haired Scribe. Why is Al Haitham acting so casual with you when he knows you’re having inner turmoil. You want to skin yourself alive for feeling this way. The intense need for someone to be buried balls deep inside your entrance until you’re crying and begging for them to give you a break.

You nod, trying to act casual. “My bedroom was hot, and I was sweating in my sleep. I didn’t want to lay in a puddle of sweat, so I went to take a shower,” you lie.

Al Haitham hums, nodding slowly. You curl up into a ball, waiting for Al Haitham to leave your room. Judging by the way he’s sitting on the chair near your desk, you don’t think he will be leaving your bedroom any time soon. Al Haitham suddenly stands up, stretching his arms in the air and yawning. You blink and quickly look at the tent in his pants before looking away before Al Haitham can catch you in the act. You pretend to look at the clock, gesturing to it.

“I think you should go to bed. It’s still early in the morning,” you say, pulling your blanket up to your chin and closing your eyes. 

Al Haitham raises his eyebrows at you. “Oh? You want me to leave already? I thought you would want me to help you with your problem,” Al Haitham says nonchalantly, walking toward your bed.

You crack an eye open and nearly jump out of your skin when you see how close he is to you. Al Haitham kneels on your bed and towers over you, caging you against your bed with his arms on both sides of your head while you look up at him like a deer caught in headlights. Al Haitham tilts his head, cocking an eyebrow at you, waiting for you to respond. 

You clear your throat, snuggling deep into your blanket to distract yourself from Al Haitham’s stare and the dampness pooling in your underwear. Al Haitham is so freaking breathless— the veins on his arms are driving you crazy. He’s so handsome, and he knows it. Al Haitham clears his throat, grabbing you by the chin to have you look into his eyes. 

“Are you going to answer my question or not?” Al Haitham asks.

You nod sheepishly, making Al Haitham look at you skeptically. 

“Is that a yes to the question I just asked or the previous question?”

You stare at Al Haitham and rub the back of your neck. “I do want you to help me, but it’s embarrassing, and it’s too early in the morning to be having sex,” you mutter.

Al Haitham clicks his tongue and releases your chin, now sitting at the edge of your bed. You sit up and rest your chin on your knees, staring at the gray-haired man before you. Al Haitham leans back and runs his fingers through his bedhead. Archons, his bedhead is too cute. For someone who’s aching to get railed, you act like a prude— despite having two men fucking a couple of orgasms from you.

Al Haitham strokes his chin. “You don’t have to worry about waking the others if you can keep your volume to a minimum,” Al Haitham comments, grabbing at his aching cock through his silk pajamas.

You gulp and watch Al Haitham stroke and squeeze his cock. Heat rushes to your cheeks when you realize Al Haitham is staring at you, waiting for you to respond. How are you going to keep your volume at a minimal volume when you have something thick or long pistoning into your entrance?

“But there are people in the abode that have a keen sense of hearing, Al Haitham,” you whine.

Al Haitham squeezes the base of his cock through his pajama pants, grunting quietly when you whine his name. You cover your face, trying to get the image of Al Haitham hovering over you out of your head. Al Haitham releases his dick and crawls over you, pinning you down on your bed.

“So? What are they going to do about it, hmm? I am helping you, aren’t I?” Al Haitham mutters, brushing the tip of his nose against your cheek before peppering kisses on your cheek.

Al Haitham is not wrong about that. The aphrodisiac is still in your system, and it doesn’t seem like it’s not going away any time soon. Plus, the aphrodisiac is just the same as it was when the symptoms kicked in. You don’t think you can handle the thought of Al Haitham plowing into you while the others are asleep and when Gorou and Tighnari can wake up to the littlest sounds coming from you.

You close your eyes, wrapping your arms around Al Haitham’s shoulders as he kisses down your neck, lightly nibbling and biting your neck. You shiver and dig your nails into his back as Al Haitham latches his lips into your collarbone, lightly sucking on it. 

Al Haitham murmurs against your neck, “If you want me to stop, let me know, and I’ll stop.”

You run your fingers through Al Haitham’s hair, tilting your head to the side to give him some room to suck on your neck.

You let out a shaky sigh when he sucks on your neck. “I don’t want you to stop,” you whisper, tugging on his hair.

Al Haitham smirks against your neck and stops sucking on your neck. Al Haitham grabs your blanket and rips it off your body, leaving you only in your oversized t-shirt. You hear a sharp intake of breath from Al Haitham when he sees that you’re not wearing anything underneath the large t-shirt.

“You naughty little thing,” Al Haitham whispers, shaking his head with a smirk.

You whine and hide your face with one hand while attempting to pull your shirt down to cover your exposed groin with the other. Al Haitham clicks his tongue, shaking his head with disapproval. Al Haitham grabs you by your wrist and pins them over your head with one hand while lifting your shirt until your chest is exposed. 

Al Haitham spreads your legs with his knees before kneeling between your legs. Al Haitham releases your shirt and lifts your leg. Al Haitham swipes his index and middle finger up your wet entrance, making you jolt with surprise. You tremble beneath Al Haitham as he continues to coat his fingers in your slick, muttering about how wet you are for him. 

“Al Haitham, please…” You trail off, gazing at him through your lashes.

Al Haitham plunges his middle and ring finger into your entrance. You tense up and let out a choked gasp. You tried to cover your mouth to muffle your moans, but you couldn’t free yourself from Al Haitham’s iron grip. You wrap your legs around his waist as he pulls his fingers out from your entrance before slamming them back into your gummy walls, making you writhe and arch your back beneath him. 

Archons, you’re so wet that every time Al Haitham thrusts his fingers into your sopping-wet cavern, you and Al Haitham would hear squelching, and your juices would coat the inside of your thighs. Al Haitham groans, feeling how tight you are around his fingers. Your back arches every time Al Haitham’s long fingers jab a particular spot inside you, causing you to choke out a moan and clench around his fingers.

“Al Haitham…” You whimper, attempting to free yourself from his iron grip.

Al Haitham suddenly pulls his fingers out. You nearly whine at the feeling of emptiness. Al Haitham releases your wrists before grabbing your shirt collar with both hands, tearing your shirt in half. You watch Al Haitham toss your shirt to the side carelessly before taking his pajama pants, leaving him only in his black boxers. 

You can see his bulge clear as day— the tent in his boxers is bigger than it was before. Al Haitham cages you against your bed with his arms before pressing his lips against yours. You wrap your legs around his waist, pressing your bare entrance against Al Haitham’s pulsating cock. The only thing that is getting in the way of you feeling Al Haitham’s cock is his boxers.

Al Haitham breaks the kiss and presses his forehead against your shoulders, breathing heavily. Al Haitham begins grinding his clothed cock against your entrance. You panted, eyes rolling to the back of your head when his cock rubbed up against your swollen bundle of nerves. You clench around nothing, biting on your lips to muffle your gasps. Al Haitham blindly reaches down to his boxers and begins taking his underwear off and tossing them to the ground beside your bed. You sigh in relief when you feel his hot cock press against your entrance. You peek down to see Al Haitham’s cock— the bulbous tip is red with need, pre-cum beading at the tip. 

Al Haitham slowly ruts his cock against your entrance, coating the base of his cock in your essence. You reach down to grab his cock by the base, gently squeezing them. Al Haitham hisses and squeezes his eyes shut. You gently stroke his cock before rubbing the mushroom tip of his cock with your thumb, spreading his pre-cum around. 

“You’re incredibly sensitive, Al Haitham,” you murmur, giving his cock a light squeeze.

Al Haitham hisses again before burying his face into the crook of your neck, panting heavily against your neck as you continue to stroke his cock. You stoke his throbbing dick slowly, making sure to lightly squeeze the tip and rub the tip of your thumb over the mushroom tip. Al Haitham releases a guttural moan and bucks into your hands, his eyes rolling to the back of his head when you tighten your grip around his red cock. 

You continue pumping Al Haitham’s throbbing member until Al Haitham lets out a choked moan. Al Haitham grabs your wrist and forcibly removes your hand from his dick. Al Haitham gulps, pinning your hand to your side as he tries to catch his breath. 

You press your lips into a thin line. “I almost made Al Haitham cum.” You can’t help but feel proud of yourself for being able to (almost) have Al Haitham cum with just your hands.

Al Haitham looks at you and slowly stands, brushing his messy hair from his face. Al Haitham grabs you by the waist and pulls you down. You squeal and gasp when Al Haitham slaps your already aching entrance. Al Haitham grabs your engorged bundle of nerves and pinches them hard. You grit your teeth and curl your toes, legs shaking as Al Haitham rubs the nub at a fierce pace. 

You grab Al Haitham’s wrists, attempting to get him to stop before he makes you cum. “Stop, stop, stop, stop! I’m going to cum if you don’t stop!” You whine as you flail your legs around.

The tight knot forms at the bottom of your abdomen, getting incredibly tighter while Al Haitham continues to pinch, twist, and rub your swollen, aching nub. You shudder and tense up, preparing yourself for your impending orgasm. When the tight knot in your lower abdomen is about to snap and unleash the floodgates, Al Haitham releases your throbbing nub.

You look at Al Haitham, eyes wide and chest heaving with heavy breaths. “Al Haitham! Why’d you stop!?” you whine softly, grabbing his wrist and shaking his arm.

Al Haitham spreads your legs and slaps your sopping-wet entrance, making you involuntarily clench around nothing. You rest your head on your pillow and close your eyes, trying to catch your breath while Al Haitham coats the underside of his cock with your slick. You gasp softly when you feel Al Haitham’s hot cock rubs against your puffy entrance.

You’re not sure if you’re feeling extra needy because of the aphrodisiac or if it’s because Al Haitham denied you of your orgasm. Maybe it’s both. Al Haitham lifts your legs by the thighs, having your calves rest on his shoulders as he lines the tip of his cock at your entrance. Archons, this isn’t going to be the first time getting railed by your boyfriends, but for some reason, you can’t help but feel nervous about it. Sensing your anxiousness, Al Haitham kisses the back of your calves and gives your thigh a reassuring squeeze. You smile at Al Haitham and swallow your saliva. You grip Al Haitham’s thighs, gently digging your nails into his flesh. You close your eyes, take a deep breath, and brace yourself. Al Haitham rubs the bulbous tip of his dick against your fluttery entrance before slowly entering your drenched hole. Your jaws drop, letting out a string of moans when Al Haitham’s mushroom tip breaches your entrance. You unintentionally clench your thighs around his waist, tensing below Al Haitham the more he sinks his cock into your gummy walls with a semi-loud moan.

You whimper when Al Haitham’s thick cock stretches you out. You squeeze your thighs around Al Haitham’s waist, causing him to stop halfway in your hot cavern. Al Haitham pants, balling his hands into fists beside your head. Al Haitham closes his eyes, relishing the feeling of your gummy walls clamping around his throbbing dick.

Al Haitham leans over you, his chest pressing against your face while he buries his face into your pillow. “Try to relax for me, baby. Please,” Al Haitham rasps, reaching down to grab your hand.

You whimper, holding Al Haitham’s hands and interlocking your fingers with his. “I-I’m trying,” you whisper, eyebrows furrowing while trying to relax and adjust to Al Haitham’s size.

Al Haitham nudges his nose against yours, his lips ghosting over yours. Al Haitham presses his lips against yours, swallowing your moans and whimpers when he sinks further into your heat. You wrap your legs around Al Haitham’s slim waist, heels digging into his ass cheeks. Al Haitham grunts into your mouth, balls deep inside your entrance. 

Al Haitham stretching your hole is painful— you could’ve sworn that if Al Haitham was any thicker than he already is, he’d stretch you out so much that your entrance would rip to shreds. You can literally feel the skin stretch to accommodate his girth. You wrap your arm around Al Haitham’s shoulders while squeezing Al Haitham’s hand with the other. 

Al Haitham gently thrusts forward to test the waters. You clench around Al Haitham’s cock, panting into his mouth. Al Haitham pulls away from the kiss and kisses your jawline while pressing his chest against yours, refusing to release your hand. Your thighs are shaking as you try your best to relax and not tense up each time Al Haitham thrusts lightly into you.

Al Haitham can feel you tremble while peppering kisses on your jaws and neck. He gently massages your inner thighs, closing his eyes while trying to adjust to the tightness of your entrance.

You unclench your legs around Al Haitham’s waist and signal him to start. Al Haitham pushes himself off you and kneels between your legs, lifting your legs up, and begins thrusting into your drenched entrance at a steady pace. You pant, eyes rolling to the back of your head every time Al Haitham thrusts in and out of your hole. The veiny base of Al Haitham’s cock rubs against the gummy walls of your warm, tight cavern, sending you to Celestia and back. 

“Fuck, Al Haitham,” you whimper, squeezing your eyes shut each time Al Haitham buries his cock into you. 

Al Haitham chokes out a moan, hugging your legs to his chest while thrusting. Al Haitham lifts your legs up until your ass is hanging above the bed. Al Haitham leans forward, folding you in half until your feet are above your head. You grunt when you feel the muscles of your thighs strain under the pressure. Al Haitham kisses the back of your calves, pulling his cock out until only the tip remains.

Al Haitham plunges only the tip of his cock in and out of your entrance, making you wince and shudder at the strange feeling. If you could describe how it feels, it feels like Al Haitham is almost scooping your insides out. It’s hard for you to put your finger on it— it’s the best way you can describe it, and it feels strange. You don’t think anyone has ever fucked you with just the tip of their cock.

Al Haitham continues to plunge the tip of his dick into your entrance repeatedly. You tense up, whimper, and clamp your thighs together. Without warning, Al Haitham thrusts his cock all the way into your drooling hole. Al Haitham chokes a moan and collapses on top of you when your gummy walls clench around his member. 

Al Haitham props himself up on his forearms and begins pumping his cock in and out of your entrance. Your thigh muscles strain under Al Haitham’s weight, making you whimper and grunt at the feeling. Al Haitham hooks one leg over his shoulder while wrapping the other around his waist without stopping or slowing down. Al Haitham grabs your throat with one hand before aggressively pressing his lips against yours, quickening his pace.

You bite Al Haitham’s lips, making him growl and slam his dick into you so hard that you see stars dancing behind your vision. Al Haitham swallows your wails as you try to keep your voice down. Much to your dismay, a familiar feeling starts building up in your lower abdomen as Al Haitham continues to abuse your hole with his thick cock sooner than you thought.

You break the kiss, panting and squealing as Al Haitham drills his cock deep into you. “Al Haitham! I’m going to cum,” you whine, weakly punching his shoulders.

Al Haitham slides his hands down from your throat to your groin and slaps your puffy entrance, making sure to hit your bundle of nerves. You grit your teeth and squeeze your eyes shut, tightening your leg around Al Haitham’s waist. Al Haitham starts rubbing your engorged nub aggressively, making sure to piston his cock into your g-spot. 

Al Haitham leans down and bites your neck hard, his eyes rolling to the back of his head when your gummy walls squeeze his cock so tightly that thick ropes of hot cum spurt into you. You whimper cum around his cock, back arching, chest pressing against Al Haitham’s heaving chest, eyes rolling to the back of your head as stars spin and dance behind your eyelids. You go limp and lay beneath Al Haitham in a daze, trying to catch your breath as your groin continues to pulse.

Al Haitham pulls his cock out from your now-sullied entrance before getting off your bed. You peek at Al Haitham to see him standing at the foot of your bed. Al Haitham slicks his hair back before grabbing your ankles and pulling you toward the edge of your bed. You’re too tired to fight back. Instead, you let Al Haitham do as he pleases. Al Haitham spreads your legs, watching his and your mixed cum spill from your pulsing hole. Al Haitham flips you over on your stomach and bends you over with your ass in the air.

“Another round?” You mumble, rubbing your eyes.

Al Haitham grunts in response before slamming his cock back inside. You squeal and grip your bedsheets hard, burying your face into your mattress as Al Haitham pistons his cock into your entrance. Al Haitham spreads your cheeks, watching his and your cum coat his dick and spill onto your bedsheets. The only thing Al Haitham hears are the sounds of your moans and whimpers. Something in the corner of Al Haitham’s eyes distracts him for a moment. Al Haitham looks up to see your bedroom door cracked open and a shadow standing at the doorway. The shadowy figure watches Al Haitham pistons his cock in and out of your sulled, pulsating entrance. Al Haitham smirks at the person, grabs a handful of your hair, and pulls you back toward his chest. You groan and close your eyes, wrapping your arm around his neck while digging your nails into your thighs. Your gummy walls pulse around Al Haitham’s cock as you whimper and writhe in Al Haitham’s grasp. Al Haitham doesn’t take his eyes off the shadowy figure, making sure to give the unknown person a show.

Al Haitham hisses when you clench around his cock, taking his attention away from the unknown person at the door and down at you. You choke out a wail, cumming around Al Haitham’s cock for the second time before going limp while Al Haitham proceeds to pump and grind his cock into your entrance. 

‘I can do this all day,’ Al Haitham pants, filling your hole with cum.

Al Haitham pulls his cock out of your battered entrance, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Al Haitham glances at the door, only to see that the door is now shut. You curl up in a ball and groan when the mixture of your and Al Haitham’s cum spills out of you. 

You rub your eyes, muttering, “Now I know how creampuffs feel.”

Al Haitham snorts and lays beside you, wrapping his arms around your waist, pulling you to his chest, and pulling a blanket over your body. Al Haitham kisses the side of your head and squeezes you lightly. You moan quietly when you feel cum leaking from your hole as the burning pit in your stomach remains ravenous. 

Note: I won't be posting next week because I decided that it would be a perfect time to take a break from writing and posting for this upcoming week. Not only have I been busy, but I haven't had the motivation to write/continue fanfics because of how exhausted I have been lately. But fear not, I will post the week after my break! I'm thinking about continuing Tragic Outcomes, but we'll have to wait and see about that 🤔 Anyway! Ready to vote for the next route in Burning Desire? Remember to vote for who you want to be in the next fic and read the instructions carefully— which should be simple enough, I hope. Vote for the next route [HERE]! Anyway, to all my new and returning readers, keep in mind that I ONLY post on my Tumblr (Genshinluvr) and my AO3 (Aaliah_exo)! Nowhere else except Tumblr and AO3!

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