#but that's because i didn't know him well

[kashverse]

the first time it happens, sukuna doesn't even react.

your daughter, a tiny little thing with a head full of wild hair that looks just like his but with your color, storms up to him while he's adjusting his tie. she's got a determined look on her face, a plastic figurine clutched in her tiny hands—a sonny angel doll, of all things.

"papa, hold," she demands, her chubby fingers working to shove it into the breast pocket of his pristine, custom-made suit. he looks down at her, red eyes blinking slowly. then he looks at you, standing off to the side, barely holding back your laughter.

"what is this?" he asks flatly.

"sonny angel," your daughter says like it's obvious. "he's cute. for you."

you make a choked noise behind your hand, and sukuna exhales through his nose. his baby girl, his tiny menace, is standing there with all the confidence of someone who has never been told 'no' in her life. because, well. she hasn't. so what does he do? he lets her shove the damn thing in his pocket. adjusts it a little so it's sitting neatly, because if he's going to have a tiny cherub-faced baby figurine sticking out of his suit, it's at least going to look intentional.

"happy?" he asks.

his daughter beams at him, gives his pant leg a firm pat like he's done a good job, then scurries off to continue whatever other toddler nonsense she was up to before this. you’re wheezing in the corner.

"don't say a word," he warns, fixing his cuffs.

you grin. "i didn't say anything."

cut to his meeting later that day. sukuna walks in like he owns the place (because he does), radiating his usual aura of dominance and unrelenting authority. his executives are already seated, tense and ready, knowing full well that sukuna does not entertain idiocy. but today? today there is something new. today, nestled neatly in the breast pocket of his three-piece suit, is a tiny, plastic baby figurine wearing a duck hat.

the entire room freezes.

one poor soul, likely new and unaware of how the corporate hierarchy works under sukuna, makes the grave mistake of letting out the faintest, almost imperceptible snort.

sukuna turns his head very slowly.

"who the fuck just laughed?"

silence. absolute, suffocating silence. the man looks down at his notes as if they might save him from impending doom.

sukuna leans back in his chair, tapping a clawed finger against the conference table.

"anyone else got something to say about my sonny angel?"

no one breathes.

good.

he conducts the rest of the meeting as if nothing is out of place, occasionally adjusting the little doll in his pocket like it's just another part of his attire.

by the end of the week, rumors have spread. no one dares to question the sonny angel. entire powerpoint presentations are given with the utmost professionalism while a tiny, smiling cherub peeks out of sukuna’s suit.

by the end of the month, it becomes an unofficial rule of the office. mock the sonny angel? fired. make a comment? fired. even looking at it for too long earns you a pointed glare.

and by the end of the quarter, the entire upper management team has started discreetly wearing their own sonny angels in solidarity. your daughter, completely oblivious to the corporate chaos she has caused, simply continues her toddler life, happy and content in the knowledge that her papa always carries her gift with him.

and sukuna? well. if having a tiny plastic baby in his pocket means seeing his little girl’s delighted grin every morning, then so be it.

[mandalhoerian]

Fish in a Birdcage ৎ୭

ৎ୭ ⸻ rafayel has quite the storm raging in his mind during his artistic expedition to aridum. which, the root of his crisis he was trying to wean himself off of wasn't supposed to tag along to make him spiral further. funny thing is, you just think he's sick. he is. just infected by something far worse than you can imagine: crippling dependency.

ৎ୭ ⸻ SO MUCH BUILD-UP, momentary sickfic, anxious attachment issues, rafayel being hot and cold with the reader, angst, exhibitionism for like 0.01 seconds bc of bond shenanigans, switch4switch and constantly changing dynamics that comes with it, handjob, slight obedience kink, impromptu bondage play with rafayel's neck piece praise kink, obedience kink blink and you miss it, p in v, CLOTHED SEX ITS SO HOT 2 ME, unprotected sex, multiple rounds.

ৎ୭ ⸻ hello lads fandom, FIRST WORK HERE (it sucked my soul out i've been working on this for like tHREE weeks)!!! this is my adaptation of rafayel's nightly rendezvous card intertidal zone. a lot of it is based on my reading and understanding of the card, i'm so sorry for releasing this when caleb just released but, i hope you enjoy, much love <3 ( lil tag: @comatosebunny09 )

ৎ୭ ⸻ 26K, read on ao3

In retrospect, finding out Aridum was a city in the middle of a desert should have made you stop and think more about how the climate would actually affect Rafayel before diving straight into travel plans.

You know, a Lemurian.

Who, logically, wouldn’t fare well in the dry heat.

Rafayel flicking off your genuine concern like it was a bug on the surface tension of his fish tank was the first red flag you should have paid more attention to. In your defense, since he’d been there before and was confident enough to initiate banter, it was easy to give in and trust he knew what he was doing as he batted his lashes at you with those pretty dual-colored, sparkly wide eyes that left you starstruck in the face and said, “As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine.”

Well. He was with you now and he wasn’t fine.

Because for once in his life, Rafayel didn’t have enough energy to run laps around you. Just a few minutes outside the hotel, lingering near the grand fountain square framed by towering palm trees that offered scant shade, and he began to deflate pitifully like a garish balloon leaking its vigor into the sweltering air. His usual dynamism, the kind that pulled attention to him as effortlessly as a river carved its path, had dimmed to a sluggish ebb, so much so you found yourself glancing over your shoulder every ten seconds, vigilance heightened by the unsettling absence of his ever-present current. The languid pace like he was moving through molasses made him look like an entirely different person than the one tugging you through the airport with even the luggage excitedly rolling behind him.

And it had been just a single day since you’d set foot in Aridum.

That wasn’t to say the trip had been a disaster or he was in terrible shape — you two were still on day one. Back in Linkon, he was, on paper, enthusiastic about pointing out local landmarks for you to go together like he knew the city personally, but he had quickly lost that energy when it actually came to the execution. You chalked it up to him not being able to get any sleep the previous night because of a mix of jetlag and the discomfort of a new bed, but regardless, it was still concerning to watch him only interested in stopping by street stands where he could buy himself cold water bottles and stand in a shaded corner in order to drink them slowly under shelter, while also dragging you with him, so there wouldn't be even a split-second distance between you two.

You were thankful you didn't have many plans in mind. Rafayel always packed enough enthusiasm for the both of you, but now, as you watched with wide-eyed worry how his spark had suddenly wilted, the drastic shift in his personality left him finding everything he suggested doing utterly unnecessary for the day. On top of that, after only managing to sit still for five minutes or so, it'd become obvious to see that the environment of this city, complete with a sun beating down hot enough to cook you alive, had taken a toll on Rafayel's temperament far more drastically than expected — rendering his eagerness completely sour.

But still, you wanted to cheer him up, you did. It broke your heart seeing someone who brought so much life into every room shrivel down to such a defeated shell. Maybe that's why you couldn't help yourself when you caught him pouting at something on the phone screen as if it'd done him a great offense.

So, you began teasing. “Rafayel, we haven’t even been out for thirty minutes, you're sweating already?"

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” you countered, only to squint at his face more closely. “Wait. You’re not?”

He threw his arms out like he was expecting a grander reaction. “Do you know what that means?”

“That you’re a human raisin in the making?”

He groaned, a sound that was more theatrical than pained, but you still caught the edge of frustration in it. “It means I’m seconds away from crumbling into sand. You’ll have to gather me up and carry me home in a jar.”

You started walking towards one of the fountains near some empty seats where shade was available, while he dragged himself behind you like a zombie. "Let's sit you down before you begin to form cracks."

The fountain’s spray misted faintly in the air, enough to make the stone bench beneath feel less like a skillet. Rafayel took extra care positioning himself on one of the seats before collapsing backward, draping one arm over his flushed face.

He took the bottle of yet another ice cold water you fished out from your bag without protest, but his free hand found your wrist and lingered there — light at first, then tighter, like he needed to anchor himself. The unexpected heat radiating from his skin sent a little jolt up your arm. You were about to comment on it, but then he tipped the bottle back and drank, and you swore you could feel the tension in his throat as if it was your own.

When he finished, he let out a breath — not a sigh, just an exhale that sounded heavy, deliberate, sprawling beside you, one leg stretched out, the other bouncing restlessly as he tilted his head back and squinted at the cloudless sky.

“I think I’m dying,” he announced, as if that wasn’t thr fourth time he’d said it today.

After your attention was made aware that he indeed wasn’t sweating by the dry hairline of his, though, the mood to banter had dissipated like a mirage. You began fussing. Was it normal that he didn’t sweat? If a normal person was like this, they needed to be taken to the hospital. However, Rafayel had done nothing but up the ante in complaining, that had to indicate nothing was seriously wrong, right? He’d know his body the best. Right?

“I told you to put on sunscreen this morning. Did you?”

He scoffed, “I don’t need it,” — and you heard the imaginary Lemurian in his tone rolling his eyes at your human expectations.

“Not with that attitude,” you shut him down, already skimming through your bag at an increasingly faster pace. “Now, keep still.”

Finding what you were looking for, you uncapped the bottle, reaching out with one hand to tilt Rafayel’s head left and right to gauge where to start. His skin under the pads of your fingertips felt almost brittle and paper-thin — unnatural on Rafayel, making you unconsciously rub like it was a stain you could get rid of. Without meaning to, you frowned, and he made a soft, lukewarm grumble, nudging your leg with his foot, reminding you what you were doing. Which was fussing over a grown man who should have been responsible from the start and able to take care of himself.

“Show me your forehead,” you said, wanting to get it out the way first.

He obediently carded his bangs back, silent, half-hooded eyes flicking everywhere on your face going ignored as you rubbed sunscreen in and felt what alarmingly was similar to a fever. It was a relief to hear him humming at the feeling, you hoped it would help as you quickly moved to spread the white lotion over his cheeks and smeared a stripe right across the bridge of his nose as he fixed his hair, squinting at your ministrations.

Though, somehow, he looked contented enough that you had to stop him from nuzzling into your hand. “Rafayel, I’m working here.”

All you got was a breathy, “Mmm,” as if he was speaking through the pleasant haze of sleep.

How contradictory of him, as always. For someone constantly grumbling about the unbearable heat, he leaned into every touch with a docility that defied reason — and worse, he initiated them, either molding against you like water taking the shape of the container it was poured into, or his fingers ghosting over your skin as though drawn by instinct. You couldn’t make sense of it. The mere thought of physical contact when the air was this heavy and oppressive made your skin crawl, but he seemed to revel in it. No, thrived on it.

It wasn’t just the way he didn’t flinch — he leaned in harder, his breaths hitching faintly, brow furrowed like he was wrestling with a need he barely understood. You’d swear the heat radiating from your skin would only make it worse, yet he tilted his face into your touch as though your thumbs brushing his cheekbones offered a balm, a strange, cooling relief.

Maybe, he perceived your skin to be indeed cooler than his.

It had to be something unique to his Lemurian physiology. His reactions didn’t make sense otherwise. What human would ever enjoy the sensation of warmth pressed against warmth in such sweltering conditions? And yet here he was, biting back what suspiciously sounded like a placid sigh, while you struggled to reconcile the peculiar contradiction.

“C’mon, don’t let me do all the work,” you muttered, quieter than you intended, the heat and the moment distracting you entirely.

You must have sounded a tad bit worried, because Rafayel didn’t react with his usual playful defiance or the melodramatic sulking he resorted to when things didn’t go his way. Instead, he fell silent, sinking more fully against your side as though he belonged there, and successfully narrowed the angle you were working with. His head tilted slightly, guiding your hand to the sharp line of his jaw with an unspoken invitation, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked, the haze of his voice turning soft and almost vulnerable. You couldn’t even see his face properly from looking at the top of the purple mop of hair blocking you.

"Do my neck too?"

Before you could decide, his hand encircled your wrist. Not tightly — not forcefully — but with a loose, guiding pressure that was maddeningly deliberate. He led your lotion-slicked hand to curve around his throat, the smooth, simmering heat of his skin pressing against your palm.

You hesitated, the instinct to pull away warring with the strange tension settling between you both, but his thumb found the delicate underside of your wrist and began tracing slow, thoughtful patterns that seemed designed to leave you paralyzed. You knew damn well how tenderly and skillfully he handled paintbrushes, and it was evident by the practiced precision of each touch that he was using the same sensibility on you, whether he was fully aware of it or not, which sent a warm burst of blood rising to your cheeks.

Seeming restless, Rafayel sat up straight and finally allowed you a clear view of him. His head tipped further back, exposing more of his neck to your hand, eyes darkened into to a shade of purple that seemed otherworldly in the harsh light of day. They glittered like faceted amethysts film-burned blue around the edges, soaking in every sunlit fleck of your features with a focus that made your chest tighten, like you were being studied with the assessment of the artist Rafayel before another’s painting, his focus unbroken save for the low hum he let slip, soft and unguarded.

You swallowed hard, aware of how exposed you were. The bustling world of Aridum hadn’t stopped turning just because the two of you had stumbled into whatever this was. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of your neck, but it wasn’t just the desert heat making you feel like you were suffocating.

This shouldn’t have been happening. Not here, not now.

Your breath shuddered as you finally regained enough sense to break the silence. "Do it yourself," you murmured, voice uneven as you pressed the bottle of sunscreen into his chest. You looked away, clumsily rubbing your hands on your arms to mask the way they trembled, pretending to rid yourself of excess lotion while wishing desperately to erase the heat radiating off your skin.

Rafayel sighed, a low sound of reluctant acceptance, as he pulled himself upright. His fingers glided over his neck, spreading the sunscreen where you hadn’t, his movements smooth and unaffected as he worked the lotion over his collarbones and along the nape of his neck. The sight was annoyingly graceful, as though he wasn’t feeling the same unbearable tension you were. If you’d have thought of bringing a small electric fan along today, it would have been inches from your face already.

"Maybe we should’ve gone out at night," you said abruptly, grasping for any lifeline to shift the moment’s focus. Your gaze darted to him as he worked, your cheeks burning hotter than the sunlight that baked the streets. "Now I feel bad."

"What for?"

"Making you come along. This must not be very inspiring.”

Rafayel let out an honest-to-goodness laugh. It rolled from his throat so easily and naturally that it seemed even he wasn’t aware of it until the sound tapered off into a quiet chuckle. Shaking his head, he leaned toward you until his temple rested lightly on your shoulder, his gaze unfocused as he stared absently at the fountain ahead. "I’m not giving up time with you just because the sun here wants me dead."

He completely bypassed the part about inspiration, but the sincerity in his words hit you like a splash of cool water on overheated skin. Your shoulders relaxed as you melted into a sigh, letting your head fall atop his, but the sticky warmth made the closeness unbearable almost instantly.

You promptly peeled yourself away with an, "Ugh.” He had already filled his making-you-feel-hot quota for the day, in every sense of the word.

Rafayel straightened just enough to meet your gaze, "That’s how you answer my heroic declaration?" he asked dryly, one brow arched in faux offense.

He didn’t budge, though, even though the heat seemed to bother him more than it did you. The stubborn set of his jaw spoke volumes, and it took a gentle nudge of your elbow to get him to finally sit upright. Even then, he let out a dramatic whine from deep in his chest as if being forced to separate was a personal betrayal.

"You’re lucky I’m rewarding it with mercy," you shot back, brushing a hand through your hair to vent your own rising frustration with the heat. "Come on, let’s head back. I need to get my fishie in the water before he dries up completely."

"But you wanted to see—"

"There’ll be plenty of opportunities in the future," you interrupted with a wave of your hand. "If anything, this was a good lesson about choosing the time we go out more carefully."

To your relief, Rafayel didn’t push back. He rose to his feet with you, though his sluggish movements and the slight downward pull of his lips suggested reluctance. As much as his leaning on you had been irritating in the heat, the sight of his faint frown made your chest tighten, and without thinking, you looped your arm through his and pulled him closer, even though the contact made your already overheated skin feel unbearable. His shoulders straightened slightly at the gesture, but the small crease between his brows didn’t disappear.

"I hear it’s seafood night at the hotel restaurant," you offered, attempting to lift his mood. He was obviously bummed out, but his stubbornness refused to show why outright. It was cute to a degree — childish almost, so endearing you couldn't find it in yourself to grow impatient with him. But you hated seeing him down. "If we head back now, we might snag a rooftop table.”

"Snag? Puh-lease. Worst case scenario, one glimpse of me and I could get us prime seating any time, anywhere," Rafayel scoffed. Still, the corner of his lip twitched upward as if tempted to smile, and you found yourself mirroring the reaction immediately. “And that whole thing would still be less bothersome than you assuming I haven’t secured us a reservation already.”

Later that evening, after dinner on the rooftop, the mix-up with the room service attendant delivering Rafayel’s envelope to your room turned out to be a convenient excuse to check on him. It had been hours since you insisted he take time to rest, and while he promised to settle in and let you know how he felt after freshening up, you hadn’t heard from him since.

You were greeted by the humidity hitting you in the face like a solid wall of rain when the door got opened though, instead of your boyfriend. Thick as fog like it had its own gravity.

Rafayel stood in the doorway, his hair dripping and clinging to his flushed skin in lazy dark purple rivulets, robe loose, the soft fabric blotched dark with water where droplets had slid from his neck and shoulders.

The room behind him radiated a different kind of heat — not the oppressive dryness of the desert, but the heavy, steamy warmth of someone trying to crawl their way back to comfort in the only way they knew how.

He looked better, at least.

The brittle edge that had been clinging to him seemed softened, as if he’d soaked away some of the tension in the beath he’d clearly stepped out of upon you knocking on his door.

Still, the sight of him — damp like a wet cat instead of a fish in his natural environment, robe-clad, the faint sheen of exhaustion still lingering in the way he leaned against the door frame left an odd twist in your chest.

He didn't look any worse for wear than he had earlier in the day when he’d claimed he wanted to spend the rest of his night marinating in ice cold water, and while seeing him not suffering was a relief, you clearly weren't expecting for him to actually mean what he said, even though the water obviously wasn’t ice cold.

The envelope, as it turned out, held a ticket to the memorial hall and an invitation to an art salon gathering hosted by one of his friends. Neither looked to be sparking any interest in Rafayel, however, despite him having come here for as much stimulation as possible for his inspiration.

You understood. It just wasn’t possible when he wasn’t feeling well.

The room itself was telling the entire story, in fact, chaotic in its stillness against the beauty of the floor-to ceiling windows framing the desert skyline in soft, shimmering lights of the city crowned by the full moon hanging proudly above. Papers were scattered across the floor in uneven piles, some curling slightly at the edges where they’d caught the artificial moisture in the air, blank and untouched, and some haphazardly sketched in a way you couldn't even begin to guess what they would become later. A few uncapped pens sat nearby, ink untouched, next to a can of soda that had long since gone warm. It wasn’t hard to guess what he’d been doing — or trying to do — in the hours since you’d left him.

So, you told him to stop forcing himself. Come enjoy the scenery with you.

It was your first instinct, but the words didn’t feel enough. You weren’t an artist, you didn’t know what would be good for the block he was going through. Even though your concern was genuine, you were clumsy at best at consolation.

But, he did lower himself onto the floor beside you anyway, his hands brushing against the scattered papers as he sat and leaned back on his palms. Like this, it was easy to imagine him search for his vision to come to him among the mess as he was attempting to draw, and end up with his gaze drifting out the window instead.

And then, as if he were a tide and the moonlight was pulling him inexorably to shore, he began to open up. Pushed by your mention of watching the view together, he spoke of sceneries. Of what traveling to discover secret corners of nature meant to him before everything changed — before he started creating. About how he used to just look at the world and feel it. Admire it. He didn’t need to do anything with it back then. A sunset was just a sunset, the sea was simply the sea, and neither asked anything of him but to exist alongside them.

Once he began to create, however...

Those discoveries done from a place of pure enjoyment became material, their beauty and pain turned into fuel. The act of looking became an act of taking. Of extracting. He started to see the world not as it was, but as something that could be stripped bare and transformed. A beautiful, bleeding wound. Every sunrise painted became a slice taken from the sun. Every ocean wave he put down on canvas was a handful of ocean lost. He couldn't experience sceneries for themselves anymore without having to to capture and translate them into a demand.

He didn’t look at you while he spoke, but the portrait of his honesty could be interpreted by even the most art-blind.

It was then that he dropped the bomb on you: “If one day, I become someone who only takes from you… If I were like that, would you leave me?”

That question dropped into the space between you like a stone in still water, sending ripples through everything you thought you understood about this moment.

But Rafayel was watching you in a way that made your pulse trip over itself, dissecting every flicker of your expression, like you were sitting in the middle of a high-stakes exam you hadn’t studied for. His fingers splayed on the ground besides yours were mere inches away, but even in that minimal distance, you sensed him drawing further back — a subconscious, reflexive reaction to fear, as if he needed to protect himself by retreating into some remote part of his mind, distant and closed off from the rest of him.

"Oh you silly fishie..." was your immediate response despite the whiplash he'd inflicted upon you, fondness rolling off your tongue easily, folding over itself into a dull ache for the struggle he was going through. "I won't leave you."

Your hand slid towards him, pinky finger crossing over until it brushed against his — gently, giving him ample chance to pull away before you covered his entire hand with your palm.

He was feverish again, despite all attempts made to soothe him, and the urge to smooth the pads of your fingers over his flushed skin, mapping each ridge and freckle that dotted his knuckles, surged forward within you. And you gave in, trying to make up for what you knew words would never be able to express, as you lightly rubbed lines onto the back of his hand.

It seemed to melt something in him, and he eased into your touch. It was an involuntary response to you reaching out for him — he tilted into you like he always did. It only lasted a second or two, however, before you felt him falter; like he noticed the instinctual motion midway, then consciously pushed down the reaction by gripping his thighs in an effort to sit back and avoid leaning in. Your heart dropped a little, confused, and you stole a peek at his face through the corner of your lashes to try to guess what he was thinking about.

What you saw only amplified how wrong everything felt. His features, which normally softened whenever you reached out for him, tightened, pensive. He frowned, holding back — hesitant about something, unreadable except for a subtle unease creeping in around the edges.

Even before he broke the silence, you had the awful premonition that his next words weren't going to be what you hoped to hear.

"Are you sure?" he asked, measured and quiet, and you knew you were right. This was trouble.

You squeezed his hand lightly despite wanting to do the very opposite, reassuringly, "Do you really think I’d stay even a second longer with someone I know is bad for me?"

He remained unresponsive.

“Rafayel?”

You made it about yourself, idiot, you realized.

Instead of acknowledging him and his cue for more reassurance and affirmation, you'd shifted the attention from him to trust in your decision making. You hadn't meant to, you hadn't done it deliberately — but...

Gosh, you were absolutely terrible at this.

So much so that Rafayel being the more emotionally in-tune of the two of you even in his vulnerable state was setting a humiliating new standard for how low you could go.

It was pathetic, really, how utterly you failed to pick up on what should have been an obvious cue. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in your mind that he’d taken your clumsy words as a glaring sign you found his struggles trivial, insignificant compared to your own convenience. All you’d managed to do was shove him deeper into the spiral of insecurities he was already battling.

This was supposed to help him clear his head. All it had achieved so far was adding onto his concerns.

Despite your determination to pour everything you had into assuaging the gnarled knot of his self-doubt, you were woefully unqualified for the task. Unmoored, you floundered blindly through half-finished thoughts, grasping for ways to communicate your feelings — gracelessly, imprecisely — all in hopes of soothing whatever ugly thoughts tangled around your boyfriend's brain like weeds choking the life from fertile soil.

Your stammering words stuck to the roof of your mouth like taffy, thick, unwilling to yield, and suddenly useless, coming out slow as you spoke. “What I mean by that is… My life has been consumed by you. In the best way possible. You made it ito a beautiful, chaotic mess bursting with life. I couldn’t possibly leave you.”

And he heard it — you felt it in the faint shuddering breath he drew as a silent response.

His thumb swiped over your pinky in absent response, stroking soothingly over the thin bones as he stared at your joined hands. His shoulders hadn't relaxed even marginally, but there was still an immeasurable kindness in the gesture.

“Besides, you’re not someone who takes. That’s not true at all. You’re just…”

He looked up then, turning his head to you, a doe-eyed, half-dazed blink breaking past the glassy stare he'd fixed on the empty space in front of him. His hand twitched underneath yours, flexing as he made a questioning noise, wordlessly urging you to elaborate as he invited comfort from your explanation. The way he tilted his head, the corners of his furrowed brows slightly angled upwards — the effect was childlike, innocent almost.

Receptive.

Breaking through your hesitation to touch him lest he shrink away again, you lifted both hands to cradle his cheeks gently, smoothing your thumbs across the high sweep of his cheekbones until his eyelids slid shut.

A soft sigh fell from his parted lips, his body pliant in your grasp as he melted under your fingertips, as if the gesture were more potent than any reassurance you might offer. The climbing tension within your ribcage dissolved with a single exhalation at the sight — helplessly endeared by his sheer willingless to submit to your awkward, inexpressive attempt at consoling. Subtle adoration burned quietly beneath each featherlight caress you placed along the slope of his nose or the soft patches underneath his eyes.

"You're just feeling a little anxious," you continued carefully, brushing a stray piece of damp hair away from his temple. It stuck stubbornly, refusing to let itself be tucked behind his ear before you tried again, gentler this time, hoping to soothe any lingering reservations you hadn't managed to wash away. “That’s probably why you’re overthinking things.”

In the brief silence that followed, anxiety bubbled low in your stomach once more, especially when he seemed to be focusing somewhere on your neck and ignoring looking you in the eye directly. It came as yet another whiplash and a sinking feeling simultaneously when he covered one of your hands with his, tilting his chin to plant a kiss into the centre of your palm as if making up for the withdrawal from earlier.

"What, were you playing tricks on me?" you murmured.

Shaking his head, "A token of my gratitude," he clarified. A gentle huff of laughter slipped past his lips, so faintly that you would've missed it had you not been staring at him with rapt attention in your bewilderment. "For you. Who accepted someone like me."

You frowned, eyebrows immediately drawing close. “Rafayel—”

He leaned in all of a sudden, one of his arms slid behind your back, while the other stretched across in front of you, caging you in with an unnerving ease. Both his hands rested flat against the floor now, framing you on either side like a living barricade. Your own left arm shot down to slap a palm down so you wouldn't topple over on your side. The droplets falling from his damp hair onto your neck was a sharp, sudden cold in comparison to the alarming heat radiating from his body, making you jolt in place as he loomed close enough for his breath to fan across your face.

"You're burning up again," you said weakly, trying and failing spectacularly to disguise your nervousness with indignance as his lips brushed softly against the apple of your cheek before ghosting lower, pausing just beneath your ear, testing for a reaction.

Meanwhile, him taking your hand that was balled up in a fist on the ground to slowly bring it towards his mouth left you frozen and dizzy from the contradictory sensations prickling under your skin.

Rafayel hummed against your wrist in response, dropping light kisses along the ridge of bone connecting your thumb to the rest of your fingers in the interim. It was impossible to ignore how every one of his touches ignited something different within you — the sensation of him painting the length of each finger with tender brushes of his lips and heated exhales sent pulses of liquid warmth flowing through your bloodstream.

The abrupt shift had left you uncertain about many things, chief among which being whether your previous efforts actually sank in at all or not.

Apparently they had.

The combined assault was distracting, but even amidst the whirlwind of thoughts vying for attention, you struggled to fully comprehend just how drastically the moment had veered off course — how your own worry-stricken attempt at appeasing him ended here instead, with your pulse hammering in your ears as he pressed even closer, draping his arm around your waist to turn you sideways until you were nearly sitting on his lap, faces inches apart.

A glimpse hope of maintaining control over the situation arrived in the form of a can toppling over during his handling of you, clattering on the hardwood flooring and startling you enough to snap free of the strange trance Rafayel had ensnared you in during his momentary lapse in focus.

Being so close gave you a good look at the change in him that manifested suddenly; his features visibly hardened as he turned his head at the disturbance, seemingly irritated to have been interrupted midway — a dark glint shone through his lashes before shifting over to you, misty, hazy, indescribable in its raw complexity.

His bathrobe hung loose, the neckline slouched further down one shoulder from having moved so much earlier, displaying more skin than was appropriate, and you weren’t sure if you were imagining the faintest hint of familiar coloration mottling his chest.

Which was dry.

Not only had his skin absorbed all the moisture that clung to it like a sponge after stepping out of the bathroom, there was no hint of perspiration whatsoever — not a bead of sweat lining the ridges of his collarbone or dampening the strands of hair stuck to his forehead.

As if responding to your inner thoughts, he lamented, "As you said, I'm anxious... Well, more like... Restless," before leaning in further to bury his face in the crook of your shoulder. "Ever since I arrived here, I feel..."

His arms encircled your waist, pulling you flush against the expanse of his chest and filling your nose with the scent of bodywash. It was no less than holding a solid block of heat capable of radiating more than enough warmth to replace an actual human furnace. The sheer amount of radiated temperature seemed ridiculous in such conditions, but the way he tried the loosen the already disheveled robe covering his other shoulder despite coiling around you, which had to be the source of the biggest discomfort concerning heat, was even more ridiculous. Shouldn’t he have let go of you before complaining?

"The air feels like it's burning, like there's not enough moisture anywhere. My heart's racing and I feel so miserable," he admitted quietly, muffled in the material of your shirt.

Yeah, you were taking him to a hospital.

This wasn't normal by any means, especially since you were now a hundred percent sure Rafayel couldn't sweat in order to regulate his internal body heat.

How could you let this go on for so long? He had been suffering these symptoms for a whole day now, hiding it all under layers of petulant frustration and overdramatic complaining to escape having to ask for help.

He was always like this. So secretive and reserved about his struggles underneath all the goofiness, especially those directly related to him being a Lemurian.

You put a hand on his burning chest and pushed yourself away to put some distance between the two of you and this moment, ignoring his quiet gasp and the way he clutched your waist. "I'm taking you to a—”

Suddenly, the world spun off its axis, a dizzying blur of motion that ended with your back colliding against the floorboards.

The impact sent a ripple through the room — drawing pens clattering and rolling away, half-sketched papers crumpling beneath you, while others scattered into the air like startled birds, carried by the gust of displaced air.

As you blinked up, trying to shake the daze from your mind, the world sharpened into focus.

The light cascaded over Rafayel like liquid mercury, accentuating every sharp edge and soft curve of his form. His bare legs straddled your hips, knees pressed firmly into the ground on either side of you, pinning you in place with an effortless authority. His hands had found yours in the chaos, and now your wrists were restrained above your head, his long fingers encircling them with a grip that was firm yet somehow shaky.

The bathrobe he wore hung precariously, one shoulder already exposed to the moonlight’s caress while the other threatened to follow suit, the fabric dipping low to reveal a tantalizing V that stretched from his clavicle down to his navel. Tendrils of lilac hair curled lightly downwards with gravity, catching the light from outside, glittering like morning dew against a canvas of violet satin and plopping down onto your face, each impact making you blink. And his face, suffused with a flush so intense that it seemed to glow under the pale lighting, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to stain his fair skin with an undeniable rosy bloom.

The cool floorboards beneath your skin were contrasting harshly with the heat of his touch, and the helpless position left your pulse racing in a way you couldn’t entirely blame on adrenaline.

Rafayel lowered himself until his nose brushed lightly against yours, his breaths shallow and uneven, eyes caught halfway between hazy drowsiness and burning intensity — a vivid shade of sunless plum made darker not by the shadows cast across his features, but a deeply buried and masterfully concealed emotion on the verge of making itself known to you.

To call it desire wouldn't do it justice.

It was something far stronger than fleeting arousal or casual infatuation — you hadn’t been looked at this way before. Weren’t even sure if a man could look at someone like this. There was nothing superficial or mundane about this particular weight. It sought to consume you. To burn you alive, leaving you to crumble into ashes like incense offered up to a deity. And the worst part? You had no idea what exactly you were being consumed by, or why.

All of this, because you had merely wanted to—

“No. I’m not going anywhere,” he hissed as if sensing your plan, breath dragging along the edge of your ear. "I'm just... restless.”

But—

“In every sense of the word.”

Oh?

Your mind reeled, dizzy from the intoxicating cocktail flooding your senses — from his breaths washing over the side of your neck, to the overwhelming sensation of Rafayel on the verge of draping over you like a living brand, hot and firm, trapping you in place.

"Especially when you're by my side," he purred.

Oh.

He pulled back to stare you down, heavy-lidded and glinting like knives honed razor sharp, yet somehow tender in his approach. If anything, it served only to accentuate the danger of whatever it was simmering below the surface. This was different than his Ebb Day state, but similar enough in its intent to be instantly recognizable — especially since it bore all the marks of the manic rush he fell victim to when succumbing to the lure of his instincts.

It was something primal in you that scattered your thought process into oblivion and made you look away instinctively, averting your attention toward the window off to your left — but the sparkling view of night time in Aridum was soon curtained by a flash of Rafayel's hand as he cupped the side of your face in one smooth motion.

The slight roughness of the pad of his thumb brushed along your cheekbone until his fingers sank into your hair, fanned along the outer edge of your ear, and turned you back to face him. The gesture felt proprietary, like he wanted to make certain he'd captured every last scrap of your undivided attention, like it physically hurt to allow even the smallest opportunity for you to withdraw and escape his grasp.

“Rafayel,” you forced your common sense to come out of its hiding place. “I don’t think—”

"But even so, I can't let you go. I don't want to," he breathed against your lips, punctuating his command with an achingly slow drag of his nose tracing yours. The contact made something molten unfurl in your belly, warm and sticky-slick and pooling in the hollow space below your navel, curling its tendrils through your veins like sweet, syrupy nectar. "What should I do?"

It would be easier than breathing to surrender and give him whatever he was asking for, but... but...

It felt wrong when he was so distressingly hot to the touch, not to mention you couldn't shake off the feeling he was doing his best to distract you from your worry by acting more brazenly suggestive than you'd ever seen him be before.

"You should rest, I don't think you'll enjoy getting worked up in your current condition—"

Your efforts were derailed with the subtle scrape of chapped lips running up the slope of your neck and a bite into the fleshy part below your ear as punishment for daring to answer his plea with platitude.

A shudder shook your frame, nerves firing off confused messages in quick succession throughout your brain, half demanding the sudden pressure recede and half urging more from the tingling heat. Your hand flew to grip his bare shoulder, fingers digging in until the tight bunch of muscle strained beneath his fevered skin — not enough to stop his ministrations, but enough to serve as a weak deterrent.

"Such lovely lips, spinning such pretty excuses," Rafayel huffed, drawing back and sweeping his thumb across your chin with gentle disapproval. "When we both know you don't want me to let you go either."

The words trailed off into something softer, tender, almost wistful, and were followed by the pad of his finger slipping past your parted lips, stroking along the underside of your tongue before drawing back and skimming across the wet patch he'd left glistening upon your bottom lip. As if magnetized, his smoldering stare followed, entranced by the minute trembling of your mouth, darting occasionally upward to capture your own hooded eyes at the sudden boldness of his gesture. He licked his own lips slowly as if thirsty, mirroring the same lazy stroke he'd used against your mouth, allowing you to take your fill of the sight.

No.

Before you could fall into his enticing trap again, your palm pressed firmly against Rafayel's chest until he eased back obediently, giving you space to rise, every single sensation previously pink at the edges quickly melting into clarity about taking care of him properly.

"This isn't the right time," you insisted breathlessly once you managed to catch your breath and speak, steadfast with the strain of iron will alone — pushing forward when your mind threatened to wander where his moistened lips had been just seconds before.

The mood was quickly dispelling, much to Rafayel's clear irritation, judging by the petulant slouch of his shoulders. You emphasized your point by putting your hands on his forehead, cheeks, neck, every patch of skin you could reach, the clear intent of medical examination being communicated silently until he relented with a dramatic sigh, turning his face upwards to expose more of his throat as if giving permission.

"It's fine," he groused reluctantly, although his grumbling somewhat relenting in volume under your gentle inspection. "I'm not dying."

"That's the opposite of what you said earlier today. Are you sure you don't want—"

His hands closed firmly around your wrists, tugging you off gently before you could finish speaking. "It's really not that bad.”

You’d be more convinced if he'd just told you about how miserable he was feeling.

"Is it a Lemurian condition?" You frowned up at him, taking note of how carefully he cradled your hands in his palms, stroking the insides of your wrists. "If it's making you feel awful, shouldn't we see someone about it?"

Rafayel tilted his head at you with a peculiar sort of fondness written across his features. It was difficult to identify what precisely made his smile curve upward into something distinctly knowing, yet warm — something infinitely affectionate yet impossible to quantify.

"Already doing that," he answered cryptically, tilting forward until he met your forehead with his own, nuzzling into the creased spot directly between your brows, eyelashes fluttering shut.

Ugh, this man.

"Do you know for a fact if you'll be okay?" you asked as delicately as possible without sounding too overbearing. That would definitely push Rafayel closer to defensive territory again and have him brush off any attempt at assistance, or even conversation, so you needed to walk the tightrope of concern while still keeping it mild enough for him not to clam up. "This trip still has a few more days left. What if you don't get better?"

The corner of his mouth twitched faintly with a ghost of a smile, perhaps pleased by your attentiveness —— "I enjoy this kind of concern."

—— which was starting to irritate you a little. "Well, I don't. Seeing you suffer and not doing anything isn't enjoyable."

He had the audacity to grin at that, broad enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes as he ducked his head coyly before turning it sharply to brush the tip of his nose against the shell of your ear and murmuring, "Not enjoying seeing me suffering does imply some enjoyment in seeing me otherwise."

"Rafayel!" You snapped finally, jerking out of his embrace with exasperated incredulity, only to meet an unrepentant smile waiting for you beyond your escape. He wasn't deterred whatsoever, which was a little unnerving.

Or rather, the rapid shift to your own pent-up restlessness was about to become in the next two days.

The limbo between then and the memorial hall day unfolded in a whirlwind of contradictions, each more puzzling than the last — starting from the abrupt ending to your interlude in front of the window, where he suddenly pulled back without any warning at all, leaving you cold and stunned with the excuse that he wanted to go to sleep, subsequently kicking you out of his hotel room as if possessed by a demonic force capable of inducing selective amnesia.

Like he wasn’t asking to fold you in half like a laptop mere moments ago.

The result was you forcing mandatory house rest until the day of the memorial hall visit came, settling awkwardly between coddling and hovering — a weird blend of fussing over his health like a mother hen and trying desperately not to make him feel infantilized as a result of said fussing.

All of that only ended with him either clinging close or deliberately distancing himself in confusing waves that seemed to occur at random intervals with little rhyme or reason.

It was simultaneously bewildering and heartbreaking. You had no idea how to react when he gave you zero insight into his thoughts and behaviors unless coaxed open, and even then, his answers were cryptic.

(So much for enjoying your concern.)

Really, this was your fault.

Maybe you shouldn't have pushed. But you worried.

Especially when he was dismissive like that despite being openly going through something other than a fever and a creative block, made worse by his inability to leave the hotel due to the hostile environment. Both of which you could do nothing to help with.

He would sit at the edge of the bed, his sketchbook propped open but untouched, pencil hovering above the page as though waiting for some divine spark that refused to come. At times, he’d stand by the window, reminding you of a cat sitting by its food dish for its owner to fill it with dinner, paw swiping irritatingly at its empty confines. Then, just as abruptly, he’d abandon his spot to sprawl across your lap instead while you were busy with paperwork online, one arm draped loosely over his stomach as he stared blankly at the ceiling in defeat, and demanding you play with his hair.

Then, some time later, it was back to deciding being near you was unbearable, pulling away entirely whenever you reached out for reassurance, no matter how casual or friendly your intentions, retreating back into his personal bubble to focus on attempting to get something on paper mindlessly, pages fluttering with restless action, crumpling here and there under the rough treatment before being smoothed out hastily.

The cycle continued nonstop. Restlessness, fatigue, clinginess, building you up while you didn't let it show because time and place, solitude, then back again — you never knew what Rafayel's whimsies were going to bring, and the uncertainty of it wore you thin, fraying your already wan nerves.

The humidifier was a desperate, last-ditch effort, the kind born out of sheer frustration and the kind of exhaustion that makes rationality optional.

You’d bought it from a small local shop at the crack of dawn, spurred on by the memory of walking into Rafayel’s suite only hours before, where he’d bullied the hotel staff into delivering two oversized sacks of ice — each roughly the size of a small child — and ordered them to be dumped unceremoniously into his bathtub.

At 3 AM. In the dead of night.

By the time you returned and set it up, the machine had barely begun spitting out its first gentle stream of cool mist before Rafayel sat down beside it, legs folded beneath him like a solemn monk meditating in front of some sacred relic. His quiet intensity as he stared at the thing made you wonder if he was grateful, resentful, or some combination of both — because with Rafayel, it was never as simple as one emotion at a time.

Still, the day turned out to be noticeably easier on him, and for the first time in what felt like forever, you allowed yourself to believe that maybe, just maybe, the worst had passed.

He still looked like death warmed over, often pink on the face and worn, but at least he wasn’t on the brink of staging another late-night ice-bag heist.

He even tolerated your awkward attempts to distract him, accepting your offerings of snacks, endless glasses of ice water, iced tea, whatever cold beverages you could scrounge up, and a marathon of that one TV show the two of you had been meaning to watch together.

And, of course, there was the doting.

So much doting.

Which was rare for you.

You were not, by any stretch of the imagination, the kind of person who showered people with attention. You weren’t the mom friend. You didn’t hover. But something about Rafayel in this state, rightfully whiny, subdued, far too fragile for your liking, made you want to roll him over in bubble wrap and shove him in your pocket to keep him safe from everything.

In some ways, you were more anxious than he was.

The helplessness swung at you like you were a tree and it was an axe, the inability to snap your fingers and fix him, to just make it better was torture. Worrying felt inevitable, but useless. And the not knowing what to do with yourself in between bouts of fretting? That was worse. Still, he wasn’t showing any signs of further deterioration, which felt like a victory you didn’t want to jinx.

You were so relieved you briefly considered leaving all your savings to the shop clerk who’d sold you the overpriced humidifier. She had probably thought you’d lost your mind, judging by the way you thanked her like she’d just handed you a ticket to salvation, practically singing her praises as she rang up your purchase. And honestly, if you could go back in time, you would’ve thanked her even more profusely.

Because it worked. Rafayel was better — well, better-ish. Better enough that you decided it was safe to move forward with the plan to visit the memorial hall.

Which, eventually, became a visit to the ocean.

An ocean.

In the middle of a desert.

The sheer impossibility of it left you breathless, like you were standing at the edge of a fever dream made real. The water stretched out endlessly, shimmering beneath the brutal sun, and you couldn’t stop marveling at the sheer absurdity of it — a body of water so vast, so alive, nestled in a place it had no right to be. It felt like a miracle.

It was a miracle.

And just when you thought the desert couldn’t surprise you further, the skies proved you wrong soon enough later, crowning the experience with snowfall at the end of the trip. Snow, delicate and silent, drifting from the sky like a benediction.

You couldn’t help but marvel at it all — at how the world had managed to gift you two impossibilities in the span of a single day. It felt like the desert itself was defying logic, bending over backward to offer something beautiful, something extraordinary, as though it wanted to prove it wasn’t all hardship and sunburnt misery.

But Rafayel stood by the edge of the ocean with a look that made your chest ache — a look that spoke not of wonder, but of mourning. To you, it was a miracle, but to him, it was a tragedy: a dying ocean trapped in a place it could no longer thrive, its very existence a reminder of something slipping away. An everlasting eulogy engraved into reality.

He didn’t look away from the canvas of pain he had set up and started painting for himself until you voiced all of what you thought out loud for him to see.

And this time, you truly felt like you had broken through — like you’d reached him in a way that mattered.

It was there, in that rare, fragile moment, that Rafayel dove straight through your hesitation, sidestepping the awkward pauses you were fumbling with, and pulled you into an embrace before you even had the courage to ask if you could. It was as though he had heard the unspoken thought aloud, plucking it out of the air with startling precision.

And then he’d confessed — softly, almost too softly — that at the time, he had wanted to come here before, with the most important person in his life.

Those words lodged themselves in your chest, a bittersweet ache blooming alongside the unmistakable joy bubbling up within you. You hugged him back as tightly as you could, pouring all the gratitude you didn’t know how to put into words into that one simple gesture. Gratitude for trusting you enough to share that. Gratitude for showing you yet another new side of himself, something unguarded and rare. A treat, indeed, one you hadn’t expected but cherished all the same.

Relief flooded through you, so potent it felt like a physical weight lifting from your shoulders. You hadn’t even realized how tense you’d been until that moment. Your body relaxed, and with that relaxation came fatigue, the kind that crept up on you and left no room for resistance. Before you knew it, you had fallen asleep during the entire way back, lulled into a rare sense of peace you hadn’t felt in days.

And yet.

Like clockwork, he withdrew the instant you arrived back at the hotel.

Rafayel never thought he’d truly understand what it meant to drown.

As a creature of the sea, he wasn't meant to in the first place.

Not until you.

The realization had hit him like a storm breaking over still waters — not all at once, but in slow, rumbling waves that built. He didn’t even feel himself breaking; it was more like a slow erosion, the kind that wears stone into sand. Quiet, but irreversible. Your optimism. Your touches. Your encouragement. Inching in and in and in one step at a time.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

He had been holding himself together in the driver's seat, hands knotted around the steering wheel and knuckles bloodless with how tightly he gripped. Every inch of him vibrated with anxiety, away from where you lay fast asleep beside him, breathing shallow and uneven like he was afraid of exhaling too loudly. But there you were, oblivious, asleep, your head leaning softly against the window as if his world hadn’t collapsed in on itself.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

It wasn’t the desert heat that was killing him, though it might as well have been. (Everything about this place grated against him — the air, the dry scrape of his skin, the silence of the fading ocean that was too vast to be comforting. Too big. Too empty. Fading. Fading. A warning from cities away that this land was no place for a creature like him.) He wasn’t meant for this — for the cracked earth and the relentless sun and the suffocating absence of water. His body ached for moisture, for the cool, familiar embrace of the sea, but it ached even more for you. (He didn’t even realize how long he had been watching you from the corner of his peripheral vision — how long he had been unraveling, thread by thread.)

You’d tilted his world off its axis, turned everything he thought he knew into something unrecognizable. Once, pain had been his anchor. It was always there—constant, unyielding, something he could hold on to when nothing else made sense. It had driven him, fueled him, given him purpose when nothing else could. He had sought it out like a man dying of thirst seeks a mirage, and it had never failed him. Pain was constant. Pain was reliable. Pain was everything. Inside. Outside. It was all he had ever known, and it had kept him alive — fed the anger that gnashed his insides with teeth and claws, soothed the beast that prowled just under his skin, tempered the instinct that drove him relentlessly onward. Toward destruction. Towards home.

He had used it as a shield, as armor, as the whip he wielded against those who dared to clip the tails of his people. A weapon. A tool. A brush.

And then there was you (who he'd willingly sought out, angry and grieving and resentful and hurt.)

You, who didn’t fit into his carefully crafted world of suffering and art and revenge. You, who had made him forget (as easily as you forgot him) what it felt like to hurt, to ache, to yearn for something greater than himself. To hate. To see others bleed while his fingers flew across canvas after canvas, leaving only beauty in their wake — only soaring wings, only gleaming scales, only flowing water, only living fire, only reaching skies, only rushing wind, only rising floods...

Only you.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

Except now, he did yearn. He yearned in a way that was foreign and unbearable, in a way that felt like drowning — not in water, but in light, in warmth, in the overwhelming weight of wanting something too much. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he wanted you this much — needed you this much — when he didn’t even know who he was without all the hurt and hatred inside. It wasn’t fair that he felt something hot and ugly churning under his skin whenever you smiled up at him in admiration, filling his stomach with lead until he thought he might collapse beneath its heaviness. It wasn't fair that there were times when he thought it might actually be better not to have met you again at all.

(That thought filled him with dread so immense it threatened to crush the breath from his lungs; the possibility of having spent his entire life stumbling aimlessly through darkness towards a destination he was no longer sure even existed — )

He watched you sleep, the rhythm of your breathing steady and unbothered.

His gaze lingered on your hands, resting loosely in your lap, fingers twitching faintly as if even in sleep, you were reaching for something. (Reaching for him?) He wanted to take them in his own, to press them to his lips, to hold on so tightly he’d never have to let go. But he couldn’t. (He wouldn’t.)

Because the moment he did, he knew he’d lose whatever fragile standing he had left.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

His thoughts spiraled, looping back on themselves in a tangle of contradictions that refused to resolve; questions without answers, fears without resolutions. What had he become, to need you like this? To depend on you like this? To depend on you so completely that even the idea of your absence felt like the loss of something vital — something essential — an emptiness he wasn't prepared to face.

(What must you think of him? Did you even know what you did to him? What would you think of him?)

He had told himself he could manage it, that he could stay close enough to feel your warmth but far enough not to burn. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? He was already burning. He had been burning since the moment he met you. An addictive pain — the kind that made him ache for more even as it seared him from the inside out.

And before he knew it, the car was parked beside the hotel entrance around the far corner of the garden, and Rafayel didn’t remember driving there at all.

He blinked, confused for a moment as to how exactly he had managed to pilot the vehicle, when you stirred quietly in the passenger seat, drawing his attention like a moth to flame.

You groaned softly, eyelids fluttering, but remained firmly locked within slumber's grip as he unbuckled your seatbelt for you, as gently as if he were handling fine china. Your head leaned sideways against the headrest and faced him, slack and soft with sleep. His fingers twitched around the plastic buckle, curling into a fist until he thought they might cramp under the strain.

He leaned forward, forehead coming to contact with the cool leather surface of the steering wheel, squeezing his eyes shut tight enough to blot out your presence entirely.

There was too much to process — too many feelings, thoughts, sensations threatening to overwhelm him if he looked directly at them, instead swirling through his head like debris caught in a vortex, invisible yet disorienting nonetheless.

But they all blipped out of existence the moment he turned his head around, following the impulse to look.

(“Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?”)

The urge struck Rafayel with all the force of a lightning bolt — bright, sudden, unavoidable — and suddenly the knuckles of his fingers were sliding across your cheek, feather-light in gentle arcs along the arch of your cheek, savoring every inch of satin flesh as it shifted beneath his caress.

The sensation of touch buzzed pleasantly underneath his skin previously starved, reveling in the sweetness of contact after so many days of withdrawal.

The artificial light coming from outside bathed your sleeping form in a glow that cascaded like a gentle waterfall, chiaroscuro shadows casting angles upon your features, emphasizing every line and curve, and for a long time, all he could do was stare. He could feel your breath against the tips of his nails, warm puffs of moist exhales against his calloused flesh, and found himself fixating on the gentle undulation of your chest as you breathed — unconsciously, mindlessly unaware of what such a simple act did to him.

The memory of your voice echoed in his mind, soft and certain, cutting through the chaos like a beam of light.

"Isn’t it a surprise that there’s an ocean in the desert?"

You had a way of reframing everything, of taking the pieces of his broken world and rearranging them into something that almost looked like hope. (He hated it. He loved it. He hated that he loved it.) It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

You hadn’t asked to become such an integral part of his existence — so intrinsic and fundamental and irreplaceable. Yet somehow, here you were. Here he was. The absence of water, the grief of it. The grief of what it meant to lose something so essential, so intrinsic, that one didn’t know how to live without it. And that grief had found a new home in you. You, who had become his ocean, his escape, the source of every ache in his chest and joy in his heart.

(Isn't it a surprise that there's an ocean in the desert? Isn't it a surprise you're the muse calling to him and not the muffled, fading cries of the dying ocean in pain, not the skeletal remains of an era he'd never get back?)

He gazed, and gazed, and gazed, drinking you in like a thirsty man lost in a sea of golden sands, watching the subtle play of lights over the curves of your face — the delicate angle of your chin, the arch of your nose, the graceful slope of your neck as it curved into collarbone and shoulder — memorizing every detail he could, without the pressure of having to wrench himself back before he drowned in your wake, without the need to pretend to your face he was anything less than desperate to be with you all day, every day, in every way possible. And that the sound of your voice in his ears was enough to get the paintbrush running across paper from the sheer momentum of his imagination.

But he couldn't keep going like this.

Somehow, somewhen, between the start of your journey and now, this thing had begun shifting irrevocably past his ability to contain it any longer. Had grown exponentially until it seemed to dwarf his capacity to handle it. All it would take was being away from you for a mere few hours to bring him to a level of misery that was honestly embarrassing.

And you had no idea.

No idea that orbiting around him in these past few days like a second moon had only served to exacerbate the foul joy of watching you fawn over him.

It made him sick to his stomach to admit it, but soaking in the knowledge (in his soul, through the bond) that you cared so deeply for him went straight to his head like some drug he hadn't realized he needed.

It felt so despairingly good that he would wrap himself around you like a vine climbing towards sunlight if he could for the rest of his days, absorbing your rays of affection like photosynthesis... or a parasite.

(Was he being punished by the sea that this love was eclipsing his fury and vengeance? Or rewarded that he held both equally in his grasp despite how terribly wrong it felt at times? Regardless, his inspiration was the punchline, once only capable of singing into the canvas elegies of lament and sorrow, now composed ballads and odes that poured out effortlessly.)

You would hate him if you ever found out just how perversely his emotions swung in every direction; so high one moment that the ecstasy of relief nearly shattered his reserve of control, and so low the next that he feared he'd choke to death from the guilt that clawed up the back of his throat like a strangled animal's cry for mercy.

This entire ordeal had flipped the script completely — instead of keeping you at arm's length as he normally did (regarding… everything), Rafayel now clung onto you desperately like Tantalus to a branch of fruit he’d finally gotten a grasp of, and what if he was exposed? The question rose like bile in his mouth whenever he began slipping.

“I won't leave you.”

Liar, his grudge wanted to answer.

It remembered. It never forgot. It told him you'd flee and never look back if he let a sliver of this dependency that bound him tighter to you with each passing day slip out from his fingertips — if he allowed you even the tiniest insight into the strange workings of his head and his heart.

Because you didn’t understand. You couldn’t. You had no idea what you were talking about when you told him you wouldn’t leave. How could you, when you didn’t know the depths of what you were promising to stay for? You didn’t know the true nature of Lemurian love, its ferocity, its weight, its cost. The all-consuming, all-encompassing reality of it — how they loved as if it was the only thing tethering them to existence itself. How they lived for it, how they died for it. How he had been dying for it.

If you saw it — if you saw him — you would run. He knew you would. Because if he laid bare just how much he depended on you, how much of his breath, his will, his very being hinged on you, you’d be overwhelmed. You’d leave.

Why else would he be tearing himself apart like this? Miserably trying to wean himself off you, forcing himself to let go only to grasp harder each time he felt you’d finally come to hate him and slip away?

He didn't know how long he sat there in silence.

Just a bit longer, he would keep watching you with these feelings out in the open. Just a little bit longer. He couldn’t bear to wake you up.

By the time you stirred, groggy and disoriented but blissfully unsuspecting, it felt as though several eternities had passed in the span of minutes, and he had to struggle with all the strength of a raging current to force himself back into this skin of his that felt too tight and suffocating around him.

But, still resting his temple against the steering wheel with an arm slung on top of it and another hanging lazily at his side, feigning ease, nothing betrayed his inner turmoil.

He watched quietly as you slowly regained your bearings, resisting the temptation to reach out and brush aside that one piece of hair out of place on your head, letting you find the words first.

(So adorable. So endearing.)

(It was not only snowing in his desert. There was also an ocean in there.)

"Rafayel..?"

"Yeah?"

"How long was I asleep?" You blinked at him blearily, one hand lifting to rub the lingering tiredness from your eyelids as you peer into the darkness of night beyond his silhouette. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

Everything he'd been thinking about vaporized and left behind nothing but softness, so tender it scared him; it seeped into the spaces in his heart left vacant and curled inside them, filling every corner, until it made the next smile he offered you come free of burden. "You were sleeping so well, cutie. I didn't want to disturb you."

The unconscious put of your lips and the way that strand of hair bounced around when you slid down your seat a little had him leaning in before he knew what he was doing, smoothing the unruly thing, fingertips betraying him by skating across the outer edge of your ear while he watched you tilt your cheek instinctively.

His body warmed immediately, gravitating towards you in a half-hug that kept you cradled close to the side of his frame as he nuzzled into your hair above your temple with a hum, dipping his nose deeper into the crown of your head near where your neck curved gracefully upwards before inhaling deep — greedy, thirsty, like he’d die if he couldn’t seep up all the scent of you.

Your breathing hitched a bit, and that’s what halted him right at the corner of your mouth with a sharp exhale — he couldn’t be doing this, he was just thinking about how he needed to pull back and —

Art salon.

Yeah, the art salon gathering.

He was supposed to be on his way to there like yesterday.

If only his body didn’t move like a most willing pupped tethered by strings to yours and refused to walk away whenever he tried.

“…Rafayel?”

It suddenly hotter in this car like a tide pool at noon. So stiflingly hot he was breathing fire even with the snowy weather outside. So unbearable the deepest V-cut known to mankind that had his whole chest out for the world to ogle did nothing to help.

He could… He could skip.

Yeah, he needed this. It had been literal days of non-stop withdrawal and a push-and-pull of his frustration that you wouldn’t touch him (because oh noo, he was sick — which, he wasn’t!) and stubbornness to not let you touch him. He’d gotten to a point that he was drunk off your scent alone and he couldn’t keep doing this forever, and why should he? Why did it matter about this event at all? Who cared — who cared about some stupid gathering? He wasn’t functioning anyways until he—

Stop. He had to stop. He was already so late.

He imagined catching himself by the scruff of his neck and yanking himself back to the driver's seat, within safe borders. Far away from your mesmerizing lips and wandering eyes and cute squirming in your seat under the thin cover of innocence.

And pulling away and practically fusing with the car door was exactly what he did.

He needed to prove to himself, just this once, that he could function without the constant reassurance of your presence — that he wasn’t helplessly anchored to you, no matter how much the pull of your moon whispered otherwise.

He had to dilute himself. This — and his inspiration problem, involving you or not, was his to figure out. And he had to figure it out if he wanted you to stay by his side.

"...Do you wanna go back to your room first?" he heard himself ask you quietly.

"You're not coming with me?" The tiny furrow of worry between your brows spoke volumes about your confusion, and despite wanting to reach out and smooth it away, to wipe every ounce of uncertainty from your face with a tender kiss, Rafayel clenched his fingers around the door handle of the vehicle until they cramped, his heart aching strangely inside his chest as you stared quizzically at him.

He brought out the invitation that came with the memorial hall ticket, waving it a little with little to no enthusiasm, "I still have to attend my friend's art salon thing."

The way your shoulders deflated and face dropped at the mention made him waver in — not enough to follow through with ditching the whole thing, but certainly making his resolve weak enough to crack like glass under pressure. "But you don't look well. You need to rest."

How could someone manage to resist getting spoiled like this, he thought miserably as he closed his eyes while you continued fussing, peering worriedly up into his face with the cutest scrunch to your forehead, palms searching along his cheeks heat before trailing down the length of his arms, and he wanted nothing more than to give in to that impulse of being coddled to bits by your hands alone.

He was a weak man.

You nearly lifted off the passenger seat and fell into his lap the way he embraced you, his arms coiling around you like kelp around a rock, holding fast as though you might slip away with the wind. His face buried into the crook of your neck, breath warm and uneven against your skin, his grip snug yet teetering on the edge of too much — like he didn’t trust himself to let go. There was a desperation in the way his hands trembled slightly, his fingers pressing into your sides, not hard enough to hurt but enough to leave the faintest impression of how badly he needed this. When your pained whine broke through, it was like snapping a thread, he instantly loosened his hold, guilt washing over his features as he pulled back just enough to make room for you to breathe. But he stayed close, his forehead dipping to rest against your shoulder as a heavy sigh rumbled deep from his chest, raw and apologetic. You leaned heavily into him, your fingers threading into his hair in a gesture that should have comforted him, but instead left him drowning deeper in the tangled sea of his emotions.

"See? You're burning up again," you mumbled as your cool lips grazed his temple in a comforting kiss. He was no better than a child. He knew it. And he hated how much he basked in your coddling, reveled in the unspoken message behind your words: Don't hide it. Tell me when you hurt. I care. "Maybe we can go together? Will you feel okay if I'm there?"

He would. He would feel more than okay, because that's what made him function.

But he couldn't keep being like this.

"Do you wanna turn me into a sea creature beached on the sand after the ocean recedes," he whispered, mostly kidding except not really, hiding in the dip of your neck just below your ear, hand tracing absent shapes into the small of your back above your tailbone. "Unable to breathe on my own, waiting helplessly for your tide's return?"

Your fingers stroking through his hair slowed, then stilled entirely at the edge of his nape. You pulled back only far enough to meet his lowered stare, confusion dancing within your own, bright and clear and genuine. You had no inkling of what was going on with him, and he didn’t want you to find out either. He would be fine. He was going to handle it.

"Don't you trust me?" Rafayel said. "How about we make a promise? I promise... I'll be okay without you tonight."

It hurt to lie to you so directly, but seeing your doubt dissolve to appease him helped soothe that sting considerably. (Even if it felt a little too convenient to rely on such flimsy methods.) You nodded, seeming convinced in spite of yourself, and his stance firmed — strengthened with your faith and affirmation alike, like he'd just taken a double shot of espresso. He would be okay. He wasn't going to keep imposing his feelings upon you even if a part of him desperately yearned to, no matter how difficult the prospect seemed.

(Say no, a small part of him whispered traitorously, selfishly, insistently. Ask me to stay. You know I can't say no to you, he wanted to plead. Needed to be affirmed once more, reassured that he was welcome to indulge, to remain, to lean into the comfort you offered freely.)

"Okay..." you echoed uncertainly, but gave him another soft smile — tentative yet warm, gentle encouragement. He watched quietly as your expressions shifted in quick succession, cycling through shades of hesitation and worry before settling on resignation. You nodded again, firmer this time, seemingly steeling yourself against whatever doubts you harbored. He wanted to kiss it all away.

But instead, he gently pushed you back, sinking further into his seat, looking out the view beyond the windshield to gather his wits against the force that was your presence beside him.

"You can head back," he repeated, not turning to meet your searching stare. "I can handle it."

The art salon had an air of cultivated elegance, grandiosity reflecting into soaring ceilings and walls adorned with curated artworks, with conversations floating in fragmented pieces, the occasional laughter punctuating the steady hum of "cultured" discourse — all the while Rafayel stood at the periphery, his posture consciously maintained with the kind of deliberate nonchalance that masked a profound discomfort, one hand buried in his pant pockets and the other holding a flute glass of champagne, ghosting the suffocating room with an expression of aloof disdain, attention drifting from painting to painting without ever settling. Humans circled him like murmuring specters, their faces a study in muted curiosity and empty civility. He loathed their presence. (Yet, here he was.)

The room's overwhelming sensory overload grated against his composure — cloying mingling of varnish and wine, sharply polished sheen of curated lighting, artifice of smiles that never reached their eyes...

He should leave. (No, he had to stay.)

The dichotomy was a pendulum swinging between contempt and an unspoken compulsion to endure. He’d insisted he didn’t need you here, insisted on proving — to himself as much as to you — that he could function without your constant presence. But the more he replayed his own words in his mind, the more it was obvious the joke was on him.

He rolled his eyes as an overly enthusiastic laugh erupted nearby, a sound sharp enough to pinprick through his already thinning out patience. His hand twitched in his pocket, the movement a reflexive manifestation of his barely-contained frustration.

(Focus.)

The art, exquisite as it was, did little to distract him as the chatter blurred into a meaningless drone, the edges of the room constricting him under the weight of pretense.

And then. The tug.

At first, it was delicate — an unsuspecting tremor sifting through his awareness, like the faintest ripple across an otherwise still surface that he thought he was imagining and hoping this was you. But it swelled rapidly, a deluge of sensations sweeping him off his feet towards your pull with a force that left his breath stuttering and the floor wavering beneath, erupting into vivid, agonizing clarity.

His lips tingled, a ghostly imprint of a kiss not yet given.

Heat bloomed under his skin, first at the base of his throat, spreading like a slow, insidious current. The faintest pressure, then, at his collarbone, radiating outward, like silk dragging over sensitive skin, a tingling warmth that prickled and spread, until it seemed to rewrite the very contours of his form, leaving him trembling with phantom caresses that lingered far too long to ignore.

He could feel the press of your palms against his chest, the drag of your nails over the planes of his stomach, each sensation so precise it made his breath catch, and the ache in his hands mirrored the way you gripped at yourself. Every brush of your hand — every hurried, seeking stroke — burned through him like smoldering embers, and he swore he could hear the faintest hitch of your breath, feel the tremor in your thighs.

A siren song of need that echoed his own, calling him under, drowning him in you.

Come to me, come to me, stay with me.

His breath hitched with the oxygen turning into lava-hot needle prickling in his lungs, his legs going limp as noodles and giving way. He collapsed into the nearest chair with a jarring lack of control, the motion abrupt, almost violent.

One hand clamped onto the edge of the table as he hastily discarded the champagne glass to cover where the bond was glowing, fingers digging into the wood as if it were the only thing keeping him from being swept away.

A single candle at the table’s center responded instead of Rafayel, its once languid, uninterested flame quivering violently, and then erupting into an erratic flare, a burst of light so sharp and sudden it cut through the room like a gasp. The activity drew murmurs from those nearby, heads turning, eyes widening as the flame seemed to writhe with a life of its own as wax spilled over the edges of its holder, dripping down in frantic rivulets, glistening like molten gold beneath the trembling glow.

"Hey, Rafayel, man, you good?"

A hand on his shoulder made him flinch violently and slap it away, the contact snapping him partway out of his spiraling thoughts. "Don't."

He was already rising, the chair scraping noisily against the floor as he pushed himself upright with a force that bordered on frenetic. The friend stood as well, confusion clear, but Rafayel didn’t wait to explain — with a curt shake of his head, he turned on his heel and strode toward the exit, leaving the other man standing there with his hand half-raised, a bewildered, "Hey, where are you going, come back!" hanging unanswered in the air.

The murmurs of those left behind — curious stares, the faint scrape of chairs and clothes ruffling — faded into irrelevance, they barely even registered. The bond burned like a tether, yanking him back to you, and he had neither the strength nor the desire to disobey.

By the time he reached the cool air of the night outside, he was seething. He had heard you loud and clear.

You merciless, cruel, horrible witch of a woman, punishing him with your sweet truth in an act so loving yet selfish, selfless yet entirely possessive, driving him completely to his wit's end until the only remaining thought was yours — to worship you wholly, thoroughly, obsessively, as deeply as he wanted.

He was in love.

You were in Rafayel’s room.

Because for his sanity to be tested like you intended it would be, of course you had to be in there of all places.

He was able to crash in the way he wanted like a dam bursting without knocking holding him back. In fact, he didn’t even bother calling out at all.

And honestly, he wasn’t even lucid enough for coherent thoughts such as those the moment his vision tunneled on your frame in the middle of his space, your back turned to him, an unaware and unintentional siren in a fluffy white robe loosely tied at your hips.

His robe.

Rafayel was moving before he registered the full picture — prowling the distance between you within seconds, hand snatching up yours and spinning you around. Just being this close and touching you uninhibited got the synapses firing faster than bullets in his head. He pushed forward into your space with no preamble, crowding you against the floor-to-ceiling window. He spared another two or three precious seconds taking in your startled expression with vindication (“Rafayel, what are you doing here?” before putting a stop to all the unnecessary talking with a kiss.

How could he expected himself to stay away from this?

One knee pushed between your thighs, a subtle but undeniable acknowledgment of what he’d felt, and you faltered, clutching the sides of his shirt so abruptly the lily decorations peppered through out clinked. A quiet noise escaped past your lips, muffled by his own and intensifying the building pressure simmering in his gut as he played with the collar of your robe — his robe — and drank greedily from you.

He felt a push at his chest.

The separation between you that couldn’t be more than a tight space to breathe each other’s air brought the world rushing back into focus — Aridum’s quiet, serene snowfall materialized behind your head like a mockery of their frenzied tangle of limbs, the ambient sounds of the city bustling in the distance dampened.

Your eyes searched his, glazed and hazy with steadily-building arousal, yet waiting nonetheless for an answer, shiny lips parted in wordless wonder.

Rafayel could say nothing. The words were there, soda fizz under the surface threatening to erupt into something incomprehensible at best if he opened his mouth.

His palm engulfed your cheek and drew you right back in, continuing the kiss with more urgency to prevent you from tumbling out from his grasp again — let the action speak for him.

The need that thrummed deep beneath rendered him mute, save for strained sighs and grunts of effort louder than the rustle of fabric and the thuds of feet shuffling around on the floor as he plundered your mouth, tongue chasing yours. It tasted like toothpaste and chapstick, like fresh mint leaves, like nurturing warmth cooling his into something calmer.

Rafayel’s hand left your face and slid down your back to seize your waist, dragging you closer, flushing your hips against his firmer and pushing his thigh more brashly. Not even a second later, his other hand bracing your wrist against the window pulled your arm into him to spin you around like in a dance, switching positions without breaking away.

And you bit him.

He recoiled with an “Ah,” that was more surprised than pained, drawing away just enough to swipe his thumb over the curve of his bottom lip where your teeth had punctured him.

“Why are you here?”

Something rotten and vicious was about to bare his fangs at you through a smile he barely stopped from telling on himself by holding back, ‘You called,’ from slipping.

The other, more acceptable answer came in a quick and effortless sweep of your legs off the floor, draping them over either side of his waist, one palm supporting you underneath like the cradle of a hammock as he pivoted towards the bed. “This is my room,” he said — low, simple, keeping eye contact to witness your frustration. “You’re the one who walked in here.”

He saw in the curl of your mouth that you would’ve continued arguing semantics if not for Rafayel bending to deposit you gently atop the bed for you to settle safely beneath him. The mattress creaked under his shifting as he eased further and started descending to resume getting lost in your kisses until a finger landed upon his lips.

“What I meant was,” you started, and Rafayel exhaled against your touch and nuzzled into it like an obedient pet coming to heel with a lowered tail before his master. “Shouldn’t you be at that art salon?”

He stared, blood about to keel over the boiling point.

His beloved was pouting. So adorable that he wanted to bite down.

You’d been so patient with him, hadn’t you? The little divot between your brows called out to Rafayel, begging to be kissed.

“I regret going in the first place,” he said, getting closer to breathe those words directly against the curve of your ear, savoring its delicate shell and the heat emanating from it against his lower lip — basking in the short tremble he could pull out of you that told him all he needed to know. “Stay here with me—”

His arm dipped around your waist and tugged you insistently closer, shakily eager, while your hands scrambled at his biceps, the side of your neck stretching upward to meet his halfway and melting further into him like candle wax molding against Rafayel and pooling liquid sweetness inside him like a basin filled.

Ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring — ring!

What the hell? Now?

A surge of irrational anger flared inside Rafayel, sharp and sudden, as if the hotel room phone had personally wronged him so bone-deep that his ancestors themselves had been insulted by its shrill, untimely ring. He clicked his tongue sharply against the roof of his mouth, a frustrated noise brimming with disdain as he reached out with the intention of silencing the nuisance immediately.

But before his hand could reach the red button, your fingers curled gently around his wrist, halting him mid-motion. The touch was soft, warm, and unassuming, yet it cut through his irritation more effectively than words ever could. His breath hitched as he glanced down at your hand, stilling under the quiet weight of what you were going to say next.

“Wait,” your dulcet murmur came. “What if it’s something important?”

More than this?

The irritation got you a side eye for that — but he quickly caught onto where this was heading from the way you gave him a pointed, sultry glance under your lashes and the faintest devilish curl at the corners at your lips. The grip around his wrist turned into your fingers interlacing with his as you guided him to accept the call, holding his gaze so intensely throughout that the beginning of the reception’s announcement went unheard in his ears.

“The guest of this room is unable to answer. Please leave a message."

Rafayel hadn’t even found a chance to breathe, let alone process what was even happening when you pushed him off and knocked him flat onto his back, straddling his hips with surprising speed which elicited an involuntary jolt from him.

He froze, breath caught somewhere between his lungs and the thick, burning, moistureless air that was overheating him. A thousand words tumbled in a rush into his mouth at once, all died under his breath in a sigh as his senses swam and short-circuited in response to your boldness, the sheer power radiating off your figure captivating him. For a single, stretched heartbeat, all he could do was look up — look at you.

The light from the ceiling framed your form in a way that bordered on divine, spilling past the loose strands of hair that fell around your face and catching on the curves of your silhouette like a lover's caress. Shadows slithered around you, dipping into the soft folds and valleys of the bathrobe that clung to you in all the places his gaze couldn’t help but follow.

And then the vision struck, slicing through his mind like a blade dragged cleanly through water.

No, you brought it to him, conjuring it as surely as though you had whispered it directly into his mind.

The blues wouldn’t just be blues — shadowy cobalt would bleed into the depths below, heavy and still, fading into fractured glacier blue as the water grew lighter near the surface, where the sun struggled to break through. The greens would soften into glassy jade, shimmering faintly, caught in the shifting light as if the water itself pulsed with life. Shadows would stretch in drenched charcoal, not oppressive but endless, framing the brightness above almost like curtains opening.

And there, close to the surface, you would hover like the sun underwater, light spilling from you in ripples and shards. Your form would glow with submerged gold, warm and radiant, a halo of sunlit pearl surrounding you where the sunlight hit the water and scattered around your silhouette. You wouldn’t simply stand still — you would drift, your movements impossibly fluid, arms outstretched in a gesture that could be comfort or inevitability, a quiet invitation to a homecoming. Shadows would gather around your curves in bruised honey, soft and subtle, fading into the glow that surrounded you, the kind of light that looked almost too warm to belong in the cold ocean.

The person who the painting was drawn from the perspective of would see you not as a person, but as something greater. His arms would float above him, slack and surrendered, the only movement from his fingers angled upwards, glowing faintly with washed ash gold, the last vestiges of warmth clinging to his skin, while the rest of his form darkened in the embrace of storm-drift gray. Faraway air bubbles would be glacier silver-blue catching the warm light as they ascended toward the unreachable surface, reflections flickering like distant stars against the background of salt-shadow teal.

This was a homecoming.

The bursting of colors landing on his imaginary canvas came to a head when the branding heat of your mouth found his ear, screeching into stuttered motion and scattering like seagulls afterwards. His head lolled sideways under the zapping pressure, inviting more of the world-halting caress that left him all limp.

Then it was gone — only a cool tingling remained where yout moist breaths once ghosted him —

"Hey bro, why'dya leave? Get back here—"

Shocked as if he had short time memory about it being a voice message, he squirmed for a beat, eyes flitting in panic between the call display and you with the mortification of every single drop of blood in his body rushing southwards.

His friend’s voice fractured into static buzzing under the pounding of his ears when you bowed forward once more, towards the red mark on top of his mark that was practically vibrating under his skin, trailing kisses across its glow. Every skin contact point with you burned even with the layers of clothing in-between, melting into an acute throb as you reached the base of his throat and dipped into the hollow between his collarbones — fingers dancing along the strip of his neckpiece before delving underneath, dragging down and delicately, deliciously tugging.

That was all it took for Rafayel to flip your positing and roll you beneath his body, propping himself up with one forarm and holding your wrist to just — stop you for a minute, expression tight as he asked, “Are you sure?”

Your intentions were crystal clear, but it was necessary to check in before continuing any further even though he needed this like air right now, and the prospect of hearing it straight from your lips that he was wanted —

Looking somewhere off to the side, you replied, “Otherwise you’ll actually go back,” thoughtfully, but there was something resentful in there, the statement almost bitter sounding in its delivery.

The overjoyed press of his lips to hide the smile he just knew would annoy you betrayed what he was thinking on the spot.

“So cute,” breached containment however, full of affection as he moved aside your hair behind your ear tenderly, fore and middle fingers taking your love’s sensitive edge between them and caressing, causing you to turn your face further away from him. “You must have missed me quite a lot.”

That sentence was accompanied by the press of his knee into the junction between your inner thighs, innocent enough unless you factored in that one certain revelation of earlier that entirely changed the context in intent. Especially when your pupils dilated visibly before him as you choked out a tiny gasp of surprise, revealing your guilt in glaring clarity.

“What, not pleased you got caught?”

A wicked impulse seized him — one daring him to keep playing this card to unlock so many possibilities as to how he could have you tonight.

He could have you show him what you’d done while he watched until you begged to be touched — on your back with legs wide open for his viewing pleasure, or hovering right above his face in 4K Ultra HD quality that he could just lay down and enjoy and perhaps contribute with his breath if he felt generous enough. You were having fun all on your own, yeah? He just wanted in on it. Not knowing wasn’t a sin, but not learning was.

If you didn’t think you were ready to bear the consequences of this decision of yours, you should have rethought before choosing the room he frequented, shouldn’t have turned him into a fish out of water in public by calling out to him like that, should have known better that Rafayel could be the vilest when he was provoked.

“Or, are you?”

His words were a double-edged knife. Pick the surface-level meaning and you ended up with him teasing you about missing him quite literally, nothing more, nothing less. Take him for what lay beneath, however...

Unfortunately, or, fortunately, you were one slippery fish.

"Why should I be ashamed?" The confidence that dripped from your reply rang genuine. You were so unbothered by his instigation that he realized this was going to be harder than expected, perhaps more rewarding as well. A delightful prospect. "Do you wish I wouldn't miss you?"

Oh, your pride, your grudge was truly an impressive sight —

gleaming razor-sharp even under scrutiny, glittering steel reflecting his image in fragments, and yet tempered by enough warmth to invite him closer instead of warding him off.

"Not at all." His heart sang. "But it couldn't compare to how much I missed you."

"And you still left," came a mumble, sounding more dejected than anything, carrying the weight of his deeds for the past two days.

It was that easy to change his mood.

Rafayel cooed instinctively, rubbing soothing circles into the skin above your knuckles as he pressed a string of quick kisses into the curve of your wrist — lips brushing tender apologies along its path until he reached the palm of your hand cupping his face, where he lingered to feel you stroke delicately over his lower lashes.

"I'm here now," was his gentle promise, one spoken nuzzled against the backs of your fingers. "I'm not going anywhere."

"What are you going to say to your friend? You didn't even pick up his call," you admonished softly, drawing his attention towards where the voicemail was still being displayed on the hologram screen hovering from the nightstand, accepting a prompt about how to proceed.

Rafayel made a show of leaning back to sit back on his heels, staring down at you as he slipped his fingers underneath the tightly-belted thick, sash-like band to pop the clasp to the side apart, the metal closure disengaging with a small clack as the ends slid free and exposed the zipper underneath.

He drank in your every reaction — every detail of you sprawled out before him: your robe coming undone ever so gradually, tantalizing glimpses of skin peeking between its parted folds, a little bit of collarbone here, the curve of your breast there, teasingly hinting at the shape of a nipple underneath the white fabric, then another flash of thigh, an exposed inch of inner leg from your feet shifting restlessly alongside his shins.

He pulled the whole belt free in one smooth yank — the sudden momentum making it snap with a harsh crack. It curled like a ribbon in his palm as he surveyed you, gauging your reaction; watching your widened stare catch onto cloth held loosely in his fist as he flung it haphazardly to the side.

Then, he started tugging at your ankle to raise it higher — dragging his knuckles along your heel, the sole of your foot, caressing into the arch of your instep, traveling along the softness of your calf all the way down to your knee, a single fingertip trailing underneath, slinking gradually but surely toward the inner side, tracing hypnotic spirals into the silky flesh that made your breathing hitch unevenly.

The ends of your robe were riding further up past your thigh along with the slow march, your naked skin revealed in gradual increments the higher his palm slid — revealing more and more until his hand stopped at the underside of your thigh, entirely disappeared from view because of the bunched up cloth, and pulled your leg up gently to drape it over the curve of waist.

Falling right back in on instinct, he leaned down, propped above your splayed form on his forearm beside your shoulder and bent to drag his nose upwards along the line of your cheekbone, saying, "I'm busy."

Your answering snicker was endearing and familiar, drawing forth a swell of warmth inside him like the sun rising over a tranquil ocean's horizon. "Still trying to run away?"

“Just returning to the original plan.”

There would be no running away now — not anymore, not ever, at least not from you and what you made him feel. He'd tried; failed, obviously, as evident in his return here, where the answer awaited him with open arms.

"Who says I'm going to agree? I still haven't forgiven you.”

Rafayel adored that one pout of yours, the one that curved at its edges like the swoop of a bird's wing, delicate and lovingly rounded in its downturned shape. It drew his mouth upward to meet its match, slotting perfectly against its twin seamlessly in the union of a kiss, lingering as if they belonged together like puzzle pieces. You melted sweetly under the fondness contained within the gesture, sighing quietly in surrender; every angle of his mouth was drawn to yours inexorably, it was gravity pulling falling stars back to their courses.

"Not yet," he amended dutifully once he could manage words again, and felt your smile widen before sealing his mouth over it. "Let me."

"If you beg," you shot right back, the curve of your mouth pronounced against his chin, smug satisfaction dripped from every word and its delivery as you pulled away again just enough to meet his half-hooded stare evenly — daring him to refuse you. "Properly."

You kissed the little groan that was about to spill past his lips, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Neither was it intended to.

"How would you like me to repent?" He dragged the question into an offer, a honey trap ripe for plundering. "On my knees? On my back?"

He let his arousal to show on his fact at those mental images, conjured by practiced ease, crafted to seduce. The soft puff of your exhale danced across his chin, sending his nerves tingling. A sign he was on the right track? Or did it merely betray surprise at whatyou had in mind? Either possibility stirred his blood.

"You know what someone in your position shouldn’t do?" you whispered, low and hushed, conspiratorial yet laced with a dangerous authority that quickened his pulse. His brows rose involuntarily, the shift in your tone sending anticipation skittering down his spine. Your lashes swept low, casting faint shadows on your cheeks as your pointed stare locked onto him, sharp enough to pierce. "Ask me what to do when you’re supposed to be coming up with ideas on your own. That’s weaponized incompetence."

His head snapped back so fast that something audibly clicked in his neck.

Mouth wide open.

"Weaponized in—" The sensual, submissive haze he’d been wrapped in evaporated like morning dew under the brutal heat of the desert sun, vanishing so quickly it left him sputtering. The words faltered on his tongue as insult overtook every carefully cultivated mood, his composure fracturing into clumsy indignation. Propped up on his elbows above you, his face twisted into a comically muddied mix of offense and disbelief, his tone taking on an incredulous sharpness as he glared down at you.

"Say that again and I’ll spit bubbles at you!" he snapped, his threat hanging in the air like a gauntlet thrown by a petulant prince.

"Pffft!"

The insolent brat you were being in that moment, daring to laugh straight in his face, was both impossibly cute and maddeningly infuriating. He stared down at you, eyes narrowing with mock offense, the knowledge that your laughter was entirely at his expense gnawing at his frayed patience. He was torn between kissing you senseless or flipping you over and finding some other way to wipe that smug, adorable smirk off your face.

"What do you mean weaponized incompetence?" Rafayel shot back, the words almost trembling with disbelief. "You think I can't please you properly without you guiding me through it step-by-step? Is that what you're saying?!" His irritation swelled, a balloon of indignation puffing up and threatening to burst as he fought, tooth and nail, to keep the whine rising in his throat from escaping. "I like you telling me what to do because I enjoy indulging in your desires! Not because I’m incapable of being creative in bed!"

A frustrated huff crowned his ranting, "Stop laughing!" he barked, though his rising pitch only seemed to add fuel to your uncontrollable amusement.

You shook your head firmly, slapping your hands over your face to muffle the sounds of your laughter, but it was no use. Your entire body curled inward instinctively, knees drawing up as you rolled to your side, burying yourself deeper into the cocoon of your mirth. It only made it worse for his pride — your stifled giggles shaking through you like tremors, every failed attempt to contain yourself sending them bubbling up again.

Rafayel let out a growl of frustration, throwing his body off yours with an exaggerated thud, landing face-first into the pillow beside you in utter defeat. The mattress jolted slightly from the force, but the muffled yell he buried into the pillow caused a chain reaction that only made your laughter harder to suppress. The giggles came fast and bright, and he swore they sounded far too gratifying for his current temperament, his scowl deepening with every shake of your shoulders and every wheezing gasp for air that he felt in the bed, he didn’t even need to look.

The fact that you were utterly immune to his wrath, impervious to every “Stop,” he threw your way, made it all the more maddening. How was he supposed to maintain the upper hand, to reestablish even a shred of dignity, when he couldn’t even intimidate you?

"I'm sorry," you gasped finally, though the apology was weakened by the cracks of laughter still slipping through. You managed to sit upright, though it took visible effort, your hands brushing away tears from the corners of your crinkled, joy-stricken eyes. A few lingering giggles escaped as you cleared your throat, attempting to sound sincere but failing miserably. "I didn’t think you’d have such strong feelings about this topic."

Rafayel lifted his head from the pillow, his hair disheveled, his glare shooting daggers your way, though the deep flush blooming across his cheeks betrayed his struggle to keep his composure. He opened his mouth to retort, to say something, but instead all that escaped was a muffled, irritated groan as he flopped back down into the pillow.

“Rafayel.”

He rolled onto his back with dramatic flair, hands folded primly over his stomach and ankles crossed, the picture of theatrical innocence. The pout he wore, however, was pure spite, lips pushed forward just enough to make his point. “If you think I’m sooo weaponizing my incompetence, maybe I should actually start doing that. Let you handle everything yourself. Clearly, you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Rafayel…”

“No, no, go ahead,” he cut in, stubbornly resolute, almost belligerent in its exaggerated persistence. “I’m useless, right? I don’t know what I’m doing. Teach me. I won’t even lay a single finger on you.” He puffed his cheeks, a childish act of defiance paired with the way he turned his head away, sulking with the finesse of spoiled royalty.

The exaggerated display drew a sigh from you, long and exasperated, but tinged with a quiet amusement that he didn’t miss. He wasn’t fooling you — not for a second—but he relished the moment all the same.

“Well,” you began, feigning hesitation, with false reluctance. “Since you’re already laid out, I guess…” You trailed off as you shifted to straddle him, slow enough to test the limits of his so-called resolution, the soft white robe you wore parting ever so slightly as you moved, revealing tantalizing glimpses of skin before your knees closed firmly around his hips, framing him like twin prison bars.

His eyes darkened as he watched you, taking in the sight hungrily, every detail sinking into him like a drug he couldn’t resist. His hands betrayed him almost immediately, fingertips skimming the hem of the robe where it hung loosely, their touch feather-light as they ghosted over the tops of your thighs. It was instinctive, reflexive — completely unrepentant.

“I thought you weren’t touching me,” you teased with a playful lilt that interrupted the heat thickening the air between you like an unwanted knock on the door.

His hum was deliberately innocent, his head tilting as though to feign ignorance. But the dark gleam in his eyes and the smirk curling at the corners of his lips told a different story entirely. “I really like this robe,” he murmured with a calculated drawl. “What, I can’t touch my own clothes now?”

The claim was absurd — blatantly so — but it made you pause, his fingers grazing the fabric in question as though testing its texture, when in reality, it was clear he was savoring the warmth of your skin beneath it.

(Truthfully, it was also you who looked lovely draped in what was his — but that went without saying.)

Your mouth opened, the gleam of a retort on the tip of your tongue, but the words dissolved into nothingness as his hands shifted, palms hot against your sides, skirting along your ribs in an intentional, testing motion. He knew the heat of his touch stole the breath from your lungs, burning through the fabric like a spark setting fire to paper.

“You go on,” he said, infuriatingly smug as he leaned back into the pillows, his hands never straying far from your sides. “Help yourself. Take as long as you need. I’ll just… be appreciating this fabric in the meantime.”

His fingers traced the lines of your ribs, the motion slow, languid, before sliding downward to hover just above the curve of your stomach. They lingered there, resting near the knot of the belt holding your robe together. The edge of his thumb dipped just slightly beneath the fabric, brushing over its folded loops, a movement so subtle it was barely there, as though he wanted to test how much he could push you. He toyed with the fabric, rolling it between his fingers like he was unraveling a puzzle.

The pause in his pent-up desire — the break that had proven to be a blessing — was wearing thin. The front he was putting on, all casual indifference and smug bravado, was crumbling, betrayed by the way his gaze kept flickering back to you, and, of course, the growing press of his impatience beneath you, hard and neglected, made it abundantly clear that he was more than ready to pick up where you’d last left off.

You broke first.

With nary a warning, your hand shot out, snatching the ends of the thin, ribbon-like scarf draped loosely around his neck. You wound the fabric around your fist once, twice, tightening it just enough to make your intentions clear…

Then you yanked.

The pull wasn’t violent — no, it was far too calculated for that. Enough pressure to catch him off guard, to tip him forward slightly, but not enough to hurt. It was a demand, plain and simple, one he found himself surrendering to before he even had the chance to consider resistance. His wide-eyed surprise melted almost instantly like cotton candy in water into something darker, something sharper, as his lips curled into a grin that spoke volumes about just how much he was enjoying this game.

"First, you ask to beg for my forgiveness," you continued, pulling him a little closer, and his chest tightened as though the leash around his neck extended all the way to his lungs.

Your gaze pinned him down like a blade, your lips curving into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, wasn’t quite a smile — something far more addictive.

"And then," you murmured, sweet but laced with unmistakable bite, "you start ordering me around like a brat."

A jolt of concentrated heat shot through him, not from embarrassment but from the sharp edge of thrill that ran through his veins. He let the tension in his body slacken just slightly, a calculated move that allowed him to lift from the bed a little, meeting your challenge with his own. The faint tug of the scarf against his neck only heightened the electric energy between you, and he found himself biting back a grin.

“Well," he said at last, letting his weight sink into the bed with a noncommittal shrug, the barest shift of his shoulders enough to convey his defiance. "I’m just playing my part." He tilted his head just enough to make the scarf strain, wanted to see what you’d do with the provocation. “The sleazy husband.”

“You want a reward for that?”

“Acknowledgment of how committed to the role I am would be nice.”

“Oh yes, the most infuriating actor—”

“Aaand you goofed it—”

“—impossibly—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”

“—handsome," you went on, and his smirk faltered ever so slightly. “Disarmingly clever, annoyingly witty," you added, the sharp edge softening with each word, though the grip you kept on the scarf didn’t loosen. If anything, you pulled him closer, closing the space between you inch by inch. "—and worst of all," you finished, dropping into something softer, something so intimate, "Completely, devastatingly, undeniably competent."

“Well, aren’t you good at apologizing…” he said into himself, embarrassingly beet-red at having fallen for your trick.

“I’m still waiting for yours, you know,” you pointed out distractedly, playing with the crystal flame lilies scattered on his wine berry shirt, tracing the petals of a bloom while seemingly entranced, following the silvery droplets dangling in a chain. “But I’ll be graceful this time and keep going with mine...”

Before he had a chance to blink or register the motion — your free palm slipped underneath the thin fabric covering his heart, caressing right alongside the pulsing red mark — and squeezed with a vengeance (such a fierce boob grab!), applying enough pressure that the pads of your fingers sunk into flesh, then widened the buttonless V-cut of his shirt by yanking, no, downright ripping it open by the lapels with both hands, and Rafayel damn near felt like a virgin at how scandalous that single action was that he almost covered himself up.

But then again, he could hardly claim innocence right now, could he? He was practically a champagne bottle about to pop down there. Just from that. Who was he, the main female character getting her corset ripped in a bodice-ripper novel?

“Ohmyg—hi? What happened to hello? How are y—”

“Shut up or no head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kisses were rained along his collarbone, the length of his neck, and nipping gently at the spot behind his ear that got the hairs on his nape rise to attention. It would’ve been funny what a child’s play it was to tease him until his ears matched the scarlet blossoms on his shirt, except nothing about this particular situation bore humor — least of all, his response to it.

Which was practically none at all. Because he simply lay there, stiff as a plank from how turned on he was, and you worked him diligently as if he was an instrument and you were the virtuoso.

It was also because he was zeroed in on the cleavage peeking out from the gap in your robe as you made your way further downwards, tongue flickering along the dips and bumps of his upper abdomen — surely able to feel more than hear each inhale and exhale getting closer to moaning territory the longer you kept teasing. He even caught a nip slip here and there, getting impossibly harder in response, culminating in him twitching and tightening beneath you whenever you — purposefully! — brushed against his erection.

“Rafayel,” you sighed dreamily, and he moaned for real this time at how his name fell softly past your parted lips, pouring into a pleased hum against his navel where a trail of wetness gleamed — followed by fingertips curling gently around the hem of his pants’ band. “You’re so quiet. Not leaving it up to chance, huh?”

And the only response he gave was an impatient roll of his hips toward your head, granting you permission — eager acquiescence, even — while a loud, unabashed gasp slipped into his lungs as your hands found the zipper of his pants. With a practiced tug, you freed it from its track, and his pants slid low on his hips, just enough to reveal the waistband of his underwear. Your fingers followed immediately, hooking under both fabric barriers to ease them down until they rested tautly just below his hips. The motion tugged on his shirt as well, once secured by the overlap tucked into his waistband, and with nothing anchoring it anymore, the luxurious fabric parted effortlessly, exposing the sculpted expanse of his chest and abs in one sweeping reveal. His stiffening length, freed from its confines, ached visibly — leaping subtly toward contact, as though craving the touch it had been denied for far too long.

"See? You're being so good... why do you keep wanting to provoke me?" came your lilting reproach, spoken against the soft skin of his pelvis, lips fluttering teasingly across its planes in playful grazes of their silky plush. "

“Permission to talk?”

A sharp, in-drawn breath escaped him the moment a single finger traced along the underside of his shaft, lingering over a wildly pulsing vein — evidence of the frenetic race of his heart currently pumping pure liquid lightning straight through his veins — but he recovered quickly, allowing it to dissolve into an exhale long and drawn-out instead.

“Go ahead, handsome.”

His hips lurched instinctively in search of something tangible, of a sensation besides the torturous tickle of warm breaths dancing lightly along his arousal, "Give me my reward, then. I've waited so long for this, it's been torture."

“Doesn’t sound like you minded the wait. You left me, didn’t you?”

Ah, yes. The grudge. You were becoming like Rafayel the longer you stayed by his side.

"You know I hate waiting. Let alone like this," he said, all whiny and punctuated with a shudder — one that was met with an accompanying jolt that surged straight from the base of his erection when your lips brushed teasingly alongside it. "I didn't think you'd be this cruel..."

"Are you really asking?"

"Can you give it to me instead of wasting time talking?" came his blunt retort, brows drawn together in an impatient furrow that radiated ‘I’m being wronged,’ energy.

"Not wasting time at all, just wanted to spend more time with you. Feels nice, right? You deserve this,” you murmured comfortingly against the swell of his abs rising and falling with each heavy breath — and oh, he almost melted into a puddle at that, visibly deflating with his chest cavity just filling up all warm and fuzzy with love.

It did feel nice but — just — just — fuck — he needed to be touched or he actually was going to disintegrate into sea foam. Not joking.

A brief kiss landed on on the left side of his Apollo belt in consolation before a drag of your tongue along its path followed, transitioning into you breathing more warmth directly into his base, then placing a loving peck to his tip — eyes twinking at the tremble that surged through him. “I really love seeing you so reactive. Does it feel that good? Just breathing on you like this?”

His hips pushed upward in tiny nudges, bumping insistently against your cheek, practically begging to be held properly inside your mouth. "It doesn't feel good at all — just, come on, hurry... I keep my lube in the top drawer on the left... It's edible, you know..."

Thankfully, you didn't smirk at him. Didn't stop to tease him about his eagerness, either, wordlessly going about reaching over to rummage for a bottle in his nightstand — an act that forced you to draw away from his straining member completely, your warmth vanishing suddenly in one agonizing instant, causing him to nearly whine from the loss.

You popped open the lid to squirt some lubrication into your palm and recapped it while staring down at him with a curious gleam. "You had something like this with you the whole time—"

Your words got cut off upon him grabbing your dripping hand and directing it straight where his impatience stood angry at the delay, shuddering out a moan at how incredibly silky the glide was.

"Finally... yesss," he hissed, thrusting upwards to feel more friction — the delicious slickness spreading across your enclosed grip driving him absolutely wild. "Ahh—kkhfff... Keep going, you have to keep going, don't let go... Please. Please?”

Something in your face twisted weirdly at his breathy begging, making his heart flip at the unflinching lust in your widened gaze trained firmly onto his jerking hips.

He had your fist trapped around his swollen cock, urging you into pumping it once you settled into a steady rhythm stroking its turgid crown, twisting and curling into each new swipe upwards along his pulsing flesh; encouraging you by squeezing tighter every few strokes until you took over completely. Then, he threw his arm over his forehead haphazardly, basking in the blissful waves flowing through his veins at long last, watching you watch yourself pleasure him through fluttering lashes, breathing hard through half-parted lips.

"That's it," he sighed huskily, rocking his body into the hand rubbing and grinding against his dick's ridge with expert motions; thumb circling its glistening head and caressing alongside its slit where precome beaded out generously, smoothing over the entirety of its surface and working into the underside, swirling tantalizingly over the bulging vein there until all his thoughts melted into a haze of pure sensation, mind wiped clean of everything except the singular, simple fact that he desperately needed to come. "Like that — nnhhh, yes! That feels amazing — feels perfect — love those sweet little fingers... So close already, I can't, I can't—"

At his muttered groans, your pace stuttered noticeably before resuming its previous speed, which wasn't fast enough according to the stretching throb inside his core, his blood rushing loudly through his ears like boiling rapids. "No, faster..." he urged you, rutting into your palm even harder in a frantic effort to increase the pressure and bring him to the precipice quicker. "I can't hold on much longer — need more, I need more. Tighter. Tighter."

The corners of his vision pulsed white and Rafayel whimpered as he jumped inside your curled fist when the unexpected sensation of having your forefinger slide through his sticky fluids gathered at its tip, swirling clockwise before ascending back up in an unhurried stroke that carried a slippery coating alongside it to smooth out the glide to put pressure right into the slit — a sensation that lingered for seconds afterward with ghostly echoes, drawing a sudden choked gasp from his lips at how intensely good that single touch felt.

“Thaaaaat’s it, yeah, I love that, you have such a beautiful voice.” Your free palm swept up alongside his ribs to rub gently against their curve as though to soothe the ragged sounds ripping past his throat; traveling upward to cradle his head against yours where your cheek brushed alongside his temple, holding him still with tender care and easing some of the tremble wracking through him. "Can you feel how much I'm enjoying us being together like this — how badly I've missed you? Please let me hear those pretty sounds, I wanna hear them loud and clear. Will you be generous for me and share it all?"

His reply died in his throat in favor of a low keening sound — something raw and broken — when you squeezed tighter.

The way your nails dug ever so delicately into the sides of his cock, applying pressure just shy of pain was truly exquisite torture, making his head swim and rise up from the bed so he could crush his lips against yours, biting hungrily into your plush mouth and delving deep into its depths until oxygen became nothing but an afterthought. Every neuron of him burned alive in chain reaction as your tongue wound and slid alongside his, curling along the underside before retreating for him to suckle on your lower lip eagerly until it swelled red.

"Mmnghhfuck! Hhhaaa—keep—" Words spilled past his slackened lips like ribbons unfurling, senseless as he struggled to convey how excruciating it was to contain his euphoria within, desperate for any sort of outlet to relieve the pressure rising inside him rapidly —

— and then broke off suddenly on a low moan when he caught a flash of your unoccupied hand that was just cradling his neck having found its way between your thighs, the view out of sight because of the robe —

Then, Rafayel saw the pearly gates.

His orgasm slammed straight into him, so unexpected and yet wholly expected all the same that he gasped around it like he was in a headlock, utterly disoriented by the sudden assault on his senses, soaring impossibly higher with each jerk of his hips into your fingers' grasp and shooting thick white streaks across his stomach; leaving behind faint smears wherever it hit its mark — warm, sticky ropes landing atop his defined abs and even reaching as far as his sternum.

He knew something was wrong when it didn't stop.

Far from it, really: each pulsing contraction seemed to force more of its fluid past his cock's narrow slit, painting your pumping digits liberally with his release — even staining the lapels of your robe in messy spots. It lasted so long that Rafayel started seeing stars sparkling around the edges of his blurring vision; making everything appear fuzzy like static. "Nggh—too much—ah! Aaa—hhh! Nnhhfff... Khhffffcking hell... Can't believe—still going—"

"Don't hold back now, just ride it out, nothing wrong with it," you murmured fervently, brushing some hair back from his sweat-soaked temple and — then — kisses, so many kisses. "I know you wanted this so badly, it's okay... You deserve this. Let go for me, yeah? Can't you let go for me? All this stress will go away. Isn't that nice?"

What came out instead was an embarrassingly high moan, hoarse with overuse, entirely at odds with the self-assuredness he'd wanted to project with each thrust of his hips, spurred onwards by instinct alone in a mad dash for euphoria.

Just how pent-up was he?

He couldn't recall the last time he'd felt pleasure this acute, sharp as shrapnel beneath the layers of desire, making him so out of it that he wasn't even aware of the embarrassing mess he made like he’d just wet himself being cleaned up with a tissue by you.

And it still wasn't nearly enough.

He surged forward, wound his arm around your waist and tossed you to the side gently so your back lay flush against the sheets before following suit in a tangle of limbs that ended with you under him — where he belonged: cradled between your thighs, seated fully inside their heated clasp as he hovered above you — one elbow propped beside your shoulder while the other wandered aimlessly downwards and undid the trusty knot holding your robe together in one go.

"Rafa—"

“Sorry, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm so thirsty," he said, as he raised the lube-and-come-sodden hand of yours up to his mouth to lap at the trails trickling over your wrist; sucking on your fingertips in apology — no trace of shame coloring his cheeks as he did, far too focused on the task of cleaning them thoroughly to be distracted by something as trivial as embarrassment. He didn’t even taste himself. Just the blueberry.

So engrossed in it that he didn’t even notice you burning holes with your gaze at his lips sealing around your thumb while he ran his tongue underneath it in short, quick flicks until it was glistening once more, except this time with spit instead of lubricant.

All the while, he traced the clean strip of skin revealed by the parted folds of your robe with a searing hand, starting from the valley of your cleavage between your breasts all the way down the slight convex curve of your torso leading towards the V that marked the point where your thighs began, drawing delicate circles into your navel, slipping downward inch by tantalizing inch in search for hidden oasis.

Taking notice of how wrecked you looked through the curtains of your fingers splayed over his eyes and forehead, Rafayel rewarded you an equally debauched looked as his lips curled into a smirk against your palm.

A loud, viscous pop of your wetness echoed in the room when his fingers tenderly made contact — positively dripping for him. Your mouth flew open upon feeling him draw his forefinger's pad gently against your entrance, lingering teasingly at the seams in an excruciating crawl, tracing lightly around it as you pulsed hungrily against his fingertip.

"So thirsty," he mumbled absentmindedly to himself — mouth watering.

Rafayel pushed open your legs by the backs of your thighs to allow his head better access. If he was on a normal day, he would plant feverish kisses on the insides of your quaking knees and thighs and mark you everywhere, made it more sensual, more teasing, but he was borderline parched — not to mention more impatient than a driver stuck behind a cyclist in a one -lane road.

You yelped at his mouth diving between your legs in reckless abandon. His tongue lapped up your slick in deep, obscene flicks, then plunged inside into the warm haven awaiting him inside, devouring your sweet nectar in loud slurps, uncaring of how sloppy and unrestrained he was currently acting; far too hungry to concern himself over anything save for indulging greedily in your flavor.

"Rafayel, shit, that feels—oh my god..." He had to push your hips down by splaying his hand along the plane of your stomach as you arched helplessly, otherwise you would have simply lifted right off from his greed ravaging you without mercy or restraint. "That's so—you're so—fuck! What—what’s gotten into you? Ahh...!"

Any hope of responding to that died the second your hand tangled itself tightly into his hair and tugged to bring him impossibly closer against you, his head blanking. It felt so good when your heel planted itself onto his shoulder blade and pressed insistently there in a silent plea for more, sending ripples of heat fanning out across his nerve endings in their wake.

Without hesitation, he latched his lips around the swollen bud peaking proudly from beneath a layer of velveteen flesh and flicked upwards, suckling hard before closing around it fully — then rolled his tongue in circles around its rim with the intent to render your world spinning madly with each passing stroke. The fingers locked around your trembling thighs kneaded deeply into their skin, coaxing the delicious, involuntary spasms coursing throughout you until the only thing you knew was the blissful torment his hot mouth wrought.

"You're so delectable on my tongue, did you know? The prettiest moans come pouring out from your lovely lips when I'm between your legs like this," he said, the sentences pieced together like beads on a pearl necklace fragment by fragment between licks and sucks, sounding just short of reverence. "Your taste drives me wild, I swear it's addictive... Am I making it up to you yet? Please say yes. Tell me it's working."

"Yesyesyesyesss—" A sharp inhale cut off anything else you tried to babble further as Rafayel rewarded you with another generous helping of his enthusiasm by diving back in and running his tongue in earnest up through your center. "You feel amazing, you — feel — so — g-good—"

"—don't think that's enough, though. Didn't you call me incompetent earlier?"

"What," you choked out angrily when a puff of warm breaths skated dangerously close to where you were most sensitive. "Oh my god—"

"I hold grudges, cutie. You taught me that," he said in a sing-song reply, lighthearted in tone, nearly drowned out by the thready groans bleeding through.

"I apologized already — what more do you want? Stop teasing, Rafayel!"

A pregnant pause followed as he stared up at you from between your legs, and saw your eyes widen with realization at just what you'd requested.

"As you wish," he relented, a dark edge to his mischievous grin when he rose back up and braced his knees against the mattress better, pulling your hips tight into the cradle of his thighs until one of your legs was thrown over his shoulder. "Have it your way — and don't forget you asked for this."

The slow sink inside your wet heat was traitorously misleading: a gentle, sweet meeting at first that masked what was brewing underneath.

A dragged out whine fanned his flames as you threw your head back. “You asshole—”

"I could have made you come once, twice..." he said, in a smooth purr that dripped sinfully past his lips.

Your mouth fell open on a silent gasp; the first wave of pleasure rolling through you upon being filled suddenly in one deep plunge. Your torso twisted to allow you to hide your face into the curve of his forearm draped next to your shoulder.

"You know I love taking my time with you," he continued, pausing to bury his face into your hair to breathe you in deeply, adjusting your leg to fall from his shoulder straight onto his hip. You took advantage of Rafayel getting close, grabbing onto his back so quickly that you missed the first time and yanked his shirt down to bunch halfway down his midsection and get stuck at his elbows. "And you just had to take that from me. I don't know which one of us is greedier... "

An apology was voiced, muffled by the crook of his elbow, almost incoherent by your gasps.

He cupped your chin and made you look at him. “Are you comfortable? Not hurting you, am I?”

Your throat clicked audibly. Then you shook your head rapidly in answer to both inquiries: yes — no — everything was okay — and Rafayel breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

And then, out of nowhere your fingers started moving around the expanse of his upper back, and before he could question the non-sexual way it came across when he was literally inside you, you said, "You're sweating."

"Yeah...?" Confusion muddled his hazy mind clouded with dull pleasure begging for him to start moving again, but you looked at him with wide, eager expectation dancing behind your expectant eyes — as if you couldn't quite believe what you'd seen.

"No — your temperature. It's still high but you're sweating now," you told him excitedly. "Rafayel — that's huge! This means your body is cooling itself down!"

He huffed.

"Of course it is, I've got the hottest woman in the world under me," he said with a roll of his hips, earning an enthusiastic moan from you in the process. Your arms snaked themselves around the back of his neck tighter until both forearms crossed at their crease, palms moving upwards in an intoxicating drag through the back of his skull. "You the cure to all of this..."

His forehead dropped unceremoniously yours where it stayed, and he sucked in an uneven, shaky groan that tapered into something resembling a whine as he started rutting steadily against you, driving into that spot where you liked it the best with growing desperation with the occasional staccato grunt at the fluttering squeeze and murmured encouragement.

At some point, his mouth wandered towards your pulse, scraped his teeth against it gingerly before latching on it in an open-mouthed kiss that was hard enough to bruise.

You tilted your chin skywards with a sigh to give him better access and tangled your fingers encouragingly deeper into his hair, and something inside him sparked awake in response, a fiery need demanding him to paint every inch of your skin violet, rose and mauve so that it may glow evermore brightly for everyone to see —

"Way too beautiful for your own good... Driving me crazy... Every single day... Couldn't keep my hands off you the moment I got in here..." he hissed furiously as though he were possessed, snapping his hips harder upon finding the angle he desired, searching relentlessly for something within you both to satisfy the frenzied race to the peak taking control of him completely; searing kisses littering everywhere he could reach along the underside of your chin and neck whilst spewing senseless litanies into your skin in between them. "Can't believe I could have this forever... Right? Say I can have this forever. It'll drive me insane if you don't, I swear—"

"Forever," you echoed hoarsely, your nails digging tightly into his scalp as his pace increased once more. "Y-you can have me forever—anytime, wherever—"

Your assurances came with a startled cry of ecstasy as he sank his teeth into the juncture connecting your shoulder and collarbone in a bite that bordered on a savage instinct to ensure he was there, he'd been there, and would always be there. "You're not leaving, are you? Aren't gonna leave me anytime soon, right?

Every syllable was marked with a measured grind into you as if determined to force every word inside your head by burying it deep in your core — imprint it permanently into your brain; until the only thing filling your thoughts was him and him alone. "Not letting you — I'm not letting you. I can’t let you go, it’s too late — too late. Say it. Say it.”

"As — many times as I ne-ed to," you panted underneath him, arching upwards so beautifully for him as his grip loosened marginally to let you find that perfect angle that caused your back to bow like a perfectly tuned instrument in his hands; singing nothing but divine music. "'S not changing, ever. Won't change... Agh!"

His hips bucked in answer to your nails sinking deep into the skin of his shoulders as though clawing for dear life. "Yeah? Yeah? Promise—?"

All you could do was sob into his mouth hungrily swallowing yours — a mess of moans falling endlessly past your lips swallowed whole, accompanied with plaps and slaps of wet thrusting. There'd never be a time when he wasn't craving the taste of your flesh burning scorching white hot against his own, craving more and more until everything blurred into a haze of delirium.

"Tell me... Tell me—hah, tell me, princess. Let me hear it..." His chest rumbled deep within where yours rubbed deliciously against his bare flesh with each fervent roll of his body. Even then, it wasn't nearly enough; couldn't possibly be, not with how ravenously thirsty he was for anything and everything having to do with you: your sounds, your expressions, those intoxicating stares filled with nothing but need for him and only him. Not while his stomach twisted itself in knots tight enough to tie sails and yet remained impossibly empty at the same time, yearning for the sweet relief of gratification flowing freely and quenching his deepest thirst. "Wanna hear you, gotta hear you say it—"

"I'm right here, m'here, not going anywhere, not leaving... I'myours, just don't let go, don't let go of me—"

He heard it as though you were underwater; faint, muffled underneath the thick fog clouding his senses, so indistinct yet simultaneously loud enough to drown out anything else within reach.

Every coherent thought vanished from his mind, melting into thin ribbons streaming across an ocean of red flames, then bursting forth anew into embers scattering throughout his vision in a dizzying display, igniting behind his eyelids with blinding light every time he blinked them closed. When he opened them, new constellations blossomed instantaneously; bright orange ones with maroon tinges shining bright among the black canvas.

"M'not gonna—! Can't let go—couldn't even if I tried. They wouldn't even be able to pry you away from my cold, dead hands."

More vivid blotches appeared before him at random intervals, painting his desert landscape in abstract patterns shifting so erratically they threatened to form fractals at any moment, jagged shapes overlapping and warping themselves until they resembled colorful stains splattered across walls in chaotic messes; or perhaps simply the shadows of clouds skirting the edges of his sight drifting past without a care — all blending together and merging seamlessly as though water droplets bleeding into fine lines until none could tell where one ended and the others began.

"Gonna be... gonna be stuck with me for life," Rafayel said, sounding entirely half out of his mind with the way he was babbling endearments (something about a bride) in-between little laps that trailed upwards along your quivering sternum toward your heaving chest; kissing you so fervently as though possessed, driven wholly by base instincts demanding he give in to whatever compulsion overtook him. "Always been mine. Always. Always—can't ever leave, yeah? I won't forgive you—won't forgive you this time—"

"Rafayel, I'm gonna come, please..." you whispered hoarsely against the crown of his head nestled between your breasts, your hands grasping onto his shoulders helplessly in an attempt at anchoring yourself. "I can't keep going, I'll fall apart. Please, don’t stop, don’t stop—"

One of his fingers slid down to repeatedly flick through your swollen folds, teasing and circling around your clit while his tongue swirled around a nipple; pulling and sucking hungrily with fervent desire, giving a pointed twist once he'd latched on.

"Come for me, then, do it, c'mon, cream all around me, let me have it, let me have this — you can do it, I’ll help you along.” His lower body lifted suddenly, pulling back until only his cockhead remained caught inside; followed by a quiet pop indicating his lips breaking contact from where they were buried in your chest. "I need you so bad I can hardly stand it anymore... Wanna feel you — feel all of you — need all of you..."

All it took was one sudden shift after a steady build-up of rhythm of shallow, quick thrusts: the smallest rotation of his pelvis and thrust straightwards, hips knocking against yours in a violent shove of flesh meeting slick flesh for you to fly apart spectacularly when he buried himself into that specific area right below your cervix.

With a shuddering breath that dissolved instantly into a shrill cry tearing through your throat, your thighs locked tight around his waist — holding him prisoner while your nails sank fiercely into his scratched back as your entire body trembled uncontrollably through the aftermath.

“Yeah, there you go, cutie.” A comforting, grounding caress landed on your forehead, tracing the arc of its curve towards the back of your ear; then repeating itself multiple times in slow, unhurried strokes — to remind you he wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. “There you are, that was beautiful. You got me seeing stars.”

"It's... It's snowing outside... In the desert," you said faintly, eyelids slow in their blinking, and Rafayel thought how utterly gorgeous you looked, all worn down and exhausted and so drunk in your post-orgasmic euphoria to talk nonsensically about what was happening outside.

"Yeah," he agreed, equally hushed as he peppered a trail of soft kisses across the bridge of your nose. You closed your teary lashes instinctively against the ticklish sensation. "It's so soft... and beautiful..."

You were the snow in his desert. Though, too blissed out to pick up on what he was implying.

Too busy stiffening up when you felt his cock jump inside you.

"You... you're still hard?"

“I didn’t come in the first place, whoops. Busy being too competent, I guess,” he said breezily, tilting his hips so that he pressed deep inside, directly into the tender spot inside you where pleasure flared to life unbidden.

"Let me... Let me rest, fuck, give me a minute..." Your hands scrambled for purchase against his scarred back; anchoring yourself by clawing surface level trenches down along its expanse and dragging red tracks as he continued his grinding in torturously slow and shallow rolls. "Need — I need to catch my breath, you're gonna make me pass out, shit, hold on — !"

Rafayel had you for three more times after that.

The first was the short prologue to what was coming, picked up from where he’d left off in the same position — head buried in your neck, making you tightly embrace him like he’d fly off the earth if he wasn’t held. No sooner did his hips start bucking roughly against yours before he spent himself inside in long pulses that coated you inside in heated spurts, sending sparks rippling out into your limbs from where you clenched weakly around him through your own release that hadn’t yet run its full course.

The prettiest sounds in the whole entire world spilled from him as he pulled out with a schlick, dripping his neglect-thickened seed onto the sheets, and you were naive as to think this was it. You both had indulged yourselves enough for the night, fucked through the absence-abstaining makes the heart fonder phenomenon, it had been fantastic to witness him get so serious. Surely now would be a good time to cool off and step into the bath together now that you’d been able to make him sweat and the sex-heavy humidity clinging thickly to your body was getting more comfortable the more you became aware of it. The room was absolutely boiling, stuffier than a sauna like he’d projected all the heat trapped inside his body everywhere. Perhaps opening up a window wouldn’t hurt…

“That was one,” he said then, staring down at his flushed erection straining proudly between his legs like a compass needle pointed north — the faint strand of semen connecting his tip and stomach swaying and snapping apart. “This isn’t anywhere near enough.”

To your shock, Rafayel got off the bed, hauled you in by your legs until your bottom half was dangling from the bed, and folded you completely in half with no warning. Your legs were pushed against your chest and were hooked over his shoulders, and the speed of with which all of it happened punched out a wheeze from you.

"Can I? Are you okay?" he asked urgently, patting your thigh rapidly twice, pausing — then adding another firm slap there before you nodded hurriedly in confirmation rather than a verbal response, because fuck, his weight holding you down felt absolutely incredible like this.

Your ankles started bobbing in sync with his hip thrusts as he drove deep inside your heat, the sink easy, smooth and soft and the mess you both made between your legs pouring out and splattering everywhere as he kept mumbling, “I can’t stop, I’m sorry, I can’t stop, can’t stop—”

This round lasted longer, though it was the worst frenzy you’d seen Rafayel in. Nothing was slow about it, he was mercilessly pistoning himself into you and unpredictably switching between shallow and deep that had your clit being scraped against and A-spot drilled into. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open from how intense pleasure was kneading you violently like a dough. If it wasn’t for his mouth gluing itself onto yours, the entire floor and the poor downstairs guests probably would have heard what was happening with how loud his moaning became — because he was downright voluntarily overstimulating himself.

With one particularly desperate sob, Rafayel finally buried himself to the hilt within you — throbbing — in harsh jets of liquid fire with jerking, abrupt twitches of his hips, milking himself into your body as he found yet another release that was as intense and concentrated as the previous. You cried brokenly, shuddering as that final thrust abused your clit over the edge of orgasm number two, involuntarily flinching and trying to get away when he pushed all the accumulated, positively flowing stringy mess right back into your puffy cunt with a strange, entranced look on his face. You had to slap his hand away and kick his weight off you, powerless and exhausted and fully feeling like your vagina was gaping and would never close back up.

A soft kiss on your cheek brought you back to earth.

“Still alive?” he croaked, gently maneuvering you higher up the bed and laying you back comfortably. You had to avoid the giant, wet and shining spot that had to be dripping down on the floor at the edge of the bed, face burning as Rafayel’s sweat-drenched forehead leaned against yours. “I’m not going easy on you… I have to say I’m impressed how good you’re taking it.”

You realized, once more with feeling, that he was rock-hard against your hip despite having already come three separate times — two of which had filled you to the point of pouring out of you — and had no sign of calming down any time soon.

He was beyond insatiable.

Though the third and final time was far sweeter, the pace much slower and drawn out as though he’d suddenly regained some sense and clarity. By that time, you were growing deliriously tired, the earlier carnal fucking accommodated itself to you by morphing into tender lovemaking. Rafayel had you on your side, comfortably able to hug pillows and anchor yourself, while straddling your thigh and hooking your other calf over his waist and held it there firmly, out from your space to let you breathe with his back straight. Just looking down at you with obvious, sensual longing to lean down for kisses the entire time and looking so fucked out had been enough to rekindle your desire.

He was driving himself languidly into you, either eyes closed and head thrown back, or focused dead-on at the spot between where he was slipping in and out of you — watching your cunt eagerly swallow his white-coated cock and attempt to suck him right back in each time he pulled out until only his tip remained buried. Over and over.

And eventually, his shaky breaths and sweet sighs started turning into fast-paced, restrained moans. You saw him hanging on the precipice of wanting to go fast again, the tension his body pulled taut like a bowstring about to snap.

At one point, your robe and his shirt had found themselves slingshotted into the far, opposite corners of the room at some point but he still had his pants and was positively drenched in sweat like he’d just taken a bath and shining under the dim lighting.

"Drained all of my stamina, I'm empty, completely dry... I’m gonna need an IV drip. I can’t believe it. This is crazy, you know... I could die happy like this... But I wanna come. I wan—nnah come inside you so bad again, wanna fill you up—make you full with me—"

He went completely motionless and stayed burrowed in you when your palms cupped his face gently, forcing him to look down at you with his shiny eyes. "You've got to calm down first."

“I don’t think I can,” he murmured, panting, “I really can’t. You feel so—”

Your thumbs stroked the outer corners of his eyes with aching tenderness. “We’ll stop and try to calm you down a bit continuing then, okay? Try for me. No need to rush when we have time to ourselves. No one’s going anywhere.”

He stumbled and nearly fell to his elbows on top of you. “Tell me to,” he said, in a begging voice. “You can just tell me to calm down. Anything you want, anything. You know I’ll listen.”

All these months of living with the revelation about the bond and it still came as a shock to you, but you figured if it was for his own good...

So you ordered him: "Calm down and relax, Rafayel. Everything’s fine, you’re okay."

And god, did he listen well.

You were shocked, as you always were each time, to see just how willingly compliant he was. Seeing his body literally change its chemistry to conform itself to your desires and let go of all tension was unbelievable. You immediately felt bad that you’d forced it on him somehow like some admitted, invasive tranquilizer, because you could have made him relax naturally, with your own labor, a glass of water and massage, maybe, gradually work him through it—

“There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t think about it too much. Just focus on me, yeah?” A quiet command that lacked any real intent to order accompanied an equally soft kiss planted softly against the corner of your mouth, and all thoughts went flying out of the window when you saw how mellowly at peace he was, gazing dreamily at you without the slightest care in the world.

After that, everything became a blur once again. But a pleasant one. Slow, like molasses trickling lazily throughout your bloodstream at room temperature — soothing all aches into pleasure-flavored coziness at being joined, no rampant race towards a climax involved. There was no concept of time whatsoever: just the two of you together.

After your pillow talk about what he believed inspired him — what he wanted would, you internally filled in the blanks — and how he was running out of reserves exclusively saved up for the purposes of his art, you had to make it clear to him that there would be no pain involved in your relationship.

You didn’t know if he expected to be hurt by you in the future or implied he had no problem with that happening, but you couldn’t even tolerate him saying those things for the sake of love, or whatever it was. Him being intimately familiar and nonchalant with the concept bothered you down to the bones.

Not only were you trying to work around the huge rock he’d just dropped on top of your heart with the revelation that Aridum had to represent pure suffering to him as a Lemurian, you were also slightly upset he’d wanted to subject himself to it because he was lost more beautiful things in life had made their way into his life to inspire him as well. His paintings, all of them, had taken a new context and an additional layer of tragedy with that revelation, despite the fact that he’d basically said you made him draw from a different fountain and clogged up the other one.

It was a bittersweet happiness to hear Rafayel wanting to explore brighter, happier sides of life together when the sketch he showed you he was working on while you were sleeping depicted a man drowning in the sea and a figure beckoning him from above, close to the surface. Something still very painful.

“That’s one bleak drawing.”

“Depends on what you see.”

“I see a dying man hallucinating. Maybe that’s someone close to him and his brain is comforting him with a vision. I don’t know.”

“Interesting take. Maybe it’s not just a man at all. Maybe it’s a reunion. It looks peaceful, doesn’t it?”

Now you looked again, it did look peaceful. Just like Rafayel was right now, next to you on the bed with his forehead almost touching yours.

"I'd like to think he isn't drowning, then."

Rafayel just smiled.

[mariasont]

Laced With Love - A.H

summary: while hotch is away on a case, you do nothing but shop, and when hotch insists you use his card who are you to disobey him? especially when what you buy benefits the both of you

masterlist

pairings: aaron hotchner x bimbo!assistant!reader

warnings: 18+ MDNI, reader spending hotch's money (it's giving sugar daddy af), so much teasing, fingering, oral fem receiving, hotch worshipping reader, some inappropriate comments made in front of morgan accidentally, they both just completely forget about dinner and don't mention so ya know my bad, dirty talk, soft dom hotchy poo

wc: 3.5k

You had a little problem.

It all started innocently enough: one coffee to-go, a quick window shop in your favorite boutique, and somehow that led to you walking out with a bag containing the most adorable pair of heels that you couldn't leave behind. Then it snowballed—another store, another bag. A perfume counter. A cute sweater that was on sale, and, well, that one really didn't count because it was practical. It was warm. Functional, even.

Okay maybe you had a big problem.

But it wasn't until your phone buzzed in your bag, pulling you out of a deep debate over whether you needed the floral dress you were holding, that you realized just how many bags were hanging off your arms.

Mr. Bossman flashed across the screen.

The name was completely ridiculous (and more than a little outdated now that he was your boyfriend), but it fit in a weird, nostalgic way. He'd been away on one of those long-distance cases, the kind where you weren't needed, and you'd been counting the days (and minutes) until he'd call. 

You grabbed your phone so fast you almost dropped the dress.

"Hi!" you answered, a little too quickly, your voice so giddy and sugar-sweet it could've given you a toothache. He always teased you for it, but right now you didn't care.

"Hi." His voice was warm, a little rough around the edges with exhaustion. "Just wanted to call and let you know I'll be home tonight."

Your heart practically leapt at his words. "Really? Finally! I thought I was going to shrivel up and die from boredom without you here. Okay, maybe not die, but like... what's the point of anything if you're not home to tell me I bought too many candles?"

"I'm not sure how you've lasted this long," he said. "Should I be worried about the state of the house? Or your bank account?"

"First of all, rude. Second of all, if you are so worried, maybe you shouldn't leave me alone for that long. Ever thought of that, Mr?"

His laugh came through the line, short and deep, and it hit you square in the chest. You closed your eyes, leaning into the sound like it could somehow bring him closer. You could see him so clearly--the way his face softened in a way that made him look ten years younger, the way his shoulders would drop, the way his eyes would crinkle. You missed him so much it hurt.

"Poor thing," he teased, still chuckling softly. "What's a girl to do when I'm not there entertain her? Besides spend my money, I mean."

"Don't worry, Aaron, your money is perfectly safe. My super respectable paycheck—you know, the one you sign—is covering me today."

"Hmm," he said, his voice still muffled. "Sounds like your boss is paying you too much."

"I don't know... I think you're getting a pretty good deal considering I keep you very taken care of. Would you like me to prove it later?"

"Hotch, tell me I did not just hear that."

You froze mid-breath, your hand flying to cover your mouth as a wave of heat rushed to your cheeks. That was Morgan’s voice. Morgan. You felt like a cartoon character with steam pouring out of your ears as your face burned red hot.

A nervous little squeak escaped you just as you heard Aaron fumbling with the phone, his voice clipped as he said something you couldn’t quite make out. There was a muffled shuffle, the sound of a door shutting, and finally, the blessed beep that meant he’d taken you off speaker.

"Christ, honey."

You peeked through your fingers, cheeks still burning as you tried to decide if you should laugh, cry, or maybe just dig yourself a hole and live there forever.

"So," you said, hesitating for a beat, "scale of one to ten, how dead am I? Should I preemptively file an HR complaint against myself, or just let Morgan handle my inevitable downfall?”

You heard him exhale sharply, the creak of a chair following as you pictured him leaning back with that half-smile he always gave when he was equal parts amused and exasperated.

“It’s fine. It’s a little embarrassing, sure. But nothing Morgan hasn’t done to himself ten times worse. He’ll give you a hard time for a day or so, Garcia will laugh, and then they’ll let it go.”

There was brief pause, and you could practically hear the smirk in his voice. “That being said, maybe think twice before making explicit promises while I’m at work, honey.”

You bit your lip, your gaze dropping to the shopping bag in your hand as you toyed with the strap absentmindedly.

"I mean, it's only fair I keep my promise now," you said softly, barely loud enough for him to hear. "It's the least I can do."

You heard a faint sound in the background—maybe him clearing his throat—before his voice dropped an octave. "You're already on thin ice today. Don’t make promises you can’t deliver on."

You let out a little huff, batting your lashes instinctively even though you knew he couldn’t see it.

"I don't know why you're doubting me, Mr. Hotchner. You should know I'm very serious about keeping my promises."

"You know, you're not making this easy on me, " Aaron muttered, his voice low and gruff. You could hear a faint groan, followed by what sounded like pacing on the other end. "Alright, I've really got to go now. Behave yourself. And how about you use my card for the rest of the shopping trip?"

"No, Aaron, I can't!" you said quickly, shaking your head as if he could see you. "You'd never trust me again with your card after the damage I'd do. Besides, you're already going to be shaking your head when you see what I got with my own money."

Aaron sighed, his voice going into that low, authoritative tone that always made your stomach flip.

"You will use the card." There was no room for argument in his words. "I want you to. End of discussion."

And just like that, the call ended with a click. You stared at the screen for a moment as if it might magically reopen the call so could argue your case one more time. But, of course, that didn't happen.

He’d told you to use his card—he demanded it, actually—but your fingers still hesitated, clutching the little piece of plastic like it was about to bite you.

You glanced at the white lace lingerie folded neatly on the counter, the delicate fabric practically winking at you. It wasn’t just pretty—it was the kind of perfect that made your heart flutter. Normally, you’d talk yourself out of something so indulgent, but this time? Well, Aaron had practically begged you to buy something… and you couldn’t think of a better way to treat both of you.

You only hesitated for the briefest moment before swiping his card, your heart doing a little flip as the cashier folded the lingerie into tissue paper with careful hands. It felt like a tiny secret between you and Aaron—a very fun secret.

By the time you got home, the sun had started to dip below the horizon, and you knew you had some time before Aaron made it back. He always gave you a pretty reliable ETA. It was the perks of dating someone so anal.

You lugged your shopping bags up to the bedroom, your arms aching a little, but in the best way possible. Once in the bedroom, you started unpacking everything like it was Christmas morning. Dresses went in the closet, shoes were lined up neatly, and you stashed the receipts in the nightstand just in case Aaron did ask how much damage you'd done.

Then you pulled out the piece—the one you'd bought with him in mind. The silk felt decadent under your fingertips, and the delicate lace was almost too beautiful to wear. Almost. It fit like a glove, hugging every inch of you like it had been tailored specifically for this moment. 

Feeling pleased with yourself, you made your way to the kitchen and slipped into your favorite frilly apron, tying the bow neatly at the back. Cooking wasn’t exactly your specialty, but you were determined to make this work. Pasta seemed foolproof enough (right?), and you threw together a salad and garlic bread for good measure. By some miracle, nothing caught on fire, and the kitchen actually smelled amazing.

You found yourself glancing at the clock every few minutes. When you finally heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, you glanced over your shoulder, heart skipping a beat.

"Hi honey!" you called sweetly, pretending as if standing in the kitchen wearing practically nothing was the most common thing in the world.

Aaron stepped inside, the door clicking behind him, but the second his eyes landed on you, he froze. His tie was loosened, his sleeves slightly wrinkled, and his hair looked like he’d run his fingers through it at least a dozen times today. But none of that mattered now—he stood there like he’d forgotten how to breathe, his dark eyes drinking you in.

You smiled at him, slow and innocent, brushing your hands lightly against the counter. "Dinner's almost ready."

"Sweetheart..." His voice was deeper than usual, strained and almost ragged, like he was trying to pull himself together and failing miserably.

"Yes?" you replied, acting as if you didn’t notice the way his eyes were glued to you while you turned off the burner and set the pan aside.

"What..." He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as his gaze dragged down your body, lingering shamelessly on the curve of your ass. "What are you wearing?"

You turned to face him fully, the delicate lace tugging just slightly as you moved, drawing his eyes lower without him even realizing it.

"Oh this?" you said, gesturing vaguely to the piece. "It's just something I picked up today. You told me to use your card, so I thought I'd get something you'd like."

His jaw tightened, eyes scanning you slowly before lingering on the pink bows peeking out over the apron. "You used my card on this?"

"Mm-hmm," you hummed, your hands gliding down the soft lace as you took a step closer, looking up at him through your lashes. "I figured it was an investment. You know, for both of us."

Aaron groaned, low and frustrated, pinching the bridge of his nose for a brief second before letting his hand drop.

“Using my card for this…” His voice was rough as he closed the space between you in one long stride, his hands landing on your waist and pulling you flush against him. His lips curved into the faintest smirk as his voice dipped lower. “Was the one thing you’ve done right today. Now take this off—slowly, sweetheart—and let me see exactly what I bought.”

He pinched at the bow on your apron, his fingers tugging lightly, but you stepped back just enough to be out of his immediate reach.

“If you were that eager to see what I bought,” you teased, your fingertips grazing one of the straps of the apron, “maybe you shouldn’t have left me waiting so long.”

You slipped one strap off your shoulder, letting it fall halfway, then paused, tilting your head slightly as if daring him to come closer.

"Trying on pretty things, waiting for me to come home—must've been absolutely draining," Aaron shook his head slowly.

You pouted at him, pushing your bottom lip out just enough to make his eyes soften. He chuckled quietly, stepping closer until his hands braced the counter on either side of you, caging you in.

 "But you know what? I missed you too. And seeing you like this... makes being away feel like torture."

Your pout melted into a glowing smile as your hands found their way to his chest, your fingers brushing lightly over his shirt.

“You mean it? You really missed me?”

"Of course I did." His hands cupped your jaw gently, his thumbs brushing along your cheeks as if he couldn’t quite believe you were real. His other hand moved slowly to the bow at your waist, pulling the knot loose with an easy tug. "Now, angel, let me see what else I've been missing."

The apron slipped to the ground, forgotten, as Aaron’s eyes locked onto you. He blinked once, then twice, his expression unreadable except for the slight parting of his lips, like he’d been robbed of air.

His gaze traveled over you like a slow caress, taking in the way the lace hugged your curves, teasing him with everything it didn’t quite cover. His eyes lingered on your chest, where the sheer fabric exposed the peaks of your nipples, and you caught the subtle hitch in his breath as he swallowed hard, his jaw clenching slightly.

You tilted your head, letting your expression soften into something sweetly innocent as you leaned back against the counter. The lace shifted with the movement, exposing just enough to make his jaw tighten. Then, just for a second, you parted your legs, catching his sharp inhale as you gave him a soft, almost shy smile.

When he realized what wasn't under the lace, his eyes snapped back up to yours. Without a word, he dropped to his knees, hands sliding over your thighs until they rested just above your knees.

A soft gasp escaped your lips, heart skipping several beats as you stared down at him. You hadn't expected this. Not the way his knees hit the floor like it was second nature, not the way his palms spread wide against your skin, thumb brushing over the curve of your inner thighs as he looked up to you.

He must be exhausted, that was your only explanation. But then his hands pressed harder into your thighs, and the thought evaporated. His eyes weren't clouded with exhaustion—they were focused, like he was memorizing every inch of you. 

Your stomach twisted sharply, your legs suddenly feeling like they couldn’t hold you upright anymore. He was looking at you like you were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. That singular thought settled in your chest, blooming like a flower, before curling low in your belly, leaving you breathless.

His lips grazed your thigh in the softest of touches, like he was savoring the moment. Slowly, he pressed another kiss, firmer this time, his fingers tightening around your thighs as his grip became more insistent. He kissed you again, higher and slower, his nose grazing your skin, breath fanning over you. A deep, contented hum rumbled from his chest.

"What have I done," he murmured, his voice rasping like the words have been pulled from his chest, "to deserve this? To deserve you?"

His eyes flickered up to meet yours. "Tell me, angel, because I'd do it a hundred times over if it meant to have you like this."

You wanted to tell him everything—the depth of your love, how he made you feel like the luckiest person alive—but the words lodged in your throat.

"Aaron... I... you're just..." you stammered, voice trembling as your fingers curled around the edge of the counter. 

Before you could gather your thoughts, he lifted one of your legs, hooking it over his shoulder, fingers digging into your skin. His lips brushed higher, dangerously close to your exposed cunt, and a soft, broken sound escaped you.

He hummed against your skin, the vibration shooting straight through you. 

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" His breath was hot against your thigh. "You always have so much to say. Don’t tell me you’re out of words already. I haven’t even started.”

"I was going to tell you how—oh, gosh, Aaron—"

Your words you had been trying to string together scattered completely, replaced by a shaky moan as his mouth pressed firmly against your clit. Your breathing stuttered, your chest rising and falling as waves of pleasure coursed through you, drowning out every thought but him.

His mouth was everywhere—warm, insistent, and impossibly skilled as his tongue traced over your clit with maddening precision. He worked like a man possessed, drawing sounds from you that you didn't even know you were capable of making. He was too good at this—too good at knowing exactly where and how to touch you, too good at making you fall apart with just his mouth.

Then he shifted, his hand gripping your other thigh as he lifted your second leg over his shoulder, leaving you completely at his mercy. The sound you made was somewhere between a gasp and a moan, your hands flying to his hair as your head tipped back.

Your back pressed against the edge of the counter awkwardly, a dull ache building in your lower spine, but it was nothing compared to the torrent of pleasure radiating through you. His tongue moved in devastating accuracy, his hands gripping your thighs like he was gluing you to himself. Your chest moved in shaky breaths, his name slipping from your lips in trembling cries that you couldn’t hold back.

"If I'd known this would be my reward," you gasped, tugging hard at his hair, your words faltering as your head tipped back. "I'd have emptied your whole wallet—oh, fuck—“

His lips closed firmly around your clit, pulling firmly in a way that destroyed your sentence completely. His hands tightened on your thighs, keeping you locked exactly where he wanted you.

"You must really mean it if you're cursing now." His tongue flicked over you again, making your back arch sharply. "Didn’t know you had that in you... let’s see what else I can get you to say, angel."

A warm flush spread up your neck and into your cheeks, heat rising faster than you could control. "I didn't mean to--"

You were cut off once again as his finger slid into your pussy. Any trace of embarrassment was gone, swept away by the overwhelming need pooling deep in your core, leaving nothing but raw desire in its place.

The pressure, coiling low in your stomach, was building so fast you could barely keep up with it. Every tell-tale sign was there—the trembling of your thighs, the way your chest shuddered in shallow breaths, and most incriminating of all, the words spilling from your lips before you could even think about them.

"I love you," you gasp, the desperation clear as ever. "I love you so much, I love you—Aaron, oh—"

He groaned against your clit, his tongue pressing hard as though your words were the fuel he needed to pull you apart completely. His finger curled again, hitting that spot that made you vision blur. His eyes flicked up, and you could tell he knew exactly what was happening. He always knew.

"I know, angel," he murmured, his voice muffled against your skin. "Now show me just how much."

Your orgasm hit you with staggering intensity, a wave of heat and pleasure crashing through you that left every inch of your body trembling. Your breath came in uneven, stuttering gasps as his name spilled from your lips, over and over, like a mantra you couldn’t stop repeating.

"That's my girl," Aaron murmured, his lips brushing against your sensitive skin as his finger worked you through the waves.

His lips pressed on last kiss to your thigh before he straightened, his hands immediately wrapping around your waist like he predicted you'd collapse without him. As soon as he lifted you, you clung to him like your life depended on it (and in that moment you were sure it did), your arms winding around his neck.

Everything felt distant, like you were floating somewhere above yourself. Your head rested limply on his shoulder, your lips brushing against the side of his neck. Your fingers curled weakly against the fabric of his shirt, and for a fleeting moment, you weren’t even sure your body had substance anymore—you felt soft, boneless, entirely his.

Aaron tapped the back of your thigh gently. "Come on, sweetheart,��up."

You tried—really, you did—but your body wasn't cooperating. Your legs dangled uselessly, and you let out a soft, half-laugh, half-whisper. "Can't."

He huffed a quiet laugh. 

"Hopeless," he teased. He hoisted you up before you could process it, his shoulder pressing into your stomach as he flipped you over it. A surprised squeak escaped you, but his hand was already bracing your thigh as he started up the stairs. "I guess I'll just have to do all the work, as usual."

"You're so strong," you mumbled dreamily, your head lolling against his shoulder. "Like... disgustingly strong. It’s so hot."

Aaron laughed, his hand smacking your ass. "Keep talking like that, sweetheart and I'll start using you for my next workout routine. And I guarantee it'll be something you'll feel tomorrow."

"Mr. Hotchner!" you gasped, your voice half-indignant and half-giggling. "And you act like I’m the inappropriate one in this relationship!"

Aaron chuckled, shaking his head as he carried you into the bedroom. He lowered you down, tossing you onto the bed just hard enough to make you bounce lightly against the mattress. You let out a soft laugh, body sinking into the covers as you looked up at him. 

“The difference is, I have the good sense not to say things like that on speakerphone.”

You let out a small laugh, raising your eyebrows. “And you should have the good sense not to trust me on speakerphone. Really, Aaron, rookie move.”

He stood tall at the edge of the bed, his fingers slowly loosening the top button of his shirt as he tilted his head. "“That’s fine. We’ll call it even—after you make good on that promise."

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[psychemochanight]

Headcanon that Dick's siblings (-Tim, he knows everything) have no idea that he has a new job every time, and think he's still a cop.

Like Dick every time they mention his police job and he says "I'm not a cop anymore, I'm..." and he names something different every time, they think he's lying.

Jason: Isn't it ironic? One brother is a cop and the other is a crime lord.

Dick: Although I'm not a police officer anymore, I'm a gym teacher.

Jason, thinking he's being sarcastic: Yeah, and I'm not a crime lord anymore as well.

Dick: Good for you.

Damian: Richard, why aren't you in the office? I thought this was your working hours.

Dick, who went to pick up Damian from school: Now I work in the afternoon and at night, I am a bartender.

Damian, doesn't believe him because Dick is Nightwing at night: hm...

Steph, on the phone : Dick, do you think you can get me some reports from the office? There's a case here in Gotham and I think it's spread to Blüdhaven, they probably have them there in the records.

Dick: Steph, I haven't been a police officer for months, but I'll see if I can get through an ex-colleague for you. I'll call you later, I'm in the middle of a photo shoot.

Steph: ok, thank uuuu.

Steph, hanging up the call: If he didn't could help me right now he could say so, there was no need to make up that excuse.

Cass: He might be in an undercover job right now.

Steph: Maybe you're right.

Duke simply refuses to talk to him anymore because he still thinks he's a cop.

Tim: You've been in this job for two months, I think that's a record. Do you like it?

Dick, hanging upside down in the cave: Something like that? I just don't know what I want to do now and I don't want to be unemployed until I decide.

Tim: Hmm... I don't think you want to be in an office again, do you?

Dick: I'm not going back to WE, once was enough for a lifetime.

Tim: Fair enough. Can I at least ask you for a photo shoot for a season to promote the new line?

Dick: Sure, it was fun being a model for a while.

[suiana]

fellas, have you ever wondered if a man could ever be as adorable and cute as a baby kitten? well now you can experience and love on in real life! suiana presents to you innocent! yandere and smitten reader ❤️

your very own innocent boy who doesn't even know what NNN or OF means. his instagram feed is full of baking and and clothing ideas, he goes out to help stray animals, and he goes on daily walks to the park to reconnect with nature. he has no idea what a skibidi toilet is, brain completely nourished with the books he borrows from the library. yeah, this guy smells like bread and cookies too btw, he does lots of baking. and cooking. have i mentioned he's completely skilled in the kitchen? yeah, he is.

by some stroke of luck, you meet him one day and... look, he's just the cutest thing ever! i mean, he's fashionable, smells good, and was even defending a stray dog from being bullied by some kids. so you ask him out on a date, but the second you ask him the question you swear you could just die on the spot... because tell me why his entire face is red and he's genuinely so happy??? all smiley faced and blushing like a tomato???

oh it's his first time getting asked out and he's flustered??? he's never been approached by anyone before??? he thinks you're really attractive and he would like to go out on a date too??? oh my god guys, he's even asking if you're comfortable with him rambling like this and not trying to get too close without your consent😭

anyway the two of you go out on a date and you think you just might marry him on the spot with how much of a gentleman he's being??? INSISTING on paying for your meal, respecting your distance and being genuinely curious about you on a deeper level. no mention of hooking up, being casual fwb or anything like that. he's... actually looking for a serious relationship unlike your previous partners? holy shit? so you asked him his thoughts on cheating and some other stuff...

"so what are your thoughts on cheating?"

"cheating?"

"yeah, like when you get with someone else when you're dating."

"isn't that illegal?"

HELLO??? he thinks cheating is ILLEGAL??? you had to spend the rest of your date trying not to cry or hug him because he ended up finding out some devastating news.

"yes... cheating is illegal unfortunately."

"I don't know why. it should be illegal, that is a very bad thing to do 😦 do people actually cheat? really? no way."

UGRHGRGR you two end up dating and he's the sweetest guy you've been with. cute date nights, reassurance that you're perfect and enough, handmade gifts and deep talks into the night that deepen your bond together... the only problem is just that maybe he's a little too sweet.

he's constantly buying you gifts, telling you how much he appreciates you and just... being the perfect boyfriend? the perfect clingy boyfriend.

at first you found it cute. but...

why is he so in love with you? why is he so nice? you don't know what to do with a man as sweet as him and can only give into his seemingly harmful actions. you used to think that he had an ulterior motive but... you don't know whether you're being deceived or not. why would you? he's not being manipulative. how could he ever be manipulative? he's just a sweet and nice green flag!

asking you to always be with him? that's just a romantic thing everyone else says. chasing away any people who shows the slightest bit of interest, even if it's not confirmed to be romantic? what kind of boyfriend would he be if he didn't do that? asking for your location if you ever try to go out without him? silly lover, why would you worry him like that?

no no, he's not being possessive. okay, maybe he is. it's just a tiny bit though! surely you're fine with that. after all, he's still treating you like the royalty that you are. he should be allowed some grace for his unwillingness to share.

you're not sure whether or not he's truly innocent or not. was he even innocent to begin with? maybe, maybe not. perhaps it was all just an act...

but you shouldn't think that. why would you think badly of your boyfriend who's only ever been sweet to you? even during fights, he doesn't raise his voice and actively listens to you, trying to resolve the issue. he could never want to hurt you.

after all, he's your innocent boyfriend that you're smitten with, right?

[strwberri-milk]

heyyy, could i request lads men forgetting readers birthday or anniversary? hurt comfort pls 🥹

You understand that Zayne's job is incredibly important and you would never hold it against him for forgetting these dates but you also know that you're still going to feel hurt no matter how much you rationalise it. You woke up that morning, knowing that today should have been a special day, that he remembered to book it off months in advance and the two of you would be together.

When you see him getting ready for work you feel your heart drop, watching silently as he puts together his lunch and grabs his things. He doesn't notice you're up, thinking that you're still asleep and you take that opportunity to run back into bed and feign sleep again. You'd feel awful if you let Zayne go to work worrying about missing something this important so you decide it'd be kinder to just let him go to work in peace.

It's not until he looks at his schedule after a complicated surgery right from the moment he got into work that he realises what day it is today. He feels awful about it, immediately trying to figure out what surgeries he could offload onto the others so he can try and get home to you as soon as possible. Thankfully, all the other staff are emphatic about his situation, assisting him in getting home as soon as he can.

Thankfully, he's usually prepared in advance when it comes to gifts so he doesn't have to buy you anything last minute. He does make it a point to go and grab you a bouquet as well as some little treats/snacks of all your favourite things. When he comes home he finds you curled up in bed, trying to cheer yourself up. He hates how he made you feel and silently slides in behind you, holding you tightly as he whispers that he's sorry for forgetting about you. He promises that he'll make it up to you another night when the two of you are free, promising an evening at a restaurant you love while he currently placates you with the food and flowers he brought.

Xavier was so exhausted that he accidentally slept through the plans that the two of you made. You didn't even know it happened until you reappeared from the bedroom, watching him sleep peacefully on the bed. You can't bring yourself to wake him, sighing as you move to tuck him in.

He wakes up in the middle of the night, sitting up with a jolt as he realises that he missed your date. He rushes to bed only to find you dead asleep, dried tear tracks on your face. The sight breaks his heart, and he immediately starts making plans to try and fix his mistake.

When you come home one evening you're a little panicked because you can't see anything. You reach around blindly, trying to find a light switch to turn on some light in the pitch black darkness. confused when you realise you can't move the switch. You're about to call for Xavier when he makes his presence known beside you, putting a hand on your shoulder and guiding you to the living room. You're expecting to run into your coffee table but you're confused when you don't, kneeling on the ground as he counts down after covering your eyes.

You hear the click of a button and he uncovers your eyes, showing you the room illuminated by seemingly hundreds of little stars. You look around in surprise by the assortment of fairy lights and stars, a little surprised as you realise you're also sat in front of a meal comprised of your favourite takeout.

He gives you a heartfelt apology, promising that he didn't do it on purpose and he's felt awful about it the entire time. He promises that he'll clean all of this up after the two of you are finished. He doesn't want you to take on any of the stress about this at all, pampering you in extra gifts as an additional apology.

Rafayel is amazing whenever it comes to remembering important dates. His life revolves around you so that's why you find it so odd that the day comes and goes with absolutely no fanfare. It's so out of character that you literally gaslight yourself into thinking that you had the dates mixed up, mentioning it to him offhandedly how it's so weird that you thought yesterday was your anniversary but maybe it actually wasn't. Your birthday is an entirely different scenario though - you just tell him that it's okay if he's too busy to do anything and hopefully you can do something next year.

Rafayel is devastated, internally falling to his knees and sobbing while externally all you see is him humming thoughtfully. Internally he's trying to figure out what the hell happened for him to have dropped the ball. He's so panicking, pulling out his phone to book reservations at the fanciest restaurant he can think of and paying an exorbitant amount of money to do so. He also has so many gifts for you that at this point, he could just pull from a pile he has hidden in his home, telling you that you can have this for now because the main event is coming at your dinner reservation.

It doesn't take you long for you to realise that he actually kinda did fuck up and totally forgot about it when you hear him talking to Thomas about how he can't take on any projects at all because he's busy trying to make sure you don't hate him for forgetting a major event. You end up asking him about it right then and there, basically confronting him about why he forgot. He promises you it wasn't intentional and that he just had so much fun preparing for the even that he fully forgot to actually carry through with his plans.

He ends up making it up to you in bed. You mope and pout and bury yourself underneath the luxurious sheets and refuses to let him in. He basically just lays on top of you, burying his face into your neck and begging for forgiveness. You refuse to give it to him that easily, deciding to make him mope and pout more. He holds you tightly, continuing to whisper sweet nothings as he tells you he'll make it up to you by giving you his credit card. You jokingly tell him that's more than enough before getting serious and telling him how upset you are. He swears it won't happen again and to his credit, it never does.

Sylus couldn't get out of a previous commitment, mentally noting that it was a special day and aiming to follow through with absolutely no problem. Unfortunately, his meeting dragged and by the time it finished he had even more things to do which left you standing in his bedroom, dressed extravagantly for a missed reservation.

You cry to yourself quietly in the room as you get yourself undressed for the evening. It doesn't really hit you until you're laying in bed in your pajamas, staring up at the ceiling as you tell yourself that he didn't mean to do it on purpose.

He comes in as you're crying, listening to your soft sniffles. When you go quiet in hopes of attempting to convince him you weren't just sobbing your eyes out he feels even worse, quickly putting two and two together. He realises what he just missed, looking back at his phone and seeing the reservation cancellation.

He immediately scoops you up in his arms. You try to resist him at first but falter when your body settles into his familiar warmth. He coos at you, whispering apologies into your ear. You want to tell him too little too late but you also know that he never would want to see you crying like this, especially not because of him.

He holds you all night, telling you that you can ask him for anything and he'll make it happen for you. He already does but the guilt of this weighs on him so heavily that he knows that no matter what stands in his way, he won't let it stop him from giving you everything that you want. He also makes sure that it doesn't happen again, wanting you to feel like you could always trust him. If he lost your trust on top of that he'd never forgive himself, telling you that you're everything to him.

[finelinevogue]

safe with me

summary - you say 'yes' to being intimate with azriel when you really mean ‘no', because your past relationship taught you that saying 'yes' is the only answer

word count - 1.2k

pairing - azriel x mate!reader

[ reference to past abusive relationship - read with care 🤎 ]

It was the dark of night.

Everyone was in bed except you and Azriel, because you'd both lost track of time staying up and talking about everything and nothing. It was a habit you were both readily guilty of. Neither of you cared, though, when your conversations only made the bond stronger.

Azriel held the bedroom door open for you as you walked through first.

"Do you have training in the morning?" You asked him, walking over to your side of the bed.

You picked up the small tin of body cream there, scooping some up so you could apply it to your hands. It smelt of roses and reminded you of the endless walks through the garden you'd had with Azriel over the years.

"I do, yes. Cassian wants to show the priestesses some new defence techniques. He asked me to help him demonstrate."

Azriel locked the bedroom door and rounded the opposite side of the bed to you - his side, you both now called it.

You watched intensely as he lifted his black shirt over his head.

His muscles stretched and rippled as his body moved. His arms lengthened and the veins popped as he lifted his hands above his head.

You swallowed your desire as you admired him.

Due to Azriel's slight compulsive tendencies, he couldn't just throw his shirt on the floor. Instead, he neatly folded it and placed it on the dressing table.

You don't know what was more attractive; Azriel stripping down or Azirel being neat and tidy.

"It's rude to stare, you know?" He teased you as he came back to bed, lifting the covers to slip underneath.

"I wasn't staring." You blushed.

"Tell that to your cheeks."

You smiled to yourself as you stood up to untuck the covers on your side of the bed, before slipping in beside your mate.

The moment you were laid down Azriel attacked you with a flurry of kisses - probably the sweetest type of attack you could endure.

His lips kissed your cheeks repeatedly, making you laugh out loud from the suddenness of it all. You tried to move away and turn a cheek, but he was too insistent on loving you to notice.

He did notice, however, when your laugh started to fade away as he continued to kiss from your cheek to your neck.

Your mind was spinning a million miles an hour, trying to figure out how you were feeling and if you wanted this innocent kissing to turn into something more intimate. The fact that you were hesitating was enough for you to mentally agree that you didn't want to do anything this evening, but conveying that to your mate was an entire different thing.

"Okay?" He asked, slowly kissing over the sweet spot on your neck that normally got you going.

Unfortunately your mind was being cruel.

Instead of being here and in the room with Az, you had been transported back to the same situation with an ex-male of yours. He had initiated an evening much like Azriel was doing, but he knew you weren't particularly feeling it. Instead of accepting your answer of 'no', he had convinced you that you were "just confused" and "this is something you actually want" and to "just say yes".

You hadn't wanted to say yes at all.

But your ex had been so good at manipulating you that he had eventually gotten what he wanted without making it seem non-consensual.

Azriel, being ever so perceptive, could tell you were caving in on yourself, as well as feeling your heartbeat quicken and his shadows picked up on your hesitance and nervous energy. All of it together sent Azriel major red alarms.

"Hey, sweetheart, hey?"

Azriel's face was hovering above yours now, nowhere near your neck but you hadn't even realised he had moved away.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

You looked in his eyes and saw their concern. You didn't want to worry him. This is something that Azriel wants and that should be enough, right?

"Mhm."

You couldn't convince yourself to say the word 'yes' out loud. You couldn't do that to yourself again.

Azriel's hand cupped your cheek so softly you thought you were made out of porcelain. He looked through you before he spoke - his shadows enclosing around you so that you could just focus on each other and nothing else.

"Sweetheart, you're allowed to say no. You know that."

You blinked a few times as if that would help register what he'd just said.

"But..." You stuttered, "But you want to."

Azriel furrowed his eyebrows and tried to keep himself calm. If it weren't for needing to reassure and comfort you right now, he would very quickly dress in his battle armour and take out every male who had ever wrongly taught you about consent.

How someone could let themselves not take care of you if you weren't feeling up to being intimate is beyond his comprension.

Azriel shook his head, gritting his teeth. "That's not how it works with me."

Your eyes started to water as they were opened to understanding what true consent feels like and should be. Azriel was doing the absolute bare minimum in this situation and yet it felt like the most monumental thing to have happened.

"It’s just... When I was with... him, it didn’t matter if I wanted to or not. What he wanted was all that mattered. And I-I guess I just learned to go along with it."

"Well that stops right now." Azriel said, "That's not how we're going to do things, okay? How you feel is more important to me than getting off. Mother above, how does someone even get off if the other person isn't feeling it? Sweetheart, if you’re not sure, then we stop. Always."

A little teardrop fell onto your cheek, but you couldn't help but smile with how loved and protected you felt right now.

You could tell that Azriel was absolutely heartbroken to hear about your past relationships, but he would be damned if he didn't change the wrongs of your thinking. Knowing that your comfort is his priority filled your heart with joy, because it meant that you were safe with him. Safe with your mate.

“I didn’t realise how scared I was to tell you no. I was so sure it would make you angry, or-or disappointed.”

Azriel shook his head again, “The only thing that would ever disappoint me is you thinking you have to hide how you feel. You’re safe with me. I promise."

You nodded in agreement because you did believe him.

You could feel his trust and his assuredness within the bond.

"Can we just cuddle?" You asked shyly.

"Of course we can." Azriel smiled, kissing your forehead for good measure. "Only after I kill your ex..."

You didn't think he was being serious until he started to get up off you and shuffle out of bed. Laughing, you tugged on his arm and because he wasn't expecting it he landed with an oomph on top of you.

"You'll do no such thing."

"We'll see about that." He scoffed, trying again.

"See about it in the morning?" You counter offered, knowing there was nothing you could do to stop him from defending your honour - overprotective mate.

"Fine." He flopped back down on the bed and made room for you to cosy in next to him.

His wings finally wrapped around you, ensuring your safety as the both of you drifted off to sleep, the weight of your confession making it easier to sleep at night. All the while, Azriel stayed up planning his vengeance.

[woso-dreamzzz]

New Girlfriend IV

Lucy Bronze x Teen!Reader

Summary: Pokémon card trade night

"Don't," Lucy says as Ona watches her.

"I haven't said anything."

"But you're going to go."

"You're a good mum, Luce," Ona says earnestly," And I know she thinks so too."

"Are you sure you don't want to come with?"

"I just got off a plane. I'll stay here with Narla. Go and bond with your daughter."

"At trade night?" Lucy says in disbelief," And sweaty Pokémon fans? I'll try."

"Yes," Ona laughs," You're a real hero for that."

Lucy shoves on her shoes and coat, leaning up the stairs. "I'm leaving!" She yells," So you're either coming to trade night or I'm going to KFC!"

She waits barely a second before a thump comes from your room, sounding suspiciously like a game controller being flung at a table.

You come sprinting down the stairs, tying the drawstrings of the tracksuits bottoms that you've clearly just shoved on.

"I'm coming! I'm coming! Hi, Ona. I'm coming!"

Ona laughs. "Hi, y/n. Have fun at trade night."

"Mum couldn't convince you to come?"

"I think I'm happy getting over the flight."

"Your loss." You shrug, turning back to Lucy. "So, are we going or not?"

"I hope you're not playing on bringing that mouse with you."

You frown, looking down at the pocket at the very front of your jumper, where Ezio pokes his nose out of.

"I'll..." You laugh nervously. "I'll put him back. Don't leave without me!"

It's not often that you like leaving the house. For school and for Lucy's games and (more frequently now you're back in England) seeing your grandparents.

Most of the time, you don't leave the house because you want to, but rather because you have to.

Except for nights like these, at the local 'nerd shops' as Lucy calls them to trade some Pokémon cards.

"You've got everything?" Lucy checks as she finds a parking space out on the street," You didn't bring all your binders."

"I brought my trade binder and a few of my other sets that I need to fill up."

"Your...trade...binder?"

You roll your eyes, swinging your bag over your shoulder and slamming the car door shut. "Yes, my trade binder. It's got all the cards that are duplicates and I don't mind trading away for other ones."

"I don't get this," Lucy says, hands in her pockets as she walks up to your nerd shop," You don't even play the card game."

"It's not about playing the card game. It's...It's..."

"It's?"

"I just like it, okay? Is that too much to understand?!"

Lucy's teasing smile is wiped off her face. "Hey, no, wait. I'm so-"

"Leave it," You say, shoving past her," I wish Ona were here instead!"

Lucy watches you go in, hand still out and reaching for your shoulder.

People have told her so many times how good she's done at raising you. Your teachers have nothing but glowing remarks. You're smart and studious and you didn't interrupt in class. Perhaps you could talk more but that's not a life ruiner.

Her friends have always said you're polite and you speak well and you don't purposely try to get under their skin. You're nice and you're sweet and you're friendly with everyone.

But Lucy can never fully understand you.

She's always been moving, even as a child. She'd played football for as long as she can remember, always high energy, always going-going-going until she had no more energy to go any longer.

You're not like, not in that way anyway.

You're more reserved and solitary, happy to sit in your room with your gaming consoles and your YouTube videos and your mice.

This card collecting thing had happened when she was still with Keira and away for the weekend. Keira had bought you a pack while at the store and you'd been hooked ever since.

Lucy can't even remember the last time your allowance hadn't been spent on those dumb plastic booster packs. She's never understood it.

Keira used to take the reins on this kind of thing while they were still together so Lucy's way out of her comfort zone when she finally steps inside of the nerd store.

It's more packed than she thought it would be, with people of all ages.

She catches sight of you up ahead. It's hard not to when you're wearing the Assassin's Creed coat she got you for Christmas last year and your binders are kept safe in the Mario Kart backpack you usually use for school.

Lucy fights the crowd to get to you.

"Whoa. Are you Lucy Bronze?"

There's some little kid staring up at her, clutching a binder with wide eyes and their mouth hanging open.

"I am."

"Wow! Can...Can...Mummy! Mummy can you get my Squirtle? I want Lucy Bronze to sign it!" The kid turns back to her. "I don't have my Bronze shirt with me but can you sign one of my cards?"

It's not the weirdest thing Lucy's ever had to sign but it's certainly the weirdest place she'd ever signed anything.

"Sure, kid!"

"Thank you," The mother says as Lucy grabs a pen from a random table. "It means the world to him."

"Mum!"

The pen has just been uncapped when Lucy looks up, stopping everything she's doing to respond to you.

"Yeah, what's up? Are you okay?"

Her eyes rove over you, checking for bumps and bruises but coming up empty.

"You can't sign that!"

"What?"

The little boy's bottom lip wobbles and you nearly push Lucy out of the way to kneel down in front of him.

"You don't want her signing a common card," You tell him," Get her to sign this instead." You produce a card from your trade binder.

It's an illustration rare Squirtle from your Scarlet and Violet 151 set.

The little boy gasps, reaching for the card your offering but his mum stops him.

"This is trade night, Micheal," She reminds him," Give her something in return."

You gave him a grin, sitting cross legged on the floor.

"You got a binder for me to look through?"

The boy nods hurriedly, prying it out of his mother's hands to flip through.

"Which one do you like? Why don't you pick me one out?"

You give the little boy your 151 Squirtle Illustration Rare and he gives you a Paldean Fates common Fidough.

Lucy signs the new Squirtle card with a little frown, waving as the boy and his mother head off.

"Why'd you do that?" She asks, arms over your shoulder so you can't escape again.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I'm not stupid," Lucy says," I know that was a rarer card. I know you've already got like twelve of the card you got in return. Why'd you do it?"

You shrug. "I don't know. It made him happy. Does it really matter?"

"Yeah but..."

Lucy goes quiet, glancing back at that little boy.

She made him happy by signing his card. You made him happy by giving him one.

You've never asked her why she signs people's jerseys.

Lucy glances back over at you as you trade away cards for new ones and open packs amongst people that are just like you.

Her hand itches to open one with you but it's just a twitch in her fingers. She keeps it by her side though, refusing to interrupt this safe space you've built for yourself.

The staff here know you by name and Lucy doesn't want to ruin that for you.

So, she stays in the background, looking through the shelves and through the bulk items and holding some of your half finished binders of sets that you're yet to complete.

"You looking for anything specific?" One of the staff members asks, leaning against the table as Lucy looks up like she's just been delivered a fairly painful electric shock.

"No!" She says hurriedly, hoping to fade into the background like she's been doing for most of this evening. "No, I mean...er...My kid...?"

The woman laughs. "I get it. First trade night? Kid's excited? You have no idea what's going on?"

"Something like that," Lucy says," My-My ex-partner used to take her to these and my new one's waiting at home for us and I-" She sighs. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

"I get it. First time for anything. So, you looking for yourself or for your kid?"

"For her," Lucy says," I don't know. I'm just looking."

"Well," The woman replies," I'm happy to help any parent out of their depth. Any specific sets or Pokémon?"

Lucy tries to rack her brain for anything you've mentioned specifically before, coming up short for a little while before:

"Eevee?" She asks cautiously," No, not Eevee. The evil Eevee? You know, the black one with the ears and the rings?"

"Umbreon?"

"Yeah, that! She's trying to collect all of them."

"Ah, now that I can help with."

Lucy's hands shake as she approaches you.

You've found a little corner to sort through all your new cards, slipping some of them into binders waiting for only a scant few more.

"Hey," Lucy says, uncharacteristically nervous as you look up at her.

"Hey?"

"I...er..." She clears her throat. "I got you a gift. A few gifts, I guess."

She places her offerings in front of you and you shuffle through them, eyes getting wider and wider.

"You got me a Moonbreon?!"

Lucy finally makes eye contact, alarmed. "No?! I promise I told the girl Umbreon! I'll get you a new one. Crap. I didn't mean to make a mista-"

You crash into her, arms curling around her as she cautiously puts her arms around you as well.

"It's the nickname of the card, Mum," You say," I've been looking for one for ages. It must have been expensive. Thank you."

"Of course, pumpkin," Lucy says," Of course."

You look up at her, searching for something that Lucy hopes she's showing in her eyes.

"Do you...Do you want to open some packs with me?" You look hopeful and Lucy's throat goes dry as she nods.

It's late when you finally look to be winding down and people finally start looking like they're leaving the store.

You snag Lucy's sleeve.

"I..Can you open these for me?"

You hand over two packs.

One's in English.

One's in Japanese.

Lucy frowns.

"These look...old..."

"They are," You admit," It's the base set. Like, first edition."

"These must have been expensive."

You bite at your lip. "I traded away my completed Brilliant Stars set. These are probably worth more but I think the guy who had them just wanted them gone. I..I can't open them myself. Can you?"

"I can. Don't worry."

Lucy fights to keep her hands from shaking as she tears open the packets.

She swipes through each card. They're completely meaningless to her but you freeze.

"Is this good? Godzilla?"

"Charizard."

"Huh?"

"Godzilla's a movie franchise, Mum. That's Charizard."

"Oh, is it?"

You shakily offer her your Japanese packet. "Mum, here."

The second Charizard is in your hand a moment later.

"Whoa!" Lucy laughs," What's with all the hugging today, huh?"

"You're the best," You tell her earnestly," I don't tell you enough but you're the best, Mum."

Lucy smiles at you, kissing the top of your head. "Just want to make you happy."

[perfumedanger]

I KNOW this has to have been explored in about 12,000 fics already, but sometimes I wonder how much of Dean's love for Mary is Jane Seymour style in as that she just didn't live long enough to fuck up his idea of her. What would their relationship in the now be if, when she heard wee baby Sam crying, she'd gotten out of bed and realized she had to pee REALLY badly and took two minutes to take care of that first, thus missing the demon and her untimely fiery death? Now she gets to live and Sam and Dean get to grow up with a mom.

Does she eventually get dragged back into hunting, since hunters never retire, they just die, and thus the boys get pulled in as well, no matter how much she might not have wanted that?

Does she manage to shield them from that aspect of her life, so mom just comes home beat to shit every now and then, and gets to be the parent that misses all Dean's baseball games and Sam's mathlete competitions?

Do her and John stay together now that their job making apocalypse vessels is done? (things seemed like they were getting rocky while she was preggo with Sam)

Or maybe they just have the world's most white bread, suburban life ever recorded. Bake sales, braces, teaching Dean to drive the wood paneled station wagon, sending Sam to summer science camp. Everything is perfect and picket fences. ...and then Sam gets snatched off to Apocalypse boot camp in Cold Oak and gets double plus killed to shit because he doesn't know anything about demons or hunting things or carrying anything heavier than box of vegetable oil from his teenage parttime job at the local grocery store. And Dean sure as shit has never heard of a crossroads demon, so he can't wander off and make a deal to get Sam back. So now Sam is dead and Mary gets to decide if she's going to come clean about the whole demon deal/hunter thing, and make Dean fucking HATE HER for leaving them unprepared for what was coming and thus being DIRECTLY responsible for Sam DYING, or if she's going to stay quiet and hope that it never comes out and makes Dean hate her for all of the above AND keeping him in the dark about everything.

And sometimes I wonder if I think too much about how things COULD have gone if they just changed this one little thing. Or that thing. Or maybe this other one.......

fucking dean winchester who reads kurt vonnegut and harper lee and can shoot a gun with the best of them and knows how to talk to kids and doesn’t trust easily but loves fiercely and is the best damn hunter the world has ever seen and drinks too much because he cares too much and makes the greatest homemade burgers and keeps a photo of his mother by his bed and ugh.

[sebsbarnes]

unspoken || minho moon

minho x reader

summary: there was a moment of consideration as you gnawed on the inside of your mouth. the weight of your secret was becoming unbearable.

warnings: angst! insecurity. probably a few grammar errors

word count: 950+

masterlist

a/n: i fear i couldn't resist writing for him. first work for him so there isn't others in the masterlist. i wrote this pretty quick so i apologize in case.

you always fought, but that night you didn't.

it was inevitable that when you and minho were around, some sort of bickering would ensue. it was as if the friendship you had relied on those sharp-tongued comments and eye rolls. there was some enjoyment in the banter; you could always rely on minho to be as quick-witted as you. most of the time, it was truly nonsense and comical to those around you, but sometimes he took it too far.

he would cross a boundary, known or unknown, and the aftermath was either venomous words spilling off your tongue or complete silence and avoidance.

it hurt, to ignore him. act like minho wasn't there. sure you would come around to him after a few days and pick right back up where you left off. and yes maybe it was unfair to ignore him after an argument, but that was you, that's what you did.

what you've really come to recognize is these silly little arguments hurt because you had feelings for minho. you hated the giddy feeling you had when he was around. the slight heat to your cheeks when he gave a real, genuine, compliment. the sizzling sensation that coursed through your skin when his hand brushed against you. or the way it felt like your chest was caving in on you and your lungs were screaming for help when minho confessed to q that he had a crush on someone, someone that isn't you.

so here you were avoiding him after he made an innocent remark about his crush. it shouldn't have, but it rubbed you the wrong way and perhaps it was because of the newfound knowledge of your feelings towards minho.

the evening was approaching and soon the sun would exchange places with the moon. the friday night would come alive and the sounds of eager students heading off campus would echo into the night, almost taunting you in your sadness. there was a nice footpath you've called home for the last week. after classes were finished you found yourself walking on the winding path away from school, taking in the fresh air and allowing yourself some peace. nestled a few feet away from the path was a small gazebo with a picnic table in the center. you sat down and allowed your eyes to close, soaking in the tranquility of nature away from the dizziness of life.

"hey..." a voice called out ripping you back to reality.

the voice. his voice. in this moment it made you feel sick. you swear you could feel the bile rising up and threatening to escape. your vision went white. heart beating so hard you could've sworn you saw its outline rising from your chest.

"hey minho," you exhaled as he sat across from you.

his throat bobbed, "how are you?"

you hummed in response, unsure what to say.

the silence between you stretches longer than it ever has. there was no space for quick-witted responses or light-hearted banter. minho didn't know what was the reason for your absence, but he missed you. when he looked at you your eyes didn't hold that mischief it normally possessed. he knew this was not a moment for a sarcastic quip.

"talk to me," minho nearly pleaded, eyes dancing across your face.

you paused trying to find a way to convey your thoughts to minho without confessing your feelings, "have you ever realized something too late?"

his eyebrow pulled up on his face, "well...of course, yeah. i think we all have."

"like, the thing is right there," you nearly laughed, "right in front of you the whole time. but by the time you realize, it's gone, it's moved on like everything else. i realized the importance of it too late."

you looked to minho who sat silently as you rambled. his eyes were clear of any judgment or jokes. the typical smirk etched on his lips was erased. his brows pulled softly together, a delicate ridge separating them. you watched as his hand snaked up from his lap and cradled your hand. his fingers lazily intertwining with your own.

"you know you can tell me anything," he said softly, his accent lighter.

you offered him a small smile. not a fake one, a real one. you could tell minho everything, everything but this. not when he is interested in someone else, you can't ruin that for him. can't ruin your friendship.

he sensed the hesitation, "...c'mon," he urged gently, eyes hopeful.

there was a moment of consideration as you gnawed on the inside of your mouth. the weight of your secret was becoming unbearable. all you wanted to do was scream at the top of your lungs for every person in KISS and for every star in the galaxy to hear that you were falling for minho. but before you could open your mouth and string together all the consonants and vowels for 'minho i'm falling for you' his phone rang.

minho's hand slid out from yours leaving you feeling icy but not as icy as the blood coursing through your body as you watched a shy smile adorn his face. one of his hands ran through his hair, a movement he did when he was feeling nervous, in a good way. you sat in agonizing silence waiting for him to hang up.

a pink hue dusted across his cheeks, "that was uh-"

"go," you replied softly, barely above a whisper, "have fun."

the moonlight that illuminated your face was now blocked my minho's standing figure. if you could, you wanted to be swallowed by his shadow into the darkness.

"oh. what were you going to say before the call?" minho asked.

you shook your head, "it was nothing."

[biteofcherry]

Touch the Darkness

dark mafia!Steve Rogers x female reader

summary: When you unexpectedly are appointed to run a health center, you foresee many struggles along the way, but not one in the form of a merciless mob boss. Steve Rogers’ core aim is to own and he won’t take no for an answer. To any of his demands.

warnings for this chapter: dark!Steve Rogers; possessiveness; power imbalance; forced marriage; D/s undertones; jealous Reader (though she claims otherwise); non-lethal poisoning; sex; turned on by violence;

word count: 6.8k

Author’s Note: I know you've waited a bit for this next chapter. I didn't exactly have trouble writing it, my muse was simply interested in other projects. But I'm always a hoe for dark Steve, so returning to him was inevitable. As it was inevitable for Steve's dick darkness to start corrupting Reader in small doses. Or, maybe, he gives her boldness to act out on instincts she would otherwise suppress, because they're not proper 😏 For a brighter side - Princess gains a genuine new friend! 🥰

Touch the Darkness Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Chapter 8. Tempestuous as the sea

~ * ~

You could blame the slow process of writing on the tiredness, but it was honestly the fault of delicious macaroons you’ve been reaching for every single sentence. At least with the sweet bite the mundane typing of a bland report felt a little more exciting. Once you ate the final macaroon, only the boring part would remain. 

Of all the excitement and challenges that came with running a health center, the bureaucratic side of it was truly exhausting. 

A knock on the door of your home office startled you mid bite. 

Before you swallowed and managed to invite him in, Steve was already pushing the door open and strolling inside.

You glared at him, but didn’t comment on the intrusion. Knowing your husband, he’d say that he came in your pussy just this morning and you had no objections to it, so why fuss over a damn office. 

Pointing out that you didn’t exactly invite him into your pussy either, was a futile argument. Especially since you didn’t stop him, or even elbow him in those perfect, stupid abs of marble. 

Quite the contrary. You rocked back against him and begged, until he rolled you fully onto your front and savaged you. 

You were still disgusted with yourself for that. As well for the sex two nights before. And the one in the shower. Or the Sunday humiliation, when it became clear that the chef was in the kitchen preparing your fancy dinner while you were screaming the house down as Steve wrung three orgasms out of you, one after the other. 

So disgusted. And still giving in to the temptation that was the devil himself. 

Who walked around your desk and leaned against it, looking down at you curled in the chair and with your cheeks stuffed with sweets. 

A strange feeling knotted your stomach. 

You were barefoot, wearing a pair of leggins and a hoodie. Crumbs of gooey sweetness were sticking to the corners of your mouth. Steve was barefoot, too; which meant he came home for the rest of the day, with no plans of leaving. He had a plain, tight T-shirt paired with dark jeans, his leather jacket already taken off. He stared at your face, only briefly glancing at the almost empty plate of macaroons.

This scene was so… domestic.

Instead of unwrapping that terrifying thought, you diverted your attention to the royal red envelope in Steve’s hand. A beautiful calligraphy shimmered in gold. 

“What’s that?” You asked, swallowing the rest of your macaroon. 

Unexpectedly, Steve leaned forward. Tip of his tongue licked at the corner of your mouth, swiping the sticky sweetness. Then it plugged between your lips that opened on a soft gasp.

The kiss was short, but intense and depraved. As it always was with Steve. And your treacherous body chased it as he pulled back.

“Lemon would pair better.” He hummed, resuming his previous stance.

“What?” You blinked, confused. Your head was still swimming in dizzy fog from that unexpected kiss. As well from the fact nothing more followed.

You were married, but there was nothing marital about your relationship with Steve. There were no sweet kisses good morning or goodbye, or hugs and cuddles. If either of you initiated physical contact it was to fuck. 

But now no touching, or undressing followed. The unexpected kiss remained just that - a shard of affection a normal newlywed couple might show each other.

It messed with your mind. And pulled at a cord in your chest.

“With your taste.” Steve explained; corners of his mouth curling in a hungry smirk.

Which, really, should be followed by his mouth descending on other parts of you. 

Instead, your body filled with heat both from the kiss and his words while Steve returned to tapping the envelope against his thigh, unbothered. 

Swallowing, you pushed that spark of need down. Steve was already too aware of how eagerly your body responded to him. Especially, since you stopped fighting it too much when the desire sparked low in your core. You weren’t going to further your humiliation. 

“So what’s with that?” You asked, pointing at the red envelope. 

“An invitation.” Steve showed you the beautifully addressed front. “For Mr and Mrs Rogers.”

You ignored his pleased smirk when he said the last part. It still evoked annoyance. The realization other people were now calling you by his last name fueled that irritation. 

“To Stark’s annual post expo gala.” He said it with a roll of his eyes.

Clearly, he wasn’t thrilled. You doubted it was because he had no regard for technology and knowledge. As much as you hated to admit it, Steve Rogers was exceptionally smart and up to date with many areas of expertise. 

From what you learned about your husband over the weeks, he wasn’t a fan of boring, social chit-chat and fake politeness. Which is why he preferred his direct, brutal methods of communication. But even he couldn’t fully escape socializing with the people he had on payroll and leash. 

“I assume it’s expected of me to go with you,” you glared at him, even though a small spark of excitement flickered in your chest.

You’ve been to a few fancy parties and fundraisers, but to attend something of this caliber was a thrilling novelty. 

For one, you’d get to dress up. You liked it, once in a while, to feel like a modern sort of Cinderella, who gets to swirl around in a pretty dress and eat expensive snacks. Secondly, it was a tempting opportunity for you as a director of the health center to lure in new benefactors. The project you’ve been working on was one that would need a solid dose of funding. 

There was also the aspect of meeting people in similar fields. Stark’s expo focused on technology mostly, but that area leaked into medical fields, as well. There were a lot of neuroscience breakthroughs in the past years, which served psychiatric and psychological fields. It could prove beneficial, if you spoke to some experts.

“Princess,” Steve tilted his head, “fuck the expectations.”

You almost sagged in disappointment.

“But-” he continued- “I have a few things to settle with some people and they will be there. It saves me a lot of time to do it there. And since I’m going, you are going, too.” 

He dropped the envelope onto the desk then cupped your chin with his hand. You hated how you didn’t hate the jolt of pleasure his touch evoked. 

“First official outing as newlyweds, Princess. Gotta make an impression.” There was near cruel mirth in his blue eyes.

“Pffft!” You snorted, attempting to pull away from his grip. You still haven’t fully accepted that once Steve had his hand on you, he was unlikely to relent.

Well, your mind didn’t accept it. Your body has become a whore for it. 

“I doubt I’ll be making any sort of impression on the corrupted men who kneel for you,” unless they were disgusting pigs interested in ogling Steve’s sidepiece. “Though I guess I could use you, for a change. Your name could be impressive enough for some schmucks to donate to the center.” 

“Tell them you’re mine and they’ll fund you three centers.” Steve said it so casually, without any hint of cockiness. In his eyes, it was a simple truth. 

“I’m not yours,” you hissed, more annoyed at the heat you felt creeping over your skin.

At that Steve smirked. 

He released your chin and stood up. He didn’t even counter your claim, as if it was the most pitiful lie that didn’t require any argument because neither of you believed it. 

He stole one macaroon before leaving your office. 

You quickly stuffed your mouth with the only macaroon left, in case he would take that away from you, too. Then you returned your gaze to the project document. Suddenly, with the prospect of potential donors, you felt a new wave of energy and motivation to write it all out. 

You clung to the claim that it was the same motivation filling you with excited lightness as you donned on a beautiful evening dress three weeks later. Adamant on enjoying the fancy party and working for the center’s goals, you pushed away the nagging thoughts of going there as Steve’s wife. 

Not that you thought anyone would be interested in that, anyway. You weren’t a famous socialite, or a model, and you considered Steve to be terrifying enough that no one would imagine him getting married. Much less gossiping about it.

The smaller argument you weaved - about you not even matching your outfits, ergo no one would recognize you as a couple - died the moment you descended the stairs to where Steve was already waiting for you. 

The only time he wore a suit was at your wedding. His usual style was rougher, more practical and intimidating. A jagged chunk of volcanic rock, still pulsing with burning lava. So it was quite shocking to see him in a dark blue two piece that was cut so perfectly that his broad shoulders and tapered waist seemed more prominently outlined than when he wore jeans and tight shirts. 

The shade of his suit was dark enough to hold that dangerous, intimidating aura, but the shiny blue hue matched your choice of dress perfectly. 

He was the night sky to your moon glow. 

Steve didn’t mask the hunger in his eyes as he looked at you. Though you were thankful he didn’t utter anything about not making it to the gala, because he wanted to sate that hunger. 

He did, however, order you to turn around; with that rough, low voice that had your clit tingling. Despite the vow you made to yourself two months ago, to not so easily comply with his commands, you did as asked. You found yourself staring at your reflection in the large mirror in the entryway, your body heating up from the sudden lewd imagery of what could happen if Steve put his hands on you. Would he make you watch as he…

His ice blue eyes sparked a dark satisfaction, undoubtedly reading your body well enough to suspect where your thoughts have wandered.

But he didn’t mock you. Instead, his touch was a gentle brush that evoked goosebumps as he placed something shiny and heavy on your chest. 

He clasped the white gold necklace at the back of your neck as you stared at the incredible rock nestled in a cushion of diamonds that were so crystal white they appeared to be frosty snow. 

The rock in the middle was a hue of sundown orange, mostly transparent, but with a flame encapsulated within. Like the heart of a star. 

“Once upon a time,” Steve’s fingers trailed over your exposed collarbones and down along the delicate chain of the necklace. “There were six rarest jewels in the world. Called the infinity stones.”

Memory of Batroc asking about them flashed in your mind and you held your breath. 

The rumors were true, then. Steve was the ghost from the legend, who tore through the Greek magnate’s citadel and stole the rarest gems, without leaving a trace. If this was one of them, were the rest nestled in the rings on his fingers like you presumed once before? 

“This one is called the soul stone.” Steve traced the outline of the pendant with his fingertip, dipping it into the valley between your breasts. Your nipples hardened instantly.

“Fitting, since you’re the devil who stole mine,” your retort had no bite. Not with how breathless you sounded.

Steve chuckled, slipping his hand over your breast and lower. His fingers splayed across your belly as he pressed closer against you. His breath was a warm tickle on your skin as he brushed his lips along the column of your throat.

“I stole more than that, haven’t I, Princess?” He smirked at the flash of fear in your eyes, which dissolved into stubborn defiance. 

“Yes. My peace and chance at happiness.” You glared at him in the mirror. Which didn’t dent his amusement. 

With a chuckle, Steve kissed your neck then scraped his teeth over the spot. Thankfully, not hard enough to leave any evidence, but making your pussy clench. 

You scurried away towards the exit, before he decided to humiliate you by leaving a hickey that anyone could see. 

You tried not to show how Steve’s touch on your lower back affected you, neither on your way to the car, nor when you entered the lavish gala at the Stark Tower. You doused the warmth of comfort with a flute of champagne when Steve spent the first solid hour keeping you at his side and introducing you to various people. As his wife.

It was only after you two returned to the main hostess and Tony’s wife, Pepper, who greeted you at the entrance and then smoothly roped you into a social conversation, that Steve murmured something about attending to business.

He left you with a brief kiss to your cheek and a brush of his fingers sliding from the small of your back over your ass. Unapologetic about doing it publicly.

You narrowed your eyes, glaring at his retreating form. 

“Ah, newlyweds.” Next to you, Pepper let a dramatically dreamy sigh. 

Your gaze shifted to her, only to notice she was most amused. Unlike some of the women whom you were introduced to, she didn’t look at you with envy or disdain. Which had annoyed you, because really there was nothing to be jealous of. Well, mindblowing sex perhaps. But that was it. Nothing more. 

If they wanted Steve so much, you’d happily give him away. If he only let you. 

Pepper seemed genuine in her friendly approach, witty responses and warmth. The only flaw you found in her so far was the fact she was friendly with Steve, too.

Not overtly, in a way betraying carnal interest, or former relationship (which you sensed from a few other women at the banquet). But the platonic friendliness toward someone like Steve was alarming in itself. 

“Oh yeah,” you snorted, lifting your glass of champagne to your lips, “I’m sooo head over heels for him.”

Pepper’s laugh was soft and tinkling like velvet bells. Nothing fake, or annoying in the sound of it. Quite the opposite, you were surprised how it put you at ease after mingling with people who wore fake politeness like a family crest.

Crinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes as she looked at you and you couldn’t help but respond with your own grin.

“People often mistake my sunny disposition for naivety. They're very wrong.” Pepper said, taking a sip of her strawberry gin & tonic. 

“I know you didn't marry Steve out of love.” She stated bluntly, without judgment or conspiratory whispering. “But watching you two, some things are unmistakable.”

She lifted her left shoulder in a shrug, sparkling amusement in her eyes turning into a knowing look. Your heart halted before setting in a slightly panicked flutter. 

There were little moments when you felt certain cracks in your hard hateful shell, but you hoped that you managed to quickly hide them behind walls and under a mask. You didn’t want Steve finding more of your weaknesses. It was even worse, if someone else saw them.

Pepper barely met you and if she noticed how comfortable you felt at times beside Steve (when you forgot to remember you’re supposed to hate him and be disgusted by his touch), then the bastard must have been aware of them, too. Crap.

Still, you arched your brow as if you had no idea what she was implying. Pepper’s amusement deepened, she wasn’t buying your cluelessness. 

“There may not be romantic affection, but he sure gives you attention.” She said, angling her body so you stood shoulder to shoulder, facing the grand ballroom.

Before you snorted that you’d rather never have drawn Steve’s attention, she vaguely pointed at the room full of people. Expensive suits and dresses worth more than your half year salary, diamonds dripping, chests puffed. Women polished to perfection glued to the side of their men, sweet smiles offered on painted lips.

“That's something only very few women here experience. It’s rare.” There was a hint of disappointment in her tone, but you doubted it had to do with her own relationship. 

Tony Stark was like a hummingbird on energizer and coke - he fleeted from one conversation to the other, growing bored, acting pretentious asshole. He stopped for longer only with a few people. But every half an hour or so, he would search for Pepper and the way his attention zeroed in on her left no room to doubt his love for her.

She grounded him. Gave him a moment to recharge, even as she called him out on some of his antics. 

Many of the women at the gala, who accompanied their husbands, or partners, were there as an accessory. Beautiful, adding to the status, but few were even acknowledged by their company. 

“I’m not sure having Steve Rogers’ attention is exactly a good thing.” You pointed out. 

Everyone here may officially pretend he was a ruthless businessman, while they all knew the bloody truth. He was a mafia boss, a brutal king of the underworld, who wouldn’t blink an eye flaying someone open here in the light of the crystal chandeliers. 

No one wanted his attention on them, not really. 

“Not for most.” Pepper agreed. “Though some of the women might disagree.”

“Are you talking from experience?” You maintained a neutral, indifferent tone (mostly because you didn’t think there was ever anything between Pepper and Steve); yet there was a tiny flicker of something angry that ignited at the prospect.

It stirred with a growl and clawed out a few times that night, when a few of the women made it obvious they were wet and willing for Steve.

“God, no!” Pepper snorted, pretending to shudder. “I’m not that adventurous.”

“Yeah, bungee jumping without rope might be less of an adrenaline rush than being with him,” you rolled your eyes, but the corners of your mouth tilted in a grin. 

“Well, it seems only fair to give back in return. What would perturb the dark overlord?” Pepper pretended to seriously ponder, tapping her finger against her lips.

“I could try setting Bucky on fire.” 

Pepper’s laugh resounded with the same melodic chime as previously, but much louder. Not a single fake note, her burst of laughter was real. It enticed your own laugh to bubble out; both of you falling into a fit of giggles behind your drink glasses. 

You drew the attention of many people, who either watched you with suspicion, or glared offended. You didn’t care. And when your gaze connected with Steve’s, who looked your way from the other side of the room while some men were babbling next to him, you didn’t even pretend to be gloomy.

“Now that was the height of entertainment tonight.” Pepper looped her arm around yours, still smiling brilliantly ear to ear. “For me, at least. Now, how to repay you for that? I can tell you all the spicy gossip. We could get drunk and no one would dare to say anything to either me or you.” 

“Not gossip, but information.” You finished your champagne and reached for another flute as a waiter passed by. “I need to know more about this swamp my so-called husband treads through. And I need to milk some of them for money for the center.” 

“I know just the right people for that,” she nodded with determination and steered you toward the first potential benefactor. 

Pepper’s company was a wonderful balm and entertainment rolled into one. She was a graceful hostess, smart and perceptive professional, but also a bubbly imp who didn’t spare you the details about some sordid affairs. 

Though she could excuse herself with her duties, she stuck with you the entire time. She also managed not to smirk at your glower when she pointed at three women who have in the past fucked Steve. 

However, her smile turned mischievous as she spotted someone over your shoulder. She reminded you of the lunch date in three days that you happily agreed to, then smoothly glided away before you managed to properly say goodbye. 

Words stuck in your throat as you felt the familiar solid warmth at your back. Steve’s shadow cast over you first, then his heat and scent engulfed you. Like a mythological fate, always reaching its grasp for the heroine, no matter the hard fight towards the light, your personal devil softly pulled you back into his clutches. 

His hand touched your back and he spun you around. 

“Having fun, Princess?” He looked down at you. 

Icy blade of his gaze cut down men bigger than life, but, despite the first instinctive flash of fear, you felt it slicing through the layers of your clothes and defences. 

Plate by plate, you quickly reinforced your shell, to at least endure a few hours more before Steve got under your skin again. 

And into your cunt, because with his hot looks and your four glasses of champagne that was inevitable. 

“I don’t think parties of this kind are meant to have fun.” You scrunched up your nose. “But I managed to sway some rich snobs to potentially fund that educational project for the center. Leon Stavros seems keen to donate half the sum.”

You announced with a proud tilt of your chin and a smile. Tame enough to not share the actual happiness you felt with Steve. You wanted to boast about your little success, but you had to remember that he was the bane of your existence.  

Steve’s hand on your back settled heavier, while his other slid along your arm. He took your hand in his, outstretched your joined arms and in a single move swept you onto the dancefloor. 

“You’ll have to use his money for a different project.” He continued your conversation as he led you across the floor. “The psychoeducation and resources for caretakers project is already fully funded.” 

It took you a moment for his words to register, because you were still scrambling to catch up with the fact that a heartbeat ago you were standing off to the side and now you were dancing across the ballroom. 

It was truly mind boggling that your psychopath husband was a damn good dancer.

“What? Who?” You blinked, when it finally dawned on you what he said. You even cast a glance around, wondering who managed to deliver the funds so quickly.

Something sharp pierced through your chest as you realized there was only one person who knew before everyone else and could fund a project with a single transfer. Your gaze flicked back to Steve’s handsome face.

“Steve…” 

Heaviness of the situation turned worse by the second, because he wasn’t showing that smug, triumphant look, which would at least remind you to hate him. 

“You were determined to get that project running.” Steve replied easily. There was no affectionate passion in his next words, but still they chipped at the walls protecting you - “What you want, you get.”

“Thank you.” At the moment you didn’t know how else to respond. How to treat this gift. 

You could think of it as his manipulation to get you further into his sticky web, but he already had you at his mercy on all accounts. No, it flashed too much thoughtfulness.  

To preserve the comfortable setting of animosity, you asked cheekily - “What if I want a divorce?”

You were determined to keep asking for a divorce every chance you got. Officially, you believed it was because you wanted out of this fucked up marriage. Secretly, you were thrilled with the various ways Steve responded to that demand. 

“Then-” he pulled you even closer, his cheek brushing yours as he leaned down to whisper into your ear- “you get a fucking so hard, any silly ideas drip out of you permanently.” 

Steve delivered on the hard fucking, even though you haven’t mentioned divorce again that night. 

You blamed the champagne and happiness at having your project funded for making you sit so close to him in the car on your way back from the gala, rubbing your heated body against him with unrestrained need. Steve was merciful enough to not wait it out until you lost the battle with your own will and initiated sex yourself, but instead dragged you over his lap, rolled up your dress and fingered you into a dripping, screaming puddle before you made it home.

Then he took you hard, in front of that fucking mirror in the hall. With you completely naked, wearing only the necklace and watching yourself give in to the monster completely. 

You nearly passed out when he fucked you again in bed. Your almost unconscious state didn’t stop Steve from using you thoroughly and then spilling thick ropes of white cum all over your body, white drops landing around the jewel sparkling on your chest. 

Though your body was wonderfully blissed out each time you and Steve had sex - which was becoming an almost daily thing - you still refused to use the blissful adjective to describe your marriage. Or any positive adjective, for that matter. Even as the comfort of sitting next to him or sharing meals increased; or how he casually draped your legs over his lap, massaging your calves while he typed murderous decrees on his phone. 

The word domestic echoed in your head often, but you drowned it in screams of his victims, gunshots, Steve’s cold and sinister commands. 

You shouldn’t feel at ease and comfortable around the devil who kept you chained to him. You gave yourself a pass for enjoying mindmelting orgasms, it was a small reward for your suffering, but you wouldn’t let yourself get accustomed to being a wife. Not to Steve. 

So you pretended to be only mildly annoyed when he strolled into your office one day, bringing lunch as if he was a normal loving spouse, and announcing that you’ll be hosting a dinner at home. For the mayor and his wife. To his credit, Steve didn’t imply you had to be the one preparing said dinner. Having a chef was another benefit of your doom. But the expectation of playing the sweet wife and hostess to the corrupted pair of a politician and socialite made your blood boil.

Or maybe it was the fact that mayor’s wife was one of the few women Pepper confirmed to have been fucking Steve in the past.

No, you told yourself as you put on the soul stone necklace when preparing for said dinner. You didn’t care who he sank his cock into. You didn’t care, if he returned to that and left you in peace. 

But your conviction shattered to sharp, jagged pieces when mayor’s wife made obvious moves at your husband, with her own fucking husband sitting right there at the table! 

You were appalled. By her rudeness, of course. 

Mayor played a clueless idiot, probably too scared of Steve to fight for honor. Or maybe he was actually gaining something from having his wife almost drop to her knees and swallow Steve’s cock whole. You played indifference, because why should you care? 

So maybe your knife and fork scraped against the plate so loud that everyone at the table cringed in pain, when the mayor’s wife briefly touched Steve’s arm and mentioned missing their passionate art discussions. It was nothing. Just a spasm in your hand. And you gulping down half of your wine glass all unladylike was because you needed to soothe an itch in your throat, not because the floozy licked her lips and made a suggestion Steve should go with her to the new exhibition. 

Though Steve hadn’t replied to Miliana’s advances, focusing on the not so subtle business talk with her husband, he didn’t refuse her either. Which made you want to reach for the knife he had custom made for you and stab him with it, when later that night he had the audacity to touch you. 

Steve merely chuckled, absolutely amused. Mockingly asked if you were jealous. Which you were not! 

Tension slowly dropped after that, as days passed and you haven’t seen that skank’s face. Unexpectedly, however, the mayor requested an official visit to the center. It was a short one, a half an hour so the press could write about his interest in healthcare and supporting new community focused projects. You also suspected he wanted to kiss Steve’s ass.

You didn’t have a reason to deny him, especially since the press would also mention the center and new projects, which would be helpful. It was even better, because he came only with some of his office staff, no wife at his side. 

But then, just as you were breathing in relief that the circus was almost over, the mayor had the balls to invite himself over to your house for dinner the upcoming weekend. 

In true political bullshit manipulation, saying how his wife loved your chef’s scallops and couldn’t wait to taste them again and how your house provided comfort to talk business with your husband. 

At this point, you were wondering if the slimy asshole was a cuckold. 

He was bending backwards just to give his own wife an opportunity to touch your fucking husband. Maybe he really was into that. Maybe he wanted to watch. Maybe you should’ve vomited when you relayed the request to Steve and he shrugged that he’s free Saturday evening: if the greedy idiot wants to crawl begging for more scraps. 

Your appetite evaporated, as you spent days fuming at the prospect of another weird dinner when a shameless woman would be drooling after Steve while you were sitting there right opposite of her, in your own damn home. 

No, this time you wouldn’t stand for it. You would make Miliana associate your house with something most unpleasant. And a small vial stolen from one of the medicine cabinets at the center was going to help you with that.

It was surprisingly easy, really. It should shock you how calm you were as you prepared for the dinner; how a soft smile graced your lips as you set the table while the chef prepared delicious food. But now that determination guided your hand through the plan, earlier fiery aggravation melted away. 

Briefly, you wondered if the same calm took over Steve when he took lives. 

You shook that thought away, since you weren’t attempting to kill anyone. Though when a memory of her hand on Steve’s arm flashed in your mind, your fingers itched to grab a knife. 

Applying a little drop to the bottom of a crystal glass and another on the rim, smearing it along, you felt an odd kind of satisfaction unfurl in your chest. There was no hesitation, no worry about potential mix-up. No, you were certain Miliana would once again seat on Steve’s left. Just like the last time. It was cunning, since it appeared all innocent - her sitting on her husband’s right, just you were sitting on your husband’s right, the men facing each other. 

Your smile widened when the couple entered your dining room and sat exactly like you predicted. Politely fake conversation flew as the chef brought out first dish and his assistant poured wine into glasses. 

The scallops tasted even more delicious, in your opinion. Especially when after a few sips of wine the mayor’s wife had to quickly excuse herself to the bathroom. 

Few minutes later the mayor’s phone vibrated, which led to him frowning at the screen and excusing himself as well - undoubtedly to aid his wife. When he walked back into the dining room a while later, he looked nervous and embarrassed, paler too.

“My apologies. It appears my wife and I have to leave promptly, it was unplanned, but can’t be avoided.” 

You made a sound of worried pity, but continued to cut into your own food and eating it without an ounce of genuine distraught. Steve arched a brow in surprise, but nodded his head, which seemed to bring the mayor immense relief. The man was more scared of offending Steve than for his wife’s health. 

It was less than a minute when you heard their car take off from the driveway. The sound of it and the fact they were no longer polluting the space of your home pleased you greatly. 

“Mhm, these scallops are really delicious,” you hummed, licking your fork. 

“Princess,” Steve tuned the petname in a sing-song tone. “What did you do?”

Slowly, you looked his way. He didn’t seem angry, nor worried. He angled his body towards you, propping one elbow on the table and drumming his fingers in a steady rhythm. He wasn’t asking if it was your doing, he already knew. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t permanently damage one of your mistresses. She’s just gonna spend a day or two glued to the toilet.” You snorted, clenching your fingers around the fork. “But maybe next time she’ll reconsider coming into the house where your wife lives.”

Dark gleam flickered over Steve’s ice blue eyes. 

He leaned forward, moving his hands to grip the edge of your chair and yanked it at an angle toward him. Your legs were between his, his hands gripping the sides of your chair, veins protruding in his forearms as his muscles tensed.

“Your possessiveness gets me hard.” He chuckled darkly.

“I’m not possessive!” You objected immediately, crossing your hands over your chest. 

“You demanded I marry you, the ruthless fucking king of the underworld. So now you have to deal with having a wife. And your reluctant queen won’t stand for any more humiliation.” You spat the last part, boldly leaning forward and glaring at him with all the accumulated hatred. 

“Princess,” Steve inched even closer, not the least bothered by your outburst. Quite the opposite, he appeared to love it. “My dick hasn’t even twitched for any other woman, since I tasted your lips. There’s no pleasure in standing their fake, exaggerated despair, when I have your sweet pussy so responsive to my darkness…”

Your retort died on your tongue when suddenly one of Steve’s hands gripped your chin.

“Now-” he tightened his pinch on your chin, his voice smoothly transforming into a cold warning. “Don’t ever do anything like that again.” 

“Miliana doesn’t have enough spunk and her husband is too much of a scaredy wimp to retaliate in any form.” He showed zero empathy toward them. “But there are eels and sharks swimming around us and some of them would dare to bite back.”

Holding your chin, Steve forced you to lean closer. His breath tickled your mouth as he inched forward, as well.

“And if anyone dared to put a finger on you, it would end in a bloodbath.”

Only Steve could make a psychopathic threat sound like a seductive, velvet vow of a lover.

Your brain screamed that it was wrong, that you should be disgusted by his words and scared of how easily it came to him to take lives. Yet your insides filled with heat, one spreading through your chest and a wave of it pooling low in your abdomen.

“Don’t go on a murder spree, because of some macho obligation.” You swallowed hard, your voice barely above a whisper.

“You. Are. Mine, Princess.” Steve punctuated each word with a brush of his lips against yours. “To harm or disrespect you means to hurt or disrespect me. I have no mercy for those. I would cut off the limb, with which they hurt you, and carve out their intestines. Then fuck you while their blood pools at your feet.”

“That’s disgusting,” with how breathy you sounded, your claim felt like a lie.

One that Steve read right away.

“It turns you on.” He chuckled, grinning. 

“I know that you get so wet from the scary, unhinged things that I do.” His other hand slapped your knees apart.

“I’m not-” you frowned, ready to deny that as well. Even though your body was already primed for him.

Words went forgotten when Steve picked you in a swift move and deposited you in his lap. The hand on your chin moved to grip the front of your neck; the cool sensation of his rings digging into your soft skin made you gasp. The sound nearly stopped in your throat, because he tightened his grip. And it made your arousal burst stronger.

His right hand ventured between your spread thighs. His fingers easily slipped beneath the flimsy fabric of your underwear and teased your slick folds.

“Soaked.” Steve triumphed, running the ring-adorned knuckle of his index finger up and down between your folds. “Sweet, good-hearted Princess who lives to help people, cumming on her brutal husband’s weapons and cock.” 

The mere mention of his thick cock made your pussy pulse. The image of his gun and of the knife sliding along your skin and pressed so close to your most sensitive areas caused a shiver to rock your whole body.

Steve chuckled at your body’s reaction. He laced kisses and licks along your jaw, continuing to tease your cunt.

“As for you wanting to be a queen at my side…” he sucked your earlobe lewdly, making you moan. 

“Do you know what a queen’s role is?” He whispered right into your ear before pulling back slightly.

“To stand fierce and unbending beside her king.” He withdrew his hand, kissing your lips when you pouted at the loss of delicious stimulation. Fingers sticky with your slick, he ran his palm up your belly and over your breast. Then to your arm. 

“And to give him an heir.”

Steve’s eyes locked with yours as his wet fingers circled your arm, thumb pressing right over where your contraceptive implant was hidden beneath your skin. 

“Are you ready for that, Princess?” He asked, rubbing the spot in sinfully slow circles, as he would do your clit. “Are you ready to take out this little implant and let me breed you properly?” 

Your brain was too scrambled, even though Steve barely touched you, really. The adrenaline from poisoning a woman who dared to flirt with your husband mixed with desire that the fucker so easily ignited in you. 

The unexpected mention of impregnation? In that dark, raw way only your husband dared to speak to you? For a short moment your mind simply stopped working.

“No!” You clenched your eyes, letting the last remnants of reason fight against the threat. 

Steve didn’t seem perturbed by your refusal. Perhaps it wasn’t even something he was interested in, just another means to torment you with and make you yield to his command. 

“Until then, you remain my Princess.” He declared, cutting off your airflow for a few seconds and taking possession of your mouth. 

When he let you breathe again, you felt dizzy and pliant. Your own hands clenched on his shoulders as Steve stood up abruptly. He kicked the chair away and placed you on the dining table. 

Plates and wine glasses tumbled over, food and wine spilling across the tablecloth and dripping down on the floor. You felt the sticky wetness soaking into your back as Steve splayed you on the table, but you didn’t care. Not when he was holding you down by your throat with one hand and ripping your soaked underwear with the other. 

Then there was the sound of a zipper and Steve’s low, sexy groan as he gripped his hard cock and stroked it a few times. 

Steve held your gaze as he tapped his dick against your pulsing clit and then nudged it into your opening. A needy whine vibrated in your throat, tempting the fingers around your neck to squeeze just a tad tighter. 

He slammed into you in one stroke; dark victory flamed in his eyes as your body jerked and your pussy clamped around him. 

Buried to the hilt, with his hand around your throat and the other holding your leg bent and pressed against your chest, Steve looked down at you. Danger pulsed off of him like a dark aura, reminding you how defenceless you were.

“Don’t ever fucking endanger what’s mine.” He warned.

You glared at him, indignant at being referred to as his. But then he snapped his hips back and into you again, and your ire flowed into brain short-circuiting pleasure. 

“My good, depraved Princess.” Steve praised, fucking you hard. “Creaming around my cock so prettily.” 

You fisted the tablecloth, mewling as each of his thrust drove you closer to the peak. It was so rough, so raw and based on urges you never considered yourself to have. You hated it. Hated Steve. Hated what he made you into. And you screamed his name as you came.

[cherokeegal1975]

Makes sense. As a writer and artist myself, I gain inspiration from everything and everywhere. And creating stories and art is a kind of coping mechanism too. I get it even though I've never been in a war and hope I never will. I've got my own everyday battles. Everything from depression to people I really don't want to live with but have to pissing me off practically on a daily basis...and mostly preventing me from engaging in creativity of any kind...which is absolutely my drug of choice. It's maddening.

But, enough about my crap. What I have to put up with isn't as bad as what these two authors had to go through. I live with a guy I hate that I'd be surprised if he didn't have some form of untreated PTSD because he had seen some shit in Vietnam though he never actually killed anyone. But seeing people skinned and hanging upside-down and still breathing and having to guard them until his companions could get help to cut them down. I also heard that he got bombed once when he was sleeping. That shit would mess anyone up and he never recieved treatment for it.

I was understanding for a long time, but after a while, I just got angrier and angrier...I can' only put up with being called names and being mentally and physically abused (that part is rare, but it happens) without learning that I can indeed hate someone when for the longest time, I didn't know I could. Now I want nothing to do with him but I'm finanachally stuck in the same house with him until I can buy my freedom. Which is unlikely because I turn fifty this month and I've never been financially well off enough to leave as I desprately need to.

Asshole finished breaking my mom's sprit as much as it is possible to do to that stubborn bitch. Love her the most in the world, but still can't stand her and I hate living with her. She's fought her own wars too. So it wasn't all him, but he didn't help. He's such a bad husband and it's sad I can recognize that because I've never been married myself. Or romantically involved with anyone beyond a couple of dates. Those flopped...and I think in part because I didn't have enough information about myself. Never asked myself beyond am I gay or not...the answer was no. Then last year after some learning the question came up am I ace or not? Turns out the answer was yes and no...then I did some digging and came up with the term demisexual and that fit me.

And I'm breaking my rule about not bitching online. I have my own share of traumas. Still living them.

i think all quiet on the western front and the lord of the rings are in direct conversation with each other, as in theyre the retelling of the same war with one saying here’s what happened, we all died, and it did not matter at all and another going hush little boy, of course we won, of course your friends came back

[baepsays]

Suck it and See ⸻ .03 how you met stoner Suguru.

description: of all places, Geto Suguru didn't expect to meet a girl with knee high socks, who practically pulled him in like an eager sacrifice to the Siren— at a frat party surrounded by smoke.

cw: use of she/her pronouns, fem oriented reader, mentions of drugs, weed, and alcohol; nothing much this is mostly a meet cute-ish, lore stuff really, artic monkeys references everywhere, they mild nsfw stuff.

playlist inspired by the content.

What a pleasure it is to be surrounded by sweaty people you barely know in a room full of smoke. All because your best friend is an extroverted social butterfly of a freak.

Safe to say, Geto Suguru would be anywhere but here right now. But maybe he does need some free alcohol and free cigarettes, a finance degree is the furthest thing from causation of sobriety. And as an average university student reliant on caffeine, alcohol, and cigarettes—completing his last semester and starting his big-time finance bro job later this year might I add—he is oddly conservative when it comes to weed though, if we're talking about ways to numb yourself.

The fact he has seen people actually do much worse actual hard drugs and yet he has a bigger opinion about the devil's lettuce of all things available out there. The only viable reason which can be given is that he had a stoner roommate during his first semester and it was the worst time of his entire university life. And honestly, he has seen Gojo get high for the sake of trying it, that was not fun for anyone but Shoko who was filming Suguru trying to stop Gojo from jumping off the balcony to chase a cat he apparently saw (there was no cat).

But these are excuses really. Well, Geto Suguru would not say he is repulsed by weed. In fact, he has tried it himself once. It was mostly about going along with his high school debate team who wanted to get high during one of their out-of-town tournaments. And guess what. High Suguru went on and blurted out all his little animosities to big grudges against everyone there and somehow fell asleep next to a trashcan in the hallway. Thankfully no one remembered and the video footage of all of this happening went into his hands first. He made sure to delete everything and ask around without being suspicious if anyone remembered anything he said. He was safe since they all forgot about everything.

Since then, he has steered clear of weed, it does odd things to him which no other substances do. Even when he is drunk out of his mind or buzzing with caffeine and nicotine, he is never impulsive. He always has control. And the fact he let that control slip is very scary. Matter of fact, despite his side hobby of making fun of a scared Gojo during horror movie marathons, Suguru himself didn't like being scared by something unknown or letting himself slip out in front of someone he would rather not have seen him like that .

Yet here he was, at one of the more famous frats who are known for their weed more than their alcohol and what not. I mean, it's not about where you end up but what you're looking for, right? Maybe that doesn't make much sense but so doesn't his last assignment of the semester before exams start, which carries 40% of his marks.

And for someone who isn't looking for weed, his amazing friend makes sure to pull him right into the room full of—who apparently seemed to be—stoners. Supposedly Satoru knows someone there, but he also knows way too many people for his liking. The amount of time he has to stop, stand, and stare around to wait for Satoru to finish chatting with yet another stranger—infinite really.

Regrets of ending up in that room without any alcohol in his hand, seemed to have flown right out of the room with the smoke. And it might as well have been the residual of weed in the air, but what's happening in his head was alarming. Right across from the person Satoru apparently knew, sat this gorgeous being, looking ever so effervescent and oozing mystique surrounded by clouds of smoke (he is a poet everyone). Wearing, what in his mind seemed like, the most poorly constructed skirt, practically giving away the secret eighth wonder of the world—which are those thighs. And is that fishnet? Someone please check on him, is he having a nosebleed? If not, that tight top perfectly snug around your chest, might do the job. More over the breasts, it was the neck. How can someone find a neck that beautiful? I wouldn't know, ask Suguru.

Real question is who wears knee high socks in the summer? He is not complaining, it somehow really works for you, and it works wonders on him. Again, it might be the weed. It has to be, because Geto Suguru, who is the most calculated person you'll know—sly little shit who is known for being the level headed, mysterious, lady's man— he may be just as much of a menace as Gojo and just as silly, he just knows how to mask it. And he's losing it. He's losing that control, because why aren't his ears working? His eyes refuse to focus on anything but you dragging a smoke out of the joint, which was passed to you by someone. And his legs are moving on their own towards the couch where you are sitting with the only person who you seem remotely interested in, 'might be her friend' he assumes, while ignoring this other guy who seems to be high off his mind talking about who knows what. His ears already made the effort of blocking out every sound, including Gojo's, who was calling him out because he wanted to introduce Suguru to his friend.

"Hey"

Real smooth from Mr. Lady's man over here. Incredible opener to introduce yourself to this person who may or may not be a witch cause why is he completely under this sort of trance as if he is the one sucking on that joint. Also, the fact he is just awkwardly standing in front of you while you look up at him through your lashes, unbothered and definitely high, still sitting on that couch—he must've inhaled too much weed smoke.

"Did you mean to say that to me? Because I think your friend needs you over there actually."

You say after blinking at him twice, then point across to you where Gojo and his friend are sitting. It's rather a given to be confused by this random long-haired Rapunzel to awkwardly stand before you like he doesn't know any better about how to interact socially, he's not drunk definitely, you saw him and his friend stroll in through the doors just a few minutes ago. Why would you even bother to care enough to remember that? Well, Rapunzel here is too gorgeous for his own good, secondly, you're high and feeling rather needy.

Pre-finals week suck, universal sentiment shared by all degree pursuing students. So here you are on this couch, in some frat, with your friend who's seeing one of the frat members. All you expected was some good quality rich boy weed and alcohol, nothing more really. Sleeping with someone you met at a frat party, reeks of STDs. And yet here you are looking at this gorgeous man looking like he doesn't have any thoughts behind his eyes, contrary to what you assumed, from afar he looked like a manipulative man whore. The world might be full of surprises or he's a theatre major.

"Huh?" — is all Suguru somehow manages to utter, it's illegal to smell that good while also smelling like weed, what god forsaken perfume you're using? Those eyes are enough, why do you need to crawl through all his five senses and wrap your hands around his brain.

"Huh." You say with one raised eyebrow. Seems like you've found yourself an excuse to escape.

"Seems like you don't know anything other than three lettered words starting with h."

He just stares into your eyes and lets you throw that jab at him. Really just too enchanted to speak, it's not that this is something he's choosing to do. He'd rather sit across from you and socialize with Gojo, while staring you down from time to time, then after much considerable eye contact, he'll slide himself to your side of the couch, asking your permission to have a seat, with much charisma no one can deny.

Yet here he is, not drunk, or losing his mind with weed—purely high off of sucking in your presence. This is only the second time he has lost control over a situation, and this time he is completely sober. New discoveries are made every second he supposed. Because if a sly talker like him, one who especially finds existential joy in countering the opposing person's jabs, is standing here tongue tied—he believes climate change can be reversed then. (How wishful)

You get off the couch to stand facing him, way too close to him for his sanity's sake, between the narrow gap between him and the couch—you might be shorter than him but your gaze is too piercing. And yet he cannot look away.

"Would you rather I dragged you out of this room? Maybe the smoke is getting to your head huh?"

Takes a second for Suguru to contextualize what you just suggested. And without any power to verbally respond, he simply nods into agreement. Somehow in that moment his incognizant brain decided that maybe leaving himself to your devices in this situation is the most natural thing to do. In fact, you might as well have all consumed him and he couldn't care any less.

All he cares about is that you're taking his hands in your hands, which made him think it might be a missing puzzle piece that only fits in perfectly with his, and dragging him out after a little bye to your friend and Gojo as well. Suguru is really out of it. He's not going to hear the end of it from Gojo, while he retells this story to their friends in the most overexaggerated way, which is so impossible given how ridiculous he is acting right now. Anything less dramatic than a Shakespearean play wouldn't do justice to exactly what played out in there. Yet Gojo Satoru will make sure to put a shame to Shakespeare's dramatics. That's his headache for later, let's focus on the ache in his palpitating heart.

You drag him out of that room, into the big living room or space and then drag him through the crowd to one of the rooms on the first floor, and take him straight to the balcony attached to it. The balcony sits right above the pool. Below you two, you can see most people congregating around there, swimming or just dancing or talking. Most of the speakers are there playing every frat bro's Spotify rotation probably. It's dark enough and tucked away nicely for anyone to notice you two there even if they look up—you saw this balcony the first time you visited this house with your friend cause of the guy she was seeing and since it was not a party, it was clear in the daylight that it was a nice place to people watch from. Or just enjoy the music,

'And her lips are like the galaxy's edge

And her kiss the colour of a constellation fallin’ into place'

Suguru couldn't agree more. If he didn't know any better— he'd say the song was about you. Because right now he is pulling out the lighter out of his pockets. Moving it towards your direction and halting halfway in the little space in between you two. Suguru wouldn't write this out as some kind gesture. He would never even think of sharing his prized lighter. It has been with him since he found it one day visiting his grandma's village home with his parents. Lying in a puddle of mud near the river that flowed behind her house. Scratch random people he wouldn't even let Satoru touch it or let Shoko take a light with it. Yet here he is— silently helping you out all because it looked like with the roll of a joint tucked in your bra, you forgot to bring a light.

You stare back and forth between the burning flame and his face. Contemplating perhaps. Then you move forward grab a hold on his hand, which was holding up the lighter, just a bit far for you to easily lean in and ignite the blunt. So you move, move to now sit face to face with him, both your knees on either side of his thighs—hovering over him, hands holding his, which was holding his silver lit up lighter. You lean forward probably closer to his face than the lighter even, all while keeping constant eye contact. You move your head to your left and finally burn the joint pressed in between your lips, after what seemed like an eternity.

Once the smoke comes out, you unwrap your lips from the joint and smile at Suguru, not one of those half smiles you've been throwing at him all this time. A genuine laidback smile.

"Thanks uh- oh wait I don't even know your name"

"Well I haven't given it to you yet."

"You gave me your lighter, might as well give me your heart. How much more could your name matter?"

Well he might as well have given you his heart and what even is in the name, if he could he would give you the entirety of the galaxy, but It would probably fade out in your comparison.

"Suguru. Geto Suguru."

"Nice to meet you Suguru."

"And what more might you need other than my lighter, heart, and name in exchange for your name?"

"I don't know? Anything tempting you are offering? Perhaps a seat right here?"

Did you mean right there? There on his lap?

"I wouldn't ever deny you anything."

So you did in fact mean his lap. Cause you perch right up on there and drag a long smoke out of your joint, blowing the smoke up in the sky above you two.

"L/n Y/n. And I'll hold you onto that claim."

"Do you always ask people for names in exchange for a seat on their lap?" Suguru smirks and tries to regain some confidence and control over the situation. If he wants to keep you right where you are, he would need to get out of the haze of intoxication — which was ironically not the weed in the air but just your existence.

"I never really ask for names. Really bad at remembering them. And as for seats, hmm I don't know. Your legs looked more comfortable and warm than the cold floor. And you looked sweet."

"Sweet?"

"Why? Does that not describe your —chase Atlantic and Artic Monkeys, cigarette smoker, fuck weed i am better than that, only dark colors— aesthetic?"

"How did you know I don't like weed?"

"Made a face right as you walked into the room down there. Also anyone else would've asked to borrow this by now." You move the blunt in between your fingers slightly to signify what you're talking about.

"Does that not bother you?"

"I mean it doesn't bother you that I am smoking this right in your face, if you had said something I would've respected that as well. I don't really care what you think is the standard for intoxication."

Suguru just smiles. He doesn't really have a topic exactly to speak about. He is in fact not capable of doing much right now you've rid him of the taste of control and the only taste he wants to be acclimated with from this moment onwards is yours. And he doesn't care about this change. He knows your name, he knows the feel of your fishnets against your skin. He knows the material of your lethal skirt. He knows the vanilla and jasmine notes of your perfume. He knows the exact color of your eyes and how many eyelashes you have. And he thinks that is enough.

'You have got that face that just says

"Baby, I was made to break your heart"'

You might as well break his heart, do as you please with it. It burnt away from his grasp the moment you burnt the end of your joint using his lighter.

"Looks like they are more intoxicating than any drug in existence." Was he talking about the blunt? Because his eyes were aimed at your lips. And he was unaware of what he even let slip out of his own lips.

"Suck it and see. You never know." 

Not wasting a second with your unaware confirmation, Suguru moves forward. The hand on your fishnet clad thigh tightens, digging into the supple skin, weaving the fingers with the fishnet itself. The other hand, coming up to your lips, taking out the joint and throwing it out somewhere on the balcony, his fingers first touch your lips with light touches as if one touch is too heavy and you'll disperse into thin air. Slowly the fingers on your lips start pressing down on, well past both of your lips, making an audible gasp leave your mouth involuntarily. His fingers dig around the entrance to your mouth— rubbing your lips, then proceeds to press down on your tongue and graze over your teeth interchangeably. All while staring into your eyes, or staring at you, your eyes might as well be all white or shut close. Anything partially visible, is all a blur. 

And you allow him all of it. You allow him to twist his fingers up to rub his rough finger pads on the along the expanse of your hard palate and soft palate, borderline trying to choke you. You simply allow it. You allow those hands to explore parts of you even out of your own reach. One digging in your mouth, other trying to make itself at home on your thighs—practically memorizing every little stretch mark running along your skin. He wants to know it all, have it all and who are you to deny a starved man? 

When he's had enough of his little exploration, his own pairs of lips come crashing down on you. A sigh of almost a relief, leaves both your lungs. It is not quite relief, it is nice to finally have him kiss you—but his lips are the kind to leave your head dizzy, head swaying, forgetful of the whole process of breathing through your nose while he devours you, eyes flickering like unreliable headlights on the highway. You might as well be crashing out. 

His lips are caging in yours, tongue fencing with yours, hands roaming around you like he's gonna find the most prized treasure on the surface of your skin. Guiding your hips to force down on his lap and roll them into little grids of desperation. Who was exactly the desperate one here? 

At that point it all becomes too overwhelming to have your ability to breath taken away. So you push him off, with no ease. It was as if pushing him and pulling yourself back simply made him hold onto you harder. And when his lips did leave you alone, they go on to chase your lips to find his rightful place back on them.

You put one of your hands on his mouth to halt him, all that does is make you have goosebumps all over your body—having him look up to you with his desperate and hazed mono lids, the purple-brownish shade of his pupils burning you up. And him just heaving in your hand, short of breath, was of no help either. 

“I was talking about the joint.” you breath out with an exasperated sigh.

“Well I am not sorry.” He leaves a feather light kiss on your hand covering his mouth.

“What even are you?” Genuinely, how does a man with gorgeous hair and horrible vocabulary make you fold so easily? 

“‘I am a fool for you.” 

A/N: dividers by @/sister-lucifer & @/omi-resources, header from my own gallery. And I didn't proofread half of this ok IT IS HARD TO READ YOUR OWN WORK

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[michuga]

see both sides like chanel

summary: your best friend, jeongguk, has only ever dated boys. unbeknownst to you, (he was also into girls).

pairing: jeongguk x fem reader

content: best friends to lovers, sexual tension, fluff, reader is a little absentminded, jk is a damn tease

warnings: cursing, (it gets steamy)

wc: 2k

you and jeongguk have been friends for the past seven years.

jeongguk has only ever dated boys.

does that a gay man make? no! of course not, you knew this. it is the big year of 2025 after all. sexuality is a spectrum; and you were never one to judge.

leaning in, jeongguk brushes his lips against yours.

and that's how you ended up kissing your very gay best friend.

or, not? i guess?

you don't know if it was because he was your best friend; instantly crossed off as a potential lover in your mind anyway, or because he was always sporting a new shiny boy toy every couple of weeks. or the crop tops he wore all throughout high school. or the sexy fireman posters plastered all over his dorm room walls in college! either way; you never would have expected to end up bent over on his couch on a random tuesday afternoon.

but one thing is for sure.

you were stupid.

oh so very stupid.

you're probably wondering how you got here.

well, let me walk you through it.

it all started with an incident that happened a few months ago.

your best friend, jeongguk, was on your bed, ranting to you about his new fling.

"i can't believe i ever thought jimin and i could work," he complains.

grabbing the hem of your blouse, you lift it up and off your body, tossing it across your room.

left in your black lacy bra, you scour your closet for something to wear.

a minute or so passes, and you finally notice the silence that falls upon the room. you turn around to find him visibly preoccupied, going through his phone.

"you were saying..?" you tap his shoulder.

clearing his throat he continues, maintaining eye contact with his phone, "i just don't think he's the one for me. he's too.. flaky?"

you've always found it adorable how jeongguk got shy at times like these. it's been seven years and he has remained ever the gentleman, never taking advantage of your friendship or abusing the amount of trust you put in him. you never had reason to doubt him anyway, it's not like you were exactly his... type, per se.

"i agree, babe. you deserve way better than that," you say, returning to the agonizing task at hand; finding an outfit amidst the chaos that is your closet.

finally picking one out, you hold up the hangers against your body, standing in front of your full length mirror to see how it would look on you.

"what do you think of this?" you ask, lost in thought.

"your black skirt would go along better," jeongguk mumbles from your bed.

"right? i thought so too." putting the hangers down, you bend over to grab said skirt from your bottom drawer.

from an outside perspective, one could consider you shameless.

from jeongguk's perspective, he found you amusing.

and from your perspective.. well, the most complicated thought in your mind right now was putting together a damn outfit.

an hour later, you and jeongguk sit at your table eating the brunch he cooked you, catching up on your busy lives; as was your routine together.

"and this girl i was fooling around with at the time-"

your brain short circuits.

"come again?"

"what?"

"sorry, i thought you said girl." you say with a dismissive laugh, "imagine that."

"i did." he looks at you with furrowed eyebrows and an amused smile.

the entirety of your coffee is wasted in your spit take.

you wish you were exaggerating.

cleaning up the mess you made on the table, you backtrack.

"you like girls???"

"..yes?"

looking at him suspiciously, you scramble to find your words. you didn't want to offend him, but he had caught you very off guard.

"did you think i was gay?" he asks, with a raise of his eyebrows, fully dumbfounded this time.

"i've just.. you've always.. i've only ever seen you with guys?"

"well yeah, those are just the ones i've encountered, i guess."

"you're telling me we've been friends for the past seven years, and i'm just finding this out now?"

"damn. when you put it that way, you sound like a real bad friend, you know," he says with a chuckle, casually gulping down the rest of his coffee.

oh. oh.

helikesgirls

helikesgirlsandhe'sseenyounaked

helikesgirlsandhe'sseenyounakedonmultipleoccasions

with a small smirk and a tilt of his head, he gets up and walks up to you. "don't worry, you're still not my type." he whispers in your ear.

"if you need me, i'll be with the community dick!" he yells out as he walks away, taking your dignity and your pride with him; the last of it escaping with the final click of your apartment door.

"god how stupid am i?" you complain, rather dramatically, to your other best friend, hoseok. "i mean, how could i just blatantly assume he was gay? what if i made him uncomfortable before and he never told me? i'm a terrible friend!" flailing your arms, you ignore the dirty looks from onlookers passing by.

"i'm sure if you had made him uncomfortable, he would have told you. this is jeongguk we're talking about? are you trying to tell me he has any sort of filter?" he jokes, trying to cheer you up.

repeatedly bumping your head into the wall in front you, you surrender to the sea of embarrassment you found yourself drowning in.

"you should have seen my face. as if i wasn't stupid enough already, i made things awkward and rethought every interaction we've ever had, like, right in front of him. you could literally see the gears turning in my brain. i probably looked like a bloated pufferfish blowing bubbles. stupid, stupid, stupid," you repeatedly smack yourself in the face.

"wait. you're gay though, right??" you ask, suddenly feeling as insecure as ever.

"yes babe, i came out to you in the 12th grade. still as straight as rupaul." he says with a chuckle, finding your meltdown completely adorable.

reaching behind you, he takes hold of your seatbelt and fastens it.

you can't help but burn bright red. what the fuck is wrong with you? what ever changed? he's still jeongguk. your jeongguk. the same jeongguk whose clothes you helped clean from vomit, after he got drunk one too many times back in college?

you feel like ripping all your hair out.

maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

jeongguk had picked you up from work, and you were on your way to his place to hang out, as usual.

"so it's either that or fried chicken.. what do you think?"

"huh?"

"i said what do you want to order??"

"oh.. anything is fine, thanks," you say awkwardly, clearing your throat.

"okay then?" he says as he starts the car.

a few hours later and the evening was going smoothly. perhaps too smoothly.

mishaps forgotten, you and your best friend sit in his living room, eating, laughing, and watching desperate housewives. just as you always have been for years.

"i'm gonna go get us some more drinks," you say as you get up, making your way over to his kitchen.

"he's such an idiot," you mumble to yourself as you chuckle, remembering the joke jeongguk had cracked a minute prior.

initially you open the fridge to check for beer, but there wasn't any; so you resort to plan B: the fancy wine he stores in his top cupboard.

you stand on your tiptoes and extend your arm up, trying to reach the wine bottle.

suddenly you feel a prescence behind you. last time you checked, brick walls can't move. so if 1+1 equals 2; then warmth, musky vanilla and hard equals jeongguk.

you see a bigger arm reach up and get the job done. "here, let me."

"thanks.." and just like that, the strange feeling is back.

you knew there was no way the evening could go smoothly. no, you're never that lucky.

pulling away, jeongguk pops open the wine bottle, pouring crimson liquid in two glasses.

you jump up to sit on the kitchen counter.

"have you picked out an outfit for the gathering yet?" he asks, taking a sip of his wine.

"nope," you say with a sigh, shoulders slumped in defeat. "it seems like everything i try doesn't look as good on me as i imagine in my head."

"but everything looks good on you, doll."

"are you putting the moves on me, jeon?" you say, jokingly; waiting for him to laugh along.

inching closer, closer, closer.. he stops and situates himself between your legs.

"and what if i am?" he mutters with a deep hushed voice. "am i making you nervous?" mere inches between your faces laced with thick, undeniable tension. he dare not raise his voice a single octave; for that could ruin the intimacy of it all.

whether it was something in the air or the liquor in both your systems, something between you had shifted.

this was not your gay best friend.

this was someone much more dangerous.

"we really.. really shouldn't.." voice barely above a whisper, you manage to let out with every remaining ounce of self-control you have. a feather light hand on his chest, you fruitlessly attempt to push him away; physically melting into his touch instead.

grabbing your hand, he holds it in his.

"do you have any idea how batshit crazy you drove me all those times, stripping half naked right in front of me?" he starts, voice raspy and full of need, slowly tracing his finger along your thigh, going up, up.. "mindlessly running your mouth, bending over in your tiny panties.. when all i wanted to do was bend you over myself, and put you in your place? my best friend of seven years, assuming my sexuality.. tsk tsk.."

ghosting a hand over your throat, he firmly grips your chin, lifting your head up to meet his gaze.

"do you want me to show you.." with a sinister smirk he breathes into your ear, "just how much i love women?"

your breath catches in your throat.

it was at that moment he leaned forward and crashed his lips against yours, closing the gap between you.

78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen in the atmosphere, but right in this very room and in this very moment; it's 100% you, jeongguk, and your breathless pants. a different third gas; the kind that smells like blurring the lines between you and your best friend. potentially damning a solid friendship, and throwing years down the drain. not 1% was spared for rationale.

both of you are forced separate, bound by your human bodies, in need of air.

ravenous, you grab his shirt collar and shoved him right against your face, devouring his lips once more.

with a groan, his free hand grabs your calf, hitching your leg against his hip. you wrap it around his waist, while the other hangs low; your heels hanging poorly on your foot and finally dropping to the floor with a clank.

both of you move rhythmically at first, then it gets sloppy; a sense of urgency overwhelming you. your lips move together with hurry, adrenaline coursing through your body; as if replacing the very blood that flows through your veins. chasing his lips, you just about swallow him whole.

not that he minds, he seems adamant on doing the exact same.

tangling your fingers in his hair, you angle your head better to ensure your prey is perfectly trapped. an act of cannibalism.

it was primal in the most natural way, finally letting go after an entire night of need and clouded lust.

"mm'not.. here," you mumble in between kisses.

finally picking you up and wrapping both your legs around his waist, he wastes no time leading you to the nearest surface he could find. well, as good as he can see, anyway.

and that's the story of how you hooked up with your bisexual best friend.

you learned the hard way.

[sirxlla]

Sorry - Halsey (Batboys)

------------------------------------------------

Dick: "and never really understood, the way you laid your eyes on me in ways that no one ever could."

To everyone, Dick was always put together. He was a rock, never broken, never sad or angry, just perfect. It was so far from the truth. He felt lonely, angry, and depressed.

This time of year was so taxing on Dick, he had started having nightmares about his parents and that night of the fall. Usually, this time of year, he breezed through it without so many nightmares, but this year was hell. He saw the fall over and over, and his blame for himself came back with a vengeance.

"No. No! No- No- Nononon! No!" Dick woke up with a start, sweat pooled in every crevice having dampened his shirt and pillow. Of course, he woke you up as well, and you went into comfort mode, rubbing his back.

"Hey...I'm right here if you need anything." You said with a soft whispering tone so as not to spike his heart rate more than it already was.

"What if it's my fault? What if it all is? What if everyone's gonna get hurt because of me?" Dick placed his head on your chest and started sobbing as you rubbed circles onto his back.

"Honey, as long as I've known you, I've known that as long as you draw breath, you'll help as many as you can...You'd give someone the shirt off your back and the shoes you were wearing just because they asked. You're an amazing person, and the world is so much better because you're in it. I don't want you to think any differently about it." You rubbed his back as his tears made the silk of your pajama shirt stick to your chest.

"I'm sorry." He wiped his eyes and sniffled. "I shouldn't be crying, everyone sees me like-"

"Hey, I don't give a shit how everyone sees you, and I would never think less of you 'cause you're brave enough to show me how you're feeling. Okay?" You look into those cerulean eyes shining in the dim light of the room.

"I am so proud of you and no one here would ever be disappointed in you, Honey." You hug him as he nuzzles into your chest and calms down a bit until he falls asleep, you rub his back until you fall asleep with him. His drool is now the only thing dampening your sleep shirt.

Jason: "I've missed your calls for months, it seems, I don't realize how mean I can be."

You had been calling him over and over, and he would read it; you could see he did. He was just ignoring it. He had disappeared into what felt like thin air. Had you done something wrong or was he in one of those moods of his where he thinks he's not good enough for anyone?

He's sitting alone in some hotel room in Central City. Jason left everyone alone; he needed some time to sort himself out. He knew that rule about how you have to love yourself to love anyone else, and right now, he couldn't stand the sight of himself. You didn't deserve his bullshit, you didn't deserve his demons that are drowning him alive.

You have sent his messages daily since he disappeared into the blue.

7:36 A.M. Jan 14th - "Everyone loves you." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

3:59 P.M. Jan 16th - "I miss you bunches." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

2:12 A.M. Jan 17th - "Just stay safe for me? I'd be in pieces if anything happened to you." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

8:36 A.M. Jan 19th - "Sorry forgot to text yesterday, I've been so tired, but I still miss you every moment you aren't here." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

5:26 P.M. Jan 20th - "Dinners always ready for whenever you come home. I promise." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

1:41 A.M. Jan 22nd - "Tokyo misses you, he meows by the door constantly. Please come home, our family misses you." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

10:38 A.M. Jan 23rd - "Jase, please. I can't sleep well without you. I don't know what's going on; please explain." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

11:37 P.M. Jan 24th - "Jase, Please come home. I'm sorry for whatever I did." ~Read by JT❤️‍🔥

He read the texts. What you did? You did nothing. He realized how stupid and selfish he was being, such an asshole. His fingers typed before he could fully decide what he wanted to do.

"What did you do? Babygirl, you did nothing wrong. I'm coming home, I'm sorry I've just been so stupid about everything recently. I've been worried I'm not enough but I realize I can spend forever getting closer to my idea of perfect for you until you kick me out or my heart stops beating. I'm sorry and I'll be home soon."

You had cried yourself to sleep that night, and you were so exhausted you hadn't seen the text. Tokyo started meowing, and it woke you; you checked the clock, and it was 3:53. You had only been asleep for a few hours.

"Tokyo, go to bed. He's not here." You cry into your pillow, your face is swollen, and your eyes still red from crying earlier.

"I am, Babygirl. I'm so sorry." Jason saw your face and how sad you were; his heart felt heavy in his chest, and he was angry at himself for hurting you so deeply. You didn't know what to do, so you stared at him as he crawled over to you and hugged you. It had been a hard week without him and him hugging you is what finally broke you. You sobbed into his chest, holding onto him tightly.

"Don't you ever do that again, You Asshole!" You sobbed angrily, hugging him tightly as you breathed in the smell of smoke that lingered on his skin.

"I promise, I never will. God, I'm so sorry. I'll spend forever apologizing for this. I'm so fuckin sorry." Jason heard the sadness in your voice and held you tighter til you both fell asleep.

Bruce: "Sorry I could be so blind, Didn't mean to leave you and all of the things that we had behind."

Being Batman and trying to be a billionaire on top of it just really didn't give him the time to be in a relationship. You knew this, and you tried your hardest to make sure that he never felt bad about it, but it doesn't mean that it didn't feel like shit every single time you wanted to do something with him or you had something planned and he had to change it.

Not only does this include dates and evenings and dinner but it was also sometimes that he was just so exhausted he would fall asleep in the middle of whatever you had planned anyways, it sucks.

You love him so deeply, but he's so busy all the time, and you're trying to give it the benefit of the doubt and just hope that, at some point, you'll come first to a degree. You held out for so long, but after a while, you just couldn't do it; you left.

Alfred noticed the note on the counter; if it had been Bruce, he wouldn't have noticed it for weeks.

"Master Wayne, I believe this is for you." Alfred hands the note to Bruce as Bruce is just about to go back out as Batman.

"Dear Bruce, My Love,

This has to be one of the hardest decisions I've ever made but I know it's the only option that I have where I don't feel guilty for taking up your time."

He started reading and then noticed the marks where tears had damped the paper as he continued to read.

"I would never ask you to put me over the people in Gotham. I know why you do what you do,, but it doesn't make it any less hard when I barely see you, and then when I do, you're covered in bruises, and you can barely get out of bed. I can't do this anymore. I love you, and it pains me so much to do this. I can't live a life where I feel so alone; it feels like I'm dating a ghost. I know that in my heart of hearts, I cannot handle this, and I know a child definitely can't. I'm pregnant and I'd rather do this alone than make you feel guilty for not being there or make myself feel guilty for staying. I love you, and I don't want to try to change you; I know what you do, what you do. I'm sorry, My Love.

Sincerely & Yours Always"

He finished reading the letter, and his heart dropped. You were pregnant? When? When did that happen? He should have known.

"I want you to see about Mr. Fox taking over my role in Wayne Enterprises. I'll still own the company the same, but I'll have more time." He asks Alfred; Bruce knows that this is something he should have done a long time ago. He's been missing you anyway, but now he is about to miss out on you for the rest of his life, and he is about to miss out on his kid.

Not even a few days pass before Bruce finds you, he's drenched in rain in civilian clothes. The rain just enhances the smell of his cologne. He looks even more tired than he usually does. It's clear he hasn't slept.

"I will do anything you ask just please don't leave me." He asks you as you open your door and in his hands held your favorite flowers. Bruce's eyes glanced down at your belly as you pulled him in to get him out of the rain, you were showing. He cursed himself in his mind. How could he even have remotely not noticed, considering how far along you are?

You grabbed towels from your hotel bathroom and began to dry him off.

"I let Lucius take over my job at Wayne Enterprises, so I'll have more time for you,, and I promise I will have more time for you, and I'll have more time for a little one. God, can't believe I didn't notice all the signs were there. How's everything been going?" He asks as his hands hover over your belly, asking for silent permission, which you allow when your hands guide him to your tiny bump.

"It's been okay; sleeping's been a bit rough, this mattress is like concrete, and the morning sickness is a bitch, but overall, I'm okay." You told him as his hands moved themselves under your shirt to feel his hands closer to the growing baby.

"Are you planning on coming home? I- I know we usually sleep during most of the day but I- I really wanna be here through this." You could hear the vulnerability and his voice something that rarely ever slipped to that degree.

"I- Yeah... I really didn't want to do this alone either just left because I didn't want you to feel bad."

"Sweetheart, I will never make you feel like you have to do anything alone again if I can help it." His hands still gently rubbing your belly.

"Well, we're definitely not going to make it home tonight, not in this rain, and I still have the room for the night."

He nodded, and the both of you laid down to watch whatever was on TV; it had been a long time since he had felt anything this domestic or 'normal.' It was so nice and calming, something he now had time for so much more with you.

Tim: "But I still know your birthday and your mother's favorite song."

Breaking up was never something either of you wanted to do, but you wanted to go to school in the U.K. that has always been a dream of yours ever since you were a kid, and Tim would never be the type of person to hold you back from your dreams even if it meant he'd get hurt.

At the start, the two of you texted all the time, and you'd show him things all the time, but slowly, he stopped responding, so you stopped texting. He couldn't bear the thought of not being with you, but he had responsibilities here in Gotham; he couldn't just go.

"Hey, Numb Nuts. I asked you a question." Jason prodded as he finally got Tim's attention after what felt like forever.

"Huh?" Tim was confused; he was so in his head that he didn't even remotely hear what Jason said.

"I said, 'Why are you so doom and gloomy?' You're moping around the place like your puppy died." Jason had noticed how low Tim had been for the last month; he thought it might have to do with you, but you left six months ago.

"You not gettin' any more texts from your girlfriend?" Jason asked a bit cheeky but it was clear that concern laced the tonality of his voice.

"No, I stopped responding. I don't wanna make her feel like she has to respond to me." Tim mumbled.

"I know you're not stupid, so why are you acting like a dumbass?" Jason stated with annoyance in his tone.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're being a dumbass. You know she loves you and you're ignoring her? Why the hell didn't you go with her anyway?"

"I have responsibilities here-"

"No, fuck your responsibilities; there are plenty of people who can take over for whatever you're doing. You get your ass on a flight and go to her before I beat your ass." Jason stated as he grabbed the laptop out of Tim's hands and started booking a flight.

"Go pack, you're leaving in an hour."

"Who's leaving in an hour?" Dick stretched as he walked in.

"Tim is, he's going to see his girlfriend."

"No, I'm not. Guys, I have things to-"

"Yes, you are." Jason and Dick both cut him off. Dick rushed Tim to his room and started helping Tim pack before he could even begin to process what was going on.

Jason texted you, "I have a surprise, go to the airport at 10:30. Don'tt be late."

In your mind you thought 'Aww, Jason's so sweet. My best friend's gonna meet me here.' So you responded.

"Will do. 🫡"

Several hours passed and you arrived at the airport looking around at baggage claim for Jason. He was a bitch bitch, hard to miss. You kept looking around when you spotted Tim and your heart lept in your chest, running over to him and hugging him deeply.

"Oh my god!" You squealed to his suprise. He thought you mightve moved on but hpw you were acting made it clear you hadnt. His arms squeezed you. After the hug you grabbed one of his rolling bags and helped him to your car.

"Oh my god, it took me so long to learn to drive on the other side of the road..." you started rambling and telling him all about your trips and every little detail as you drove him to your flat. His eyes followed every detail on your face, he wasnt even listening just in awe of you. Tim realized just how much he missed you, he broke out of his trance as you lead him inside.

"I bought everybody stuff, I have a box for Jason and Damian and Bruce. I am so exvited for everyone to get their stuff, its gonna be so fun..." Each box had different stuff that interested each of them, you had a box for Tim too. You still remembered everything even though its been six months. His heart swelled at how sweet you are and he just kissed you right there which interrupted your new ramblings. You shoulders fell and your hands found Tim's face as per normal abd the both of you realized home isn't a place, its a person.

Damian: "And so it seems I broke your heart, My ignorance has struck again"

He had another gala to go to for some charity event; besides, this was something his father demanded he do. It wasn't like he had a choice, did he? He's been Wayne Enterprises' new CEO since his father retired; he's been sucked up in events, meetings, and planning.

Although he had a lot on his plate it was no excuse for how distant he was being. Damian knows the date or at least he should. If this relationship is as important to him as it is to you he'll know the date. Your anniversary and this wasn't one of those little petty short ones or some shit. This was five years.

You decorated the apartment, lit candles, wrapped presents, decorated the bed with rose petals, put on music, and even made dinner and his favorite dessert. You were so excited and so proud of yourself, it took you all day while he was at work to do so.

The only reason you weren't at work is that you took it off for this reason. You thought he'd take a day off, too, but it's okay. He didn't cause you had time to surprise him. You paid for everything yourself, you didn't wanna constantly have to borrow money from him, and it was always good to have a rainy day fund.

The front door alarm chirps, letting you know he's home, and your smile grows larger. He remembered! Oh, you were so excited but that excitement faded when he just went to the bedroom? Confusion filled your features. 'What?' You followed him to the room.

Damian was quickly stripping out of his work suit into an expensive one he uses when he has to go to galas.

"Hello?" You asked all dolled up for him.

"Have you seen my blue silk tie anywhere?" He asked, not even remotely noticing the petals or how you looked.

"No, I haven't seen your fuckin tie." Snapping at him but he just rolled his eyes and didn't notice. He quickly got dressed, sprayed himself with cologne, and made his way out the door again.

You felt your heart get crushed in your chest, he might as well have carved it out and stomped all over it. 'He can remember the date for the gala but not our anniversary?' You sat there and sobbed, it's been the same date every year for the last five years. You ate dinner alone, cleaned everything up, blew out the candles, and raked the petals half hazardly into the trash.

A few candles got accidentally left out, having forgotten to drain the bathtub, several petals still lined the floor, and the presents were still left on the table.

You showered yourself and washed off the makeup that felt like it took you hours to get right, the red lipstick staining the washcloth and your lips. You quickly changed and crawled into bed, alone.

Damian showed up at the apartment hours later, he knew you'd be asleep. The galas ran long so why the hell would you need to stay up and wait for him?

He was starving; the galas didn't serve much food. The only thing you could get in abundance at a gala was alcohol, and Damian never wanted to dull his senses like that, so he didn't drink. He went to the fridge, noticing his favorite food; he put some on a plate and heated it in the microwave, making sure to stop it before it beeped so he wouldn't wake you.

He moved over to the dining table that was covered in presents, and as soon as he saw them, his heart fell into his ass. 'The 18th? Shit! I- Fuck. It's our anniversary, God Damn it.' Damian was tempted to run into the room and apologize but what would it do? It would just wake you up and that would be even more rude on top of him being a jackass already.

He ate his food and cleaned up the rest of the apartment. He needed to figure out an apology quickly. 'How could I be so stupid? Wait, that cake in the fridge said 'Marry me?' She- she wants to marry me. God, I feel awful.'

He didn't know what to do to fix this, he could make some sorta big grand gesture, but those always felt like trying to gander sympathy points, and he wasn't gonna do that shit. Damian was gonna be a man and admit how shitty of a person he is. He would just make you breakfast and apologize, take all the blame 'as one should when they're a jackass'

You came out of the room the next day, your hair messy, face puffy, eyes red, lips still stained fromnthe red lipstick, in your robe with your headphones on. You noticed he wasn't beside you and figured he pulled an all-nighter, and you went to wash your face and get coffee.

You pull out the contacts you forgot to take out last night, you rinse your eyes and throw the contacts out, putting your glasses on before going to get coffee.

As soon as your hand reaches for the coffee pot, Damian's hands find your hips.

"Uh uh, you go park yourself right over there. I'm a jackass so I'm doing anything and everything for you today. Okay?"

"Damian, it's just a date on a calendar." You tried to just brush it off.

"It's not just a date on a calendar, it's everything, and I'm so sorry. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses, I forgot because I was so wrapped up in work. I disregarded the only thing that matters in the entire world to me because I got wrapped up in stupid shit that doesn't even remotely matter as much as you do." Gently grabbing your face and looking into your eyes, the redness and puffiness had gone down but lord did his heart skip a beat to see you in those glasses.

"Now, we can't do it over necessarily, but I'm cutting my work hours. They will be designated for five hours, and then the other three or four will be crime-fighting or whatever else I have going on, and the other fourteen will always be yours. Obviously, you'll have more on vacation days or sick days or days; I just don't want to go to work. I promise you my time whenever you need it even if it is during work hours. I would be content with losing everything else but you, okay?" He continued as he kept gazing into your eyes, and you could see the level of anger he had for himself and how sympathetic he was to help you; you could see the pain in his chest that originated from him hurting you.

"Okay." You sniffled and a few tears fell down your face.

"Also, I know it was supposed to be a surprise, but if you want to marry me, I'll do it right now; we can get engaged and plan the most beautiful wedding ever. Whatever you want, it's yours, and if I can't get it, I will find a way." He said as he wiped your tears from your cheeks. You pulled him into a hug and nodded; he wasn't off the hook; hell, you'd let him off the hook before he ever let himself off of it. That was one thing you loved about him when he made a promise; he stuck to it, and there was no one more disappointed in him right now than himself.

Masterlist

[nanenna]

Some headcanons I didn't manage to fit in, for those curious.

Vlad was also in the facility in just as bad shape, I know I forgot him during that and edited it a little for AO3 so he's also there getting rescued. Just... all the halfas living and recovering together. Since this is post Glitch (even if we have no idea what's going to happen after that cliffhanger yet as of writing this) Vlad had actually been well on his redemption arc when this happened.

Dan and Danny are twins (what with the cloning), and were in their early 20s when they got captured. Dani, being 4 years younger, was near the end of high school. But everyone's ghost forms still look the age they were when they died (and I HC that halfas only age when they're not ghosts so everyone looks younger than they are legally). So Plasmius looks 20, Dan Phasmius (not his actual name) looks 18-ish (half way between his two ghost "parents"), Danny Phantom looks 14, and Dani Phantom looks 10. Forever. It certainly makes for better secret identities once they got older (more on that later). After they start their recovery and get new IDs the kids instead become triplets because why not?

For Jazz to be there and get shot with the Drs Fenton I'm thinking everyone was home for probably the holidays so... you know... more holiday trauma for the Fenton boys! 8D

The halfas are healing, but it's a slow process. Most of the healing actually happens in ghost form, but they need to be in human form to get all the nutrients they need to literally rebuild parts of their bodies. It's kind of a hack, actually. Their ghost and physical bodies do mirror each other... kinda (see age HC above). So as ghosts they gather ecto and build back their bodies, but when they turn human there's only so much protein and calcium to go around so they gotta eat while humans because the normal human body doesn't regrow nerves. Like I said: relatively slow process.

Obviously laying around regrowing missing body parts is really boring, and since going ghost is part of the healing process all four spend time hanging out in ghost form and just... getting out and spending time with anyone else. So even before their human bodies are up for leaving bed the Phantoms and Plasmius are already sparring and getting to know their rescuers and meeting other JL members. The moment someone even hints at talking to them about taking up cape work Clark punches that person right in the face. Gently (for a Kryptonian). These people lived his nightmare, the one J'onn barely escaped, he's so very protective of these children. He doesn't care if they only look like children, no one is going to pressure them into cape work. They've more than earned retirement.

I do think after they fully recover probably everyone would go on the "reserve" list for when world ending threats happen, and the kids would probably step in for anything they see happening near them where ever they live, but I don't think any of them would do well out in the trenches with all that ✨CPTSD✨

But those are just my thoughts, I'm not planning on writing more. Anyone else who's inspired is more than welcome to do their own thing with this. I know I left their recovery pretty open in the epilogue.

DP x DC Prompt/Plotbunny #6

After days? weeks? months? years? in this mercy-forsaken lab, Danny finds himself slipping; his core straining under the weight of what he's been subjected to. In a last ditch effort to save his fracturing soul, his brain simply stops processing the pain and allows his mind to escape into a waking dream.

Danny knows it's a dream. If he thinks about it; he can still hear, see, feel the scientists at work. He doesn't think about it; instead embraces whatever false world his mind decides to concoct for him.

.

Several states away, a young boy opens his eyes to the inside of a strange pod in an abandoned lab. Though he cannot see it yet, a strange metal tag dangles from his ear, stamped on one side with the word 'CADMUS' and on the other with 'R-13'.