#but too scared to actually open and play it

[l-starsz]

Billie sees reader doing yoga early in the morning and can't contain herself

a/n: this was actually quite fun to write even though i’m clueless about yoga😞 got a bit carried away writing it if i’m honest..

i turned over in bed and squinted as i opened my eyes. too early, but i needed to get up. i smiled as i noticed billie. her eyes were lightly shut, her mouth open the tiniest bit, and her hair messy around her face as she slept. she looked beautiful. with the small smile still on my face, i stretched, then stood up out of bed, heading towards the bathroom. i washed my face before heading downstairs for some breakfast. i wasn't usually a breakfast person, but i decided i needed some food in me since i was planning on doing some yoga. i'd recently started getting into yoga, and quickly discovered the hard way that i couldn't do it on an empty stomach no matter how much i hated breakfast. i didn't want to keep getting lightheaded halfway through..

i quickly made myself a bowl of cut up fruit with yogurt over it. it didn't take me too long to finish it, waiting for a little bit for my food to settle before going back to the bathroom to brush my teeth, changed, put my hair up, and then back downstairs to do yoga. i'd set my mat up, and began stretching, and doing different poses. i had gentle music playing through my headphones because i knew i wouldn't have been able to focus if i was doing it in silence. since my music was pretty loud, and my headphones were noise cancelling, i didn't notice at all when the door at the back of the room opened, and billie walked in. i had no clue how long she'd been in the room, but i only noticed when i saw a shadow nearby. obviously, i panicked, not expecting her to be in the room with me. i flinched and rushed to take my headphones out, looking up at her as my heart pounded in my chest.

i placed my hand over my heart, feeling how quick it was beating, and giggled as i spoke.

"billie, you scared the shit out of me."

she laughed and shook her head, then crouched down beside me. i was honestly still pretty confused about what she was doing, she never usually watched me, she only came in the room every so often to check on me and tell me how much she missed me, but she hadn't said a word yet. my eyebrows furrowed as i spoke again.

"how long have you been in here watching me, hm?"

"hmmm, not long." she smiled.

i reached over and grabbed my water that was nearby, taking a few sips and processing her words. i still had more poses i needed to do, but first had a question.

"what's up then bil? usually you come in and tell me you miss me, then go and wait for me to finish. what's going on in your pretty mind?" i smiled back as i spoke.

"well you just look so beautiful. look so perfect in that outfit. you look so perfect in everything. i couldn't help but watch." i saw a small smirk appear on her face while she spoke.

"oh really?" i raised an eyebrow, then sighed, "i need to carry on now, you can stay and watch if you want baby?"

she was very quick to nod at my suggestion, sitting herself down on the floor next to me. the whole time she was there, her eyes didn't leave my body. i could feel her eyes watching my every move, but i just continued. i knew why she was really there. i took another short break after a while and turned to face billie. she had a smirk on her face, and was making direct eye contact with me. i rolled my eyes and laughed, knowing exactly what that look meant.

"i still have a little more to do, baby. not long left now." i laughed as i heard her groan at my words, but something must've clicked in her head. she had a plan.

"can i at least have a kiss?" she smiled innocently.

"when i’m done. i have like ten minutes left."

"pleaseeee. pretty please with a cherry on toppp?" she whined.

i giggled at her words and shuffled a little bit closer to her, leaning in and waiting for her to kiss me. i couldn't say no to her. it obviously didn’t take her long to press her lips gently against mine. when i tried to pull away after a few seconds, i felt her hand come up the back of my head, deepening the kiss and causing me to let out a quiet moan into her mouth. i really didn't expect her to deepen the kiss. i felt her smirk against my lips as we began making out. small whines left my mouth before she pulled away, causing me to groan. i looked into her eyes, practically begging her just by looking at her.

"i thought you had ten minutes left, angel? what happened to that, huh?"

she was getting cocky because she knew she'd got her own way. she knew that it didn't take a lot to convince me to stop what i was doing and give her even more attention, and she knew her plan all along.

"please bil.." i whispered, my lips hovering over hers.

she didn't reply, just carefully laid me down against the mat on the floor.

"in here?" i mumbled.

"just for now, okay? are you comfortable, love? if not i'll take you to our room right now."

"please just touch me. i'm comfortable billie. i need you now." i breathed out.

she soon enough pulled my leggings down. she paused when she saw my underwear. there had to be a spot where i'd practically soaked through them, there was no doubt about it. i felt her fingers run over the damp no, soaked spot on them, lightly brushing over my clit, before pulling her fingers away. i glanced up at her, noticing that she looked mesmerised. i laid my head back once again when my underwear was being pulled off almost immediately. she wasted no time, leaning down, laying on her stomach on the floor, hooking her arms under my thighs and pulling me closer before diving right in.

her tongue separated my folds as quiet, breathy moans came from me. she made her way towards my clit, but then moved back down and pushed her tongue inside me. i clenched around her and moaned loud. whilst i was busy moaning, i didn't even notice her move one of her arms from uner my leg, allowing her fingers to find my clit. her movements were quick, and precise. we both knew i wasn't lasting long at all. i couldn't even stay still as both her tongue, and her fingers worked against me, bringing me right to the edge of my orgasm. my moans were more frequent and high pitched as i squirmed around, trying not to cum until she told me to.

conveniently enough, just as i was focusing on not finishing, she tapped my thigh with her free hand, signalling to me to cum. and best believe i did. all over her face, and her fingers, and the mat beneath me. hopefully it wasn't ruined.. but at that moment in time, i had no time to think about that, my mind was filled with my pretty girlfriend. as she carefully moved away from my pussy, and closer to my face, i took notice of my arousal that coated her lips and her chin.

"such a good girl for me, waiting for me to tell you to cum." she whispered against my lips, "upstairs now?"

i desperately nodded and tried to stand up, but stopped when i heard billie tut.

"ah ah, let me carry you, baby. cmon." she giggled, carrying my all the way up to our bedroom and laying me onto our comfy bed.

"just relax, okay pretty girl?" she whispered against my lips, placing a gentle kiss against them before moving towards my neck, and peppering soft kisses there too.

it wasn't long before my shirt was discarded on the floor, her lips all over my tits and working their way down my body. as her kisses trailed all over me, her fingers lightly pressed against my entrance, slowly pushing into me.

"still so wet and needy for me, hm baby?" i heard her mumble.

"yeah- yes. all for you bils. all yours." i whined.

"good girl." she praised me.

her fingers curled inside me, making my back arch. i was still so sensitive from my last orgasm, and was ready to cum again within only five minutes.

"that's it, my love. doing sooo good for me. taking my fingers so well, isn't that right?"

i moaned from the tone of her voice alone, my walls tightening around her fingers as i resisted the urge to cum already.

"what was that?" she spoke clearly.

"yes! taking your fingers.." i breathed, unable to think straight.

"that's right, baby. so well." she smiled, watching me struggling.

she knew how bad i needed to finish, how difficult it was getting to hold back, she just wanted me to ask her. to tell her. and of course, she got exactly what she wanted.

"please!! please- bil- billie. need to- for you, please. let me cum?" my words were broken, i could barely from a sentence, all that filled my head was how good billie was making me feel, and how bad i needed for cum over her fingers.

"there you go. just needed to ask me, honey. cum." she spoke in a soft tone, sending me further over the edge.

she sped up her fingers, resulting in my cum coating them, and dripping down her wrist, onto the sheets. broken moans and light sobs left my mouth as i started to get overstimulated. i grabbed her hand, urging her to gently pull out and place her hands against my waist. her fingers ran up and down, before she moved to lay against my chest. meanwhile, i was still trying to calm my breathing down.

her clean hand ran through the sweat covered strands of hair that stuck to my forehead. my eyes had been shut for a while, but as soon as i felt her hand on my cheek, i opened them, both of us smiling as my eyes drooped from how worn out i was.

"let's get you cleaned up, okay baby? then we can have a nap, and spend allll day together. how does that sound?" she ran her thumb across my cheek.

"perfect. thank you billie." i lazily smiled.

[cursedcanon]

"Dad what was that noise from last night?"

JJK men reacting to their kid asking what was that 'noise' they heard last night.

Characters: Gojo, Choso , Sakuna ,Geto, Toji , Nanami, Yuji , Megumi

Gojo Satoru:

The morning light filters through the curtains as Gojo sits at the kitchen table, lazily stirring his cereal. His hair is still messy from sleep, his blindfold nowhere in sight. His kid, barely awake, waddles into the room, rubbing their eyes.

"Dad?" they mumble sleepily.

"Yeah?" Gojo responds, yawning.

"What was that noise last night?"

Gojo's spoon clatters against the bowl. He freezes. Slowly, he turns his head toward his child, mouth slightly open, as if his soul is trying to escape his body.

"Uh—what noise?" He laughs, but it’s way too nervous.

"The one from your room. It was loud, and you kept saying weird stuff."

Gojo immediately leans back, running a hand through his hair. A sly grin tugs at his lips. "Ohhh, that! That was, uh—Daddy and Mommy playing… wrestling!" He wiggles his fingers like he’s making it sound exciting. "And I totally won, by the way."

The kid frowns. "Then why was Mommy the one screaming?"

Gojo chokes on his cereal. "Y-You know what? Forget it! You want pancakes? Let’s make pancakes!" He practically launches himself from the chair, grabbing the kid and carrying them to the kitchen like an escape mission.

Choso Kamo:

Choso is tying his hair back when his child waddles into the living room, still wrapped in their blanket like a tiny burrito. They plop down on the couch, staring at him.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"What was that noise last night?"

Choso freezes mid-motion, hair tie stretched between his fingers. Slowly, very slowly, he lowers his hands.

"…What noise?"

"It sounded like… groaning. And, like, thumping. A lot."...

The kid tilts their head. "Actually, it sounded more like…" They raise their little hands and—clap. clap. clap.

Choso’s eye twitches.

The room is dead silent.

The child stares at him smiling innocently, waiting for an answer. Choso grips his knee, his mind racing at a thousand miles per hour.

After a long, painful pause, he mutters, "It was the wind."

"The wind?"

"Yes." He nods stiffly. "A… very strong wind."

The child frowns in thought, kicking their little feet. "Huh… So wind can shake the walls and make people groan? And, like… clap?"

Choso’s grip on his knee tightens. "Yes."

The child gasps. "Whoa. That must’ve been a storm!"

Choso clears his throat. "It passed quickly."

The kid sighs in relief. "Good. I thought maybe you were sick or something."

Choso hums, reaching for his tea. "I’m fine."

The child stretches, yawning. "Okay! Anyway, can we have pancakes?"

Choso lets out a quiet breath of relief. "Yes. Pancakes."

The child cheers and rushes to the kitchen, completely forgetting about the conversation.

Choso sits there for a moment, staring at the table, before rubbing his face. That was too close.

Ryomen Sukuna:

Sukuna is sitting on his throne of cushions (which he definitely stole from the couch), Lazily watching his child eat breakfast.His sharp eyes flicker toward them when they suddenly put down their spoon.

"Dad?"

"What?"

"What was that noise last night?"

Sukuna smirks. "Why? Did it scare you?"

The child shakes their head. "No, it sounded like you were hurting Mommy."

Sukuna chuckles darkly. "She was fine. If anything, she was enjoying herself a little too much."

The kid furrows their brows. "So you were playing?"

Sukuna leans forward, resting his chin on his hand. "Something like that."

The kid nods, satisfied. "Oh, okay! Next time, can I play too?"

Sukuna freezes. He stares. His smirk vanishes.

"...No." He immediately gets up and leaves the room, muttering "Disgusting," under his breath.

Geto Suguru:

Geto is sipping his morning tea when his child sits across from him at the table, legs swinging under their seat.

"Dad?"

"Mm?"

"What was that noise last night?"

Geto’s fingers tense slightly around his cup. He takes a slow sip, stalling. "Noise?"

"Yeah. It sounded like you were fighting. Were you hurting Mommy?"

The tea nearly goes down the wrong pipe. Geto coughs into his fist, turning his head to hide his burning face. "N-No. Of course not. Your mom… just had a cramp. And I was… helping her stretch it out."

His child narrows their eyes. "It sounded like she was in pain."

Geto glances at the clock. "Oh wow, look at the time. We should—uh—go for a walk. Right now. Immediately." He’s already standing, ushering the kid toward the door.

Toji Fushiguro:

Toji is frying bacon when his kid sits on the counter, chewing on an apple.

"Hey, Dad."

"Yeah?"

"What was that noise last night?"

Toji flips the bacon without missing a beat. "What noise?"

"It sounded like Mommy was in trouble."

Toji finally turns his head, lips curling into a lazy smirk. "Tch. Your mom? In trouble? You kidding? She was having the time of her life."

The kid frowns. "But she was yelling."

"Exactly."

The child stares at him, confused.

Toji sighs, ruffling their hair. "Don’t worry about it, kid. Go wash your face before breakfast."

The kid hops off the counter but mumbles, "Weird grown-up stuff again," under their breath.

Toji just snickers.

Nanami Kento:

Nanami is reading the newspaper when his child, eating cereal across from him, suddenly speaks up.

"Dad?"

He lowers the paper slightly. "Yes?"

"What was that noise last night?"

Nanami does not move.His hand tightens slightly on the newspaper. Then, with the most serious face, he folds the paper, places it on the table, and clears his throat.

"It was nothing. Forget about it."

The child tilts their head. "But—"

"No." Nanami picks the paper back up and resumes reading. The conversation is over.

Itadori Yuji:

Yuji is making toast when his child skips into the kitchen, yawning.

"Morning, Dad."

"Morning, buddy! Want some toast?"

Sure." The kid climbs onto a chair, still half-asleep. "Hey, Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"What was that noise last night?"

Yuji drops the spatula.

"W-What?" He whirls around, laughing awkwardly.

"From your room. It was really loud."

Yuji’s entire face turns red. He stares at them like a deer in headlights, completely panicking.

"U-Uh! That was—uh—a—uh—A WORKOUT! Yeah! I was exercising!"

The kid blinks. "At night?"

"Y-Yeah! Gotta stay in shape! Ha ha ha…" Yuji rubs the back of his head, sweating.

"But why was Mommy making those noises?"

Yuji chokes on air. "SHE WAS—UH—CHEERING ME ON!"

The child frowns. "She sounded like she was losing."

Yuji immediately spins back to the stove. "EAT YOUR BREAKFAST."

Megumi Fushiguro:

Megumi is brushing his teeth when his child appears in the doorway.

"Dad."

"Mmph?" He spits into the sink.

"What was that noise last night?"

Megumi freezes. Stares into the mirror. Slowly sets his toothbrush down.

"…It was nothing."

"But—"

"No."

The kid crosses their arms. "You always say that when it’s grown-up stuff."

Megumi turns to face them, deadpan. "Exactly."

The child sighs dramatically. "Fine."

Megumi watches them leave, then groans, leaning against the sink. He is too young for this conversation.

[exponenshul]

The Flash ::: Gravidade

SUMMARY: In this crossover story, a young woman presents her girlfriend with a bottle of Gravidade, to indulge in their mutual love of pregnancy. However, just after her girlfriend drinks it, the young woman encounters a mysterious light that triggers similar effects...

(Contains: rapid pregnancy, mutual pregnancy, lesbian sex, birth, strong language, and more. Reader discretion advised)

Word Count: ~10k

::::::::::

::::::::::

"Happy Valentine's Day, babe!"

Lana grinned as she approached her girlfriend Gabby, who was sitting on the couch. She had a small package in her hands, wrapped in pink paper and ribbons.

Gabby gasped in surprise. "Babe!! You shouldn't have! I thought we agreed we weren't gonna do gifts this year..."

"Well, I couldn't help it with this one," Lana said, sitting down beside her partner. She handed Gabby the gift. "You'll see once you open it..."

Excitedly, Gabby tore away the packaging, wondering what could be inside. When it was revealed, her eyes and mouth went wide with awe. It was a purple drink bottle.

"Is this...?" she started.

Lana nodded. "It sure is!"

Gravidade was a mysterious drink that became world-famous after women across two towns drank it and became suddenly pregnant. Bottles of it had appeared at the doorsteps of all women of child-bearing age, with no known trace.

However, not all of the drinks were consumed. After it was discovered what Gravidade did to a woman, many remaining bottles were disposed of... and a number of others were saved to be sold on the black market.

"How did you manage to get a bottle?!" Gabby exclaimed.

"I did have to jump through some hoops, and pay a pretty penny..." Lana said. "But it's worth it for you."

The thing was, both Gabby and Lana had a thing for pregnancy. It was part of what made them compatible as a couple. After hearing the Gravidade story on the news, both women had an insatiable desire to get their hands on a bottle of it. Gabby, who had always dreamed of being pregnant herself, was especially interested. A quick and easy way to swell up with babies? It seemed too good to be true.

The two simply sat for a while, enjoying the moment, considering the possibilities. Gabby played with the bottle in her hands, reading the label carefully. She seemed giddy.

Eventually, she looked up at Lana and said, "I...think I wanna try it, like...right now."

"I thought you might say that!" Lana giggled. She leaned in and gave Gabby a peck on the cheek. "I cleared our schedule for the day. If you're ready, then I'm down."

"Okay...!" Gabby said. She held up the bottle and grabbed the cap. After taking a deep breath, she cracked the seal open. She chuckled, both nervous and excited. "Whew...shit, I can't believe this is actually happening right now..."

Lana rested a hand on her girlfriend's thigh as she opened up the bottle. It was a lot to take in, but they both knew that if they spent too long overthinking it, they'd probably never actually go through with it.

"All right...bottoms up," Gabby declared. She lifted the bottle of Gravidade up to her mouth and took a hearty swig.

Lana watched eagerly, waiting for the reaction. She smiled as her girlfriend's eyes went wide.

"Wow, this actually tastes amazing! Everyone online was right," Gabby exclaimed. She immediately went in for another big sip. When finished, she licked her lips and shook the bottle gently. "Shit, okay, that was like half the bottle."

She put the drink down on the table and sat back on the couch, wiping her clammy hands on the cushions.

"Now I guess we just wait," Lana said.

"Hooo...yeah," Gabby breathed. She put her hands on her lower belly. "Ha...I'm kinda scared..."

"Just enjoy it," Lana said, reaching over to pull Gabby in for a hug. "This is gonna be amazing."

"Thank you," Gabby murmured, embracing her girlfriend. "You know how long I've dreamed about this..."

The two sat there in each other's arms for a while. Lana rubbed Gabby's back while Gabby ran her fingers through Lana's silky hair. They held each other tenderly until Gabby made a small noise.

"Mm...hold on, I think..."

The two pulled apart, their hearts beginning to race. Lana watched as Gabby put a hand to her stomach.

"I definitely felt something..." Gabby said. "Like, warmth, or..."

Before Lana could respond, Gabby was pulling off her shirt. Lana blushed a bit as her girlfriend cast the garment aside and sat there in her bra, staring down at her stomach. "Okay, wait. Does it already look bigger to you...?"

Lana peered closely. "...Oh, wow, I think it does...!"

The two girls each gently put a hand on Gabby's lower abdomen. It was very warm, and bumping out almost imperceptibly. Put as they kept their hands there, they noticed her belly slowly starting to fill up more and more, until there was a definite swell.

"Are you trying to push your stomach out like that?" Lana asked quietly. "Or is it really...?"

"I'm not, it's really growing," Gabby said. She looked at Lana in awe. "...I'm actually pregnant."

After another moment, Gabby sat up and grabbed the bottle of Gravidade back up off the table. She nearly thrust it in Lana's face, saying, "...You should drink the other half. We can be pregnant together!"

Lana smiled, but gently pushed the bottle away. "Actually...I think you should have the rest."

Gabby furrowed her brow a bit. "But babe...are you sure?"

"This is probably the only time we'll get this chance, and I know you want to get as big as possible," Lana explained. "I'm happy just watching you grow."

Gabby blushed. She looked again at the bottle in her hand again. "Okay...fuck it, okay." Without another thought, she brought the bottle to her mouth and chugged the rest of the contents.

When she was done, she tossed the bottle to the ground, and Lana gave her a seductive look. "Now let's see just how pregnant you get."

Quickly getting excited, Gabby practically launched herself into Lana's arms. Any remaining anxiety melted away as the two pulled each other close and began making out on the couch. Lana indulged in the sweet smell of her girlfriend's hair, the soft skin of her exposed back.

"I can't...believe this is real," Gabby panted between passionate kisses. Her breath caught briefly in her throat, and she glanced down. "Hh- fuck! I can feel it growing in there..."

Lana put a hand down on Gabby's belly. She lightly pressed her palm into it to try and feel the growth, but it was still subtle. "Do you...like how it feels? What's it like?"

"It feels great," Gabby said, humming a bit as Lana started to plant kisses on her neck and jawline. "I, like...can't even explain it, but I'm filling up...mmmhh..."

She shut her eyes and began to grind her hips into Lana. Her belly continued to swell, to the point where Lana started to feel it pressing against her own stomach, turning her on immensely. She continued to rub the growing mound.

After a few moments, Gabby sat up, panting. "Oh my god," she moaned, putting both hands on her belly, jutting it out to accentuate the growth. "Oh, it's growing so big!"

Lana felt her mouth getting dry as she stared at her girlfriend's pregnant belly, filling up before her very eyes. It was already the size of a grapefruit, and it seemed like the growth was only accelerating.

"I wanna feel it some more," Lana said. It was Gabby's turn to sit back as Lana lay forward, eye-level with her girlfriend's belly. Lana grasped Gabby's flanks and started planting kisses on her belly, yielding contented hums and sighs from the increasingly pregnant girl. She was amazed at how well the skin on her belly was holding up, so warm and still so soft and smooth. Lana kissed tenderly, yet firmly enough that she could gauge the tautness of Gabby's skin with her lips. It was magical, feeling the mass within her girlfriend's womb grow with each passing second.

Lana moved her kisses down, feeling more bold the hornier they both got. She started to unbutton Gabby's pants, and the latter grinned in anticipation. When Lana unlatched the button, her girlfriend's belly spilled forth, free to grow unrestrained. She tugged Gabby's pants down to her knees, but was stopped before she could get to the panties.

"Wait," Gabby blurted, voice airy. "Grab...my toy from our room. The pink one."

"Oh, you're so right..." Lana breathed, eyes widening. She immediately stood up, already turning for the bedroom. "I'll be right back, don't grow too much while I'm gone!"

Gabby giggled as Lana darted out of the room.

::::::::::

Lana knew exactly where to look. She went to Gabby's nightstand, yanking open the bottom drawer. Inside were some massage oils, lubes, and a pink vibrating rabbit toy, which they had used many times before. She grabbed up a couple items, ready to make a quick turnaround, not wanting to waste a moment.

However, when she stood up, she was almost knocked back by a strange phenomenon. Outside the bedroom window, a sudden flash of light nearly struck Lana blind. She stumbled, but by the time she went to shield her eyes, the light had already dissipated. Confused, she blinked a couple times...but had no time to question anything.

::::::::::

When Lana returned, Gabby was sprawled on the couch in just her underwear, staring down at a belly that now looked roughly seven months pregnant. Her eyes lit up as her girlfriend came back into the room.

"How are you feeling now?" Lana asked.

"Full," Gabby replied, rubbing big circles on her belly. "But I love watching the baby grow. It's better than I even expected."

"I love it too," Lana said. "Sorry if it took me a sec, I just got flashbanged in our room."

"...What?"

"This crazy flash of light came from outside," Lana explained. "I don't know. It was probably just my eyes adjusting, or something." She came over and knelt down in front of Gabby on the couch, cracking open a bottle of massage oil. "...Anyway, where were we?"

Gabby gave a half-lidded smile, adjusting her position and moving her hands to give Lana full access. "You were just telling me how much you love my pregnant belly."

"I love it so much," Lana gushed, squirting some oil onto her hand, then rubbing her palms together. "I always knew you'd look sexy with babies in you." She placed her hands palm-down on Gabby's expanding middle and began to rub. Gabby gasped as the cool substance touched her skin.

"Mmmm, babies?" Gabby cooed, emphasizing the plural. "How many did you give me?"

"Well, according to the bottle, you're gonna get pretty big." Lana said slyly. She rubbed her hands in wide circles, making sure that every inch of Gabby's gravid orb was smooth and glistening. She ran her thumb over her girlfriend's belly button as it began to flatten out from the expanding pressure behind it.

"Oooh, can't wait..." Gabby purred, shifting in her seat a bit. She put a hand up to her chest, noticing a bit of discomfort there. "Mmh- babe, help me take this bra off...it's cutting into me."

"Of course," Lana said. She moved her hands around to Gabby's back, where she deftly unlatched her girlfriend's bra (something she had a lot of experience in). Gabby pushed the straps off her shoulders, and the garment fell beside her on the couch. Her breasts spilled out, falling to either side of her pregnant belly. They were fuller, weighty, and the areola were dark and puffy.

"Ahh, that feels better," Gabby sighed with relief.

"Man, these have gotten bigger, too...!" Lana said in awe. She went to reach for them, but paused.

"Mmmh...like what you see?" Gabby flirted, wiggling her chest a bit. "Come on, give 'em a squeeze...they're really sensitive..."

"Hold on, sorry," Lana stammered, suddenly feeling off. There was a stirring in her abdomen. "I just need a sec..."

She sat back on her haunches, clutching her stomach. Something was...different. She looked down, and what she saw made her eyes go wide. "Wh...no way..."

"What is it?" Gabby asked, hearing the change in her girlfriend's tone.

Lana shook her head to make sure she wasn't hallucinating...but it was obviously real. "I'm...growing! Just like you, I'm fucking growing!"

Gabby immediately sat up as best she could. She looked down and saw that between Lana's tank top and shorts, a sliver of belly was just barely starting to push outward. It was rounding out, in exactly the same manner as hers just had. "Oh my god, you are..."

"H-how is this happening?!" Lana shrieked, scrambling to her feet. She rubbed and poked at her middle in a panic. "I didn't even drink the stuff!"

"So you're saying that you're...?"

"Pregnant...I think I'm actually pregnant."

"Babe...that means we're both pregnant..." Gabby breathed.

"I know! Was it because I was kissing you? Did I swallow some? Shit, what do I do?!"

"Babe!" Gabby shouted, getting Lana's attention back. She grabbed her girlfriend's waist and looked her in the eyes. "We're...both...pregnant...! Together!"

After seeing the lust in Gabby's eyes and realizing what she meant, Lana's sudden fears gave way to the fantasy once more. That's right...no matter how it happened, they were both pregnant now, like they'd always wanted. And at the rate they were growing, there was no time to waste with hesitation.

"...Fuck," was all Lana could muster before she sank down onto Gabby's lap, grabbing onto her face and kissing her passionately. Their bellies pressed together, Lana's barely a potbelly while Gabby's looked full term. The oil on Gabby's skin transferred onto Lana's, lubricating it the same way.

Their hips grinded, their tongues explored each other's mouths, all while their pregnant bellies grew in tandem and rubbed together. It was the horniest they'd ever felt, not only for their own pregnancies, but for their partner's. It was a scenario they'd only ever dreamed of, and they were about to take advantage of every moment.

"I love you," Lana gasped between sloppy kisses. "I didn't really expect this, but...I love it."

"Mmmh I love you too," Gabby moaned. "Oohh...squeeze my tits now, they're aching..."

Lana reached up and greedily sunk her fingers into Gabby's engorged breast, earning a yelp of pleasure. After a couple squeezes, fluid started to leak into her hand.

"Oh shit, you're making milk," Lana said breathily. "That's so hot." Without hesitating, she leaned down, taking Gabby's breast into her mouth and sucking.

Gabby arched her back as the feeling of Lana's lips on her nipple caused shocks of pleasure. "Oooh god yes! That feels so good...keep doing it!"

Lana continued to suckle, nibbling with her teeth and taking in milk. "I can't get over this...you taste incredible..."

Gabby grasped Lana's waist to steady them both. Glancing down, she slid one hand onto Lana's rapidly swelling belly, humming as she rubbed it. "Oh, your little belly is so cute..." Her fingertips brushed across the surface, handling the bump with care.

Her girlfriend unlatched, sitting back to admire their progress. "And yours is getting huge...!"

"God, you're right," Gabby said. She cradled the underside of her belly, now looking full with twins, bulging and rounding in all directions. "I feel so heavy...so much baby in me..."

"How many do you feel?" Lana asked, the two of them letting their hands explore the massive swell.

"Oooh, it's hard to tell..." Gabby murmured, swaying back and forth and gyrating her hips. "I think I feel two...no, three...!"

Lana gulped. The thought of her girlfriend carrying multiple babies...not to mention how many she might be carrying...she put her hands back on her own belly and caressed it in wonder. She looked like she could be entering her third trimester already...

"What does it feel like for you?" Gabby asked, noticing Lana's observations. She reached out and started to stroke her girlfriend's belly again.

"Mmmmh," Lana closed her eyes and leaned in, allowing Gabby to reach her growing belly better. "I totally feel full...and like, constantly fuller...and it feels really nice when you rub it." She breathed in deeply, jutting her middle farther out into Gabby's hands.

Gabby relished her partner's enjoyment of the unexpected pregnancy. She continued to feel up Lana's belly as she whispered, "I think I know something else that would feel nice..."

Lana opened her eyes again to see Gabby reaching for the pink rabbit toy, which had been momentarily forgotten in the heat of the moment. She bit her lip, insides tingling at the thought.

"I like the way you think," Lana said. "Why don't we take this to the bedroom?"

Gabby nodded in agreement- the couch was getting a bit crowded. She let Lana stand up first, then attempted to get up herself, but struggled. "Oof- help me up, babe."

Lana grabbed both of Gabby's hands and helped to pull her into a standing position, both girls grunting from the effort. Once they were up and facing each other, they took a moment to appreciate their bodies from the new angle. Lana looked full term with a single baby, whereas Gabby seemed ready to drop three. Amazingly, both girls were still growing, their bellies getting heavier by the moment.

"I'm so fucking big," Gabby said, groaning as she supported her belly with both hands, one now clutching their toy as well. "I don't know if I can move!"

"It'll be worth it once we get to the bedroom," Lana assured her, rubbing her back. "Now lemme see you waddle."

Grunting and moaning, Gabby moved forward, making heavy steps toward the bedroom. Lana followed behind, getting used to her own newfound weight. She glanced at her girlfriend's backside, eyebrows raising.

"Damn, did your ass get fatter, too?" Lana asked, feeling no better than a man.

"Oooh, I'm sure," Gabby said, voice deep and sultry. She reached back and squeezed at her own cheeks, fingers sinking into doughy flesh. "I'm filling up everywhere..."

Lana gnawed at her lip, her arousal reaching a boiling point.

The two made it to the bedroom, and Lana ushered Gabby up onto the bed. "Let's get you up there before you swell up any more."

Gabby climbed up onto the bed, crawling on her hands and knees toward the pillows. She just kept rubbing her belly, which swayed and heaved as it expanded, grazing the sheets below. She moaned, finally collapsing onto her elbows, face in a pillow. "Oooooh the babies, I feel them...they're moving around..."

Lana went up onto the bed as well, feeling crazy with desire as she watched her girlfriend in this state. Small lumps appeared and disappeared from Gabby's middle, evidence of the life within. She was in a state of fertility that was previously unfathomable, full to the brim with babies, having all but succumbed to the growth of her pregnancy. Not only that, but she had a pregnant girlfriend who was about to rail her so hard she'd see stars. Lana felt so wet she feared her panties may be soiled.

She approached Gabby from behind and put a hand between her legs, stroking her through her underwear. Gabby moaned louder, voice muffled a bit by the pillows.

Not feeling the need to waste time on more foreplay, Lana grabbed Gabby's panties and began to pull them down. Gabby angled her back and wiggled her hips to make it easier. Once the garment was cast aside, she spread her knees out to give Lana better access. Her pussy was glistening, practically begging for what was about to come.

Lana took the rabbit toy and turned on the vibration, hearing more noises of anticipation from her partner. She held the tip of the toy up against Gabby's sex, teasing her by moving it around slowly.

Gabby squirmed and seized. "Nnnghh- god, come on, give it to meeee, I need it so bad!"

"Are you gonna say 'please?'"

"Please!!"

It was no sooner than the word left Gabby's mouth that Lana plunged the toy deep into her. Gabby inhaled sharply, back arching even more as she was filled. Lana started a pumping rhythm, and Gabby moaned at the sensation.

"Ooooohh, god...getting fucked...while pregnant (nnhh) ...feels so... fuh- c- ...g-GOOD!"

Lana grinned, happy with her work. She thrust the toy into Gabby over and over, making sure to hit her most sensitive spots. She watched as her girlfriend's breasts and belly swayed back and forth with each hit, full and heavy.

After a while of this, Gabby turned her head a bit to look at Lana over her shoulder. "Babe...hhh...grab...my belly...haaahhhh...I need you to- mmh...rub it...while you fuck me!"

It was difficult for Lana to maneuver with her own gravid belly- now possibly sporting twins- in the way. But with some stretching and maneuvering, she was able to reach her free hand down and around, lightly smacking Gabby's belly and beginning to rub it.

"Ooooh..." Gabby cooed.

"That...feel good?" Lana panted, starting to sweat from exertion.

"Yes...it's been starting to feel...so tight- mmhhh!"

Lana watched as Gabby's face contorted. She was no doubt starting to feel overwhelmed with sensation...it motivated Lana, and she increased her efforts, gripping Gabby's belly more firmly and pounding her harder.

"Oh, babe...oh- OHHHH!" Gabby cried out, vocabulary shrinking as pleasure consumed her. Her tits dripped milk onto the bed as she swayed.

"Mmmgh, your belly's so tight..." Lana said, trying to get her girlfriend worked up even more. "So full and round...you're such a good momma..."

Gabby had fallen into delirious grunts, squeaks, and gasps for air. Sweat matted her hair to her neck and made her back shine. Her legs began to tremble as Lana pounded her even harder.

When she eventually fell silent and squeezed her eyes shut, Lana could tell that Gabby was getting close. She thrust the toy faster, then even faster, until her arm started to lose feeling.

At last, a loud moan escaped Gabby's throat as she climaxed. "Oh...I'm gonna...cuh...oooooOOOOAAAHHH!!"

Gabby's whole body tensed, and the toy was practically ejected from her, along with a substantial gush of fluid. Lana leaned back, knowing there was gonna be a big finish, but not expecting to be in the splash zone.

She sat back as Gabby reeled and twitched from the orgasm, the two needing a moment to catch their breath.

Eventually, Lana started to say, "Wow, babe, that was—"

"I think that was my water breaking," Gabby croaked. She began to roll over, still recovering.

Lana was taken aback. "Wait, shit...I fucked you into labor? Already?"

Gabby turned onto her back, grimacing as she clutched her huge, heaving belly. "Fuck...yeah. Grab a towel."

Acting fast, Lana heaved her pregnant self off the bed, waddling to their dresser. As she pulled out a towel, Gabby moaned again, this time from discomfort.

"You okay?" Lana asked as she headed back to the bed.

"Yeah...that was definitely a contraction, big time. Hooo...."

Lana got back between Gabby's legs, patting around her vulva and the sheets with the towel, trying to soak up some of the fluid. "Okay, just breathe. It's game time."

"Ooh, this is all happening so fast..." Gabby whined. "Mmmmgghh!"

Lana watched as her girlfriend's massive belly tightened up with the contraction. It was no longer growing, further evidence that her pregnancy was nearing the end. It was unbelievable to watch...it really was all happening so fast. Lana started to get a bit sad, realizing their fun would soon be over...

Still, Gabby continued to grunt and moan. The contractions were coming quickly. "Hnnnghh...oh! Ahh!"

"What are you feeling, babe?" Lana asked, stroking her girlfriend's thigh comfortingly.

"So...much pressure," Gabby breathed, squirming around in unease. "It feels like they already wanna come out..."

"Does it hurt?"

"Kinda, but- ngggh- not as much as I thought," Gabby explained. "Just so...full and tight! Ghhh!"

Lana watched as her girlfriend bore down, and as her belly visibly shrank from the force. She was already trying to push...

"Hold on, I'm gonna move off the edge of the bed," Lana told her. "Scoot yourself over, I'll have a better angle to help you at."

She got out from between Gabby's legs and started moving to the side of the bed. As she did, she felt a sudden tightening in her own swollen belly. She gripped it, eyebrows furrowing. That...wasn't anything, right? Though, her belly seemed to have stopped growing, too...

Lana tried not to think about it as she got off the bed. She knelt at the bedside, waiting for Gabby to move over.

Meanwhile, Gabby was struggling. She'd turned her body a bit, shifting her hips, but quickly had to stop. "Ooooh...oh, babe, it's moving down, I can feel it!"

"Come on, it's okay," Lana encouraged. She grabbed onto Gabby's legs as she turned, helping her into position. She scooted over in front of Lana, ass right to the edge of the bed with her legs hanging over the sides. Lana was once more between her thighs, eye level with her crotch. Her sex was red and swollen.

Gabby grimaced and clutched her heaving mound of belly. "Hnnggh, here comes another contraction! Fuck, it feels like there's a- mmh- bowling ball down there!"

As her girlfriend strained, Lana felt another cramp. She cradled her twin belly with one hand. This was not good timing...

Gabby moaned as her belly heaved. "Uuunggh! I've gotta p-push!"

Lana needed a way to distract them both. Acting impulsively, she leaned in, putting her mouth against Gabby's pussy. Using her tongue, she began to stimulate her partner's clit.

Upon contact, Gabby gasped and quaked. "Oh, f-fuck! Babe...!"

Lana wrapped her arms around Gabby's thighs to get a better hold. "Mmf- does this...help?"

"Uff...f-fuck...yes!" Gabby sputtered, gyrating her hips with Lana's movements.

Lana kept sliding her tongue over Gabby's most sensitive areas, sucking and biting where she could. She could feel that Gabby's pussy was starting to bulge outward, a weight pressing on it from within. The baby's head was coming.

All the while, she was quickly confirming to herself that she was having her own contractions. She was feeling that tightness and pressure that her girlfriend mentioned.

Gabby bore down again. "I'm pushing it ooout! I can- mmmmmmhh- feel it!"

Lana moved her head back and watched as Gabby's labia began to part, and the small teardop shape of a baby's head appeared. She stared in awe while she grabbed the hem of her tank top to wipe her mouth off. "Whoa..."

"Are you...seeing anything?" Gabby panted.

"Yeah, I see the head," Lana said. "You're actually pushing out a baby. Holy shit..."

Hearing that seemed to empower Gabby. She pushed again, and the crown between her legs grew bigger.

Lana moved her hands to be able to guide the head out. She spoke more words of encouragement, putting aside the fact that she was going into labor herself. She could keep quiet about it- things surely weren't too far along, and it wasn't terribly painful yet.

With Gabby's next contraction, the head reached a full crown, and she cried out. "GAAAAAH!! Ngggh!"

"Does it burn?" Lana asked.

"I- it- yeah, but like- it just- I can't even explain...hhnngggooohh GOD!"

Gabby pushed hard, and the baby's head popped fully out, along with a spurt of fluid.

"You got the head out!" Lana exclaimed, cradling the slimy mass in her hands, checking to make sure everything looked right. "You're doing so great, keep going!"

Just as she said it, Lana felt a sudden release. She glanced down as a gush of liquid escaped from between her legs, soaking her spandex shorts and leaking onto the rug below. Well, shit...there went her waters. And the rug would definitely need washing, too...

She looked back up as Gabby howled, giving her biggest push yet. The baby squeezed out past its widest point, quickly spilling out into Lana's awaiting hands. Gabby gasped and fell back, exhausted and relieved.

"My god, you did it, babe! You had a baby!" Lana said, staring at the newborn in wonder. "Awww, wow, a little girl..."

Gabby tried to look up and smiled weakly. "Hhh...wow...so, does it...really have no cord...?"

"No, it doesn't," Lana confirmed. The baby had no umbilical cord, and was staying rather quiet, though definitely breathing. After their research, Lana and Gabby both knew that these phenomena were standard for Gravidade babies, but it was still a bit strange to witness. "Hang on, let me get her settled..."

Lana took the baby and carried her away, hobbling across the floor on her knees. She went over to the foot of the bed, where they had a plush storage ottoman. With her free hand, she took a blanket from within the bin and spread it out over top of the cushion. She lay the newborn there, using the corner of the blanket to wipe her clean a bit.

Just then, Gabby started to groan again. "Ooohh babe...I think there's another right behind..."

"Coming- ghh!" said Lana, clutching her belly once more as it tightened. She was going to try and ignore that contraction, and the increasing downward pressure she was feeling...

As she worked her way back over to the bedside, Gabby called to her, somewhat sheepishly. "Mmm...do you think you could...touch me again? It felt really good- nnngh- just then..."

"Of course, my love," Lana said softly, planting herself between Gabby's thighs again. Instead of using her mouth this time, she went in with her fingers, using her thumb to rub on Gabby's clit.

Gabby began to squirm and moan with pleasure as her body worked through more contractions. Meanwhile, Lana's contractions were working her baby down quickly. The pressure was very low on her hips, the head surely already passing through the birth canal. All she did to accommodate this was spread her knees a bit wider, still focused on taking care of her partner.

After only a minute or so, Gabby began to push again, shuddering and growling from her efforts. She was sweating profusely now, hair matted and hands clammy.

Lana was faring largely the same, a long rivulet of sweat dripping down her face as she worked her magic on Gabby's sensitive parts. She was also beginning to feel the urge to push, and her body was ready to give in subconsciously.

Gabby heaved and strained, clutching the bedsheets in her fists and shoving her head back into the mattress. "Uuunnghh! It's moving down...f-filling me...it's so...mmmmh!"

Hearing her girlfriend's moans, Lana bit her lip. It seemed like she was almost getting off to giving birth...could the clit stim be helping that much? Or was she just that into it? It was giving Lana all sorts of feelings she'd never unlocked before. She licked her lips and started to press her thumb down harder.

All the while, pressure was building between Lana's legs. Even as she worked to further her girlfriend's pleasure, she was huffing and puffing her way through contractions. Now, the baby's head was right at its exit, starting to push its way down and out.

"Nggh- oooh here it comes!" Gabby bellowed. Lana watched as her vaginal lips started to part again, making way for the second baby's head. "God- so tight!"

Lana grimaced a bit as her own body tightened and squeezed. She reached one hand past her belly and groped down between her legs, feeling a small bulge. While fondling herself and staring at Gabby's opening, she felt an odd and wildly intimate sense of connection. The same thing that she was witnessing was happening to herself. She was going to push a baby out, just like her girlfriend. And, fuck...if Gabby's birth had felt anything like what she was feeling, it was no wonder her partner was getting so worked up. She allowed herself to bear down a bit, feeling the baby's head spread her more. God, she was really doing this...

"Hoo- hoo- oooaaahhhh!!" Gabby moaned, pulling Lana back from her thoughts. Quickly, Lana brought both her hands back up to support the emerging baby. Gabby was pushing hard, and the head was crowning fast.

"Take it- mmhh- easy, babe," Lana panted. "Don't hurt yourself, just let it come."

"I wanna come- want IT to- just- mmmGGGH FUCK!"

As Gabby's second baby neared a full crown, Lana felt her own baby pressing down into her underwear. Her kneeling stance slowly sank lower and spread wider, her body moving along with the intense downward pressure. "Mmmhhhh babe you're doing so goooooooood..."

"I'm- mmmm I'm tryingggg," Gabby whined. "Is it...coming out?"

"Oooohh it's totally coming ooout," Lana said, not sure if she was talking to herself or Gabby at that point. Her upper and lower halves were focused on entirely different things.

Breathing heavily, Gabby gave herself only a moment's rest before pushing again. This time, her second baby's head popped out fully.

"Ah! Oooh, I can't stop pushing...it- mphh- f-feels too...good!" she squeaked.

"You got it, babe, just- mhh...go nice and steady," Lana encouraged. She was trembling from the feeling of her own baby stretching her. There was pressure and pain, but through that, it did somehow feel good...was that another Gravidade side effect? Or was all birth like this...?

"Ohhh it's gonna come, I'm gonna-" Gabby croaked, gritting her teeth as she bore down. The baby squeezed out past its shoulders, and there was once more a little human sliding out into Lana's arms. "NGAAAAAAAHHH! Oh, fuck!"

Lana caught the baby and tried to sit back with it in her arms, though moving was difficult with a crowning head between her legs. She looked at the baby and smiled. "Whew! Another girl!"

Gabby sighed with relief, collapsing onto the bed again. "Hhhh, man...that was a lot."

"Mmmh... yeah," Lana muttered, throat tight. She could feel her own baby pressing further into her clothes, the head feeling ready to come out. She would have loved to stare at Gabby's newborn for longer, but there wasn't much time until she'd have one of her own. She maneuvered her way over to the ottoman, careful not to make any sudden or heavy moves, lest gravity pull her baby out more.

As Lana was nestling the second newborn next to the first, Gabby called to her. "Hooo...okay, babe, there's definitely more in me...but I think we've got some time before the next one comes."

Lana looked over, watching as Gabby rubbed her still-massive belly, skin flushed from all her efforts. She was looking up at the ceiling, obviously not yet feeling ready to sit up.

"Do you...hnngh...need anything? Water? More pillows?" Lana asked.

"No, but..." Gabby said softly, "...I do want you to come up here...so I can thank you."

Lana gulped, fully aware of the nearly-birthed head tenting out her shorts. But who was she to say no to her girlfriend's request? "...Say no more, my love."

There was still plenty of room on the ottoman, so Lana used it as a step to help herself get up. Every movement of her legs threatened to open up more room for the emerging baby, and every shift of her weight made her want to push more. But she held back, just for now.

Gabby saw Lana approaching on her hands and knees and smiled. "Mmmh, there you are...look at you, all...hooo...big and pregnant."

Lana smiled, trying to hide the fact that she was giving birth. "Nnnh... uh huh." She crawled right over to her girlfriend, their faces close, bellies touching.

Abruptly, Gabby reached up with both hands and grabbed Lana's breasts, earning a grunt. She squeezed playfully and hummed. "Ooooh, and look at these...so full. I think- mmmh- the milk's starting to leak into your shirt...how many cup sizes do you think you've gone up, hmmm?"

The sudden sensation caused Lana to arch her back, sticking her ass more into the air. She pushed involuntarily as Gabby squeezed into her sensitive flesh. "Ooohhggh... nnho... I dunno..."

"And this..." Gabby continued, moving her hands down to cup Lana's sweaty, bulging belly. "You got so big...how does it feel for you?"

Lana's breath caught at the touch of Gabby's hands on her bare belly. The skin was so stretched and sensitive... "Mmmh...hooo...it feels...unngh...great."

"It's tight, like a drum..." Gabby marveled, starting to move her hands around in slow, long circles. "I'm sure it could use some rubs..."

"I..." Lana started, just before giving in to another push. Her hips moved back, and when she bore down, the baby's head came fully out into her shorts, stretching the elastic fabric profusely. "NNGH! Ahhhh..."

Gabby noticed her girlfriend's thighs shaking. Lana's head was down, and she was obviously in distress. "Babe? Are you okay...?"

"I'm...okay," Lana grunted. "You can...mmph...keep rubbing my belly..."

"Okay..." Gabby said, continuing to run her fingers across Lana's middle. The sensation quelled the labor pains, which Lana enjoyed.

"Mmmh, that's it..." Lana cooed, now rocking forward and back on her knees, her body fully focused on easing the baby out. The shoulders were starting to stretch her, causing immense pressure. "Hooooooo..."

After a moment, Gabby smirked. "You know, that's not the only thing I can rub..."

"Mmmghh..." Lana gurgled in response. She was helpless to intervene as Gabby reached one hand between her legs, immediately feeling the baby's head protruding under her clothes.

Shocked, Gabby gasped. "Babe!! What the hell? You didn't tell me yours was coming out!"

"Didn't...wanna worry you- ngggggghhhhh...!" Lana pushed again. This time, the baby was fully born, lodging itself in the leg of her shorts. "Ooooh...it's out. Shit, it's really out."

Quickly, Lana sat herself up, gasping for air. She tugged her shorts and underwear halfway down, just enough past her ass to be able to reach in and grab the baby. Gabby just stared open-mouthed, still processing what just happened.

Lana smiled as she brought the baby, a little boy, up into her arms. "Ohh, hi baby...Oh, look at you..."

"Damn, babe, you really just did that!" Gabby said, laughing incredulously. "Wow. You made it seem like nothing."

"Yeah...did not expect it to be that fast..." Lana breathed.

"Yeah...oof," Gabby said, first chuckling, then wincing as she clutched her belly. "Uh, speaking of which..."

"You got another one coming?" Lana asked. Her girlfriend nodded in response.

After pulling her shorts back up, Lana carried her baby over to the ottoman, sitting him with the others. She took a moment to breathe and reset, then went back over to her partner.

Gabby was shifting around on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position. "Uggh... my back is aching."

"Do you wanna try a different position?" Lana asked.

"Actually...mmh- maybe, yeah. I wanna get on my hands and knees, like you just were."

It took Gabby a minute, but with Lana's assistance, she was able to roll her heavy body over, getting up into her new position. Her head faced the pillows, and her backside faced Lana, who was once more in place to help guide her baby out.

"Did it...nnggh...help to rock back and forth?" Gabby asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Lana said, cradling her own belly. "It helped the baby move down easier."

Gabby nodded. "Okay...hoooo. I'm gonna- mmh- focus on these contractions...if you could maybe just rub my back a bit."

"You got it," Lana said. As she started to gently massage Gabby's back, she had time to collect her thoughts and think about the current situation. She'd just given birth...and Gabby was about to have a third kid, all from what seemed like magic. They weren't done quite yet...Lana knew she still had one more baby in her womb, and Gabby surely had another. But things were going fast, and after they'd pushed out their babies...they'd probably never be pregnant again. Lana caressed her belly, feeling melancholy for a moment. She'd barely gotten to enjoy being pregnant...she didn't want it to end yet...

She was pulled from her reverie by her girlfriend's moans. Lana watched as Gabby's body tensed up, her belly lifting up from the bed.

"Ooohhh God," Gabby groaned, burying her face in her arms. "Yeah, this one's...definitely coming fast. Nggghh!"

"That's okay, babe, you're doing so good," Lana said, pressing her palms into Gabby's aching muscles. "Do you like being in this position?"

"Gghh- yeah," Gabby grunted. "Hooo...I think...I want you to rub my belly now..."

Lana leaned in as far as she could with her own belly in the way. As she attempted to reach around, she unmistakably felt another contraction of her own. Shit, things really weren't letting up...

She placed a hand flat on the side of Gabby's low-hanging belly and began to rub in circles. Gabby hummed and cooed in response, enjoying Lana's touch.

"I never thought...this would feel so nice," Gabby breathed.

"Tell me about it," Lana replied. "It doesn't even...mmmggh...feel real."

"I just can't believe..." Gabby started, trailing off in the middle of the sentence as her next contraction hit. "Hoooo....nngaaah! Ah, fuck...I gotta start...pushing again!"

Lana held onto Gabby's belly as she pushed, feeling the muscles tighten under her fingertips. She watched as Gabby's pussy began to bulge out just slightly, and redoubled the efforts on rubbing her gravid swell.

At the same time, Lana felt another contraction of her own. She desperately wished that her body would hold out; maybe if she tried to ignore it, labor would last longer.

"NNGAAAHH!" Gabby bellowed. "It's- ghhh- stretching me!"

Lana watched as the now-familiar teardrop shape formed between Gabby's legs. She moved her hand away from her girlfriend's heaving belly in order to guide the head out. "Doing great, babe. Mmh...keep pushing!"

Gabby spread her legs wider and bore down again. She was getting good at this, now- the baby's head quickly reached a full crown.

Meanwhile, Lana felt the weight of her baby sinking lower, down through her birth canal. God, please hold on, she thought. As long as she didn't try to push, she could probably keep the baby in for a bit...

"Unnggh!!" Gabby grunted, as she got the head out. She was certainly not thinking about holding back.

Lana supported the head as fluid dripped onto the sheets below. "Nnhh- almost there, Gabby! You got this!"

Gabby pushed again as the baby's shoulders stretched her. "Ahhh it buuurns, fuck!"

"Come o- onnnnnnn!" Lana groaned, her whole body tightening as a contraction sent her baby's head right up against its exit. She instinctively clutched the underside of her belly and grimaced. "Oooh, ohhhh..."

"I- I've got it, it's..." Gabby choked. "...Hnng! It's COMINGGGGGAAAAAH!!"

With a final push, the baby was born into Lana's hands. Lana held it gently, even as she was struggling through her own labor.

"Ahh...mmmggh...you did it. It's a buh...boy," Lana said, growing weary.

"God...wow..." Gabby replied, gasping for air. She'd collapsed forward onto the pillows, also exhausted. "I dunno how much longer I can keep this up...!"

"Well," Lana breathed, as she turned to set the newborn down. "I think we both only have one baby left...then we're- nggh- done."

"God," Gabby repeated, lost for words. She turned over, flopping onto her back and splaying her arms out like a starfish. Her still-pregnant belly rose and fell with her heavy breathing. She was drenched in sweat at this point, having endured a proper workout.

After resting the baby on the ottoman, Lana turned back and started crossing the bed to approach her girlfriend. The baby was trying to escape her, but she clenched her muscles, attempting to stop it from crowning through sheer willpower. It was working somewhat, but keeping a straight face through it all was another kind of challenge.

Lana knelt in front of Gabby and began to rub her belly with both hands. "Take a breather, babe. We've...mmph...only got so much longer to enjoy this..."

Gabby closed her eyes and exhaled. "Hooo...this has been...so intense."

"Hrrnngh- I know," Lana grunted. She couldn't help tensing up as the baby's head began to press down into her panties. The pressure on her pelvis was unbearable. "...But I've been...ghh- loving every bit."

"Me too," Gabby said, her tired eyes looking up at Lana lovingly. "I love you so much."

Lana bent down as best she could, planting her arms on either side of her partner's shoulders. "I love you too," she said, before leaning down and meeting Gabby's lips with a kiss.

Gabby was worn out, but did her best to kiss back passionately. She took her arms and wrapped them around Lana's back, pulling her in.

"Ah-!" Lana yelped, caught off guard. She almost head-butted Gabby was she was forced downward, the two girls' bellies colliding and pressing together. The added pressure caused Lana's baby to crown more, and she let out a low moan. "Uuuooaah! Ohhh fuck..."

Hearing this, Gabby knew something was wrong. "What's...? Oh no, don't tell me..."

Lana grimaced and bit her lip as she felt Gabby's hand leave her back and trace its way around her body, down between her legs, where the bulge of the baby's head was prominent.

"You've got another coming out..." Gabby observed, gently feeling the lump with her fingers.

"Y-yeah..." Lana croaked. She felt herself getting flushed, feeling ashamed at the question she was about to ask. "D-do you...nngggh...think you could...p-push it back?"

"...Huh?"

"J-just a bit, with your hand," Lana sputtered, knowing how crazy she sounded. "I'm...I just...don't wanna stop...b-being pregnant yet."

Gabby stared at Lana with eyebrows furrowed...but quickly, she started to understand. She pondered while Lana tried desperately not to push any more. After a moment, Lana saw her expression shift.

"...Hold still, this'll probably hurt." Gabby said softly.

Lana barely had a second to brace herself before Gabby was pushing back on the crown between her legs. She let out a choked groan as she instantly felt the pain of the baby being forced back into her. Her jaw clenched and her legs shook, but Gabby did not relent until the head was all the way back inside, and her hand could press flat again Lana's vulva.

Once it was done, Gabby removed her hand, and quickly maneuvered her pregnant body to get off the bed. "Okay, hold it there for a sec. I have an idea."

Still reeling from what had just happened, Lana fell onto her side, grasping her belly and squeezing her thighs together. "Ohhh...wh-what're you...doing?"

She watched as Gabby waddled over to their dresser, opening the drawer of athletic garb. After a little searching, she pulled out three pairs of spandex shorts.

"Here- mmpph- put this on," Gabby told her, tossing one of the pairs over. "And I'll put on the other two. That should hold things off for a bit."

Lana was surprised at her girlfriend's suggestion. She sat up and picked up the shorts. "A-are you sure that's...smart?"

"Like you said, we- hooo- don't have much time," Gabby explained, starting to step into the shorts one by one. "I'm feeling my contractions starting again too, and- ngggh!- if we wanna enjoy these pregnancies while we can, this should hold everything together a...ggh, a little longer."

Realistically, Lana had no time to mull it over. A few more minutes of waiting, and their babies were going to be born, and the pregnancies they'd been dreaming of would be over for good. "...Okay. Let's try it..."

The two young women both managed to wrangle the stretchy shorts up past their thighs and wide hips. Gabby now had two layers of shorts on, while Lana had a couple pairs of her own, as well as her panties underneath.

"How does it feel?" Gabby asked, waddling over as she cradled her belly.

"Definitely very tight," Lana said, as two layers of compression fabric dug into her. "But it...hoooo...feels like everything will, uh...stay in place for a while."

"Mhmm, totally," Gabby said, feeling the fabric over her crotch with her hand. "Gotta be a pretty strong baby to- ngghh- get through that."

Lana grunted and heaved as she stood up from the bed, still trying to keep her legs together, fearing the baby would start coming out again. "Oof...so, ah...what now? Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

"I think I could definitely use some water," Gabby said. "I've been...mmph...sweating a lot."

"Me too," Lana agreed. She began to walk out of the room with Gabby, but stopped briefly. "Oh, wait, hold on..."

Lana reached up and grabbed the bottom of her tank top, which had become wet with milk and stained with sweat. She pulled the well-worn garment up over her head and tossed it onto the bed. Her breasts spilled out over top of her belly, full and heavy. Now, both girls were fully naked except for their shorts.

Gabby's mouth curved into a smirk, and Lana smiled back. "...Okay, that feels better. Now let's go."

::::::::::

The two made their way back out to the living areas, taking slow, narrow footsteps. The couple was very worn out by now, and didn't want their walking around to speed up labor. Gabby detoured to the bathroom to wash her hands and face while Lana went to the kitchen to fill glasses of water.

While standing at the sink, Lana began to struggle again. Her body was not happy with her after Gabby put the birth into reverse. Now she was faced with incessant contractions and a constant low, heavy feeling on her hips. She swayed from side to side, shifting her weight back and forth, trying to breathe deeply and steadily. The baby's head pressed right at its exit, threatening to crown again at any moment...

Suddenly, Lana felt a pair of hands grab her by the waist, and she yelped. Behind her, she heard Gabby start to chuckle. Her girlfriend's pregnant belly pressed into her back, and she sighed.

"Babe, don't do thaaaat," she groaned. "No sudden movements...you're- unnggh- gonna make me start pushing again."

"Oh yeah?" Gabby said. She took one hand and traced it over Lana's backside, down between her legs, causing her to shudder. She took her fingers and gently rubbed at Lana's pussy through her shorts, right where the baby would be coming out. "Go ahead...I'll just push it back again and again...nnhh...until you tell me to stop."

Lana felt her heart pounding, her loins quivering. "Mmmhh...please..." She angled her hips back toward her partner, still clutching the full water glasses.

Feeling playful, Gabby brought both her hands back up and started to fondle Lana's breasts, kneading the flesh like dough. Spurts of milk jetted out into the sink with each squeeze. Lana gasped and whimpered, getting very turned on despite herself.

"Ooooh, babe..." Lana moaned. She set down the glasses, so as not to spill or break anything. She gripped the edge of the sink, starting to lose control of her urges. She bore down a bit, and her sex bugled out into her underwear just slightly...

Abruptly, Gabby removed her hands, realizing she may have been working things up too quickly. She came up next to her girlfriend and grabbed a glass. "Sorry...let's rehydrate and get back to the bedroom."

::::::::::

The walk back to the bedroom was even more laborious. Both women were getting very close to giving birth to their final babies...Lana's was more than ready to start crowning again, and Gabby's wasn't very far behind. The girls waddled toward the bed huffing and puffing, Lana slightly doubled over while Gabby was slightly bow-legged. Once there, they crawled up on their hands and knees, flopping onto their sides so that they could face each other. They reached their arms out in a loving embrace, as close as their could get with their round bellies between them.

Gabby ran her fingers through Lana's messy hair, looking into her eyes. "Thank you again...so much," she whispered. "This has been...nggghh...so incredible."

"Pregnant you is- ghhh- just as beautiful as I'd imagined," Lana said, trying not to let her voice sound so strained. "I'm so glad I- hooo- nghh...c-could make this happen."

"I wish- uunngghhh...!" Gabby groaned, grimacing and clutching her tight belly.

Lana put her hand alongside Gabby's, rubbing her girlfriend's gravid swell. "Are you feeling pushy?"

Gabby simply nodded. Lana kept rubbing her girlfriend's belly, letting her work through the contractions and urges. She tried to take in as much sensory information as possible, so that she would always remember what her partner's pregnant belly felt like.

At the same time, Lana was actively fighting back from pushing. She had her legs pressed together, almost crossed, and noticed that Gabby was doing the same.

After the contraction faded, Gabby took a deep breath and stared at Lana again. "You know, babe...hoooo...I feel like I've barely done anything for you...come here."

She shifted down, so that her head was more in line with Lana's chest. She took the breast resting on top into her mouth and began to suckle.

Lana gasped, immediately feeling jolts of pleasure. Gabby had of course played with her tits before, but it never felt this good. She hugged Gabby with one arm and weaved her fingers into her girlfriend's hair.

"God damn, you taste good," Gabby said through her teeth, as she started to nibble and lick, taking in milk. "This is...mmhh...a whole new level of sexy."

A moan escaped Lana's throat as she gripped the back of Gabby's head, holding her in close. The erotic pleasure was once more washing away her inhibitions, and she felt the need to push overcome her. She lifted her top leg, opening up her hips and giving the baby room to emerge.

Gabby kept sucking, now using one hand to rub Lana's belly. "You feel so...unngh, fertile...like you were meant to carry babies..."

"Ooooh, baaabe..." Lana groaned, scrunching up her face as she bore down. She realized she couldn't stop herself from pushing, not with Gabby stimulating her body like this. She felt her labia parting, the head crowning once more into her shorts. "Nnguuhh...oh! Ahh, f-fuck! B-abe, it's...nnnh!!!"

Gabby took her mouth off Lana's breast, scooting herself back up a bit. She let the hand on Lana's belly drift down between her legs. "Mmh...push for me, baby."

Now Lana really couldn't stop. For the first time, she pushed with everything she had. She growled in pleasure and pain as the head quickly pressed outward into her shorts, into Gabby's hand...but it could go no further than that. If the two layers of shorts weren't enough of a barrier, the hand definitely was. Lana's baby was stuck at just about a full crown, leaving her the gasp and moan helplessly.

"Shhh, take it easy," Gabby said. She started to rub gentle circles on the bulge in Lana's pants. "Just take it in...feel how it's stretching you."

Lana slowed her breathing and tried to relax, despite the pressure. She felt the tightness of her belly, the indescribable sensation of fullness in her groin. The full weight of her baby, right there, ready to be born...and Gabby's hand, coaxing it to stay in place. She thought about Gabby calling her fertile, and how much she enjoyed that...how great it felt to be bearing life...

After a moment, Gabby retracted her hand a bit. It was now time for her to start grimacing and moaning, earning Lana's attention. She saw that Gabby had curled up more, and had opened her legs up a bit. Lana took her hand from Gabby's back and brought it down past their pregnant belly, down between her girlfriend's legs, where there was another lump forming.

"You're...crowning, too," Lana breathed.

Gabby nodded again, frantically. "A-a little..."

The two just lay there for a moment, entangled in each other. Their bellies pressed into one another, their tits both leaking drops of milk onto the sheets. Their hands between each other's legs, each cradling the head of an emerging baby, confined by tight clothes. It was an intensely intimate moment that neither had ever experienced or thought they would experience. The whole time, they looked in each other's eyes, communicating a thousand things but saying nothing.

Eventually, something had to give. Lana watched as Gabby bore down again, and felt as the baby's head pushed out further into her palm. Gabby grunted, "Babe...I love you, but...I don't think we can keep doing this forever..."

"I...I know..." Lana sighed. She tensed up as her baby pushed out just a bit further, despite the restraints. "I just...fuck, I'm gonna miss being pregnant..."

Gabby chuckled, despite her straining. "Heh...and to think, you were so- mmggh- freaked out at first."

"I just didn't know what was going on!" Lana said. "Like, nngggh- I didn't even drink any guh...Gravidade, right? So how...?"

"Maybe it was...gggh...that light you saw," Gabby joked.

"Who fucking knows. I just know it- mmggh, fuck- won't be this easy to be pregnant again..."

Gabby removed her hand from between Lana's legs and placed it tenderly on her belly. "Well, nngh- never say never," she said. "We could get pregnant again...be surrogates, or something...and for a...hooo...whole nine months, too."

"I guess...you're right," Lana said. She felt herself pushing again, and this time, the head was at a full crown, about to force itself out into her tight shorts. "Okay...gggh!...I'm done...let's get these babies out."

The two had held out long enough. They feverishly went to remove their shorts, but it was easier said than done. They were so swollen and sweaty, and the fabric so tight, that it took a lot of effort just to peel them off their hips.

"Mggh- oh god," Gabby grunted, trying to wiggle her hips as she tugged her shorts down past her ass. "It's fucking c-cominggg!"

"Ooh, oh, ohhhhh...!" Gabby moaned, her remaining strength split between pushing out the baby and pulling off her clothes. Every inch she pulled her shorts down, the baby emerged to fill the space. The head popped out, and she shuddered.

Gabby had gotten her shorts down to her knees, and that was enough for her. Her baby was already halfway out by the time she got on all fours to push. "NnggGHUOOAAH!!"

As Gabby's baby slid out, Lana gave up on trying to full remove her shorts, opting to flop on her back and bear down.

"HHHRNNGH! GAAH!" Lana bellowed, giving her final push. The baby had just enough room to come out, landing in Lana's shorts like a hammock.

Totally spent, the two girls collapsed onto the bed, resting in their own pools of sweat, milk, and birth fluids.

"Guh...we did it, babe..." Gabby panted. "We fucking did it."

::::::::::

Unfortunately, the two couldn't rest for very long, because they had a lot to take care of. They took turns using the restroom, cleaning themselves up, and getting dressed into pajamas.

Lana stripped the bed and picked up the rug to make a laundry pile, while Gabby went and retrieved the empty bottle of Gravidade from the living room floor, as a keepsake.

At the end, the two sat on the bedroom floor, hugging each other. Gabby kissed the top of Lana's head softly while Lana rubbed her back.

"Best Valentine's Day ever, huh?" Lana asked.

"Yeah," Gabby breathed. She quietly looked over at the ottoman, where six whole newborns were now sleeping soundly.

"So, uhhhh...now what?"

::::::::::

THE END

[squiddyfics]

get gone

namgyu x f!reader

description: namgyu’s long hours spent at the club, wasting his life away, have gotten to you. you finally decide to leave him, but it doesn’t hurt to say goodbye first.

18+ minors dni

warnings: nsfw, angst, drugs mentioned, unprotected piv, oral (f!receiving), overstimulation

a/n: happy valentine's day hehe

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

He broke his promise.

Namgyu's shift at the club always ends at two in the morning, but he's never home when he's supposed to be. Whenever he does finally return, his eyes are bloodshot and his mood is sour.

You couldn't stand by and watch him ruin his life, destroying his physical and mental health each weekend as he delves into a world of illicit substances and people who don't give a fuck about whether he lives or dies.

That's why you made him swear to stop staying at the club past his shift. You respect that he has a job to do, but beyond that, there's no reason for him to stay out and slowly kill himself.

Last week, he actually stuck to his word, which was a pleasant surprise. It made you hopeful that he was finally turning things around, for once prioritizing his life with you over cheap thrills.

But now it's three a.m., and he's nowhere to be seen. You run your hands over your face, attempting to stay awake. You won't be set at ease until you see him walk through the door. Each night he doesn't come home on time is a night you spend worrying that he's finally succumbed to the consequences of his actions, leaving you alone in the world.

He never texts you back on these nights, either. You open your phone and click on your text thread with him, fruitlessly hoping that things might be different tonight. Of course not; your messages remain unanswered.

You can't keep doing this anymore, can't keep caring about a man who doesn't care about himself. Up until now, you've stuck by his side, scared that if you left him he'd spiral even further. Enough is enough, though. You have a life to live, and without spending so much of your time stressing about Namgyu's well-being, you'd be much freer.

These are your last thoughts before you pass out on the couch, unable to force yourself to stay awake any longer.

The sound of keys in the door wakes you back up. When you open your eyes, it's lighter in the apartment; the sun is beginning to rise. You check the time on your phone.

6:09.

Namgyu opens the door and looks surprised to see you in the living room. You meet his eyes with a glare.

"Thanks for finally gracing me with your presence," you snap.

"Chill," he says, and the word sends a surge of anger coursing through you. "I just spent a few extra hours networking."

"Networking?" you scoff. "Is that what you call getting fucked up and partying with junkies?"

"I made hella tips," he says. "This group of super-rich dudes said they'd keep giving me money as long as I could convince the bottle-service girl to sit with them."

"Oh, okay, so now you're pimping out your coworkers. That makes me feel so much better."

He throws his keys down on the table much harder than necessary. "Are you seriously mad that I'm making money? Would you rather we get fucking evicted?"

"I'm mad that you broke my trust!" you shout back. "You were supposed to leave at two, Namgyu. You promised."

He kicks off his shoes and storms toward you. "You think I want to be out for twelve hours straight? I'm doing this for us. I would've thought you'd be grateful, but I guess that's expecting too much of you."

"Oh, fuck you." You laugh, but there's no humor behind it. "Don't try to spin this as if doing lines in the club bathroom is somehow for my sake."

"I'm playing the game," he says. "This is the world I work in; this is what you signed up for when you started dating me."

"Well, I'm done now. I'm done."

He pulls the sleeves of his slightly oversized dress shirt over his hands. Normally you'd find this cute, but right now it's just pissing you off.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm telling you I can't do this anymore," you say. "This isn't how I want to live."

"You don't mean that." He shakes his head. "You haven't slept. Let's go to bed and talk about this in the morning."

"Motherfucker, it is the morning," you spit, gesturing to the sunrise outside your window. "And I mean every word of what I'm saying to you right now. I can't stay with you; not when this is the path you're choosing for yourself."

Suddenly Namgyu's apathetic expression morphs into one of concern, and he's on his knees in front of you, grabbing your hands. "No, baby. You don't need to leave. This was the last time, I swear."

"You swore the same thing the other week, but that didn't seem to mean much to you."

"It's different this time," he says, rubbing his thumbs over your hands as if that will fix anything. "I understand now. I know you don't really want to go, so let's just talk this through, yeah?"

"You didn't even have the decency to send me a text." Your voice is smaller now. "I can't spend my nights wondering if you'll make it home in one piece. It's killing me."

"I'll change."

"It's too late," you say. "I've made up my mind."

Still kneeling in front of you, Namgyu hugs your waist, pressing his cheek against your stomach. "You can't leave me. You can't."

God, he's so fucking pathetic.

“Get off of me,” you say, but he only squeezes you tighter.

“You’re not leaving. You’re not leaving.” He says it like a prayer.

“Get the fuck up,” you tell him. “This is just sad.”

He does get up, but instead of walking away, he leans over you, pressing a desperate kiss to your lips. Despite how angry you are, you kiss him back.

He puts his hands on your waist and pulls you up so you're standing too. Your own hands find his face, fingers tracing over the features you've come to know so well, the features you'll be saying goodbye to.

As he guides you to the bedroom, still kissing you, you break apart just enough to say, "This doesn't change anything."

Namgyu throws you down on the bed and climbs on top of you, his lips and hands laying claim to every part of your body. He’s always been physically affectionate, but he’s touching you even more now, with the ravenous passion of someone who knows this could be the last time.

He kisses your neck in just the right spot, and grips your breasts with just the right amount of pressure, perfectly riding the line between pain and pleasure. You don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing how good he makes you feel, but you can't help the moan that escapes your lips.

"How could you give this up?" he mutters against your skin. "No one knows your body like I do. It'll never be this good with anyone else."

You know it's true, but you don't want to think about that right now. Instead, you decide to show him what he'll be missing out on, everything he lost due to the consequences of his own reckless actions. You reach down and wrap your hand around the bulge in his pants, squeezing lightly.

He reacts to your touch instantly, rocking into you as curses fall from his lips. He grasps at the hem of your shirt, urging it off of you. "I need you."

One by one, each piece of clothing separating you and Namgyu from one another is tossed aside, until there's no barrier between you. He grinds against you, sliding his shaft along your wet slit. His cock twitches at the moan he elicits from you.

Given his obvious desperation, you expect him to fuck you without hesitation. You're surprised when he lowers his face between your legs, kissing your inner thighs.

You tangle your fingers in his hair as he licks up your slit, taunting you. You attempt to push his head to the right spot, but he's taking his sweet time. By the time his lips encircle your clit, you're already bucking and moaning like a madwoman.

"Fuck, Namgyu," you breathe.

Your reaction spurs him on, and he pushes two fingers inside you, fucking you with his hand while he continues to suck on your clit. There's no warning; you're climaxing in record time, falling apart beneath him as your high racks your body in violent waves.

Namgyu doesn't give you even a second to recover. You're still panting, your walls still clenching as he pulls his fingers out of you, licking them clean before raising himself back up and slamming into you.

You cry out, but he silences you with a kiss. You taste yourself on his tongue, all your senses in overdrive as he fucks you mercilessly.

"Oh god, Namgyu, hold on, I'm—" but you're cut short as another orgasm rips through your body.

You grip his hips, attempting to still him, to ease the pressure on your sensitive core, but he's relentless. He pounds into you at a shocking pace, and the overstimulation causes tears to well up in your eyes.

"Who else is gonna do this for you?" he asks through gritted teeth. "Who else is gonna fuck you until you can't think straight?"

You shake your head, unable to respond; the pleasure is overwhelming.

"Fucking answer me."

Between moans, you manage to gasp out, "No one."

Your words send him over the edge, and he finishes deep inside you with a guttural growl.

A moment later, he’s collapsing on the bed beside you. He drapes an arm and leg over you in one final weary effort to keep you by his side.

After taking a minute to catch your breath, you slip out from under his grasp and stand up. You clean yourself up quickly, then start getting dressed.

“What are you doing?” Namgyu asks, pulling on his boxers.

“I told you, I’m leaving.”

You grab a suitcase and open up the drawers of your wardrobe, stuffing clothes inside. Namgyu shoots up and rushes to your side frantically. Each time you move to grab a handful of clothes, he takes a pile of them back out of your suitcase, shoving them haphazardly back into the drawer.

“Stop it!” you shout, but he continues to unpack your suitcase, trapping you in an endless cycle. “You’re acting like a child. Let me leave or I’m calling the fucking police.”

He ceases for a moment to laugh. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He steps back then, finally seeming to understand the gravity of the situation. He sits down on the bed, watching as you gather up your belongings.

You grab a smaller bag and take it to the bathroom, throwing your toiletries inside. Once you’ve gotten all the necessities together, you take what’s left of your life and head down the hallway.

You hear his quick footsteps on the floor behind you, but you don’t turn around.

“Wait,” he says, his voice cracking. “Wait, please. Don’t leave me. I love you.”

You swallow hard, but you still don’t look at him. Seeing his face will only make it harder to go, and you know this is what you need to do. Without another word, you open the door and shut it behind you.

Maybe one day Namgyu will pull himself together, and maybe then a life with him will be possible. Until then, you can’t keep putting yourself through the torture of loving him.

[bookworrm1999]

How Far Away? Part 7

Caleb x Mc

Tags: unplanned pregnancy, presumed death, depression, miscommunication, miscarriage scare

Summary: Mc and Caleb fight right before he goes on a long mission into space. Caleb ends up MIA while Mc finds out she's pregnant. She struggles to deal with the grief while Caleb is fighting for his life to make it back home to her.

AO3

Part 1| Part 2| Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7|

Caleb awoke to a very dry mouth and a pounding head.

It felt like a really nasty hangover and he had had plenty of those back in flight school. His memory was hazy for the moment so he wondered how much he had drank to feel like this.

He stretched his arm out and met the cool metal of some sort of rail.

What is this? He blearily opened his eyes and focused on his surroundings. A window with ugly green curtains, a wall full of cabinets and drawers, a small sink, a patterned curtain in front of the door, then the machines.

The pain in his arm made him hiss as he moved the wrong way. There was a needle and a tube in his arm, he followed it up to a bag full of liquid dripping down the tube.

Oh, it’s a hospital. Now it’s coming back to him, the shouting, the frantic energy of nurses and doctors trying to keep his heart beating.

He knew this hospital, it was Willow Medical Center in Skyhaven. How did he end up here?

The worst hangover he’d ever felt and it was no wonder. A few weeks of constant evol use on low food and not drinking as much water as he should have.

A recipe for disaster but he was here, he was alive.

It was dark from what he could see through the curtains drawn over the window. Other than the pounding in his head and dry mouth, he was otherwise uninjured.

His crew had actually gotten him safely out of the deepspace tunnel.

A warm feeling in his chest made him cough in embarrassment.

They had somehow gotten him out of the Fleet’s clutches, away from Ever’s influence to a safe place.

All that effort he had expended in getting them home must have left them feeling indebted to him.

He was very grateful for it, if he had been left to Ever’s clutches. They would’ve fixed his chip and taken advantage of his weakened state to upgrade him even more. Sinking their slimy fingers even more into whatever individuality he had left.

He’d worked so hard to fight the chip, it was at 50% integrity now and going down without a fight wasn’t an option.

His crew deserved something in return as thanks but he’d have to think on that more.

Where was his stuff? Only dressed in a hospital gown without a stitch of anything else, Caleb felt very exposed.

Oh there’s his stuff, a neat pile on the side table. His phone off to the side of his clothes.

Caleb really wanted to see her face, even if it was through a picture. Cell phones glitched weirdly in the deepspace tunnel, so he usually relied on his memory and the hidden photo in his pocket to keep her with him.

Then a nurse came bustling in, keeping the light low, he could see a clock behind the curtain she had just pulled aside.

2 am, well, not the worst time to be alive.

The nurse noticed he was up, looking a little shocked before recovering.

“Hello Colonel, how are you feeling?”

He grimaced

“My head has a band playing inside it and I really need some water.”

“Well, I can go and get water for you right now, I’ll send a note to the doctor to put in an order for some pain medication too. Okay?”

“Right.”

“I actually came in to grab some blood for labs, we need to make sure all of your levels are normal now.”

“Go ahead.”

She quickly took out her butterfly needle along with a few vials, sanitizing his arm and quickly drawing blood out.

Snapping her gloves off, she asked

“Anything else I can get you?”

“Can I have my phone from that table?”

“Oh sure, here you go!”

After handing Caleb his phone, she went back out into the hallway. Hopefully to return with water and something for this headache.

There was a universal charging cord attached to the hospital bed for his convenience. Plugging it in, it only took a minute to boot back up.

He saw the day, the fact that it was still a few days shy of his original return date made him a bit relieved.

That is, until he saw the slew of messages from her.

100’s of them, his phone kept going off and it felt like it was going buzz its way out of his grip.

What in the world?

Caleb was very concerned now, she almost never sent him this many. Not while he was gone and couldn’t respond.

Very worried at this point, he opened the earliest message.

Watching it left him in a daze, her bright smile seared into his mind as she had proudly proclaimed that you were pregnant.

Pregnant with his baby?!

He sat in astonishment for just a minute before it really hit him.

Caleb was going to be a father!

He eagerly opened each message after that.

All her cute little complaints about being sick, wanting food but not being able to eat it, her pants not fitting.

The weight loss did indeed worry him but he was reassured just seeing the way she struggled to wear pants now.

Hearing about stealing his clothes made him a bit feral to be honest but also stoked his male pride.

Then Caleb got to the point where she showed him the newest ultrasound, the little bean had little arms and legs now.

He stared at the image for a long while, the heartbeat of his child, his little baby, in the background.

All the joy came to a halt as the love of his life’s crying face came into view.

He had been pronounced MIA and presumed dead?

Oh no.

He noticed the background was now only showing her at his house in all the videos after that, her eyes hollow, her face limp, only the thought of their baby keeping her going.

He clenched his fist, the one that could punch through walls to get to you.

Caleb desperately wanted to call her now, but he didn’t want to do it over the phone. Not to mention that it was still the middle of the night.

He played the next few videos, his heart breaking as his love’s decline was put on display for a man that she thought was dead.

The last video though, it was only yesterday that it was sent.

Oh, oh now he wanted to rip the building apart.

Zayne, that sly bastard swooping in as soon as he smelt blood in the water.

Trying to take advantage of a grieving woman.

The confusion, the phone was laid down as he heard faintly, is that blood.

The word blood made his own run cold.

She was hurt? No, something worse as sobs came over the phone.

“Please don’t let me lose you, you’re all I have left of Caleb. Please baby, just stay with me!”

Desperate pleas came over the phone before the camera was back in her face, utterly wrecked as the video ended.

What the hell?

That’s how it ends?

He needed to leave now.

He started to rip the IV out of his arm and the nurse came back in, carrying a packet and a cup of water.

“What are you doing?!”

“I’m leaving!”

“You haven’t been cleared yet!”

“I’m going and you can’t stop me.”

He stood up and towered over her. The nurse shrank a bit before standing firm.

“Why?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“I do if you’re going to leave AMA! You were in bad shape when you first came in. You’re still recovering.”

“She needs me and I’m going!”

“Wait she?”

He grimaces at the slip before spitting

“Yes, she needs me, there’s something wrong happening and I need to be there.”

“Maybe I can help.”

He stared at the small woman before shrugging.

“If you can tell me what hospital she went to, sure.”

“Are you referring to the woman listed as your emergency contact?”

“Yes.” He grits out impatiently.

She goes to the monitor in the corner of the room and looks at few pages before pulling something up.

“You’re in luck, she’s here in the labor and delivery ward.”

“Great, I’m leaving.”

She stops him with a hand to his chest.

“What is it now?” Snarling at the interruption.

“You can go, but in a wheelchair.”

So thus, Caleb is rolled all the way from intensive care all the way to L and D.

She had bandaged his arm up from where he’d ripped the IV out, he hadn’t even noticed it bleeding.

The nurse asks the night nurse working where she is and they’re directed to a room at the end of the hall.

He’s wheeled through the door and there she was.

Sleeping, looking so small and weary even in the dim light.

The nurse whispers

“I’ll have to go back but just hit the call light if you need anything, ok?”

He nods but doesn’t dare disturb the peace of the room with his voice.

But as the nurse leaves, he’s desperate to touch you.

So he pushes the chair forward by the wheels until he’s by her side. Caleb can now see something miraculous.

A baby bump, a true proof of their love.

Were they okay though? There was no one to ask, but he spies a chart at the end of the bed.

Grabbing it eagerly, he reads

‘Patient presented with mild bleeding at 18 weeks of pregnancy. Scans done and slight placental abruption was found. Mildly invasive procedure done to correct issue. Patient to be kept under observation for 24 hours.’

A very short summary of the situation but it was enough.

The baby, their sweet baby, and her were going to be okay.

Shoulders shaking as a few tears escaped his eyes as he laid a gentle hand on their child.

“Hello little one, I’m your daddy. I’m sorry I haven’t been here so far but don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

A slight bump against his hand and he was instantly in love.

Caleb wanted to scoop them both up and never let them go. His two loves in his arms forever.

A slight noise behind him made him turn his head from the beautiful sight.

Zayne.

His gut tightened.

“What are you doing here?” Caleb tried to keep his voice low but the protectiveness came through.

Zayne pushed his glasses up before answering

“They called me here to check on her heart and so that she’d have a member of her care team here. She couldn’t make it all the way down to Akso hospital so her OB told her to go to Skyhaven’s hospital for now.”

What a perfectly reasonable explanation but he’d heard what Zayne had been doing while he was away.

“You sure move fast Dr.Zayne.”

A raised eyebrow was the only response he got.

“She’s not yours.” Caleb made that clear with a growl.

“From what I hear, she wasn’t truly yours either. Scared of commitment, colonel?”

“That will soon be rectified so you can butt out.”

“Fortunately for you, she told me to butt out before you even came home. I have no plans to stay where I’m not wanted.”

“Good.” The baby bumped against Caleb’s hand again, making him smile.

“But if she needs me again, don’t think I won’t come running.”

With that ominous warning given, Zayne turned around and left the room.

Well, at least that’s done. Where does Zayne get off telling him that though?

She was more important than that sly bastard anyway and Caleb settled in to stay with her until she woke up.

He knew he had to take care of Ever somehow, he had been steadily wearing the chips integrity down so that they wouldn’t have hold over him anymore. It seemed that it was time to move the timeline up.

His two babies deserved him at his best and without these shackles.

He could wait for her eyes to open though. They had a lot to talk about after all.

Tags: @moonberry69 @supermyeon22 @tinnyrabbit @gavin3469 @marina27826 @crowleysthings @tabi-callico @midiplier

@his-ocean-emissary @rosalyne08 @xaviers-pookie-bear @tsunamethyst @thejujvtsupost @cherrybeomgyu

@gojosballsack69 @apple-lov3r @dinochocochip @violetpurplez @raiyuxa @nickibunny23 @sh3sa1dwhat @playboygeniusphilanthropist @flwerie @lynnlovesthestars @twilightsmissingfur @kasuumi

[muttsupreme]

drunk as hell but this Valentine’s Day I want Roman

I want Roman not even asking you to be his Valentine because it’s a bargain deal. He gets you as a life partner, his little fugglesnuggle, his freak, his partner in crime, so yeah, it should be obvious you’re his Valentine. But he sees some tweet about how guys should always ask, that it’s just so important, so — while you’re in the shower, he comes in. As he usually does. But with your favorite flowers (it doesn’t matter that they’re out-of-season). Oh, and outside he also has some huge box of assorted Ferrero Rocher chocolates he remembers you talking about? And those designer shoes, you know, the ones you saw in Saks Fifth? Yeah, you should wear them tonight.

It’s not really that, though, that makes you all feel-good. It’s more that he kisses your back and shoulders when you get ready. More, more of that — more of, “You’re soft. Do you drink virgin’s blood? Seriously? The lotion I get you cannot be that good.”

He takes you to your favorite cafe for brunch. It reminds you of Paris, with outdoor seating and a delicious toasted marshmallow latte, but today you get a matcha with strawberry cold foam. He makes fun of you, “You’re drinking grass. Grass drinker. It’s not even, like, uhh — a what, cleanser? Just straight urban hippie grass juice. With a little fruity fluff.”

Afterwards, you both attend a nice museum exhibit, which you both enjoy for the first thirty minutes until you realize you’re both self-assigned critics and need a day off. So, movies — which, with Roman’s background in the film industry, is debatably worse. But Annie Hall is playing in his private theater until the late afternoon. It’s nice, it’s sweet, you’re both entangled like one great, big knot.

For dinner, he takes you to an Italian restaurant. It’s one that was once way out of budget when you first started working with him, one that you were honestly scared of walking into when he first brought you after work. Now it’s a second home. He calls it ‘your place’, meaning the place you had your first official-unofficial date. He still gets whiny when you say you didn’t know it was actually a date. You were just under the impression that your boss was trying to be nice so you don’t tattle on him for every little perversion.

He acts like it’s nothing, “Whatever, fuck you, it’s Valentine’s Day. Was I supposed to let you sit all alone and vibrate yourself numb?” He doesn’t expect a ‘thank you’, doesn’t really expect anything. This is just what you do, right? Standard procedure. You’re supposed to at least get your…romantic person (he holds himself back from saying ‘wife’), some chocolate and candy and flowers, and a nice dinner.

You walk for a while after dinner; he likes walking sometimes, usually when he’s drunk or high or upset. He’ll tell his driver to follow, just sort of not stay too far away, for when they actually wanna get home. You buy him flowers on the way back; some street vendor has Osiria roses. Beautiful flowers with dark reds and soft whites striping through the petals. He was fucking humiliated, because what, you’re buying him flowers? Like he’s some flamboyant metrosexual? You can only laugh at how ironically accurate that is. Truth is, he really doesn’t mind. He actually fucking loves it. Can’t stop ‘subtly’ smelling them when you ‘aren’t looking’.

He leans all over you on you while walking to the car. He just drapes himself over you, clings to you. Opens the door to the car for you with a snarky, “M’lady, the penthouse princess.” He nuzzles your shoulder and neck the whole ride, like a stray you’ve just picked up. For just a moment, he picks up your hand and kisses the part where your thumb meets your pointer finger, and then acts like it didn’t happen at all.

He clumsily grabs his roses and — most importantly — your hand as you both walk inside. Nudges you, an excuse to rub up against you as you both step into the private elevator. He quickly gives in, leaning on you and then making some exaggerated snoring sound as if he’s fallen asleep on your shoulder. A moment passes.

“You full? Like it?” He sounds uncertain. It shows, now, as it always will eventually, that he especially wanted you to like it. Paid attention, thought it out.

“When don’t I?” It’s half a scoff and half a laugh. You really have no room to say you don’t like one of your favorite restaurants in Manhattan, if not the world. Especially when he gets you the same pasta you had on your first date, the same tiramisu, with a hazelnut latte. He scoffs in return, face scrunching up as if it’s physically painful for him to imagine that you’re just lying, going with the flow.

When you both get into the penthouse, it’s actually not very late. You’re both full, and he groans as he stretches like an old man. He’s getting stocky, because he actually eats with you around. You notice when he doesn’t.

“You…like, like me, right?” He’s changing when he asks the awkward question, one he feels like should be left unsaid, it should be kind of obvious; you live with him, you work with him, you’re his Valentine. Every time something goes wrong or you’re upset, you call him. Of course you like him, duh, but maybe you don’t, or maybe you’re just playing the game, getting inside his head.

“Rome, come on. It’s us,” your words are supposed to portray just how dumb it sounds to ask you, of all people, that question. You’ve seen this guy cry, sob, you’ve felt him sneak into your bed after a nightmare, he’s told you stories of his fucked-up childhood and you’ve seen him get hit so hard he’s lost a tooth. He has admitted to you, in the privacy of the dark, quiet penthouse, while in the same bed with him playing a game of ‘Truths’, that he pissed the bed as a teen. And you’re still here. You’re always there.

“Fuck you, I know. I know you like me. But, do you?”

“Yes! Jesus, honey, yes, I like you,” you say quickly. It doesn’t take long for you to grab and hold his cheeks, feeling the scruff on them, rubbing circles with your thumb. He leans into the touch, kisses your thumb. His eyes practically twinkle.

“Yeah. Yeah, you do,” his first ‘yeah’ sounded almost whispered, like it soothed some part of his soul, whereas the second ‘yeah’ immediately turned back into typical Roman. That faux suaveness never fails to make him look silly, all sweet and stupid.

“Bed now?”

“Bed now,” you agree. And it isn’t inherently sexual. You’re both tired, and he wants your skin on his. He lays the roses beside your flowers, assuming the maid will put them in water for him.

The two of you brush your teeth together in the en-suite. You do your skincare routine together (although his takes longer). And at the end of both, he comes over to where you sit on the edge of the sink and puckers his lips for you to kiss, and you hop off and head over to the bedroom to change.

He nearly never sleeps without a shirt. Whether he’s wearing an undershirt, or one of your tees, he’s almost always in some shirt and his briefs. He takes his shirt off tonight, and doesn’t put one back on in its place. He’s soft, shaven, and just a little pudgy. Little freckles and moles are dispersed sparsely around his pale skin that has very recently been seeing just a bit more sun from a recent vacation to Italy.

“You’re such a fuckin’ perv,” he comments awkwardly at your staring. It sounds confident, funny, but you can tell that he’s sucking in his tummy, flexing his biceps as if he’s some big, strong man.

“I appreciate beautiful things. Don’t you?”

“Oh — smooth, smooooth fucking operator, very nice. I mean, an art exhibit is one thing, but full-frontal is kinda different.”

“Mm,” you come up to him, kissing his back now, kissing his shoulders. “Not with you.” It has two meanings, a double-edged sword: he always finds such weird shit so artistic, and not even in a directly perverse way; he loves the movie Brown Bunny, and genuinely believes that the blowjob was crucial to the plot. On the other hand, he’s also just — different. Even if full-frontal, on average, may not be worthy of the Louvre, it’s Roman. He’s Venus as a boy. He’s something entirely different from the rest.

And he can’t handle that. His face scrunches up again, as if in pain, feels his eyes hot, wet. You’re kissing his back and saying he’s art.

With a quick whine, he’s turned around in your arms and facing you, kissing you the way you’d imagine a woman may kiss her husband after he returns home from The War. It’s silly, it’s almost like he thinks you’ll disappear if he stops, it feels like he’s a kid, like he’s a little kid again with a crush on Sally-May-what’s-her-name aka who-gives-a-fuck. Like he’s never kissed in his life, and he’s wearing noise-cancelling headphones and the only thing playing is how the fabric of your dress moves against his hand as he hold onto it like reigns, and the squeaky noises of lips on lips, and your soft little noise is surprise.

But you don’t push him away. You let him take his fill. And he does, and when he’s done, he licks his spit from your lips with such reverence that it’s hard not to laugh.

“W-fuck, what?”

“No! No, Roro, it’s fine, no, you’re just,” you chuckle breathlessly, partly because you’re trying to hold back a laugh at his actions, tongue slowly tickling and tracing your lips, and partly because you hardly have any breath left after that kiss. “Oh, Romeyrabbit. You’re just silly. Silly, silly boy.”

He’s about to retort, but your hands are in his hair and he allows it. He’s okay with being some fucking stupid ‘Romeyrabbit’ and ‘silly boy’ if you take off this dress. So he crumples, nuzzles into your touch, and tries tugging off your dress.

“Okay, okay,” you respond, paying no mind to his puppy dog eyes the moment you pull away to take off your dress. “You, too!” You demand, and he quickly obeys, unbuckling and unzipping, slacks on the floor in seconds, tugging his socks off along with them.

He watches while still standing. He knows he looks stupid, just standing there and gawking at you, but — Venus of Townley is in his bedroom tugging down her dress and slipping off her shoes.

Taking too-big, clumsy steps, he walks with his bare feet in only his navy blue Calvin Klein briefs to go behind you and take off your bra with clammy hands. He tugs it down your shoulders and lets it fall down your arms. It’s not sexual, it isn’t anything at all; it’s him, it’s you, it’s a quiet, cool bedroom on Valentine’s Day.

Panties are next and then it’s all off. He keeps his briefs on, usually does, though he may take them off at some point through the night. But this is enough. He leans into the crook of your neck from behind, his nose nudging at your ear.

“Mmbed,” he mumbles what seems like a childish demand. “Beddy-bye.”

You hold his hand where it’s wrapped around your tummy, draw it up to your lips, and kiss the back of it. He sways with you in his arms — well, less of swaying, more of yanking you side-to-side with a playful growl. You giggle, let out a ridiculous laugh. You can feel his grin on your skin.

In bed, it’s soft, and the sheets feel as expensive as they are. Your noses touch, and he nudges them together when you start to fall asleep during the ceremonial staring contest ritual that has apparently just begun. But soon, you drift off and he doesn’t nudge you, just lets you. You make little “mmn,” noises in your sleep and his lips quirk up at them. He stares. He watches you sleep, if only for a few minutes. It’s a weird thing to do as is. But he likes it, the two of you entangled and him being able to just love you, watch you, observe you as you are. It is Valentine’s Day, after all. It begs the question of what the whole fucking holiday is about if not just this.

Just this. You and him. How nice is that? How nice can life fucking get?

[juchily]

Yellowjackets S3 Ep1 thoughts

Spoilers below ⚠️

not them buttering us up with the cute fun scenes like them playing tag so they can hit us with the horrible stuff later... I see you showtime

edit: MARI CALLED SHAUNA GAYWAD WHEN SHAUNA TACKLED HER?? ALSO JUST IGNORING THAT SHAUNA IS COMPETITIVE IT WAS INDEED VERY GAY THE WAY SHE WAS MANHANDLING MARI

Taivan taivan taivan taivan!

taivan broke up after rescue 😞

Travis is one of the girls ✨🧚

Shauna's freaky as shit... But like 🙇

That whole scene with Melissa and Shauna was gold, "You have a personality?"?? Be fr the extra gets her first real line and the writers write in a character pointing it out this is so funny

Melissa being so eager to suck up and impress Shauna, two girls telling each other "yeahhh", Melissa wants that cookie. Genlissa shippers it's OVER

what do we think Nat got arrested for when she was 24?

Love Callie for that... I've never hated her be real she's too much of an icon to hate

Im going to be real, when those girls talked about the girls eating pig blood and then having a druggy orgy I did infact go "we all wish" because do we not?? The writers KNOW what we want at this point lol

did Shauna know pre crash that Lottie was schizophrenic? Did she find the pill bottle post crash? If she knew this, would this be a fuel for her hate for Lottie because of her visions, miracles, etc

Lottie being a therapist... God she's too much of everything I can't even begin <3

Lottie and Travis as a duo are so cute (AS NON ROMANTIC, I HATE THEM ROMANTICALLY THAT)

...i thought Van and Tai were going to go at it in the restaurant bathroom ngl, dining and dashing and fucking in an alley is cool too

also that scene in the restaurant where Van seems to be feeling weird... And then right after that the waiter guy dies (supposedly) and we see that onscreen effect go away... Just saying

Id eat the shit (read: spit) out of that soup...

Mari and Shauna getting treated like misbehaving dogs... They low-key are. Poor Mari honestly. And Shauna gaslighting...

SHAUNA AND CALLIE BONDING OH MY LORD CALLIE'S A MINI SHAUNA AND I DONT KNOW WHETHER I SHOULD BE SCARED OF THAT

i can believe Ben finding a war/apocalypse prep container especially considering Cabin guy's insane amount of ammo, but I find it odd that the case is pristinely clean despite being covered in a pit of dirt and dust. Maybe they just didn't bother making it look weathered and I'm looking into it too hard.

NAT HALLUCINATION PLUS CHERRY BOMB 💥💥🎉

Honestly I think Walter may have lied to Misty, on the other hand Van and Taissa were getting down and dirty and Shauna was actually bonding with her kid for once

they make memorial for Javi, then Jackie, then Wilderness baby, im just confused on the fact they don't mention Laura Lee? Especially that Lottie of all people wouldn't mention her. Also the five lanterns I still think that's a clue to a death count this season (past and present, maybe just past timeline)

Ben is up to some evil shit... I don't think Mari dies in that hole though from some of the teasers we've seen

callie pocketed that tape... Didn't anyone tell you not to open other people's mail young lady 🤓

CAKE, they played CAKE, oh I can die happy

Ending thoughts:

Wtf is that sound Travis heard? Does the sound have something to do with being drunk? He hears it first when he's high, and the other girls hear it after the feast (they had like wine or something).

The no eyed man... come on let's get a good look at 'im

Who left the letter? Will the other Yellowjackets get a letter like the one that was supposed to go to Shauna?

What will happen to Mari? What is Ben's purpose of making that trap and what does he plan to do now that he's catched one of the girls. Furthermore, this would prove he knew they survived the cabin fire. Will this lead to the girls finding where Ben is?

Laura Lee erasure... 😭

[1009files]

Liebestraum No. 3

synopsis Eighteen year old Y/n, the daughter of two accomplished musicians, spends her summers surrounded by aspiring artists in her father’s prestigious program. Among them is Heeseung, a quiet, talented pianist who captivates Y/n with his reserved nature and mysterious charm. Amid the music, family expectations, and unspoken feelings, Y/n must navigate her growing affection for Heeseung and decide what she truly wants for her future—and her heart.

word count 2k+

contains fluff, summer love, rivals to lovers, teenagers in love, eventual smut (in the next chapters), comfort, heeseung x reader, slow burn

author’s note hi guys! this is my first post and first time writing something like this~ english is not my main language so there might be errors! i wish to make this a series with an eventual time skip to make things more interesting <3 i hope you like it^^

chapter 1

Your fingers softly brushed through the black and white tiles, like a ballerina spinning rapidly on her pointy shoes. They danced, at times increasing their speed, hungrier and expectant for the next one, until the running stopped.

Your right hand played a single-note melody, while the left one sustained a long, flowing chord. Your fingers were delicate now, more careful as if you were too scared to touch the piano, or it might break into million pieces.

“Incredible! Truly stunning, my dear!”

You didn’t notice your mother entering the studio with a satisfied look on her face, making you suddenly aware of your surroundings, while turning to look at her.

“Oh my, mom! I told you not to startle me when I practice!”

Your parents loved to brag about you with the rest of your family and friends. You knew you were good, but you were a perfectionist and always aimed for more.

“What can I say, you are indeed your father’s child…besides, dinner is ready and tomorrow is an important day~” she said with a sweet tone, still looking more serious, reminding you of your duties.

You know what was next, you wouldn’t have the room just for yourself. The blinds would finally be shut open, welcoming the light from the sun that would soon illuminate the big wooden piano in the center of the room. The pillows of the sofa and most books from the library would be scattered around and the little glass table in front of it would have pastries and beverages ready for everyone, while your father would begin to explain the summer program to his students.

You were used to this, it wasn’t really a big deal to you.

For almost three years your father had been welcoming his most privileged pupils to hold private lessons for them, preparing them to enter the prestigious conservatory in your city, which your eighteen year old self was expectant to attend.

Most students returned each summer, some aimed to enter the academy but still came for extra practice. This is actually how you met your current best friend, Jungwon.

His cheerful personality made it easy for you to get along with him. He was a bit of a prankster and sooner or later, you two found yourselves running around the tight colored alleys of the countryside, under the hot sun of the summer.

“Y/n wait!”

“Come on, Jungwon! Are you really scared of a little water??” You said, wetting him with a hose you found on a nearby garden.

“What are you saying?? I’m completely soaked! Your mom will kill us if we enter the house like this!”

Your eyes suddenly widened.

Oh my god. The music sheets.

Screw the water, you were supposed to keep them completely safe and now they were most likely wet and-

Jungwon started laughing at your shocked expression. Making his way to his backpack, he quickly took the precious dry and brand-new looking sheets out, holding them in his hand.

“You looking for these?” He smirked with an entertained look in his face.

“Give me those! Oh my God, Jungwon I almost died!”

“You’re such a drama queen!” He laughed, running away from you.

You two were actually pretty similar. Even though he was younger, there was a sparkle of responsibility in his behavior that often made you come to your senses. You could always count on him, that’s why most of the time you confessed your cheesy teenage stories and dreams to each other, whether it was an awkward situation or a romantic interest, like the big crush you had on Lee Heeseung.

Well, you still didn’t know yet.

Your first impression of Heeseung was that he was pretty shy. You were introverted yourself, but he wasn’t much of a talker—for some reason, that made you curious and at times, you would act bratty around him. You knew this wasn’t the best way to approach him, but you felt like that was the only way to get close to him…as if that made any sense.

Like you, he was considered pretty talented: the boy had a perfect pitch and he could play both the piano and the guitar. Despite his age, he was a bit taller than you and you couldn’t help but notice his big brown eyes scanning the studio, before entering each time.

Did he see me staring?—you’d think, quickly gazing away from him when his eyes met yours.

He was magnetic and you couldn’t resist, but you always wondered where your sudden curiosity for him came from.

What’s your deepest meaning for music, Lee Heeseung?

Can I share my secrets with you?

Why don’t you talk to me?

It wasn’t easy for him to break his shell either.

One night, you were all seated around the big table outside the house, a plastic cloth on it and half a watermelon cut into portions for everyone to eat. The air was humid and salty, as if the sea wasn’t so far from the porch. After a nice dinner, your parents left soon to sleep, so you were chatting under the starry night.

“I didn’t think you’d come back this year as well, Hoon. ” Jungwon asked, shuffling some cards between his fingers.

Sunghoon stretched on the chair with his arms behind his head. “Yeah well, my parents think my sister still needs some practice before she’ll get used to the conservatory,” he said, turning to look at you. “So i thought I’d come to say hi again...”

You instinctively blushed and looked down at your hands. There was always some sort of connection between you two. He was the child of two talented musicians, so him and his sister would often spend their summer at the studio.

“My parents always have a plan for everything…” he admitted, for a moment lost in his thoughts. You knew what he meant.

“Sounds like you’ve got your whole life mapped out…does it ever get old?” Jungwon sighed with a knowing look.

Despite your talent, sometimes you wondered if your passion really did come from a deep interest or rather you were supposed to like it, because that is how things went for you.

On the other side of the table, Heeseung was listening to the conversation while taking a bite out of his gelato. With him hanging around this time, those thoughts weren’t so rare. You turned your head to look at him. How was he always so calm about everything? Could he feel any emotion at all?

“Oh, Heeseung!“ Jungwon’s voice interrupted your thoughts. “I saw your recital last year!”

Liebestraum No. 3.

You remember Jungwon telling you about a performance that made him feel shivers all over his body. He was always the empathetic type, but he’s never had this kind of reaction for anything else before. He could almost feel everything around him transforming, Heeseeung’s figure in the middle of a moonlit garden. White lilies shimmering under the sky, the chilly air making them move at a slow pace.

“Seriously, how do you play like this without getting nervous?”

Not knowing how to take the compliment, Heeseung shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but smiled softly with a light flush on his cheeks.

So he wasn’t a robot?

You started to get annoyed at the idea that you never got to see his most vulnerable side. Sure, you could hear him playing in the studio sometimes, but it wasn’t the same thing.

A dry chuckle escaped your mouth.

“You make it sound so easy…” You murmur.

You didn’t want to be rude and knew that your comment was out of place. Immediately you shut your mouth.

“I-“ Your eyes widening.

Everybody’s attention was on you now, which you hated. Heeseung’s expression was once again unreadable.

“I’m going to bed.” You got up out of embarrassment and headed quickly to your room. Jungwon rushing behind you, but you ran faster up the stairs, until his voice calling you was long gone.

The sound of the waves filled up Heeseung’s ears. His pants were rolled up so the water on the shore wouldn’t wet them. Some clouds starting to prepare the sky for the rain. He liked the quiet, but often blamed himself for not stepping up at the right time. It wasn’t just his personality, Heeseung could be bold if he wanted to, he just preferred to observe from time to time.

Suddenly he heard your voice from afar. “Aren’t you coming to practice today? My dad has been looking for you everywhere…”

“I thought you didn’t want to see me?”

“Really? You barely ever spoke to me and that’s the first thing that comes to your mind?”

He took a step closer to you. His feet shifting the hot sand.

Standing in front of him you realized how tall he actually was. Some of his hair strands moved with the light wind and covered bits of his face. You felt your breath quicken as you tried to avoid his gaze.

He held out his hand to you.

“What?”

“Let’s try this again. Give me your hand please.” You freeze. “Uhm..”

“Come on…” He insisted. His eyebrows raising.

You reluctantly reached out, looking at him with squinted eyes, unsure of his intentions. He gently took your hand and kissed the back of it, leaning forward slightly.

You quickly got away from his hold.

“…Wh- What do you think you’re doing??”

His confidence suddenly gone as you noticed his ears getting red.

“I’m sorry. I-…I don’t know how to talk to you.” he admitted, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

“You look…so dumb right now. ” you chuckled at his embarrassment, almost laughing.

“I know, I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable last night.” His eyes softening and looking more sincere.

You didn’t think he did. It was more like you acted out of jealousy and you only blamed yourself for that.

You cleared your throat, not wanting to remember what happened. “Uhm…do you want to get away from here? I’m sure my dad wouldn’t mind for today.” You lied, but Heeseung seemed chattier than usual so it was worth it. He was surprised at your statement but still nodded slowly. A big smile printed on his face.

It was almost evening and the sun was setting already. Everybody was getting ready for dinner, so you could feel the lights from inside the houses illuminating the streets of the village.

After walking for a while you reached a swing on a nearby park, Heeseung following you with an amused look on his face.

He was now standing in front of you. “What are you, ten?” a mocking tone in his voice.

You rolled your eyes and shot him a look. “You’re so boring…” You stuck out your tongue at him, a grin pulling at your lips. “Come on, push me.”

Heeseung chuckled, taking his hands out of his pockets.

“You’re older than me and yet, here you are, swinging your legs like a little kid…”

Besides his provocative comment, he stood behind you, pushing you from your back. He watched as the chilly wind brushed your hair away from your face, softly tickling his hands each time he touched you. He was as delicate as possible and found himself staring at the way your sundress perfectly hugged your lower waist. The ends of it moving back and forth with the swing and, as you got closer, he could almost taste the sweet strawberry scent of the lollipop you held in your hand.

Heeseung was intoxicated by you, and of course he blamed it all on his feverish teenage hormones. Things were still pretty awkward between you two, but right at that moment he felt bolder than usual. He pushed you again — once, then twice, and then a third time. You began to feel the swing slowing down, coming to a stop with a quiet creak. You glanced back at him, a confused frown tugging at your brows, only to freeze as his hand moved toward you.

Heeseung’s touch was careful at first, but it sent a jolt through you when his finger brushed down your exposed spine. You inhaled sharply, suddenly aware of the way your chest was rising and falling. He moved slowly, deliberately, his fingers tracing the line of your back with a tenderness you hadn’t expected. The cool rain, which had started to drizzle, landed softly on your skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat that suddenly bloomed in your chest.

The touch lingered a little too long, his finger pressing gently into the curve of your lower back, making it hard to breathe. Everything around you seemed to blur, the sound of the rain mingling with the racing of your heartbeat. You couldn’t tell whether it was the rain or his touch that had made your skin shiver.

Then, just as quickly as it had started, he withdrew his hand, the sudden absence of his touch making you stand up, as though snapping yourself from a trance.

Turning around you noticed your drenched clothes. Your eyes widened as both of you realized how your parents would have eventually reacted if they saw you entering the house like this.

“We should head back.” You said.

Heeseung nodded at you with a soft smile, amused by your alerted reaction. Feeling the adrenaline rushing through his body, he started running and you followed him. You both were breathless, maybe because of your race, or maybe because of what had happened minutes before.

Reaching your house and not wanting to get caught, you exchanged a look with Jungwon who saw you from the window of the kitchen. His eyes widening. “What the…Get inside quickly!” He opened the porch door and let you in.

“Y/n you’re lucky nobody’s here! Where were you all day?? Go wash up before your mom comes back!”

You quickly ran upstairs, the sound of your wet footsteps echoing through the hallway, your heart still racing from the close call. You had barely made it inside before your mother could catch you drenched, and a wave of relief washed over you. You shut the bathroom door behind you, leaning against it for a moment to catch your breath. Heeseung’s touch, his hesitant smile, the way he looked at you like you were the only thing that mattered in that moment.

It had been too much, too fast, but you couldn’t deny the rush it left behind. You splashed your face with cold water, hoping to clear your head. You didn’t understand him yet, not fully. But somehow, you had a feeling you were about to.

to be continued…

[timedyne]

i love looking at the games in my steam library and then not playing them. its like people who collect wine claiming they're saving it for a special occasion. well i'm not even doing that. my steam library is a dumpster and my brain just goes into lockdown apocalypse mode if i try and play anything thats not the same two games over and over again.

[tamagotchikgs]

i am so envious of how soft everyone but My eyes look, ,, they r all so pretty n like. smooth. n i just have droopy thick eyelids that make me look like a very sick very old dog that u dont want to look at because it just makes u sad

[heartbeetz]

I NEED to get back into oc f/os. I just remembered my old casino themed anthro shark guy. He never got a solid enough ref sheet (or lore, really) for me to feel comfortable making him one of my f/os but maybe I should remedy that at some point. Big Jack.........

[izzy-b-hands]

Didn't think the 1989 version of The Woman In Black would be scarier than the one with Dan Radcliffe in it

I was Wrong flkjdsafkldsja, but I'm delighted to have been wrong. I had missed getting scared with more practical effects/careful timing of things in the background of shots appearing and disappearing, and this one scratches that itch well.

[pegglefan69]

hey can anybody explain to me what this means

[noxtivagus]

i dreamt of my old house 🥹🫶🏼

[unriding]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NIGHT FLOWER: part i

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

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

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

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

“I’ve alw███ l█ved ███, Ka██v█s███”

You knew it from the moment you met him.

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

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

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

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

You didn't belong to your slaver.

You belonged to him.

To Kakavasha.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“‘Aventurine’,” he corrected.

You stared blankly. “What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re hiring me?”

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

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

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

“Kakavasha—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And what have you lost, Vasha?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aventurine is always afraid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You could die,” you point out.

“You'll protect me.”

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

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

“Yes. Just by dumb luck.”

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

“You're a shit liar.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Because you can tell it's dangerous.”

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

You arch a brow. “...the weather?”

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

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

“Aventurine.”

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

“Aventurine.”

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

“Aventurine.”

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

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

“Retire? Why would I ever do that?”

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

“No such thing.”

“Then you can settle down with someone.”

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

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

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

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

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

“You can't know that.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing.

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

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

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

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

It gutted you.

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

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

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

“No,” he breathes, “I don't.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, you do.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hated being an alpha.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His grip on the sweater tightens. “No.”

You frown. “Aventurine—”

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

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

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

“I’ve barely—”

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

“You really need—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I wouldn’t let them touch you.”

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

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

“I know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winner takes all, he sometimes gloats.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you want to do?” you ask.

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

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

But he still doesn't stop you.

After a few more days, Aventurine finally breaks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just your wrist,” he says quietly.

You listen carefully. “What?”

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

“Okay.”

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

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

“Fine,” he says, breathing measured.

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

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

Both of you inhale sharply.

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

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

Fuck.

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

You pull back your hand, and Aventurine startles.

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

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

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

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

“Are you sure?” you ask.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath.

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

Something claws the walls of your heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not scared,” he lies. “Just…”

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

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

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

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

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

Aventurine is always afraid.

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

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

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

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

You nod.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—before he looks away.

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

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

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

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

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

To your surprise, he immediately punches in the code to unlock your muzzle. Aventurine has apparently remembered the numbers after all these years, as if the moment he freed you has been since seared into his memory.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing you say, and Aventurine gives you a confused look. He’s still panting, dazed, so you ask, “Can I check your temperature?” And when he nods, you confirm your suspicion: he's still much too warm.

There is an ache between your legs and a strange hollow in your gut (because you aren't very experienced with receiving, you think—your body likely just isn't used to the feeling of it), but you quickly forget them. All you can think of is Aventurine, and how he’s still unwell, and how you need to comfort him. The instinct is so strong that you don't even say anything as you get up, straightening out your clothes.

“Are you leaving?” Aventurine asks. His voice is neutral, completely unbothered, but the thought is so horrific to you that you turn back to him with wide eyes.

“Of course not. I'm going to get you water and medicine.” A beat. You stare at Aventurine’s eyes, then think about how he hid them from you during sex. The hollow feeling comes back, but it's mostly eclipsed by your anxiety at the next thought: “...do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to?”

“I—” I'd rather die, you think. Being forced to leave him right now would feel like tearing out a piece of yourself. You don't know if there's an alpha in this world who could leave their mate in the middle of a heat. And even if he is unmarked, unattached to you—you still think of yourself as his mate. (His, always his, even if he doesn't want you.) “I would prefer not to. I am your heat partner. I'm supposed to take care of you.”

You hear a quiet breath. “Right. Of course. You're always so conscientious.” Aventurine nods, as if convincing himself of something. “Try not to take too long.”

“I’ll come back soon,” you promise, and the air sweetens. Encouraged, you add, voice gentle: “I’ll bring that medication, and then we can have sex as many times as you need after I come back. I'll make sure you're not in any pain anymore.” You pause, studying him. “Is there anything else you need to feel better?”

His fragrance changes once more, this time in a way you don't totally recognize. “No.” His voice sounds strange. His scent is still foreign, fluctuating, possibly hinting at some kind of pain. The heat must be getting to him again—and of course it wasn't enough, what you just did, what you can provide. He likely needs to be filled to get any kind of lasting relief, but you left him empty. “No, that's all I want.”

You nod, forcing yourself to look calm. Ignoring the emptiness in your gut. It didn't feel bad, but you hope it'll feel better next time you have sex. You think it will. Alphas are supposed to be filled with an insatiable lust near omegas in heat, after all. And even though you’ve never felt that before—never felt anything sleeping with all those omegas in your mistress’ house—you are sure you'll eventually feel it around Aventurine.

But the feeling never comes. Even though you can tell that his heat has returned by the time you're back—sweat beading his temples, laboured breaths at his lips, his bottoms now discarded, with full evidence of arousal between his legs—you don't feel much of anything as you reach for your mask again.

“Don't,” Aventurine says, before it can clasp around your face. You give him a curious look. He explains, “Don't. I don't want to have sex again. Not yet.”

You stare at him, shifting. Uncomfortable. Uncertain. Not knowing how he wants to use you. “What can I do?”

He gives you a long look. “Come here. I… I want your scent gland.”

It's a sensible request. If there's a way to seek relief without fucking someone—without fucking you, which he clearly hated doing—you're sure Aventurine would prefer it. So you climb into his nest, holding your wrist out for him, and—

“No.” His voice is quiet. “I want the one on your neck.”

“...oh.”

You stand there, not sure where to move. If he wants you in his nest again, or if he’d rather do this standing. You’re relieved when he demands, “Lie down.”

You expect him to get on top of you when you do. Assume that he wants complete control—but he instead lies down beside you. Presses his body into yours, and then his face into your neck. His nose and lips brush against your scent gland, a full-body shudder running through him, and—

—and now you know for a fact that it is a lie that alphas want nothing other than to fuck an omega when they're in heat. Because even like this, with his lips sweet on your neck, with the sheets soaked with his slick, with his spend leaking out of you—you do not want to have sex with Aventurine. You only want to hold him. You only want him to keep scenting you. You only want to scent him back.

You only want him to feel safe.

You breathe in deeply, lungs flooded by honey. You think of what it felt like to hold him in that cold basement, when he was delirious with fever and pain, and you think about how different his scent is now. How much sweeter it is. How much calmer he feels.

“Do you feel better?” you ask, and he doesn't respond, but you know the answer. His hands come up to dig into your shirt, and he presses into you like you're a sweater in his nest. Silence blankets over you both, calm and warm. His laboured breath starts to improve.

He does eventually speak.

“Has anyone ever told you,” he says, “what you smell like?”

You stare at him. Your master used to say that you smelled good, but he'd never elaborated, and you hadn't wanted him to. “No.”

Aventurine breathes in.

“You smell like—” A little sigh, shaking and feverish, leaves him. “You smell like rain.”

Your eyebrows tick up. “Rain?”

“Yes. Or not just rain, but”—he pauses, next words quiet—“more Iike after it rains. You smell like the desert after a rainfall.”

“Oh.” You don't know what to say to that. Feeling distinctly like it's a silly question, you ask, “Is that a good scent?”

“Some would think so. Especially to people from the desert. You probably smell like a blessing to them. Although…”

Aventurine goes quiet again. You stare at the chandelier above you, all crystal and white gold, and wait.

“Although?” you prompt.

“...although I wouldn't really know,” he says. “It’s just a hunch. I bet it's why so many omegas on this planet like you.”

You couldn't care less about those other omegas. All you care about is Aventurine. “And?” you say. “Do you like my scent?”

His reply never comes. He just breathes deeply again, seeking relief from your neck—not intimacy. Any alpha’s scent would work; that doctor told you so. Any alpha’s touch would work, too. There are no special feelings involved here. Your place in the world is one of a tool, and tools are never especially liked nor disliked. Their value exists only in how they can be used.

You don't know why you even bothered to ask the question.

But then something strange happens: Aventurine curls against you, pressing even further into you. His lashes flutter against your pulse again; it ticks up in response, beating fast against his lips.

“I do,” he says quietly. “I do like it.”

You swallow. “But I guess that's because you're in heat. Any alpha would smell good to you, wouldn’t they?”

“No.” His fingers dig into the fabric of your shirt. “No, I like it because it's yours.”

You know better than to read too much into his response. Aventurine had already said it earlier: No foreign scents. He's only tolerating this whole arrangement because you don't smell unfamiliar to him. Only able to use you because you are the least threatening option.

But the words break something in you—break the thing that made you unable to throw out that little pouch of copper coins that you were saving up for Kakavasha’s freedom, the part of you that made you wear that carbon-steel mask for him. It is this part of you that has your eyes squeezing shut and your arms wrapping around him. You know he’ll recoil, reject you, but just this once—you need to try.

Aventurine doesn't push you away.

He melts into you instead, inhaling deeply. Your scent gland tingles with the warmth of his breath, the feeling of his lips. He seems—comfortable.

You can't fathom why he’s staying in your arms. Perhaps he's simply desperate for some kind of relief from his heat, just like when you held him in the basement while he was delirious from pain. But Aventurine had spoken to you with clarity just now, and his skin doesn't feel scalding so much as warm, and his scent is so different than from that moment. So sweet and so gentle, without a trace of fear. It makes your heart squeeze. As much as you've always wanted Aventurine to feel safe, you'd never imagined that his scent would be so beautiful when he is.

It makes your heart ache. You've never held anything so lovely before, and you’ve never felt so warm before, and it all makes up for how badly it hurt to let Aventurine inside you. How hollow it made you feel to let him use you. How none of that matters as long as you can keep him safe like this, because you belong to Kakavasha. You'll always belong to Kakavasha, in a fate that was chosen for you on the day you met him.

You're his, always his—even if he’ll never want you.

end part i

thank you so much to lore for hosting a fantastic collab and to my sponsors who funded this fic and got it over the finish line! please go check out @ficsforgaza to find other amazing hsr writers you can sponsor in order to help fundraise! here is my own wip list, if you are interested in seeing more from me!

and thank you most of all to YOU! I appreciate you so much for reading this chapter. thank you so much for sticking it through.

additional end notes

[arolesbianism]

In other news Odile crashed my game during her friend quest. Smiles in pain.