#chalk it up to luck fic

[clar-a-m]

Unbelievable! Apparently eating p*ssy does not give you enough sustenance after an entire day of training as a professional level climber

Inspired by Chalk It Up To Luck by @theunqualified1

(This did not happen in the fic though, i just thought it would be a funny follow up to that one scene)

You can find more art for this fic here

[harmonysanreads]

Chiaroscuro

ᯓᡣ𐭩 Dr Ratio x [ Gender Neutral ] Reader

Synopsis: There is a wilted daffodil resting between the pages of Ratio's memories. Tags: POV Dr. Ratio, Fluff and Humor and Angst, Hurt/Comfort (?), Slow-burn (oh my), Right Person Wrong Time (oh dear), Strangers to Friends, Reader is Older than Ratio, We speak in the Language of Flowers here, Literary References and Allusions, Exploration of Academic Struggles, Jealous!Ratio, Exploration of Grief, Slight Yandere!Dr Ratio, My Interpretations of Ratio's Past and Ideologies (because hyv won't tell me), Brief Aventurine Appearance TW(s): Toxic Relationships, Toxic Family Dynamics, Implications of Physical Abuse (not condoned by Ratio) Author's Note: At long last, my ‘thesis’ on Dr. Ratio is finished :') I've been working on this fic since June 2024 and finally gathered enough willpower to push through the rest of it. I started this fic with the sole goal of torturing Ratio but ended up falling in love with him halfway through this fic- as such the direction may have shifted orz Please forgive any unintentional errors and get cozy <3

「 Word Count : 11k 」 「 Artwork Credits 」 「 Read On AO3 」

i. Panorama.

They say, the best years of a human's life are spent before boards painted with chalk scribbles and around those of one's ages, filled with careless laughter and weaving hopes for the distant future.

Veritas Ratio has always disagreed with this belief and backed his own with a multitude of reasoning. For one, those so crowned ‘best years’ are not to be wasted through wishing your fantasies would come to fruition on their own. Secondly, his experiences run contrary to the images illustrated by the majority of the population. Which, fall as it might within the grounds of personal grudge, has enough weight to not be disregarded entirely, he'd argue if necessary.

If confronted on his bitter feelings regarding the schooling years of a person's life, there is a possibility that the erudite Doctor will falter and then incoherently mutter something about it not being a downright horrifying experience.

The chances of receiving further clarification from that point decreases significantly and will be entirely dependent on Ratio's mood, which, isn't perceived to be the most agreeable on most days.

In the rare case that luck shines upon the inquirer and Veritas Ratio's stern edges soften with nostalgia, there will be but one name that'll leave his lips in an uncharacteristically somber cadence.

If certain events had transpired differently, the recollections of that day would've been far sweeter than it is now — but still, the parasite known as nostalgia begs to alter his memories. It attempts to soothe the cuts gained from reaching towards aspirations far beyond his capabilities with cursory glances from the sun, and daisy petals hidden in the crevices of dusty tomes.

In the days Veritas Ratio treaded in an environment where nearly everything was twice his height, carrying expectations no one would bother to understand, he'd pledged to himself to not fold before irrational demands just because he wasn't a sight one would normally see in an institution full of burgeoning adults.

He was no stranger to the attention his genius brought, far more so the unwanted part of it.

Which was why he'd stubbornly made his goals clear to his titular peers within the first week of his attendance, much to their bewilderment.

Any suggestions for free ‘assignment completion service’ was shut down curtly and neither did the prodigious new student bother to partake in other youthful activities — but surprisingly, Veritas's distant countenance hadn't succeeded in putting a dent to his overall popularity.

Perhaps that is the reason the requests for private tutoring sessions and borrowing of notes never did cease, because despite his attitude, no one could deny his intelligence. And that, ultimately became his label in that university. Consequently, no one went out of their way to seek him out unless it concerned academics — except one person.

Ratio thinks he might've been witnessing a meteor streak the night sky instead, because relatively speaking, he couldn't trace where you appeared from with just his bare eyes.

(Though now that he thinks again, it might've been because he'd not bothered to look beyond the white board of the lecture halls, haughty as he'd been.)

—And as momentary as said event, you'd stunned him with an inquiry that did not match any of the others that'd preceded your kind.

“Why are you all alone during lunch, little boy? Whoa, you're studying even now?”

He’d barely missed the astonished gleam in your eyes when he parted from marking an important section from his book in a flinch. The unacquainted sight beside his desk had put the functions of his brain at a temporary standstill, before resuming with a barrage of questions as you observed him rather amusedly.

The small smile that appeared on your face next halted any of those inquiries from gaining voice as Veritas's reflexes worked to catch the objects tossed his way.

“Take these for now. Skipping meals isn't good for you, you know? You can't achieve your dreams if you don't take care of your health first.”

Veritas blinked owlishly at the apple and sandwich now resting on his lap, the words of advice you stated in a rather sing-song tone barely registering in his head as he vacillated between demanding your identity and scoffing at your audacity.

Much to his chagrin, you evaded his burning stare and waltzed out of the vacant lecture hall before he could even open his parched mouth, again.

(What he recalls first before this peculiar interaction now is how the usually mundane sunlight had embraced your form that day.)

He only saw more and more of you from then onwards, much to his initial displeasure. For some mysterious reason, you'd made it your hobby to nag at and subtly coddle him in ways that made any other passing student raise eyebrows.

Whether it be dragging him to places and sometimes forcing him to eat lunch or separating him from his beloved books to 'refresh his mind' at some other corner of the campus, you never faltered ; despite all the scowls and passive aggressive quips he sneaked in.

Only after some research did Veritas discover you to be one among the seniors and, he'd admit it somewhat begrudgingly, you were a senior in every sense of the word.

Although, that knowledge did not aid him in answering the most begging question: why were you going out of your way to guide him through the perilous terrains of university? He'd initially suspected you to demand recompense in the same ways the others coveted. 

Perhaps you were an expert manipulator, struggling to wrap up your last year in the institute and as a result, decided to prey on the genius through teasing words and coddling.

Ratio was fully prepared to face you when you showed your true face — except, his hypothesis ended in utter failure as that expected unravelling never came.

So, on another of your usual kidnappings meetings under the old oak tree at the far end of the campus, Veritas decided to soothe the scorching paranoia in his head.

“It’s because you remind me of my little siblings! It's been such a long time since I've seen them and I just really miss them, you know?”

He doesn't know. Neither the sentiments that are apparently driving you to take care of him nor whether you're being sincere.

Here's the most annoying thing about you: despite how much of a genius Veritas is crowned to be, he's experienced repeated failures in deducing what lies beneath that benign smile of yours.

At least there are formulas and theories to explain or, get closer to the enigmas of the universe. But whatever and whoever moulded you into your present state had clearly forgotten to leave a loophole behind for curious minds like his to decipher.

“Besides, I understand how you must be feeling in this environment where everyone is half a decade older than you — even though you like to act tough. I know that there's a seed of loneliness that's ready to burst into a giant tree with the right incentive and you're just holding onto the last of your sanity to not let that happen.”

Ratio's fingers halt midway through flipping to a different page of his book. Your observation silences him long enough to make the rustles of leaves permeate the atmosphere, before he forces his brows to furrow and his lips to quirk down.

“It’s rude to make assumptions about someone you barely know.”

The purple head watched as you leaned against the palm of your hand, as though the sneer on his face was nothing worth fretting.

“Aww, did I catch little Veri off guard? No need to be in such denial, I saw you gape like an owl at my words. But owls are my favorite bird, don't worry!” The hostile expression on his face morphs into surprise as you ruffle his hair with your free hand with more enthusiasm than required.

“Rest assured, I'll take care of you for as long as I'm here, little Veri.”

“I’d appreciate it more if you don’t.”

That earned him a laugh and messier hair.

ii. Anamorphosis 

Little Veri.

If there was something he despised more than the shrill voices of his classmates, it'd be that nickname. You might've been accurate in your choice of words in a literal sense, but for the first time, honesty had bruised his ego.

The prodigy was not accustomed to being treated his age, he was always commended as ‘mature’ and being ‘beyond his years’. Yet you had never even bothered mentioning this and instead, always poked at the suppressed child that slumbered at the deepest corner of his heart.

What he loathed even more was how every repeat of that ridiculous nickname actually made him feel quote-on-quote ‘little’. No, how you allowed a leeway for that teenage heart to peek through from under a canopy of knowledge and caution.

Intentionally or not, you carved a shelter for that little boy to crawl beneath in moments that no one would care to glance at.

It was a matter of great shame although, while his teachers had handed him the basics to deciphering the laws of the universe, no one had bothered to teach him how to respond to such kindness.

Upon further digging, the genius was surprised to find that your merit resided in the top five of your entire year. While he hadn't taken you for a dimwit (he'd rather eat dirt than utter such sacrilege) his astonishment stemmed from the fact that he'd never seen an academic material accompanying you on campus.

He’d even thought your sole task was to bother him with your half-a-decade years old wisdom upon a particular session of agitation. But after clarity grasped his mind, he realized that his suspicions were simply baseless in an institution as competitive as Veritas Prime.

Instead of journals and papers concerning your major, Veritas often saw you seeking refuge in musings soaked in fantasy and your rationale behind such escapades puzzled the mind of his younger self greatly.

“And then the male lead gave a bouquet of bluebells to the female lead, declaring his feelings! Isn't that so romantic?”

Ratio scrutinized your form hunched over from giddiness derived from materials that appeared alien to his eyes, stacks of textbooks wept at the corner of the table in abandonment.

“Bluebells? I thought people gave roses for matters like this?” sunset orange eyes swept over the incredulity blooming on your visage.

You sighed as though he was the most exasperating person you had the misfortune of dealing with, “It’s because bluebells are the symbol of eternal and undying love. Roses are undoubtedly lovely but as you said, if anyone was to give roses to someone, everyone and their grandmas would have an inkling about what is happening between them! Giving someone a bouquet of bluebells on the other hand, is far more secretive and exciting.”

“I don't really understand but alright.”

Ratio almost drops his pen at the flick to his forehead, “So unromantic! You're never getting a girlfriend if you continue being like this, kid!”

His free hand whips up to shield his skin against further damage, he feels the muscles of his temple twitch in profound irritation. “I don't need—”

“Yes yes, you're too preoccupied with the pursuit of knowledge to bother with fickle things like romance blah blah blah.” Ratio's eye roll almost synchronizes with yours.

Veritas knows and he isn't ashamed to admit that he's not a romantic person. The path he walks on has no necessity for abstruse emotional attachment and sentimentalities.

On the contrary, what he abstained from seemed to be the centrepiece of your interest.

Your eyelashes flutter as you rest your elbows on the table, eyes searching for a trace of your wishes among the litany of bookshelves, “But if anyone was to confess to me, I'd want them to give me a bouquet of bluebells instead of trying to articulate their feelings.”

Ratio raised a brow as your sigh echoed throughout the grand library, “And how, pray tell, would they know of your preference?”

“That’s the thing, little Veri!” you snapped your fingers as though you'd solved the greatest dilemma plaguing mankind, “I wouldn't talk about these fantasies to just anyone. If someone was to give me a bouquet of bluebells, it'd mean that we're close enough to know these secrets and then there'd be a high chance that the feelings are mutual. No awkward moments, we'd know what we are without even speaking!”

The purple head observed as you rambled, the light from the sinking afternoon sun filtered through the stained glass shone on you. A scoff escaped him before he could stomp it down, his arms crossed almost derisively.

“And is that your sole ambition in life?”

“Of course not,” your reply was brisk and simple, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

You met Ratio's perplexed gaze with an unusual calm, “If by ambition, you mean what I want to do after all this studying, well — I want to be a teacher.”

Veritas couldn't hold back the surprise from soaking his words this time, “A teacher? Why?”

But you seemed to find great entertainment in his reaction, if your twinkling eyes was anything to go by and the genius isn't even taken aback this time; your sources of amusement would never be the guesswork of anyone.

Your shoulders shifted as you shrugged, “Why not? Teaching is one of the most noble professions out there, but it warrants great caution and wisdom. Hmm, come to think of it— what do you want to be, Veri?”

Ratio nearly flinched as you expertly shifted the attention to him, glossing over it with a fake cough. “I…” his throat constricted as you leaned in ever so slightly, “—don’t know.”

“Whaaaat?” you backed away just as quickly, dragging the syllables of that word to emphasize your disappointment. ��Tsk tsk, so you're just studying blindly without any clear goal? That isn't going to get you far, regardless of how intelligent you are.”

He knows that, but what is he supposed to do if his mind blanks when he tries to envision himself in any conventional field? In fact, he considers it as one of the flaws of the educational system. How a student is always urged to find their place in the grand scheme of matters but never guided through them ; or, at least, given clear pointers.

It'd also be careless to label Veritas completely clueless about his situation. What he does cradle, or was compelled to bear was not borne of his personal wishes. But with time, his mind accepted it as his own, though a part of his heart always ached with emptiness.

You cleared your throat upon noticing that a great conflict had rendered the genius speechless, “Well... as for the reason as to why I want to be a teacher, it's because I want to help those students who struggle to find their way in this vast world. Regardless of where they rank in the merit position or what ‘status’ society has assigned them. Granted, this struggle may continue even after someone has graduated and while I may not be able to help every single person, I still want to try my best. After all, that should be the goal of our educational system — in my opinion, at least!”

You chuckled somewhat bashfully afterwards, remnants of it settled on the way your lips curled. There was something so succinct yet undoubtedly natural about that smile, like petrichor and he felt a pang of regret hitting his ribcage for not noticing it before.

Although it might not appeal to some, to many it brought solace even before the sun could sweep aside the canopies of darkened clouds.

Something that's appearance was preceded only by the tears of the skies, it stunned the mind that such beauty could be unearthed from a phenomenon so seemingly insignificant.

And that realization appalled the young scholar.

iii. Tenebrism 

Ratio did not comprehend the value of your presence until he was deprived of it.

Due to certain circumstances, the genius had learned to be contingent with the fact that he'd have to navigate the majority of his life all by himself. Of course, ignoring simpletons and self-centered personnel came easy to him as well.

What the scholar wasn't conscious of, or was too prideful to acknowledge was the harrowing vacancy in some obscure corner of his heart that yearned for a deeper connection. It would take little effort for him to rationalize this longing with his age and return his attention to far more pressing concerns.

But it seemed that the more he tried to silence the wails of his feelings, the more cacophonous they became.

You'd spoiled Veritas a good amount, with your willing enthusiasm to tail after him whenever you had the reprieve.

So, when you abruptly stopped your usual pursuit in exchange of accompanying another person whose face he couldn't bother to remember, the young scholar was left to deal with a surge of emotions he had little control over.

Said emotions, were tame enough to be kept under check within the first few weeks as he learnt that the purpose of this sudden acquaintance had been for the completion of a group project.

Where the scholar's composure did start to falter was when you maintained your distance from him even after the fulfilment of said project.

And Ratio despised the sparks of resentment that'd flare up in his chest each time you'd pass him by while chatting so deliriously with that no-name stranger.

He was thrown in a limbo the first time he witnessed someone else in the position that he held and although he stubbornly convinced his mind that it was for the best ; each time the scene would replay in the corridors and crevices of the university, Veritas could see yellow hyacinths bloom in his peripheral.

He's certain now that he must've been losing his mind, or at least was on the verge of (and for such a childish cause at that) because he took shelter in a superstitious practice and ignored as many meals as he could in the futile hope that you'd come back and reprimand him again.

Ratio would have applauded you if he hadn't been so consumed by all those unsavory chemical reactions in his mind.

It didn't help his case that the first time he'd bothered to take in the environment, he was reminded of the fact that, you had others who'd accept you, but he only had you.

His frustration must've reached a new peak, because not even the most persistent of his irritable classmates were brave enough to approach him as he continued to brood hopelessly.

It wouldn't be long until he would gather the motivation to finally propel himself out of that dark space, but the method his younger self employed to do so, embarrasses the present him to no end.

“They did what?”

Veritas needn't open his eyes to picture your visage colored in shock, he opted instead to maintain his somber facade, arms folded, and brows furrowed to complete the act.

“But I never thought them to be that kind of person, quite the opposite, in fact.” followed your reluctant admission.

Ratio outstretched his palm as though enticing you to accept the news, “One can deduce so much about the ocean by gazing at its surface. The facts are before you, with substantial evidence. Whether you believe them or not depends entirely on you. I only thought I should inform you before it reaches the Principal, that is.”

He could envision your eyes oscillating between his firm countenance and the unseen prospects proposed by his words. Discreetly, he peered at your fidgeting and unconsciously held his breath.

He'd done the calculations before approaching you, the worry oozing from your gaze confirms that you've heard word of it from his ‘associates’ already and the fact that you didn't try to defend the person further tells him you've done some digging through the news portals of the university yourself.

Step by step, you've unknowingly assisted in concluding this problem.

The young scholar silences the quivers of his conscience before they can rage and foil all progress. As for this friend of yours, there were embers left behind from misdeeds of long ago. He merely reignited that flame so that those crimes would face proper punishment — although which was not his principal goal. To make sure you don't get caught in the inferno was, or at least, that's what he tells his conscience.

A half-resigned hum from you saves the scholar from spiralling, “I’ll believe you and will avoid them for the time being. Though I have my own theories, you have a point. There is no telling what is beneath a person's exterior.”

Veritas simply nods to that conclusion.

Your eyelashes flutter as you drift into a brief reverie, before fixating on his rigid person. “Ah, but what is going on with you, kiddo? You've been skipping meals again, haven't you?”

The young scholar blinks in stupefaction at the shrunken proximity between you two, the single finger beneath his chin with which you scrutinize his visage nearly burns his skin. He can hardly process what observation you're making through the dizzying fragrance of jasmines.

“I am in perfect health, as you can see—”

“For so long! It's only a matter of when that you'll faint while calculating nonsense.” you sharply interject and withdraw the searing contact. Strangely, Ratio makes no face this time.

“Come to think of it, it's been a while since we've had lunch together. Oh, I have so much to share with you! Let's not waste anymore time, let's go!”

There is good cause for why the wise warn against temptations. Bit by bit, piece by piece, oh so painfully obstinate — you fed him that poison, rendering his sharp mind a mess of inebriating chemical reactions.

You were none the wiser to the impact your fickle gestures made on him and soon, Ratio's biggest weakness, curiosity silenced the prodding of his conscience.

He gained little incentive to step far away from the leering shadows, as the brilliance of the sun made it so his fixation wouldn't stray towards the darkness.

iv. Tachisme

“Suffering is part and parcel of extensive intelligence and a feeling heart. A man who is really great, it seems to me, must suffer considerably here below.”

Your sigh weighs down on the silence of the university's library, a dull thud causing a crack on it as you set down the tome on the dark wooden table.

“I couldn't help but think of you while reading this novel.” bright orange eyes watch the way you cushion your cheek against your knuckles minutely.

“Suffering, misery, sadness, whatever you name it is inconsequential to any human being. But I feel like, those who are labelled as being ‘different’ than the majority experience a certain kind of those challenges. The ones that are weighty on the tongue when they attempt to express it, perhaps inscrutable to even themselves.” Ratio mulls over your musings, briefly closing his eyes.

“Everyone’s experiences are bound to be different.” comes his easy response.

The furrow in your brows suggests the conflict his words stirred instead of assurance, “You take everything so coolly, but I can't help but worry for you. You may be calm and certain about everything now but there's no guarantee you'll always be this way. On top of it all, you reject close relationships, thus narrowing your options to lean on someone should a sizable problem come.” 

Ratio catches himself before his eyes can roll sideways, “Surely you didn't drag me out of a lecture just to nag me again?” his subconscious notes the reduced exasperation that prospect stirs within himself.

You often worry for a future that has yet to seize anyone. While the young scholar commends your far-sightedness, he really cannot understand the use of losing one's mind over events that haven't happened yet.

Thinking ahead is helpful, turning that habit into an obsessive frenzy is not.

He observes the way your frown expands, deepens and ultimately loosens up with a sigh. You refrain from broaching the topic further, another quality he appreciates.

Though you don't make an attempt to defend yourself, you refuse to voice out anything else as well, settling your eyes to a distant point in existence.

For once Veritas is ruffled by the silence, so he makes an attempt to change the subject — because counting your eyelashes isn't the most productive thing for a scholar to do.

“It’s not everyday I see you carrying something that doesn't have hearts and glitters on the cover page.” his eyes settle pointedly on the book before you.

You scoff, “One does not survive in Veritas Prime simply from reading light novels.” there's a trace of pride in your admission.

“Oh? So, what does ‘one’ do to maintain their spot in the top five?” Ratio quirks a brow, holding your gaze.

The witty response he anticipates gets replaced by another sigh, puzzling him for an instance, “I’m assuming this is about me never studying within campus. Well, I just like keeping my study space and my socializing space separate. Listening to lectures here and doing the heavy lifting in my room. It's what works for me, in any case.”

There's genuine interest in his next questions, “And what do you do when you get bored while studying? Or when you feel like you can't concentrate anymore?”

You twirl a stray lock of your hair, cheek still resting on your knuckles, “Take a bath to sober myself up, I guess. When your mind is full of garbage, your body will likely not be the cleanest either.”

You shrug, your nonchalant attitude renders his mind to a blank slate. For a while he does nothing but think about your words, though the response he gives matches none of the context.

“I feel like there is so much I don't know about you.”

It's your turn to be surprised, but unfortunately for Ratio, the sight is still too brisk. You break into a fit of laughter, wiggling your brows as though you know something.

“Silly little Veri, let me tell you something. People are like icebergs! We can only see their tips with our bare eyes but to know them in their full capacity, we have to dive down.”

“But the waters are cold.” the young scholar pushes.

Your giggles soften to a smile, “That’s exactly the point.” and you refuse to elaborate further, again.

To reach the heart of the iceberg, one must push through the freezing depths of the ocean. Whether Veritas Ratio has that willpower, is a question left for his future self.

v. Sotto in su

As the days lapsed, more and more memories anchored themselves in Ratio's mind. They brought with them a different seed of emotion, every exchange with his enigmatic senior nurtured and coaxed it to sprout tender leaves.

Before his syllabus could be replaced, the fact had been known to everyone regardless of their relation to the prodigy. If your recurring appearances in Ratio's life and his noticeable tolerance for your presence was anything to go by, it was apparent to anyone with a conscious mind that his opinion of you was at a level above everyone else's.

Exchanges between different years wasn't an uncommon phenomenon, but a friendship with the notoriously detached prodigy was an understandable bewilderment. Though, the students at Veritas Prime quickly learned to use it to their advantage rather than criticizing it — a unanimous realization that Ratio was just a bit more agreeable in your presence.

Not that Ratio was unaware of their schemes, the fact that they construed that he'd tolerate them solely because of your connection further cemented his belief that all these wannabe researchers were still light-years away from the truth they speak to seek.

Albeit, after noticing that he'd been more approachable for students who genuinely wanted to learn rather than to fulfill some pecuniary purpose — he begrudgingly admitted that, there was an influence taking place.

Veritas swiftly ignored the rumors. While not one to waste his time, being with you brought along perspectives that challenged his thinking style. To him, truth has always been beautiful because it will not change, even through the failures in understanding it.

But you're a human being, change is rooted in your constitution.

The cycle of erosion and accretion that makes you you hinders even a brilliant scholar like him in grasping the characteristics of your soul. This form of beauty he was not acquainted with before, admittedly.

Relying too much on either rigidity or malleability will pose problems. It is through the search of a balance can we discover the answers.

It may not be obvious at first glance, but you aspire to guide others through the murky depths of ignorance while pondering this apparent equilibrium — since neither extremes can be eliminated. As strange as that selflessness initially appeared to him, Ratio has developed a sense of respect for your ambitions.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for him, it seemed as though you knew exactly what was transpiring.

In fact, you were conscious of a lot of things ; it's just that you preferred to pretend that you didn't for reasons that he hasn't comprehended yet.

For the longest time he interpreted that thoughtful sparkle in your eyes as just another play of light. Whenever his reactions to your teasing would come off as more animated than last and the flush that he'd try so hard to not let extend to his cheeks do just that — you'd have that nearly imperceptible realization reflected in your eyes. It scratched at the parchedness Ratio hadn't even recognized to be there.

His fear was confirmed to be true one afternoon in a vacant lecture hall, though not through words.

“Is this for me?” sunset orange eyes shone against the shadows that fell on his back.

“Well, do you see anyone else here?” your huff and his eyeroll synchronize.

You patiently held the book covered in elaborate illustrations of flowers for his taking, though what captured the scholar's attention most was the single yellow bloom tied atop with a violet ribbon on the book. He recognized the book to be a copy of the floriography manual he often saw tucked between your collections.

“You’re probably wondering ‘what value will this book bring to you’. Well, as I've said before, studious scholars should never limit their perspectives.” you almost shove the gift into his hands in response to his stunned countenance.

“And,” an accidental brush of your fingers against his hand sends an unwanted shudder through his arteries, “Happy birthday, little Veri.”

You withdraw just as quickly, the hues of the setting sun softening the smile on your face.

Ratio forces himself to look elsewhere, "You're still going to use that ridiculous nickname, huh? What a way to welcome me into adulthood." he mutters, the words leaving a bitter aftertaste that he tries to mask with sarcasm.

He feels your chuckle probing at his heart, taunting the quickened pace in which it revolts against its cage. You shift your gaze to the golden petals resting atop the book, a somber sigh tumbling from your lips.

“— Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon ;

As yet the early-rising sun

Has not yet attained his noon.”

Many see fit to celebrate their first step into adulthood with enthusiastic celebrations, Ratio's eighteenth birthday brought with it a clinging bittersweetness — not that he allowed himself to dwell on it for long, his future plans taking precedence over sentiments.

The lone daffodil had been tucked between a random section of the book you gifted, hidden away from his sight. The border between cowardice and courage was thin, nearly translucent in the manner the result dictated what it would turn out to be.

The journey of uncovering the mysteries of the universe is a similar pursuit. Emerge victorious and you'll be brave, fail and you'll be heralded foolish. Ratio was far from a coward or a foolish man, sometimes not going head-fast into uncertain territories is the mark of intelligence.

He allowed the daffodil to wilt and turned not a page, for he knew in some deep crevice of his subconscious that it'd blight the clarity of his mind with another flood of emotions he did not have the capacity to process.

Luckily, his agony met a premature end as you departed from Veritas Prime by the end of the year with a certificate in hand.

Who knows how many sleepless nights and crushed dreams paved the path for the ink lines on that single piece of parchment. Ratio had been there as the first to congratulate you, it was the least he could do.

He did not proceed farther than that, as you'd made it clear that there would forever be a line he would be unable to trespass.

Ratio was fully aware of the limitations the silly crush that accumulated over the time in your acquaintance brought and he expressed no interest in pushing those boundaries either.

He found solace in the fact that he'd met you at all. He wouldn't say you illuminated his life, for even you always believed it was the individual themselves who possessed that power.

You nudged him towards the path to find his light and that lesson, he wanted to honor all his life.

The memories of your time would stay treasured in his mind and the curve of your smile would be preserved in marble. Without the echo that his ears yearned to capture, he saw fit to isolate his senses from unnecessary stimulation.

Though you'd never grace the corridors of Veritas Prime again, the footprints of your presence etched deep in the genius's memories would never fade.

vi. Trompe l'oeil

His next encounter with you was a tad unexpected, just at the horizon of Ratio putting the full stop to his years at the university.

Veritas’s fingers slackened around the handle of his umbrella, a page or two of the manuscript of his thesis slipping past his grip and drifting along the roaring wind — but his eyes couldn't chase after them. Much too fixated on the way your shoulder bumped with theirs, not at all by accident.

The rain soon cloaked your figures from his spying gaze, the droplets soaking the ends of his clothes failed still to snatch his attention away. In spite of the thunderous cries of the sky, the echo of your laugh was all he could hear.

—

Time never ceased its relentless march; life followed its direction and events moulded more memories.

For the sake of productivity, he had no choice but to push back his curiosity and stay away from your life. His studies and workload helped generously in keeping his mind from wandering to frightful territories at inconvenient instances, though a certain spark nestled deep somewhere in his subconscious.

Before long, his name resounded far beyond the gates of Veritas Prime.

Veritas Ratio, now Dr. Ratio, felt his nerves flare again as he looked at the latest discussions on the university’s online forum, the words “Dr. Ratio Will Surely Snag A Place At The Genius Society, Won’t He?” in bold only tickled his annoyance further.

Ordinarily, he would stay as far away as possible from discussions concerning himself — which was easier said than done.

Aggrandizing anything always leads to disappointment. Ratio's surroundings loved to goad his path, but he knew, such chatter would morph to whispers the moment their expectations were proven false.

Dr. Ratio’s brooding came to a halt at the collision, his reflexes acted and he clasped onto the stranger’s arm before they could fall. He heard leaves crunching under his boots, strangers threw cursory glances at the near-accident. 

His lips parted in what a spectator could assume to be the beginning of an apology, but paused upon noticing the words resignation letter on the paper in the stranger's grasp.

Orange eyes flickered, trailing upward, within the fabric of scarlet you burrowed deep in search of comfort from the scare.

You mimicked his earlier attempt, craning your neck for a second to meet his gaze and halting in recognition.

“Veritas… Ratio?”

The addressed scholar blinks, blurting out before he could think, “That’s not what you used to call me.”

There's a scintilla of surprise in your eyes at his unintentional jest, he anticipates a laugh next, but only an awkward quirk of your lips greets him.

Your eyes dart around your environment, before returning to his grasp. Feeling the weight of your stare, he releases his hold with a fake cough.

“I… apologize.” his hand found refuge on the nape of his neck.

“It’s okay, accidents... happen, you know.” you wave him off with your free hand.

A breeze passes through the gap between you two.

It might've just been Ratio’s misjudgement, but he felt as if you were about to run away for a millisecond. Your fingers tightened around the paper in your hold, you gathered yourself with a deep inhale.

“Congratulations on obtaining your fourth doctorate degree! I often discuss your papers in my classes, you are an inspiration to so many people.”

A flicker of sunlight filtered through the leaves above fell and there appeared that smile he knew. Years had gone by, yet the mystery in it remained still out of his reach.

“Thank you,” he tilted his head downward, “I’m glad to hear that you pursued your dream.”

Ratio sneaked a glance, your nod faded into silence. His gaze lingered on your face, the concentrated flush on your right cheek made his brows furrow.

He was no fool to the tension in the air and your unusual fidgety demeanor. He briefly contemplated if he should just depart.

However, he couldn't deny the fact that questions had accumulated throughout the interval of your absence from his life. The differences between the you before him and the you from his memories begged him to probe, to study and learn.

He felt himself drawn to the paper in your hand again, a glint on your ring finger caught his eye. Among the myriad of inquiries battling to escape his lips, the one that’d warred the longest emerged victorious.

“Did they…” he began, uncertain.

“Give you a bouquet of bluebells?”

Your flighty gaze froze to confusion for a moment as you tried to decode his words, Ratio mirrored your gaze as you failed to answer. You quickly blinked away any hints of shock, a forceful bite stopped the trembling of your lips.

(He felt a twist somewhere in his heart.)

“Can we… talk somewhere else?” you suggested. Despite it being the middle of autumn, there's a storm brewing in your eyes. 

—

Veritas could see splinters on the cup in his grip, the dark beverage within threatening to spill.

A passing waitress threw the table a concerned glance, but could not find the courage to intervene. The sight of your antsy wringing of hands in his peripheral alerted him to breathe. He loosened his grip on the poor cup of coffee just in time, a burdened exhale following suit.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, “So, what do you intend to do now?”

You fiddled with the band on your ring finger ; within the vacancy of the cafe, to Ratio, it felt as if even such an insignificant gesture gained voice.

The insistence of your silence prompted him to continue, “The culmination of your hard-work, one that stole almost all of your life ; all of those sleepless nights, unsaid sacrifices for the sole wish of helping others — all of it, you're going to let go, just like that? Just because an idiot claims they know better?”

Dr. Ratio could not understand, no matter which angle he looked at it from. The answer to your dilemma was crystal clear to the scholar, he’d be willing to bet it’d be clear to anyone with a functioning brain — and yet, you hesitate.

You continue to shuffle and avert your gaze, sometimes parting your lips to speak but withdrawing the next second.

A person that's found the tunnel’s end should run towards it, but you remain at the precipice of darkness.

“I…” The purple head straightens up at the sound of your voice, it is weak, hopeless ; a complete stranger to who you once were.

You abruptly gather your things, “I’m sorry, please forget I ever said anything —” an innocent glass is knocked off in your haste.

Cold, your hand is chillingly cold as Ratio grabs it, preventing you from running away. The unnatural temperature of it temporarily unsettles the man, but the situation at hand prompts him to push the observation back.

You try to force your wrist out of his grasp, but he presses on, “Can’t you see, that they are ruining you? This is not who you used to be! Your so-called 'fiance' is destroying you, they’ll not stop until you're nothing but a shell of yourself and they can reshape you to their liking!”

“I really have to go —” a vein pops on Ratio’s forehead, the wanton glass hits the floor.

“And why go? To receive another slap from them?” he feels your palm dampen from sweat, pieces of shattered crystal splaying across the tiles.

You look at him in disbelief and he blinks, the sharpness of his words finally cutting him.

The incipiency of an apology gathers at the tip of his tongue, but you halt it from escaping.

“Whatever happens between us, is none of your business, Veritas Ratio.”

If your hand was simply cold, your glare is freezing. It stuns the scholar enough to make his clasp loosen, you quickly snatch your hand away.

You’re two steps in when Veritas rushes to add, unwilling to back down, “But it was still you who reached out to me.”

The scholar hears the pause in your heels, you don't turn to address him and he doesn't move to obstruct your path either.

The bell signals your departure as the waitress from before rushes to clean the broken glass, leaving Ratio alone with his thoughts.

—

Veritas Ratio has had scarce attachments to worry about in his life.

For better or for worse, it appeared as though the direction of his life was steered towards one particular destination, everything else proved to be transient.

While his surroundings eroded and flourished within the touch of mortal delights, he remained but a spectator, destined to observe but never indulge.

Love. A simple word, yet any singular meaning behind which could still not be agreed upon.

He saw it in the way parents cradled their children, in the eyes of a couple that brushed past him in the streets. Flighty like the union between another pair of his former classmates, strengthened like the wrinkly hold of that couple that sold flowers down the street ; its form, just like its definition, is infinite.

The scholar thinks he's felt it somewhere in his past, or at least the vestiges of it — within the glow of a cryptic smile and a mind that did not yield.

Troublesome as it’d been, it did not conquer him. Ultimately, he wielded enough willpower to move on.

Some say, brilliant minds that toil too long in the territories of the unknown, become dense to the simpler aspects of life. Ratio did not see the inconvenience in this notion for a long time, not when it aided him more than burden him.

That is, until the encounter at the cafe.

If nothing else, it was clear to the prodigy that you had changed, for the worst at that.

The 'you' he’d known would know how to pick yourself up, or more accurately, that ‘you’ wouldn't have allowed things to escalate this far at all.

You would've left this rotten excuse of a relationship the first time they raised their voice, you would never concede to that fatal act of disrespect, under no circumstance would you let such an excuse of a human have such control — he… he hoped.

Ratio leaned back in his chair, a frown creeping in to his face.

For all these outrageous claims that he's been making of the you he was familiar with, how much did he actually know?

Is a year’s observation enough to grant him that badge of familiarity?

It is as you said, who is he to judge you at all?

Within the gloom of his study, his eyes unconsciously met with those etched in marble, the curve of a sun-kissed smile. He hand moved on its own, turning the table-lamp towards the sculpture and indeed, the light has always suited you more than him.

His recollections backtrack to the hazy gaze he saw that day, the encumbrance in them hoisting him up to chase after the itch for answers.

An uncounted number of hours passed, only after perusing a decent pile of tomes did it finally click in his head.

Ratio had no excuses or motivation to defend himself, he most certainly handled the situation poorly.

When the average attempts of leaving such relationships is between seven and twelve, it was insensitive of him to confront you like that.

Cognitions clouded in rage, he ignored the questions he should've asked, the sense of security he should've provided — the one you sought from him — and cornered you abruptly.

Foolish foolish foolish — he felt his fingers tug at his hair, breaths stuck in his lungs. Rationale does not always succeed in helping others see reason, how could he be so careless with you, of all people?

He didn't even know what stage of this hell you were at, how many times you’ve attempted to leave and what leverage they have over you.

Well, it would be most accurate to say he didn't know anything at all and yet, he arrogantly told you to 'just leave'.

The purple-head forced himself to breathe, the self-loathing could be shelved for a later day, what's more important now is finding you again.

He stood up from the heap of tomes, only to pause, does he deserve to seek you out again?

He betrayed your trust and you shut him off for good, should he even bother now?

A distant tug held him back.

Much like before, there is that line between you two that he cannot cross, must not cross.

He’s no longer a teenager in documents, but he doubts you see him as anything more than that ‘little Veri’.

—

The echoes of passing vehicles ricocheted around the streets, but Dr. Ratio’s attention stayed transfixed on the ivory petals in front of him.

A week or so had passed, the ruminations of those doubts kept him away from the confrontation and stole his nights.

It would be easy to cure this ailment, finding you would be but a matter of a few swipes. But that uncertainty, the ghost of a past insecurity, clung to his resolve. As such, peace abandoned him for a while.

A zephyr whispered to him, “Asphodels,”

He hummed without much thought, sunset orange eyes tracing the dulcet lines in those blooms. 

“ ‘My regrets will follow you to the grave’, it's not everyday you see someone looking at these flowers with such care.”

If anyone looked straight into the scholar’s eyes at that moment, they'd for sure be able to witness the cogs turning in his brain in them.

Ratio finds you startled once he whips to his left, your presence finally registering in his head.

A prayer, a yearning, your name escapes his lips. But any further speech is obstructed from taking shape.

You’re the first to recover, “I apologize for running away like that the other day. It… was cowardly of me to tell you to mind your own business when I was the one who confided in you first.” your head lowers in appeal.

He’s sure of it now, you must be on the quest of giving him a heart-attack, what with these continuous surprises you’re throwing at him.

Well, if not a fatality, they're at least doing a wondrous job in preventing him from processing the fact in its entirety — you're here, you’re here, you're here.

You found him, again. Just like all those years ago in the lecture hall, all those times he was skipping lunch, on his eightieth birthday and that other day ; it was always you finding him.

(Has he ever broken through his pride and cowardice and tried to find you instead?)

The scholar hastens to join you, “No, it was my incompetence in failing to understand your situation that pushed you to leave. I completely failed to provide you with safety when you trusted me. For that, I beg your forgiveness.”

He couldn't see it, but he could picture your disbelief at his behavior. Your fist mirrored his, “No, it was clearly my stupidity—”

“Nonsense!” his exclamation earned him a flinch from you. He subconsciously straightened up to drive his point across, “It was me who —”

In the hurry and flurry of emotions, your head bumped with his, ending his tirade prematurely.

Your eyes settle on him, a car runs past your perplexed figures and then, the streets get cloaked in quietude ; before being filled with your giggle.

Against his control, his lips twitch and laughter bubbles in his chest. He allows them to gain voice and join yours.

You fan your face with your hand as the chuckles skid to an end, Ratio feels his cheeks warmed when he inhales. But none of you bother addressing the previous argument, its result apparent.

You take a deep breath and exhale. The scholar sees sun-glitter in your pupils, “I left them, by the way.”

That sobers him.

“Your…”

“Fiancé, yes. Or well, ex-fiancé now.” as if on cue, Ratio catches your now vacant ring finger.

“They tried to beg me to stay. But to be honest, it was not the first time they appealed to my sympathy.” you find interest in the pavement, searching for the remnants of your memories in their cracks. 

“... But I really put my foot down this time. And oh, I didn't quit my job either, in case you were wondering.” you heave, pushing a lock of hair behind your ear.

“And where are you residing now — if you don't mind me asking?”

“I’m temporarily staying at a friend's house. Don't worry, I’m at a safe place.” you reassure, detecting the underlying concern in his inquiry.

Ratio’s shoulders sag as he exhales, the receding adrenaline dulling his worries. Turns out you didn't really need his help, not that he's astonished. It was in your nature to extend help towards others but thinking twice before asking for help.

(Although he's in no position to criticize, he so wished that you’d find it in yourself to rely on him a bit more.)

“If you ever need anything, just give me a call or a text. You still have my number, correct?” he glances down to gauge your expression.

When you nod, he murmurs a faint ‘good’ and silence takes over. He contemplates if he should add anything else, but the serenity in the atmosphere prompts him to push back those concerns.

“Well, goodbye for today?” you suggest, snapping him back to reality.

He raises his hand to do just that, but a different thought alarms him.

“Let me walk you home.” he pushes back the cringe at the excess firmness to his tone, rushing to add, “Please?”

For a blink or two, you looked at him as though you’ve just sighted an alien. He assumes it's the ‘out-of-character’ tendencies he’s been portraying that has you double-check. It seems that he was not the only one comparing the present and the past.

Luck appeared by his side — or perhaps it was just your pity — and you conceded without any complaint, letting him join your steps. The scholar barely hid his glee through his gait.

The planet that housed Veritas Prime would get decorated in the lovely shades of ripened maple leaves around this time. Civilians gathered in groups beneath these scenes, some enjoying a leisurely picnic, others focused on getting their desired pictures.

Ratio noticed your wanton glance at a pair on a picnic mat, his lips tugging down at the tell-tale signs of where your thoughts ran towards.

But before he could do anything, you turned away and picked up your pace ; the pair’s laughter but background noise.

With some haste, he caught up to you. Racking his brain to distract your mind, he found himself empty-handed.

Four doctorates and yet, his mind goes blank when he needs it the most. He couldn't be any more disappointed in himself.

Just as he’s about to start a mental berating though, you side-step a rock and Ratio’s hand bumps with yours, their frigidity alerting him.

He stops in his tracks, and you do too, looking up quizzically at him.

He extends his palm, “Give me your hand,”

Your confusion only increases, “What? Why?”

“It’s too cold. Are you certain you aren't sick?” he thinks back to the encounter he had with you at the cafe, the chill he felt when he grasped your hand. He initially thought it a coincidence, but now, he was really concerned.

“Ahh, this, you see,” you flex your fingers, a feeble attempt at warming them up. “My hands kind of respond to the temperature? Don't ask because I don't know exactly why either, during winter, they're usually cold like this. But in summer, they're very warm.”

Ratio quirks a brow, “Just the fact that it tends to happen doesn't make it any less uncomfortable, does it?”

“No…” you trail off, “But! That's what my fiance— I mean, ex-fiance would always tell me, to just get used to it.”

Your eyes flicker back to Ratio’s, the disbelief in them telling you enough of what you need to know.

The scholar ran a hand through his hair, he shuddered to ponder what other garbage they had fed your brain.

His sigh is carried by a passing breeze, “It’s okay. They aren't here to dictate your life anymore.” he once again offers you his hand, another hope-filled prayer.

You look at his extended palm and back to his patient gaze, your fingers fisting in themselves for a moment before loosening.

He sees the ebb and flow of doubt and hope in their movements, inching closer and closer to his.

He cradles your hand when it reaches him, your fingers slipping easily through the gaps of his. The difference in temperature alerts his reflexes for a second before he calms them down.

He stuffs your intertwined hands in his coat pocket — your gasp fades behind you as he resumes his gait.

Ratio does not dare glance in your direction, but he knows you're watching, scrutinizing him. It reminds him of the look you had at the end of your university days, the memory of the incident that followed makes his throat parched.

Your grip is unusually weak, combined with the knowledge of your situation, the scholar can't stop himself from adding.

“Have you been eating well? Tell me if you haven't, I'll take you to have a proper meal. But don't lie about these matters, you can't achieve your dreams if you don't take care of yourself first.”

You freeze at his words and Ratio makes the mistake of returning your stare.

Seeing no change in his serious expression though, you shake your head with a chuckle, assuring him of your health.

The clicking of both of your shoes against the pavement is the only thing keeping his heart-beat at bay, his attention from focusing too much on the feel of your hand in his and the myriad of chemical reactions flooding his reward system.

When the coldness in your hand has been completely replaced with the warmth from his, you gesture to him that you’ve reached your destination.

He feels an unexpected reluctance in letting you go, something in his gut pushing him to hold on — but he ignores it.

You pause before opening the gates, glancing at him from over your shoulder.

He looks up in time to see your smile, it's not like all those times you’ve smiled before — no, no. This time, lilac petals cling to its corners.

Ratio covered his mouth with his hand, hiding the stupid curve of his lips from anyone's eyes. The lingering warmth from your hand finally allowed his heart to beat with fervor.

He wanted nothing more than to give you a bouquet of bluebells at that moment.

vii. Sfumato

The day Dr. Ratio returned to your side with the pledged bluebells, was beautiful.

The canopy of winter had begun to be swept aside as nascent leaves heralded spring, twitters of birds ornamented the breeze.

When fresh fountain ink meets parchment, it spreads with a thin halo of blue — the sky of that moment brought back this image in his mind. The sun found amusement in steering behind ivory clouds ; a cheeky, one sided game of hide and seek played with light and dark.

The sun made a mistake, a sidestep allowed rays to escape and fall on the lace ribbon of the bouquet.

Sun-glitter followed the lead of Ratio’s arm, over the arch of his wrist, finding their way from beneath the crevices of his fingers — shining, glimmering, as lapis petals caressed the tombstone.

How strange, didn't it usually rain and roar for scenes like these in those light novels of yours?

Veritas could not feel his breaths, it's as if the mechanisms of his respiratory system halted for that matter, he couldn't even feel his eyes flutter.

Idiocy.

He contemplated turning away altogether, what was he even thinking, bringing bluebells to the cemetery like a young lover?

A dead leaf crunched from his retreating step, the note stunning him in place.

Perhaps he should've brought the chopped off, bleeding excuse of a skull of that man — if only, if only if only any being, any listening existence in this wretched world would reassure him that it’d bring you back. 

The scholar felt his fingers lax from their cocoon, but he knew, that would be impracticable. If a life for a life resurrected the other, his fingers wouldn't tremble in usurping that leverage and bringing justice to your final moments.

But he knew, oh how the erudite scholar despised knowledge for the first time in his life — that it’d soothe him, but leave a hollow far worse in his heart.

A sigh forced its way past his lips, onerous was its euphony. Windswept locks of violet poked at the way crystalline orange held onto the engraving on the silver stone ; the name, once his boon, now his bane.

Splinters of marble flew, papers, pens, innocent objects were tossed aside like fickle trash. Rouge flecked once pristine alabaster. Midst the carnage, a book fell betwixt Veritas’s path.

A withered daffodil lamented rationality’s fall.

Newspapers and channels boldly flashed the incident for a week — individual apprehended for the charge of murdering their ex-fiancé — before being swallowed by other, more fascinating pieces of events.

Ratio found himself scoffing at their tone, picking apart their every word and spacing, frowning at how quick people's interest moved on.

Indeed, the world waits for none. The ones lingering are always tormented.

With the last person in close association with you behind the bars of the psych ward and your acquaintances grieving, the scholar took it upon himself to deliver your files and belongings to your family.

But that decision turned out to be a lesson, the universe once again pointing out without mercy the mediocrity of his knowledge.

“Does that mean we’ll have to turn to the streets now?” whispered a little too loudly, a little too carelessly, your step-mother to your father.

Ignorance.

Perhaps Ratio’s disbelief had been too loud on his face, for your father shushed her quickly and attempted to smooth over the slip-up with a barely-strung lament.

But the scholar had learned what was to be surmised from this family, all of their next speeches effortlessly ignored by him.

So the reason you ultimately didn't quit your job was for them, Veritas's eyes dimmed. Feelings were never his forte, this messy heap of them he had no clue what to do with.

And the siblings you used to so dearly miss back in your university days? The second-oldest after you put back her headphones after he finished delivering the news and the youngest couldn't even recall your name.

Ratio seldom used the phrase, but it was truly a miracle he left that fetid establishment without causing damage.

He decided against disclosing your remaining belongings to them and instead, gave them away for charity as written in a journal he accidentally stumbled upon while sorting through them.

Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you knew this would happen.

But you refused to confide in anyone, tolerating the farce of a content life.

Ratio could not understand, did not even know where to begin in decoding what was going through your head when you lied to him and what had coerced him into believing it.

Of course you didn't leave them, that would've been too perfect and too merciful an end and clearly, the universe would not allow it. Of course he needed to be shown how much of an idiot he still is, the extent of his wishful thinking.

Ratio concurs he deserves it.

But did you deserve to meet such an end? No, your life shouldn't have been shaped this way to begin with! And yet, it had been.

For long did he stare off into vacant space, casting aside the need for slumber, attempting to answer what was to be done now. The silence beckoned him, that it was nothing.

Perhaps, you were at peace now at last.

Perhaps the craving for this serenity was what had prompted you from not fighting off that axe.

Perhaps, you had closed your eyes without any regrets.

When the haze in his head cleared a bit, he visited your grave again. Dust had gathered on the lifeless petals of the bluebells he’d left, the scholar tenderly rid them from the surface.

He dug a section beside your resting place and planted fresh asphodels. An elderly woman saw the scene in passing but did not comment, pity clung at the edges of her eyes.

Foolishness.

In fear of the tides of time burying the traces of your foot-steps, Ratio chased after them. The places you spoke so fondly of, the flowers and stories you cherished and the students you stood proud beside.

They spoke of your passion, your vision and your resilience to him.

They say, even a lifetime of ‘knowing’ someone is not sufficient in knowing them.

Although he’d known you for a miniscule timeframe, he squandered no effort in trying to understand you. Only at this juncture, did your nature become clear to him. You were an expert in keeping your lips shut, a seasoned performer of half-truths and no stranger to the art of survival.

It was no coy act, you trusted no one with your actual thoughts and motivations — that was the naked truth.

So then, it begs the question, what exactly did you try so hard to eradicate?

Supposing that this universe suffers from a common ailment, and it is so persistent, so adhesive, so elusive that it plagues the dullest to the most brilliant mind — that despite all attempts at curing it, only its surface has been scratched. And this truth had been so frustrating, even you could not stand back.

Ratio tapped his fingers against his desk, what other malady does an educator aspire to cure other than ignorance?

Foolishness? Idiocy? Stupidity? All synonymous, yet capable of clasping and corrupting irrespective of a person’s standing in the path of life.

To rid them, scholars, researchers and teachers attempt to disseminate knowledge with the vow of indiscrimination.

But Dr. Ratio knew, the oasis of knowledge is but a mirage in the desert of ignorance. For the populace to reach that base awareness, to recognize that mirage — that, is what is needed.

The scholar saw the early light of dawn from betwixt the crevices of his window, the hinges groaned as he pushed them open and for the first time — the sun embraced him and the shadows fell behind his form.

But the meteor that briefly illuminated his sky, is gone — as tends to be their destiny. He can do nothing but carry the memories of its glow.

—

Light glinted over the edge of the cone, approaching footsteps reminded the doctor to tuck it away from prying eyes.

Ratio tsk-ed upon feeling the absence of his headpiece, cracks on the alabaster had demanded a remake.

The scholar’s eyes met with the ones cradling the remnants of a bygone sunset, melting into hues of ocean blue.

“Doc! Didn't expect to see you here.” drawled an unfortunately familiar man. Ratio offered a blink in greeting.

“Yes, how astonishing it is to see a member of the Intelligentsia Guild in its corridors.” the doctor muttered plainly, the Stoneheart in the spotlight merely maintained his smile.

Ratio noticed his other hand to be occupied, “And what about you? Busy squandering your time as usual, gambler?”

Contrary to his expectations, the quirk of Aventurine’s lips widened as though he’d struck gold, he smoothed over the lapels of his suit. The erudite scholar subconsciously braced himself for whatever trick was to be brought next.

“Now now, it's not squandering if you're spending it with a dear person.” he winked.

Veritas caught a silhouette peeking from behind the blonde, “Meaning?”

“Ah, how uncourteous of me.” though there's a note of glee in his voice. “Allow me to introduce you to…”

Dr. Ratio observed as a figure emerged from Aventurine’s shadow, the passing question of how he hadn't noticed them sooner was pushed aside as they joined the Stoneheart in the spotlight.

“My dearest, precious jewel or— how did you prefer it again? Hmm I can't seem to remember~” an elbow to his side and huff broke through his theatrics ; the vacant halls gained life through laughter, petrichor bloomed in their notes.

“Just kidding, my bluebell.”

A meteor crossed the orbit of Ratio’s life again.

© harmonysanreads | do not cross-post, translate, plagiarise, copy on a different platform or use my works to train ai.

Thank you so much for reading!

TAGLIST : @abyssmal-skies @danijaci @birdloverr @teabutmakeitazure @cherriiirose @bleh09 @scurfi @justcallmemidnight @mochinon-yah @feral-ish @lavandulawrites @persicipen @stickyspeckledlight

[v6quewrlds]

❝ say my name, j. burrow. ❞  ‎ ‎ ┉  

‎ ‎ ⁎⠀┉⠀summary: success is great until you realize that you haven't touched your fiance in nearly a month. feeling guilty about your absence, his new assistant's constant presence hits a nerve.

‎ ‎ ⁎⠀┉⠀author's note: game dey fic for good luck! i'm just gonna come clean and say that this picture inspired this entire thing. possessive joe we all say in unison. this was so fun to work on, thank you anon for the request <33 requests are still open!!

‎ ‎ ⁎⠀┉⠀warnings: angst & smut, please do not interact with my work if you are under 18. language, sexual content, established relationship, jealousy, dom!joe, exhibitionism?, public sex, mirror sex?, size kink? size kink, cunnilingus bc joe burrow is an eater™, the tiniest baby hint of a breeding kink.

‎ ‎ ⁎⠀┉⠀pairing: joe burrow x fiancee!reader.

‎ ‎ ⁎⠀┉⠀word count: 6.8k.

The kitchen was bathed in the soft glow of the hanging lights hanging above the island, casting shadows that danced across the marble countertops as yourself, Joe, and your best friend, Tamara, sat around the kitchen table. The aroma of a quick meal filled the air, mingling with the faint scent of Joe's cologne and the sweetness of the boxed cake mix they had shared. Your dark hair was pulled back in a loose bun, your blowout beginning to curl up again. You and Tamara listening intently as Joe spoke of his assistant's impending departure. Your eyes, a deep shade of brown, drifted in and out of the conversation as you thought about the pile of work waiting for you at your office in downtown Cincinnati.

You just barely heard Tamara suggesting her cousin as a replacement. Tiffany, who was studying Marketing at the University of Cincinnati, had grown closer to her older cousin in her time in school despite the age difference between them. "She's been looking for an internship or something part-time," she said, hope sparkling in her voice. "It's tough out here, and she's really good with people."

Joe looked at you, who nodded in approval, half listening and trusting your best friend’s endorsement. "Send her my way, T," he said, smiling. "I'll set up an interview."

The following week was a blur of phone calls and emails as Joe prepared for the interview. Your schedule was packed with work, and Joe was buried in his season commitments. Your paths rarely crossed outside of brief moments at home, leaving your newly purchased house feeling more like a rest stop than a shared home.

When the day of Tiffany’s interview finally arrived, Joe was surprised by her poise and professionalism. She walked in dressed sharply, her confidence radiating in the room. Despite her youth, she spoke with the eloquence of someone who had been in the industry for years. Her references were impeccable, and her career goals were admirable. He had no doubts that she would be a valuable asset to his team.

You met Tiffany for the first time in the kitchen the morning after she started. The young woman's enthusiasm was palpable, but you couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that there was something not quite right with her demeanor. Tiffany's eyes lingered on Joe a little too long for your liking, and her smile was a bit too wide when he spoke to her. You shook yourself out of her skepticism and chalked it up to nerves and excitement about the job. You had to admit, after all, that Tiffany was a breath of fresh air. She was excellent in keeping up with Joe’s schedules and appointments, helping to shoulder some of the burdens he dreaded about his career.

The next few weeks passed in a whirlwind of game days and late-night reheated dinners. Your business was thriving, and Joe's season was on an upward trajectory. Yet, amidst all the success, there was a worrying feeling that something was off-balance. Tiffany was always there, a constant presence that seemed to hover closer to Joe than necessary. You tried not to let it get to you, but you couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy every time Joe laughed at one of Tiffany's jokes or thanked her for handling something simple so efficiently.

You stood over your side of your twin sinks, your coils pushed back from your forehead as you completed your skincare routine. You felt a gentle nudge as Joe leaned against you, his reflection in the mirror showing the exhaustion etched into his features. It was 10 PM, way past Joe's bedtime, but you appreciated the effort he was showing to take advantage of what little time you could spend together.

"So, I've got a dinner tomorrow," he began, his voice a soft rumble in the quiet bathroom. His strong arms wrapped warmly around your waist. "It's a sponsor thing. Nothing crazy, no cameras. Just dinner and a few schmoozes."

Your eyes met his in the mirror. "You want me to come?" You tried to keep the hope out of your voice, but it crept in regardless.

"Yeah. I know you've been slammed with work, but I'd love it if you could come. It's at the Kinley downtown. They have that amazing tiramisu you love." Joe's smile was boyish, and your heart melted at the thought of a rare date night.

The last time you two had been to the Kinley was the night of your engagement three months ago. That famous tiramisu had been delivered to your suite to accompany a bottle of champagne after the hotel manager heard the city's star quarterback was celebrating an accepted proposal. It had been a night filled with laughter and love, and you couldn't help but hope for a similar experience tomorrow.

"Okay, I'll come," you said, turning to kiss him. "But only for the tiramisu."

Joe chuckled and squeezed you tightly. "Whatever it takes to drag you outside with me." He kissed the top of your head before reaching for his toothbrush. "But promise me you'll wear that dress I like, the white one."

You rolled your eyes playfully. "The one that never makes it through the door before you're trying to get it off me? That one?"

Joe grinned, his teeth flashing in the bathroom light. "You know the one."

The morning light streamed through the blinds, creating a checkered pattern across your bed. Your eyes fluttered open, the promise of the dinner date lingering in your mind. You felt Joe's warmth beside you, his even breaths a comforting soundtrack to the start of your day. As you slipped out of bed and into the shower, you couldn't help but feel a spark of excitement for the evening ahead. Joe was gone from his side of the bed when you returned from her shower, his deep voice carrying from the kitchen as he laughed over the phone with Ja'Marr.

As you got dressed to leave for work, you heard the doorbell ring. You didn't expect anyone, but Joe's voice grew louder as he spoke to someone at the door. You made your way downstairs to find Tiffany, dressed in a sleek casual outfit, her hair slicked down perfectly.

"Morning, you two," she chirped, her eyes lighting up at the sight of Joe. You felt a flicker of irritation but pushed it aside.

"Hi, Tiffany," you said with a forced smile. "I can't believe your boss got you over here so early."

Tiffany's eyes darted to Joe before returning to you. "Oh, it's no trouble. I just wanted to make sure everything is set for tonight. Joe said I could tag along to the dinner. You know, for networking and all."

Your smile didn't falter, but your stomach did a flip. "Networking? At the Kinley? Downtown? Tonight?" You couldn't help the searing glare you shot towards Joe who remained wrapped up in his own little world. Completely oblivious to the dissatisfaction on your face. 

You had to admit that you had hoped for a more intimate evening with Joe, but you had no desire to be rude. "That's a great opportunity, Tiffany. It'll be good to make some business connections in the city."

Joe looked between you, blissfully unaware of the tension between the two women. "You're right, babe. Tiffany's going to be graduating soon, and she needs all the help she can get." He gave you a kiss on the cheek, a hand reaching to cradle your waist. "Don't worry, I'll try to keep the business talk to a minimum."

You nodded, trying to keep your emotions in check. You didn't want to ruin your night with a petty argument about his assistant. After all, Joe had done so much to support you, especially with putting up with your late work hours recently.

Tiffany grimaced as Joe's hand lingered on your waist, nuzzling his face into your neck. "Right," she murmured. "I'll just grab my laptop and get to work." She reached into her laptop bag, and you couldn't help but feel a pang of annoyance at her reaction. You had agreed to come to the dinner to support Joe, not to play chaperone.

The day passed slowly, a mix of business meetings and working through the massive to-do list from your secretary leaving you with little time to dwell on the evening's potential awkwardness. When you finally returned home to get ready, you found Joe in your closet, half dressed in a sharp suit that hugged his muscular frame. His eyes lit up at the sight of you, and you had to admit that you felt a spark of excitement at the prospect of a night out with him.

"Joe, did you think Tiffany's energy was off this morning?" You asked as you stepped into the walk-in closet to choose your outfit.

Joe looked up from his phone, presumably texting his stylist, his brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

You emerged from the closet wearing the white dress he had requested, your eyes meeting his in the floor-length mirror. "She just seemed... eager."

Joe shrugged, his tie now hanging loosely around his neck. "Eager to network, you mean? That's what she's here for, babe." You nodded, trying to convince yourself that your jealousy was unfounded. You reached up to do up Joe's tie for him, your hands trembling slightly. As you stepped back to admire your work, he pulled you into a tight embrace.

"You look amazing," Joe whispered into your ear, sending shivers down your spine. His hand cupped your cheek, his blue eyes sweeping over your face. "You always do, beautiful."

You felt a warm blush creep up your neck. "Thank you, baby." You kissed him lightly, trying to ignore the voice in the back of your head that whispered about Tiffany.

The drive to the Kinley was filled with Joe's stories from practice and Tiffany's chirpy interjections about the inside jokes they built up over the weeks she had been working for him. You listened politely, but your mind was elsewhere, planning how you could make the most of this evening. You didn't want to spend the entire night watching Joe work the room with his assistant by his side.

Once you arrived at the luxurious hotel, the valet took Joe's car, and the three of you stepped into the bustling lobby. The air was filled with the sound of clinking glasses and laughter, a stark contrast to the quiet tension between yourself and Tiffany. You took a deep breath and slipped your hand into Joe's, reminding yourself that this was your night, despite the third wheel.

The dinner was a mix of business moguls and sports celebrities. Your eyes scanned the room, searching for a friendly face. You spotted a few local influencers from your business’ social media following, but you were already engaged in your own conversations. The grand ballroom of the Kinley Hotel was a sea of unfamiliar faces, all dressed to the nines and seemingly at ease. The three of you made your way to the table reserved for Joe and his two guests.

Tiffany was already scanning the room, her eyes lighting up as she recognized a potential networking opportunity. "Oh, there's Dr. Simpson from the university," she exclaimed. "I've been dying to talk to him about an internship."

Joe nodded, his gaze following her as she gracefully excused herself. "Go for it," he encouraged, offering her a kind smile. "I'll grab us some drinks."

You watched Tiffany weave through the crowd, an eager bounce in her step. As Joe returned with an espresso martini for you and an iced tea for himself, you couldn't help the sinking feeling in your stomach. You took a sip of your drink, trying to push the negative thoughts aside.

The evening progressed with Joe being pulled into conversation after conversation, leaving you to sit alone at the table. You checked your phone for the millionth time, scrolling through social media to keep yourself entertained. You were in no mood to schmooze with influencers and their sugar daddies, your work had already left you with minimal energy. The chandeliers above cast a warm glow over the room, and the clinking of silverware against china filled the air. You felt out of place, a fish out of water.

Your eyes followed Joe as he charmed a table of investors with a story about a recent game-winning play. Tiffany hovered at his side, a knowing smile playing on her lips as she subtly touched his arm, prompting him with information or a well-placed joke. You felt a knot tighten in your stomach as you watched Joe's assistant monopolize his time.

A server approached with a tray of hors d'oeuvres, and you finally gathered the will to stand and mingle. You recognized a few faces from your own business circles, but the conversations felt forced, the words sticking in your throat as you tried to maintain a cheery facade. With each passing minute, your frustration grew. This wasn't the romantic evening you had hoped for; it was just another work function for Joe with an unwelcome plus-one.

Tiffany reappeared at Joe's side, her laugh a tinkling sound that seemed to carry across the room. You felt a twinge of annoyance at her ease, the way she moved with confidence and charm among these powerful individuals despite her lack of experience. You couldn't help but wonder if Joe had noticed the flirtatious glances she kept casting his way.

"Babe, you okay?" Joe asked, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder as he took a seat beside you. His brow was furrowed with concern, and for a moment, you felt guilty for your jealous thoughts. You forced a smile and nodded. "Just a little tired," you said, playing off your discomfort.

But Joe wasn't buying it. He leaned in close, whispering, "What's going on, sweetheart?" You took a deep breath, the scent of his cologne calming your nerves slightly. 

"It's Tiffany," you confessed.

He frowned, glancing over at his assistant. "What about her?"

You took a moment to gather your thoughts, wanting to choose your words wisely. "It's just... she's all over you, Joe. And it's so fucking weird. She's supposed to be here for business, not to flirt."

Joe's eyes widened in surprise. "Flirt? She's not flirting with me." He leaned back in his chair, his gaze drifting to where Tiffany was now engaged with a group of businessmen. "Babe, she's just doing her job. Networking."

You felt a spark of frustration at his dismissal. "It's more than that, Joe. I can feel it." You took a deep breath, trying to keep your voice low and steady. "I don't want to ruin your night, but I can't ignore how uncomfortable this is making me."

Joe studied you for a moment, his expression a mix of confusion and concern. But before either of you could say anything else, Tiffany came gliding back over, a triumphant smile on her face. "Joe, I've got a meeting with Dr. Simpson next week. He's interested in discussing some marketing strategies for the university's athletic program. You're a genius for bringing me here!"

Her eyes flicked to you, who offered a tight smile in return. "Congratulations, Tiffany," you said through gritted teeth. "You're doing a fantastic job." The words were perfectly sweet, topped off with a gentle lilt as you stood up from your seat. Your hands smoothed over your dress before pushing the chair back in. "But if you'll excuse me..." you trailed off, making your way through the crowd of people without a backward glance.

Joe's hand reached out to grab yours as she passed, but you slipped away. He watched your retreating figure, the frown on his face deepening as he realized he had a situation to handle. "I'll be right back," he told Tiffany, who nodded, her eyes tracking your exit with an odd expression that was not lost on Joe.

He found you in the quiet hallway outside the ballroom, leaning against the wall, your eyes closed. "Hey," he said softly, approaching you. You didn't open your eyes, but you didn't flinch either, which was a bad sign.

"Hey," you murmured, your voice low and tired.

Joe stepped closer, placing a gentle hand on your arm. "Babe, what's wrong? I don't like seeing you like this."

You took a deep breath, opening your eyes to meet Joe's concerned gaze. "It bothers me Joey, the way she acts around you is so fucking weird. And you're not even picking up on it." Your voice was laced with a hint of anger, but the exhaustion from your long day was clear.

Joe sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about. If you're uncomfortable, I'll talk to her," he offered, his voice sincere. "But she's been nothing but professional with me, sweetheart."

You looked at him, your eyes squinting in disbelief. "Joe, she's been all over you since she started working for you. That’s not professional."

He frowned, clearly confused. "Babe, she's just trying to do her job. She's young, eager to impress. It's not what it seems."

You pulled your arm away, your voice rising slightly. "Why would she need to impress you by flirting with you? She's your assistant, not a contestant on a reality show."

Joe's expression darkened as he took in her tone. "Babe," he warned slowly. "You're being dramatic."

But you were beyond caring. You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms with a huff, "Joe," you said, your voice a mix of exasperation and sadness. "You're so blind. She's obviously into you."

Joe's jaw tightened. "Look, if you need attention, I can give you attention." He offered his hand for you to take, his patience wearing thin.

You stepped back, the coldness in his voice cutting through the warmth of the room. "Is that what you think this is about? Attention?" You threw your hands up in frustration. "This isn't a game, Joe. This is our relationship!"

The music and laughter from the ballroom seemed to fade away as you faced each other, your words echoing in the quiet hallway. The silence between you seemed to stretch on for hours. Neither of you were willing to back down. 

Finally Joe took a step closer, his eyes searching yours. "I miss you." He hummed as a hand reached for your hip, pulling you closer to him. "It's been a month since we’ve done anything just the two of us."

Your eyes searched his, the frustration slowly melting away as you gave in. "I miss you too."

Joe's gaze softened, and he leaned in to kiss you. It was gentle at first, a sweet promise of comfort and reassurance, but it quickly grew into something more urgent. A month's worth of longing and tension poured into that kiss, and suddenly, the hallway didn't feel so cold anymore. Your knees practically buckled under his touch, his hands grasping at your curves with a hunger you missed so desperately.

"I need to feel you," he murmured against your lips, his hand sliding around your waist.

You felt a thrill run through you. You knew Joe wasn't the type to act on impulse like this, but you couldn't deny that a part of you craved this passion from him. You had been so busy, and this raw passion was a stark reminder of why you were together. You leaned into him, the heat from your bodies melding together.

"Baby, not here," you whispered, though your voice was laced with want. You didn't miss the twinkle in his eye as he glanced down the hallway.

"Come on, let's go somewhere private." He took your hand, leading you away from the ballroom's prying eyes. You stumbled into an empty bathroom, the door clicking shut behind them. The tension between the two of you crackled in the air as Joe's hands slid up your thighs, pushing your dress up. You gasped as his mouth found your neck, his kisses leaving a trail of heat.

In the dimly lit bathroom, your eyes locked in the mirror. The reflection showed a side of them that hadn't been seen in weeks—desperate and passionate. You gasped as Joe bent you over the counter, his hands roaming under your dress. The cool marble sent a shiver down your spine, but it was nothing compared to the heat between your legs. You didn't protest when he pulled your panties to the side, instead leaning into the sensation of his hand on your skin.

Joe's voice was a gruff whisper in your ear. "Do you want me to stop?" His thumb traced a tantalizing circle around your clit, and you bit back a moan.

"No," you breathed, your eyes fluttering shut. "Fuck me."

With a grunt, Joe complied, his hand moving away to unbuckle his pants. He was already hard, his cock pressing against your ass as he lined himself up. He slammed into you without much prep, and your moan echoed in the tiled room. You gripped the edge of the counter, your breath getting caught in your throat as he began to thrust into you. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the air, mingling with the distant laughter and clinking glasses from the dinner.

Your movements grew more erratic as you both gave into your desires. Your heels clicked against the marble floor with every thrust, the sound bouncing off the walls. Joe's grip tightened on your hips, his breath hot on your neck as he whispered dirty nothings that made your toes curl. It was a stark contrast to the elegant evening gown you wore, now hiked up around your waist, and the fancy hotel bathroom you found yourself in.

"Harder," you moaned, your voice thick with desire.

"Yeah?" Joe questioned, his grip tightened on your hips, his rhythm quickening as he drove into you. The bathroom's sterile scent was overpowered by your mingled perfume and the scent of your arousal. The world outside the bathroom door faded away, replaced by the symphony of your panting breaths and the wet slap of your bodies coming together.

"Fuck, yes," you gasped, your eyes fluttering open to meet Joe's in the mirror. The sight of him, all muscular and intense, brought a new wave of arousal crashing over you. You felt the tension in your core tighten with every stroke, your body begging for release.

"I'm right here," Joe murmured, his voice a stark contrast to the urgent sounds of your lovemaking. His eyes held yours in the mirror, a silent promise that he heard you and that he cared. "You're all mine, baby. You're all I want. The only one."

You felt your body respond to his words, the tension coiling tighter, your orgasm approaching like a freight train. "Baby," you moaned, your nails digging into the counter. "I'm gonna come."

Joe's eyes darkened, and he thrust deeper, hitting that perfect spot inside you. "Come for me, sweetheart," he urged, his own breathing ragged. "You wanted my attention? You got it. Right here, right now."

Your body obeyed, shuddering with pleasure as she climaxed, your inner walls clenching around him. He groaned, his movements becoming more erratic as he chased his own release. The sound of your passion bounced off the marble walls, echoing through the empty hallway outside. It was a reminder of the passion that still burned between the two of you, despite the distance your busy lives had created.

You both came down from your highs, your breathing slowly returning to normal as Joe held you against him, your hands resting against the cool bathroom sink. "I'm sorry," you murmured, your voice still shaky from the intensity of your encounter.

Joe leaned in to kiss your neck, his breath warm against your skin. "Don't be. We both needed this." He pulled out of you gently, setting you upright to clean you up gently. You straightened out your clothes, trying to compose yourselves before returning to the dinner.

When you exited the bathroom, the tension between you had shifted. The awkwardness was gone, replaced with a newfound intimacy and understanding. You held hands as you walked back to the ballroom, your eyes meeting in a silent promise that you wouldn't let your busy lives come between you two again.

As you re-entered the buzzing room, the first person you saw was Tiffany, who was chatting with a group of people. Her eyes immediately darted to your joined hands and hazy eyes. You felt a smug satisfaction at the slight flicker of jealousy in the assistant's gaze. But you pushed the thought aside, focusing instead on Joe and the rest of the night ahead of you.

Joe steered you to your table, and you noticed that the dinner had progressed to dessert without you. The other guests were engaged in lively conversations, oblivious to the passionate interlude the two of you had just shared. You couldn't help but feel a bit rebellious, a bit wild, knowing that while everyone else was munching on chocolate tiramisu, you had just been properly fucked by your fiancé in the bathroom.

You sat down and picked at your desserts, Joe occasionally squeezing your hand under the table. The rest of the evening passed in a blur of small talk and forced smiles, but you couldn't shake the feeling that Tiffany's eyes kept finding you, lingering a second too long on the lean into each other or the occasional kiss you shared.

As the dinner wound down and guests began to disperse, Joe leaned in, whispering, "Let's get out of here." The excitement in his voice was palpable, and you found yourself smiling genuinely for the first time that evening.

"What about Tiffany? She's not ready to leave," you whispered, glancing at Joe's assistant who was still deep in conversation.

"She's a big girl," Joe said with a firmness in his voice that made your stomach flutter. "We need some time alone."

"Joe," you warned, your voice a mix of amusement and concern. "You can't just leave her here."

He leaned closer, his breath tickling your ear. "Why not? She's a smart girl, she can handle herself."

You rolled your eyes but couldn't help the smirk that played on your lips. "Fine. But you're telling her we're leaving."

Joe leaned back in his chair, his own smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "My pleasure." He stood, his movements graceful despite his towering height. He approached Tiffany, and you watched as he tapped her on the shoulder. The young assistant's smile faltered when she saw who it was, the new glow in his features unmistakeable.

"Tiffany, we're heading out," Joe said, his voice firm but not unkind. "I know you're not ready to leave yet. But when you are, just order an Uber. It's on me, you can Venmo me in the morning."

Tiffany's expression tightened, and she nodded, trying to play it cool, but the sting of being ditched was clear in her eyes. You felt a twinge of guilt, but you couldn't bring herself to care much. Like Joe said, she was a smart girl, and it didn't take much to see the sexual tension floating between an engaged couple.

The two of you made your way through the lobby, giggling to each other as you tried to slip out under the radar. An older man passed by, giving you a knowing smile. "Looks like the night's just getting started for you two," he said with a wink.

Joe's arm tightened around your waist as he replied, "You could say that," with a mischievous grin. "I'm taking my wife home." The man chuckled before continuing on his way, leaving you to your own devices.

"Wife? Already?" You teased, your eyes sparkling with mischief. “I was promised another ring, Mr. Burrow.”

"Might as well get used to calling you that," Joe said, a hint of possessiveness in his tone that sent a thrill through you. “The ring will come in due time, Mrs. Burrow.”

You stepped outside into the cool Cincinnati evening, the sounds of the city muffled by the plush hotel lobby behind you. The valet pulled up with Joe's sleek black sports car, and you couldn't help but feel like a teenager again, sneaking out for a date with your forbidden boyfriend. You drove through the city streets, the tension in the car thick with unspoken words and lingering passion.

Back home, you didn't bother with small talk. The moment you were through the door, Joe scooped you into his arms and carried you upstairs in a bridal carry to your bedroom. Your kisses were deep, your touches exploratory, as if you were discovering each other all over again.

"Joseph," you scolded as he tossed you onto the plush king-sized bed, your bodies tangling together as he followed you down. His broader, more muscular body covered yours completely. Your heart swirled with arousal at the thought of him towering over you, claiming you as his wife as he did earlier. 

He kissed you deeply, his hands exploring the curves of your body as if he hadn't touched you in years instead of just an hour. Your fingers danced over his chest, feeling the familiar strength beneath the fabric of his shirt, your desire for him growing with every beat of your heart.

"I think we have some unfinished business," Joe murmured against your neck, his voice deep and filled with desire as his hands continued to roam over your body. His mouth trailed hot kisses along your collarbone, making you arch into him with a gasp.

Your own hands found their way to his shirt buttons, eager to feel the warmth of his skin against yours. As the fabric parted, you could see the outline of his muscles, the result of countless hours of training and hard work. You ran your fingertips over his chest, feeling his heart race beneath your touch. It was a powerful reminder that, despite his rigorous schedule, he was all yours.

"Open those pretty legs for me," Joe groaned, his hands sliding down to grip your thighs, pushing your body up even further on the bed and tearing your panties away.

You eagerly complied, your heart pounding in anticipation as Joe's eyes darkened with lust. He kissed down your body, peppering your skin with kisses that left a trail of fire in their wake. When his mouth reached your pussy, you bucked your hips upward, desperate for his touch. His tongue slid along your slit, teasing your clit before delving deeper. Your moans grew louder, filling the quiet room, as he feasted on you, bringing you to the brink of another orgasm.

"Fuck, baby," you whispered as Joe's tongue swirled around your clit, bringing you closer and closer to the edge. You couldn't believe how much you needed this, how much you craved his touch after being entrenched in your busy life. Your body felt alive again, every nerve ending tingling with pleasure as Joe worked his magic on you.

"Yes, Joe," you moaned, your hips rocking against his face as Joe's skilled mouth brought you closer to climax. You felt him smile against you, the movement sending a fresh wave of pleasure through you. You were lost in the sensation, your body trembling as you reached for his hair, gripping the short strands in your fists.

"Yes, yes," you panted, your body writhing under Joe's relentless attention. His tongue was a masterful tool, bringing you closer and closer to the peak of pleasure. You could feel the tension building within you, your toes curling and your grip on his hair tightening as you approached your peak.

"I'm gonna come," you warned, your voice breathless. "Baby, please don't stop. I need you so bad."

Joe's only response was a low growl of approval, his mouth working faster as he felt your body tense beneath him. He knew you were close, he could taste it in the sweetness of your arousal. With one final, lingering lick, you shattered, your body convulsing with the force of your orgasm. Joe looked up at you, his eyes gleaming with pride and lust as he watched you come apart in his arms.

You collapsed back onto the bed, panting and trembling, your eyes fluttering shut. Joe didn't waste any time, quickly shedding his own clothes before sliding between your legs. He positioned himself at your entrance, his cock thick and hard with desire.

"Look at you," Joe murmured, his voice thick with lust. His eyes traced the lines of your body, taking in every inch of you like it was the first time all over again. "So beautiful, all mine. Never seen anyone so fucking perfect."

You felt your body warm at his words, your eyes snapping open to meet his. "Joe," you whispered, your voice a plea for more as you felt him nudge against your entrance. He slid in slowly, filling you completely, making you gasp with the sudden fullness.

Your rhythm was slow at first, a gentle rocking that grew in intensity with every beat of your hearts. You wrapped your legs around his waist, urging him deeper, your nails digging into his back. Joe's eyes never left yours, the love and desire in his gaze setting you alight. You moved together in perfect harmony, your bodies speaking a language that only the two of you understood.

"Joey," you whispered, your voice strained with need as his hips rocked into you steadily. His thrusts grew stronger, more demanding. The bed beneath you creaked with the force of your passion, the only sound in the room your ragged breaths and the slick sounds of skin on skin.

Your voice cut off with a strangled moan as he hiked your thighs up higher. Your calves now rested on his broad shoulders, as your pelvises cushioned against each other. 

“What is it baby?” Joe questioned softly against your parted lips, your breaths mingling together in whispers of moans. “You know I’d give you whatever you need. Just ask.”

"Tell me you love me," you breathed, your eyes locked on Joe's. 

His pupils dilated, and he leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours.

"I love you, beautiful. So fucking much," he growled, his voice a mix of passion and frustration at the same time. "You're mine, and I'm yours. No one else." His words were punctuated by his hips, driving into you with a ferocity that mirrored the emotions churning within you.

"Only yours," you repeated, your voice a breathy whisper as Joe's cock slammed into you, each stroke hitting a spot deep inside that sent you spiraling towards another climax. The words resonated within you, a departure from the insecurity that had plagued you earlier in the evening.

"Fuck, Joey," you moaned, feeling the pressure build inside you once again. Your nails dug into his back, urging him to go harder, faster. "Don't stop, baby, don't ever stop."

Your movements grew more frantic, the passion between you a live wire, sparking and crackling in the air. Joe's muscles bulged with effort as he drove into you, each stroke hitting deeper than the last. The room grew hazy with lust, the only reality the feel of your bodies joined together.

"I don't want you to ever doubt how much I love you," Joe said through gritted teeth, his eyes stuck on your pleasure-ridden face. He pushed into you, each thrust a declaration of his love and ownership. Your eyes rolled back in your head as you felt the familiar tightness begin to coil within you for the third time that night. "Not when I'm with you, not when I'm at work, not when I'm around anyone else."

Your lovemaking grew more intense with every word, each one a promise that resonated through your soul. The feeling of him inside you was more than just physical; it was a reaffirmation of your commitment, a reminder of your bond. Your nails raked down Joe's back, leaving a trail of red in their wake. Your legs tightened around him, pulling him closer, as if you could somehow fuse your bodies into one.

"I fuck you too hard?" Joe smirked, his voice strained as he felt your tight grip on him. He knew you were close, your breath hitching in your throat, your eyes screwed shut with pleasure.

"Too good?" He continued his relentless pace, his hips slapping against yours. You could only nod, your mouth forming a silent "yes" as you rode the wave of ecstasy. Your legs trembled around him, your body begging for more.

“Want me to fill you up, baby?” His mouth kept running as his voice became more strained with effort.

"Fuck, yes," you gasped out, your eyes flying open to meet Joe's intense gaze. You could feel your orgasm building, your muscles clenching around his cock. The way he filled you, the way he claimed you with every stroke, it was more than you could handle.

"How could you ever doubt me baby?" Joe whispered in your ear, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine as he drove into you even deeper. 

His lips found your neck, biting at the soft flesh and soothing the pain with the flick of his tongue until you were squirming beneath him. "How could you doubt me when this good cock is just for you, huh?"

Your eyes rolled back in your head as another orgasm ripped through you without warning, your body tightening around Joe's cock. He groaned, feeling your pussy pulse with pleasure as he picked up the pace, driving into you faster and harder. The sound of your bodies colliding filled the room, the bed shaking beneath you as you both gave yourselves over to the moment.

Joe felt his own release building, the pressure at the base of his spine growing with every stroke. He leaned down, capturing your mouth in a bruising kiss, your teeth clashing together as you lost yourselves together. He could feel your pussy clench around him, milking his cock, and with a struggle of a moan, he came, filling you with his warmth.

For a moment, you two lay there, panting and trembling, your hearts racing. Then Joe pulled out of you, collapsing beside you on the bed. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close as you both fought to catch your breaths. You felt his heart thud against your chest, the steady beat a reassurance of his love and commitment.

"You're so fucking beautiful when you come," Joe murmured, his voice still thick with desire as he kissed the side of your neck. You couldn't help but smile, feeling a warmth spread through you that had nothing to do with the aftermath of your lovemaking. 

Moments later, you leaned back into his broad chest as you soaked in the warm water of your bathtub. Your bodies tangled together, the only sound your ragged breaths and the occasional whisper of love and reassurance. The tension from earlier had melted away, replaced by a comfort and closeness that you hadn't felt in weeks. You knew your schedules were hectic, but moments like these reminded you why you had agreed to marry Joe in the first place.

"You know I don't doubt you, Joe," you murmured against his shoulder, your voice sleepy with satisfaction. "Tiffany's behavior today was weird. And I felt guilty about my feelings and I took it out on you."

Joe sighed, his arms tightening around you. "I’m sorry we’ve been so distant, baby. I'll talk to her. I hated seeing you so upset." He kissed the top of your head.

"Thank you," you mumbled, snuggling closer to him. Despite your exhaustion, you knew that talking about Tiffany had brought the issue back to the surface. But Joe's embrace made you feel safe, and you allowed yourself to relax into the comfort of his arms.

"It's not just her," Joe began, his voice serious. "I know I've been distant, with the season and everything. But you're my priority, always." His fingers traced lingering patterns into your ribcage under the water. "I don't want anything to come between us."

Your heart swelled at his words, his voice devoid of any sign of doubt. "I know you don't," you said softly. "We'll do better, baby. I know we can."

Joe nodded, a serious look crossing his features. "We will. I promise." He leaned in, placing a gentle kiss on your temple. The silence was a welcome comfort, the weight of your promises lingering in the air.

[honkytonk-hangman]

How It's Done – Oneshot Version

Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x Aviator!Reader

Originally posted by unicornships

Summary: “Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean. “Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–” “–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by.

Warnings: erm maybe just some references to sex? jake being jake? language? minions. big warning for minions xD

Notes: Originally I intended this to be a two-parter series, but I wanted to change how it went, so I rewrote the parts I didn't like and made the entire thing into a oneshot instead!!! This fic will replace the 'part one' already on my blog, but I will keep this part up, linked at the very bottom of my masterlist! thank you everyone for being so patient! Thank you @hangmanssunnies, my love my biggest support <3

Words: 11.6k!

“Well, I’ll be damned…”

You pinch your eyes shut and steel yourself at the sound of the all too familiar Texan drawl, hanging on to the hope that perhaps he isn’t talking to you. You’re out of luck though, and moments later Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin slides into the open space next to you at the bar, already posed in a casual lean as he looks you up and down appraisingly.

It makes your teeth grind.

It makes your face hot.

“If it isn’t Mirage. Would have invited you to play with us if I’d known you were here earlier…” Hangman cocks his head, and his lips tip up in an infuriatingly perfect smile. “But one can never really be sure if you’re around or not… and that's before you get in a cockpit,” he grins, but when you meet his eye at last, he looks away from you, toward Penny who seems to approach in the nick of time, saving you from needing to respond.

You blink down at your drink, and finish it quickly, unnerved by what you think might have just been a compliment of sorts from Hangman. You’d been stationed together previously, though you weren’t friends, so you’d been expecting something a little more acidic in nature. You’d heard him interact with other aviators, knew he liked to push and poke them, usually got away with it too. For some reason though, he’d never really gone there with you and frankly you’ve always just chalked it up to not being worth his time. In fact, you’re pretty sure the only times you’d ever actually spoken had been in the sky. To be completely honest, you’re more than a little surprised that he remembers you at all.

You didn’t exactly go out of your way to stand out…

You were naturally quiet, which wasn’t helped by your social anxiety, resulting in most people describing you as extremely shy. They wouldn’t be wrong, you suppose, you did tend to keep to yourself, the idea of having too many eyes on you all but unbearable to you. But if you’d thought a roomful of people singing happy birthday to you was bad, somehow being under the unwavering stare of Hangman is approximately one thousand times worse.

“Penny, my dear… I’ll have,” he stops to glance pointedly down at your now finished beer, adjusts his stance to lean even more and unwittingly makes the muscles in his bicep bulge.

“Five more on the Old Timer,” Hangman says, nodding to the man who sits on the other side of the bar.

Internally you blanch, but externally, you say nothing and give even less away, feeling a little ping of satisfaction that apparently, you know something Hangman doesn’t. Before he’d come along, you’d been carefully watching the interaction between Penny and Captain Mitchell. You’d never met the man before, but you knew how to read military insignia, which at this point, was more than you could say for Hangman, who dismisses him quickly.

You wonder if Monday morning you’ll be able to work up the nerve to tease him about it.

You’re distracted from your thoughts when Penny returns with the requested drinks. You had no real intentions of going and hanging out with Hangman and the others, but before you can excuse yourself, your empty beer is smoothly plucked from your hands, replaced quickly with a brand new one.

“Help me carry these back?” Hangman asks then, jerking his head in the vague direction of the pool table. You frown when he immediately takes off walking, not actually letting you help him at all, all four beers still slotted between his fingers. You find yourself following him anyway, as if he’d placed some kind of spell over you.

Hangman stops ahead of you at the ancient jukebox, looking back over his shoulder at you, nodding in a pleased manner when he sees you trailing behind. He waits for you, gaze never leaving your form, even as he nods to the space next to him. You awkwardly step up to the spot opposite to him, and look past the glass and at the selection inside. Hangman, once more, takes up a lean, this time against the rickety machine.

“Would you be so kind as to select track number…” he trails off as he checks the list of songs, but quickly flicks his gaze back to you, and smiles bright, tauntingly, again. “Eighty-Six?” he asks, but it's barely a question. You nod, and swallow, shifting from holding your beer with two hands to holding it with just one. You carefully tap the chunky ‘eight’ and ‘six’ keys as he watches. The machine’s little analogue screen confirms that your song is next up, and nervously, you look back up at Hangman, horrified to find he’s just been staring at your face for the past however long.

“S’been a while, Mirage.” He drawls, making you blink rapidly and look away.

“Has it?” Is all you can manage meekly in reply, surprised when he lets out a genuine sounding laugh. He hums warmly, and you practically feel it in your chest.

“And yet,” he lifts hand, two beers held expertly between his fingers, but he extends it to tap your nose, almost making you almost flinch.

“You haven’t changed at all.” Hangman grins Cheshire-like down at you, before his eyes narrow ever so slightly, and he leans in even closer while flicking his eyes up and down your form again.

“I don’t bite you know,” he tells you, his voice sounding serious, but his somberness lasts mere seconds.

“Well, not unless you ask me to first, sweetheart,” he winks and his smile grows large as your eyes grow wide and you splutter, flustered.

Your face grows hot with slight embarrassment, a wave of inner resentment at his teasing washing through you.

Hangman laughs, seemingly bored with you now, and he turns to walk back toward the pool tables. Without even looking, he beckons you to follow with one finger on his still occupied hands. For a moment your pique prevents you from doing so, certain that if you were to dip into the crowd now, he’d not care enough to seek you out again, let alone notice you were missing.

You know he didn’t mean it, you know his flirting is just to get a rise, but you also know that he’d never do it to Phoenix, or Halo, and a little bit of you hates yourself for being such a marked pushover. You make the decision now that you won’t let him do it again, if you can help it.

Your eyes travel past Hangman then, towards the pool tables where you can now see another figure has joined the other gathered aviators, and for the first time all evening, you don’t feel nervous to go join them.

You follow after Hangman, but quickly diverge from his path, cutting around a gathered group of Navy personnel to get there faster. As you approach, you take a moment to shake off any lingering anxiety, before gently laying a hand on the faded Hawaiian shirt in front of you, doing your best to keep yourself from bouncing on your heels.

Rooster half looks ready to wave off whoever is trying to get his attention, but when his shaded eyes land on you, he spins his whole body to face you, grinning widely in unguarded excitement as he gathers you up in his arms.

“Miri!” he exclaims warmly, and you can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of you when he briefly lifts you off the ground.

“I was just about to ask Phoenix if she’d seen you yet.” Rooster informs you. 

“Seen who?” Phoenix steps around him, frowning as she quickly glances you over, though it disappears quickly.

“Yeah, that about tracks…” Rooster mutters mostly to himself.

“Nat, this is Mirage, you know her right?” Rooster introduces the two of you, and while neither of you make to shake hands, you only feel friendly energy radiate off the other woman, even as she openly looks you over now, nodding at Rooster’s words.

“Right, I have heard about you… I guess there's no real mystery behind your callsign… I didn’t even realise you were here… Sorry,” she tells you bluntly, but you appreciate her straightforwardness.

“They said ‘Wallflower’ was too long.” You joke lightly, and the other woman smiles. A moment passes between you, and you get the distinct feeling that Phoenix has become determined to never let you go unnoticed in her presence again.

You aren’t sure just yet if you appreciate that, but you are sure that you’ve just made a friend.

“Mirage?” Another voice joins then and you look to your left, smiling again when you see another familiar face.

“Bob!” you move to embrace him too, not seeing the look shared between Phoenix and Payback who watch you in surprise.

“Huh. Figures.”

-

Neither you or Hangman have moved since Rooster and Mav went down. The rest of Dagger had returned an hour ago, mission complete. There was no reason for either of you to be on standby.

And yet.

When the call came through that Dagger Two had been hit, both you and Hangman had separately requested to be launched, to help, but you’d been denied.

As a rule, you made yourself easy to work with, even if those around you were less compliant, and you’d experienced plenty of that, flying alongside Hangman the past few weeks. Whether it was him leaving you to get shot down in training, or refusing to fly as a team during simulations. And yet, despite his habit of ‘hanging you out to dry’ being the reason behind his callsign, deep down, you’ve never once doubted flying alongside him in the real thing like the others seemed to.

You’re glad for that lack of hesitation now, glad that it only takes a single moment of eye contact from across the tarmac for the two of you to understand one another perfectly. Glad that when you got word that somehow, Rooster was supersonic again, you already know his answer before you even ask.

“Hangman? Hondo’s cleared us for take off with the ground crew, against orders. You with me?” you ask quietly, looking over at your wingman, knowing that when you return you’ll most certainly be court marshalled, but unable to sit and do nothing any longer.

“To hell and back, Mirage,” comes his immediate reply.

You see him move in sync with you, both of your canopy’s lowering at the same time.

You ignore the panicked voices ordering you to stand down, long enough for Hondo and the others to get you on the catapult, and by then it’s too late.

In two seconds you’re propelled from zero to over a hundred and sixty, and in your ears you hear Hangman right behind you.

-

“Do you want to get a coffee with me?” The question makes you jump, your drink almost sloshing everywhere. The sudden voice, as well as the person it belonged to, takes you completely by surprise, but you’re thankful he doesn’t draw attention to your startling.

Up until moments ago, you’d been peacefully watching the ocean toss and turn, burying your feet in the damp sand and thinking about what you were going to do with your upcoming two weeks of post-mission leave.

Most of Dagger were a little further up the shore, a bonfire crackling away, although you weren’t the only one to have splintered off. Mav and Rooster were currently standing in the shallows talking, and you think Halo and Phoenix have moved to sit apart from the others as well. You had managed to sneak away easily enough, content to just sit on your own for a while, though your efforts appear to have been mostly in vain, if the man now plopped in the sand beside you is any indicator.

You blink at each other.

“What?!” you blurt out dumbly, not completely certain you really understood what he’d said. Hangman’s lips press into a thin line, and he looks away from you, linking his hands together around his knees, and staring out at the rolling waves.

“Coffee. Would you like to get one with me?” He repeats, sounding only a smidge impatient, but it still doesn't clear up much for you.

“I… No, I heard you the first time… I… I just don’t understand… why?”

Over the past three weeks you’ve been forced more out of your shell than you ever have before. It was torture. It was wonderful.

Part of you pats yourself on the back for being able to ask him so starightly, but another part of you slaps yourself in the face for questioning him.

Hangman turns to look at you apprehensively.

“Are you asking why coffee or why am I asking you?” He speaks slowly and carefully, his face blank and devoid of any hint he was teasing, though you think he might be anyway.

“Why… Why are you asking me?” You push, shuffling your feet in the sand, drawing his attention for a moment. He looks back at your face and frowns slightly, cocking his head.

“Because I like you? And that is usually what somebody does when they like someone. Ask them.” He answers, and this time you definitely get the impression he’s politely trying not to laugh, but for once, you don’t feel like you’re on the outside of the joke.

Still, you find yourself taken somewhat aback at his confession, admitted so easily and freely, as if it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, which confuses you.

“Like me? I didn’t even think you wanted me as a squadmate, let alone–” you stop speaking, but only because Hangman cuts his eyes sharply away from you to glare out at the ocean.

“Well, I do.” He says kind of indignantly, all things considered, and eyes you almost sourly. “You can just say no if you don’t–”

“–No, I do!” you quickly cut him off, because at the end of it all, you’re a little too much of a hopeless romantic to let this moment pass you by. Especially when for the past three weeks you haven't been able to get rid of the odd heart skips you got whenever Hangman acknowledged your presence at all.

And besides, you weren’t blind.

Hangman was ridiculously pretty, and not anywhere near as much of an asshole as he wanted people to believe.

He looks at you blankly for a moment, processing your words, before his face breaks out in a smile. It isn’t one of his usual smirks or tauntingly pearly grins, though. It’s softer, sweeter, and you stare mesmerised as he looks away from you again quickly, and down at his linked hands, nodding.

Two days pass, and even when you’re sitting across from him in a small, niche little coffee shop you had no idea existed, you feel like you’re in a dream.

You’ve never seen Hangman out of uniform, you realise, and it’s a whole new experience you’re forced quickly to process when he stands to go get your drinks.

Dark jeans, white shirt, casual jacket. It’s a simple outfit, but goddamn does he make it look good. Nervously you have to wonder if your white and blue sundress, sneakers and bomber jacket were having the same effect on him, though you highly doubt it.

He returns quickly, attentively, placing both your coffees down, before folding himself into his chair once more. You both look at each other awkwardly before you distract yourself by taking a sip of your coffee. Hangman seems to do the same, but instead of drinking, he begins tearing into several little sugar packets, and emptying them into his coffee foam.

You huff out a tiny laugh before you can stop yourself, and his eyes quickly snap to you.

“What?” he asks defensively, but the corners of his mouth twitch.

“I just… I guess I never figured you for a sweet coffee kinda guy…”

“Oh, and why is that?” his twitching lips turn into a full smirk, but it isn’t his usual Hangman smirk. You chew on the inside of your lip, and sip your coffee once more before answering.

“I’m not sure. I guess you just don’t seem like the type of guy who…” you trail off, unsure of what exactly you’re trying to say and even more; how to say it.

“Listen, I may have rippling, glistening abdominals, but I have a sweet tooth,” he says, putting on the defensiveness now, leaning toward you and pointing at himself. You pinch your brows together and purse your lips, nodding vehemently.

“I know how to have fun,” he tells you, tipping a third sugar into his coffee.

“Of that I don’t really doubt, Hangman,” you say, but his gaze snaps back to you again, almost sharply this time.

“Jake.” he corrects you.

You pause.

Of course, you knew his first name, but you’re fairly certain you’ve never once used it. Hangman has just always been, well, Hangman. But you weren’t in a cockpit right now, he’d asked you out, this wasn’t the time and place for callsigns. He wasn’t Hangman, and you weren’t Mirage.

“Jake,” you say slowly, carefully, as if he’ll tell you any moment he’s just kidding around. But he doesn’t.

“Miri,” he replies, slow like you, but softer, and it’s silly, but it sounds so nice coming from him. You shake your head and swallow.

“Jake, if you don’t like coffee, why did you ask me out for one?” you ask him, watching as he blinks slowly at you, before his gaze slowly drops to the latte in front of him.

“If I asked you for a drink, you might’ve got the wrong idea,” he starts, speaking carefully. “If I asked you for dinner, it could be too formal, too awkward–”

“–It’s already awkward,” you point out, making him grimace slightly, so you shrug.

“Coffee just seemed like– I just wanted to–” he cuts himself off and drops both hands to the table.

“Look– I just didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about what this was. I like you. I know you like coffee.” Jake admits all in a flurry, his voice quiet, and his eyes flickering around as he speaks.

For as long as you’ve known him, you’ve never seen Jake unable to maintain eye contact, actually it seemed to be something he took immense pride in, and it always made you slightly uncomfortable, but right now he appears completely incapable, and it's not a side of Hangman you’ve ever seen before. You realise you might be meeting Jake properly for the first time.

You decide to let him off easy, with all the newfound courage Dagger had been feeding into you the past few weeks, and you change the subject.

“You know, when you came up to me at the Hard Deck that first night, I was kinda surprised you remembered me at all,” you say slowly, sipping your coffee and eying him evenly. Jake frowns then, but it smooths out into a cool grin, and he leans back in his chair, cocking his head.

“Are you kidding? I’m always clocking possible threats.” he tells you, making you cough lightly.

“How am I a threat to you?!” you ask in disbelief.

“Oh, I could name a few,” Jake teases, nodding at you, but flicking his eyes away, almost making a show of clocking an incoming group of customers behind you.

You weren’t clueless, you knew you were a part of Dagger for a reason. You were damn good at your job, but still, Jake was Hangman, not only was he an aviator you respected, he was an aviator with very high personal standards, and for him to see you as comparable to him… well truthfully, you find yourself rather humbled.

And then flustered, at his clear unabashed flirting.

“I always thought you flirting was just you messing with me,” you admit, and he grins wider.

“Can’t it be both?” he asks, leaning forward again, and clasping his hands together. He seems to have no problem maintaining eye contact now, you note. When you cold-stare him, he simply shrugs.

“You’re cute when you get all flustered and nervous, what can I say?”

“Literally anything else.” You grumble back.

You finish your coffee and push the cup to the side, crossing your arms on the table and leaning forward like he was. Jake mimics you, pushing his own coffee away, clearly with no intention to start, let alone finish it. You aren’t as good as him with eye contact though, no matter how much you’d come out of your shell, so you take the opportunity to glance sideways out the window, only for your gaze to catch on something.

Your heart thumps loudly for a moment in your ears, and you wonder briefly if you should act on the thoughts popping around your brain right now, or if you should just stay put.

You lean forward even more, and flick your eyes back to Jake who is staring at you curiously.

“Hey, I have an idea…” you start, chewing on the inside of your lip, before standing up. You only hesitate a little before offering your hand.

“You with me?” you ask without thinking, the words the same as the ones you ask time and again to your wingmen while in flight manoeuvres. Jake stares up at you for a moment, before he too stands, your heart skipping when he takes your hand. With a tiny squeeze you almost don’t notice, Jake grins, and nods.

-

“Oh, hey! Stop! That’s not fair!” You elbow Jake in the side, but it’s already too late. The hand he’d shot out to block your light gun had done its job, and where you’d previously been neck in neck for score on the dual Time Crisis cabinet, Jake’s character was now cheering in victory, while your screen was asking you to insert more coins and try again.

Jake chortles and you both slot your plastic guns back into their plastic holsters at the front of the machine.

“We never agreed to no interference,” he says proudly, and you sock him in the arm only half as hard as you can.

“I didn’t think it needed to be said!” you exclaim pointedly. Jake grins down at you, and collects his tickets.

“Quit complaining, all these are gonna go towards whatever stuffed bear or whatever the hell you want anyway.” He rolls his eyes, and gestures to the shoddy ‘rewards’ counter of the arcade you’d spotted from the coffee shop.

“I want the Minion.” You state firmly after glancing at the redemption counter for three seconds, and spotting the big ugly yellow creature on the top shelf. Jake sighs in a put-upon manner and shakes his head.

“See, this is how you know I really like you. I’m willing to ignore that,” he says, and you actually think he might be serious this time. You grin up at him as he takes your elbow, and begins leading you toward the back of the room.

“What are you going to cheat me out of kicking your ass at this time?” you glance around you, goosebumps trailing up and down your arm as Jake lets his hand slide from around your elbow, down your forearm and into your hand, which he squeezes as if in warning.

“I didn’t cheat, I simply used black ops tactics,” he says, narrowing his eyes at you. You purse your lips at him and narrow your own eyes back.

“Cheat.” you say again, pronouncing each syllable deliberately.

You come to a stop then, and you look up at the old photo booth machine. Jake pulls out a fistfull of tickets, squinting his eyes at the label with instructions, before looking back over at the redemption counter. He seems to run some numbers before he looks back down at you with a grin, and waves the strings of crumpled tickets.

“My cheating means we can use the booth, and still have enough for a Kevin plush, so I don’t wanna hear no more complaining outta you,” he waggles a finger in front of your nose, and you blink up at him sheepishly.

“Jake– I don’t really want the Minion…” you say, before your voice turns suspicious. “Anyway, how do you know which one is Kevin?!” you lift an eyebrow, only for Jake to roll his eyes and push you into the curtained booth.

You orient yourself in the tiny enclosed space, looking around you as Jake takes a moment to feed several lines of win-tickets into the machine before he follows you. He’s forced to duck down real low, making the space even smaller, and you both stare for a moment at the small seat barely big enough for one person, let alone two.

“Well, either you can sit on my lap, or I can sit on yours, darlin’, but I know which one I’d prefer.” Jake intones lowly, and for the first time in an hour or so, you feel yourself get all flustered again. Honestly, you’d kind of forgotten about the explicitly romantic tone of this meeting until now, and more than that, your stomach begins to flip and flop like the first time you’d gotten in a jet when he eases past you and drops himself onto the bench before patting his thighs.

“Jake, maybe if you just move over a litt–”

“No can do, honey,” and he’s not even trying to tease you, he demonstrates the spread of his legs, and the tight fit into the booth, before looking back up at you expectantly again.

“Okay… Okay…” you say more for your own sanity than anything else, and turn, quickly perching yourself on his leg before you can really think too hard about what you're doing.

Your efforts are for naught though, because the moment you’re sat down, Jake’s hands are tugging you against him further, sitting you more comfortably on the thick expanse of his thigh, and you barely repress the noise that nearly escapes you at the feeling of his fingers digging into your hips.

“There we go, sweetheart,” he says softly, almost to himself, and moves his hands to wrap around you completely. If he notices your little noise, which by his self satisfied smirk he definitely has, he thankfully chooses not to say anything. Your face grows warm, not only at the hold he has on you but at the pet name too.

“Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?” you ask, sounding half bewildered, half incredulous, forgetting for a moment where exactly you were and why. As you look over your shoulder at the man behind you, Jake stares back, his smirk still in place even as his eyes seem to search your face, his own expression mostly unreadable.

“Would you prefer ‘honey’?” he almost purrs, his voice distinctly amused, but you notice that he doesn’t back down, doesn’t apologise or step back.

It makes your stomach twist up in knots. It makes your heartbeat skip like a record.

You turn away from him, shake your head.

“It’s fine,” you tell him bashfully, wanting to grumble slightly when against your back you sense what you think is him puffing his chest a little. Quickly, you add: “Not at work, though…”

Jake chortles, but as you peek over your shoulder to look at him again, he’s relenting, his smirk gone and replaced with a far softer smile as he nods.

“Not at work, though.” he repeats lowly in confirmation, almost making you jump when he shifts one hand to steady you around the waist, his other reaching out to begin fiddling with the controls on the lit up screen in front of you.

“Alright, let's get this show on the road shall we?”

By the time you’re exiting the tiny cubicle, Jake’s hands still attached to your hips as he follows you out, you’re both laughing quietly to yourselves. You’re amazed to find just how much Jake can affect you, either setting you at complete ease or sending you into a tizzy, depending on what he’s said or done. Usually you wouldn’t be surprised by other people’s effects on you, you were jumpy and anxious by nature, but it was rare that somebody who put you on edge as much as Jake did, could also give you such comfort.

When he detaches his hands from your sides at last to survey the sheets of photos spat out by the booth, you marvel at how much you start to miss the contact. With all the subtlety you can muster, you inch closer to him, under the guise of getting a look at the photos as well, though really, you’re only hoping that you might prompt him into reaching out for you again.

Jake chortles and points at a set of two pictures. In one, you’re both grinning madly, pulling silly faces, and in the other, you’re wearing softer smiles, and you notice now, that Jake had pushed his face a little closer to yours. It makes heat rise in your cheeks, not just at the seeming intimacy of the photo, but truthfully, of how much you like seeing the two of you like that.

“You won’t mind if I keep these, will ya?” Jake asks, looking over at you. You simply shake your head, and he grins a little wider, carefully tearing off the two pictures before pulling out his wallet and tucking them inside, for sake keeping, you assume.

Jake lets you keep the rest, and absently, you fold them into the zipper in your purse, too distracted by the fact that he does indeed take your hand again, before quickly releasing it to instead wrap his arm over your shoulder. You can’t stop yourself from smiling a little as you blink dumbly up at him, and he grins down at you, ducking his face even closer to yours.

“Now sweetheart, I believe I was instructed to win you a minion plush.”

-

You try to avoid Phoenix’s hard stare, and focus on wiping down your helmet.

“You’re acting weird,” she finally announces, still managing to make you jump despite your anticipation. You then immediately proceed to do yourself exactly zero favours, proving her point by refusing to look up at her, choosing to instead hurriedly continue with your current task.

“What? No I’m not. I’m fine. You’re being weird,” you argue, wincing at your clearly abysmal attempts at behaving like a normal adult human. You start re-cleaning the pristine surface of your helmet, your nerves conjuring imperfections you logically know don’t exit.

Just before you completely lose yourself down the spiral of unhealthy compulsive behaviours, A hand, Nat’s hand, stops your own. Tugging the cloth out of your hands and taking your helmet away from you, she places it down on the workbench you stand on opposite sides of. Chewing your lip, you at last meet her eye.

“Miri, it’s okay to have a crush–”

“–I don’t have a crush!” You blurt out both far too quickly to be believable, as well as in sheer panic. Your face grows immediately hot, and you can tell Phoenix is trying not to laugh at the show you’re putting on so poorly. Her lips twitch, but her expression softens from amusement into something softer, mixed with traces of pity. Just when you’re starting to debate the pros and cons of sprinting out of the room, getting in your jet, and then flying away never to be seen again, she relents, releasing you from her eye contact and making herself busy as she tidies up bits and bobs littering the workbench.

You swallow thickly, and stay watching her, your heart rate only spiking higher as your anxiety builds once more at her sudden apparent indifference. You follow her movements without moving an inch, sharply aware that not only was she still very much focused solely on scrutinising you, but even more mortifyingly, that this conversation was far from being over.

“Nat,” you say with surprisingly more strudiness than you believed possible, pausing to swallow the dryness in your mouth. “I don’t have a crush, okay?” You wait for her to look back over at you, nothing but disbelief rolling off of her faux-casualty, giving you a bullshit shrug and a smile.

“Okay.” she says. You had hoped that would be enough, but you should have known better. You clear your throat again.

“Nat,” you say, only making yourself louder, as if that was a sign of nothing going on. She looks up at you somewhat blankly. You know you’re totally screwed already as her eyes dip to watch your finger begin quickly tapping on the bench before you with barely any acknowledgement from yourself. “There’s nothing weird going on,” you say, pleading with your voice and face and every atom of your being that she drops it.

She drops something, unfortunately it’s not the subject though, but you still feel some semblance of stress leaving your body as her fake lack of care dissolves, and she leans back to rest against the cabinet behind her. She crosses her arms and shrugs again while letting out a soft, pitying sigh, which this time doesn’t raise your non-existent heckles as much as it had when it first showed its face.

You stare at one another, at what you think is an impasse and wordless agreement to now never talk of this episode in your friendship ever again, but once again, you should have known better.

“If it’s any consolation, I think he has a crush on you too, so it's not like it’s a total waste of energy… despite all evidence to the contrary,” She says conversationally at first, before muttering out the last part under her breath.

“He doesn’t,” you state with so much certainty you almost forget for a moment that it’s not even a little bit true. Instead, crossing your arms too, you feel like a middle schooler having a much too serious fight with her friend at lunch. “We’ve just become closer, like all of the squad have. You’re just noticing it cause you want to!” you’re a little taken aback by the sound logic of your own reasoning, all points earned to your side then immediately becoming forfeit when you can’t help yourself from stupidly continuing to speak. “Why? Has he said something?!”

Your outburst of near-giddy excitement destroys all chances of you walking this back, and you find yourself with only one option left available. But your prior readiness to exit out of this failed interaction at roughly 300 kts/min becomes soberingly not so fun to fantasise about when you sheepishly remember the current charges against you, for the theft of the $70 million dollar military aircraft you’d technically stolen when you and Jake had taken a joy ride to pick up Mav and Rooster.

You're snapped back into the present as Natasha Trace regards you unreadably and slowly lifts one perfect eyebrow at you. You cover your face and hang your head, you reason with your now permanently mortified brain that if you just admitted to the thing she already believed to be true, she’d stop looking any closer, possibly finding out something actually secret.

It helps that your embarrassment for the flurry of extremely obvious questions is very real, and you groan into your palms. You hear before you see Phoenix laugh, listening to her chortle at your outing yourself, but you notice that he demeanour is warmer now, and she pushes herself up to sit on the top of the bench between you, crossing her legs.

“He’s not said a thing, but he doesn’t need to,” she tells you, seemingly glad to just be able to share her findings and observations, which you uncomfortably realise have been going on for a lot longer than you realised.

“It's what he’s not saying,” she explains, and you blink up at her in genuine curiosity.

“Huh?”

Phoenix turns her gaze upward as she thinks.

“He doesn’t make fun of you… or snipe at you, not really,” she begins, resting her head in her hand. “To be honest when we first met, I was expecting to defend you. You’re a good pilot, a great one, but Hangman isn’t exactly known for recognising that in others…”

You frown up at her, unsure of anything to say to abate her suspicions.

She’s not exactly wrong, even when the two of you were first stationed together, he’d never poked fun at you, never really called you out. To be fair, he hadn’t really acknowledged your presence at all, but these days you knew that was more to do with the fact that all this time, Hangman had liked you, had seen you were shy, and didn’t like crowds, and as you’d found out recently, often made more of a spectacle of himself to draw attention away from you.

You have to stop yourself from smiling dreamily at the thought of him.

“And I mean, he disobeyed direct orders for you, he knew what you were doing, and he went with you anyway… I’m just saying Miri, I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you were to say something–”

You quickly cut her off.

“I’m not saying anything to him!”

At last, given your already clear admittance of your supposed ‘crush’, Phoenix relents, holding up her hands and shrugging.

“Just think about it alright? It’s even sort of… cute, in a weird, Hangman-y way.”

You grumble at her, but thankfully she doesn’t bring it up again for the rest of the afternoon. Still, you leave the workshop with a sparkling helmet, cleaner than you think it ever has been, and with a pressing matter to relay to your boyfriend, most of which involves playing it much, much cooler in front of Phoenix the next time you all hang out.

-

You know you’ve made some personal growth when you answer the door in your matching Star Wars X-Wing PJ’s and slippers, and aren’t immediately mortified.

Jake stands there, already grinning back at you, and looking like a greek god sent to earth in his dark jeans and plain white shirt.

“Red Leader Mirage, your rescuer has arrived!” he announces, doing what you judge to be a surprising spot-on impression of Lt. Porkins from Star Wars, shooting a lazily salute down at slippers

Unfortunately, you aren’t given the chance to ask him more about his perfect Red Six however, as he’s almost immediately pushing away from where he’d been leaning against the side of your door, posing for your perusal you assume, and holds out a brown paper bag for you to take. You swipe it, and shoot him a thankful smile.

“Thank you, Jake, really…” you side-step his self-congratulatory jokes, but he doesn’t seem phased, simply shrugging, and taking a step closer to you, letting one hand rest gently on your shoulder, before he hooks it and tugs you into him.

You’d started getting all-too familiar with just how physically attentive Jake seemed to be, something you would never have guessed about him several weeks ago, but had come to terms with now. Clingy was never a word you would have used to describe him before. He hugs you briefly, then pulls back to look down at you, his brow furrowed and his expression filled with genuine concern, another thing you’d been getting more familiar with.

“How’re you feeling?” he asks, inviting himself in by walking you backwards and kicking your door closed lightly behind him. You’d come not to mind this sort of thing either, but mostly because you know if you asked him to leave again, he would, no questions asked. That was another new thing you’d been learning about Jake Seresin.

In comparison to how Hangman could be up in the sky, Jake was entirely understanding, one hundred percent supportive, and almost a little too observant when it came to your particular anxieties. It meant he often knew without you saying when to push you, and when to not, and on the occasion that you did need to say, he always respected those boundaries.

It was starting to make you nervous, how much you were growing to like him.

“Cramps are kicking my ass, but other than that, mostly fine. Thank you for these,” you try again, hoping that he really understands just how much you appreciate him coming over for you tonight. Never in your life would you have imagined feeling comfortable enough to ask Hangman to stop by the pharmacy and pick you up sanitary products, and never would you have imagined he’d make no issue of it.

“Sure,” he says, again with a shrug. “You want me to head out?” he asks then, tipping his head back at your door, even as he inches his face closer to yours, brushing his nose tip against yours. Your lips quirk, then break out into a full smile when he grins before dipping low enough to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. Your stomach somersaults and pulls at least ten G’s for sure as he continues to brush his lips against yours teasingly.

This hadn’t taken much getting used to at all. Jake was a good kisser, and had proved it after your second date, almost in the exact place you were now, both his hands cupping your cheeks and his lips full on yours, hungry and insistent. That had been almost four weeks ago now, but after his hands had tugged your hips flush to his, you’d quickly put the breaks on.

You were still slightly uncertain about going further with Jake so soon. The fact was, you worked together in a high impact, high stress job, and if anything should happen between you, it would be easier to keep things professional if you took it slow

Jake had, to your slight surprise, though you aren't sure exactly what you were expecting, nodded slowly and taken a step back. He’d told you that the only thing he wanted more than you, was for you to want him too. You’d had to explain that your position wasn’t because you didn’t want him, which had led to more making out, but he hadn’t pushed to go further and he’d left that night with the affirmation that however long you wanted to wait was alright by him.

“No, you can stay,” you tell him, wrapping your arms around his neck to stop him from pulling away too much as you try not to full-on pout. Jake smiles against your lips and presses into you further, moving to push you against the wall, where he crowds your space entirely and stops teasing you, capturing your lips with his at last.

You’re about to experimentally slide your hand up his shirt, a thought that had been lingering in your mind more and more these past few days, but your kiss is over too soon, and he pulls back, leaving you breathless.

“Weren’t you waiting for me, so you could do chores?” he prompts, nearly making you grumble. Instead you nod, and gently push back against him, heading towards your bedroom just down the main hall.

“You can wait in here if you like,” you suggest, feeling a little nervous about the idea, but it was something you’d been thinking about for a while now. Even if you and Jake weren’t sleeping together, that didn’t mean the two of you couldn’t sleep together, did it? It was something you’d wanted, specifically with him, but not really something you’d ever experienced before. You were ready to move out of these early stages of your relationship, eager to push yourself and your limits just a little, so you could settle into something more comfortable with Jake, something where you weren’t always a little surprised when he touched you, or called you by one of his innumerable pet names.

Jake shoves his hands in his pockets and nods, clearly thinking through what this invitation could mean as he follows you quietly.

“Um, I feel like I should say ‘excuse the mess’, but you know–” you cut yourself off and gesture around your bedroom when you both have entered. Jake snorts.

“Well that’s what being in the Navy gets you. I won’t judge if you say it anyway,” he tells you lightly, and you scoff.

“Yes you will!” you insist, and are met with a confident, familiar cheshire-grin.

“Mhm, but only a little. Have you changed your mind, honey?” he steps toward you again then, almost closing the distance in one stride, his hands still shoved in his pockets, but his gaze locked intently on you in a way you haven’t felt since that second date. Your heart beats so loudly you’re sure he must be able to hear, but he doesn’t mention it, just waits for you, crowding your space again.

“Oh, I– No… not… I didn’t… I’m sorry…”

The moment you speak Jake is stepping back, pulling his hands from his pockets to hold them up, his expression losing the intensity again.

“No need to apologise, my mistake.” Jake’s words are sincere, but he looks away from you.

You let out a little sigh.

“It’s just so soon, and with the trial–”

“–You don’t have to explain yourself, honey,” Jake pulls his hands from his pockets at last and places them at your waist, drawing you in. You fall quiet as he lowers his face to yours, though he teases you again by not kissing you, simply looking you over, and then smirking when you pout. “You want it when you want it, and that’s when I want it, okay?”

He makes you nod, before he at last lowers his lips to meet yours and kisses you, slow and sweet. You finally get the chance to test the waters a little, easing your hand carefully underneath the back of his shirt, making you giggle against his mouth when he jumps slightly at the feel of your skin on his. Jake doesn’t say or do anything about it though, thankfully just letting you explore a little as he tips your head back further to deepen your kiss, and you brush your fingers up his spine.

After a short while of this, he must feel the urge to tease you again, because with little to no hesitation at all, unlike you, he slips his hands beneath your shirt, his warm palms gripping onto the bare skin just above your PJ shorts, almost making you moan. You’re glad you’re able to hold back the sound, mostly, but your own surprise doesn’t go unnoticed by the blond currently kissing you.

He only continues doing so for a short minute longer, before he’s eventually pulling back, lips pink and kiss swollen. You can’t help but frown at the parting. He squeezes your waist, and nudges your nose with his own.

“What do you want to do, honey?”

You groan at the apparent lack of making out in your future, not because you don’t think he’d agree, but mostly because you’re not quite ready to ask him for more, though a part of you senses he’s not willing to let you off the hook for those chores you’d told him about earlier.

“I need to fold this laundry,” you point past him, to your walk-in wardrobe and the basket that lies within. Jake looks over at it and lifts an eyebrow, which you choose to ignore. He nods then, and takes a step away from you, making you frown even more when his hands fall from your body.

“I’ll help,” he says, making your eyes widen, and you quickly step around him to block his path, where he is clearly about to make for your basket.

“No! Um… It’s okay, It’ll be easier if I just do it…” you trail off, wondering if you sound insane and neurotic, but Jake simply raises his hands again and nods.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” he prods, and you realise, he’s come inside thinking you want him to help with your chores.

“I was thinking… I was thinking it might just be nice for you to just… be here?” You cringe, and narrowly avoid making a face at yourself. Jake blinks at you as if he doesn’t understand.

“You want me to… sit around while you do laundry?” he asks, tone confused, but equally unimpressed. You nod. Jake shifts, then clicks his tongue. “I was not raised to let somebody work while I sit and watch, especially not my girl. My mother would tan my hide.”

You’re a little surprised by the seriousness on his face, despite the humorous inflection in his voice. You suck in a breath, mulling over how to explain to him what you had been thinking when he came inside. Jake’s eyes flicker over you for a moment before he shifts again, crossing his arms and lifting his chin at you.

“Alright sweetheart, just say what you gotta say, I can hear those cogs turning from here…”

“I… I like that you want to help me, I think that’s really sweet…”

“But…?” Jake prompts.

“I find this kinda thing hard, and I was hoping we could just try and do something… domestic…? Together?” your face goes hot at your admission, and when Jake doesn’t immediately respond you wonder if using the word ‘domestic’ was too much, too soon.

“What is ‘this kind of thing’? I get the other part honey,” again, his voice is playful, but you see the seriousness behind his eyes and it lends you even more comfort. How is he so good at this? It’s almost like he’d read your teenage diary entry all about your perfect guy… it's the sort of attention, care, and behaviour that you’ve never actually gotten from a guy you were seeing before, so you aren’t really sure how to compose yourself.

“This kind of thing,” you gesture between you and him, before clearing your throat. “I don't know what to call it– us, but–”

“–a relationship.” Jake cuts in firmly, and you pause, heart thumping. You hadn't actually had this discussion yet, but you guess you’re having it now.

“Right. I mean, I’ve been in relationships before, but they’ve never really worked out and I feel like I never get to the point with boyfriends where I feel fully comfortable, so I–” you clamp your mouth shut, both at the use of ‘boyfriend’, and at the fact you were rambling, and you’re pretty sure it's too early to start telling him about how all your prior relationships failed.

“Right. So, let me get this straight; you were going to come back in here and put your laundry away, regardless of me being here?” Jake holds up a hand as he repeats back the information.

“Yeah…”

“And you just want me to keep you company?”

You nod, and clear your throat.

“Yeah.”

Jake stares at you, a level of understanding crossing his face, before his eyes flick to your laundry behind you, then back to your face.

“... And you’re sure I can’t help you?” His resolve sounds weak, and you think he’s already made up his mind to do as you asked, but his upbringing requires him to triple check. You smile, and this time step toward him, gingerly resting your hand on his arm, which he immediately raises, and flips, sliding it so now you’re holding his hand.

Again, you can’t fathom how he got so good at this sort of thing. Your knees go wobbly.

“I have a bunch of lacy unmentionables in there, so…” you try to lighten things, but it's not a lie. Jake picks up what you’re putting down, and gives your hand a squeeze. He tips his chin at you and lifts an eyebrow.

“Now why’d you have to go and say that honey? You sure you’re certain I can’t help?” his hands slip from yours to rest at your hips again, completely bypassing your top this time and your heart stutters.

You bite your lip, and nod your head, trying not to laugh him off fully, because while that may be your instinctual nervous reaction, you didn’t want to discourage him entirely. You liked that Jake acted as if you were a pretty girl, like you were desirable, and not like the awkward dork you actually were. You didn't want him to stop doing that.

His expression turns a little softer, and he leans down, moving slowly as to give you time to process, and he presses his lips to your cheek, lingering for just a moment before he taps your sides with his fingers, then steps away.

You’re still catching your breath when he looks back at you, pointing at what looks like one corner of your bed.

“Can I?”

You nod, and gesture at the whole mattress.

“Make yourself comfortable!”

–

You can feel the pounding music of the club in your whole body. The lights flashing and dancing in different colourways in time with the music give everything around you an ever changing aura, and maybe it’s all the drinks you’ve had tonight, but in front of you, Natasha seems to glow.

Her hands grasp your forearm firmly and you giggle, uncharacteristically carefree as you almost slip again.

“Alright! Okay, let's get you seated!” she says. She’s had a few too, but not nearly as many as you, and you’re glad for it now as she steers you toward the bar and grabs a paper cup to fill with water from the nearby water station toward the end. You find yourself drinking it without prompting, but miss the taste of the fruity cocktails you’d been downing all night. “I’ll call us a cab,” she says, beginning to pull out her phone, but you hastily stop her, placing a hand on her arm and shaking your head rapidly, making the colours spin even more.

“No! My boyfriend said he’d pick us up!” you insist, ignoring the way her eyebrows shoot up, then stitch together.

“You boyfriend?” she asks, but you miss the real question behind her words, instead you simply nod, and begin to fumble around in your own purse until you find your phone. Nat watches you expectantly as you open your messages, quickly tapping ‘call' on the top icon, and pressing the phone to one ear, and your finger to the other.

It rings less than once before it connects.

“Heeyy!” you sigh in relief down the line, happy to even just hear his voice after all night going without. “Yeah, no, everything’s alright, you just said to call you when we were done!” you say in reply to his amused questioning. You look up at Nat briefly, and if you were more sober, you might’ve been able to tell that she was leaning in slightly to try and hear the voice on the other end, but you aren’t, so you don’t.

“Okay, I’ll meet you out front!” you tell him excitedly, before adding on; “Is it okay if we give Nat a ride home too?” there's a short reply, and at last you’re smiling wide and nodding, even though he can’t see you. “Okay, we’ll see you soooon!”

You hang up and stare back up at Natasha, who's giving you a funny look that you ignore. “He said he’ll be here in ten, he’s been at the sports bar in town waiting!” you tell her dreamily, like she might understand what it means to you that Jake would choose to remain only a short distance away in case you needed anything, in the knowledge that you didn’t always enjoy nights out like this.

Nat simply nods and after making you drink one more glass of water, you begin making your way through the crowds and out of the club.

The air outside is warm, but refreshing and you take in as much of it as you can, not realising how stuffy the air inside the club had been until now. It was getting late, and bars and restaurants around the club are lit up and busy, the streets all around full of people either on their way to their destination, or lingering as they talk.

It doesn’t take long for you to spot Jake’s car and he pulls up close to the curb, allowing you to beeline for the passengers side door, not realising that Natasha follows with more confusion and trepidation. Jake jumps out of the car to greet you, rounding it to quickly steady your wobbly walk with a hand on your hip, and with the other, he pulls open the car door and helps you inside, leaning in to help you buckle in, grinning even as he murmurs quietly.

“You had a good night, sweetheart?” he asks, clicking your seatbelt into place for you, making you giggle at him. You lean forward for a kiss, but he dodges you, somewhat more aware than you are of your present company, and instead rests his hand so he can squeeze your knee. Your good mood isn’t spoiled and you barely notice the dodged kiss, so you simply nod your assent to his question vehemently.

“I had a lot to drink!” you tell him, before bursting out into giggles again, the soft, sweet smile Jake gives you going unnoticed as he squeezes your leg again.

“Yes you did,” he says with clear, fond amusement, and at last moves back so he can shut your door.

Unlike you, on the other hand, Natasha may as well be sober as a judge, and she eyes Jake somewhat distrustfully as she steps closer, lifting her chin up at him as she talks.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks accusingly, making Jake cock his head at her, only half as annoyingly as he can. He gestures back at you in the front seat of his car.

“Miri called, sounded pretty hammered,” he tells her as if that explained it. Natasha narrows her eyes and crosses her arms.

“Yeah, but she said she was calling her boyfriend, what’re you doing here?” She dares him to reply with anything but the truth, however luckily for Jake, unlike most men caught in her crossfire, he’s able to brush her off with an infuriating grin.

“I guess she dialled the wrong number, do you want a lift home or not?”

At his ultimatum (however hollow it really is, he wouldn’t leave her on her own in the middle of the night), Natasha frowns darker at him, but accepts the door he opens, waiting for her to get settled before he closes it behind her and returns to the driver's side.

When Jake checks his rearview he notes in amusement that Nat has situated herself in the middle seat, giving herself a perfect view of the two of you in the front. You don’t, nor do you seem to have any weariness in the bloodhound you’ve just set upon the both of you, but if he’s honest, Jake had known from day one that the second Natasha Trace suspected anything, your little secret was over.

He drives back as normally as he can, but it's strange to him now to have you sitting right there in his passenger's seat, and not have his hand in yours, or on your thigh. It’s strange to him to be in this space where the two of you are usually so open with your affection, and have to suppress it. Jake does not like it.

The car ride home is quiet, you seem content to look out the window, the tiredness hitting you now, but every so often he and Nat make small talk about whatever football scores interested them in the past week or two, and before too long, he’s pulling up outside her home.

Looking over at you to find that you’re slumped over asleep on his window, Jake follows Natasha out of the car with a simple offer of making sure she gets in alright. The congeniality doesn’t last very long, and once they’re standing on her porch she turns to him with a frown.

“You don’t really think I’m that stupid, do you?” she asks, for once not sounding angry or scolding, but seemingly subdued, maybe even a little upset. Jake sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Looking back to his car to make sure you’re still alright, he levels his squadmate with a serious expression.

“No, I do not,” he tells her sincerely. “But it’s Miri’s choice to not want to be public yet, all I’m asking is that you respect that,” he goes on after a moment. He doesn’t really believe she would say anything, but he feels the need to get her agreement, if only for your peace of mind in the morning.

Nat hums to herself and briefly looks away to fish out her keys. Once she has them in hand, she looks up at him again, a little grin on her face this time.

“How long?” she asks. Jake rolls his eyes and can’t resist the urge to mess with her just a little.

“Few years,” he states matter of factly, waiting for her eyes to pop wide before he lets out a victorious laugh and shakes his head. “A month or two,” he admits truthfully, accepting the hard sock in the arm as Nat scoffs at him and moves to unlock her front door.

“Something, something, I’ll kick your ass if you hurt her,” she grumbles as she steps inside, immediately kicking off her shoes. Jake straightens up and gives her a mock salute.

“Yes Ma’am,” he says, chortling to himself as he receives a middle finger for his efforts and the door is closed and locked again.

Jake feels a little lighter on his walk back to his car, and when he climbs in, he leans over to carefully adjust your crooked neck and make sure your belt is still strapped properly. You wake a little, confused at first, and blink up at him in happy wonderment.

“Hey!” you mumble, like it's the first time you’ve seen him tonight. Jake chuckles and leans closer to press a kiss to your forehead.

“Let’s get you home baby.”

–

You awake the next morning with nowhere near the headache you’re expecting, but with an array of distinct memories that cause a pit to open up in your stomach. The pit then begins to growl as you register the warm, homey smell of food, and with little effort, you force yourself up and into the kitchen, where you immediately attach yourself to Jake’s bare back.

His skin is warm and feels so comfy against your cheek, and the soft little laugh he gives makes your belly flop around. He lets you stay like that for a few moments more, moving slowly but smoothly so you can move with him, and at last when whatever he’s doing with his hands is finished, he reaches around for you and rests his hands where he can.

“Did I really call you last night? While with Nat?” you squeeze your eyes shut, hoping you’d just imagined it all, but another soft chuckle lets you know you hadn’t.

“Never thought you’d be the one to let our little secret slip first. I underestimated you baby.”

You groan into his back, and try to hide your face, but before you can complain or dodge him, Jake has turned himself around, letting you instead smoosh your face in between his gloriously golden pecs, and you think things may not be so bad.

He wraps his arms around you properly, and for a moment you just stay like that. You wonder if you can convince him to come around shirtless more often, the warmth radiating off his skin feeling heavenly, not to mention he looked almost as delicious as the food he’d made. You wonder if he’d already worked out this morning, or if you can join him after breakfast.

One of Jake’s hands moves away from your back and cups the back of your head tenderly, making you mewl slightly, and you look up at him to give the attention you know he’s asking for. Jake stares down at you with a soft little grin, and readjusts himself slightly, so he’s able to drop his lips to meet yours briefly.

One kiss becomes two kisses, becoming three kisses and after that any semblance of chastity is given up on and he kisses you full and sweet, deliberately slow like he’s teasing you to ask for more, but for now you’re simply content to wash away all of last nights worries like this.

Coming up for air, Jake barely breaks apart from you, his lips still brushing yours when he speaks.

“I asked Nat not to say anything, she respects you enough to do that I think,” he says, dropping a few more soft kisses to your mouth when you crane your neck up for more. He goes no further this time, though, and leans back from you to gauge your reaction after several moments, and you force yourself to open your eyes and pout.

“It’s not that I think she’ll tell anyone…” you say to him, scrunching up your features as you recall your lack of playing it cool the first time she had brought Jake up to you. The memory makes you grumble to yourself, and you once more attempt to hide your face in his chest. Jake laughs, and makes you jump when he pokes your side.

“What is it?” he asks, like he already knows. You tell him, voice muffled in his skin, but clear enough for the details of your embarrassing inability to throw the scent off to be heard. Jake’s body shakes with more laughter as you relay the information, but instead of trying to make you stop hiding away, he simply cups the back of your head again, and holds it nearer, allowing you to wither your embarrassment away in the safety of him.

“I think we both know that the minute that woman suspected anything, it was game over,” he tells you once you’re done, still holding you close, but you feel his lips press to the top of your head sweetly, and you do your best to snuggle yourself closer.

After the bulk of your mortification has eased away, Jake makes you detach from him, but only so the two of you can eat your breakfast while it’s still hot.

“You know I don’t want to keep it quiet, like, forever, right?” you ask out of nowhere, your memories of last night replaying over in your head while you ate. Jake looks up at you and cocks his head.

“I’m happy to do whatever you’d like to do, for as long as you’d like to do it,” he says matter of factly, but despite the sweetness of his words, you can’t help but frown at him.

“No you’re not, and we both know it,” you push back, grateful for his always tender manner of going at your pace, but you’d likely never have been with him in the first place if he hadn’t thrown you out of your comfort zone that first time.

The only difference is, now you are with Jake, and you understood these things about yourself, and how they weren’t always as scary as your mind might make them seem. Jake frowns back at you, clearly ready to protest.

“I know you pretty well too, you know,” you cut him off. “I know you like PDA, and that you wish you were able to be more open when we’re out with people. I know you like to show off, and part of that includes me,” you tell him adamantly, because you know you’re right.

Jake huffs out a sigh and leans back in his chair, looking at you dead on, you know him well enough to know he’s a little annoyed at you calling him out, but you aren’t doing it to annoy him or just for the sake of starting an argument.

“Okay, so what if I do? That doesn’t change the fact that until you want something, I’m not gonna go for it,” he says, still frowning at you like he doesn’t understand what the point of talking this through is even about.

You change tack and, with your heart beat thumping a little wildly, get up from your seat and move toward him. Even in his annoyance, Jake makes room for you, pushes out his chair and wraps his arms around your waist when you seat yourself on his thigh, your own arms linking around his neck.

“Well maybe I’m giving you permission to go for it,” you say softly, quietly, because the idea still does make you incredibly nervous. But you like Jake, no scratch that, you think you’re in love with Jake, and you think he’s in love with you too, and something about that feeling for once in your life makes you want the same things he does too, including the PDA. You want him to sling his arm around your neck, you want to be able to kiss his cheek or hold his hand or whatever it is you two want to do, not just in the comfort of your own homes, but out at the Hard Deck with your friends, too.

Jake blinks up at you, like at first your words don’t even register, but then he’s tightening his hold around your waist, and grinning wolfishly up at you, all cocky and infuriating if you didn’t find it utterly charming. If you didn’t completely adore him, even this part.

“Permission granted, Lieutenant?” he asks mischievously, and you can’t stop yourself from giggling, like you’re drunk all over again.

“Permission granted, Lieutenant!”

[avengersbtch]

Missed You- Armando Aretas (ONE SHOT)

Armando Aretas x Reader 

Warnings: Pre-established relationship, does not follow films timeline, And nothing else? Unless you hate fluff with a hint on angst if you look closely. 

A/N: Honestly this fic was meant to go a whole different way but guess this is what I felt like writing lol. 

Word Count: 3.6k

Summary: Armando escapes after the crash and finds you at Dorn’s.

The aftermath of Armando’s actions was catastrophic, he was locked up and you were stuck waiting on the other side for him. You warned him his mother’s instructions would come with a price, but he was loyal to a fault especially to his mother. However, no matter what he did and who he trusted, you were always a constant for him, and he loved you more for it. Seeing him in prison had broken your heart more than you could admit, you could see he had accepted his fate with the light in his eyes dull after his mother’s death, the only thing that kept you going and kept you hopeful was Mike doing his best to try and get him out, not that it was helping at moment, he was still behind bars. 

It had been routine for you, you would visit him on a weekly basis, only weekends because you worked full time as a data analyst for the PD. So, your weekends were spent driving down and seeing him and talking to him for an hour a day and doing the same thing the next day. He wouldn’t tell you much about his day or his week really, you assumed to not worry you, not that it helped, you stressed about him constantly and missed him dearly and wished you could at least hug him. He knew you were doing the best you could, and he knew that being with him also caused you more trouble than peace which swelled his heart. Seeing you on the weekends was his only sense of joy that he felt and knowing you were still there for him solidified his true awe in you. He loved hearing about your week, whether it was a friend or work drama that occurred that week or family related stories, he just listened to it all. He knew him being imprisoned wasn’t a good look on you either given you worked for the PD, but you never said anything to him because it was him before everyone else and he knew you flipped off anyone that tried to say a word about him, which of-course he was proud of. 

Today was any other weekend, you picked up a coffee and started driving early in the morning to see him again. You missed him especially with this week being your birthday, it just passed, and it had felt so empty not sharing it with him. You arrived earlier than usual despite the traffic which you chalked it up to luck and were not complaining. Walking into the large prison doors, a couple of officers asked you to sign in and requested the name of the person you were visiting, we’ll to quote in their words ‘inmate’ but there’s was no way you would refer to your Armando as inmate. Absolutely not. They knew who you were coming for, but it was policy for them, so it repeated every week. Following the same routine, you signed in, waited until you were cleared and walked through the X-ray, handing in all your belongings and once you cleared through, you waited until they brought Armando out. You knew he was ready when the officers signalled you in, to which you graciously complied and went it.

There he was behind bars, with his scruffy beard that you loved, and unkept hair sitting with cuffs waiting for you. The moment he noticed you, his smiled lifted, not completely reaching is eyes but a smile was enough for you. 

“Amor, you’re early today, I missed you” Armando greeted you instantly as you sat down. 

“Hi baby” you smiled grabbing his hand and sneaking a quick peck on his fingers through the bars while the officer wasn’t looking. He smiled at the action and held on to your hand with his fingers not wanting your touch to go just yet. “How are you feeling baby?” You asked slightly rubbing his fingers. 

“Me? happy birthday mi amor” He dismissed your question changing the subject back to you. 

“Thanks baby, I missed you I’ll be honest” you admitted ignoring the fact he dismissed the question about himself as per usual, you left it because you would harp on about him ignoring it later. 

“I was thinking about you baby I promise” he sagged while answering “I’m sorry you have to go through this” slipping his hand away noticing the guard nearing. 

“Don’t apologise Armando, it’s not your fault, she lied to you, and it’s been too long to look back now” you consoled “I’m just glad you here and alive and with me baby, I don’t care about anything else” you added, you hated seeing him like this. This wasn’t him; he was cool and calm and level-headed, and you knew he was only this way with you because he trusted you, but it still hurt you to not see him acting like himself. The longer he spent in these walls the worse it got.

“Anywaay, how are you feeling mister I like ignoring my girlfriend’s questions” you dragged putting emphasis that he was not getting away with ignoring your question. He rolled his eyes and beat around the answer again until he got you talking about your week.

You talked for more, told him work stories and what you did for your birthday while he listened with intent. At one point you had your legs crossed in a criss-cross fashion expressing all your concerns, that was until the guard knock on the window beside you yelling “ times up!” Indicating you had to get going. 

You turned your head to the guard and then back to Armando and sighed “I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?” 

“Ok amor, I love you” he assured seeing your hesitation. 

You smiled and said softly “love you too baby” kissing your fingers and transferring it to the bars in front on him and he returned the same kiss back adding a cheeky wink that invoked a slight blush from your neck up. 

The next day you did the same, the drive was roughly an hour, you didn’t mind it, it was peaceful and enjoyable to have the break driving up. Today you were running later than usual though, it was almost midday and you had woken up late also having a few errands to run before you left because everything closed early Sundays. Nevertheless, you made your way to Armando as you did every weekend. 

Only this Sunday was different because the minute you walked into the Prison, the officers frowned and said without waiting “he’s not taking visitors today” they didn’t even ask you who you were visiting, you frowned in confusion. 

“What do you mean he’s not taking any visitors, did he say that himself?” you accused as you questioned the officers, knowing for a fact Armando did not ask to not see you. 

“He got into an altercation yesterday which has resulted in his visitation rights being revoked” he stated as if he was reading a script. Now you were absolutely confused and even more worried. 

“An altercation, what happened? Is he ok” you frantically asked worried about him. While Armando could hold his own in a fight, he wouldn’t start one for nothing. Something was wrong. 

“We cannot disclose any further information, please reach out to your lawyer for further clarification” he scriptly stated again which infuriated you further. 

“Like hell” you mumbled grabbing your phone and dialling Mike right away while walking out the prison. Did he know about this, if not could he out? The lawyer was who’d you be calling last, please. A million thoughts were going through your mind as the phone rang but the only one you need an answer to right now was if he was safe.

The ring paused, indicating Mike had answered thankfully and before you could greet him, he rushed and said “y/n, I’m dealing with it now. I’m going to try and get him transferred” advising you immediately showing he clearly knew what the fuck was going on. 

“Dealing with it now?! What the fuck is going on why the fuck did I get rejected to see him Mike?” You yelled frustrated this was how you were finding out, trying to walk back to your car. 

“I didn’t know you were going down, I would’ve called” he sighed, also repeating “I’m trying to get him transferred”. 

“You should have called me first! I don’t give a shit if I was going down or not” you spat, throwing all your anger onto  him. “Why are you trying to get him transferred, I need to know what’s happening” you demanded hands waving outside the prison.

He sighed mumbling something along the lines of not wanting to worry you which now worried you more. 

“Mike. What. Happened?” You asked him again with more force. 

“Someone’s trying to hurt him, I wen-“he started informing before you cut of him in panic. 

“What! Hurt him? Mike, who’s trying to hurt him? Why? “You asked frantically pausing in your tracks, your heart beating faster the more you listened. Why the hell would anyone want to hurt Armando. 

“If you didn’t interrupt me, you would have heard me say that I went to see him yesterday” he explained slowly as you allowed him to tell you what was going on. As he went on, you finished walking back to your car and put the phone on speaker. 

“to get information on Captain with him being framed and you know Armando being the one that killed him and all” Mike pointed out while explaining. 

You shook your head in disbelief and huffed “Mike, get on with it, you know it was his mother’s doing, don’t blame him for being loyal” you defended Armando, there was no way you’d let anyone, even Mike say a single bad word about him when he wasn’t present to defend himself, whether it was intentional or not. 

After this, Mike went on explaining everything to you and that he was going down to request his transfer so they could keep Armando safe so he could ID the true suspect behind the framing of Captain Howard. None of this made you feel any better but there was literally nothing you could do but wait for Armando to be transferred, that was what Mike said anyway. So that’s what you did, you went about your day doing errands, cooking, and cleaning and basically anything and everything that would keep you occupied. 

Later that day you got a phone call from Mike stating that the transfer was happening which felt like a huge weight had been lifted off your shoulders after hearing those words. You knew the transfer still had to happen for him to be one hundred percent safe so when Mike transferred him was when you’d truly feel at ease. You trusted Mike so waiting for this to go down would be ok, as long as someone was protecting him, not that he couldn’t protect himself but knowing he wasn’t alone made you feel a bit at ease. So then started a new waiting game, tomorrow he would be transferred, that wasn’t that far away you thought. Wrong, you didn’t sleep the whole night stressed that he was alone at that prison and unsafe, with people who wanted him dead, your heart constricted at the thought of him being hurt and feeling so alone.

Day two of waiting was a little easier given you were running on no sleep and had work, so it was difficult to focus on anything except not closing your eyes and although work was slow it offered some sort of a distraction from worrying about Armando. Well, that was until you noticed the news at work. You had been on your computer, and a news feed notification appeared on your screen that read “PRISON TRANSFER PLANE CRASH” this immediately sparked your interest and concern simultaneously. You clicked the notification, reading through was had been reported, time slowed down, everything was moving in slow motion. Not only had you read the words plane crash and Armando’s name in the same sentence, the words fugitive and suspects were raising major red flags as well. So much new information was being thrown at you and you honestly felt like you would faint. You breathed in and out at least 5 times and listed everything that you read. Armando had been in a plane crash; they suspect he survived with Mike and Marcus who were now wanted suspects. The plane crash was not a coincidence, you knew that, and you knew who ever wanted Armando dead was going through lengths to do this. You ignored the stares from you co-workers assuming they’ve seen the same notification and stood up to request to leave work early. 

You ran to your car and sat with your head on your steering wheel for a minute breathing in and out, five minutes passed, and you decided to try and call Mike, obviously with no answer, then called Marcus and the same. You must have sat there for what felt like an hour till you drove home and went on your laptop trying to figure something out, anything really but obviously no luck given this wasn’t your expertise and the only person you knew who may be able to help was Dorn. You contemplated going to Dorn’s place and asking him to help, wondering whether he was already trying to help, you thought about just calling him, but then you would risk your phone being tapped and that was not something you could risk given Armando was out, possibly hurt and maybe even alone however, you doubted that seeing as Mike and Marcus were now suspects to Armando’s escape. Your emotions getting the better of you, you grabbed your keys and decided that you would go to Dorn and ask him for help and at least have him offer you what he knows. Yes, it was almost midnight, but you wouldn’t be able to rest or breathe until you knew Armando was okay and Dorn would have to suffer for that.

Arriving at Dorn’s place, you noticed a light was on which was good and meant that you were not waking him up. You knocked softly, hoping not to annoy him at this hour, to your surprise, he answered immediately with a confused look on his face. 

“Y/n? What’s wrong?” He asked in concern standing at the door.

“Did you see the news?” You asked back in answer sliding past him inviting yourself in. 

“On Mike and Marcus?” He asked confirming he saw the same thing. “Yeah, I spoke to them just before it crashed, there is shit going down” he answered, telling me absolutely nothing as he closed the door eyes shifting upstairs. 

“And Armando, he’s probably with them” you added, causing him to shift slightly probably because he wasn’t Armando’s biggest fan. “So, you haven’t heard from them since?” You asked watching his eye shift slightly to upstairs again.

You rolled your eyes at him “get over it Dorn, I know you and Kelly are together.” You stated getting bored at his stress, needing his 100 percent focus.

“HOW?” He gasped and that caused you to chuckle, telling him how obvious they were. After that amazing discovery you had sat with Dorn and Kelly while they broke down all the data and information that had come to light before this crash. To be honest, you really didn’t care but if any of this brought you closer to Armando, you would endure it all and more. It had gotten late and Dorn had offered you the spare room to crash, after the day you had and the information overload that just occurred, there wasn’t much more you could do tonight and you felt bad for keeping Kelly and Dorn up till 3, so you agreed and used the spare room until tomorrow and you would go back home and try and figure things out. 

The next morning you had heard noise downstairs, assuming it was Dorn and Kelly you tried to go back to sleep. But it seemed louder than normal and there seemed to be conversation that had you interested. Getting out of bed, in the same clothes you were in from last night, you rubbed your eyes and yawned sliding your feet to the bathroom. You washed your face, fixed your hair, and overall tried to look more presentable given you looked like a troll in the mornings. Shifting your feet down the stairs one by one, the yelling getting louder and as your feet reached the final stair, you gasped and paused at the bottom of the stairs. Armando was standing right there with an unbothered look on his face and Kelly pointing a gun at his face.

“Kelly what the fuck?!” You yelled running to Armando to stand in between him and the gun immediately causing Armando unbothered façade to drop.

“Mi Amor? What are you doing here?” Armando asked calmly while you faced Kelly. He had not expected you to be here, not that he knew where Mike and Marcus were taking him but the last person, he expected to see was you while he was on the run. You slightly touched his arm, keeping distance between him and the woman with the gun. Your touch felt like fire and there was nothing more he wanted but to hug you and kiss you all over. He had been dreaming of it every time you visited him at the prison.

“Y/N I know you love him, but you need to step aside. He can’t be here.” Kelly declared as if that would make you move anymore, throwing her a confused look you stared at Dorn for help.

“Kelly step back, like you said, I love him and he’s Mike’s Son. He’s with them” you announced with no intention of moving out of her way. You wanted nothing more than to acknowledge the man behind you but the fear of seeing that gun pointed at him topped the feeling of missing him and needing him right now. Dorn had stepped in now to cool Kelly off, causing her to lower the gun. You breathed as if you had been holding it in the whole time and your shoulders dropped int relief. You turned slowly, finally being offered the space and time to see him and feel him with him only inches away from you now. You stared at him lovingly, chest rising as you stared at him not uttering a single word. You could see him waiting for you, it was what you both had been waiting for. 

You looked at him, from top to bottom, noting that he looked absolutely battered and whispered in relief “Armando?” 

He took this as you asking for him, which you had been and opened his arms to which you threw yourself at. He held on to you for dear life and you did the same, you hugged him so tight you may have started cutting off his circulation, but he hadn’t contested so you continued. His arms wrapped around your waist and head dipped to reach you with your head resting on his shoulders leaning into his neck and taking in his scent. 

“I missed you so much baby” you mumbled in his neck as he hugged you. Peppering kisses all over his neck while he whispered sweet nothings to you.

“I’ve dreamt of this mi amor, you are so beautiful baby, I love you so much” he whispered near your ear, peppering with almost as many kisses. 

You pulled from him slightly and looked up at him, pulling his face closer to you with both your hands cupping his cheeks. He immediately kissed you taking control with his hands still in your waist pulling you closer to him. He wasted no time at all slipping in his tongue, which you had no issues to at all with and reciprocated almost moaning at the feeling of him, but you held back knowing there may be an audience. You pulled from him, breathing heavily and rested your forehead on his, he lifted one hand to your face and gently caressed your cheek with his thumb.

“Why are you here?” He asked again, completely dumbfounded that you were right here and how. 

“Do you want me to go?” You chuckled joking as you moved to hug his side allowing him to wrap one arm around your waist. 

“No never mi amor, you stay right here” he chuckled back pulling you closer to him, which caused you to smile softly nodding as your head rested on his chest.

“I came here to find you” you mumbled in his chest hugging him tighter almost as if he would slip from you. His touch and his warmth already made you feel so comforted and safe and loved, and it only been 5 minutes. Your heart stiffened at thought of losing him again. 

“You found me baby” he confirmed, kissing the top of your head leaving you smiling in his chest. He had definitely gained some muscle while in prison and you weren’t complaining. “Ok you too, we’ve had enough of this reunion, really. I had no idea you’d be here y/n” Marcus interrupted which made you laugh sweetly. Armando, not so much, he just mumbled something about not being funny at Marcus being annoying which you giggled at.

[tinytennisskirt]

Good Luck Charm

Art x Gf!reader

Summary: Art has had one of the worst days in a while and reader is so far away, not being able to make it back for his tournament. After a day of inconveniences and bad luck, Art is sure of one thing and it’s that time without you isn’t something he wants to experience ever again.

Warnings: kissing, proposal moment, shorter fic, unedited from my notes app

All Art did that day was lose. And he had so many chances. And the losing started even before the games did, with a failed alarm and a faulty hotel room key. Your flight had been moved back a day and you were going to miss every game of his until the very last match of the day the way the plane schedule was set.

He was late, but he was groggy and slept badly and worst thing is he missed you. He got up and he stretched and he had his smoothie and it was all fast-paced and rushed and he felt awful.

First match was okay, he didn’t win but he chalked it up to some sort of nerves and a bad morning. The day went on, he had time to practice, but he ended up on the phone with you for half of it.

“They delayed my plane, I’m so sorry, Art,” you sighed over the phone. You weren’t even on the plane yet. “I’m so sorry.”

He knew it wasn’t your fault, he rubbed his eyes and shook his head, “It’s okay. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” you replied. And he told you about his first game loss and you told him to keep trying, encouraging him softly. But he didn’t have any motivation left.

He moved onto his next match. It was close but he just lost by a few points and lost more at the very end for an audible obscenity. It was hard, things were harsh, you were so far.

The day went on, Art losing a scrimmage game, then another real one. He had one more game and you were supposed to be there for that one but you were stuck on some plane coming home. He almost wanted to half-ass the game, he was so discouraged. But he tried, he played, and he nearly won, but he lost. Keeping sportsmanship he shook his opponents hand. Nobody was happy. It was loss all around.

Art went to get food after and they were out of everything he could possibly want to eat, so he left. He called a taxi back to the hotel but it didn’t come for forty minutes after it said it would and the driver got lost, yet wouldn’t reimburse him for the time.

Art moped up the stairs to his hotel room on the 7th floor, the elevator had broken while he was out. His feet hurt, his shoulders and arms ached from all the tennis. He made it to his room and tossed his things aside. He showered and ordered room service, but the order than came was wrong. Art succumbed to the problems of the day and just ate it anyway. Too many problems.

He sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his face, hair just finished drying from his shower. He sat in his big t-shirt and his loose shorts, rubbing over his mouth, under his chin, reflecting on the day. Every game lost, every match a trial and complete error. At least it wasn’t important, Art thought. Just a bunch of games for no greater purpose. But it still ruined his day.

It got later into the evening and Art just sat and stared emptily, just thinking, more thinking than he’d been able to do.

A knock on the hotel door. Art half expected another disturbance, a problem with his card, the maids coming by, any inconvenience. He sighed, getting up from the couch, running a hand through his hair as he tiredly opened the door. And it was you.

“Hey,“ and the force of which Art stepped into the hall and hugged you almost knocked the wind out of you. You dropped your bags as his arms reached around you and held you tight, your arms wrapping around his neck. One of your hands held the back of his head as he buried his face into the crook of your neck. You were expecting a hug but not like this.

You held him just as tight as he held you and he stayed that way for a minute, you in his arms and him in yours in the middle of the hotel hallway. Neither of you said a word. Art just took the moment to stay close to you, inhaling the scent he’d been away from too long, holding the girl he’d been missing for much longer. Eventually, after a minute or so, he loosened his grip, kissing you on the shoulder and neck, not sexually, but casually. Sweet.

“Are you okay?” You asked, cupping his face with one hand. His eyes were tired, sad.

“Better now,” he said, small smile pulling at one side of his mouth. God, you missed him. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”

“Give me five minutes and you can tell me all about it?” You suggested, rubbing your thumb over his cheek and he nodded, kissing your palm gently and letting you into the room. You took the five minutes to set your bags down and have the quickest refresher shower known to man. You got out of the shower and Art, sitting on the hotel sink counter passed you one of his big shirts to sleep in. The ones he liked to sleep in. You smiled and put it on, putting your hair in a towel. You turned the lights off as you passed them, turning on the bedside lamp to dim the room to something gentler.

You crawled onto the bed, propping yourself against the pile of pillows the beds always had. You opened your arms and Art gladly followed you onto the bed, crawling over you. He kissed you, it was soft and sweet and to him, meant the world to have. He then laid down on your lower chest, arms digging under you to wrap around your waist, his body fitting perfectly between your legs. Your hand instinctually went to his soft hair, your fingernails digging softly into his scalp as he told you about his day, about the inconveniences and the game losses, what they felt like. You told him about yours and they were honestly quite similar, minus the tennis.

You sighed, letting your nails trace down over his neck, his ear, the top of his back, the other squeezing his upper arm gently. “I’m so sorry,” you said quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” Art said, his words a little muffled from his cheek pressed against you. “But I missed you. I’m glad you’re back.”

“I missed you too,” you smiled. He couldn’t see it, but he knew. “I tried to get here as soon as I could.”

His hand pulled one of yours down to your side, making it accessible to him to kiss gently up your wrist, to kiss your hand, your fingers, his thumb pressing on the pads of your palms softly. “I can’t help but think-“ he kissed your wrist again, “- That if you were there today, I would have-“ he kissed your wrist once more, “Won. Or at least done better.” He confessed.

You giggled a little, “Oh, like a good luck charm?”

“A good luck charm,” Art echoed. He hummed as your nails slid over his scalp to behind his ear. “Something like that. You might be mine.”

“I would love that,” you grinned. You continued, squeezing him just a little tighter, “I don’t have another business trip for ages so I promise to fulfill my good luck charm duties from here, forward.”

Art, eyes shut, smiled as well. “Mmm, I’d like that.” He kissed you where his mouth rested and went back to caressing your hand. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it after this day we’ve both had,” you said. “Honestly I think travelling without my good luck charm is what delayed the flights.”

Art chuckled at that. “So it’s settled then.”

You grinned, “Mhm. We just never leave each others’ side again. You’re stuck with me.”

“Sounds perfect,” Art mumbled. You could feel the soft beat of his heart against you. “I wouldn’t dream of a better solution.” He raised his head, propping himself up just a little. His eyes were soft as your hand slipped to cup his cheek again, he rested against it. Your thumb, as per usual, caressed over his skin. “I love you.” He said. Words you had heard a thousand million times. But he looked at you with every single time he’d said it compiled in his eyes. You could see it, you could feel it.

You almost pouted with the way he looked. He was gorgeous and kind and he loved you and you loved him. “I love you too,” you told him, feeling about the same as he did. “So much.” You hoped he felt it, your hands pushing hair out of his face as you spoke.

He looked at you through his perfect eyelashes, “Marry me.” He said. Your hand stopped where it was and your heart immediately picked up pace.

“Hm?” you wondered if you’d heard him wrong.

But you didn’t. “Marry me,” he repeated, a small smirk growing on his face. “I’ll do things properly, but I want to ask you. Because I love you and the days that pass without you are my worst.” He said, your hand tracing his cheek. You had always felt that any talk of this with Art would bring unbridled excitement, but as much as you felt excited, you also felt at peace. That was because you knew you were meant to be with Art as if it was just willed into existence that way. Pre-written.

“I’ll marry you,” you grinned. And he grinned, fully, for what felt like the first time that day. He moved upward and kissed you with all of the ‘I love you’s on his lips this time. All of yours on your lips, exchanged like the way they were spoken, from the very first to this one in this moment. Your hands that held his face moved down as he kissed you, taking his turn to hold your face. He kissed you and you kissed him and it was set in stone that neither of you wanted to leave the other’s side. Not ever. “I love you too.” You replied.

Art proposed a second time so your family could be there, but you didn’t tell anyone about the impromptu first take, even though it was the one you truly loved more. When it wasn’t posed like a question because Art knew. And so did you. That it was meant to be that way. There was never a chance you’d say no anyway.

In enough time there were tangible good luck charms in the form of wedding bands, but you both never truly stopped being each other’s.

[xxnashiraxx]

Pairing: Astarion/f!Tav ~ Astarion/f!OC (Ofelia) Word Count: 9,709 Tags/Warnings: 18+ MDNI, Does this Count as Monster Smut?, Oral, PIV Sex, Fingering, Masturbation, Stomach Bulge, Blood Drinking, Very Minor Dubcon (if you squint), Choking Summary: A gifted grimoire from her friends spells trouble when Ofelia accidentally summons an incubus. ~ An Incubus Astarion AU lovingly written and inspired by this artwork by @poofroom featuring my Tav and longfic main character, Ofelia!

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AO3 | Song Reference: Christian Woman by Type O Negative

I'm hoping to complete at least 4 prompts this month, once a week, but my main fic is my upmost priority! Still, I'm really excited to share this one!! @khywren really inspired me with their recent AMAZING writings, please check out their Kinktober 2024 works so far! You won't be disappointed! 🖤

No forgiveness,

For her sins.

Prefers punishment.

Would you suffer eternally?

Or internally?

For her lust,

She’ll burn in hell.

Her soul done medium well.

***

“There, all done!” Ofelia says to herself, dropping the white chalk she’d used to draw the symbol from the spellbook. It’d been a silly present from one of her friends- a gag gift, really. Spirit of the season and all that. What else is she supposed to do on a Friday night after three pina coladas and zero luck?

All her prospects were dull, and all of them had made some kind of backhanded remark about her intelligence or appearance at some point during the conversation that her interest had waned instantly. She’d definitely been to better Halloween parties.

For her own amusement, she sits and holds a candle up, briefly reading over the pages. She’s got the first ingredient, flickering restlessly in her other hand, the food offering to her right (a popcorn ball), something to channel the energy (a crystal that came with the book), and currency of some kind (a few quarters from her laundry fund). The last requirement is her blood.

“Whatever,” She shrugs, setting the candle down on its point in the star before leaning over to grab the pocket knife she’d used to open the package. She’s still tipsy, and explaining away a bandaged hand tomorrow doesn’t seem like that big of an issue to her at the moment.

She carefully presses the blade's tip into the meat of her palm and drags in one clean slice, wincing and holding her hand over the point closest to her. Droplets dot the white chalk with red and she clenches her fingers, waiting until there’s a small puddle, before getting up to grab her first aid kit and wrap the wound. Once reseated, she examines the page, noting something looks off, but neglecting to read further into why the diagrams are different before reciting the words at the bottom of the page.

She holds her breath, eyes scanning the apartment, before settling back on the circle. And… nothing happens.

“Oh!” She gasps when the candle blows out, expecting some kind of grand entrance- maybe a ring of fire! Or a black pit, opening within the symbol! But nothing comes.

She pouts dejectedly and gathers the items up before chucking them all into a box. She glares at the book, clasped between her fingers, and sighs. If anything, she’d hoped for a little excitement from this tonight- but magic isn’t real, and despite her alcohol-addled mind, she was a fool to think she could conjure it.

She gets up and opens her top dresser drawer, tossing the book in without a second thought as she checks the time on her phone- almost one. She walks into the living space, which is technically still part of her bedroom and separated only by a meager curtain. Her TV is off and silent against the wall, and she pulls her hoodie off to toss over the back of her couch.

The cool air flows in from her window AC and blesses the exposed skin around her costume- she’d gone as a devil, the strapless red bodysuit and pink tights still clinging to her. She pulls the headache-inducing horned headband off and sets it next to her sweater, turning and scanning the room for her prize. She smiles when she sees it, fetching the half-empty bottle of Malibu from the counter before downing it until her fingers numb and a delightful buzz thrums in her head. The night had been long, and an untold amount of sticky fluids had gotten on her legs, arms, and torso during the party so a shower before turning in feels like the perfect idea.

She goes into the bedroom to tug the bodice of the costume down until her breasts are free, breathing a sigh of relief when the constricting fabric is finally off. Her tights follow after, leaving her in nothing but her underwear as she moves towards her dresser. Her eyes linger on the book when she opens the drawer to pull out a night dress and she almost closes it before cocking a brow. Her hand hovers over her favorite slip as her eyes fall onto the page she’d been referencing when she drew the circle, but she swears it had been closed when she’d thrown it inside. The scrawl below it almost looks handwritten, not printed, but when Ofelia tries to read it, goosebumps gradually spread over her arms and legs and she scoffs at the words she can decipher.

“What the hell does ‘mind-altering satisfaction’ mean?” She mutters as she closes the book and grabs her dress before shoving the drawer closed again.

She starts the shower before discarding the remaining scrap of cloth into her hamper, leaning against her sink to wipe her makeup off. Tossing the cotton pads into the trash, she jumps under the hot stream, a low hum leaving her lips. It feels amazing as it rushes over her skin and douses her hair. She runs her hands up over her body, jumping when she caresses the sides of her breasts. They’re extra sensitive, and in her tingling, buzzing mind she feels her stomach tighten in response.

She shrugs. No one had been worthy to take home anyway. Might as well make the most of the night.

Her fingers ghost over her nipples and she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip in an effort to stifle the sound that nearly tears out of her throat. Stars dance behind her eyes and she laughs incredulously, wiping the hair plastered to her cheeks away. It’d never felt this intense, and curiosity coaxes her hands lower as she carefully slips a finger between her legs.

“God!” She hisses, catching herself before she falls onto the tiled floor. Her vision nearly whites under the slightest glance against her clit and she heaves for breath, both palms pressing against the wall. She’d only drank her usual cocktails, and had been watching her drink like a hawk all night, so being exposed to something slipped into her glass at the party is out of the question. She shakes her head, cursing as her clit begins to throb steadily against the water streaming down the front of her body. She suppresses another groan, clenching her thighs together as she rinses out the remaining suds from her hair.

The need humming through her veins is almost blinding, and with shaking hands she pushes her hair back before leaning against the wall. She won’t fall this time… won’t fall…

She cries out as she runs her middle finger along her slit, teeth sinking into the soft skin of her forearm. Her entire body shakes from the pleasure of it, so intense that it weakens her knees and she almost buckles to the floor again. She bites harder to center herself, afraid of the bruise that will surely stand out in the morning, but she’ll manage.

She dips between her folds, the slick beneath so copious she can feel it through the stream from the showerhead. She moans and cautiously presses a finger inside, slowly, but no matter how careful she could have been, it doesn’t stop the sharp coil in her gut and the shockwave of ecstasy that flashes from the roots of her hair down to the tips of her toes.

She mewls like an untouched virgin, mind hazy with want. This… this is unlike anything she’s ever felt- not like she’s had much experience in that department- but every nerve feels like it’s on fire. The shower turns to ice and she has to step out, body quivering and skin clammy despite the temperature of the water.

She grabs the towel, whining as the fabric rubs against the sensitive flesh on her breasts before slipping her nightgown over her head. The thin black satin and lace clings to her and she stares at the mess in the mirror as she dries her hair, eyes catching on the stiff peaks on her chest straining against the fabric. They trail up over her arms and her shoulders before stopping and freezing.

“What the hell…?” She whispers, dropping the towel to press up against the sink again, trying to ignore the little shivers of pleasure when her nipples rub against the chilled granite. Her fingers seek the strange marks that circle her neck almost like a tattoo, the dashes and squiggles familiar, almost…

There’s no way. There’s no way.

Ofelia doesn’t stop to pick her towel up off the floor, sweat making her damp hair stick to her face and neck as it breaks out over her entire body. She opens the drawer once more to the book open, not closed as she’d left it. She swears and pulls it out, setting it on top as she looks at the scrawl over the page opposite to the sigil. It’s indecipherable, in some kind of language or symbols she can’t read, but it matches the marks on her skin perfectly. Whatever they are, they’re definitely a result of the ritual, and Ofelia sinks into a sitting position on her mattress as regret fills her mind.

I shouldn’t have done that. God, I’m so stupid. Mama warned me never to mess with this stuff. Ofelia chews on her cuticles, nervous energy humming alongside the desire burning in her body. Every sense of hers is attuned to the way the slip touches her skin, how her clit throbs for attention, how she clenches around nothing, aching to fill the void.

It isn’t natural, and that fact scares her more than she’d like to admit. She pushes the craving to touch out of her mind, grabbing a fresh pair of underwear before crawling beneath her duvet. It’s hot, so hot… her skin feels like lava- her heart beat skyrocketing. Maybe she’s going to die?

“Oh god, I’m so stupid. So stupid!” She sobs, shoving her face into the pillow as she lays on her stomach. The pressure makes her roll her hips before she can stop herself and she whimpers, biting the silk pillowcase to redirect her frustration. Maybe she should give in and see if that’ll end this torment, but the unease of the situation needles at her mind... She rolls over and tugs the blanket around her chin, twisting her hips and drumming her fingers over her stomach. The length of the day settles over her shoulders and it weighs her down despite the sweat on her skin and the ache between her legs. She tries not to picture the relief she’d feel if her legs were spread instead, slip tugged over her chest, underwear discarded. She groans and shuts her eyes, somehow drifting off to sleep.

She dreams in scattered images, flashing across her vision like a picture show. Hot, begging, on her knees. A man with strong hands and sharp teeth touches her heated skin, peels her dress off, mouths at her breasts… her haggard breathing is audible in the room, echoing off the walls, her hips rolling into his touch, her mouth closing around-

Her eyes fly open, the curtains in front of her window fluttering in the breeze as the clock registers that it’s only one thirty. It takes a moment to adjust to the darkness, and she vaguely recalls not leaving it open… The covers fall off her chest when she sits up, soft moonlight pouring in to paint her body a cool blue. The slip rides up her hips, breasts spilling out the sides, and something moves out of the corner of her vision that sparks gooseflesh to spread over her bare thighs and arms.

The curtain flutters away, revealing the silhouette of a man. Except it isn’t a man… As the light illuminates the hard cut of his torso, bat-like wings stretch and unfurl on either side of him, wicked horns curling up and over his silver hair. Red irises glow in the night, trained on her face, a tail swishing behind him. She doesn’t breathe, doesn’t move- her heart pounds, but her body reacts in a way she hadn’t expected. Her skin breaks out in the same feverish sweat that she’d felt before crawling into bed, her stomach aching and her breathing coming in short pants. She chances a glance in the full length mirror across the room, her cheeks flushing red at the uselessness of her night dress. The marks that had started at her neck circle her wrists and close around her thighs like bands.

“Am I dreaming?” She asks softly, unable to resist the pull she feels towards him. He takes a step and she tenses, eyes admiring his broad shoulders, ornamental silver bracers covering each forearm. Most of his body is bare, save for the thin piece of satiny fabric and gilded chains covering his hips. Her eyes trace the trail of hair that disappears beneath, down until her breath chokes out of her. Her thighs press together at the hard outline beneath the loincloth, her imagination filling in the gaps- thick, straining, throbbing. Her mouth floods with saliva and she swallows thickly as the steady pulse from earlier begs for attention, shame dissolving as his crimson gaze flows down over her exposed breasts. The sudden urge to touch him fills her mind until it’s all she can think about, even as he opens his mouth to expose sharp canines.

“I’m afraid not.” His voice, smooth and velvety, covers her body like honey. She shivers as he takes another step, so close now that she can see the sharp tips of his ears beneath his hair. His lips curl into a fiendish grin and she shakes her head, wanting him closer, god, she can’t take the distance anymore. Some fire’s possessing her and she feels herself clench again, the sudden instinct to grind against the mattress and relieve the tension leaving her dazed. Her mind roars, wanting more than anything she’s ever wanted before to have him touch her. It drowns rational thoughts, save for a single line of curiosity.

“What are you?” She can’t help but ask, though her eyes can’t be deceiving her. He appraises her with a considering gleam, his wings folding back and out of the way. The horns have to be enough- the devilish tail. His soft laugh covers her body in a fresh wave of heat and she closes her eyes.

“You summoned me, shouldn’t you know?” She opens her eyes and he’s hovering right across from her at the end of the bed. Eye level with his stomach, she bites back the whimper of need that tries to push past her clenched teeth at the sight of him, his little strip of fabric doing nothing but veiling the color of his skin. She feels a gush of wetness between her legs as she clenches and strains to stay still, huffing her breath out.

“Didn’t think it would work. Are you the one that’s doing this to me?” She mutters, too late to cover her breasts but she does it anyway- anything to remain in the illusion of control. The sharp tick of his smile tells her he isn’t buying it, and she widens her eyes in surprise when his wings disappear. He drops his knees onto the mattress and she yelps when it dips.

Fuck… he’s real.

“What did you think would happen when you opened a black grimoire and chose a spell? That an imp would pop up and throw money at you?” She bites her lip, watching his long black fingernails clench the duvet and pull it farther down the bed.

“Well…” His eyes flash with annoyance.

“All you humans are the same- power, money, fame, wealth. Make a mistake? Wrong page?” She bristles at his sudden chiding, cursing her friends for giving her the damn thing. She’s going to throttle them tomorrow.

“So what? Can’t you just go back to where you came from?” She sucks in a breath when he draws closer, hands planting themselves on either side of her ankles. She watches him carefully, the way the light shines through the thin fabric of his loincloth to show her the heavy shadow of his cock beneath, and she bites the inside of her cheek when her clit throbs at the sight.

“I’m contracted, stupid mortal. Your blood has bound me to this plane. I can't just go back.” He sneers and she squirms as he crawls forward again, his head hovering over her hips. Her mind imagines filthy things with him so close, her body betraying her as her thighs untense and spread softly- barely a few inches- but it’s enough. She watches his gaze drop to the arms covering her chest, then lower, and she snaps her legs back together.

“Um… sorry. What contract? What does it entail?” He looks back up at her, lips pressed into a firm line of disappointment and she glares back.

“You didn’t read the fine print?”

“What fine fucking print? I can’t read half the words on those pages!” She cries out indignantly, not realizing her frustrated gesturing has left her chest exposed again. He surges forward quicker than she can react and with the sharp edges of his nails, he rips the straps off her dress, causing her breasts to fall free properly. She yelps, instinctively trying to cover up again but he snaps his fingers and the script on her wrists glows, making her palms flatten against the bed.

“I’ll let you guess the terms,” He murmurs, sitting back on his heels. She squirms, trying to free her arms, and when he snaps his fingers again she can lift them.

“What- what was that?” She whispers, fear clouding her voice. He smirks, his hands resting on his thighs, and gestures towards the dresser.

“Says it in the fine print.”

“Please?” She whimpers, hugging her torso tightly. She’s afraid- afraid of the patterns on her thighs, on her wrists, on her neck. She stares at them warily, the terror that had been muted by her lust now stretching into every part of her body. What’s going on? What is he? What’s going to happen to me?

“Tssk,” He settles back fully, legs crossing on her mattress. Her eyes move over his face again, catching on his pretty red eyes, his full lips. The slope of his nose is beautiful- strong and sharp. She traces his features, finding her heartbeat slowing slightly the longer she takes him in. His lips part, revealing those sharp fangs on both the top and bottom row of his teeth, and she idly wonders what they’d feel like on her neck, on her skin… “Darling… I can’t have you afraid of me. That’s not how this night is going to go.” His soft voice makes her shiver and she’s lulled by the sound of it. She raises her head slightly, gaze growing heavier the longer he stares at her.

“How this night is going to go…?” She echoes, slow, the end shaped like a question. His tail swishes back and forth before the spade tip caresses up her calf. With him finally touching her, she gasps, the softest glance magnified like it was earlier. She shudders, pressing her thighs more tightly together, shaking her head, but her body eventually wins out.

“The terms, dear…” He murmurs, leaning forward again. Her skin is feverish when his tail draws away and he crawls over her again. She shrinks back, lying against her pillows, his thighs caging her in as his hands settle on either side of her head.

“Uh…” She stammers, trying to get a coherent thought through. He’s so close she can see small flecks of gold in his eyes and the soft ridges on his horns. She finds herself wanting to caress them, the thought causing her cheeks to burn. “Terms… right. The spell is making me… making my body act like this?” She whispers cautiously and he nods, encouraging her to continue. “It made these… weird tattoos show up on my skin… and you can control them?” He nods again, eyes twinkling in amusement. Her nostrils flare in irritation, but she keeps going, realization finally dawning as she approaches the conclusion.

“I… this lust… oh my god…” He tuts, smirking with satisfaction.

“You finally understand?” The growl in his voice makes her eyes flutter shut. With the answer flaring brightly behind her lids, her body opens up in a way it hadn’t before. Her thighs spread until they’re pushing against his knees, her breath leaving her in a rush. She clenches around nothing, thinking about the shape of him under the loincloth and when her eyes snap open again he laughs, deep and sugared.

“You want my body?” She asks breathlessly, the slip hanging over her stomach becoming itchy and unbearable. His lashes fall halfway and when his forked tongue darts across his lower lip she whimpers in response.

“Usually you call an incubus because you need relief, but… your scent is maddening and I've barely even touched you…” He purrs, lips dropping down to her jaw. She moans at the slightest touch, her cunt clenching again followed by a rush of wetness dripping down her folds. Her underwear are long since ruined, and she slowly moves her hands up, hesitating over him.

“Can I… touch you?” She gasps, the last threads of restraint slowly snapping. He pulls away, hungry eyes raking over her face and neck and down to her breasts. She tugs her lower lip into her mouth, watching him nod, before caressing the planes of his chest.

His skin is so hot… a lovely shade of light rose. Her fingers ghost over his collarbones before pressing up, up, to the sides of his face. His crimson gaze flicks back up to meet hers and she teeters over the edge, debating, before he makes the decision for her and leans down to capture her lips.

Wet and messy, their tongues tangle and she whimpers into his mouth, hands carding through his hair. He tastes divine… or wicked, she isn’t sure which. His kiss is hot, lips soft and she moans against his tongue when his teeth catch on her lip to lightly nip at it. It’s all her favorite flavors at once and she can’t keep her hips on the bed, wanting to pull him in closer, wanting to feel the hard edge of his cock-

“Nnng!” She gasps when he nudges his shaft against her stomach, the weight of it making her dizzy. Her clit pulses and blood pounds through her, vocalizing the wave of desire in breathy pants against his mouth. He doesn’t stay quiet either- the sounds and groans he makes turning her insides to liquid as she rocks against him, hands clawing at his back. His anchor on her dress and a loud tear sounds through the room as he rips it free.

“Hey! That was my favorite!” She protests, but he’s sinking his knees between her thighs and tossing the scraps away, revealing her naked torso to him. The anger dies as she watches him draw back, and can almost feel the burning of his gaze over her body. She squirms again, clamping her legs around his, wanting to hide from the attention but it’s all in vain. All for show. She couldn’t deny him now even if she wanted to.

“Darling, don’t lie. You’re just as impatient as I am,” His voice is deep, sitting in the back of his throat. She inhales sharply, watching him lower himself to press his nose into the hollow of her neck. His cock settles over her heat, separated by two layers of fabric, and before she can grind into it his hands are on her hips, forcing them still.

“God…” She whispers, the steady throb against her aching bud making her jaw go slack. He laps at the skin of her neck, making her legs twitch, before his sharp upper canines sink in. If she’d been delirious before… she’s absolutely lost now.

She cries out, heart pounding as he slowly drags his heavy length over her soaked underwear. His loincloth is covering the image from sight as she angels her jaw down, delighting in every bite he peppers over her neck and shoulder. She drags her fingers over his horns and he groans, hips stuttering, the sound needy and desperate. She continues caressing as his tail flicks in the air, pleased and tenderly mouthing at the aching wounds he’s left on her. They sting, but there’s something new in the mix- churning around her gut and making her mouth spill constant sighs and pants as her vision goes hazy and pink.

“W-what do I call you?” She asks, taking in his messy curls and kiss-swollen mouth. Blood stains his lips and a curl of want pulses south at the sight, wanting him to push her panties to the side and rub directly against her, the pressure so distracting she almost rolls her hips automatically, chasing the feeling of him.

He cocks a brow, inhaling deeply before a delicate smile crosses his face. His tail winds around her leg and she laughs in spite of herself, enjoying the way the tip rubs soft circles into the inside of her thigh.

“Astarion,” He murmurs, and she lowers her hands from his horns, eyes darting to his groin.

“Astarion…” She rolls his name around on her tongue, the subtle shiver that shifts through him not going unnoticed. “Mine’s Ofelia,” She mumbles and he strokes her cheek.

“Ofelia,” She preens at how he says it, a flush spreading over her cheeks in response. Her fingers push into the cloth at his hips, a silent question hanging in the air as she gently tugs on it. He nods and she fiddles with the clasp at the side of his hip before it falls and flutters away, leaving him exposed.

She isn’t sure if it’s the side effects of the spell or simply her own desire, but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of him.

“Oh.” Is all she says, like an idiot. Her eyes admire the girth- thick veins spreading over the shaft. He’s nearly purple at the tip, leaking onto her underwear, and she shifts restlessly at the sight as her mouth floods with saliva and her clit aches as he nudges against it.

“I see I’m going to have to do all the sweet-talking, pet.” She shudders as his hands brush along her trembling stomach muscles, down to her thighs, before guiding her underwear down and off. They run back up the length of her torso, softly squeezing and kneading at the soft flesh of her breasts as his lips catch on one of her nipples. She whimpers at the sensations building inside, chasing his touches with her fingers, craving more contact with an almost crazed fervor. She’s still hypnotized by the length of him as he gently rubs his cock between her puffy folds and she swallows, strangled moans caught in her throat. The hard ridge along his tip drags over her swollen clit and in addition to the lightning bolt of pleasure that coaxes more juices to spill from her, the urge to taste him is so intense that it feels like it’s written on her bones.

“I… I want you here.” She mumbles, fingers tracing her face, and he laughs.

“You want to see… if you can take me… in your pretty mouth…?” He whispers, thumb brushing over her lower lip. She nods desperately, parting them to suck him in as her body trembles in anticipation. His jaw tightens as he watches, her tongue swirling around his warm skin, fierce with desire. She hums when his cock twitches, softly bumping her stomach when he moves as a quiet sound vibrates in his chest. He watches her a moment more, eyes burning, before he shifts to the side and drags her off the bed, onto the floor.

She sits obediently on her knees, closing her eyes as his fingers thread into her hair. His touch is soft, and her face warms as she realizes what he’s doing, but embarrassment has long since receded into the recesses of her mind. He gathers the strands at the back of her head before tugging gently- just the way she likes. She sighs, opening her eyes to shamelessly stare at him, yearning to lick the pearl of glistening pre-cum off his flushed tip. She flicks her eyes up to his and the desire she sees there lights a fire in her belly that spurs her forward, hands resting over his hips as she sets her sights and dives in.

Astarion hisses when she kisses the base of him, bathing him in her attention and affectionate nips. Her thighs shiver as she continues her trail of teasing, his grip on her scalp growing tighter. She flashes him a soft smile before kissing down the weighty length of him, lips parting when she pulls away to watch him leak a silvery strand down to her breasts. She swallows a breathy whine before eagerly lapping it up, her ears ringing from the sharp inhale and throaty groan he gives her when she finally sucks the tip inside.

He fills her entire mouth before she can draw him in further and her cunt clenches with jealousy imagining him pushing inside, on her back, a bruising grip on her hips… Her fantasies play behind her closed lids as she hollows her cheeks and relaxes her jaw to swallow more, moaning lightly as he nudges the back of her throat.

Tears form in her eyes as she blinks up at him, her hips restless as he tugs on her hair and pulls out of her mouth before slowly thrusting inside. The fingers of her free hand trail down her body, pinching at the pebbled flesh on her breasts before dipping lower to alleviate some of the tension winding around her belly. She spreads the slick gathering at her entrance, circling her aching clit, and her eyes squint shut, sobbing at the spark of pleasure that flashes up her body, his cock twitching in her mouth.

“Hells…” He whispers, her mind slowly melting the longer he fucks her mouth. Her entire body aches for him, for this pleasure- she squirms and whimpers, letting him set the pace as she rocks against her hand. He’s considerate of her adjustment period until a glimmering sweat breaks out on his chest and her eyes track a drop as it follows the curve of his pelvic bone. When it meets his shaft a switch flips and she abandons all rational thought for the need to please.

She struggles to take him fully, but every time he needly ruts into her and her lips meet his hips he grunts- a gravelly, greedy thing that stokes the heat in her belly until she’s whimpering and shivering for more. He’s making a mess out of her, and she increases the pace, removing her hand from its previous position to pull his hips in each time they snap forward hungrily. He smears spit and slick over her chin each time he slips out until it's dripping over her breasts and fingers, her thumbs swirl the fluid over the stiff peaks of her nipples as waves of pleasure rumble through her- just as strong as it had been in the shower, perhaps even more.

They lock eyes as he angles her chin to take more of him, electricity shooting through her as her tongue swirls around before lingering on the sensitive underside of his head. He yanks her hair and hisses, in one fluid motion pistoning inside and she moans on his cock. Her mind is blissfully blank as he pins her against the side of the bed, reveling in the way he twitches and cups her cheek as he drives in and out, in and out at a languid pace. The blunt head of his cock kisses the back of her throat again, his stomach muscles tightening, and her fingers brush over the seam of his balls until his hips stutter and a raspy moan pours from his mouth. She holds his gaze, taking him impossibly deeper, and she whines in disapproval when he slips out with a lewd pop.

“Can’t have you driving the whole time, darling,” He murmurs, and she gasps when he leans down to meld their lips together in a bruising kiss. The enthusiasm behind his touches makes her hum happily and he places a hand over her throat before squeezing and forcing her to stand. His tight grip makes her dizzy and she sways on her feet, mind blank, as he chuckles and presses them tightly together.

“Like that, do you?” He murmurs in her ear and she nods, wrapping her arms around his waist as his sharp canines brush against her skin.

“Do you… drink the blood?” She whispers, brief flashes of curiosity drifting through her lust-clouded mind.

“Hmm?” She draws back so their lips brush, the striking scarlet of his eyes inquisitive and rapt.

“You had blood on your lips earlier, when you bit me…” She whispers, watching his face shift in recognition.

“Ahh… that.” He grins, a fang peeking out from under his top lip and it’s the cutest thing she’s ever seen. “It’s common for us to partake- the magic in your blood increases your sense of touch and your blood in turn does for us as well. It’s why you needed to sacrifice it for the spell.” His smile twists into something sinful, her legs pressing together. “Somehow, I hardly need the encouragement...” He whispers as his hands softly squeeze her ass. She smiles in reply, eyes lingering on his teeth and she hesitantly presses a kiss to his jaw. More follow, light and sweet as his grip fluctuates from gentle to rough when her lips brush over his neck.

“Can I…?” She asks and he nods at her testing teeth before she sinks her own into his skin. He sighs into her ear, his hands caressing her back as his sharp nails lightly scratch over her skin. She whimpers into the marks she leaves him with, nipping up to his earlobe before teasing the skin between her teeth. He stills and groans, grinding his stiff length against her hip and she licks up to the pointed tip before sucking it lightly into her mouth.

“Ofelia…” Her name rumbling in his chest makes her dizzy and she moves her left hand up to tickle the other ear until he’s driving them forward. The back of her knees connect with the mattress and she yelps, falling flat on her back as he stands between her parted thighs. His eyes are dark- the red eclipsed by his blown wide pupils, and her body shivers in fear. She feels hunted, prey beneath a ravenous lion, and the feeling twists her insides as he drops to a crouch and lifts her legs until they’re resting over his shoulders. She almost moans at the sight…

“I can’t leave until you’re satisfied…” He murmurs, nipping at the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh. His fangs graze the skin before he sinks them in and that rosy haze covers her vision again, her mind numb to the rest of the world as she focuses on what his mouth is doing. He’d been right about whatever’s in his saliva or bite as electricity tingles beneath her skin, every one of his touches sending sparks down the length of her body.

“God… I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough of this.” She mumbles, forehead creasing in an effort to concentrate on him. He chuckles darkly, his burning gaze intertwined with hers and as she watches her blood drip from the corner of his lips her body twitches in response. It’s the most erotic thing she’s ever seen, almost hotter than when she’d peeled off the cloth, and she whines under his smug smile.

“Don’t go saying that now…” He whispers as he presses soft kisses up, closer to where she needs him most. “Or I’ll be tempted to show you which page the binding spell is on.” She gasps, not having time to process his words as his tongue darts out to swipe up the seam of her before languidly running back down. Her vision whites, a high-pitched cry tearing from her throat as he circles her clit. The fork in his tongue adds an extra sensation that makes fireworks explode behind her eyes, her hips lifting off the bed as he lightly flicks and dips it lower, embarrassing noises spilling from her lips as she drags her fingers through his hair.

When he circles her entrance, lapping at the slick that’s been dripping down her thighs, she throws her head back and begs, pleading on deaf ears for him to plunge in, his nose pressing into the aching swell of her and it’s just the right amount of pressure-

“Fuck!” She sobs, back arching off the bed as his long fingers push inside in place of his tongue. He licks softly at her clit, pushing the hood back gently and when he sucks she nearly blacks out. His fingers are thick, so warm… he starts with two, working her open, curling in until he nudges the place inside she’s lucky to reach on a good day. It makes her entire body convulse as she clamps her thighs around him, fingers twisting in the sheets as his name tumbles from her lips over and over again like a prayer.

“Another, sweet girl?” The lilt to his voice is so innocent, but the words are pure sin and a shiver runs from the base of her skull to the tip of her spine in response, her babbling incoherent. Instead, she nods, trying to keep her eyes open, focusing on the little vent on her ceiling, anything- god he’s too good…

When he adds another digit she almost comes undone, but he shushes her with a kiss on the inside of her thigh, halting his movements. She’s allowed a few seconds to breathe, gasping for air, propping herself up on her elbows to look at him. His hair is falling from its perfect swoop atop his head, dusting his eyes. He’s so handsome she almost can’t believe this is real, so focused on how hot he looks eating her out that she doesn’t see his arm coiling before he sets the pace again.

Her eyes fly shut and her head falls back, wanton cries filling the air- so loud she’s certain there will be a noise complaint in her mailbox in the morning.

His thumb strokes over her swollen nub as he pushes inside and she’s gone.

Her ankles lock around his head, pulling him deeper as she comes on his tongue and his name leaves her lips over and over, chest heaving as tears pool and spill out of the corners of her eyes. Her hips leave the mattress, her mind unaware how, hands anchored to his horns to keep him there all while his tongue massages her inner walls and draws her pleasure out with every stroke. It’s never been like this- completely blank, delirious, incoherent. It feels like someone’s holding her over a flame and she’s burning, burning, stroking her fingers over the ridges of his horns as he shivers and runs his tongue up over her sensitive clit, making her wail at the overstimulation. Her hips finally meet the mattress again as she dissolves over the messy blanket, realizing his nails had pressed stinging cuts to her buttocks as he’d dragged her over the edge.

“Satisfied?” He whispers, his face hovering over hers. She hadn’t noticed he’d shifted and her hands had fallen, her stare empty and tracking dust motes floating through the beams of moonlight. She focuses on his pretty lips, glistening from his previous ministrations, and she reaches up to pull him into a deep kiss as he stumbles and falls over her, his chuckle stroking some deeply seated, violent thing inside her. He tastes like her, the two of them mixed and she’s tingling from head to toe, so consumed by touching every part of him as her hands explore and roam. They find his neglected length and she softly strokes him with one as the other rests over the nape of his neck to continue sliding their lips together.

“Not yet…” She finally answers him after pulling away to gasp for air, voice ragged. She smiles sweetly, lashes dipped low, wanting him closer. Something about him just burrows inside, familiar and calming. She hadn’t noticed it before, too buried beneath the overpowering magic thrumming through her veins. She’s glad that he’s the one that showed up.

She nuzzles her nose into his hair, the faintest hint of brimstone and ash dusting his white locks. He stutters out a low, breathy moan as she continues to slowly stroke him and in her trance she pulls back to bare her throat for him. She quickens her pace as his teeth sink in once more, drawing filthy moans from her lips as heat coils in her belly. It’s addicting, the pain and pleasure of his sharp teeth. She offers up more of herself to him and her hips snap up into his when his mouth closes around one nipple to puncture the sensitive skin before greedily suckling on it.

“Nnng… ‘starion…” She mumbles, a strangled cry leaving her lips as she spreads the pre-cum weeping from his cock down his shaft, his mouth going rough as he groans in reply. “Need you…” She murmurs and he sucks harder before leaving bleeding crescents over her other breast.

“You taste so good…” He whispers, the soft snap of his fingers wrenching her hands from her control as they come up, above her head, wrists glowing as if he’s holding them himself. The loss of control is staggering, but as he rises, eyes glowing, blood coating his lips, she feels a fierce craving spread low in her body before she’s aching for him and his tongue and fingers won’t suffice this time. She wants the real thing.

“Please…” She whines, straining against her invisible bonds as he presses himself against her slit to coat himself in the wetness there. Slippery, obscene sounds fill the room and the way he slides and catches on her entrance before gliding over her throbbing clit coax her heart to pound harder, a shock sparking between her legs at his low lurching moan.

“Please-!” She repeats, thrashing as he continues, every touch and throb of his cock pure torture. His claws dig into her hips, her mouth spilling every curse and prayer she knows as he prods at her entrance.

“My turn,” He growls, stilling her rocking hips. Her eyes slam closed as she shudders around him, the pain a dull echo as he gradually sinks into her waiting heat. He almost doesn’t fit, eyes latched onto the place he’s desperately trying to defile, and she watches him tremble under the effort of restraint when he finally slips inside. He draws a muffled wail from her as he pushes past her entrance, an iron grip holding her in place as she twists her arms above her, panting and clenching around him as she adjusts to the stretch. She finally relaxes as his hands caress her shivering thighs, letting him gently soothe her tense muscles so he can fully sheath within her.

The feeling of fullness is like nothing else- he occupies every inch as his hips finally meet hers and her breath rushes out of her as if he’s taking up every spare bit of room inside her body. He waits, lower lip anchored beneath twin fangs, and she holds him in her blurring gaze. She can’t breathe, chest tight, the soft sounds building in her chest climbing into a litany of pleading and praise.

“So… much… please move,” She gasps as he reaches up to grab her hands and the bonds vanish, guiding them down to the mattress on either side of her head as their fingers intertwine. He’s close, so close she can see every detail on his face, can see the way his brow tenses and sweat gathers over the creasing flesh. Her thighs press against her chest as he folds her legs back, ankles dangling over his shoulders, and she screws her eyes shut as he dips impossibly deeper inside. The whine that slips out of her gritted teeth as he slowly drags out is nothing compared to the sharp, wailing cry when he pistons back into her. It dwarfs any sound she’s ever made; despite the circumstances, her cheeks burn in reply.

“Astarion!” She sobs, holding on to him for dear life. He sets a slow pace at first and she cries with each movement, repeating his name and twisting her head from side to side. He abandons his restraining grip on one of her hands to press one to her throat, stilling her writhing, lips pulled into a fangy grin.

“Eyes on me, pet.” He whispers. She gasps, clenching at the sound of his voice and the tight clutch over her neck. “I’m going to fill you… over… and over… and over…” Her eyes fly shut and she arches into him, mind fogging as he continues to thrust with rough, slow snaps of his hips. “Hells… barely been inside you for a minute… and you’re already brainless.”

“Fuck you,” She gasps when his hand disappears from her neck, a finger pad pressing to her clit to rub soft circles against it.

“That’s the idea,” He chuckles, dropping his lips to kiss her, scattering them over her jaw, neck, and chest. His hot tongue swirls over one nipple, then the other, the pressure building in her lower stomach faster than the first time. Whatever magic flows through her veins, it’s causing her vision to blur, her chest to feel light and her heart to crash against her ribs. Every drag of his cock steals her breath, every whispered word makes her impossibly wetter- afraid to look at the mess in the morning. He squeezes her breasts and her eyes flutter closed, the sensation of stroking on her bundle of nerves making her jump-

“Is that…?” She doesn’t finish, watching his tail flick in the air with a smirk before he descends on her again. “I… I don’t know how much longer-”

“Let go,” He interrupts, tongue flicking over the peaks of her breasts before he locks their gazes once more. She whines, lost in the tide of his thrusts and the way he feels inside her. He so big… so full… she can’t help the way she squeezes and pulls him in each time he pounds back inside, drawing guttural growls from his throat as obscenely wet sounds fill the room. “You’re so good, Ofelia…” He murmurs, fingernails digging into the plump flesh of her thighs as his voice pulls the coil tighter. “Creaming all over my cock.” She bites her lip, his tail rubbing and stroking and pushing her closer and closer and-

“Astarion!” She sobs, every thread unraveling and burning out. There’s an entire night sky sprawled out before her closed eyelids as he fucks her through her climax, every sound he makes sending shockwaves through her after the initial crest and fall. When she finally looks at him, his cheeks are flushed and his eyes are nearly black, his cock twitching inside her.

“So… tight…” He mumbles, hands resting over her hips as his thrusts become more erratic. He’s pulsing, growing hotter, filling her more until she feels like she’s going to shatter around him, dragging against the spot inside her that leaves her breathless and panting for more and she’s afraid it’ll never be enough. He rests a hand over the bulge in her stomach, over the shape of him, and the pressure makes her gush around his twitching cock.

“Please…” She whimpers, vision hazy around the edges. She isn’t sure what she’s begging for, but he seems to understand. He presses a kiss to her lips as her pounding heart fills the silent air, hands coming up to scratch at his back and cry his name, his cock pulsing and-

Hot and powerful, he spills inside her with a strangled cry. She's almost afraid he'll never stop, filling her until she’s sure she can't hold anymore. Watching his face twist in pleasure as his hips still, gripping her waist to the point she’ll see marks in the morning, she whimpers and pulls him in for another bruising kiss. He plunges into her mouth like a starving man and she greedily matches his fervor, stroking his sides, pressing her palms against his chest, and running her fingers through his hair.

Her belly feels warm, full of his come, and his gaze darkens as he strokes the swell of flesh below her navel before flicking back up to her face. Trailing wisps of coherent thought dissolve into the recesses of her brain as his softening length begins to stiffen again, a soft growl slipping out of his mouth as his body jerks forward and he slides easily back inside. She chokes on a sound, the feeling lighting her up all over again as she struggles to accommodate him at full strength. She turns to look at the clock, registering the digital numbers turning to three am- they’d been at it for almost two hours.

“When you say you won’t leave until I’m satisfied… is that something you’ll just know? Or do I have to tell you?” He looks at her as he gently rolls his hips and her breath hitches as his tip brushes against her cervix.

“The tattoo on your neck will break,” He explains through his teeth, hands running over her body to gently squeeze her breasts and she moans softly as he rolls into her again.

“Is it still there?” She mumbles, wishing she could see into the mirror, but it’s behind him. He nods, dropping to his elbows to mouth at it, presumably. She floods his ears with delicate sighs, fingers splaying over his ribs as she traces his sides, eyes fluttering shut at the beautiful way his mouth moves-

“Ahh!” She yelps when he yanks her up off the mattress and pulls her into his arms, carried in the air. Her legs wind around him on instinct, clinging to his shoulders to not fall as he carries her into the living room. As she glances around the space, for some strange reason she feels off- almost as if a spell has been broken. Here he is, in another room of her apartment, and the strangeness she feels is entirely ridiculous. But he’s real, he’s real and standing in front of her tiny kitchen bar, eyes boring into her own, mischievous smile painted over his face. She traces his lips with her forefinger, smirk reflecting his, and he’s draping her over the counter to have her again.

She loses count of how many times he does- in the kitchen, over the couch, against the door. He shows no signs of tiring, cock hard and always pumping her full. She can’t remember a moment where she isn’t tumbling over the edge, thoughts useless, head empty as his red eyes sparkle in the dark, intent on burrowing into her chest.

There’s a brief period where she’s under the stream from the shower, unsure how she got there and still cradled in his arms. Her mind is weak like trailing threads, too distracted by the almost numbing tingles spreading through her body as she smiles at him. He’s still fully sheathed inside her- she’s almost certain he hasn't pulled out since they left the bedroom- and his impossibly strong arms rest below the swell of her ass as he presses her against the shower wall and kisses her, water mixing on their tongues.

“Is the mark still there?” She whispers, vaguely curious as the hot water flushes her body a light pink. He pulls away, eyes hazy and clouded over with pleasure, before lifting her hips and pulling her back down onto his cock.

“Still… there…” He huffs, brows drawn down in concentration. “I may not be able to keep up, soon.” She giggles, holding tight as he finishes their shower and brings her back to bed. Why he’d even bothered trying to clean them up, she isn’t sure.

On her hands and knees she takes him, and when her arms begin to tire she lies on her stomach, cheek against the mattress while his hands hold her hips up and he groans and fills her again. She shivers as his feverish hands stroke over her thighs, down her back, and to her scalp, caressing her hair softly. Her eyes flutter shut as he rocks them back and forth, the tenderness of his actions making her stutter out a long, breathless sigh.

Hazily she registers him lying her on her side, still joined, strong grip on the back of her knee as he lightly draws another orgasm out of her, fingers deftly working at her clit until she comes with a broken sob and milks him for what she considers the rest of what he’s got. As he pants into her ear the horizon turns a faint purple beyond her window and she collapses against his chest, pressing kisses to the underside of his jaw.

While they catch their breath, she feels her skin chill and an almost imperceptible pressure vanish from around her neck. Her fingers come up to touch her throat, groaning at the exhaustion weighing her limbs down and the sudden ache spreading over every muscle. He strokes her stomach, peering down at her, and she can see that the band is gone through her reflection in his eyes, her arms and legs finally clear of it.

“Oh no, it’s over?” She mumbles listlessly, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyelids as she starts to come back to herself. A light chuckle from beside her draws her out of the odd feelings of disappointment and longing as she gazes up at him, early morning sun passing through his hair to turn it bright and golden. He looks more like an angel than any devil she’s ever pictured.

“You’re satisfied,” He smiles, faint and soft. It makes her heart twist uncomfortably as he reaches down and finally slips out of her. A flush burns her cheeks at the slickness that drips down and pools between her legs over the sheets.

“Hmm,” She crosses her arms over her chest, pouting to the ceiling and leveling a hateful glare over the vent that she’d previously latched on to when she needed to ground herself. “Doesn’t feel like it.” He covers her vision, looking pleased with himself, and she feels a pang of sadness knowing he’ll have to leave.

“My contract’s fulfilled, Ofelia.” She nods, patting his arm, and when he moves from behind her to stand in her bedroom, gloriously naked and back to her, she admires him like he’s a distant statue up high on a pedestal. Out of reach.

“Umm… do I say ‘It’s been fun!’ or ‘Thank you!’?” She asks, wincing as he turns to look at her over his shoulder. His amused smile makes her feel less awkward, and she jolts in surprise when he stoops down to press a kiss to her lips.

“It’s been fun, thank you,” He grins, all sharp teeth and cocky glint in his eyes. She stares, then smiles softly as he rises to his full height, and those elusive wings that had vanished before stretch out behind him to cover the length of her room. The next time she blinks, he’s gone, and she looks around the room in alarm before stilling.

It’s silent as death.

She lies back, staring back up at that vent, every part of her aching and sore, far too stiff to think about moving let alone changing her sheets. She closes her eyes, fierce loneliness prodding at her chest.

***

“Earth plane’s portal is ringing again,” The droning voice of Raphael calls out over the tops of the rows of desks, his tone growing more tired by the hour. No one answers, scrolls and papers flying about as the demons sitting behind their quills carry on cataloging and documenting contracts and summons.

“Did you not hear me?” Raphael sounds more on edge and Astarion flicks his tail in amusement, glancing across the desk at his chattiest coworker.

“Think Haarlep’s still booked?” Karlach grins, jotting something on her scroll before she flicks it behind her right shoulder and it hits a lowly imp in the head.

“Must be. Wonder if he’ll call me again,” Astarion sighs, idly flicking the quill pen in his hand around his fingers. He remembers his outing and smirks. He wouldn’t mind if it were her again. If only he could be so lucky.

“Astarion!”

“There it is- good luck, soldier,” Karlach whispers before grabbing her beverage to dart for the breakroom.

“Yes, sir?” Astarion sagely dips his head in a formal bow as he watches Raphael massage his temples.

“Please cover for Haarlep again,”

“Of course, sir.” Filling in for an incubus isn’t the job he’d thought he’d be doing while slaving away for an archdevil, but its excellent overtime and exceptional pay convince him to fill out the request sheet every once in a while. When he steps through the portal he’s met with familiar darkened windows and the scent of vanilla, votives burning on every shelf and surface.

“Hope you weren’t busy?” He turns to see her standing in the middle of her little summoning circle, far too overdressed for his tastes, and smile bright and shining in the dim room.

“Ofelia,” He smirks, catching the spellbook when she tosses it at him.

“It’s already bookmarked, at least…” She walks closer, brown eyes flashing playfully as her long dark hair falls over her shoulder. “That’s if I read the fine print correctly.” He glances at the page, hellish heart flaring with warmth at the infernal word for binding. He grins.

“Cheeky pup,”

[midnightscramble]

So, here’s my idea if you plan to make an part 2 for the Violet fic: Violet will try to get closer to the maid because of what she was felling but with the excuse she just wants to be friends to the maid and then get this felling away but end up going wrong and the felling just get strong.

It's just an idea that popped into my head, so if you want to add something I'd love it!!, your writing is really good, so I'm sure it will be good

Good luck, Maid! Part 2 (Violet Bridgerton x fem!Reader)

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

The Masterlist

Author’s Note: thanks for the kind words! If it is not to your liking try requesting something else (don’t be shy!) Happy readings to you.

Summary: After an unexpected encounter, Violet and Miss Y/n grow closer and new feelings emerge in Violet.

Warnings: slight internalized homophobia, very tame period typical homophobia, jealousy, somewhat salacious thoughts/daydreams on Violet's end, no Beta read

Violet woke from a restless sleep. She turned to her side, flinging her hair out of her face. Moonlight filtered through the curtains, reflecting off the white sheets and illuminating the space around her, particularly the side of the bed Edmund used to occupy. Reaching her hand out she smoothed the cool sheet. Similar to dirt on the forest floor churning as spring arrives, the mattress that once so vividly held his imprint now rose to meet her fingertips. 

By the height of the moon she assessed that there would be three hours before the sun emerged. She shut her eyes in hopes of returning to sleep. With no such luck, she gathered the edge of her nightgown and gingerly got out of bed. Perhaps a cup of tea could settle her. 

Knowing it was considered improper, she silently made her way through the halls and down to the kitchen. The knotty pine door was left ajar giving her pause. She stood frozen, peering through the cracks when suddenly the door opened, leaving her face to face with Miss Y/n. The younger woman shrieked before she could register who it was. Once she had, her hand flew up and clasped over her mouth in silent apology.

Whispering, Y/n took a step forward leaving them no more than a foot apart, “Lady Violet, is something the matter?” 

Partially stunned into silence by their proximity, Violet stuttered “uh yes, I just came for tea. I am having trouble settling for the night.” Her nose twitched with unexpressed energy, feeling glued to the floor but wanting nothing more than to sprint back to the confines of her bedroom. 

“Allow me to take care of that…will Chamomile do?” Violet nodded dumbly in response and followed Y/n back into the kitchen. Violet reasoned that by agreeing to this impromptu late night company, she could get to know the other woman in a friendly manner.

As Y/n put the pot on, Violet awkwardly stood beside the kitchen table watching the silhouette of the woman. The nightgown she wore was simple, conservative even, but the way it tightened around her hips and pulled at her chest made Violet’s cheeks heat. Her hands felt restless, an urge to reach out and touch the other woman washed over her. For such a simple nightgown, it was causing complex feelings to arise in her. Feelings that were provocatively, decidedly so, not of a "friendly" nature.

Violet’s gawking was interrupted as Y/n turned to face her, and she flinched at being caught. Not revealing anything, Y/n moved the pot off of the fire and grabbed a cup. She had noticed Lady Violet’s staring earlier in the evening as she got her ready for the Kent’s ball, but had chalked it up to the newness of her company. However, upon this development, unfamiliarity would be a mislabel.

She had known the company of the other woman before, in fact the young maid found herself working for the Bridgerton family after being caught with the wife of her previous employer. To not draw attention to the situation, the Lord of the house released her from service with a graceful letter of recommendation, however made it very clear that if she were to be seen publicly with the Lady of the house, such grace and tolerance would not be repeated. 

Anxiety peaked within Y/n as she tried to avert her eyes from the not quite shear cotton nightgown that adorned Violet, “if I may ask, why does sleep evade you tonight?” Moving the tea to the table, she motioned for Violet to sit with her.

Not realizing she was biting the inside of her cheek, Violet released the chewy flesh and took a seat, “Sleep has been evading me as of late. It seems that once I’ve gotten comfortable, uncomfortable dreams wake me.” She looked down at her fingers, trying to remember the hazy details of tonight’s latest installment. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, and there is no cure for this?” She looked at her with sympathy, she too endured sleepless nights, although her’s were mostly from paranoia. Y/n rested her hands flat on the table, trying to soak in the coolness.

“Is there a cure for loneliness?” Violet wondered out loud.

Pausing, Y/n examined Violet’s face, the way her eyelashes fluttered as her eyes darted across the scratches on the table. She must have taken too long to respond as Violet’s eyes shot up to hers, searching for validation. The pair stared at each other in the faint darkness, acutely aware of the dense air forming between them, making it near impossible to breath. The safety of stolen glances was long gone, neither could gather the courage to look away, neither wanted to. Violet's eyes darkened as she envisioned Y/n hovering over her, holding eye contact as the young woman’s hands parted her legs. Her mouth opened slightly as if it were actually happening. Drawn back to reality, she closed it, but she couldn't shake the thoughts.

Violet’s tongue felt heavy, and she feared she would choke on whatever words left her mouth next. Luckily, Y/n beat her to the punch, “I’ve been looking all my life…  I had found it once, but it was only temporary.”

Abandoning all formalities, Violet moved her hand to clasp Y/n’s. The selfish need to feel the touch of her skin overtook her. “I’m sorry to hear that, was he umm.. a good man?” Questions raced through her mind; had Y/n been left penniless, spoiled and then abandoned, had she been ruined?

“I-I think so, but… he… was far above me. No one cares what commoners do with each other, however it would have been the talk of Ton if anyone had found out” Violet’s grip on Y/n’s hand tightened, somewhat in protectiveness and somewhat in jealousy. To think that someone in her social circle had taken advantage of Y/n and then thrown her away enraged her for more than one reason. 

Y/n cleared her throat, “would you like me to escort you back to your room?” Retracting her hand, Y/n intentionally broke the intimate moment. There was a possibility that if Violet knew the truth of what had occurred she wouldn’t dare touch her. Violet nodded and they walked in silence down the halls and up the stairs. 

Violet’s eyes searched the empty halls as she tried to gather her thoughts. She didn't want this time with the other woman to end, especially when she was just starting to understand Y/n... and what she wanted from her.

Y/n on the other hand was nervously looking over her shoulder after each corridor. Although most would not bat and eye at the Lady of the house needing assistance, the compromising state of dress they were in could fuel destructive rumors.

When they reached her door, Violet paused before entering "If I were to have another sleepless night and ventured to the kitchen, would I happen to run into you?" She tried to contain the hope in her voice to not appear pushy or eager.

Swallowing, Y/n struggled to find an appropriate response, "Perhaps, my Lady."

...

Once she was alone in her room, Violet’s jaw was clenched and her eyes stung with unshed tears. Although the subtle rejection had wounded her, she knew the girl was only trying to protect herself. She felt bile rise in her throat, who had made Y/n so guarded?

Once it was an appropriate hour, she planned to call upon Lady Danbury, who was bound to know what company Y/n kept prior. The search for who had dishonored Miss Y/n was about to begin.

[fruitcoops]

Bam-Boo!

Day 10: tattoo artist/ flower shop owner because...what the hell else would Mr Walker dream of, other than his hot goth-jock girlfriend? Never passing up that opportunity. Characters belong to @lumosinlove and header/ fest credit goes to @noots-fic-fests!

Day Nine movie: Jaws (1975)

“Stunning.”

A slitted brow rose. Thomas wanted to melt into the concrete like a sad, sad ice cream cone on a hot beach.

Your sign. Your art. Your face. “Plant?” he offered, holding the terracotta pot up between them.

The woman’s suspicion faded into surprise. She looked between them at the vibrant leaves (Thomas had made sure it was his best, and the same color as her eyes, not that she needed to know that) and smiled.

She smiled.

Smiled.

“Mint,” she said, and then there were dimples. “How did you know?”

Thomas swallowed. “Shot in the dark. Your window was empty.”

“Ouais. Still moving in.”

French. Oh, god. “It’s a hard one to kill.”

“I know.” Her fingernails were short and painted a glossy jet black, like thin pieces of obsidian. She took one leaf gently between her thumb and forefinger, then looked up at him with blinding curiosity. “My mother has it in her garden back home.”

“Where’s home?” Thomas asked before he could choke it back into a friendly hum.

But she answered anyway. “Québec. A lake town outside Montréal.”

“Sounds beautiful.”

“Stunning,” she agreed, grinning. Thomas was grateful for his nigh-invisible blush, because his face was in absolute flames.

“I meant—I meant the store,” he managed lamely.

The woman gave him a look. “Did you?”

Yes. Maybe. “Mostly.”

“Quel dommage.”

“Damage?” Thomas frowned at the storefront behind her. “Is it the plumbing? Mine is always acting up because of the irrigation systems. They’re old buildings, sometimes those things crap out—sorry, fail.”

She was still looking at him, expectant and amused. Thomas’ mouth was chalk-dry.

“I could take a look for you,” he offered. “Just…to make sure it’s working.”

Her gaze pierced his soul the same as a thin silver hoop pierced her upper ear. A wisp of her hair flitted in front of it on the next gust. Thomas flexed his hand at his side and forced himself to remain motionless. “Noelle,” she finally said.

His heart stuttered. “Christmas?”

“My name,” she corrected. Her face sparkled. “My name is Noelle, and I would very much appreciate it if you came in to take a look sometime.”

“Oh.” Very much appreciate it. Her name was Christmas, and she very much appreciated him. “Well. I would be happy to.”

Her clunky black boots squeaked at a slight rock forward and back. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoed.

“Thank you for the mint.”

“You’re welcome.” She was playing with the leaves again, her hand so close he could see each silver ring and had to quickly look away. A fleur-de-lis had been inked in black behind her silver hoop. Who had done it for her? A coworker at the parlor? A friend? Did she do her own tattoos?

Noelle had to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes despite the boots. “I use it in my tea.”

“You have tea?”

“Mhm. Every night.”

“That sounds nice.” He was going to faint. On the ground.

“It is.” Her sweater looked warm, but she still shivered at the next bit of wind that rustled the crunchy leaves down the sidewalk. They’d make it inside by nightfall. Probably.

Thomas might just stay here, now that he thought about it, frozen between his cheerful You Grow, Girl! welcome mat and her own bat-themed one.

“It’s better when it’s fresh,” Noelle continued with half a shrug. “So. Merci beaucoup.”

“We have a lot of extra, if this one doesn’t work out.”

She made a little humming sound, life-green eyes darting over his face and hands and apron and why had he not left his apron inside? “I think it will,” she said decisively.

“Don’t jinx the poor guy,” Thomas tried to joke, giving the mint a light shake. “That’s bad luck he doesn’t need.”

Noelle kept on smiling, like she had no idea what it did to him. “I’ll come by tomorrow for flowers. For the shop.”

For you, Thomas decided right then and there. They’ll all be for you. “Let me know what you like, and I’ll have it ready.”

“I’m sure I’ll find something.” That Mona Lisa smile. She took the pot between callused palms, holding it gently near the rim and under the base. A bit of graphite and ink stained the heels of her hands. He had missed it before. Her eyelashes looked impossibly thick when she glanced up at him. “Any care instructions?”

“Um.” Nothing. Blankness. What was mint, again? “Light and water, mostly. There’s a packet of plant food in the top to start him out while he adjusts.”

Noelle brought the plant up to cover one half of her face. “Feed me,” she joked in a low growl, wiggling the leaves at him. He laughed; the weight across his shoulders grew light. Noelle’s grin widened, all white teeth and a light rose flush to her cheeks.

“I’ll be in at eight tomorrow,” Thomas said before he could chicken out.

Noelle gave a crisp nod. “À demain…?”

“Thomas.” He sounded hoarse even to his own ears. “Thomas Walker.”

She cradled the pot in one hand and waved with the other, stepping back toward the rich black lace and neon purple adorning from her front windows. “See you tomorrow, Thomas Walker.”

Thomas stayed on the sidewalk after all, sneakers refusing to budge. The bell above her door jingled as it shut behind her. “Bye, Christmas,” he whispered to nobody at all.

[clar-a-m]

training with the gf 💪

Inspired by Chalk It Up To Luck

More art for this fic here

[linka-from-captain-planet]

WIP I'll Probably Never Finish Wednesday

sometime in October, I posted a list of kinktober concepts I'd write if my brain weren't soup. I picked at a couple here and there, but none really went anywhere except "Neve and Rana once got sex pollened while working a case together and that's why they act so weird about each other." I wrote the fun part (the lead-up and Neve in full ಠ_ಠ dying mad mode over her lack of control over the situation) and don't feel like writing the boring part (actually banging) or adapting it to suit canon better (re: Brom and such; I wrote most of this pre-release) but I had fun writing it, so I'm posting what I have for funsies

Fun fact: one of Neve's codex entries about the wisps mentions they avoid her notes on "the Opal Rose case" for an unknown reason and I thought that sounded juicy, so I stole it for this fic

Somehow this managed to be a rambling and barely edited 2800 words and I would issue a warning about dubious consent because of the nature of the trope and Neve finding the arousal variably unwelcome, but there is no sex below the cut

The Opal Rose. Western fringe between Docktown and the lower market district. Well past midnight.

The reputation is good enough—but also bad enough that the rumors already seemed credible even before she began her investigation and found a few people willing to speak up. 

Unusually urgent arousal. Erratic behavior. Reckless spending, of course, in desperation to scratch the itch. Someone—something—has Docktown bewitched, and Neve is no prude, but who or whatever is taking advantage of her neighbors won’t get away with it.

Of course, she’s too well-recognized as a gumshoe to simply waltz in the front door; she wouldn’t make it past the bar before the perp wiped all the evidence. Fortunately, it wasn’t hard to track down a disgruntled former employee, who was more than happy to lead them to the back entrance of a back entrance in exchange for a little coin. 

Them, being herself and Templar Rana Savas.

She doesn’t quite buy that this place is harboring a desire demon, as the most dramatic version of the rumor holds… but she doesn’t quite not buy it, and in that case, it’d be risky for anyone to try and face it alone, let alone a mage. She needed backup, someone she could trust—and specifically, someone she could trust possessed enough self-control to resist enthrallment. 

Tightly wound as she is, as contained and orderly as her pristine braid, Rana fit the bill.

Rana left her heavy Templar plate in the barracks and instead donned her lighter—quieter—leather set; fortunately so, as the back passage of this place is so tight that her well-built shoulders already nearly scrape the walls, and she has to hold onto her sword to keep it from bouncing off her shapely ass and clattering against—

Neve stops short, abruptly aware of a sweet, heady humidity and an unnatural warmth wafting down the corridor.

Magic.

Suddenly close enough for Neve to smell the beeswax and mint of her lip balm, Rana leans in and whispers, “What’s wrong?” In the low red lamplight, the full apples of her cheeks are dusted in a far-too-pretty faux flush, and her lips look plump and rosy, as if freshly bitten and sucked by an eager lover.

Tearing herself away, Neve signals for Rana to be quiet so she can re-focus. With each step she guides them closer to the other end, the hallway only grows warmer and the air within it, more charged.

And, with each step, a small shock reverberates up Neve’s legs and settles between them, setting her lightly abuzz and her teeth on edge.

There have been few times in her life when Neve really resented being a mage, but she’ll surely chalk this up as one before it’s all over. Being attuned to the subtle thrum of magic in the air means she can feel it thrumming, all too well, while Rana remains oblivious and collected just an arm’s length away.

If there’s any luck left in her, they’ll finish soon. 

With the investigation. With luck, they’ll be finished soon, with the investigation.

Teeth grit, Neve continues to lead them forward. It’s hardly a minute before they come to a triple-padlocked door, but by the time they reach it, Neve is almost panting and definitely sweating underneath her ascot and coat.

Whatever this is, whatever’s doing this to her—it’s behind that door.

She nods at Rana, who in turn touches her gently on the waist—despite herself, Neve’s skin screams for the contact even through her thick layers—and guides her aside. She listens through the door for a few moments, then fishes a Templar skeleton key from her pocket. Enchanted to open any lock in Minrathous so long as it’s pursuant to orders, it makes quick work of it.

Rana then wraps one long-fingered, dextrous hand around the doorhandle, and the other around the hilt of her sword; her strong shoulder, she braces against the door, preparing to break through if need be. Neve blinks and readies her staff as well as she can with shaking fingers. But when the door swings in, the hardly-more-than-a-closet room is empty save for a workbench laden with jars, boxes, scales, and distillery equipment.

Alchemy, then.

“Love potions” may be the stuff of fairytale, but aphrodisiacs? Feel-good stuff that keeps the hips pumping and the inhibitions lowered far longer than the flesh—and purse—would ordinarily permit? Certainly not unheard of, and needless to say, an illegal use of magic. Neve knows no such brew offhand, but a handy sheet of paper pinned to the wall illuminates the simplicity of the scheme: the active ingredient is some kind of pollen that can be distilled into a spray. Spritz a bit into a room before the client enters, and it’s practically money in a bottle.

Neve would have preferred the demon. Now they’ll have to track down the suppliers, too.

At least they’ll probably be done here soon, and she’ll be able to abscond to her apartment and, well, blow off some steam.

Sighing, Neve steels her nerves and begins to look for a ledger while Rana barricades the door behind them.

The small room is stuffy and over-warm, far worse than the hallway with its proximity to the cookstation and lack of airflow. Dried bits of caked-on gunk on the workbench reveal the cook to be an amateur or at least a slob, and Neve internally curses their clumsy hand. Within minutes, her clothing comes to feel far too heavy and her skin, far too tight; she longs desperately to shed at least her outer layer and accessories, but she has more than a hunch that if she were to start to undress, it’d be difficult to stop at just one layer.

She resents Rana's freedom from the effect again; finished with the door, she joins Neve at the bench completely unawares, yet her close presence makes the effect even more pronounced. She reaches to examine the supplies, and Neve shivers and curses under her breath as a crystal-clear image of those sword-callused but meticulously-manicured hands gliding over her slick skin flashes across her mind’s eye.

It’s not—entirely new. It’s not that Rana isn’t attractive and Neve has never idly entertained the thought of them, well. But—she shakes her head, turning away, but catches another glimpse of Rana in the reflection of a glass flask, and her whole body shudders—there’s a big difference between checking someone out from time to time, and imagining one of their strong hands holding her down—she’d play at resisting, of course, but Rana is simply so much stronger—while the other—

As if on cue, Rana pulls a fist-sized drawstring pouch from a small chest and rolls it between her hands, hefting its fullness curiously before slipping two fingers into its tight velvet opening, stretching it wide open and—

Far too late, the alchemical symbol for volatile stamped all over the pouch registers through the haze in Neve’s mind. She doesn’t even have time to cover her mouth and nose before Rana, recoiling from the puff of fine pollen that surges out of the pouch and hits her in the face, drops it onto the bench with an ominous thunk and a white-hot, shimmering cloud overtakes the small room.

The wash of it is so intense that Neve reflexively touches her eyebrows and lashes to make sure they hadn’t been burnt off; to her relief, they’re intact, as is her skin even though it feels like it’s prickling with heat like a sunburn. 

But the heat is internal, and Neve swiftly realizes that she’s flushing intensely, and then the effects she’d already been bothered by slam over her like a wave: her skin tingles, her stomach flutters, her skin blooms over with sweat, her heart races…

And a pang of desire hits her like a brick to the gut, so hard it staggers her. 

She scrambles to catch the edge of the workbench to keep from crumpling to the floor, but a jittering hand grabs her by the elbow and steadies her first. Even through layers of leather and silk, the touch is searing; and even though it’s hardly an erogenous zone, the sheer pleasure of being touched at all when she needs so badly makes a humiliating squeak of a moan tumble through her lips before Neve can clap a hand over her mouth and stifle it.

Rana snatches her own hand back like she’d been bitten, the pupils of her wide eyes dilating so fast that they turn her cool green irises nearly black. She may not be brushed up on her alchemical symbols, but she at least seems to understand what she’s done; despite her deep flush—real this time, not a trick of light—she looks absolutely ashen, and scrambles away into the corner farthest as possible from Neve to hastily blow her nose into her sleeve and spit on the floor. 

That’s how Neve knows this job has really, truly gone shit-sideways. In anything even close to resembling her right mind, Templar Rana Savas would absolutely never. 

“It’s well into your system already, I’m afraid,” Neve warns through grit teeth, her grip on the bench white-knuckled. Nothing she’d gleaned from perusing the documentation strewn about indicates this stuff is harmful—nor would it make sense to maim the clientele, anyway—but, in its concentrated and unprocessed state… this experience is guaranteed to be unpleasant, to put it delicately, but precisely how or how much remains to be seen.

“Well, what else can we do?” Rana snaps over her shoulder, and Neve shudders as one explicit, tantalizing answer flashes across her mind immediately.

She should not entertain the thought—will only make it worse, surely—but. Standing just beyond her reach, Rana’s breathing is labored, rushing in and out of Neve’s ears just as it does her lungs, stretching her stiff leather jacket tight across her fit back. Neve can imagine the moment when even this trivial restriction becomes overwhelming, and could hardly blame Rana for clawing at it, her deft fingers working feverishly to free herself. Neve can’t actually see them with Rana’s back turned, but she can imagine them, and in turn, her cunt clenches so hard around nothing—empty, excruciating nothing—that it honest-to-the-Maker hurts.

It properly knocks the wind out of her, and for that Neve’s actually grateful, because it keeps her from even the remote possibility of opening her mouth to suggest…

Distress and arousal alike flood her system, raising her heart rate to a sickly, shallow race and filling her mind with static. With her every nerve peeled raw and her every sense aflame, Neve couldn’t miss the discontent rumble from the other side of the room, despite Rana’s apparent attempt to shrink enough to disappear. Neve risks the glance, and finds Rana nearly doubled-over, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her red face pressed against the cool block walls. Her attempts to cool off by removing her jacket, obviously, failed; she’s already sweated through her linen undershirt such that it clings to the muscles underneath and Neve can watch them roll, one by one, with her every breath and fidget.

Unable to bear it any longer—and besides, Rana started it (both, this mess—why did she have to fondle the damn bag!—and the undressing)—Neve finally lets herself whip off her fascinator, ascot, and leather gauntlets. Her overcoat, she wrenches open with such clumsy urgency that one of its studded buttons pops off and plinks across the floor, a tiny tinny sound that may as well have been a gaatlok explosion to her harried senses.

Rana’s nerves must be fried, too, or at least this situation hasn’t dampened her usual level of vigilance; she turns around briskly at the clatter, hand hovering over her sword, in just enough time to watch Neve also yank open her high collar and top buttons, exposing the slick column of her throat, the notch of her collarbone, and the hint of the swell of her breasts clinging to the plane of her chest.

Her stare is so intense that Neve can feel it needling her skin like a tattoo, following the exact path of a drop of sweat that meanders down from her throat to the underside of her breast with a hawk’s focus. Rana’s full lips lull open, panting; and then she grimaces, and her legs seem to tremble with the effort of holding herself up, or… perhaps. Back. 

It’s enough of a foothold for Neve’s overwhelming need to seize control, overriding her better judgment and shattering the remainder of her hope that she may escape this excursion with her dignity intact.

“Rana,” she breathes cautiously, her voice so thick with desire that she hardly recognizes herself. Perhaps that’s for the better. “We—,” she starts, and grimaces through another painful throb, this one even more urgent than the last, “—I think we can make this more… bearable.” 

“You can reverse it?” Rana asks, through great effort tearing her gaze off Neve’s tits to look her in the eye, her voice raspy but hopeful. She looks on the verge of collapse, leaning heavily into the wall. Fidgeting, seemingly desperate to do anything with her hands but what her own addled mind is undoubtedly suggesting, she pushes her sleeves up to the elbow, rubbing absently at her own skin. From the heat, or perhaps from how hard she’d been clutching them, the muscles and veins or her hands and forearms all have popped under her skin, glowing with a light dew of sweat.

After an embarrassingly long pause, during which Neve realizes she’d been leering—and salivating—rather than answering, Neve manages to reply, “No. Sorry.” 

Rana groans, and it’s no different than her usual complaining, but it sounds so good that Neve fears she might actually be going insane. Rushing ahead of her self-consciousness, she continues, “But, I think if we… It might be over with faster, if we… got it out of our systems.”

The roundabout suggestion isn’t lost on Rana; her jaw drops, scandalized, and crosses her arms defensively. “If we—I’m working!” 

As grave and humiliating as the overall situation feels, Neve can’t help but chuckle and, half-horrified to have said it before she’s even finished saying it, teases, “Oh, and you never think about throwing me up against a wall whenever we work together?”

Quick as a whip, Rana retorts, “Sure, Neve, and you spend half the time investigating my ass because you like my pants.”

Judging by the way her eyes widen in disbelief and her ears turn fully red, the quip slipped past her self-control just like Neve’s did hers. In any ordinary circumstance, Neve would be mortified—maybe she slightly undersold ‘checking someone out from time to time’ mentally, but surely she’s not that careless!—but in this bizarre one, she finds the callout… thrilling. 

[What would have happened next: 

Having accidentally acknowledged that they ordinarily are attracted to each other, the energy shifts slightly. 

A pang of arousal staggers Rana, and this time Neve catches her. The contact gives them both such relief + a feeling of light euphoria that becomes clear Neve was right, and that it’s the way to stop the agony.

Rana tries to rationalize everything like “they can still be professional after” and blah blah but Neve pushes her against the wall and kisses her to cut her off (classic)

They finger or grind or whatever

As soon as they’re both done, they feel weird about it but Neve can’t quite find it in her to regret it

They agree to pretend it never happened even though it's clear neither of them are quite satisfied with that conclusion (pro move) 

Back in her apartment, Neve can’t help but write up some notes on “the Opal Rose case” in her journal but tells herself it’s just any other case and pretends she doesn’t feel Some Type of Way about it]

[wannaeatramyeon]

Lookism and their silly lil hobbies

My headcannons of their less obvious interests!

Daniel: now he's in the fashion department and earning some money, he guesses he should take more of an interest in current trends. He's still wearing Jay's castoffs and he's happy with them but he takes a huge interest in women's fashion for his momma. She's worked hard and she deserves nice things and Daniel wants to spoil her 🥰

Jay: his hobby? Daniel. His thoughts? Daniel. His dreams? Daniel. But guns and motorbike? This boy has a thing for Hollywood action films and he has pretty good taste too. Classics-ish such as Matrix, Terminator, John Wick

Zoe: she loves watching animal rehab videos on social media, and even the videos of newtubers helping out homeless or down on their luck people. Most of it may be scripted but the act of kindness (even for selfish purposes) makes her melt

Vasco: you think this man doesn't have a Pinterest account? He doesn't spend his spare time putting boards together? His boards aren't public? He's not ashamed. He's got at least 1 for parties, 1 for golden retrievers and 1 for Hero Man pics

Jace: kdramas, the more romantic with as many tropes the better. He likes a good story filled with miscommunication, lots of crying, scenes in the rain and open eyed kisses 😳

Zack: sneaky little hobby of reading up on supernatural shit. After running into the ghost of J High, he's been absorbed with ghosts and demons - in particular how to avoid getting cursed...

Mira: meditation. Putting up with Zack all the time and the violent boys, she needs her moment of peace before she gets overwhelmed. She's also had some pretty traumatic experiences, so this helps her to centre and recollect her thoughts

Johan: unironically a sneakerhead. Started off researching expensive shoes so he can recognise them but now he's fully into the hobby. Way too tight to buy any for himself when he could be saving for his momma's operation but it's nice to window shop 🥺

Vin Jin: we all know he would be twerking to Dukes music. But apart from obviously his music (cos music is his life yknow), he would be leaving hate messages and death threats on Dukes social media and fanpages. He hate watches Dukes live streams but cant stop the twerk creeping up on him

Mary Kim: she's in the Vocal and Dance department but this girl can shred like no tomorrow. She has a band she's the lead vocalist and guitarist of that she keeps off Vins radar so he can keep the shitty rap to himself

Crystal: hiking and the outdoors. It's a way to keep her second body fit and get away from her desk and all the business bullshit. During the days that Gun acts as her bodyguard, she tells him to stay at least 50ft away so he doesn't ruin the mood

Jake: memelord. Cos at least humour is free. He collects pics and memes, and has so many shitty dad jokes up his sleeve to send to the Big Deal members and groupchats that he often gets kicked out or blocked. Hearing their exasperation at another one of his messages always brightens up his day

Samuel: lol drinking as a hobby. this man should be spending all his spare time in therapy but can't win them all 🤷‍♀️ Doesn't do much on his own time that doesn't advance his goals but enjoys sipping on some smooth expensive shit. Not the best for his health, but he needs something to block out the demons

Lua: not the queen of info for nothing. Spends a lot of her time on social media, forums and the dark web reading up on info (and gossip). Shes also kicked up a gear with her Muay Thai training so the assholes in Big Deal would stop underestimating her

Sinu: all that time being locked up with that little bit of chalk? You know what he did? HE'S A FIC WRITER. Headcannons of Big Deal, Sinu X Yeonhui. What the guys would be doing now, what sort of girlfriend Yeonhui would be (I wrote this as a joke but it's pretty depressing)

Gun: you thought that was a casual notepad and pen he had on hand for brekdaks autograph? No bitch its his actual autograph book. He lives and breathes fighting and fangirls a little internally meeting his fighting idols

Goo: anime and boardgames. Yes yes he's a nerd ok. He watched 1 too many anime shows and in his head he's the protagonist fighting his way to the top, with his sidekick Gun. But who do you think left all the boardgames in that shitty house? Gun is boring and Goo needs entertaining. It's one way to let them get competitive without beating the shit out of each other... Usually

[dorylinae-supremacy]

Taking a break from writing striped hat so I can ramble about fae AU's again they're one of my fav things ever.

Tags: DSBI, dark Techno, dark Phil, dark Kristin, mentioned Kristin, kidnapping, impersonation, usual fae stuff tbh, its like 600 words of me rambling about fic ideas below the cut, read more if thats your jam.

Idk if I've mentioned it before but I've been toying with the concept that fae take the face of the first human they've tricked and then it slowly morphs into something thats more their own.

This isn't rooted in any actual folklore as far as I'm aware but I like the vibe it adds. It adds another layer of terror to every interaction with them. Each time you come across a fae, you're looking into the eyes of their first victim.

Maybe they tweak it a bit here and there so they can lure other humans better but I like to think it stays mostly the same. It also adds another layer to things from the fae's perspective as well.

A fae close to their family might deliberately pick out and push a human into a deal if they think it'll make them look similar to their other families faces.

It can also add a layer where fae bloodlines might literally just prey upon entire human families purely for aesthetics. The worst part is a human might not even know that thats the case, they might just chalk it up to a generational curse or bad luck.

Something like this wouldn't apply to four seasons since they werent born fae and thus already had their faces but that wouldn't apply to Phil. The dude they see could genuinely just be the face of some unlucky traveller centuries ago.

These faces could also be used as lures for other humans who might've known the tricked person before. All the fae has to do is look a little scuffed up and beg for help in a hidden circle and they've got a steady supply of victims.

It also means that if any of the humans they steal do get out somehow, the people they knew might turn away from them and assume a fae is tricking them.

I know I'm rambling but its such a tasty plot device.

But anyway I wanna try it eventually. I have one fleshed out fic in my head where fae!Wil tries to trick human!Techno but kinda messes up the order that you're meant to do things.

Fae take the face after as a trophy of sorts, he took it before making any deals to try and be more relatable to him since they're both kids.

Human!Techno is, of course, a very well adjusted prince and naturally decides that this fae is his twin and that he has to have him. So with the help of years of training against fae, he's able to trick Wilbur and steal him.

The rest of the fic is Wil being terrified because the yoink has been reversed but even after he reveals the fact that he's a fae Kristin and Phil have already decided to keep him. No running for him :)

But I have another in mind where twinsduo end up taking the faces of two princes in a kingdom but then get mistaken for actually being them.

Maybe the princes were playing in the forest before getting yoinked but either way a royal guard comes and just drags them back to the castle.

They can't really do much about it since they're super young fae and there's a lot of iron around but things only get worse when the antarctic empire invades and takes them hostage, still thinking that they're the actual princes.

Originally they were just gonna bide their time until they can go back into the woods again but now they're being kept as hostage and Phils getting more and more interested in how odd they keep acting.

Obviously it ends in them getting surprise adopted but I'm not sure how to get from point A to B yet so more brainrot will be scheduled for when I work it out.

[mar1na1sse]

Currently thinking about writing an Itto x reader fic. A friends to lovers oneshot white tedious pinning and yearning. It’ll be chalked full of flowery scenes and descriptions, to help sell just how deeply in love they are with each other. I’m talking details about both POV’s thoughts of “oh but they’d never like me like that”. I imagine the gang is there like “Just get together already for archon’s sake!!”.

Thinking about laying in a field of flowers the two of you found after tumbling down a hill during a race, starring at the way his platinum hair reflects the light of the sun in such an ethereal manner. How despite him being an oni he was always so gentle when he cradled you in his large arms. How he stares back at you with all the fondness of the world, as if you hung the stars in the sky just for him, and honestly? If it meant him looking at you like that, with those eyes? You would.

Thinking about you playing genius invocation TCG against him. He keeps losing, of course he does, but that doesn’t stop him from claiming “you have beginners luck” or “he was just warming up”. He can’t help but admit defeat in his own mind. What a rare thing for a prideful man as himself, but you where just perfect, smart and pretty and caring. Obviously you would win. But he doesn’t say that, that would be such a weird thing for you best friend to say right?

Thinking about Itto getting jealous when someone flirts with you when you’re walking through the colourful streets of Inazuma City. This guy thinks he stands a chance compared to “the one and oni Itto”. Obviously your oni was the better choice! It’s even in the title he gave himself ,your oni! This rando was nothin’ compared to him. Then the thought hits him that.. maybe all you were was friends, just friends. But when you shuffle closer to Itto in discomfort from the other man, he knows that even if you don’t choose him.. he’ll always be there for you.

Thinking about Itto being more instinctive around you and that’s when you know he’s caught: hook line and sinker. He starts gifting you little trinkets, a flower or rock he found. He starts purring when you nap together, starts acting even more cocky than usual if it’s to show off his strength. He’s trying to provide for you, and in the animalistic part of his brain he’s showing how amazing of a mate he is.

They go out on a date in the end. They get their happy, fairytale ending because what else would I write reader inserts for other than to live vicariously through them?

Something about longing for a romance in a romance story scratches my brain in that perfect way.

Should I write this?

[her-acts-of-cruelty]

HIII i love eddie so much i have this scenario bouncing around my poor little brain about like him sitting out in the rain because he doesn’t want to be in the house and the reader who’s the neighbor that moved in after eddie went to jail and they like invite him inside and give him some soup and tea :-) give that man a nice cozy time. he deserves it

HI SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I HAVE BEEN A BUSY LITTLE BOY!

I really liked the idea, I've done a little spin on how I thought Eddie deserved at least one friend who tried to help him. Am I exploring the concept of him being gay and leaving his wife for me? That's for me to know. I'm hoping this reaches the right audience, because I love men and men should love me too.

Also if you have more ideas you should send them. For chatacter ai bots or fics.

Synopsis: bringing an old friend in for a cuppa after seeing him get caught in the rain. Pre established friendship and !???

Cw: some language, mention of beer, but overall its tame

-------------------

You'd never really had a significant reputation in Chadder. You drifted outside the community, maybe it was your age, but you never really felt close with the village.

Aside from Eddie that is.

You used to work next door to his garage, in the little shop. Passing each other each frosty morning turned into combining your routes. Your radiating presence most certainly a stark contrast from the long and dull day he had alone. So walking to work with each other soon turned into going for a pint together to celebrate the day.

You'd exchange stories, little artifacts from each others day. Sometimes there'd be gossip, things You'd over heard in the shop with the things his loose lipped customers would mumble as he worked on their cars. Other times he'd tell you about his kids, what they'd been up to at school and how proud he was of his growing girls. You two made it work.

That was, until he disappeared.

His incarceration was much to your surprise and it seemed you were the only one who had your doubts. You chalked that up to why the residents went a little quiet when you walked by.

Things became a lot slower without Eddie. Your routine had suddenly been lost, your source of the news gone- it seemed as though you were well and truly alone.

By whatever sick twist of luck though, five years had passed and Eddie was out.

Your stomach churned when you first lay eyes on him, your body unsure of how to react- so you did the one logical thing. You stayed away from him.

You avoided him like the plague, worried about all the stewing feelings that had blossomed in his absence. It ate up at you quickly though, the way his face dropped when you turned around and marched off made you wish you could choke up your insides and never dream again.

It went on like this for a couple weeks. Now that spring was approaching, the rainy season was in full swing. You hid in your house most of the time anyway, but hearing the sudden large rain drops on the windows made your expression drop. You bolted outside to grab your drying washing off the line that'd been put up in your front garden. As you cursed yourself, something out the corner of your eye stuck out.

Eddie.

Alone.

You bit your lip and brought your things inside, tossing them carelessly into a basket by the washing machine. The rain wasn't slowing down, its aggressive downpour had you praying Eddie had left that spot and rushed home.

When you checked out the window though, he was still slumped against one of the black metal fences- trying his best to smoke a drooping cigarette.

Your stomach did another backflip as you decided what to do. You couldn't just leave him there to freeze, could you? You got a few more curses out of your system before kicking off some shoes and marching into the rain.

"Eddie?"  You called out as you approached him, the look of panic across his face told you all you needed to hear.

"(Name)- I didn't know you uh- it's raining why are you out 'ere?" He scrambled up off the floor, feeling sorry for himself as he came to his full height.

"Could ask you the same, what's going on? Shouldn't you be with the wife?"

He winced, "ah- its just a bit right now"

You nodded, watching him slowly get more soaked, "you should come back for a cuppa yknow, you're gonna catch your death out here like that"

He wanted to fight you, wanted you to know he belonged to be out here, fighting for warmth like the animal he is.

But also he wanted a warm cup of tea.

So he picked himself off the ground and looked down at you, expecting you to lead. You sigh once more and gesture for him to follow you back inside your house.

He kicks his boots off at the door and let  his eyes wander the walls. It's almost like he'd left his troubles outside, the way a childlike wonder filled him. You hadn't changed much since he'd left, and he liked that.

You'd already made it to the kitchen, working on tea, "Eddie? I might have a few things of yours in my wardrobe soon if you want something a hit warmer to slip into?" His gaze left the walls and met yours, nodding softly, "Yeah that'd uhm-" "Where they usually are, help yourself," You gestured for him for him head upstairs.

A light must have turned on, maybe this was the first sense of familiarity he'd been allowed to chase

. Gentle footsteps made their way down the floor and the hulking man now standing before you in some grey joggers and tee.

"Thank you- you don't know how much it-" "I heard about what happened, I didn't know how to approach it," you blurted, your body clearly wanting to rid the words from  it's festering wound.

He furrowed his brows a little, "is that why you've you've avoiding me like everyone else?"

"It's not like everyone else, you know it never has been-"

"Then what is it?"

"Eddie your tea is going cold-" you tried to shrug him off.

That wasn't the answer he was looking for, you saw it in the way his expression slowly sunk, "do you think I'm a monster too?"

"No! It's just- fucking hell Eddie, I just haven't been well without you." He slowly sat down onnthe couch at that.

Silence choked the room as you took the note to sit beside him. He pulled you close, fingertips caressing your side as he grabbed you. His head rested on yours and for a moment you felt... at peace? You're not sure what it was, but you sighed and got closer.

"You know I didn't uhm-" he tried to break the silence, an attempt to reassure you.

"Yeah I do, tried to get you proven innocent."

He didn't seem to surprised by the notion, "thank you."

[therealslimshakespeare]

Where can i read Both sides now? If i click the link in the old post you reblogged i cannot find the post :(

Alas, stupid deactivated links. Here, I shall post it anew for you 💋

Sweet like Cinnamon

Warnings and Summary: the entire theme of this is loving on Elvis’ chief embarrassment: his uncut cock. So, be warned, ahead lies body consciousness, savoring of foreskins, edging, talking to cocks, Elvis in subspace and bad safe word etiquette 😆 also suspend your belief that he didn’t get past this with multiple women before in the 60’s

Repost of an old fic

“Gentle now, no need to thump it, it ain’t got a spirit you can animate by kickin’ it like that.”

Susie huffs at him and aims another whack at the motorcycle’s exposed engine with her dainty hand, like she can slap it into submission. “Well then you try!” she whines at him and Elvis woulda done so first if she hadn’t beat him to it. After that he’d gotten distracted by watching the way her bottom looked in those jeans while she was bent double.

“I’ll do just that if you’d get up and stop thumpin’ it.”

“I am not ‘thumping it’, Presley, merely cajoling.” she points her little chin in the air haughtily and Elvis is filled with the desire to grab it between his fingers and shake it. She’d wrinkle her nose at that and all the little freckles on it would fold up.

“Mhmm, well, get outta the way Susie, let the ole man have a shot at it.”

“Good luck.” she grins and moves to stand up and he watches a little too long as she hikes her jeans back up so her tied shirt meets the top of them. He mourns the loss of that sliver of skin and bends down to take a look himself, conscious of her eyes on his ass.

They’re fair like that, Susie and him, he doesn’t watch nothin’ on her that he hasn’t let her watch on him. That’s what good buddies do, they don’t begrudge a mate. So he doesn’t begrudge her much when after getting the offending part off he feels the pointed toe of her shoe slide against the seam of his pants. It gets boring stranded on the side of a country road in the middle of the Californian desert, and little girls need their fun.

“Almost done,” he tells her, “this just came loose, s’why it’s rattlin’ like that. Didn’t help that somebody smacked, too.” he looks up at her out of the corner of his eye, making sure to layer on the patronizing airs so that she’ll break and smack him. She does, lightly on his shoulder and he chuckles and ignores the way the gravel digs into his knees and chalks up his slacks.

“We’re going be late.” she observes, and it’s not a whine, it’s just statement.

“Thought your landlady didn’t know we were comin’?” he grunts, working on the obvious problem he can perceive now, scorching his fingers on the hot metal.

“Careful!” she fusses as he hisses from the burn, rising to his feet and brushing off his slacks, readying to try cranking the motor again.

“You know what I meant,” Susie goes on, admiring him as he swings those long legs to straddle the bike, elegantly swathed as they are in pants tailored to the last inch by darling Edith, “This has thrown us off by an hour and knowing you and your propensities when in the company of little old ladies -we’ll be late at the studio. I’m calling it now.”

His face clouds over for a moment as he ponders the prospect of getting chewed out by the director for taking a brief and condoned break. Just to zip over and wish Susie’s landlady a happy birthday. The shriveled little munchkin was starry eyed the one time he swung by to pick Susie up, and with her son overseas it seemed the nice and gentlemanly thing to do, to use the break to brighten her day. The motorbike breaking down on the side of the road wasn’t part of the plan.

“I ain’t turnin’ back now,” he mutters, frowning at the horizon that wavers in the scorching afternoon sun, “They’ll find somethin’ to bitch about anyway, and you needed the break. Say, you alright with that? With playin’ hooky? I’ll tell ‘em it was my idea.”

“Oh hush now, ‘course I don’t mind and I’ll take full responsibility for myself, Presley.”

They both know he’ll get in between her and anyone trying to chew her out but she tries, really tries to take some of the brunt of the condemnation directed at them when they go off the rails together, lost in their own little world. One where midnight dancing, helicopter racing and practical jokes are king.

She cozies up behind him on the narrow seat, her thighs bracketing his famous hips and the bike cranks to life. They make it to Doddi’s birthday party before it’s in full swing. Susie spends the next hour and a half on Elvis’ knee as he chats with her landlady who informs him she had her son, the one overseas, at the ripe age of fifty five.

“Well I’ll be!” he whistles and that starts a very earnest discussion about modern medicine and the wacky new advice to cut back on fats. Doddi is adamantly against it, as is Elvis. Susie gets her opinion asked after awhile and she informs them that whatever they’re both doing now is obviously working for them. That earns her a ticklish kiss on the neck from Elvis and a sage smile from Doddi.

“You know something, Miss Dean,” Doddi addresses Susie, “I have seen you starring in three films alongside this man.”

“Yes ma’am!” Susie nods, they've got dynamite chemistry and Hollywood isn’t one to let a thing rest until it’s dead from overuse. As for Elvis and herself, well, contracts are contracts and just maybe they’d rather kill their careers alongside each other, out of anyone else in the world.

“And in each one,” Doddi goes on, “you begin as an innocent until finally succumbing. It’s a testament to your skill that you can begin again, three times at that, as a virgin with each new start, when you must have been plundered at some point in real life.”

Elvis had said something equally insightful to her ages ago, something about her doe eyes and gentle face making him feel like the first time each time. Each time they do a scene, of course. Because they’re just buddies. No matter if her real first time was with him. And a good costar is meant to make you feel some kind of way so that you can play off it. It’s just good sportsmanship.

Elvis pats her on the back as she chokes on her mimosa, unable to take Doddi’s inquiring gaze for much longer, seems she’s asking as to when Susie herself got plundered and it’s a memory best left buried. Blessedly, Elvis changes the subject with his typical, stuttering charm.

Drifting on a wholesome high, they slip out together, a good three hours and multiple slices of cake later. He’s pensive on the drive back, speed limit actually being observed and Susie lays her cheek on his shoulder to watch the thoughts flit along his nobel profile.

“What’s wrong, Mopey?” she asks him.

“Nothin’, jus thinkin’.”

Gloomy thoughts by the set of his pouty lips. “Well I want some breeze to help with this heat, so gun it, Presley.”

Those lush lips curve up at that, his shoulders shaking out his mood a little as a rivulet of water the folks around here call a creek comes into view. He doesn’t take the bridge over it, he plunges the motorbike down the bank with Susie shrieking out her joy behind him, gripping his belly for dear life as the motor fights to get them back up the opposite side without tipping them backwards.

It’s damn good fun. Pity their director doesn’t agree when they get back wet and a little muddy, hours late. Filming has been canceled for the evening, and choice words are had about tardiness and Susie’s poor delivery of a inane line of script she hates with a passion.

Elvis takes all of this with dogged sullenness, only biting back when Susie’s name gets drug through the mud. She succeeds at hauling him away and up into his suite, badgering him about helping her with the line.

They’ll end up eating too much hotel food and philosophizing on the how each subsequent film they’ve made has diminished in artistic quality. If they really feel brave maybe they’ll end up kissing, just for practice, just because they’re lonely and the other understands. And won’t hold them to it.

This time he disappears into the shower, a quicker one than usual and when he comes out in nothing but a towel, swearing over having forgotten his clothes, he looks like the proverbial stormcloud is hanging over his wet and sleeked back hair. Susie has got burgers and cola at hand on the bed and is ready for the mood to be over. She’s worn out, too.

“What are you so sore about Presley?” she asks, gently because he might as well have a sign hanging around his neck reading: “fragile! handle with care!”

“You wanna know what it is?” He grunts, rubbing at his face, rosy and gleaming from the shower.

“Yes!”

“I’ll tell ya honey, I’ll tell ya. It’s that I had a grand time with you today and yet I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about how if we would just stop foolin’ around then-“

“-hey now, it was your idea to fool around!” she protests.

“-I know I know, but as I was sayin’ I was preoccupied with the thought that I just wanted to get the next damned scene over with.”

“The one scheduled for tomorrow now?”

“Yeah that one. Another windshield scene.”

“Another what?”

“Windshield scene, honey.” he insists, a little hurt she didn’t get his meaning right away, it was the thing digging at him for awhile now, making him sore. “You knew how many scenes I’ve done where they’ve got a camera on the hood shootin’ through the windshield, while I’m sitting in the driver’s seat pretendin’ to drive while a screen flashes scenery behind me, and I sing a song that sounds a lot like the ones I’ve sang doing the same damn thing in the same damn movie before it? And I’m talkin’ just movies since I been back stateside.”

“Quite a few I gather.” Susie’s mouth sours in sympathy. “So, New Years resolution, no more windshield scenes.”

“Add jet-skies to that list.” he flops back on the bed and blows out a breath, making his lips flap with all the dignity of a five year old.

Susie has long since learned to humor him when he’s in this sort of mood and she contents herself with leaning against the wall and watching the long line of his body, bronze and sturdy and interrupted only by the stark white towel around his waist. He manspreads even in a towel and she is tempted to take a peak. She’d probably get spanked for it and tonight she’s unsure it would be a jovial slapping around, he’s testy and nearly looking for an excuse to blow up. Or pout face first into his pillow until he gets hungry -he’s shockingly petulant for a man dually capable of the occasional bout of astounding maturity.

“Eat your burger.” she nudges his bare foot and the feel of her shoe against his skin gets him to raise his head and give her a once over.

“Get comfy honey, you don’t need to be all in your heels and such.”

“Well, i wasn’t sure you really felt like having me stay.”

“Don’t be silly, lil girl.” he rolls his eyes, and sits up, abs rippling and scrunching as he hunches into himself and starts gnawing down on the burger. “This ain’t cooked enough.”

“You weren’t cooked long enough.” Susie tosses back and takes a seat next to him on the foot of the immaculately made bed, kicking her shoes off, and she doesn’t miss the way a pleased smile creeps over his face. He puts the burger up to her mouth and looks so expectant that she takes a bite and lets the mustard and onions and beef ruin the spearmint aftertaste of her gum. “It’s cooked perfectly.” she admonishes him and he sneers at her though his eyes twinkle. “Alright mopey! Nothing else for it, I’m putting on a record.”

Susie abandons him and he watches as she bounces up and across his sterile hotel room to the one comfort he hauled with him, the record player and its case of records. She flips through it until she pulls out the man she commits infidelity against Elvis in her heart with, night after night. Sam Cooke.

She messes with the needle. “Ooh you’ve stopped it at ‘Only Sixteen’ -you thinking about me when all alone, Mopey?” She grins at him so sly and knowingly that he rolls his eyes, and actor though he is he, he can’t feign indifference. “Thinking about sweet little me and how you came in and bamboozled me? Had your naughty, naughty way with me?”

“Don’t remind me!” he groans and flops back on the bed, half eaten burger in hand. “That weren’t my most upright behavior but I was left contendin’ against the sight of your pretty butt in those frilly little swim shorts and I-“

“-couldn’t help yourself?” Susie recites from her stance between his splayed legs, her hands planted on her hips and he really does adore the way she looks when she’s fed up with him. Her face puckers up and she looks at him determinedly, like he’s a project and she’s a contractor. Like he’s some human sofa she’s gonna refurbish or somethin’. Sends a little shudder through him and he braces for what she says next because he feels it comin’ before those red lips start moving, he just knows her that well by now. “I didn’t mind it Elvis, you were a bit boorish about it but look at us now, we’re the best of friends ever since-“

“-damn funny way to make friends.” he scrubs his face and tries to get rid of the mental picture of baby fresh Susie with her cheek pressed to the janitor closet’s door, and the feel of those frilly swimsuit panties shoved to the side and scraping him as he buried himself in her again and again.

“I guess I more wonder why we haven’t done it again.” she honest to god pouts down at him, half a decade worth of platonic hanky panky wearing her down.

“What!” he sits up with an ungainly flail and Susie relishes the way his pupils blow out and his eyebrow quirks in indignation as if he hasn't stared at her with intent written all over his face, day after day, for the last five years since. “What, hang on now Susie, we’re buddies you and I,” he gestures back and forth between them, his hand knocking against her belly as she towers over him for once, “we’re buddies.” he repeats as if he didn’t have his head buried beneath her skirt two nights ago. That’s apparently on the list of things buddies do for each other.

“Buddies can make sweet love too, Presley.” she teases.

“Sure-“

“And grindin’ and lickin’ and jerkin’ off to the thought of me does not give you the moral high ground here.”

“How did you know-“ he looks comically appalled and it’s too adorable a look on a grown man.

“You’re loud as hell, Elvis.” she giggles and he grips her hips and hauls her down to do -well, he’s not sure what he intended, he just feels like wrestling her and she obliges, probably had planned to trick him into this after all.

Her legs flail and she’s liberal with the elbows against his ribs and he grunts and huffs and slaps at her hands and let’s her wriggle enough to keep it fun, and this is why he loves her, she loves rough housing, she loves curling up with a book and she forgives him for a whole load of horseshit he’s put her through. Susie is a woman for all seasons and he loves her in a way, grappling with her on the fresh made bed as Sam Cooke croons:

She was only sixteen

Only sixteen

With eyes that would glow

But she was too young to fall in love

And I was too young to know

Woaaah

She was only sixteen

He gets her pinned beneath him and he leans his forehead against her forehead and gives her a heart melting smile that she savors through nearly crossed eyes. He slowly lowers the rest of himself to lay against her and they give into what they’ve been longing to do, lips meeting as they savor each other, ignoring the lasting taste of the burger and indulging in soothing each other with eager presses of kisses and long, slow licks with hands that cling to each other. He starts to grind against her through his towel, her jeans making him slide roughly. That makes her pull away with a huff, and it’s not her usual pleasurable huffing. Elvis can tell she’s peeved before he can even pull back far enough to get a good look at her exasperated face.

“Why is this teenage fooling all we do?” she huffs.

“Well, Lord honey, if that’s how ya feel-“ he gripes and starts to slither down between her legs, ready to prove her a brat, and maybe torture her a bit. Death by orgasm. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“No, no.” She kicks and rolls away from him in a move he vaguely recognizes as from the “My baby is a swanky cat” choreography. “Nope, Mopey, tonight is gonna be about you.”

“About me?” he deadpans.

“Yup.” She nods and her hands are back on her hips and she’s back to eyeing him up like a plot of land freshly leveled for a subdivisions construction. “But first dance with me!”

She grabs at him and suddenly they’re in the middle of a vigorous and precarious dance off atop the mattress. Sheets and soft down cause two of hollywoods most sought after groovers to fall all over themselves and each other, hands clasped in a good Spanish pose, arms stiff and bracketing each other.

Everybody loves to cha cha cha

Little children like to cha cha cha

The cha cha cha

My baby couldn’t do the cha cha cha

Elvis forgets the renovating gleam in her eye and those unspoken refurbishing plans for a hot minute while watching Miss Susie Dean as Susie goes

I told her one, two

Cha cha cha

And one, two

Cha cha cha

And up now

Cha cha cha

And baby back now

Cha cha cha

And turn now, cross now! Oooh

I taught my baby to cha cha cha

Hearing Elvis sing along to someone else’s music is an entirely special experience Susie thinks more people ought to get the chance to watch, but some jealous and longing part of her is thrilled she’s one of few who’ll ever see Elvis belting out to Cooke while a boyish smile takes over his face, and his hips wiggle atop his swanky hotel bed in nothing but a resilient white towel. She grips his forearms harder and fully unleashes the little girl locked deep inside her. The one who misses goofing around and who only seems to thrive in the company of this very seductive, very goofy angel of a man. His grunts and groans and moans and trills shiver right through her and she longs for him, worse than most nights.

He executes and guides her in the cha cha steps perfectly, even as their bodies wobble towards the bedside lamp and then towards the TV set, a broken leg always in the cards with one snag or trip in the sheets. That would delay the windshield scene for him.

It’s that melancholy thought that has her swaying up closer to him and holding his hips comfortingly as the record turns and

I love, love, love you

For sentimental reasons..

The way men wrap towels round their hips and flip them over and over into indestructible loin clothes has long puzzled Susie, but she loves watching the way the dark trail of hair on his belly disappears beneath the white terry cloth, and how the v of his hips rolls and pumps his pelvis into the air in a mindless sort of entrancement. As if hypnotized she leans her head against his chest and looks down at him from above, perceiving the outline of him, that part of him that’s been inside her once but she’s never actually seen. She trails a finger down his chest, pink fingernails scraping lightly and trailing down to the towel and hooking inside, tugging a tiny bit, just to test the durability of that fold.

“Susie.” he murmurs warningly and she’s tired of that and not a little hurt at how he rebuffs her offers again and again.

“I’m a woman now, you do realize that don’t you? And I’ve got womanly tastes. Just want to make you feel good, Mopey.” she speaks earnestly into his chest.

“Thumper, you know I prefer lovin’ on you-“

“Is it so hard for you to imagine then, that I might want to love on you the same way?” She lifts those dark and perfectly lined eyes to his beseechingly and gah, it makes it worse than anything for him to deny her again.

“I-I-I’ll m-make love t-t-to ya t-tonight, if if that’s what you- you want-“

“Oh good lord,” she throws her hands up in the air, “you’re so thrilled at the prospect your tone sounds like you just got assigned latreen duty!” she gesticulates some more and nearly wobbles off the bed doing so. He grabs at her and saves them both, but his towel is a casualty.

He clutches her close to him standing on the mattress, and she’s surprised by that, the way there’s panic on his face and how he seems to plaster the naked length of himself against her clothed form, as if he’s safer that way. Gone is the Elvis who loves to joke off an embarrassing or saucy moment, Elvis who shoots her a dirty wink when she feels him growing beneath her during a steamy take. Gone is ole Mopey who, as a grown ass man, still refers to his cock as “little Elvis.”

Speaking of, she can feel the chubby length of him against her belly and she goes to grab ahold of him, maybe she’ll squeeze him a bit and lead him around by it like the petulant puppy he is. She can’t fully enact her plan as only part way down he arrests her movements with a gentle but inflexible grip around her wrist, hauling it back up between their chests.

“Elvis, what on earth is wrong?” she cries out, craning her neck to look him dead in the eyes and resolve his jumpiness over her touching him bare, once and for all. For a smug ‘lady killer’ he sure does act like a shy boy when a gal makes a move herself. “Are you sick?” she whispers as the thought strikes her suddenly that maybe he went a little hog wild with a couple hundred willing fans in the early days…

“What?” his eyebrows shoot up, “what? Hell naw, Susie I-I-I there never was a good time to say this but I just. I never wanted to disappoint ya-“

“Oh! Are you one of those baby Bella mushroom sizes?” Susie hasn’t had personal experience with a tiny knob but has always thought it might be fun to work one in her mouth. It’s an idiotic thought to apply to him the moment she gives it a second thought; she had felt him when he first met her and took her in the janitor’s closet. He felt mighty big then. She had been nearly a virgin but still, it felt big. That couldn’t be it…

“S-Susie.” he stutters real bad and she can feel his hands flexing against her upper arms, kneading the soft flesh in his anxiety, “it’s silly really but I just- it’s that…” his eyes pinch closed and he takes a deep breath before blurting out on the exhale, “I ain’t cut, Susie.”

Cut. She thinks of the director yelling “cut” at the end of countless scenes. She thinks of the barbed wire he hopped over the other day that sliced him real good on the hand. Cut. What the- oh. Uncut. He’s got an uncut cock. Her mouth dries out before it floods again in anticipation and she can feel her eyelids growing heavy as she yearns. Yearns for him badly and it’s no artifice when she licks her lips, trying to formulate a sentence that won’t make her sound half feral. As if he wasn’t alluring enough, now there’s this, and tonight is the night she’s going to have her way. She’ll devour him for once and make him let go of that obnoxious grip he has on every aspect of his life from how his burgers are cooked to how all sexual encounters go.

“-nice little girl like you probably-“ Meanwhile, Elvis is adding some stupid and defensive commentary to her youthful crisis, “-mama couldn’t really afford-“ as she thinks about and processes how this impossibly smug and suave cool cat has a hillbilly cock. And she wants it in her mouth, down her throat, nibbled to a angry, cherry red until he realizes she couldn’t care less that he isn’t like every dime a dozen heartthrob here in the city of angels. Actually she does care, she cares immensely, so much she’s gonna wreck him to prove it.

“Oh god.” Is all she manages initially and her voice sounds utterly fucked out even to her own ears. That gets him to stop his dumb monologue on how he’s more than happy just to mess around in other ways, and he’d never expect her to deal with that. “Oh god.” she moans into his mouth as she seizes the back of his head and brings him to meet her lips again, his stunned eyes still wide and blue and open. And little Elvis is beginning to grow brave and firm up, poking a little at her belly.

It’s not a joke as her knees begin to buckle and she lands on them with a hard bounce, a puddle at his feet, sheets crumpled beneath her knees. Dumbly she stares in reverence as she is finally face to face with him and -oh god, he’s exquisite and unmaimed and his initially unimpressive size is swelling into much more before her very eyes. It’s like watching the primal proof of his attraction grow beneath her heated stare. She places her hands lightly on those strong hips of his, holding him close and savoring the way she can feel the muscle flex beneath her palms. He’s so sturdy and she adores that about him.

The fact that he’d have rather hidden this from her, her! who he admits all sorts of shit to, who he’s cried on innumerable times, his Thumper, his ungentlemanly mistake turned bosom friend. It makes her vengeful almost, not towards him but the image of him. She feels a wave of anger for him and all the glitzy weight that’s rained down on him since he first caught the eye of the sleek and shiny machine. Forever unable to just be. Always in need of a touch up or a rewrite, a second take. Tonight is going to be impromptu, even if she has to bully him into it.

Sweet Susie is taking this vulgar aspect of him better than Elvis had anticipated. In some ways, that is. In others she’s acting batshit insane, looking like a fever has gotten to her, eyes gone glassy and then there’s the way she just slumped down the length of him and is now in a staring contest with little Elvis. It’s, well, it’s a lot for a man to shrug off, particularly when he likes and respects Miss Susie as much as he does. When he would like to be at his best for her and is severely lacking in the basics of that.

“We meet at last!” he hears her whisper down there to little Elvis, and it’s so goddamn weird yet she looks so hungry that he’s spooked by it. The spike of fear rips down his spine and his hardening cock jerks in response because he’s a twisted bastard.

She presses a kiss to the angry vein running along the underside and his own knees buckle at that. He grabs at her hair for some steadying balance, careful to not dislodge the pretty pink bow still holding her dark locks in a windswept bouffant.

“Yeah. You’d better sit down for this, partner.” She grins up at him from down there, teasing his accent.

“Susie-“

“Nope, this is happening.” she’s back in renovating mode and his chest feels a little tight and he’s not sure what he’s so scared about anyway, it’s just Thumper. Maybe it’s because it is Thumper that he’s so queasy about it. She’s a tomboy sure, but she’s always so put together, dainty and proper even in improper scenarios, she deserves the best and hell! -he’s pretty sure her parents are devout Catholics.

He lets his legs give out and he flops on his back, legs spread and a defiant look on his face, daring her to admit she’d rather not. But she doesn’t even look at his eyes, she just blows him an air kiss and then she's back to making conversation with his cock and Elvis wants to die or go back to eating his burger. Or her pussy, that would be nice -but no, Thumper is a stiff necked mule of a girl.

She gets down on her belly between his legs and props up on her elbows, nose close to touching him, “You’re as tanned as the rest of him!” she coos to it and it wobbles appreciatively, the length finally swelling enough to hold itself upright.

Elvis is turned on enough to get stiff but disconcerted and untouched as he is, it’s a slow process. He can’t remember the last time he watched it take its sweet time to get up. “Has he been sunbathing you, too? What a vain bastard! All golden and gleaming, even his pretty cock is all tanned. Does he spread suntan oil on you too? Does he forget himself and start jerking you off? Lord, has he ever burnt you like the silly, forgetful boy he is?”

The feeling of her breath huffing over him and her blatant ignoring of the rest of him is working way too well. Pretty in reference to his hillbilly cock is a goddamn lie but still, Elvis hates that she knows him this well, and he hears himself make a funny noise as she gossips about him to his own cock. “I’m gonna call you Coco, alright?” she makes this pact with little Elvis, reaching out to touch him for the first time, gripping him steadily and Elvis forgets for an second that “Coco” belongs to him, nothing is there to remind him he isn’t floating off the goddamn bed, leaving only his cock with Susie to discuss and tease his vanity and silly inhibitions.

This funky dream state gets jarred when she slides her hand up catching the fucking foreskin and begins to pull it back, farther and farther as it ought to go if his weren’t so tight and fucking weird.

“Ouch!” he hollers, fully back to earth and starts to pull away from her attentions, but she looks so grieved by that he reconsiders and takes a steadying breath before explaining, “It hurts to pull it back too far, very far at all, actually.” he admits, apologetic because that would get the wrinkly shit out of her way at least, but she doesn’t bat an eye. She just keeps looking at that swelling part of him with heavy lidded eyes, false lashes fluttering wildly at the corners, making her look like a love drunk animation. He’s seen girls look at his face this way but Susie hasn’t met his eye in a good 60 seconds or more.

“Aha right then.” she gives a vigorous nod, “Let me know things like that, I wanna know what it is you like.”

He doesn’t really know what he likes, beyond his own hand and grinding and being inside a woman. He’s never had someone have their tongue nearly loll out of their perfectly painted lips at the prospect of licking at him: not once they see what they’re dealing with. Usually this is when the lady politely glances away, maybe lays back, suggests a change of pace, a slight adjustment in the script. Those are the ones who aren’t revolted. Once he’s inside a dame, they tend to forget he’s a hick child from Tupelo, or at least they forget the more unseemly, economic realities of that, of being too poor to get trimmed up like all his fellows. Just another thing to make him set apart -odd. But Susie now, Susie’s an oddity like him and as he watches her lick her lips and stare little Elvis down, he’s uncertain he’s actually comfortable with this much devotion coming out of someone who oughta be getting worshiped by him.

She’s still eyeing him up, hungry as ever, and Elvis starts to wonder if he’s got it in him to handle this, if he might have got a freak on his hands.

This thought process comes to a halt as she does the unthinkable, bringing her hand around him and smoothing the skin forward, up and up until it is fully stretched out and only a round little disk of his pink head and his weeping hole is visible. And then he watches as if in slowed time as she takes him in her mouth just like that, her insistent suction tugging the skin further into its natural state, a state long denied it when in this context and Elvis is very much afraid that if he were a woman the sound he just made would be classified as a shriek.

She politely ignores his hollering and drags her tongue around his puffy head, flattening it suddenly like some goddamn gecko, slithering it inside the hood to lick round his pink glans and it’s, well, -it’s too much of a new thing to feel at 30 somethin’ years old and his knee jerk reaction is to plant his foot on her shoulder and shove her off.

She catapults backwards from his shove, back crashing into the TV while wearing an unphased Cheshire Cat smile. He tries not to sob from the sheer amount of feelings he is feeling about it all, his hands coming up to cover his face.

Poor Susie, poor him. Goddamn it all..

He knows if he tries to talk now it’ll be nothing but stuttering gibberish so he waits for her to come and sit beside him on the bed, hands gently petting his shoulders and raking through his tidy hair, pressing soothing kisses to what parts of his face she can reach through his hands.

“Hey, hey Mopey, you’re alright.” she coos and he thinks about shrugging her off for a minute, his pride a little hurt but he never was much good at shrugging off a comforting woman, not since mamas been gone, so he pulls his hands from his face and wraps his arms around Susie’s middle, catching his breath with his head cradled in her lap. “This is why I love an uncut man, so, so sensitive, aren’t you? I’ll be gentler.”

“No one’s ever done that weird ass tongue wriggling thing you just did.” he tries to justify the fact he threw her across the room. “Did I hurt you? You ok? -Wait!,” he sits up suddenly and his mind is whirring from putting puzzle pieces together, “you’ve done this before w-with some, some o-o-other man?”

“Yeah.” she gives him a soft grin, hand rising to his face and her long fingernails scratch at his sideburns like he’s a cat that can be pacified. Maybe he is, for her he’s close to purring.

“When?“ he demands, feeling very fatherly or some such shit. He wants to kick some ass.

“Remember that movie I shot in the Italian Riviera?”

“You were playing some Roman empress or somethin’, right?”

“Yes, that one,” she smiles dreamily, “well, the Italian producer took a shine to me. And you know that most Europeans aren’t cut either.”

“Really?” he pulls a funny face, mouth folding down dubiously, disgust at the thought of some wrinkly Italian having touched his Susie warring with the fact little Susie compares Elvis and his hick embarrassment to some exotic mogul. “And you liked that shit?”

“Oh I prefer it! So responsive!” she nods eagerly, and they’ve had this same talk about pistachio ice cream before, and Elvis really thinks he might go to hell for having been the one to put that hungry gleam in her eye. Over cock. His cock. A sort of vicarious damnation

“Damn right about the ‘responsive’ bit.” he grumbles.

“Now,” she is back to business and Elvis is back to being scared and horny, their brief cuddle session apparently at an end, “I’ll be sure to be gentler and ease you into it, maybe even give you a word to tap out if it gets to be too much. But you, you’ve gotta promise me that if you really want to explore this, you’ll be good and not throw me again.”

“I-“ -he ponders that and long buried memories of highschool jokes, cameras in the milltary barracks and snide comments from costume designers crowd in, the stupid patheticness of a man of his success and worldly confidence having trouble with this-

“You man enough, Presley?” Susie’s sprightly little dare cuts right through the static of his mind and the truth of the matter is, deep down, he wants her to thump him like she thumps his bike. Make him like it, force him to let go for once. But like hell can he actually manage to say that to her doll-like face. “Or are you gonna be a little bitch about getting your cock sucked?”

Alright maybe he can.

Susie is all woman in this moment and he realizes his little girl has grown up, she���s grown up watching him, learning him, and now she knows him too damn well. He loves a challenge and put that way…”You’re on.” he grins at her dangerously and she tries to keep her triumph subdued, just a little bounce back on her heels and a fierce kiss pressed to his lips.

“Thank you!” she whispers against his lips, eyes up close to his and he can see they are very giddy before she finally pulls away from him, pushing at his shoulders until he’s laying out all vulnerable again in the crisp sheets.

Bemused, he watches Susie bite at two manicured nails as she takes his submission in. They’re the prettiest shade of pink and he’s been trying to find the right name for it since filming began. Elvis asked her over lunch one afternoon and she said she didn't know, the makeup artist had chosen it. All he’s come up with is “nipple pink” -and that didn’t do him any favors sitting in the canteen in tight slacks, watching her Bambi soft eyes go wide when he actually said it out loud.

Now she gnaws on them while sizing up plans of torture for poor “Coco” and he grabs the sheets in his hands as a defensive measure.

“You ever been edged, Mopey?” she asks him.

“Not, not like this, nah. Not this way” he shakes his head, sucks in a breath, deciding to pull his legs up and plant his feet on the mattress, feeling a little steadier that way, “I mean, I’ve held off for a couple hours before, in between rounds or, ya know-“ he trails off because, no, he’s never done this, whatever this is that she has planned. He is sure of it without even knowing..

“Ok.” she gives him a sweet smile, “Well I’m going to be nice about it, so you’re lucky, but if it gets to be too much let’s have a word or phrase. Because we both know that your whiny little “no’s” don’t mean anything in the heat of the moment.”

He grunts and quirks an eyebrow to urge her to go on.

“So,” her tone is entirely fake in its soothing, “so if you just can’t stand being loved on without getting all macho and taking control, all you gotta say is ‘I’m a pussy’, ok?”

Oh goddamn. What a brat. He growls at her and thinks about flipping her up and over, having his way with her until she can’t form a coherent sentence. But that would just prove her point and this is a competition now, not just sex. The stakes are as high as the time she almost beat him at the corn toss last year. “Ok.” he grits out.

“Good boy.” she murmurs and it sends a shudder through him that he doggedly ignores, wary of that floaty feeling she inspired in him a little while ago. If he’s gonna best her at this crooked little game then he needs his faculties clear. “You all good, Elvis?”

“Yeah,” he gives her a cocky grin and forces his hands to relax, game face on and smug smile back in place, “have at it little girl.”

He hopes she’ll shed some of her clothes and she does but only her stiff blue jeans. Leaving her in her panties and that white crisp shirt which is very wrinkled now. The pink bow remains in her hair and serves to really fuck with his mind, along with her sweet face settling back between his legs, and Elvis is man like any other and he really, really wants to cum at the mere sight of her

“Now where were we, Coco?” she asks his weeping head and his hands start to tingle and he gets a really alarming feeling akin to stage fright, so he digs his heels further into the mattress to anchor himself. She blows on the wet head and the chill makes it twitch futilely, about as fed up as Elvis is over being teased this excessively. “So sensitive! I’m gonna have some fun with you baby. That silly man has been hiding you from me hasn’t you? Real mean of him to keep a toy like you from a girl he professes to spoil.”

It’s vague but also keen, this feeling of being ignored for his own good. Like Susie has kindly decided to remove Elvis and his goddamn lady killer reputation from the room, stripping him down to brass tacks, unmaning him to hopefully rebuild him. He really determines to give it the old college try by forcing himself to accept it, to remember that this is little Susie who’s got him in a such a vulnerable state, and while she might be a stinker, she hasn’t got a cruel bone in her body. He makes himself take steadying breaths and focus on the way her tiny hands grip him and move up and down, never ignoring the hood, always incorporating it in the sweet, slow drag. The way she rolls his foreskin up and over his weeping head again and again is just the right amount of friction, like she’s been watching the way he does it himself and he can’t help but start thrusting a little. His hips flex on their own and his mind settles into the well worn groove of needing to finish, the: “fuck it, who cares I need to cum” mentality that’s had him risking plenty of scandals in public or with the wrong lady, just because he can’t stop once it gets this good. He can taste each roll and grip and drag of her nails, and he needs more.

He lets out a heartfelt moan when her mouth starts running up the crease of his thigh, and that makes her give him a responding one. He can’t overthink now, can’t object to the way Susie has started to lick the pulsing vein underneath, collecting the salty taste of him, moaning all the while like she’s getting a deep Swedish massage or some shit. She looks like she’s in heaven kissing his balls and he whines at that, can’t help it because she looks so defiled right now.

His thighs begin to quiver as her lips drag over his tightening balls, her hands along his cock feeling too good. She’s been nice like she said she would be, no more tongue dipping into the glans and he thinks he might get through this unscathed until her hands stop and she pauses from licking at him like he’s a lollipop, to murmur to wobbling length,

“Oh pretty Coco, you look ready to pop! So soon? You can, you know, you can whenever you want, but I’m not stopping after that. We made a deal.”

Elvis heaves a breath in and somehow it sounds as loud as a wheezbag. He holds it in hopes that maybe the tunnel vision he’s got will calm down, the sheets feeling very foreign against his fingertips.

“You ok you there, Presley?” Susie checks in, raising her eyes from his engorged cock to watch his flushed face, because he hasn’t said anything in minutes as his body grows more and more desperate, all he’s been giving her are pained noises and shocked little gasps. “If you can’t talk baby, tap my hand.”

“I can talk, dammit.” he snaps, “Just wanna cum.”

“Oh alright, we’ll get you there then.” she smiles at him, pleased with the petulant set of his mouth that she’s about to erase.

“Wanna be in you.” he tries, hoping maybe her jaw is getting tired and she’ll abandon this science experiment. “Make you feel real good, lil one.”

“Later. If you’re good for me.” she assures him, “Remember, Mopey, nothing’s getting you out of this but a tap on the hand or our agreed upon phrase.”

“Later then, I’m gonna ruin you.” He snarls.

She watches his face closely as he threatens and then accepts with a roll of his eyes and a head toss against the pillows, setting his face like he does when he just wants to get a scene over with. Poor man, he needs this badly, and Susie figures that maybe edging isn’t his cure, overestimation seems more like the ticket to make him lose his mind. His true mind, the one that needs to give in for an hour or two and let himself be wrung out.

With that ambition in mind she starts stroking him in earnest with one small hand, first focusing on the base until he starts to settle and relax. “C’mon, that’s it, you can thrust baby, let’s get you there.”

He gives a little nod and a moaning assent, broad and gleaming shoulders melting back into the bed even as those snake like hips start to work in earnest with her subdued motions. She spares her left hand to place it on his thigh, just to feel the muscle work, dragging her thumbnail on the soft inside. The scrape makes him shudder, more slick seeping out of his foreskin and dripping down his length and she figures it’s now or never.

He’s distracted with bucking up into her grasp and with his eyes clenched closed he doesn’t see when she props herself up and opens her mouth to swallow him down. Predictably the lower half of him jolts clear off the bed, shoving his cock further into her mouth and she’s ready for it, swallowing him down and keeping her teeth clear.

His breath catches before his voice booms with a plaintive, “Oh god, oh no, oh god!” His hands are shaking like they’re motorized and he grips the edge of the bed in one while the other restlessly roams his chest and throat in a strange and soothing sort of tick.

Keeping the majority of his length snug against her tongue, Susie does the nice thing and rubs her hands along his shaking thighs in a soothing gesture, humming to him with his length still down her throat and his neck snaps back so fast in response he looks mildly possessed.

“God, Susie, I’m gonna!-“ he sounds very worried about it and she’s not having that at all.

She rubs the firm line of his lower belly and takes him out a little so it’s mostly just the tip and its sensitive hood left in her mouth and she works him him gently, lolling him around patiently and she’s rewarded within the minute by his pleas coming back in high pitched whines, like the kind he playfully uses in his songs and it’s the sweetest recompense for her efforts.

“Where, where d-d-do you, where do you-y-you want m-me t-to-“

She pops off him for a split second to chirp, “In my mouth baby.”

Then she gets back to it, sucking gently and working the foreskin this way and that, harmless little nibbles to it that has him sitting up straight in the bed with a sudden rush of adrenaline. His belly shaking he’s so close but he has to watch this, has to see for himself that little Susie is moaning like a paid whore while worrying his extra skin with her painted lips. He starts shaking so badly at the sight of her and gratefully she looks up and meets his eyes right when he needs to see her soul, her doe eyes are full of nothing but assurances, lust and enjoyment. Disbelieving but incapable of anything else, Elvis has all he needs in this moment,. He takes his Thumper at her word and cums against the roof of her mouth in long and steady spurts, his strength giving out as he sags back against the sheets.

“Oh goddamn, little girl.” he groans and hopes he’ll hit ground gently because right now he’s close to the moon he’s so heady.

“My word Presley, you taste Devine.” she moans back to him as soon as she is done slurping him up.

He feels his cock give an indecisive twitch at hearing her hoarse praise before it starts to soften. He’s really quite busy digging his fingers into his eye sockets in hopes that he’ll stop seeing stars so he misses it when she reaches up to her hair and tugs the pink bow out, bringing it down to his slick length and wrapping it around the base.

Hyper aware of everything relating to little Elvis right now, he flails at the feel of velvet sliding along it and before he can crack his eyes open and asses what the hell Susie is up to, his freshly sucked cock is being subjected to the hellish sensation of a hairbow being cinched around its base.

Through the pounding in his ears he hears her sweet little voice mummering: “Don’t get soft on me now, ole man. We aren’t done.”

“For fucks sake, Susie!” he thunders and launches up in a sitting posture, just in time to watch her add the finishing touches to a pretty little bow at the base of his vibrantly angry cock. “Susie, I swear, no, just no I-“

“There’s a word for ‘no’ here, Mr. Presley, and it isn’t no.” she kneels there between his legs, transatlantic accent sounding very commanding and her hands folded primly as if she didn’t just force all the circulation to stay in his aching cock. “Dost wish to tap out?”

He glares at her, shooting daggers and vindication that has made grown men shrink before him. She just keeps batting those Bambi eyes and takes to trailing a fingernail up the seam of his balls and he swears he didn’t sob from the feel of it, he just took a weird sounding breath, is all.

Elvis is almost where she wants him, he’s alarmed that he has more in him, but terrified that giving in to her will result in him really letting go. She wants him just past that, in just enough pain to be begging for her to end it by helping him chase his pleasure again. His bottom lip starts to wobble and watching it closely she moves her fingernail with unhurried determination down his balls, passing them and to that smooth stretch of skin right behind them, leading to his puckering hole. His eyes blow wide as he suspects her destination and it’s comical to see the relief on his face when she goes no further, just keeps rubbing that smooth stretch of skin until he sucks in a deep breath from something other than nervousness. Too late he realises his mistake, his stupid worry that she was going to play with his ass blinded him to the fact that rubbing right behind his balls is painfully good and he wasn’t ready to feel this good, this needy, this soon.

Susie finds that watching his balls draw up snug against the velvet bow is really the cutest thing, they’re having a grand time and their owner is making incoherent sounds and hand motions that suggest he wants her to climb up on the bed with him, be closer to him as he lays back down, his body trembling too hard to hold him up.

She feels a great deal of satisfaction at having him so overcome, she has seen him performing and at play, he has astounding stamina and a shocking amount of toughness when it comes to pushing through that pain threshold. She can tell now that it’s that very gift that was keeping him back in this setting. He nearly sinks down to blissful surrender but that mechanism keeps hauling him back out like he’s getting waterboarded instead of loved on. But he’s trembling now, hands reaching for something and his eyes look utterly lost, he’s sinking and she’s there to catch him

Settling on the bed between his splayed legs she leans over him and takes a moment to soothe him, trace his face and swipe the tears she is astounded to find on his cheeks.

“I’ve got you Mopey, we’re gonna let you break free, together, I promise.” he clutches at the back of her neck when she gets close to his ear and she only hears moans from him for a while. “You trust me?”

His hand is shaking badly where it rests on the back of her neck but she feels him starting to rut against her belly, pain having been overcome by need. “Please, mama” he chokes out. “Please, I wanna be good.”

“You’re always good for me, baby. Always.” she drags her mouth against those high cheekbones and tastes salt. “You’ll be good and tell me if it’s too much, right?” She pulls away to stare him down, make him focus on her eyes and when he does they’re shimmering sapphires in the lamplight. Her breath hitches in awe of him.

“W-wa-want y-you t-t-to ha-have f-fun.” he gasps out and that is a different voice, one she hears when he’s playing with children or making voices up for the sock puppets. It’s a little boy’s voice and she’s sure now he’s gone at last. “W-want t-to make m-my lil Susie p-p-proud.”

“I’ve never been prouder, baby boy. I love you.” she swears and now is not the time for it but it slices through his haze and strikes him as just what he needs. He looks all of 17 himself right now and her heart warms.

“I-I know!” he cries low and anguished, and his lip really is wobbling in earnest now, lashes clumping into dark little spears, “You, you a-always s-s-show me.”

“I’m gonna show you now.” she vows, “I’m going to show you how perfect and lovely and beautiful you are to me.” she kisses down the length of his sweaty chest, his hands never leaving some part of her. Her shoulders, her hair, her arms, constantly petting her and clinging as she goes further downwards. “Wouldn’t be such a challenge to get you to be selfish for a second if you weren’t the most giving man on the planet, Mopey. Look at the production you made me go to just to love on you!”

He does look at his vibrant pink cock and the bow around it and the way Susie won’t suck it like a normal human, she keeps kissing his thighs instead and sucking his balls with loving devotion and he cries from it, unabashedly whining and whimpering from how horribly lovely it feels.

Minutes go by and he tries to savor the white noise in his ears, the pounding of his pulse and the feel of her smearing her lipstick on his sack, all the while dreading and needing the moment she finally takes his jerking cock back into her mouth. She grins at the way it’s wobbling and twitching, like a white flag of surrender begging for her terms, anything she asks for and he’ll give it. It’s shining in the lamp light as precum sputters out of it almost as plentiful as seamen in an orgasm.

“Oh mama.” he keeps groaning in between sobs and she rubs her breast harder against the top of his hairy thigh, nearly insane herself from the sight of him this wrecked. Suave and smug Elvis Presley is weeping and thrusting his uncut cock into the air, a hand gripping the strands of his immaculate pompadour until it’s falling into his face, all in hopes she’ll let him cum sometime soon.

“Dear god, you are exquisite right now.” she moans, uttelry moved that he trusts her this much.

“B-be good to me, mama, I-I need-“ he stutters out, voice shaky, switching course part way through his sentence, “-a-am I-I what y-y-you wanted?”

“You are better than my wildest fantasies, sweet man.” She swears earnestly before giving in to the thing he needs. And dreads.

He was right to dread it. When she does envelop him again, it’s like fire and lightning shooting straight up his spine and the ache in his balls resonates with the ache in his chest and he howls, ass clenching, trying in vain to pump out the seed she’s clamped off. She rides him with her mouth like a damn bullrider, going with him as he makes a bridge with his hips, his whole body strung taut in the moment of denial before slumping back again, eyes wild and chest heaving, unable to release.

His body is eel-like as he writhes in the sheets, svelte and lithe, undulating and seizing up in preparation only for the cruel hairbow to dash him back to earth. Susie is losing her mind right along with him, watching this morphing of a man into his most primal state. She tastes nothing but his salty precum and she rolls his foreskin around in her mouth like a chocolate, occasionally diving down the length of him until her nose is buried in his dark thatch of hair.

It’s suckling the tip that sends him wild, so she spares it often, making sure to give him a chance to breath in between her attentions, but there’s nothing more gorgeous than watching him shake and writhe with no aim in mind, gown dumb with need. The minutes begin to bleed for him and all he can think is that he’s being good, that he’s powerless and weirdly he takes some pride that his sacrifice, each shudder and burn of holding back, makes her pleased with him.

A shaky hand comes down to where she’s scratching his thatch of pubic hair and after a brief moment she catches on to his need, entangling their fingers together as he swims to the surface long enough to shudder and mouth incoherent praises at his lil friend.

“You’re a keeper, honey.” he pants, eyes glittering and his neck strained with the effort to hold his fuzzy head up off the pillow.

“And you, Presley,” she grins at him as bright and joyous as ever, “you look awfully pretty like this, mouth hung open, eyes rolling back. Coco downright weeping for me.”

“I-I-I’m glad.” he whispers hoarsely. “T-thank y-y-you, ma-mama.”

She chuckles, because even teetering on the edge of brainless he’s still a darling. It seems he’s forgotten he even has a need at this point, hips stilling and whines ceasing as he pants, his eyes wavering in and out of focus. They’ve finally passed that line and it’s just him and Susie floating here in white sheets while she tells him he’s pretty and good. She starts to consider that maybe she should start pulling him back up in case he’s forgotten the code.

Then the hand limply holding her own squeezes tight and he mumbles into his pillow, head turned away from the bedside lamp, “I needs it bad mama, please mama!” he whines, hand clutching his own hair and his whole body starts to vibrate as if revving from deep within.

“You wanna let go?” she whispers, spitting gently on the head of him, adding to the gooey mess pouring out of him.

“P-please, oh please, I aint gots it-“ he sobs, baby talk slurring through.

“You’ve been so good baby,” she coaxes, “mama is gonna get you there.”

“Need-n-n-need to pee mama.” He whimpers bewildered.

Good lord he’s so far gone.

She makes sure to grip his hand tight and assuring as she takes him in her mouth once more, tonguing at the leaking slit and his scream is deafening and on pitch, shifting into a wheeze as she yanks the bow loose and takes her mouth off to watch the fountain of seed that comes spewing out of him. His jaw works frantically and his mouth is agape as he tastes freedom and epiphany and trust and all he knows is that he can let go at last. So he does, his muscles locking up for ages, emptying himself and he’s entirely unaware and uncaring of where he’s spraying until he hears Susie’s shocked cheer,

“Mopey you’ve hit the ceiling!” and to his misery and relief her mouth comes back to swallow what he’s giving up, warm and wet and rhythmically swallowing down his spend until it’s making him frantic for nothingness and he cries out,

“I-I-enough, enough, i I like, no I- I I am a pussy! Goddamn it!”

She stops immediately and he feels nothing at all for a few moments. He might as well be dead he is so lost to his reality, numb and his sight gone until he feels her slide beside him, soft, small hands that he’d know even in death, gentling him back to earth.

“Can I quote you on that, Presley?” she grins and he only knows that because he can feel the curve of her cheek against his own as he shudders and relearns how to breath. “Look, you’ve ruined mama’s pretty bow!” she dangles soaked pink velvet in front of his face, and for some reason that’s what makes him blush scarlet.

He lifts his eyes to find that there is a glistening wet spot on the ceiling. Oh goddamn. He moans and gives into the need to burrow, deep deep inside of her, this nasty little girl who knows and loves him. He settles for pressing his face into her breasts, the near suffocating dampness of her flesh a comforting transition after being deprived of air by his own hyperventilation for so long. She obligingly gathers him in, throws a leg over his trembling body to bring him closer and he makes himself small and savors it. Nuzzling into her skin and pressing lazy kisses to her skin, trying to say what can’t be said.

Susie finds words first, “Thank you.” she whispers into his hair, “You just gave me a precious gift. You should have seen yourself, a force of nature, Presley.”

He knows his smushed face is blushing and he tries to raise a hand to bat at her face, waggle her chin teasingly but it just flops aimless and enervated. Gah he’s really wrecked. And sleepy. He grabs at her harder as things start to slip in mushy and cloudy softness. She squeezes back just as hard.

“That’s it Mopey,” she gives him head scratches and that’s when he slips away, downwards but it’s not into blackness, it’s into warmth, “drift off, I’ve got you. I’ll be here when you wake up. Maybe hold you to that ‘later’ you swore to me.”