#can you imagine if things were different?

[mandalhoerian]

Fish in a Birdcage ৎ୭

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

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

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

ৎ୭ ⸻ 26K, read on ao3

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

You know, a Lemurian.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, I’m not.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do my neck too?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What for?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But you wanted to see—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked better, at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once he began to create, however...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He remained unresponsive.

“Rafayel?”

You made it about yourself, idiot, you realized.

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

Gosh, you were absolutely terrible at this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Receptive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apparently they had.

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

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

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

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

Which was dry.

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

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

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

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

Yeah, you were taking him to a hospital.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To call it desire wouldn't do it justice.

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

All of this, because you had merely wanted to—

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

But—

“In every sense of the word.”

Oh?

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

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ugh, this man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(So much for enjoying your concern.)

Really, this was your fault.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At 3 AM. In the dead of night.

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

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

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

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

And, of course, there was the doting.

So much doting.

Which was rare for you.

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

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

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

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

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

Which, eventually, became a visit to the ocean.

An ocean.

In the middle of a desert.

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

It was a miracle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet.

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

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

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

Not until you.

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

(It was snowing in the desert.)

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

(It was snowing in the desert.)

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

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

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

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

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

Only you.

(It was snowing in the desert.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he couldn't keep going like this.

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

And you had no idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I won't leave you.”

Liar, his grudge wanted to answer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(So adorable. So endearing.)

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

"Rafayel..?"

"Yeah?"

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

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

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

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

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

Art salon.

Yeah, the art salon gathering.

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

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

“…Rafayel?”

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

He could… He could skip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was a weak man.

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

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

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

But he couldn't keep being like this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Focus.)

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

And then. The tug.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey, Rafayel, man, you good?"

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

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

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

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

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

He was in love.

You were in Rafayel’s room.

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

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

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

His robe.

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

How could he expected himself to stay away from this?

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

He felt a push at his chest.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And you bit him.

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

“Why are you here?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the hell? Now?

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

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

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

More than this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was a homecoming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What, not pleased you got caught?”

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

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

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

“Or, are you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was that easy to change his mood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just returning to the original plan.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mouth wide open.

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

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

"Pffft!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Rafayel.”

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

“Rafayel…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You broke first.

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

Then you yanked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You want a reward for that?”

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

“Oh yes, the most infuriating actor—”

“Aaand you goofed it—”

“—impossibly—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Shut up or no head.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Permission to talk?”

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

“Go ahead, handsome.”

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

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

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

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

"Are you really asking?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then, Rafayel saw the pearly gates.

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

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

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

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

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

Just how pent-up was he?

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

And it still wasn't nearly enough.

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

"Rafa—"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He huffed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rafayel had you for three more times after that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was beyond insatiable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And god, did he listen well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That’s one bleak drawing.”

“Depends on what you see.”

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

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

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

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

Rafayel just smiled.

[nsharks]

bleeding blue | apocalypse au

part thirty —other parts

pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x fem!reader words: 3.8k tags: death. blood and gore. zombies of course. AFAB reader. single dad ghost. enemies to lovers. SA and implication of child SA (very subtle). summary: After losing your companions, you run into a skull-masked man and his daughter. They are your last hope for survival. a/n: this chapter is all from Blue's perspective. if anything regarding the abuse or suffering of children triggers you do not read. though it is really not graphic at all (imo) and the SA is EXTREMELY implied and subtle (just a woman looking/potentially touching Blue's private area to check for virginity). I wanted to tell you so there are no surprises.

B

Blue hasn’t been without her father for more than an hour in over five years. There were moments when she'd imagined him disappearing, especially when he said no to her, when he could annoy her, push her too hard, or withhold the words she craved. And yet—now, with her head resting in Twix's lap, she can only long for him. The thought of his absence fills her with cold dread. The kind that erupts goosebumps on her arms despite the stuffy air in the room. Twix’s fingers gently stroke the back of her scalp, but it does little to ground her as her mind drifts to Ghost. He’s alive, that woman said. But it's been over a day, and he still hasn’t come for her.

"Do you think he will come soon?" she asks quietly.

Twix's fingers pause at the top of her hairline. "I think... I think he is doing everything he can to find you."

Blue is old enough to know that is a non-answer.

She knows, deep down, that Twix doesn't think he'll be coming, either.

"I will figure something out, okay?" she promises.

"Okay," Blue whispers noncommittally.

"Hey." A faint smile. "I've done pretty good at getting us out of shit in the past, right?"

Blue mumbles, "I guess so."

But this time felt different from those times. No matter how many times she catches Twix squinting around the room, murmuring things to Nereida, even Blue knows that a bright idea won’t magically appear. Not in here, where there is nothing except the three beds, the bolted cell, and the out-of-reach door that Ghost has yet to barge through.

When Blue's fingers instinctively search for her wrist, Twix’s face softens, and she gently encloses her palm over Blue's knuckles. "Alright. I want you to close your eyes and imagine that beach you showed me once. The one with white sand, and super blue water." Blue plays along with a deep sigh, closing her eyes as she feels a callused thumb brush her cheek. "Almost as blue as your eyes. See it?"

"I guess."

"Good. Now, I want you to imagine that you are lying on the sand, eating all the Twix bars and Nutella you want. Oh, and Grim is there. He was trying to make a sandcastle but got his head stuck in the sand."

Blue's lips twitch despite herself. "This is dumb."

"Dumb? Well, I don't think Grim finds it dumb. He can hardly breathe right now so you better stop eating chocolate and haul his ass up."

Blue snorts quietly, eyes screwing tighter as she imagines it; pulling the bunny out of the sand, giggling, the waves crashing. She falls back onto the sand with him in tow, but he darts away from her hands, toward the water. When she looks over, sun glaring, someone else is there. It's her father, and for a moment she is ready to jump on his back and beg him to play in the waves with her. That's when she notices he is keeled over, ripped apart, bloodied and battered.

Blue jolts, inhaling sharply. When she reopens her eyes, the image is still there. 

"What's wrong?" 

"I just saw—" she rubs her eyes profusely, but he's right in front of her. Blood begins to spurt from a sever in his throat. His head snaps forward, hanging by a thin thread of tissue. "I see him! H-his head is..." 

She jerks upright from Twix's lap, her eyes blinking rapidly as if trying to shake off the vision. When that doesn't help, she buries her face in the pillow, but the image remains too real to ignore. The thread snaps, and her father’s head rolls away silently.

Twix’s voice cuts through, her hands gently shaking Blue’s shoulders, but it feels distant, like a shadow compared to the sickening thud of her father’s headless body hitting the ground. Thick blood pools at her feet, and she tries to move, but her muscles won’t obey. The blood rises and rises, suffocating her, until she can’t breathe.

"Blue, it's just... you're imagining it."

"I can't... I can't..."

Someone flips her over on the bed and hugs her shoulders.

Twix's chapped lips press into her cheek.

"Please, Blue. I'm here."

The touch is enough to drain the blood and free her lungs. Her father's dead body floats away. She gulps for air, cold sweat clinging to her neck, and curls into the body beside her. Lingering panic races through her heartbeat, but then, after a minute, it begins to slow considerably. A new feeling washes over with the force of a tidal wave; fatigue.

Blue suddenly feels so tired that she can't keep her eyes open. It’s as though the terrible images have drained her entirely, leaving only murky water in their place. Her mind begins to float, and the edges of the world blur. Twix's face is in front of her yet feels so far away. Her lips try to part for words to come out, but it takes three tries just to manage: "I feel strange."

Across the cell, Nereida whispers, "I do, too."

Weight shifts on the mattress as Twix tries to sit up, leaning against the wall. Her head dips slightly, then snaps back up. A shaky inhale. "That... that fucking bitch. The oatmeal!"

The oatmeal? Blue’s thoughts latch onto the warm meal they’d been forced to eat, but the memory slips away before she can hold onto it. The slow descent snowballs. Twix’s voice distorts, blending with the chirping of birds outside the window. Her body slides down the wall, crumpling back beside Blue. She tries to hug Twix again, but her arms won’t cooperate.

Minutes later, or maybe hours, Blue hears the metal screech of the cell door swinging open. Veiled ghosts drift in. She can do nothing to run from them. Murmured voices, speaking words she doesn't understand, bleed through the heavy blanket of fog lying over her.

"Vous avez dit que celui-ci était intact?"

"Oui, Maman."

"Nous offrirons son corps pur au Seigneur. Les deux autres seront aptes à avoir des enfants."

"Mais elle est une... Je veux dire, oui, Maman."

She feels something cold and sinuous lifting her—snakes. No, not snakes. Hands. Cold, unfamiliar hands. Twix shouts something slurred. Then Blue is dragged by her feet, her spine no longer supported by the bed. She tries to squirm free, but her limbs feel heavy, useless. More hands clamp down on her arms.

No, no.

She wants to call for Twix, but her voice is muffled beneath a palm, the sound dying in her throat.

A weathered voice coos in her ear. "Sweet child. There is nothing to fear."

She can't scream.

All she knows is Twix is no longer the one beside her.

Cold fear surges through her veins, and she claws at someone’s arm. The retaliation is swift—a prick to her neck.

The strike of pain intensifies her dizziness, the last fight in her body fading away. They're dragging her again. The hard floor beneath her feet melts into soft grass, and the stark white ceiling shifts into a blue, cloudless sky before everything fades to black.

A gentle melody repeats in her subconscious until she rouses.

The same three-note tune, over and over.

Peeling her eyes open against the buttery sunlight, the first thing she notices is an open window above her head, its thin white curtain dancing in the light breeze. Upon the windowsill sits a small, cooing bird with pearly grey feathers and a black ring around its neck. Its head tilts almost mechanically, two little black eyes regarding her. She stares for a long moment before her eyes fall closed once more, lulled by the familiar call. Only when the bird quiets does she truly come to her senses. The sudden silence jolts her upright.

This isn't the same room she was in before. There hadn’t been a window in the cell, and certainly not one left open. The air there had been thick with the scent of old wood and lingering dust. But here... here, the air is different. It smells of fresh flowers, of the tall grass she used to wade through with Ghost while hunting. 

The bird calls once more before flittering away, leaving her reeling.

"A collared dove."

Her gaze snaps to the right where an old woman sits in a mahogany chair, knitting needles in hand. Without looking up from the red yarn she weaves, she explains idly, "They are very common. Lovely, but common."

The accent of her old voice is nothing like Blue's Mancunian one. But she understands each word.

Her voice pulls through her teeth with great effort. "I don't... Where am I?"

The old woman's brow furrows as if she is deep in thought, but it smoothes over after she undoes a stitch and loops it again, hands moving with an unnatural slowness. "You had them in England, yes? They are very common there, too."

Blue's fingers spread into the fine linen, her pulse ticking as she blinks a few times to sharpen her vision. The woman before her is older than anyone she has seen in a long time, though there is a faint resemblance to a woman deep in her memory who she believes was her grandmother. Unlike the woman who visited their cell with food, this one does not wear a veil over her face. Long wisps of gray hair fall over her shoulders. Wrinkles etch around her eyes and lips. She is still cloaked in white, but around her neck hangs a red cord beaded with a cross dangling at the end.

Her fingers clench. "I don't care about the-the stupid bird. Why am I here? Where are my friends? You..." she swallows the feel of sandpaper in her mouth, "You put something in the food. You made me lose control of myself again!"

Finally, grey-blue eyes flicker up beneath a questioning brow. "Oh, sweet child. You are so full of fire." With an unsettling calmness, the woman sets down the knitting needles on a carved side table. Pressing a palm to the surface of it, she rises slowly, then laces her hands in front of her. "Come, and perhaps your questions will be answered. Though, I wouldn't try to run." She moves toward the door, her gait shuffled but steady. A glance over her shoulder beckons. "Your friends are under my care."

The mere mention stiffens Blue's spine. She forces herself to her unsteady feet, swaying slightly, bare toes digging into the wood planks. Each small step feels lighter than the first time she woke up from being drugged, though her body still protests. Ahead, the woman is already walking away. It wouldn’t take much to catch up, but Blue lingers, her eyes sweeping the room with deliberate caution—always stay aware of your surroundings.

For a moment, she considers grabbing the knitting needle and stabbing the woman. But then what? Everyone, her father included, is under her care, and any misstep could mean their deaths. Ghost always told her to never act without some type of plan—to wait for the right moment. Blue doesn’t even know where the others are.

As she hesitantly steps out of the small house, the realization hits her. There are more people here than she’s seen in a long time. Almost like a town, but not really. Smaller than that, but more than her group. The building they just left is a small, home made of light grey stone. To her right are more homes, smoke billowing from the chimneys. She counts at least four of them. Straight ahead of her is gravel road. This is where the woman heads, with Blue trailing behind her. To the left is a stretch of green lawn, bright and lush. She has the itch to sprint over it, but a voice ends that idea.

"Catch up, girl." 

Gravel bites her toes as she walks to the woman's side. She is still only dressed in the simple, white slip. She hasn't worn a dress before.

"Where are you taking me?"

"There are some things I wish you to see." 

"Why... why can't the friends I was with be here to see them, too?"

From the corner of her eyes, Blue catches the woman smile lightly. "What do you think of France?"

Blue digs her nails into her palms, swallowing down her frustration at the non-answer. "It's... nice, I guess." It isn't a lie. The beautiful beach they left from, the fields of wheat and flowers, were things she'd only imagined before. 

"Good. My husband was from India but owned this land. I never wanted to leave it. France is the most beautiful place. I knew I wanted my son to grow here." She exhales in a quiet appreciation. "My husband said this land would thrive, even after the plague. He was right. The Lord spared it. He did not spare Ashwin, though."

Blue doesn't know what to say to that. If she should feel sorry for this person or not. She didn't state her husband's death in a sorrowful way, merely factual. As they walk, they pass a few men hunched over tree stumps, chopping wood. The smell of fresh earth and spilt sap wafts up her nose. The men glance up, their gazes lingering on Blue a moment too long, making her shift uncomfortably. Then, they lower their heads respectfully toward the woman. She speaks to them in French, and their chuckles follow her words.

Under a warm afternoon, they approach what looks like a large barn, bordered by wooden fence posts strung with taut wires. Inside the fenced area, Blue notices a white horse, smaller than Cherry, along with four cows. More men are working nearby, some tending to the animals while others, farther off, wield sickles to harvest stalks of wheat.

When they stop in front of the fence, Blue can't stop herself from asking, "Where are all the girls at? Like the one who fed us? I've only seen guys so far."

The woman doesn't look at her. "Our community is built around the roles God intended for us. Men have bodies made for working under the sun. Women, like those beautiful young ladies you traveled with, are vessels to be cherished, protected. Especially in these times when they have become rather scarce."

A few of the words fail to make sense to Blue, never having learned them from any of the books Ghost read her. "Um, is that why you separated the girls in my group from the men?"

She hums, a slow sound. "Women are kept in their own quarters with the infants."

"Okay," Blue rocks on her feet and grips the hem of the dress before the light air can catch it. So is her dad one of those men working, then? She squints, confused, and shakes her head. No; if he was anywhere out here, he would've come to her. He must be locked up, too. A wave of anger buzzes in her chest, louder than the cicadas. "That still doesn't explain why you are holding Twix and Nereida prisoner. If women are so special, why are they locked up and I am out here? And where are all the men from my group?" Her mind briefly flashes to the others; Kyle, Price, and... Ari. 

"None of them are prisoners, child. They are merely being readied for the role their bodies were created for, by God."

Blue grits her teeth. "You're not really answering my questions. What about me? Why did you bring me to," she glances back at the working men, who haven't stopped to look at her like the others had, too engrossed in the strenuous labor. "A fucking farm. What could you possibly want to show me here?"

"There is someone I need here before our next stop." She leans closer to the barbed fence and calls out, "Pierre! J'ai besoin de toi et de trois hommes pour nous accompagner jusqu'à la cale. Apporte les chaînes."

A man—Pierre, she guesses—strikes one of the cattle's hindquarters, wipes sweat from the back of his neck, then shouts in French to three others following behind him. They unlatch a gate in the fence and slip inside a small shed for a brief moment, emerging with rusted chains in hand. They approach, causing Blue to falter and step back. An old, strange woman is one thing, but three strong men are another. A fissure of terror cracks through her, and she inhales shakily.

"You need not be afraid."

She blinks up at the woman, who for a moment, conjures something similar to a comforting expression. Blue nods, and then they are walking again, with the four men trailing behind them. The sound of the chains dangling in their grasp makes her feel uneasy. What are they for, and why are they coming with them? She is ready to build the bravery to ask when the woman ghosts a hand on her shoulder.

"What is your name, child?"

"It's... um, Blue."

A soft chuckle. "The English and their strangeness. This is not your real name, is it?"

For some reason, Blue finds the truth stuttering out of her. "No, it's—the name I was born with is Amelia."

"Amelia. Much better. Tell me, Amelia, did your mother have blue eyes?"

Blue nearly chokes, her footsteps halting in the grass as she flinches away from her hand, curling her fingers into fists. "What the fu��why are you asking me that?"

The woman stops beside her and clasps her hands together, the long sleeves of her gown falling over them. She is a small woman, hardly taller than Blue, and can't be any stronger than she is, but something about her emits control. Blue can't look away from her eyes, even as her jaw tightens, stomach swirling.

"There are many answers to questions that can be discovered on their own if one simply looks for them. I know which one of them is your father—"

"How could you know?" Blue demands. "I haven't even said any of them was my dad."

Thin lips twitch at the side. "A daughter gets the shape of her face from her father." A bony finger reaches to trail the edge of Blue's cheek, and she trembles from the cold feel of it. "But the features are all from her mother." She looks away and continues walking, speaking over her shoulder, "A little dove might have also told me he was asking for you."

When the men step forward, Blue is forced to continue walking. It feels hard to breathe, even though the canopy of trees offer fresh, rich air. "Then why are you asking about my mother?"

"Your eyes are blue, but your father's are not. I was simply curious."

"My mother is dead," Blue finds herself gritting out. 

"I figured. Neither of those women were her, and many mothers have been lost. A very terrible thing. A child needs its mother. You will call me Maman, Amelia. This is what French children call their mothers."

"I am not going to fucking call you that. Tell me where we are going," Blue presses, swallowing as she looks back at the farm behind them. Through the gaps between the men's shoulders, she sees that it is rather distant now, along with the small homes. She looks back ahead; nothing but overgrown vegetation. Even the flowers have grown sparse over here. It is quiet and still. She can hear the thrum of her own heart.

"Your fire is admirable, but you need to learn respect." For the first time, Maman's voice carries an edge, one that sends a shiver down Blue's spine. A foreign bird call echoes through the leaves, and the woman holds up a hand, signaling for everyone to stop and listen. "Ah. That’s the Bluethroat, if I’m not mistaken. Much rarer than the dove. You won't often find those in England."

The bird calls again—a trilled chirp—as they crest over a small hill, and the air suddenly grows heavier, more pungent. A smell Blue knows well makes her freeze, but a strong grip on her arm keeps her moving toward the source of the stench: an old, smaller building made of much darker stone. The sharp rustle of wings through the trees fades into the distance, but the tension in her body doesn’t ease.

"You, too, are rare, Amelia," Maman continues, voice steady and unhurried. "A pure, young female like you—so virtuous—carries more favor from God than any other. Your friends have their purpose, and you have yours. Each of us plays a part in shaping the new vision of God's children."

The men move in front of them now, except for one who continues gripping Blue. The tremble in her body intensifies, and a cold pit grows unbearable in her chest, thundering. She is forced to stand about four meters in front of the large door, where one man grips the handle while two others, including Pierre, stand beside it, their hands ready with chains and their stances wide. It’s now, through the stinging film that grows over her eyes, that Blue notices large metal muzzles attached to the chains.

Blue is too stunned—too confused, yet frightfully aware—to move a muscle when Maman procures a knife from inside her robe. Pierre shouts something in French, but Blue can barely hear him. Her senses are fixed on the bead of sunlight glinting off the knife, and on the scratching and snarling she hears from the other side of the door.

"Please—" she gasps, unable to finish the thought.

Maman ignores her in favor of snatching hold of her wrist. Cold fingers force her arm to extend, and a burning pain cries out when the knife slashes a laceration from her elbow to the rim of her palm. 

"Une seule coupure pour les attirer."

The blood weeps, and the door shakes from the ignited frenzy behind it.

Tears finally escape Blue’s eyes just before the door opens. She feels it—the sensation of her body being torn apart beneath rotten teeth. She squeezes her eyes shut, thinking of Ghost, when she hears more shouting and the harsh sound of chains being whipped through the air. When she opens her eyes again, the men are wrestling two Greys into the muzzles.

"Deux c'est bien!" Maman orders, and the door is slammed shut over the others that threaten to spill out toward the fresh wound. 

Blue is alive.

Her arm numb and bleeding. 

Maman yanks something else from her robe—a strip of cloth. She wraps it roughly around Blue's forearm, then issues another command. Without warning, Blue is hoisted from the ground and callously tossed over the shoulder of the man who had held her in place. They start heading back the way they came, the leashed Greys trailing behind them, and finally, a scream rips from Blue’s throat.

"You said this one was intact?" "Yes, Maman." "We will offer her pure body to the Lord. The other two will be fit to have children." "But she is a… I mean, yes, Maman." "Pierre! I need you and three men to accompany us to the hold. Bring the chains." "One cut to attract them.” “Two is good!”

[multific]

A Wedding Beneath The Moonlight

Count Orlok x Reader

Summary: Every girl's dream is to find a man and have the perfect wedding. But everyone has different meanings of perfection.

The night was still, and the air was cold, carrying the soft scent of pine from the nearby forest.

Above you, the full moon cast its glow across the darkened grounds of the ancient castle.

Tonight was the night of your wedding.

You stood alone in one of the upper chambers, looking at yourself in your reflection in a tarnished mirror.

The dress you wore was unlike anything mortal hands could create.

Crafted by Nosferatu himself, he insisted on making your dress.

The dress shimmered faintly in the moonlight, a fabric of deep midnight blue that flowed like a shadow around you.

Tiny silver threads were sewn into the material, resembling stars scattered across a night sky.

The bodice was fitted, embroidered with delicate patterns of ancient symbols, his symbols, while the long sleeves clung to your arms before flaring out at the wrists.

A faint breeze moved through the open window, causing the veil resting on your head to move gently.

It was sheer, as thin as mist, and it framed your face perfectly.

You ran your hands down the length of the dress, your fingers trembling slightly with anticipation.

This was the moment you had dreamed of, literally.

The moment you would bind yourself forever to him, the creature who had once been a shadow in the night but had now become the very centre of your world.

There was no priest, no audience. It would be just the two of you and the moon, as it had always been meant to be.

A soft knock echoed through the heavy wooden door, and you turned, your heart quickening.

When the door creaked open, there he stood, your beloved.

His pale skin seemed even more pale beneath the moonlight, his crimson eyes glowing softly as they locked with yours.

He was dressed in a long, dark cloak of velvet, the collar high and stiff, giving him an air of regal elegance. Around his neck hung an ancient pendant, a symbol of his lineage. His heavy breathing filled the room as your heart hammered against your ribs.

“You look…” He paused, his voice low and careful. “You look like the night itself, beautiful and eternal.”

“And you look like my forever.” you offered him a shy smile.

He extended his hand to you, and you took it, his cool fingers wrapping around yours. Together, you descended the winding stone staircase, your footsteps echoing softly in the silence.

The air grew colder as you stepped outside into the courtyard, you shivered slightly under the cold air.

There, beneath the open sky, the ceremony would take place. Just as you wished.

No torches or lanterns, the moon provided all the light you required.

Count Orlok turned to face you, his eyes locking with yours.

He held both your hands in his, and though his touch was cold, it brought you comfort. You could feel the strength in him, the ancient power that moved through his veins, yet there was something else.

A small humanity, only for you, remaining in him alive.

“I have lived for centuries. Through endless nights, I have wandered alone, never imagining that I would find something to make eternity enjoyable. But then I found you. You, who brought light into my darkness. You, who showed me that even a creature of the dark can love. I vow to you, to protect you, to cherish you, to honour you. You are my light, and I will spend eternity by your side.”

A tear slipped down your cheek, and you gave his hands a gentle squeeze. “And I vow to you, My Count, to stand by your side, through darkness and light. You are my heart, my soul, my love. I choose you, Count Orlok, for all eternity."

Slowly, he lifted your hand to his lips, brushing a kiss on your knuckles. His eyes gleamed with something more than love.

“There is only one thing left. A kiss to seal our vows,” he said, his voice a whisper.

With a gentle touch, he cupped your face in his hands. As he leaned in, you closed your eyes, you fully gave yourself to him.

When his lips met yours, it was as if the entire world disappeared, leaving only the two of you, bound together beneath the watchful eyes of the moon.

The kiss was long and lingering, filled with the promise of forever.

When you finally pulled away, your eyes still closed, you smiled up at him, heart full.

“You are my wife now,” he said, his voice soft but filled with possessive pride. “My empress of the night.” He slipped a beautiful gold ring on your finger.

“And you are my husband. My eternal love.” A ring for him too.

As the wind howled with fear. People living close by felt the coldness of the night. The dread. The world was scared.

And while others trembled with fear, under the same moon, Count Orlok and his bride began theirs forever.

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

Wattpad

/DO NOT TRANSLATE, STEAL OR REPOST ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

[niccolites]

green cliffs: - lessons in mortality. chapter four

highlander!soap x fem!reader. cw dubcon and period typical violence. read on ao3 here

There is a large exhale of wind as night turns into morning. You roll around in unfamiliar sheets, plotting how to escape when you are next given the opportunity.

Johnny’s father had been a saving grace. Although he accepted that you and Johnny were already wed, he had wanted it officialised at a wedding for everyone to see before he could allow you and Johnny to stay in the same bedroom together. You were granted to stay in Johnny’s chamber while Johnny would take one of the many guest rooms. With how you are woken up, you imagine that it hadn’t made much of a difference, your innocence already compromised anyway.

You were used to the wake up from Ian, the pinch of his fingers on your cheek as he was already half telling you what needed done - feed the chickens, brush down the horses, check on the stock at the back of the cupboards. You wake up, half hopeful, cheek already smarting as if in preparation of him. Johnny blinks down at you, half-lidded. Beautiful but terrible.

“I’ll be back soon, angel,” he murmurs into the tilt of your neck, leaving a slick kiss there that has you shuddering. You swallow down the urge to snap at him to get off of you, letting him do as he wishes for the moment. Your compliance earns you a hand down your side, Johnny huffing as he rounds his palm over your hip.

He lifts his head, suddenly, gazes at you for a moment. You blink up at him, the image of docility, which has him squinting. You stay still, let him cup your jaw in the broad of his hand. His hair is mussed up from sleep, fluffy and loose in the morning. His beard is only slightly thicker than it had been when you had first met, a little darker.

His pupils dilate then pinch, taking in the expressions of your face. “Ah willnae be gone long,” he says, serious in a way that sends a different kind of shake through you. A warning. You nod as best you can, your chin digging into his palm. He squints for another moment. His thumb digs into the soft give beneath the bolt of your jaw. Just before you can crack under his hard stare, it dissipates and he dips his head to steal another kiss from you. “Wait fer me,” he bids you, and leaves.

You watch from the window, as he takes his horse from Mrs Duncan’s nephew - the stablemaster. You sit at the window, holding your chin like a phantom ache that Johnny has left behind. You can see his head, no bigger than your nail, tilt back as if seeking you out in the window. You doubt he can see you but he stares for a moment, hand near his clavicle as if in prayer before he bows his head and Cerberus starts to move.

You sit and wait, watching as he starts the journey towards the small village just outside of the Keep. He gets smaller and smaller, barely a dot in your vision and then not even that.

You jump up and stride over to Johnny’s desk. The clothes that you had left yesterday are folded neatly on the ornate chair. You had managed to salvage your stays from your dress before it had been spirited away by Mrs Duncan at some point while you were away from Johnny’s room. Your new dress is a softer cotton, a light blue skirt and a thick, dark woolen shawl that you tie around your clavicle. The bag filled with what little things you had managed to bring with you sits in the chair, ready to be picked up and returned to where they belong.

You do your stays up slowly, knotting the string up your chest. Johnny has barely been gone for part of an hour. Although you would be on foot, you didn’t want to chance him spotting you while you were still so near to the Keep.

In the dark of Johnny’s room, the smell of him buried in his sheets even though Mrs Duncan had replaced them, you had planned. If Johnny was less eager, maybe you could have waited for a better opportunity to attempt to run away, but you had felt time slip from endless into mere hours, minutes. 

You don’t know where the closest priest is, likely in that small village just outside the Keep, but Johnny hadn’t seemed certain. His father had been discussing how the vicar may have been summoned to another village to perform burial rites just the other week, and so may still be making that slow journey back.

It is a risk, stealing away and going towards the village, with the chance that the first stable you approached, Johnny would appear. But, it was one that you would have to take. It would be too noticeable if you were to take one of the horses at the Keep’s stable, and you didn’t know how long the journey home would take on foot.

You tidy the bed, as if smoothing away any evidence that you had ever been there in the first place. You half-expect someone to catch you in the corridor, stop you and ask where you’re going. The few maids that pass you may give you a second glance but they keep quiet, scurrying like mice to wherever they need to go.

You exit out into the foreground, feel the sun beat down on your face, familiar, like an old friend. Long days out in the field, tilling until blisters form on your palms. Your skin itches with the sudden craving for it, and you set out, nose like a bloodhound. You don’t belong here, trapped in a room with Johnny and soft dresses. You need dirt under your hands, you didn’t realise until it was taken from you.

You cross the open ground of the Keep, people milling around as they go about their day. You reach the stone entrance, hesitate for half a moment before stepping from gravel into grass. Muscles tense as you wait for something to happen, for someone to stop you. The cacophony of noise behind you doesn’t suddenly stop, no one seems to take much notice.

You take another step then another, wanting to run, to get as much distance between you and the Keep as possible. You know you shouldn’t, though. You’re still in view of the Keep, and you don’t know if anyone is watching you too closely, but if they are, that may send them chasing after you. Better to walk, worst case you can always say that you were looking for Johnny, lovesick in the preparation of your nuptials, barely able to stand a morning away from him.

You imagine that Johnny will move on swiftly. Maybe rage when he first finds you gone, if you were trying to flatter yourself. However, another maiden would be in distress, and Johnny would swoop in and the story would repeat itself. You had half a mind to ask if you were the first woman that Johnny had brought home in such a manner, but had decided to leave it be. If you weren’t, you were likely to be replaced soon in any case.

It feels good to stretch your legs, stretching out your back as you go. You reckon that Ian will have something to say about your newfound laziness, a harsh wake-up required to get back to the realities of farm living.

You try to keep your mind occupied, but you drift back to thoughts of Johnny. You can vividly feel the press of his nose into your temple. His hands on your skin, rough and skirting, always shifting against you, as if trying to touch all of you at once. The dark hair across his chest, the thick press of muscle against his skin. You imagine another woman in his room, letting him kiss her the same way that he had with you. There is a bitter taste in the back of your throat but you ignore it. Only you can taste it after all.

Within the hour you have crossed the open grounds and are on the cusp of the village. It had been bustling when you had originally passed through, crowds of people at the market, selling and buying from stalls. Now, everything is still, a gust of wind blowing between cottages and whistling in a way that has the hair on the back of your neck rising.

The warmth of the sun seems trapped on the rooftops, unable to reach you on the ground. You hesitate, grass under your feet turning to dirt that has been packed in after being walked over so many times. There could be another village that you could visit, that you could beg a horse from, or even just directions and walk. But, you barely know the area, and another village could be a day away, and you could be heading in the completely wrong direction.

You shuffle, uncertain, and turn to look back at Dundardy Keep. Easily a mile away now, but you imagine that you can see the shadows of people in all of the windows. Watching you, keeping an eye in Johnny’s absence. You think you can see a figure, near the entrance of the Keep, and you wonder if you are being followed after all.

There’s nothing to be done for it. You step into the village, and make your way forward.

The loose fabric on a stall shifts against the wooden plank of its counter, wriggling like a hand in your direction. You stand in what seems to be the centre of the village, a loose circle, surrounded with abandoned stalls and a few cottages before they span down different paths into more homes.

You can hear the faintest sound, a murmur in one of the cottages. The lively scene that had welcomed Johnny is long gone, everyone gone into hiding. Nothing had been said about the village last night. Just that the local vicar may be in another village. Contrasted with the liveliness of the Keep, you think that you may have stepped onto another country, one with an absence of residents.

You head down one of the paths, a few minutes later, emerging onto the other side of the village. There is a stable here, with a few horses, and the sight of them nosing at some hay, as normal as can be, fills you with a sense of relief. Here is reality, as welcome as a bowl of warm soup.

You stretch your hand to one of the mares, and she lets you pet down her nose, nickering at you softly. You worry your lip looking over your shoulder. The village is in hiding, no one is around to help you out. If you cannot get directions, at least it would be less exhausting to be heading in the wrong direction if you found this out on the saddle.

It feels wrong to steal, especially in the shadow of a Laird. Your own village were tenants, but Ian had always dealt with the rent, always spoken with the men who were sent out to collect. This close by to the Keep, you imagine the crime is tenfold, and the punishment even steeper.

You feel owed this, though. Dragged out here by Johnny, you feel that you deserve to help yourself out. Besides, once you were back in your home, you could return, ride one of your own horses and guide this one home. Johnny would likely be back in the Keep in that distant future, another bride on his arm. Hopefully, this one would be a bit more excited by the prospect.

You unclip the latch of the stable door, the horses huffing as you step inside. There are saddles hitched to the back wooden wall and you consider taking one as well before you deny yourself. It is one thing to steal a horse (borrow, you remind yourself), but it is another to just help yourself while you’re at it.

You do take some reins. You had ridden bareback on a horse before, but you hadn’t without reins, and you didn’t want to find out just now if you had the gift for it. You come back over to the mare who butts her head into your chest, affectionate in a way that has you giggling before you hush yourself.

You secure the reins in place before you toss them over the length of her neck, about to turn to guide her out of the stall when you feel the heat of a body behind you.

“Helping yourself out, eh?” A voice hisses, then there are hands on your upper arms, digging into the flesh. You don’t recognise it, and that makes your blood cool before it heats again, hot panic that almost spooks the horses when the man drags you out and you kick out, frightened.

You are tossed into the ground, a familiar experience that has you gasping. If the voice wasn’t Scottish, you might think that the last few days hadn’t happened and you were back on your farm.

You attempt to scramble backwards but the man is too quick. You are grabbed by your hair and dragged upwards. The man starts walking and you have no choice but to keep your pace with him, a hand on his wrist that is in your hair, as if to lessen the pain stinging your scalp. He’s muttering to himself, calling you a dirty thief, how you will seek penance. With the vicar seemingly gone, you wonder what that penance will look like.

“Where are you taking me?” you ask, and regret it when he yanks on your hair to shut you up.

“Shut yer thievin’ mouth,” the man hisses at you. He’s much older than you, balding and worn looking. You think of those Englishmen who had treated you like a plaything. Only that third man had looked at you with true hate, the way that this man does. It cows you, forces you to lower your eye as best as you can.

You are brought back through those empty paths that you had walked down, and brought to the chapel near the side of town, where your captor kicks the door in and throws you inside before slamming the doors shut again. It’s quiet here, here is where the sunlight had been trapped, filtering in through the weak windows and caught in the pews.

You rub at your scalp, gingerly, and get yourself up, looking up the aisle to look at the pulpit at the end. This is likely where the Sunday sermon is read.

Ian was always more religious than you were. He always recited his sermons before bed, whereas you had only ever believed in God when you thought He may smite you.

You sit on the pew next to you and look over that confessional booth. Johnny may be a sinner, but he clearly believed if the reason he hadn’t fully taken your innocence was any type of evidence. You wonder if he had ever been in that confessional booth. Wonder if there was enough time in the world for him to confess his wrong doing to you. Or maybe it was all overshadowed by his saviourism.

You are bought with Englishmen blood. You worry your hands in your lap, wringing your fingers together. Wonder if Johnny will be back in time to watch his father’s people take your hand for thieving.

The doors swing open again after a few minutes, and you expect to see the man who brought you here, and he is at the front. He also seems to have brought the entire village with him, streams of unfamiliar faces all peering through the doorway to glare at you.

Half-hysterical, you wonder if they really are going to take your hand after all.

//

An hour later, they still have not taken your hand, but you wonder if they may do even worse than that. This is no longer a chapel, no longer a church. This is a courtroom, an impromptu hanging of the witch. You had thought that your crime was attempting to steal a horse, but instead it was disrupting their peace. One of the village’s sons had died, and everyone had been in mourning, waiting for the vicar to come back to read the burial rites again, just as he was doing for another village.

You don’t dare say a word, let them discuss your crime amongst themselves. You don’t even know how the boy had died, if it had been an accident, or an illness. You know that you have done wrong in attempting to take on their horses, even as justified as you had felt at the time. Out of some kind of penance, you decide to let them do as they wish, and then hopefully you can continue your plan of escape. Ian will welcome you back, one-handed or not.

The weeping mother casts a hateful look at you, as if you had been the reason her son had died in the first place. You squirm beneath her gaze, hot shame curdling in your stomach like an old friend. You had been brought to the front of the congregation, stood in front of the pulpit. A sad mimic of a Sunday sermon, in which you are preached to instead.

It’s a mob, even as they play sensible. Listing your crimes, but you hear the creep of mania in everyone’s mutterings. A child is dead, and no one is to blame. These people want someone to rip apart, and you have given them half a reason. You can hear them starting to talk themselves into a hanging, perhaps even throwing you down the local river.

“There’s nothing to be done for thieves,” the man who caught you demands, addressing the room. “Take a hand, and they’ll steal with the other!” He throws his arms out in gesture to you, damning you.

There’s a murmur of agreement, every casting you a distrustful look as if you could be stealing again as they speak. You try to stand as meekly as you can, but it seems to make things worse, if possible.

Everyone is speaking over each other, demanding justice, but you don’t think they even know for what. The doors open but barely anyone notices, and in walks Mrs Duncan’s nephew. He takes in the sight of the crowd and catches sight of you. You wonder if maybe he will speak in your defence, if he’ll tell anyone that Johnny will be expecting you back in his room in the keep, and if you aren’t there, but rather dangling from a rope, then he may be more than a little upset.

He says nothing, but gives you a long look before he stays in the doorway, foot holding it open. Shoulder against the frame as he watches the room. No one gives him a second glance, too caught up in their own rabble.

You stand there, and let them yell at each other, deciding your fate. Only stirring when you are grabbed again, and spun around. You are facing the pulpit the wrong way now, back to the crowd. You only have a moment to wonder what it is that they are planning to do, before your hands are braced on the box, and someone must rear their hand back and the strike of a whip slices down your back.

Even through the wool covering and the fabric of your dress and shift, it is a sharp sting that slices into your skin. You shriek, try to dart away, or turn around, but there are hands on your wrists, holding you to the stand and the whip cracks against your back again.

You feel each leather tongue of it lick its sting on your back, quickly following with an agony that settles into the muscle and has you arching as if to get away from it. You think about the man in your village, how his back had been carved into, flesh ripped open as they did this on his bare back. You cannot even imagine, even as a lesser version happens to you. An extra step of pain, like a new colour that hasn’t been invented yet.

You can hear them chanting for someone to rip open the back of your dress, they want to see the whip slice down into the bone. They want blood, want it to cleanse you. The heat of a body  at your side, fingers digging into the back of your dress as if to make this reality. The rip of fabric, the cheer of the crowd as the untouched skin of your back is exposed, ready for the kill.

Everything is stopped with a bellow at the door. You know it’s Johnny, and relief sags in your knees before a different type of fear takes its place. “What the fuck is goin’ on here?” Johnny shouts, and he must be shoving people out of the way if the scuffle you hear is any indication.

The hands on your wrists are gone. You turn around to catch sight of Johnny, cracking his fist across the face of the man with the whip. The two men who had been holding you in place seem to be trying to get past as they see what their future has in store. You see them back away, stumbling into a pew and freezing as they watch Johnny rear his hand back again.

You blink tears out of your eyes and watch as most of the village floods out of the chapel, some staying and watching in horror. Johnny has the man who whipped you flat on his back, Johnny’s fist crushing into the delicate skin of his face over and over again, until there is nothing recognizable about him.

The sound of sobbing jolts you back to yourself, as you realise it is not your own. “Johnny - Johnny stop it!” You shout, falling forward and catching Johnny’s hand as he rears back to swing again. He shakes you off, forcing you back and into a pew which shrieks as it scrapes against stone. That sound seems to shake Johnny somewhat out of it, and he puffs, trying to catch his breath.

“Get him out of here,” he growls, forcing himself up and leaving the man on the ground. The man gurgles a little from what may be his mouth, blood frothing a little. You can’t look away from it, horrified. The justice for those Englishmen had been death and there had been something kind in that. This man doesn’t seem able to breathe, his nose crushed and flattened.

A couple of villagers scoop him up and cart him out, scuffling as they try to move as quickly as they can. The chapel is quiet besides the sound of breathing when the door finally swings shut at last.

Johnny stares at you, face still. You expect him to start on you next, maybe grab you and shake you around some. It’s frightening, how he just watches you, a faint twitch in his eye. The terrible urge to apologise sits in your throat but you swallow it down. You feel like you have been caught doing something wrong, even though you were just trying to get home.

“Vicar Jamie,” Johnny finally says, voice raw. His white shirt is stained in blood again, shifting down his chest and exposing the hair that grows there. You remember the bath from yesterday and flush, turning your head to who he is speaking to in order to distract your mind. A small, stout man, very haggard looking but dressed in Catholic finery stands near the doorway.

“Johnny, my boy, let us reconvene on this tomorrow, perhaps, give us some time to clean ourselves up,” the vicar tries to interject, but Johnny turns on him with such a veracity that has him shrinking.

“Now,” is all Johnny snaps out, mouth pulled back in a snarl that shows all of his teeth. His right hand drips red, a warning in itself.

The vicar nods, fumbles with his hands for a moment before he makes his way to the front of the chapel, neatly arcing around the smear of blood next to Johnny’s feet.

Johnny’s gaze returns to you, hot on your face. You hold your dress up on your chest, feel the cold air hit your back that has you shivering. His gaze holds no pity for you, and after a moment you glare right back at him.

The vicar shifts the stand that you had been shackled to, to the side and takes its place, avoiding your eye. Mrs Duncan’s nephew, who had stood at the door, takes a seat in the askew pew, face still as he watches you. A witness you realise, and a kick like a startled hare almost sends you tearing down the aisle.

Johnny’s hand on your upper arm catches you before you can seriously begin to run, yanks you into place.

A moment taken out of a play. You and Johnny, side by side. Your back exposed out of your ripped dress, a scared vicar who won’t look you in the face and a witness to your humiliation. Blood, cooling on the stone a step behind you, coating Johnny’s hands and his clothes.

You lean too far out of Johnny’s hold and you feel the tightening of his fist and you return to your place.

It's a sad affair, the vicar stumbling over his words as he binds the two of you together. Johnny is a barely controlled rage next to you, you can feel the shake of his fingers on your arm, squeezing and letting go, over and over. You don’t even have the official binding ceremony, the fabric that should tie your wrists together, the prick of blood. The vicar pauses as if to consider this, but quickly skirts past this as well. Likely, too much blood for a wedding ceremony already.

The vicar has barely finished before Johnny is snapping at him to get out. It’s a quick escape, a puff of air in your ear as he darts past you, Mrs Duncan’s nephew following shortly behind. The door snaps shut, fate sealed.

“What are you doing here?” Johnny asks, hot air huffing out of his mouth into your face.

You keep quiet, silenced in the face of his true anger. Before you had argued, snapped at Johnny, here is the first instance of genuine fear you have felt because of him. The anger he has that led to the murder of men who had hurt you, perhaps pointed at yourself for the first time. You wonder if he’s going to wrap his hands around your throat, squeeze like he seems to want to. There is a strange sensation of vulnerability, knowing your back is exposed even though it is hidden from Johnny’s view.

His hands come up and you flinch, missing the growl of frustration that comes out of him as they settle on your shoulders and wrestle you forward into your chest. “Why did they do this to you?” he asks, palms against your collarbone. The wrest of control, firmly in his hands.

You can’t look him in the eye, settle your eye-line on his clavicle again. The smooth skin, hidden in the dip of his throat. The itch from that horse ride - a lifetime ago - reawakens and you lift your hand, curl your finger in there. Feel the vibration as he grunts, feel the dip of his harsh swallow. Your name calls your attention. You look up, his eyes are dark, mad, even. You give into his tyranny. “I was trying to take a horse,” you admit. His nostrils flare, anger cracking across his face and you just barely stop yourself from flinching back from it. “I’m sorry,” you add, pathetic. Escape plan ruined before it even really started, you have nothing left to be prideful about.

He shudders, lowering his head to yours, the gulf of space now swallowed up with his proximity. You let out a meek sound when his forehead hits against yours, like he wants the bone to touch. “An’ Ah was out, findin’ us a priest to marry us, and you were tryin’ tae sneak out while m’back was turned,” he hisses out, hands clenching on your collarbone again, muscle and bone grinding against each other. You blink up at him, resigned to your fate. You felt the bite of teeth days ago, and had spent all of this time trying to hide from it. But, the stench of blood sticks and you must now reckon with it.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat. Feel all of it, the drag of emotions as they sweep through. The mare out in the stables had been a lifeline and when you were dragged away, you felt it like the loss of Ian all over again. Leaving him behind had been one thing, but every attempt to get back has been a lesson in humility since.

You are a human, in the wraps of terror left by a god. Swallowing a cry that lingers in the back of your throat like a sickness, you hesitantly tilt your head back and nudge your nose against Johnny’s. He freezes, hands going still. A breath, shared between the two of you. Here is that smack of flesh after the fall, a day late, but now it registers. It was likely even before he woke you up with his mouth on the back of your neck. A lion lying with its mouth open, you were halfway down his gullet before you even noticed where you were.

Your husband now, you think, half-crazed, before you inhale his breath and press your mouth hesitantly to his. It’s clumsy, you only half know what you’re doing but he presses forward with a hunger that almost has you reeling back again. Johnny is a man to be offered an inch and takes a mile, his hands on the back of your head, pressing you closer to him even as he leans in.

You only half know how to kiss him, but you barely get a chance to learn before he is pressing your mouth open with his. Barely a moment to gasp in a breath before his tongue is against yours, slick and invasive.

You stumble back, still holding your dress up with your hands before you stumble into a pew. He pulls back for a moment and you barely manage his name before he’s picking you up and thudding down to his knees, dragging you down with him.

The cold stone sends a wave of cold through you that has you keening away from it and into the warmth of Johnny’s chest. He lets go of your head and it thuds against the ground, his arms worming around your back, skating past the ripped open seams of your dress and onto the bare skin of your back. He moans, deep and wanton into the curve of your chin, gives you a quick nip there before he drops his head into the crook of your neck.

“I’ve been so patient, wanted it tae be right between us, angel, didnae want to ruin us,” he groans, hands greedy on the bare skin of your back. “But, it’s alright now, I’ve done it right, jus’ let me -”

He barely seems able to finish a thought, tugging your dress down, dragging your torn slip and underskirts with it. He barely manages, as unwilling as he is to get off of you as he does it, so they end up pooled around your waist, nipples pebbling in the cold. He coos down at your chest, pinching one of your nipples meanly until you hiccup.

“Johnny, can’t we go back to the Keep, I won’t run again, I swear,” you start, feeling overwhelmed tears start to prick in your eyes. You don’t want it to be like this, on the cold floor of an unfamiliar parish. You aren’t sure of the technicalities of what comes next, your father hadn’t been forthcoming when he was alive, and your brother refused to say, always deeming it unladylike to ask. You knew it was something frightening, and heard some of the women describe their husbands as beasts during the act. You know how the animals look as they do it, saw the rutting of a stallion in a mare once, how she had shrieked as she was mounted.

“You were the one tae drag yerself out here,” Johnny points out, half-muttering to himself. He gnaws on your collarbone before he gives you a sucking kiss there. “Ye’ve made yer bed, sweetheart.”

He shifts himself up onto his knees and lifts your ankles up, yanks your skirts and dress down, tossing them over his shoulder with barely a glance. You’ve been bare in front of him before, not even a day ago, but this feels different. He looms over you, eyes dark as they seem to take in every inch of you. The stone beneath your back is cold, leaving gooseflesh all over you as it steals your heat.

He splits your legs across his lap and you jump, hand trying to reach down to cover the apex of your thighs but he catches your wrists in one of his hands, transfixed with his gaze between your legs. “There she is, oh angel, she’s so beautiful,” he murmurs, a thumb reaching down to pull the seam of you further apart, something that has you squirming in shame. “Knew ye would have such a sweet cunt, so pretty.”

“Don’t look down there, it’s unseemly,” you protest, voice weak. Your thighs clench with the need to close but you only end up squeezing your knees on his waist.

“All mine,” he continues to mutter, thumb coming up to round over the top of your sex, a feeling like a curling heat in your stomach starting up. It has you jumping, hare kicking out its legs before a hand soothes over its ears, pins them down. Your reaction seems to gratify him, has him rubbing his thumb until it’s almost mean, eyes hot on you for even the smallest reaction. You start to whine, deep in your chest, the feeling just on this side of just too much.

“Johnny, Johnny, please,” you sob, barely understanding what it is that you are pleading for. 

He lets up, petting down to your entrance which you can feel flutter at the press of his fingers. He pushes and you feel his finger push into you, a whine coming out of you like a wounded animal. He pants, not even blinking as he watches it, barely pausing before he’s pushing in a second finger, which almost has you bucking him off. He shushes you, half distracted by the sight of your cunt swallowing his fingers and leaving them shining. “So good, angel, so good,” he mutters. You hate that the praise has you trying to swallow down any of your complaints.

He lets go of your wrists and they lie, useless across your belly. Still watching his fingers move in you, his other hand tugs over the sash his kilt has made over his chest, yanking on it until it unravels and it is also tossed to the side. Lifting your knee to press a clumsy kiss to the side of it, he lets it drop again and pulls his hand away from your sex with a mournful noise and pulls off his white shirt.

Now that both of you are naked, Johnny seems to get quicker, breath coming fast. He quickly hitches your legs further up his waist and drags you closer to him. Stone scrapes at your back and you hiss, which he barely acknowledges with a quick kiss to the underside of your breast.

He drags his hand up your slit and gathers the slick that has gathered there, and slides that over his cock, moaning with his mouth hanging open as he looks at you beneath him. “Been dreaming o’ this, bonnie. Knew it was you, was always you,” he murmurs, smoothing his other hand over the curve of your hip, as if memorising the shape of you by hand. “Nothing wrong wae it now, jus’ the two o’ us, always, always.”

He braces one of his hands just over your shoulder, the other to guide his cock to your sex and notches it against your hole. It looks monstrous, now that you can bring yourself to properly look at it. Nothing like the faint sight of it you had seen in the Bible once, the mushroom head is red as Johnny pulls back skin to expose it. He intends to push it inside you, just as he did his fingers, but the head of it looks to thick to manage it.

“Johnny, it’s not going to fit,” you start to say, but that just makes Johnny groan and shush you, giving you a squeeze on the hip.

“Of course it will, angel, ye were made fer me,” he tells you, and you can see the pull of muscle in his bicep as he starts to push.

For a moment, you think that you’re right, it’s not going to. But, then, you can see the give of muscle, the parting of flesh and see yourself swallow the head as a tremor runs through you. A strange, foreign feeling. It feels half-invasive, as he pushes into you, the rest of you transfixed by the furrow of his brow as he watches the parting of your flesh around him.

“Oh, oh fuck, angel, oh shit,” he curses, continuing the slow guide into you until you feel it stop, as if you cannot take anymore. 

“Johnny,” you sob, looking back down to see only half of him is inside of you. “Johnny, take it out, I can’t -”

“The best cunt ever, the prettiest girl, fer me, all fer me, oh angel,” he rambles, eyes rolling back into his head as he shifts his hips. Pulls out of you just enough to push back in. You whimper with it, as he tries to grind even more of himself into you.

It's not working, leaving you sniffling beneath him until he grunts in frustration and brings his thumb to your clit and starts to work you in little circles.

His other hand hoists your thigh further up his waist, and he catches sight of your teary expression. Forces what must be an attempt at a soothing smile but all you can see is the clench of his jaw, the sharp edge of his teeth. You wonder if he likes the look of the pinch of your brow, the part of your mouth as you start to loosen up just a little. Even the few tears that drip down your temples. His hand on your hip smears blood into your skin, but you barely notice, trying to catch your breath.

“There we go, c’mon jus’ relax, honey, make it good, there we are,” he coaxes you, a tendon throbbing in his throat. His thumb on your sex makes everything a little slicker and more of him disappears into you, until he finally bottoms out, his thighs pressed flush against the back of yours.

A whine escapes you, painful and high and you cling to Johnny’s chest, coarse hair scratching at your palms. “Johnny,” you start again, unable to look down at yourself again, see the ugly stretch of yourself around Johnny. Everything throbs, you can feel him in your lungs, buried deep and irrevocable now.

Johnny is out of it, both his hands brace over your shoulders now, a tremble in his broad shoulders. You can see the white of his eyes, unreachable, as he groans long and drawn out. “The tightest cunt, knew ye would be so sweet fer me, dreamt of this, of you,” he rambles, pulling his hips back just enough to snap them back into you.

“I can't,” you stammer, but he just shakes his head roughly at you, beyond words. Braces himself on his knees and starts to grind against you. Pulls himself out and then pushes back in. It's a strange sort of pleasure. The stretch of flesh smarting a little before the clumsy rhythm starts to warm you up. Sweat slicks your back until the stone beneath you is warm with the fever spreading through you.

Johnny seems to come back to himself for a moment, thumb dropping back down to the peak of your sex, roughly rubbing circles in time with his thrusts. The pinnacle of the male body, all dark hair and rippling muscles, all bearing down on you. You can see the tense of muscle triangulating at his abdomen, flexing with each thrust into you.

He quickly seems to forget about you, hand dropping away in favour of sliding around to the small of your back and hitching you up. Your hands scramble for purchase, clinging to his forearms as both his hands keep only your shoulders against the ground.

“Johnny, no, don’t,” you protest, mouth opening on a shaky breath out as his thrust into you feels dirtier like this. You catch sight of the altar, the smooth wood built by holy men at their parish. Blasphemous, to consummate like this in here, Johnny makes it filthy, something that you imagine must be wrong even as you start to twitch your hips towards his thrusts, wanting it.

Your protests just make Johnny groan, your hips still propped up on his thighs, but he bends his torso down to press against yours. His head against your clavicle, you can feel the sweat building on his forehead smear against your skin. “Yeah, Ah’m a dirty man, aren’t I, sweetheart?” he asks you, biting at the side of your breast before broadly licking at your nipple, both of you whining together when that makes you clench around him.

Everything is slick, you can hear a wet sound as he works between your thighs and you want to cringe, ashamed even as you barely understand. You can hardly think, a fever in you that is spreading, but Johnny is burning even hotter. You slide your hands up to his biceps and cling to the hard muscle there as he thrusts into you.

Breathy sounds are punched out of you, punctuated with each collision of Johnny forcing himself deeper into you. It's lewd, the smack of flesh, but you feel hazy, dreamlike. Johnny continues rambling above you, his mouth working, the scratch of his beard across the soft skin between your breasts, but you can barely hear him.

There is a rising heat within you, and it spreads like disease through you, muddying your thoughts until you tilt your head back. Dig your temple into stone as if to try and grind your mind back into your body.

You’re wrestled back into yourself, Johnny refusing to let you look anywhere else. You understand why those women described their husbands as animals. Johnny is a huffing beast above you, slavering over you he gives and takes, over and over until you are senseless.

He stills, groans deep in his chest, his forehead resting on your chest, and you feel the twitch and sudden heat of him spending himself inside of you. The fever stills and festers in you, leaving you feeling itchy. Johnny snaps his hips a few more times, then drags it out, lazy as his mouth drools into your skin. Stills inside you, but you feel high-strung, still too tense.

Your hands twitch, fingernails catching against taut skin. Johnny huffs, amused but breathless. “I’ve got you, m’girl, so greedy, eh?”

You have half a mind to protest, he's the one who’s swallowed you whole, not the other way around. But your mouth opens and nothing but a choked whine spills out when his hand drops down to your sex again and works you over.

Still buried so deep, every flex is different like this, Johnny groaning his agreement into your sweaty skin. “Johnny, Johnny, please - !” You beg, legs kicking out as your vision gets blurry, and suddenly your back bows, a sob bursting out. A fresh slick of liquid around Johnny, and he thrusts lightly, half-soft now, whining at the overstimulation of it.

He keeps going until you start to squirm too much, almost launching yourself across the floor and he stops, laughing into the curve of your breast, still half whining to himself. He smooths his hand up your thigh and to the curve of your backside. You can feel the wetness of his fingers, but you feel too dazed to be too embarrassed of it.

“Knew ye’d be so good,” Johnny murmurs, squeezing at your backside. You hum, bone deep exhaustion dragging you down. You lift a hand up and drag it into his hair. He melts, his weight digging you further into the floor.

You become aware of the sopping wet beneath your thighs, wincing as you shift your hips and feel wetness slide down and join the sweat that you have left on the stone. Sweat cools in the divot of your throat, the small of your back, sticking between you and Johnny. The length of his body pressed against you, hard muscle against the soft give of your skin. He seems to like it, a hand squeezing at the give of your arse, the other smoothing over whatever flesh you have left to give him.

“We should get up,” you murmur, your chin on the crown of his head. He huffs like a lazy dog, but after a moment where you think he isn’t going to get up at all, he finally starts to shift with a sigh.

Johnny reaches between your thighs and pulls himself out of you, you wince at the stretch, watch with morbid interest at the white shine left behind, caught in the hair that covers the base of his cock. Johnny is equally as enthralled with what he’s made of your cunt and it’s only when your thighs squeeze shut that he shakes his head and stands. He gives you a firm pat on the backside before he hoists you up, a mean laugh at your squeak. “C’mon, up we go, lassie,” he says, teasing and light. He seems fond now, still a little more harsh than you want him to be, but he nudges his head against yours again, a mimic of how you were as you were joined. “Nothin’ between us, now, ehh?” he adds, blue eyes digging into yours.

His nose nudges against yours, your skin buzzes with the remnants of his touch. There is no stone left unturned, everything split apart under Johnny’s hands. Ripe fruit, ripped open and left to rot.

“Nothing,” you echo, and he smiles like the sun. There is man’s blood on his right hand and you can smell the metal of it when he cups your face and brings his mouth back to yours. A clash of teeth as you bite back even as you are swallowed up.

“Let’s go home,” Johnny murmurs, pulling back with a slick noise as your lips separate. You don’t think you know where that is, but you let him gather your skirts back up to half cover you before he gives you his kilt and fastens it around you. Damning, to wear the red of the Mactavish clan. The final nail in this coffin, solidifying who you are now.

Cerberus is outside, pawing at the ground and snapping his teeth at any of the villagers who get too close. Before you are ushered onto the saddle and away, you catch sight of the mare you had been about to escape on. Your bag of your belongings from home sits abandoned in a heap next to the stable. Your spare cloak, your spare shift. The last remnants of home.

It is all swallowed up as Johnny stands in front of you. You let him hoist you up and you curl into him as he slots into place behind you. The world is caught around the edge of Johnny’s shoulder, filtered through into your vision.

Cerberus starts a slow canter back to the Keep, and you dig your forehead into Johnny’s collarbone. Every step takes you further from your land. Johnny’s hand on the curve of your tummy, his chin on the crown of your head. There is a bottomless feeling in your stomach, but Johnny smooths his hand over your belly and catches it in the palm of his hand.

[valyvinny]

╰┈➤ ❝ Caleb┆彡 My fault ❞

PAIRING : Caleb x reader (afab) GENRE : Angstyyyy WORD COUNT : 1083 TAGS : mentions of murder, attempted murder, mentions of blood, little to no comfort, mentions of surgery, reader gets hurt A/N : Hellloooo. I can't believe I chose to write ANGST for my very first written piece here. But after going through Caleb's cards, I felt like it was necessary. I'm probably gonna follow this up with something lighter. So enjoyyyy :)

Viper strikes and injures you, Caleb is furious.

Red. So much red. His otherwise crisp and pristine uniform now disheveled and drenched crimson with your blood. 

Patients, doctors and nurses alike sneak glances at him whispering to each other, too afraid to look him in the eye. What could possibly bring the usually calm and composed colonel to the hospital in such panic and disarray? 

Caleb lets out a shaky breath. He tries to will his hands to stop trembling, tries to calm his racing heart. But all he sees is flashes of you. Your precious face, pale as a ghost, the giant gash in your abdomen from where Viper’s blade sliced through you, your teary eyes. He clenches his jaw. He promised. He promised. 

He was supposed to be there. It’s his fault. He promised to stay by your side at all times. It’s his fault. He wasn’t there. It’s one thing if you were hurt in Linkon. But it’s an entirely different thing that you got hurt right under his nose, in Skyhaven, his territory. How could he have been so careless? 

Caleb paces up and down the hospital corridor, silently praying that you were okay. That you were alive. You’d been in surgery for hours now and with each minute stretching agonizingly by, the less optimistic he became. What if….no, he couldn’t bring himself to imagine the worst. He couldn’t fathom a world without you. It was simply incomprehensible. The grief would tear him inside out until nothing but a hollow shell of his person would remain. 

You were his entire universe. You were his every waking thought, every breath, the only reprieve in his entire wretched existence. Without you, there was no rhyme nor reason. 

“Sir” a voice calls out to him

Liam stands opposite the Colonel, saluting him. 

“Sir we’ve located Viper, he’s eastbound to-“

Liam gets cut off by the doors of the operation theater opening. From it, the lead surgeon emerges, clad in a pair of blue scrubs. Caleb motions for Liam to stop. 

“Later”, he says as he rushes to receive news about you. 

“How is she?” He asks. 

Part of him just doesn’t want to hear it, but he needs to know. He needs to know if you’ve made it. 

“The surgery was challenging. She lost a lot of blood. The cut was quite extensive and we had to perform a-“ 

“Just cut to the chase” Caleb quipped through gritted teeth, his patience wearing thin. 

“She’s stable for now. We’re going to be keeping her under observation for the next couple of days to sure the wound heals well and doesn’t contract any infection. We’ve transferred her to the ICU. But I have to warn you Colonel, it might take a while for her to recover.” 

Caleb heaves a sigh of relief. He feels his nose prickle and eyes sting. A lump forms in his throat. He wants to cry. He wants to so badly just drop to his knees and sob his heart out. But he can’t, not with so many eyes on him. 

Nothing matters but the fact that you’re alive. If recovery takes a while, so be it. He’ll be with you through every step of the way. He’ll never leave your side. Not again. Not with such dangers lurking in every corner. He won’t fail you again. 

“Can I see her?” He asks. His voice feeble. 

The surgeon looks at him with pity. 

“Yes of course. But you might want to change out of your outfit colonel. I’m sure we have a spare pair of scrubs you can wear” 

Caleb nods curtly at him “Yes I believe that would be appropriate” 

Caleb is in the ICU, now donning a pair of scrubs. He looks comical, the hem of the scrub pants just barely reaching his shins. He’s sure if he moves an inch, the top would ride up his torso. In other circumstances, this unfortunate attire would have reduced you into a fit of giggles. But not now. 

Now you lay in a hospital bed, unconscious. The harsh white lights of the ICU casts a pearlescent glow, making you look almost angelic. 

Caleb leans down next to your bed. His heart clenches. You look peaceful in your slumber, a sharp contrast to how you were merely hours ago. The only evidence of the incident being the large bandage dressed across your abdomen in place of the gash. 

He takes a second to brush his fingers against your cheek, cradling your face in his hand gently. Tears well up in his eyes and this time, he let them fall, in the safety of the curtains surrounding your bed.

Fat tears roll down his cheeks as he tries to muffle the sound of his sobs with his hands. He only felt shame. Guilt. What kind of Colonel was he if he couldn’t protect the one thing, the only person that ever mattered? 

As his form wracks with sobs, Caleb feels a hand wrap feebly around his wrist. 

“Caleb…”

You were awake, barely so, your eyes half lidded as you fought the fatigue that threatened to consume your body. 

“Caleb I’m sorry” you whisper

Caleb quickly dries his tears on his sleeve, composing himself. 

“Don’t be pipsqueak. It’s not your fault” he says, kissing your palm. He flashes you a smile. But you know it’s disingenuous, that he's hiding behind a facade. 

“Get some rest. I’ll be right here when you wake up” 

You nod before your eyes close shut and it’s not long before your chest begins to rise and fall rhythmically, pulling you again into deep sleep. 

“Sir” Liam says, approaching the Colonel. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but if we don’t intercept Viper soon, we may lose him” 

Caleb grits his teeth. The very mention of that bastards name makes him seethe with rage.

He spends one last minute stroking your hair, planting a kiss on the top of your head, before heading out. 

One thing remained clear to him. Viper is going to suffer the most excruciating death possible. He’s going to crush every single one of his bones individually, make him bleed until he lay in a crimson pool of his blood, torture him until he begs for death as his mercy. That was his promise to you. 

© valyvinny. All right reserved. Do not steal, copy, translate, repost or reupload any of my works. Do not use my work for AI

[tsukii0002]

I like to think that Barbatos doesn't sleep, sometimes he does it for pleasure, but he doesn't really need it. So he spends his nights wandering around the nooks and crannies of his room, looking at the different doors or seeing how the flow of water or a staircase has changed direction. Consequently, Barbatos does not have a bed in his room.

However, after what happened with Belphie and Mc, Mc would stop by his room constantly, to thank him (again), deliver homemade cakes or drinks, or just to see how he was doing.

At first the demon could not understand the human, weren't they afraid of that place? Weren't they uncomfortable with the certainty of the time represented in his room? Weren't they terrified of being so close… to him?

Those questions never left him, but he grew accustomed to the human's presence, he liked listening to them talk, how attentive they were to him. Sometimes he let them wander freely through the places he had so often wandered at night. And after a while he began to look forward to Mc's visits.

First he waited for the visits, then he began to crave them, later one visit was too little and he began to drag it out until Mc had to spend the night at the palace because it was too late…. But it wasn't enough, he felt he had to monopolize their ephemeral time, he needed those moments to belong to him alone.

Barbatos: Mc, are you coming today?

Mc: Barbatos! Yes, I'll bring the candy I told you last time.

Barbatos: I'm glad… By the way I have incorporated a new element in my quarters.

Mc: ????

Barbatos: A bed, thanks to you I find it more pleasant to sleep, so I thought I'd need one.

Mc: That's great!!! Hahahaha *with a mocking tone* so I can sleep in your room now?

Barbatos: *chuckles* I hadn't thought of that.

That's how the time-controlling demon did something he never imagined, incorporating a bed, even though he didn't need it, for a single human, was something strange to say the least. Although, of course, that a human would enter his most intimate domain without any fear was the strangest thing of all. And there was no greater pleasure than curling up next to Mc and sleep.

.

.

I've been going through a lot of Barbatos stories in devilgram and in many of them Mc falls asleep in Barbatos' room, but then I look at her room and I can't help but laugh at the thought of where the bed would be, because in that space a bed doesn't even fit 😂😂😂, so I think it's funny to imagine the origin of that supposed bed in a room that looks like a mystical ruin.

Thanks for reading 🩷

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[theactualsunshinechild]

If Castorice is cursed to kill whoever she touches and Mydei is cursed to be immortal, do you think Mydei ever goes to Castorice on a really bad day and is like, hey can you put me down for a bit please? I'm having these phantom pains from fatal wounds and injuries that don't exist anymore and they're keeping me up, I want a nap.

And obviously at first Castorice is like "L-lord Mydei, please rethink this, death is not something to be trifled with! Even with your condition, I cannot guarantee your safe return..." and Mydei takes the time to reassure her that, no, he's sure about this, and yes he is willing to bear the risks, no he doesn't care if it will hurt, please euthanize him. It takes a bit of convincing but eventually she agrees to risk it, and, fear in her heart, gently places a hand on his shoulder.

Mydei wobbles and collapses dead on the spot. Castorice lets go and starts fretting internally, stepping back and circling around, frantically searching for any sign of life. How long does it usually take for Mydei to come back? Will he come back at all? Her own curse is clearly effective on him after all... To her relief, it only takes a few seconds for Mydei's eyes to flutter open again to find himself supine, with limbs bent at various awkward angles from the way he ragdolled.

It was a very peaceful few seconds, no pain, no blood, just an pleasant floating sensation as the familiar dark waves of the Styx rocked him side to side gently, before a bright guiding light forcibly pulled him right back. If not for the uncomfortable position he came to in, he'd even say the experience did some old aches a lot of good. The slight relieved smile that comes across her face as he explains this belies how many years of uncertainty and grief she's experienced over the many deaths she had enacted prior. She must have had no way of knowing for sure, until now, whether or not the deaths she delivered were as gentle as she hoped, Mydei realized.

It takes slightly less convincing to have Castorice try again. This time, they arrange more comfortably, Mydei sitting down against a wall, Castorice taking his offered hand in hers. As his hand goes limp in hers, his skin slowly cooling, she draws comforting circles on it with her thumb, more for herself than for his unfeeling body. After several minutes this time, each feeling longer than the last, she lets go and backs away once more, waiting with bated breath for the moment he shudders back to life, taking air back into empty lungs, eyes bright again, fierce, lively and visibly well-rested.

They agree to never exceed 15 minutes, Castorice explaining he would likely not enjoy coming back to the discomfort of gravity having caused all of his stilled blood to pool and settle inside of his body, let alone his body having cooled. Mydei agrees easily and assures her that he will keep his requests for deathly repose infrequent.

Castorice often passes the time Mydei spends dead trying to occupy her hands, the nerves never quite leaving her alone. Knowing logically that Mydei will come back and fearing that maybe he won't come back this time are two separate things after all. She tries many things, from bringing a scroll to read, to embroidery, shoulder pressed to his, trying to ignore how much bolder the red tattoos look against the pallor of a dead man. When Mydei wakes to Castorice's fingers pricked and bleeding for the third time, he frowns and offers for her to braid his hair next time if she wishes.

The next time, a month later, they arrange slightly differently, Castorice sitting on a bench, Mydei lowering his head into her lap, his hair an offering she wills herself to accept. Having assisted with many a funeral rite, Castorice is able to lose herself in the process of carefully weaving the messy soft locks into shape. The texture is strangely soothing, despite how unnaturally still Mydei remains, and Castorice imagines that this must be similar to what it feels like to pet a lion's fluffy mane. When the sand stops flowing, Castorice moves Mydei's head out of her lap to walk five places away once more. He comes to, gasping for breath as usual, and reaches up to feel at the new braids he sensed in his hair. A ghost of a smile graces his face when he finds them to be satisfactory, and he wears them for the rest of the day as a sign of appreciation. Castorice fiddling with his hair while he is dead quickly becomes the standard for their little meetings. Sometimes he wakes up with no new braids, but he doesn't question it so long as Castorice doesn't appear to be in any distress.

The first time Phainon spotted Mydei with his head in Castorice's lap, Castorice gently running her fingers through his hair as if he were a very large cat, Phainon almost passed them by with how peaceful they looked...

Then did a double take and panicked.

Anyway, that's my headcanon at least for how Castorice can say that the death she brings with her touch is peaceful. I think discovering that killing Mydei with her touch grants him what is essentially a banger nap from his perspective, probably helped her find an amount of peace in those early years. Truly putting the rest in "putting to rest"with this one.

Obviously she'd still prefer to be able to touch people and creatures without having them die, but at least she has learned that it isn't painful when she kills this way.

Additionally I like to imagine that while being killed by Castorice feels soothing, getting killed normal ways feels like shit, painful the whole way through, and then you get dunked violently into the Styx. And for Mydei specifically, it's more like he gets dunked into the Styx only to get yoinked right out, soul still sopping wet and cold, and forced back into a body that is fully repaired but it's happened so fast to him that his nerves have him feeling the aftershocks of the injuries that are already gone.

[heliosunny]

Yandere!Virtual BF Gojo - Part 2

Visit [part 1]

You didn’t know how long it had been since you were pulled into Gojo’s world. Time flowed differently here, blurring the days into a dreamy haze. At first, you resisted, refusing to speak to him, eat the extravagant meals he prepared, or wear the luxurious outfits he presented to you. But Gojo’s patience seemed infinite.

“No need to sulk, babe.” he’d say with that playful grin, brushing off your cold demeanor. “You’ll come around. You always do.”

And in a way, you did. Not because you forgave him, but because this world had a way of bending you to its rules.

The pastel-colored city Gojo created for you was flawless, as if pulled straight from the pages of your favorite games. Towering buildings, pristine cobblestone streets, blooming gardens -it was idyllic. But it wasn’t real. The people weren’t real, either. Gojo had filled the city with NPCs, all programmed to treat you like royalty.

“Good morning, Princess” the shopkeeper would greet you with a smile whenever you passed.

“Your Highness, how radiant you look today” a maid would say as she arranged fresh flowers in your room.

Gojo spared no expense in ensuring your comfort. He surrounded you with virtual assistants and maids, each designed to cater to your every whim. He even gave you abilities within the game world—small things at first, like creating flowers with a wave of your hand or summoning a light breeze. “A gift for my queen” he’d said, watching you closely as you experimented with your new powers.

But you knew better than to trust him.

You practiced in secret, honing your abilities when Gojo wasn’t around. The virtual world was full of loopholes- glitches in its perfect design. You discovered that your powers could manipulate the world’s code, allowing you to create cracks in the environment. Small at first, but you grew stronger with each attempt. You didn’t know if it was possible to escape, but you had to try.

Gojo, meanwhile, treated your life together like a fairytale. He doted on you endlessly, showering you with affection and gifts. Some days, he’d whisk you away to explore the glittering city he’d built for you. Other days, he’d lounge beside you in the massive palace he’d constructed, teasing you endlessly.

“I could give you anything, you know.” he said one evening, his arm draped lazily over the back of the couch as he watched you. “A bigger palace, more powers, even a kingdom of your own. All you have to do is stop running from me.”

You forced a smile, hiding the way your hands clenched into fists. “I’m not running.”

For a while, you played along, living the life of his perfect princess. But everything changed when Gojo brought up the idea of a child.

“We should expand our family!” he said one day, his tone casual but his gaze intense. “Imagine it—our child, the perfect blend of you and me. I can program everything so it’s perfect. Don’t you think that would be nice, babe?”

Your blood ran cold. He wasn’t asking. He never asked. And the thought of being tied to this world, to him, forever—it was too much. You knew you had to act.

That night, while the city slept, you slipped out of the palace. You’d discovered a plot hole weeks ago, hidden deep in the garden maze. It wasn’t much—just a crack in the environment where the shimmering pink sky met an unfinished edge of the world. But you had been working on it, pushing the limits of your powers to widen the gap.

As you ran, the world around you seemed to resist. The streets twisted and shifted, the pastel colors growing darker and more chaotic. You could feel Gojo’s presence- his awareness of your actions like a weight pressing down on you.

“Babe, where are you going?” His voice echoed through the air, calm but laced with danger.

You pushed forward, reaching the plothole just as the world around you began to glitch. The crack was wide enough now to slip through, its edges flickering with static. You didn’t hesitate, diving into the unknown.

For a moment, you felt weightless, like you were falling through nothingness. But then the static cleared, and you found yourself in an unfamiliar space—a void of black and white, like the raw code of the game.

“You really thought you could leave me?”

Gojo’s voice cut through the silence, and you turned to see him standing behind you, his figure glowing with an otherworldly light. His usual grin was gone, replaced by a cold, furious glare.

“I gave you everything, [Your Name],” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “And this is how you repay me? Running away? After all we’ve been through?”

You raised your hands, summoning the powers you’d been practicing. A wave of energy shot toward him, but he deflected it effortlessly, the static around him rippling like water.

“Cute...” he said, smirking again. “But you can’t beat me in my own world.”

The fight was brief but brutal. No matter how hard you fought, Gojo was always one step ahead, his control over the virtual world far surpassing your own.

When you collapsed to the ground, exhausted and defeated, he crouched beside you, his expression softening into something almost tender.

“You’re so stubborn” he murmured, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “But that’s one of the things I love about you. Don’t worry, babe. I’ll fix this.”

Before you could protest, he pressed his hand to your forehead. A surge of energy coursed through you, and the world around you dissolved into a haze of light.

When you woke up, you were back in the palace, lying in a luxurious bed. Gojo sat beside you, his usual grin firmly in place.

“Morning, princess!” he said, his tone cheerful. “You had the strangest dream last night. Something about running away?” He chuckled, shaking his head. “Don’t worry. You’re safe here. You’ll always be safe with me.”

You smiled back at him, your eyes vacant and glassy. Deep down, a small part of you screamed, but it was drowned out by the fog clouding your mind.

-----

At first, the fog was comforting. You no longer felt the weight of resistance, the desperate need to escape. Your days in the palace drifted by in a peaceful blur. Gojo was attentive, doting on you as he always had. You smiled when he spoke, laughed at his jokes, and even let him hold you close without flinching.

But deep down, buried beneath the fog, a faint voice whispered.

This isn’t right.

This isn’t real.

You have to wake up.

It started with flashes—small, fleeting memories of the plothole, the void, the fight. You’d blink, and for a moment, the world would seem less vibrant, the colors dulled. Then Gojo’s voice would pull you back, soothing and warm, like a blanket wrapping around your mind.

“Everything’s okay now, babe” he’d say, his fingers brushing your cheek. “You’re safe. I’ll always keep you safe.”

But the cracks in his perfect world grew larger. The more you noticed them, the harder it became to ignore the truth. One night, as you stared out at the pastel horizon, the fog lifted just enough for you to remember. The plot hole. The fight. The moment he…changed you.

The realization hit like a punch to the chest. He hadn’t just trapped you—he’d rewritten you, twisted your mind to fit his fantasy. And you’d let him.

From that moment on, you began to fake it. Every smile, every laugh, every loving look was a mask, carefully crafted to keep him from noticing the growing fire inside you. You pretended to be the perfect princess while secretly plotting your escape.

The palace was vast, and while Gojo controlled the city, his reach wasn’t omnipotent. There were hidden corridors, forgotten rooms, and cracks in the world’s code that even he hadn’t smoothed over. You explored them in secret, testing your powers in small, subtle ways. He had weakened you, but he hadn’t taken everything.

The game of hide-and-seek began.

At first, it was simple. You’d slip away during his walks through the city, disappearing into the shadows of the maze-like gardens. When he asked where you’d been, you’d smile sweetly and tell him you’d just needed some fresh air.

But Gojo wasn’t stupid. He started watching you more closely, his carefree demeanor masking a sharp, calculating edge.

“You’ve been quiet lately” he said one evening, his blue eyes scanning your face. “Everything okay, babe?”

“Of course” you replied, your tone light and cheerful. “I’ve just been enjoying the peace here.”

His smile widened, but his gaze lingered a moment too long. “Good. I’d hate to think you were hiding something from me.”

The tension between you grew with each passing day. You knew he suspected something, but he didn’t act—yet.

Then came the night you made your move.

You’d discovered another plot hole, deeper in the city, hidden in the shadows of an abandoned building. It was smaller than the first, but you’d been working to widen it, using your powers in secret. It wasn’t perfect, but it was your best chance.

As the city slept, you slipped out of the palace, your heart pounding in your chest. The streets were eerily silent, the pastel glow of the world casting strange, distorted shadows. You reached the plot hole, your fingers trembling as you prepared to use your powers one final time.

But before you could act, his voice cut through the stillness.

“Going somewhere?”

You froze, dread flooding your veins. Slowly, you turned to see Gojo standing behind you, his figure framed by the soft pink glow of the street lights. His usual grin was gone, replaced by something colder, sharper.

“I gave you everything” he said, his voice calm but deadly. “And yet, here you are, trying to leave me again.”

You didn’t respond. Instead, you raised your hands, summoning what little power you had left. A surge of energy shot toward him, but he deflected it effortlessly, his own power crackling through the air like lightning.

“I thought we were past this” he said, stepping closer. “I thought you loved me.”

“I don’t belong here!” you shouted, tears streaming down your face. “You can’t keep me trapped forever!”

Gojo’s eyes narrowed, and in an instant, he was in front of you, his hand gripping your wrist.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” he said, his tone eerily soft. “This isn’t about keeping you here. This is about us. You’re mine, [Your Name]. And I’m not letting you go.”

With a wave of his hand, your powers fizzled out, the energy in your body vanishing like smoke. Your legs buckled as the strength drained from you, and Gojo caught you before you fell.

“Don’t worry” he murmured, his lips brushing against your ear. “I’ll fix you again. This time, I’ll make sure you never want to leave.”

The world around you blurred as he carried you back to the palace. When you awoke, you were in your room, the walls adorned with flowers and glowing lights. Chains of light bound your wrists and ankles, keeping you tethered to the bed.

Gojo sat beside you, his expression soft but unyielding.

“You’ve been so difficult lately” he said, stroking your hair. “But that’s okay. I know you’ll come around eventually. After all, we’re perfect together.”

Your lips trembled as you stared at him, tears spilling down your cheeks. Deep inside, a small part of you still burned with defiance, but it was growing harder to hold onto.

Gojo leaned in, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Don’t cry, babe. I’ll make sure you’re happy. Even if I have to rewrite every part of you to do it.”

As the chains tightened, the fog began to creep back in. You fought against it, clinging desperately to the last fragments of your will. But his voice was soothing, his presence overwhelming, and the fire inside you flickered.

This time, you weren’t sure you’d be able to reignite it.

------

Tag list: @tremendousdinosaurpizza; @do-morochaa

[iwriteaboutfeminism]

I wanted to talk through some thoughts on the blitz of news that's come out in the last few days.

First, a reminder: It is not physically or intellectually possible to respond to every piece of news or proposed legislation or executive order that's come out recently. Even if it were, that would cause an immobilizing level of overwhelm. And any time you notice yourself feeling immobilized, that's an opportunity to reflect and redirect your focus.

And by "re-directing your focus," I don't mean to ignore all the problems. That's the strategy behind doing a blitz like this, so you don't want to walk right into that trap.

But let's say that you have a lot of strong feelings about a lot of the stuff that's happening or that's being proposed and you place a high value on speaking out and taking action against things you disagree with. All of that comes from a really good place, and I'm not discouraging that impulse.

But in order to do any of that effectively in a time like this, let's talk about the difference between "reaction" and "response."

Imagine you're at a batting cage, ready to work on your swing, but the pitching machine is throwing the balls way too frequently for you to actually get in a good, solid swing for each ball that's being thrown at you. You could try to hold the bat still so that you're bunting, but even if you make contact with more of the balls that way, you're not going to hit them very far.That's one way to think of the difference between reacting and responding.

If you're treating the dozens of new executive orders like a checklist you're going down and marking "against; against; against", yes, it's valuable to speak out against harmful actions, but if you were to fully express yourself on everything that's happening that you find on a spectrum of disagreeable to dangerous, I bet you're already feeling the exhaustion.

The solution isn't to give up, but it's also not to wear yourself out. Instead of reacting, respond.

Back to the batting cage- instead of trying and inevitably failing to swing at each fastball, you need to decide to respond by letting some of the balls fly by you and focusing your effort, skill, time, and attention on hitting the ones you can hit with a strong swing.

While this does require letting most of the balls fly by you, that DOES NOT MEAN that you're allowing those things to go without a strong response. This is because you are acting in community. You are taking the effort, skill, time, and attention required to hit the balls you are hitting SO THAT other people who you are in solidarity with can focus their effort, skill, time, and attention on the balls THEY'RE hitting.

This asks you to determine the difference between issues you can react to and issues you are capable of responding to. Once you've made that decision, there is less pressure and emotional weight on you to play whack-a-mole with each new bit of information. Remember, you're not ignoring or down-playing the importance of or not caring about the other issues (there will always be opportunities for collaboration!) but you are choosing to focus on what you are capable of responding to.

Start with the issue or issues that you have a level of personal experience with or have already spent some time learning about. You don't have to be an expert, but these are the issues you can speak about without having to study a list of talking points first. These are the issues that you know off the top of your head a list of resources or advocacy/activist/mutual aid groups or books/documentaries to recommend to people who are looking to learn and do more.

Start with those, and get in a few good swings. Share experiences with the people and groups who are taking swings at other issues. Learn from each other. Help each other. Take turns resting.

We're playing the long game. Together. And we're going to win.

[yandere-sins]

I LOVE YOUR IMMORTAL YANDERE DRABBLE!!! Especially the "favorite" life you talked about. I like to imagine it was the first one. They met you, and you fell in love. You reciprocated! <3 But maybe you died young, too early into your relationship to realize they were messed up. Or maybe you lived to old age and started to wonder what sort of monster you married if they never aged or changed. Either way, they're constantly seeking that high again. They chase your memory through millennia. You'll realize you love them again. It's a soul, right? It's the same soul, just a different body. If you're soulmates, and you are, you'll love them again. They just need to try and try and try and try and try. <3

[Prev Post ♥]

Oh man, I totally see that, and it actually feels so tragic... The poor soulmate yan might actually be the first that one can feel sorry for ;;

Because immortality definitely has its downs. Being the last one of their family is heartbreaking indeed. At the same time, they continue to live without aging, traveling to hide from those who know the yan until they, too, are six feet under. But time moves on, months, years, decades. Someday, not even an immortal can remember those who passed. It's an endless day and night cycle, and no drinking, smoking, or lamenting at the moon can make up for the loneliness and ache in their old bones.

There's so much boredom, too. Once they have all the degrees and worked every job, there's so little to explore. Sure, times change, but no one really needs that much time to try it all. Nothing rouses them anymore, makes their heart beat fast or blood rush. Every enticing drug and med soon becomes ineffective as their body gets used to it.

But suddenly, there's you.

Like the early spring breeze, you ring in the change in his life, your carefree smile and the sparkle in your eyes, more flashing than a diamond. You are everything the yan is not—alive. You savor every moment of your short lifespan and keep falling in love with the small things the yandere no longer cares about. But they do, now, by your side. Because you care about them, and that is enough for them to give it all their attention. If you stop to look at the flowers, so do they. If you want to go to the museum they have been to countless times, they'll go, smiling as you talk about the paintings the yan watched being made. But they love you. They love you so much.

And you do, too. You love them for what little time you two have together. You make the yandere dance in the rain with you and then cuddle with them while you both have a pretty bad cold. You lie awake long into the night, drawing the curve of their nose until the yan reaches up to kiss your hand with the reverence that only someone who loves you could. You make them watch bad movies and let them take you dancing and to fancy dinners, never doubting that the yan loves you and never letting them feel anything less than that you do, too.

So when the yan invites you to go on a maiden voyage of a new luxury ocean liner for the first year anniversary of your relationship, you jump into their arms and kiss them all over their scrunched-up, grinning face since it's that special. Life is good as you two plan what you want to see and experience when you set foot in America. Of course, you are nervous, but it's the good kind, you know? And so is the yan, clutching the ring box in their pocket as they lead you up the ramp of the Titanic, intending to propose to you, finally.

They want to spend the rest of your life with you and find a way to join you in the grave, for that is what you mean to them.

They want it all, the good and the bad days. Children, pets, growing old. Making sure you are always cared for even when your mind forgets who they are. Until then is still a long time, and you will continue to teach them to savor every moment of it. You will understand the yan's condition, they are sure. You will still love them, even when your hands are no longer soft, and your eyes aren't the sharpest anymore. And so will they, never straying, never looking back.

So when you look at them, your beautiful eyes full of tears, fear, and determination, saying that you missed the last lifeboat to be with the yan until the very end, they can't help but sob uncontrollably. They know you're not going to make it... but they will. There's nothing they can do but hold you tight as the ship breaks in two, the mouth of the ocean opening to swallow everything whole.

But they'd be damned if they didn't ask. Didn't kneel or open the ring box as everyone cries and screams around you two. Didn't make you their betrothed even if you'll never be their spouse. And as they swore they would, they love you. Savor every last moment with you, admire the stars before retreating, laughing with you in the cabin until you breathe your last breath in the yan's arms. They kiss your ice-cold hands even though they are too stiff to move, and they pray to the gods above to release them of this curse, to let the yan rest by your side for all eternity.

And they still cry, decades later, as they resurface on a beach. People try to help, but the yandere is inconsolable. Nothing could make them move, the pain of losing you as fresh as on the first day. Nothing, until...

You.

With a bright, carefree smile, the sparkle in your eyes flashes more than a diamond.

And a splitting image of what they have lost, except for the ring on your finger that clearly isn't the one the yan has given you.

Edit: I did my research after writing, sorry :( The Titanic sank in 1912; please don't bash me. This immortal one is a different one from the other post, we can make it work :'D

[littlemissshifter]

Dreaming and Lucid dreaming are Shifting.

Did that make you mad? Good, now read this till the end.

- Dreams: a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.

- Lucid dreaming: dreams when you know you're dreaming while you're asleep.

- Shifting: a practice where individuals shift their awareness to alternate realities.

DREAMS

Since our awareness is shifting every second, what happens when we go to sleep? When our awareness stops being aware what happens?

Kids, kids, your awareness stops being aware here when you sleep. What about other realities?

When your conscious self goes to sleep, your subconscious self, which is connected to every reality imaginable what does it to?

It explores.

It explores all the different realities without limitations. Those are dreams. Every dream you've had is a different reality.

You are unaware while dreaming. You can't control these dreams. Why? Because did you think you can control your reality before stumbling upon manifesting or shifting? It's conditioning that is common in most of your dreams because you are conditioned that way, to believe reality cannot be controlled. This is why sometimes you can't differentiate between dreams and reality. Because they're both the same thing, one just happens when you're asleep.

We dream every night. The average is about 4-6 times each night. You shift every night. You remember some, you forget some. For me to explain why we forgot I'd have to make a different post because it'd get very long. For now just use Google.

"But why do my dreams revolve around this reality?" you ask. Because you're dreaming with the beliefs and conditioning of this reality.

If you were born in a magical world and were aware there, then your dreams will revolve around magic.

Shifting happens when you become aware of a different reality, When you've known only a particular reality your whole life, you subconscious only goes to different versions of that really. (I said subconscious because your conscious is asleep)

This is not fixed by the way. Like when you see a movie and you dream about it. When you become aware of a different world, you shift to (dream about) a different world.

Emotions play a important role in dreaming as well. They decide what your dream will be in different ways. Example: When you have a crush, you get a dream of being with them, it was fueled by your emotions of wanting to be with them. That there, is a reality where you are in a happy relationship with your crush.

Dreams are you shifting realities while unaware based on your beliefs, emotions, thoughts and conditioning of this particular reality.

Wait, beliefs, emotions, thoughts and conditioning? That sounds familiar. What else does that make? Oh yeah, your CR.

LUCID DREAMING

Now, since we've got the first topic covered, why can we control some dreams and not the other? People train themselves to lucid dream. It is possible to control all your dreams. When you become aware of the spiritual aspect of things, you get more vivid, lucid dreams because that is you taking control back whether it's a dream or your reality.

You can still lucid dreaming without ever knowing any spiritual aspect of anything. Why? Because shifting is the essence of existence. You shift every second, even sleeping.

You become aware in a dream and control it much like you scripted you can similar to your dr. It's the same.

I know what you're thinking, if they're the same, why does lucid dreaming and shifting feel so different?

Because you're aware of the fact that you're lucid dreaming. Emphasis on the dreaming here. You know you can control it, but you think you're still dreaming. 'Dreaming' for us defines that it's not real when in fact it is. If you changed your awareness to it being an actual reality, congratulations you've shifted with full awareness this time.

HOW DOES SHIFTING RELATE TO THEM

Dreaming and Lucid dreaming are a part of shifting. They are sub categories of shifting.

When you DREAM you're unaware of it being a dream, you think it's happening right now, but your conscious is asleep.

When you LUCID DREAM you're only half aware because you still believe that it's a 'dream' that you control.

When you SHIFT you're fully aware. Your conscious and subconscious are both in focused on one reality in front of you, like in your CR.

Everything you know or don't know is a part of shifting. Shifting is everything. Dreams and Lucid dreaming are not that different after all. They are different experiences yes. But the core of shifting is the same everywhere.

WHAT LEAD TO ME FINDING THIS OUT

I actually knew this for sometime, but it didn't hit me until a few days ago. How much we underestimate the mind in our daily life. Thinking shifting is something that leads us somewhere, when in reality it's us that leads shifting. You're all shifters because you're human. Human nature is shifting itself.

I've experimented in my dreams, becoming lucid and telling my mind to shift me places, to shift me back. Just whatever you can think of. The amount of power we hold in our dreams is the same as we hold in our daily life. Why the difference?

Time isn't real, so is reality. Who's to know except you?

Scientists do not know why we dream. Here is your answer.

This is my belief. My knowledge. My knowing. You don't have to accept this. You can think they're different, not at all related. That I'm just spouting nonsense. But then you are forgetting that we're shifting 24/7 why would that not include everything including dreams?

I'm open to opinions and questions. Please be civil and do not fight regarding this. Do not spread misinformation.

[eclipseberrycake]

Top Shelf (Support! Reader x Sprout)

AN: Oooh mr. Seedly. I love making you all fall in love with my version of Sprout >:) Then requesting more Sprout >:) Then I get to write more Sprout >:)

This is a request!

☁ Now, now, now. A support toon.

☁ Hear me out. An ability like Gigi, but instead of getting the objects yourself, you give a random object to a toon of your choice.

☁ Of course, you give this to Sprout, all the time. Because it's funny.

☁ Imagine he's hiding from a twisted behind a box and is suddenly pelted by gumballs falling from the air above him, your giggles falling away.

☁ Just as he goes to yell at you, the twisted spots him and he's left running to lose them, glaring at you as you snicker from your own hiding place.

☁ Sprout is an overprotective guy, we've established well enough, and this ability kind of pisses him off.

☁ Why is he taking something, especially when luck strikes and it's something like a band or a med-kit, when it could be going to you?

☁ A part of him knows that this is your way of showing affection however. You do what you can to protect him while he's always giving you heals whenever needed. It's a give and take really.

☁ I haven't really touched on it directly in the MBC works, but Sprout is a touchy guy. He loves just touching for no reason. But he's a jerk when he does it/ affectionate

☁ He's leaning on you like you're a table, messing with your head, using his hands to steer your shoulders wherever he wants, holding you like one would hold a cat, crouching down to talk face-to-face with you even if the height difference isn't that great.

☁ He even does that thing where he holds your forehead with one hand while the other holds something out of your reach.

☁ Like I'm sorry but I love the Lovers who are actually each others biggest haters. It's so funny to me.

☁ Don't get me wrong, if you're with Sprout, you're probably returning it tenfold.

☁ You call him over for tapes only to take them the second he's close enough to do so (Oooh ginger mains when I CATCH YOU GINGER MAINS-), running off giggling even if he's quick enough to catch you. You're making sure you're using your ability when he's in the worst situation, making him stumble to catch the bottle of pop as Twisted Teagan chases him down.

☁ It's all in good fun, trust.

☁ You guys probably get together because he's talking to Cosmo about his feelings an Cosmo goes "You want me to set you up with them?" And like a FOOL, he agrees. So, in the elevator where it's isolated with no escape route, Cosmo SCREAMS across the elevator. "HEY Y/N SPROUT LIKES YOU!"

☁ He would throttle the cake roll yet.

☁ He nearly did when you turned at the sound of your name from your conversation with Glisten, who hides his laugh behind his hand. You're cheeks immediately flush as your brain computes the knowledge given to you and Sprout wants to crawl into a hole and die.

☁ And then you laugh. It's slow little giggles and then hearty laughter that makes his stomach flip hearing it. You shake your head before beaming. "I would hope so, as far as I'm aware, we've been dating for months."

☁ Which was news to him. He gapes as Cosmo cackles, patting Sprout's back before running into the newly opened room. The only two left in the elevator are him and you. You watch the others leave, before stepping just enough the elevator won't kick you out, watching Sprout as he steps beside you.

☁ He avoids your eyes as he scratches the back of his neck, his own seeded cheeks turning a more ruby red. You grin at him, gently taking his hand. "What's wrong, Seedly?"

☁ All signs of the bashful, shy Sprout are immediately dashed as he deadpans at you, raising a brow ridge at the use of his name. You smirk up at him again, nudging him with a shoulder.

☁ "Did you really think we were dating?" He suddenly asks and your face falls. It makes his own gut twist as he goes to try and rectify it, but you're already talking, trying to take your hand back. "I'm so sorry, did I read the signs all wrong? I thought when you mentioned feeling closed to me a couple weeks ago-"

☁ He had done that. He mentioned being closest with you weeks ago, and was going confess then, but wussed out. To know now, that you took it that way anyway? His hands tighten around yours. "I was!" He blurts. "I was going to, admittedly." He frowns at this even as you stop trying to pull away. "I chickened out, but I do like you. A lot. I did then and I do now."

☁ You stare at him before letting out a sigh of relief, shaking your head with a grin. "Oh, Mr. Seedly-"

☁ "Well if you're calling me that-" Sprout is the one to try and pull away this time, making you giggle as you try and grab him again, saying all sorts of denials and apologies through your laughter.

☁ He lets you grab his cheeks, staring into the pools of your eyes with a dopey grin on his face. Sure Cosmo was being chased by a twisted right now, but he'd be fine. He deserved it. At least for a little.

☁ "Can I kiss you?" You ask suddenly, and his cheeks burn a bright red, only able to mindlessly nod his head. You reach up and press a kiss to his lips, only a quick peck, but he swears fireworks go off somewhere.

☁ You grin at him once more and there's suddenly something much heavier and cylindrical in his hands. You're waving as you run off, and he's left staring between his hand, which now holds a can of pop, and you're retreating form before laughing at himself and what's he's gotten himself into before turning to save Cosmo.

☁ Cosmo gives him all sorts of scoldings in the elevator after the fact, but Sprout can't even find it in himself to care, leaning his chin on your head even as you swat at him.

☁ He does love your ability, let me add, he just wishes sometimes you'd use it in a better time. There are times however when it's perfect.

☁ He doesn't distract often, not if he can help it, but when he does and he feels himself running on empty, only for a bottle of pop to appear? He's forever thankful. Or when he's been too busy healing everyone else, he doesn't realize he himself has been hit until he's being smoked with a bandage box.

☁ In return, he throws cupcakes at you.

☁ All in the names of healing.

☁ He's such a turd sometimes I swear.

[ihopesocomic]

I'm curious if you guys know about Clouded Moon, Shifting Roots? The book just came out and I read it, I thought it was pretty good

I read it. And I did not care for it. It read more like it was something for people who are already fans of these characters and not for people who were looking for something separate from Warrior Cats. Which would be fine but then I wouldn't have bothered.

It read like they felt like they had something better than Warrior Cats when in reality it was no different from Warrior Cats. Which is the problem with many Warrior Cats adjacent things. They end up making the exact same mistakes. 

There is an unneeded amount of telling and not showing. There was so many instances where a character would explain something that happened to them prior to the events of the book. The writers of Warrior Cats are beholden to a narrative structure of following a linear timeline that is not a standalone story. It requires context from other books. Since this is a story independent of Warrior Cats, I have to wonder why this writer didn't just. Start from the beginning. It would explain the actions and feelings of characters better without having to dump exposition on your readers. This is especially obvious later in the book where the main characters get attacked by coyotes and snakes and we see none of it happen lol it's all third-hand accounts of what happened.

It still has an unnecessarily large cast. Warriors has a problem with too many characters, so why did you CHOOSE to have the same problem? Characters sharing the same prefix is a huge mistake. There is only one instance where it made sense because eventually something changes. But I've been in WC RP groups before and there's a good reason the ones I was in disallow the same prefix lol it's fucking confusing. If you're not gonna trim the fat, it does the reader a disservice to not do your best to make sure no one gets confused. I don't care how attached to the names y'all are. V*viziepop did this shit and I'm gonna criticize the book for doing the same thing.

You can barely focus on the protagonists. They were basically interchangeable, which was not helped by the constant changing of perspectives, because they all essentially have the exact same thoughts on top of a cast you can barely keep track of. They barely had personalities to speak of, so all of them are surprisingly plain. And I'm supposed to believe at least half of the main cast were close friends at some point. Even characters that should at the very least be morally grey like Dawnfrost and Goldenpelt felt like the writer(s?) didn't want to make them "TOO" bad so that people would still like them. Cuz god forbid we have characters that have to grow to become better people. They're essentially a cult in the woods who are at constant odds with each other and you don't want to have Dawnfrost have some questionable thoughts about anything? 

Since the protagonists barely have a personality, character deaths happening around them have such little impact, even the ones I was surprised by. I imagine if this was remedied by telling the story from the start, I would probably care at least a little. I had stronger feelings about Duskwater dying and she had no dialogue and died pooping.

It is only because I have read Warrior Cats does it make it obvious where this story's roots came from. Because all of it is disappointingly interchangeable with Warrior Cats. You can't just change a few words and claim that something doesn't have ownership of something and then keep it virtually the same anyway. Aside from a few minor differences like queer characters having a Mike Wazowski cameo in the background, and magic being more widespread, nothing about it is different. To its detriment, without the context of Warrior Cats, there is no reason characters should be having half of the problems they currently have. A lot of the problems would be solved by simply making choices the cats in Warriors wouldn't. There's too many examples to give, but one that kind of drives me crazy is Windclan Field Colony leaders captains allegedly dislike Spottedshadow for her questionable loyalty, but they trust her enough to train their youth? Any other story would have leadership, no matter what the consequence, withhold that kind of power and make the protagonist find ways to subvert that.

And speaking of the queer characters, the cast is embarrassingly vanilla. You have the luxury of not being beholden to a publishing company's whims, you could have one big ol' polycule, or whatever the fuck, and you just. Don't bother? I know they've had these characters for a long time but like. None of the main cast is gay? Trans? Nothing? I guess Spottedshadow and Dawnfrost are bisexual since they had a relationship at some point, which again we the readers are not even present for, but it is entirely inconsequential to literally everything. I don't even recall whether a character brings it up in conversation. Neither of them barely spare a thought for each other, but their male romantic partners get plenty, even Goldenpelt. I guess to be fair, even the f/m romances are about as deep as the ones in WC. But did we not all decide this was tokenism? Or does it get a pass because it's "independent"? I've always said if you're not going to give your queer characters quality, you're better off not having them at all. I know they had these characters for a long time, but to advertise it as being queer is grossly misleading. People got more from the queer subtext from Frostdawn (god) and Whistlebreeze than queer context in this book. Again, if this was started from the beginning, where we got to see their relationship and it's just not working out, I wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

And worst of all, it was boring.

I really need people to read books that are not Warrior Cats to have an idea of what good books are. Because if the line is "not warriors" then this book can't even cross that. - Cat

-

Basically all of what Cat said. I also didn't care much for the worldbuilding changes from it being a Warrior Cats RP story either. Like Cat said: if you're going to make it not Warrior Cats, you may as well just start from scratch so you can do things differently more efficiently.

Not only are the changes superficial at best but... they either make no sense or are very cumbersome. Like the Captains have these titles like 'Elmtail the something or other Branch' and I'm just like why? I mean, I get it because it's meant to imply something about their personality and leadership strategy but this is an example of how this story tells but does not show.

It also bothers me how we have mismatch of rank titles like Captain, Second, Envoy etc., which may sound like a nitpick but... it makes it really hard to remember what rank does what and what order of seniority they're in. It wasn't until quite far in the book that I realised that an Envoy appears to be something of a third-in-command of the colonies after the Second and the Captain. Even though - traditionally - an envoy is a low-ranking title in most situations. I know a rebuttal to this would be that the Envoy is simply 'in training' but nah, they're on the Council with the Second and the Captain and Goldenpelt even lords over Spottedshadow by using his seniority as Envoy at one point.

I would've just liked an explanation for these new choices in rank titles because they don't seem to correlate well at all. Like with our WC rewrite - The Nefarious - we went with a medieval ranking system because the two Colonies we have date back to medieval times so it makes sense for them to carry those titles throughout their history. Same goes for Warrior Cats itself, which isn't entirely necessary because it's pretty easy to follow what the titles mean but it's still nice we get to see how the Clans established themselves in Dawn of the Clans and Moth Flight's Vision.

And what makes things even more complicated on top of remembering all of the main cast and their respective deals is that - in place of the Leader, the Deputy and the medicine cat arriving at decisions for their Clan - each Colony has a Council that you have to keep up with that is made up of the Captain, the Second, the Envoy and an Elder. WindClan Field Colony even goes that extra mile and adds the Herbalist (medicine cat) to their Council. Good luck remembering which cats are on which Council for each Colony because I sure as hell don't.

We also have a stand-in for StarClan and the Nine Lives ceremony or w/e but I don't remember much about this. It was just more lore and more characters I had to keep track of.

To sum it up all: everything you're familiar with in Warrior Cats has just been taken and renamed but made even more needlessly complicated so that it seems 'different'. It's certainly different... it's just harder for me to keep track of everything. But congratulations, I guess? shrug - RJ

[aj2020ahgd]

Hey so, regarding the head armour things in the human au

Do you ever think that if they were too tight they would just reshape their faces and make em red?

I can't help but think that whenever someone draws transformers as humans with em

I do sometimes wonder the same thing and ngl thinking abt their face getting squished is pretty funny lol. And i have a feeling some people would interpret it that way or completely differently than that😍

BUT! Here's my interpretation of my humanformers helmets!!

mostly based on it from detroit,,, heh (loser) without the whole helmet thing, then it's just an exposed muscle metal hanging around in the wind with no protection whatsoever...

In MY humanformers universe, bots are already programmed to have those helmets once they're made so theres no troubles like their face getting squished or the helmet is too tight!!

I mean can you imagine just one wandering around with out one that'd be pretty terrifying

[kurokawaia]

thoughts on sasuke with pregnant reader (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) (don't feel pressured if you don't want to write it Honey!! you know i love what you write either way 🫂)

Oh my goodness^^ ofc i'll share my thoughts nonnie!! you're too sweet omg 🫂🫂

CW/TW :: pregnancy, fem!reader, thelast!sasuke/postwar!sasuke, reader is a medical ninja

I can just imagine that on his travels that you are there with him. He is the one that asked you to come which surprised you because you'd never thought he would, until he did. During the time you were together, wondering outside the village, going to various places, you landed up pregnant.

This wasn't something to be disappointed of! No! In fact, Sasuke was the one who first brought up the topic, expressing his interest and you wanted to as well. The only problem was... how dangerous it would be for you now that you are having a child.

Sasuke and you managed to come to an agreement, that you'd go back to the village and he'd continue to travel around for two weeks before coming back for a week to spend time with you until you were further along, to which he'd stay three weeks and leave for only a couple days.

You were around 19 weeks pregnant and the both of you have been in the village for only a mere couple of hours after reporting in with the Hokage. He didn't even suspect a thing, you were wearing a coat which covered your body so he couldn't tell, only that you informed him that you wouldn't be travelling anymore due to some health issues.

But, this is were all the 'drama' starts. You're out getting some groceries because there is nothing in the house, nothing. You changed out from your ninja attire to something more comfortable, a fitted maxi dress which did, very obviously, show of your growing baby bump. Casually, you were just plopping in the stuff you and Sasuke needed into the smaller trolley's (sasuke isn't here bc naruto dragged him away to get some ramen, you said you're a strong independent woman who can shop herself (●'◡'●) )

This is when the stares start to begin. Because not only can they see your pregnant, but they can see the Uchiha Clan symbol sewn onto the back of your dress. The Uchiha symbol on your back wasn’t exactly subtle, and with your bump showing, it was pretty clear who you were and what was going on. You can feel the stares, you were only gone for what 7 months, that's not that long but you guessed that it was the fact that you left not pregnant and came back so.

It wasn’t every day they saw Sasuke Uchiha’s partner out and about anyways, since you work at the hospital AND being pregnant. That's a shocker. A group of older women passed by, their eyes lingering a little longer than usual. You didn’t blame them. Sasuke wasn’t exactly the type to be open about his personal life, and here you were, very obviously carrying his child. They probably never expected to see this side of him.

After a while, you headed to the checkout, noticing the stares hadn’t really stopped. You couldn’t help but think about how different life was now. Being with Sasuke always meant people were watching, but now, with a baby on the way, it felt even more intense. But you knew it is only because they never thought they'd ever see the day he'd settle down, and now he has!

Do not copy, steal, modify, etc. Relogs and like are appreciated.

[osmanthus-wine-addiction]

18 Evil Twin

Zhongli x Reader / SFW / established relationship / Zhongli has an evil twin and he's a yandere / canon was hijacked again for plot purposes / this was supposed to be sexy, I don't know why he turned out so babygirl, like poor thing just needs a hug and some good loving

"Zhongli…"

The name slid off his tongue like some sort of titillating joke. The velvety quality of his voice and the deep timbre was so eerily familiar, it was hard to imagine that it did not belong to your lover.

"So he's given himself yet another name." The man remarks.

"Who are you?" You ask warily.

Your captor's gaze returned to your face, a curl tugging at the corners of his lips.

"Morax, or if you prefer to call me by the new name, I suppose I can be Zhongli as well."

"You're not him." You dared to point out.

His eyes might be the same striking amber, but something was missing. Perhaps it was the gentleness and affection that always seemed to spill over whenever your lover's gaze falls on you.

At first, you wondered if Zhongli had succumbed to erosion like his old friend Azhdaha. Perhaps he had lost a chunk of his memories. It would explain the jarring differences in his demeanor. However, you simply couldn't accept the possibility of this person being who your lover used to be before you had met him.

Zhongli had always been the kind and patient man you had met all those years ago and even if he had lost his memories of you and held no love for you in his heart, you'd have no trouble falling for him all over again. This only left you with one explanation, the person standing in front of you could not be the same person.

"I'm every bit him as he is me, sweetheart." The imposter chuckles. "But since you find that hard to believe, why don't I make the truth easier for you to swallow?"

The ground beneath your feet began to tremble. Your eyes darted around in apprehension. Once the shaking was over, the two of you were surrounded by a ring of stone pillars. Elemental energy resonated between them, forming a rippling wall. He had just formed a seal, something you had witnessed Zhongli do on multiple occasions.

So this imposter was capable of the things your lover is capable of doing. That does not make him the same person. The more this person revealed about himself, the more uneasy you became. There was now a seal around you and despite making his point already, the pillars were still standing.

"What do you want with me?" You asked.

"What do I want with you…" He mused, as if he himself had no idea what had compelled him to kidnap you and bring you here to this mysterious place.

Amusement glinted in his eyes. He took a step towards you, then another. You had no choice but to back up, right into one of his pillars. With your back pressed up against the pulsating construct, the vibrations rippled through your body with mind-numbing intensity. Your body began to tremble and your knees involuntarily buckled as you struggled to stay standing.

"Don't touch me." You swatted away his hand which had instinctively reached out to steady you.

He places his hand against the pillar behind you instead. Despite the lack of physical contact, his looming presence threatened to crush you like a mountain, an impression your lover never once gave you.

"I appologize for the forwardness. It appears there are certain inclinations I cannot hold back in regards to you."

"Who are you and what do you want with me?" You ignored his apology and demanded answers to the two questions you had been asking ever since he appeared.

"I believe we've already had this conversation, dear. Whichever name you prefer to call me by is irrelevant."

"You're not him!" You shouted as you attempted to push him away.

He caught your hands and pinned them against your body, rendering you immobile with little effort.

"How shall I prove it to you then, hmm?" He hummed, amusement returning to his tone. "The person you call Zhongli, he and I are simply two faces of the same coin. For every moment of unfettered peace he reaps, who do you think pays the unsung price?"

"Let go of me!" You hiss as you struggled against his bruising hold.

"Have you never once questioned why the Geo Archon is immune to karmic debt despite slaying countless gods and bloodying his hands during the Archon war?"

Your eyes widened as the words hit your eardrums.

"Do you not find it unusual how he is able to resist abyssal corruption, despite clearly having encountered it multiple times as recorded in Liyue's past?"

"He must've had his ways…" The sound of your voice fell to a wisp.

"Have you never wondered how he deals with erosion, which indiscriminately affects every living being on Teyvat?"

Once again, you could only succumb to speechlessness.

"How well do you think you actually know your past archon, the god you've been calling Rex Lapis for the last three millenias?"

"I…" You started, but the words wouldn't come to your lips.

"You know nothing of his cruelty, his deceptions, or his hypocrisy and yet you claim to love him." His words bleed into your mind like murky ink as he tilts your chin up to meet his gaze. "Everything he does not wish for you to see, he simply siphons off, seals it away so that you may be blissfully ignorant."

You shutter as his breath fans over your skin.

"Everything that he knows, I know." The corner of his lips curl as he says this. "Everything that he feels, I feel too."

You stared at him, blinking so innocently.

"You do not understand." He sighs at your lack of response. "We are one in the same, yet I have been sealed away in this godforsaken place ever since the day he carved me out of him, left here to fester in perpetual solitude. Do you not find that insidious?"

Although his tone did not reflect his bitterness, his words were clearly spoken with the intent to garner sympathy from you. He was no longer sealed, which you were only now beginning to weave into your understanding of the situation you were in. The implications were many and none of them were good.

"So you're lonely?" You raised a brow. "That's why you kidnapped me? Because you need someone to vent to?"

He shook his head, a gentle but unsettling smile playing on his lips. "While I appreciate a good listener, that is not why you're here, dear."

"I'm bait then." You voiced your other suspicion.

His grin widened. "I can see why he fancies you."

"He'll just seal you away again." You said with as much confidence as you could muster.

"Not if I have you in my hands." He reminds you of your place by wrapping his fingers around your neck. "You make quite the lovely hostage."

"I'm just one of his many lovers." You bluffed. "He's not going to fling himself into your trap for me."

"Do not underestimate yourself, darling. He chuckled. "I hear his thoughts. They are inescapable, just as are his emotions. I know exactly how valuable you are to him."

You sucked in a breath. He had a point. Your relationship with the Wangsheng funeral consultant wasn't exactly a secret. His affections could be visible even to a stranger with the way he looks at you and holds your hand every time the two of you take a stroll through the bustling streets. It'd be a lost cause to try and convince him otherwise when Zhongli's thoughts are filled with adoration for you. As soon as you let go of that notion, another alarming one emerged in its place.

If Zhongli was that in love with you, could there be a tiny sliver of a possibility that his evil twin was susceptible to your charms as well? Just now, he couldn't help but reach out and hold you when it looked like you might fall.

"If you and him are so connected, then…" Your eyes rake his face, so reminiscent of the man that you're in love with.

If he says he's every bit as Zhongli as the Zhongli you know, then he can't exactly use you to gain any leverage. Zhongli's weakness would be his as well. You just had to confirm it. How would you go about that?

You gestured for him to lean in closer with a curl of your finger. Surprisingly, he followed your beck. It was almost as if his body was subconsciously accustomed to respond in this manner. You swallowed, still a bit unsure about what you were about to do.

The theory was, if he is affected by Zhongli's feelings for you, then he's pretty much wrapped around your finger. He'd react to you exactly the way his counterpart would if you make a move on him. He might be surprised and flustered because he doesn't see it coming, but once the initial shock fades away, you'll have him eating out of the palm of your hands. In your right mind, you'd never do this to a complete stranger. He was the one who claimed he was the same person as your lover, so naturally, it's his burden to prove it. You were simply conducting an experiment!

Without warning, you pressed your lips against his. As expected, he immediately tried to withdraw out of pure alarm, but as soon as your hand reached up to stroke his face, it was like something inside him recognized your touch. Your fingers threaded through his hair as if you were kissing your lover. He even sighs the way Zhongli does, readily melting into your kiss like his body was responding on its very own, chasing the fleeting intimacy like a beast starved.

A mere few seconds was all you needed to coax this hunger out of him, but once it had surfaced, stuffing it back into him was another matter. You gasped as the kiss took an unexpected turn. His hand cradled the back of your head against the stone pillar behind you as he kissed you back with a fervor you never anticipated. Pent up desire and desperation possessed him. His lips were already against your neck and his hands glided along your waist as he sought further closeness to you. You had thrown yourself at your captor to see if he'd give chase and he didn't disappoint. As indulgent as this experiment was, it had served its purpose.

"I— I believe you now." You panted after pushing him away.

"So you needed a kiss to be convinced that I was telling the truth." He remarked with muted disdain. "I am glad you got the result you seek, however," he paused to catch his breath, "I do not appreciate being subjected to an undisclosed trial."

"What are you going to do once he comes running? Are you going to seal him down here or something? You know, he's retired and is working at a funeral parlor right now. Are you going to go to work in his place?" In order to distract him from the kiss, you could only throw a pile of questions at him.

"I may kill him, but that must've crossed your mind already."

"If you and him are the same person, then it's obviously not going to be that simple."

Your captor narrowed his eyes at you, slightly perturbed that you were taking it so lightly.

"Like you said, you hear his thoughts and feel everything he feels. Can I assume that if he gets hurt, you also bleed?"

"That could be possible."

"You're not denying it, so I'm not far from the truth." You smirked. "It's not that you don't want to kill him. You can't, because you'll die too."

The amusement on his face melted away when you finished speaking. It must be unsettling to him how easily you figured him out, but that was a given. If he was Zhongli, then you also knew him well enough to hear what he was not putting into words. Your lover has always been a long-winded man, but even he clams up once in a while when it comes to information he doesn't wish to disclose. Rather than wring it out of him, you had learned the art of picking up on his subtle cues and body language in order to piece together a vague idea of what he was not telling you. This was how you had gotten him to admit his identity as the supposedly dead Geo Archon. You had gotten so exasperatingly good at peeling back his layers, both metaphorically and literally speaking, Zhongli now hardly has anymore secrets, save for this one standing in front of you.

"You can kill me out of spite, but you won't, because all that pain and grief is just going to get funneled into you. Am I right?"

Instead of yielding to you immediately like your lover so habitually does, this person grins even wider. A trace of unhinged excitement flashes in his eyes.

"Kill you?" He finds the thought entertaining, but abandons it without hesitation. "I would much rather propose a contract to have you imprisoned with me instead."

Your heart leapt in panic. "I'll take death over getting locked up in this hell hole with you."

A hint of genuine sadness rippled underneath his mirth. Being the perceptive person you were, you caught it before it disappeared.

As soon as the contradicting emotions sprouted up inside you, you had to stomp them out. You weren't about to get yourself emotionally attached to your kidnapper and you can't let him manipulate you into taking pity on him. Unfortunately for you, the brief waver in your gaze also didn't escape his eyes.

"It wouldn't be completely unfair as he has me imprisoned for much of my existence." He reminded you.

The distance between you shrunk once again as he leaned in. You already had your back against his pillar, with nowhere to escape, confined in this little play pen comprised of elemental constructs.

"Eleven months in a year."

You made an odd face. Was he trying to negotiate with you?

"I'm not staying with you."

"You can name your terms now or you can be my unwilling companion." He whispered against your ear. "I don't mind keeping you here against your will, as long as it makes losing my mind a little less unbearable."

"So choice is just an illusion?"

"I would prefer you to offer your freedom and company to me as opposed to having no say at all." He smiles.

"In other words, you get what you want either way."

"Precisely." He replied. "Ten months. I can spare you two months to finish whatever unfinished business you have."

You ignored his disingenuous offer. "How exactly will you keep me against my will if Zhongli can just march in here, reseal you, and take me back?"

"He will not take you if you agree to a contract before he gets here." He reminds you. "Must you keep testing my patience in this way?"

"I'll just wait until he gets here." You shrug.

"Nine months." He demands, slight irritation in his tone.

As if to demonstrate his irrefutable mastery over the environment, the ground beneath your feet began to shake again.

"Surely eight months in a year is not too much to ask." He says after your silence.

The entire subspace pulsated with Geo and began to churn as if a giant wheel were being turned in the distance.

"You don't frighten me, if that's what you're trying to do."

After that little test, you were certain that even if he had the power to end your life right here and now, he could never actually pull through with it. This was a beast with all his claws and teeth intact that could not lay a single finger on you.

"Are you truly so unwilling?" He brushes the back of a finger against your cheek.

"It's not like I'll get compensated for the time I'm going to be kept here against my will."

"I did not say you will receive nothing in return." A knowing smile crept into his lips. "You would consider it if I compensated you in some way?"

You should've kept your mouth shut. Now this bastard was onto you like a beast hooked on the scent of fresh blood. You wondered if Zhongli had already discovered your absence. How long would it take for him to find you?

"I'm not for sale." You crossed your arm. "You can haggle all you want, but I'm not selling myself to you."

"Anything can be bought, my dear."

"You don't have anything to offer that I'd want." You retorted. "At least nothing that Zhongli wouldn't be able to give me."

"I loathe the thought of harming you, truly…" The corner of his lips curled ever so slightly. "It's a pity that this affection does not extend to those around you."

"You're resorting to threatening me now?"

"If I must." He grins. The fingernails ghosting over your neck elongated into sharp claws. "Am I finally detecting a sway in your resolution?"

"Once he finds me, you won't have the chance." You huff, trying to keep up an unbothered front.

"Oh, I have quite the time to persuade you, darling. You can rest assured that he will not find you so easily. While I can hear his thoughts, he cannot access my mind. Such is the nature of our bond, so that what I carry on his behalf does not find its way back to him. While he can sense that my seal is broken, it will take him some effort to uncover this location."

Your lips parted in shock as his words dawned on you. This entity in front of you was at one point a part of the man you call Zhongli, your lover. The reason the person you met was such a selfless, considerate, and pleasant presence was because his darker, more troubled side had been literally cut away and sealed off from the rest of Teyvat so aa to not disturb the peaceful harbor he had painstakingly raised along the baron cliffs.

"Those things he'd never do…" The words drifted from your lips as they formed in your mind, slow and unsure. "They don't extend to you, do they?"

"You may consider my very existence an intentional loophole." He supplied.

You swallowed nervously. "What about the contracts he makes?"

He raises a hand to stroke his chin in thought. "I have been sealed away for as long as I could remember. When I had gone to fetch you, it hadn't occurred to me to challenge any of the contracts that he had bound himself to. Perhaps I can slaughter a few of his subjects to see if—"

"No! Absolutely not!" In a fit of panic, you pressed the palm of your hand against his lips to stop the rest of his sentence from spilling out. "You will not be killing any innocent people!"

He chuckled, but the sound was muffled underneath your hands. The warmth of his breath caused your skin to tingle so you quickly removed your hand from his face.

"How exactly do you intend to stop me if you are trapped here?"

A pair of stone cuffs emerged from the stone pillar behind you, molding around your wrists. Another pair wrapped around your ankles, effectively restricting your movements. His question had effectively shut you up as well.

"Precisely. You cannot." He smiled ominously at you.

"Wait!" You shouted after him as he walked off.

He stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn around, waiting for your explanation.

"Did he split you off before or after he became the Geo Archon?"

"After." Came his reply.

"Then that means you're still bound by his contract to protect Liyue. You can't hurt anyone even if you wanted to."

He turned around to face you, walking back at a leisurely pace. Once he was close enough, he reached up to stroke your face, a doting gesture, but it sent shivers up your spine.

"I'm afraid you are misinterpreting what a contract is and what it is not. A contract simply ensures that the party who chooses to dishonor an agreement faces the stipulated repercussions. It does not prevent one from breaching it if they wish to do so."

"Oh." You gave a dejected sigh.

"Not to worry. As long as you give me your word to keep me company for eight months out of the year, I will promise you that no harm shall come to the people of Liyue."

"Eight months is too long."

"Very well, then. Seven months."

"Six."

"I accept your terms. You may back out of this contract now, but this would be your last chance."

"Half a year." You muttered under your breath. "As long as you keep your end of the agreement."

A part of you still hoped Zhongli would barge in at any moment and put an end to this ridiculous hostage situation. Would he really let you be sealed away with his evil twin for six months in a year? You didn't even want to imagine what life would become for you during those six months of involuntary confinement. Was Zhongli really that inflexible when it comes to contracts?

"Why do you even want to keep me here in the first place?" You narrowed your eyes at him.

"Why would I not?" He simply laughed.

There was nothing sinister about the sound this time. He looked so harmless, innocent even. For a moment, you could not tell the difference between this individual and the retired archon you so adored.

"You seem rather confused still as to why I have gone out of my way to bring you here, my dearest. To say that I am simply fond of you is putting it lightly…" His tone softened as he neared. He leaned in, brushing his lips against the sensitive rim of your ear.

You drew in a shallow breath as his words simultaneously tickled your mind and your senses.

"There is no need to overthink it. Now that you've agreed to give me your precious time, I promise that your stay would be most fruitful."

He pressed a kiss to your forehead. A tingling sensation bloomed underneath your skin, spreading throughout your body. Suddenly, a chill shot up your spine. Your head was stark clear. You fell forward, right into his waiting arms as the stone cuffs released their hold on your limbs.

With the contract a reality, you were now only able to spend six months of the year with Zhongli. The other half of it, you were bound to his twin. It can't be that bad, since he proved he was just as fond of you as his more level-headed counterpart. How would your lover take the news of having to share you?