#cold fic
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Cold ‖ DRW
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Pairing: Danny Wagner x Reader
Word Count: 3.6K
CW: (spoilers) Mostly fluff!, roommates, (some money talk -it'll make sense)
{Author Commentary: stuck in during a snowstorm with your roommate Danny, everything is ok... right? for optimal emotions, listening to come out and play by Billie Eilish is an option}
The moment you woke up you’d curled into a tight ball. Your tired mussels protested, but the warmth of where your body had laid as you slept helped the almost numb coldness of your feet. Your nose was practically numb too, so you ducked under your covers. You let out a pathetic little groan to yourself, knowing it was only a temporary reprieve, and that you’d have to come up for air in a matter of seconds. ‘Why is there no efficient way to warm your face?’. Surely enough as your lungs began to protest you had to raise your head and decide how to face the cold of your apartment. Your apartment, where you’d planned to spend your day off doing various lazy, self-indulgent tasks, had a faulty air system at times. And while your landlord had promised to have it worked on before it got cold, the weather seemed determined to prove him wrong.
All you wanted to do was go back to sleep so you couldn’t feel the cold. You considered taking a shower, to feel the full body warmth. However, the thought of getting out, and dealing with wet hair would probably result in you staying in for hours. The resulting water bill was not something you’d want to have to explain to your roommate. ‘How was he coping with the frigid conditions? He's probably layered in his classic sweaters… the cold never seems to bother him as much as it did you, though he wasn’t one to complain regardless…’
The shower was ruled out, but the thought of warm steam on your face gave you another idea. A warm cup of coffee would definitely feel great. You took a deep breath and braced yourself before throwing off your blanket and getting out of bed. You hastily pulled on your thickest sweatpants and pulled a chunky quarter-zip sweater on over your sleep shirt. The oversized collar covered the mouth as you zipped it up. All that was left to to guard you from the cold was tugging on a pair of thick socks and stepping into your slippers. 
You hugged your sides, practically waddling down the hall. The warm smell of coffee broke through the cold. You shuffled over to the pot on a mission. You heard a small giggle from the kitchen table and darted a bemused glance at him as you picked up the pot and hastily filled a mug before making your way to the fridge for your coffee creamer. After splashing it in, you put it back in the fridge, briskly closing the door. You leaned against the counter with a huff, half tempted to slide to the floor and curl your legs in. With two sleeve-gloved hands, you raised the mug to your face, letting the steam curl up and blanket it. You took a deep inhale, finally regaining some sensation in your cold nose.
“Wow… they should put you in a coffee commercial.”, Danny’s playfully mocking voice interrupted your moment of relief. You deadpanned over the rim of your mug as you took a sip. “What? I’m just saying, I didn’t make it good enough to warrant those dramatics.” He grinned at you as he spoke, his head tilting slightly. He was trying to break through your sour mood, but you weren’t here for it. “Sorry, I'm kind of freezing cold” you snapped at him, feeling only half-regretful. "Hey, not my fault your body can't heat itself." He quipped back, his smile unwavering.  "You're the one with a freakish body, you walking furnace!" a smile began tugging at your lips as your voice raised. He laughed loudly, making you break and join him. 
You sighed and rested your forehead on the rim of your mostly empty mug. "I'm… so cold." "Yeah, I'm sorry. I called and all they said was they can't do anything about the heating today." You could hear a sympathetic smile in his voice. "Let's watch a movie or something, I can share some heat.", he offered consolingly. You lifted your head, staring at the window across from you as you considered the offer. It would certainly work faster than your plan of going to your room and burying yourself in blankets. You tilted your head, offering him a small smile and nodding. 
He got up and clapped an arm across your shoulders, giving your arm a triumphant squeeze.  As you walked with him to the living room, you grumbled again at his chipper mood -and thanked him for the coffee. He just ran his hand up and down your arm creating some warmth. You made your way to the basket of throw blankets. "Get the biggest one- that green one." You pulled it out and turned around to hand it to him. 
"-What are you doing?". Upon turning around you'd been met with his bare abdomen as he tugged his sweater off, pulling the hem of his long-sleeved t-shirt up with it. "It'll be warmer, -trust me." He pulled off his sweater and straightened the shirt before taking the blanket from you. He handed you the remote to the TV and draped the large blanket across his back, holding the sides out with his hands as he lay across the couch facing out with his arms extended. "C'mere." He beckoned you towards his opened arms. You pulled off your chunky sweater, not that he'd asked, but you understood the logic. The heat would travel faster through two t-shirts. 
You quickly settled alongside him, tucking your arms up so you could still work the remote. He adjusted your hair slightly so he could still see over your head, then wrapped his arms and the blanket around you snugly. You sighed at the warmth of his chest against your back already working its magic. You fumbled with the remote a little before managing to point it at the TV. Some corny medical drama lit up the screen, a familiar comfort watch for you. "This good?" "Yeah, fine by me. …You comfortable?" he lifted his head slightly to catch your eye peripherally, seeing the corner of your lips curl up. "Getting there. …Thanks, Danny."
He secured the blanket around you before beginning to run his warm palms along your upper arms, creating some additional heat. Your muscles, which had been tensed from the moment you woke up, began to relax. You pulled the blanket up over your nose for a moment, clasping your cold hands together against your chest. 
You inevitably huffed and pulled the edge of the blanket from your face. Another pitiful groan escaped you as you breathed in the frigid air. "Something wrong? Do you get out, make a run to the… ?" Danny's voice was soft and his hands had stilled. "Hah, no, I just…" You sighed again, feeling silly. "...my nose is cold. My entire face is- but I can't warm my nose without smothering myself.". He chuckled softly, the sound echoing through you.
"You can turn over, I mean all the heat's right here behind you." You giggled this time. You set the remote down and began shifting to face him. He raised his free arm, readjusting the blanket over you and leaning back slightly more. You rested the side of your face on his chest and his arm curled around you. His large hand spread across your back, trailing across it slowly. You were more focused on warming the tip of your nose, nuzzling slightly as you settled in. The warm, clean, sweet musk of him surrounded you as your eyes fluttered closed. You unfurled your hand, resting it against his chest. "Oh-" a small sound escaped him "-you are cold.", he said in a slightly teasing tone. "I’m sorry-" "Don't be. Here-" He took your hand and brought it to his hip. He tugged the hem of his shirt up so your hand landed directly against his warm skin. "Have at it." He chuckled as you hesitantly relaxed your hand so it was flush against his back. His arm draped over you again and he tucked his chin over your head. 
With your face tipped down he wouldn’t be privy to the color casting your cheeks. You adjusted your arm to a more comfortable angle, your cold hand coming to rest on the center of his back. Your fingertips found the dip in his back along his spine, absentmindedly tracing along it. A small shiver ran through him. His skin prickled and his back curved slightly as he adjusted. You were reminded of just how intimate you were currently being. But neither of you felt the need to acknowledge it. It helped that you weren't face-to-face. 
You were soaking in his warmth and your eyes had drifted closed. Your legs had become tangled in his somewhere along the way, keeping him locked to you. "D’you want to take a nap? You're welcome to…" The soft rumbling in his chest was so comforting. "Yeah, I might… could you keep talking?" You heard a small breathy laugh and a smile when he spoke. "Alright…" he paused to think. "Ooh- Lemme tell you about the coldest day in Frankenmuth…"
He rambled on in a lighthearted voice punctuated by the occasional laugh and his hand gesturing against your back when he got to an animated moment. The recollection entailed a story of a much younger him and his best friend Sam making bets about how long it would take for things to freeze, resulting in some ridiculous consequences for them both. You didn't catch all of it, as your consciousness phased in and out.
You didn't realize you'd fallen asleep till a particularly obnoxious ad on the TV pulled you out. Your face scrunched up in annoyance and attempted to burrow further. Danny was warm as ever, and his breaths expanded his chest in a slow even rhythm. Even his heartbeats were relaxed. He must've fallen asleep too. Your eyes fluttered closed as your mind wandered; Had you missed some hilarious twist ending to his story? Had there been other stories? how long had he rambled on till he was sure you were asleep?
Soon enough, you needed to come up for air. When you extended your neck, you ducked your head back so you didn't bump his chin. You blinked as a soft breath hit your face. His sleeping face, merely an inch from yours, came into focus. 
Dark, dense lashes rested against his high-peeked cheeks. God, I'd kill for those lashes… why do boys always get pretty lashes… the apples of his cheeks were dotted with scattered freckles that trailed across the strong bridge of his nose. They're so random… they don't even follow a normal freckle cluster pattern… he had one on his lower lip too… just at the bottom, slightly to the right, from your perspective, right where the brighter pink that ran down the center of his lips curled over the edge. Your fingertip trailed along his chin, just under the slightly darker edge of his lip, landing near the freckle. Danny’s lips pursed briefly, causing you to freeze. He seemed undisturbed otherwise. 
When you pulled your hand away his lips twitched again. His face inched closer in search of the lost warmth. Your hand hovered for a minute before you laid your warmed palm on his cheek. The tip of your pointer finger grazed over his earlobe, soft, peach-fuzzed, and surprisingly cool to the touch. You imagined warming it between your lips, but of course, dashed the thought nearly instantly. 
You hadn't been this close with anyone in a while. You were content being single, no one you’d met had sparked any interest recently, but that didn't mean you didn't feel touch-starved at times. All your thoughts paused as he shifted again. The bridge of his nose aligned with your brow bone, his lips resting on the tip of your nose, warm and soft. Oh, how you wanted to melt into him and press your lips to his. It was just the sleepiness and rare instance of physical comfort, you knew that. And he was asleep, probably thinking about someone else as his lips puckered slightly to peck at your nose. ‘Was he seeing someone?’ You hadn't seen anyone over a lot or noticed any repeat names that would allude to it. It's just unconscious. And as nice as it was, you felt yourself pulling away. You didn't want it if it wasn't his intention. You held his face gently as you shifted yours away.
His eyes began to flutter. A sleepy smile began to form but faded as his eyes fully opened. He'd registered your recoiling, and your hand braced on his cheek, tied together with your eyes widening slightly as he'd opened his. He shifted his head back to give you room to breathe, since you'd apparently been sharing the same air. He cleared his throat, "You feeling better?" Even his first thought being to check on you made it that much harder. You offered a small smile "Yeah, much better." His smile spread as his hand smoothed up and down your back relaxedly. "Good, m'glad." "Thanks for spending your morning on me, 'm sorry if you had things you planned to get done…". His lips pulled to one side as he shook his head, waving off your apology. "Any plans I'd had for today went out the door with this storm and our aptly timed heating malfunction. Besides, there are worse ways to spend a day…" his voice was light and humorous, and you giggled with him briefly. "Yeah, maybe we should do this more often…" You replied in the same unserious tone. 
He let out a soft "hmh", simply smiling at you. His hand shifted from your back, moving between you. He reached to gently graze his knuckle across your cheek, shifting a few hairs that had landed there. It surprised you, despite you remembering your hand was still resting on his cheek. “Yeah… we can do this again.” Your heart was pounding in your chest. You hoped he couldn’t feel it.
You cleared your throat. "D’you… have any thoughts about lunch? I should make something -haven't had anything other than coffee yet." “Hmm… I’ve been wanting to try and make that soup from that tiktok you sent me.” Aw, he’d saved it. “The creamy cauliflower and roasted garlic one?” You could practically feel your stomach about to grumble. “Yeah, I think the person also had a grilled cheese with it?” he recalled. “Oh god. Yes. Kitchen. Now!”. He laughed and nodded. “Let's get on it.” You remembered your body was barricading him from leaving the couch. You dropped your hand from his face, bracing it on his chest briefly as you untangled your legs. The bone chilling air of the apartment outside your little cocoon had not changed. When he retracted his arms to allow you to get up it swarmed you, quickly permeating your t-shirt. You got up and quickly tugged on your sweatshirt hoping to lock in some of his heat. Another layer of warmth enveloped you as the large green blanket was draped over your shoulders. Danny stepped around you without a word and proceeded to don his sweater. You watched him for a moment before closing your mouth and heading toward the kitchen. 
You secured the blanket around your arms before getting out your large soup pot and placing it on the stove. Danny preheated the oven before getting out a baking tray and beginning to prepare the cauliflower and garlic for roasting. You connected your phone to the speaker and queued a few songs before placing the phone on the counter next to him as an offer to add his own. Once his tray was in the oven the two of you began prepping the rest of the stock ingredients. You usually cooked and ate separately to accommodate your different schedules. But you both loved cooking, and recipe sharing was commonly mixed into your regular texting. It was a pleasant but unfortunately infrequent occasion when the two of you got to cook together. And these days he was gone for longer and longer stretches of time with his band having taken off. 
The stove had warmed the kitchen slightly and the smell of roasting cauliflower and that delicious melting garlic filled the air. Danny was standing at the stove stirring the pot as you buttered some bread and sliced the cheese for your accompanying sandwiches. When the oven timer dinged he removed the the tray and emptied the roasted items into the soup. You got the hand blender and plugged it in before handing it to him to blend the soup together. The sandwiches only took a few moments and soon enough you were both filling your bowls and grabbing your sandwiches. 
“Back to the living room?”, he offered, looking to you. “I’m kinda tempted to just stay here, the oven’s still warm…” you looked down at it. He paused for a moment, biting his lip, secretly endeared. “...Sounds good.” He started gingerly sitting down, with his back against one half of the stove door, and his plate in his lap. You practically beamed, before sitting next to him, shoulder to shoulder. You giggled a bit at the ridiculousness of the situation as you both took your first bites. The soup was amazing, creamy, savory, and instantly warming you from the inside out. Danny had dipped his sandwich in his soup and made a pleasured groan upon taking a bite. You smiled at him. 
“...Thank you.” He turned his head to smile back at you, “Thank you, great recipe find!”. You chuckled, “Not just for the soup, and all your help today… thanks for being here, really.”, you looked down at the food in your lap. Danny’s smile softened at your shifting tone. “Ofcourse I’m gonna be here, where else would I be?” he leaned his knee into yours playfully. “Well I- I know you could afford to live somewhere nicer… and yet you- you continue to stay in this shitty place, god knows why, and basically pay half my rent, since you’re away so much these days…” “Do you… miss me?”, Danny broke his attentive silence. “What?” your eyes snapped up to meet his, that hadn’t been where you intended that to go. “When I’m gone all the time...”, he offered for clarification. His eyes had a noticeable earnesty to them. “Well, yeah of course, but that wasn’t- that’s not the point- I mean, like why are you still here?”. It didn’t come out right, you realized that immediately after the words left your mouth. Danny blinked, before averting his eyes. “Hard to find good roommates,” he shrugged, his voice casual once again. 
He resumed eating his lunch like nothing happened. Well, nothing did happen. Not that you could put into words. But you felt the weight of a rock in your stomach. And the questioning, which had started as an expression of gratitude, was intended to ease your guilt of him taking care of you, and staying in this shitty broken apartment with you. All the interesting places he got to go now, but he was always practically giddy to be back after a long stretch. Like he somehow missed this... 
Oh.
“Danny…” His name left your lips in a soft, sympathetic tone. He lowered his spoon to look at you. “You miss me…” it wasn’t a question, but he slowly began to nod yes. You'd already said your part; 'Well, yeah of course', but maybe it warranted a rephrasing. "I miss you too… I know I don't exactly show it, but I just… don't want you to feel bad. I'm so glad you're out there living your dream- I don't want you to feel any pressure to tie yourself down…" "I don't feel tied down. I just wish- I don't know, I wish you could be there for all of it sometimes… but I don't want you to feel any obligation either. I was thinking about us getting a better place, but I don't want it to seem like some power trip if I'm paying… you know I've thought about flying you out while I'm on tour, like a million times- but I didn't know if you'd accept, and it felt kinda selfish, ‘cause… I just wanted to see you." 
His words were echoing around in your brain, namely the ‘us’ of it all… He’d said it, like you were a package deal, like a single indivisible unit. And his fears weren’t unwarranted, paying a fraction of his rent to stay in what would be his apartment wasn’t ideal. Being at his will when it came to housing, despite knowing he’d never use it against you, was a nerve-wracking thought. But he wanted you, the two of you, somewhere better. Knowing his character, you knew he truly wanted it for you, not just his own comfort. Or maybe it kindof was, maybe he’d at least feel better knowing you were in a better apartment while he was away. The thought of him worrying about you was… unfamiliar, and some unhealed part of you wanted to reject it. Moving together seemed like some sort of promise, certainly a commitment. But just a commitment to remaining roommates. 
“...Where were you thinking? -If we were gonna move.”, you finally spoke. His face formed a tentative smile, “Wherever you’re comfortable, could just be a different part of town, closer to your work? -since mine’s always moving.” You let out a small laugh at the last comment, and his smile widened. You felt the warmth of his words fill you and took another bite of your food while you considered. He smiled down at you from your peripheral, leaning his head towards yours. “So, …you’d consider it?”. You let your head lull to the side, resting against his as you smiled down at your legs stretched out side by side. “I’ll consider it.”
~
Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think!
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fuckin-sick-bih · 1 year ago
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I'm Your Rock, Baby. I won't back down.
Fandom: Stranger Things (honestly in my head I was thinking of Tattoo and Florist AU but it's kinky Eddie instead of kinky Steve this time? idk food for thought!) Summary: Steve's been sick and Eddie's been enjoying playing Caretaker. When Steve wakes up from a nap, they watch a movie together and cuddle. CW: cold sneezes, sneezing on partner's neck/shoulder, mention of nose blowing/wiping but really low mess fic for me! Word Count: 1,259 MINORS DNI Author Note: little drabble i did just writing in the tumblr text post thing bc for some reason writing in the tumblr text box makes it easier to write rn? idk, man, don't ask me how my brain works i just live with this traitorous electric meatball
Eddie swayed his hips to the beat of the song as he hand-washed the few items they had that weren't dishwasher safe in the sink, rings sitting on the counter beside him. His phone was softly spitting out one of his current favorites and he was mumbling along, trying to keep quiet so Steve could rest.
Poor Steve had been down for the count the last few days with a nasty cold that had left him utterly exhausted. He scrubbed at the pan he'd made breakfast this morning in as he mulled over the last few days of meds, tissues, sleeping, soup, meds, and more sleeping.
Of course, Eddie was over the moon at getting to take care of Steve. Anytime he got to take care of Steve was a win in his book. His boyfriend was like a walking poster child for hyper independence and Eddie secretly blamed the Harrington parents for that.
Pulling the drain and letting the sink water gurgle down into the abyss, Eddie sighed. He paused his music only to hear sniffling from back in the bedroom. Straining his ears, Eddie swore he heard a catch of breath just before-
"HeNX'T!"
"Don't stifle!" Eddie called out instantly, though his tone was fond as he dried his hands.
As he headed back to the bedroom, Eddie spoke again, "You want a sinus infection? That's how you get a sinus infection." He crossed his arms and admired the sight of Steve sitting up in bed with a tissue folded over his nose.
There was a light blush over Steve's face, skin still lightly tanned from summer. "Sorry. Habit. Snf! What were you doing out there? I thought you fell asleep with me?"
The quiet softness as well as how his voice seemed to grate against his throat, making Steve wince a little had Eddie moving over to the bed to sit with him. "Aw, I'm sorry. I woke up and started cleaning up a little is all. Thought I'd let you sleep as long as you could. Seemed like you needed it. How you feeling now, handsome?"
One of Eddie's hands was coming up to brush Steve's bangs back up out of his face, carding lovingly through his hair as well as pressing to his forehead. "Better than I was, honestly, but I th-hih-! ohh no... heh-ih!"
It was like Eddie's whole world was slowing down as he watched and felt Steve's expression crumple into a pre-sneeze show. His brows rose then collapsed into a pleading sort of pinch while his nostrils flared, mouth hovering open.
"E-ehhddieh-! EhX'TSHH! ID'SHuh! Hh...! ugh d'noh..." Steve collapsed forward, head jerking downward to sneeze towards their laps as his face flushed with color. He was scrambling for a tissue, but Eddie was already plucking and handing him several.
"Bless you, sweetheart, jeez." Eddie leaned forward to kiss Steve's forehead and then the top of his head. "You sure you're feeling better?" He teased, trying not to squirm as Steve blew his nose into the wad of tissues.
A little sniffle came from Steve as he finally pulled the tissues away from his face. "Uh-huh. Just think it's moved to my head. I'm all-" He gestured vaguely to his face and head with a pointed finger and sniffled again. "What's that word you use?"
Eddie made a strangled little sound and rested a hand on Steve's knee. "Stuffy?" He suggested helpfully, praying his boyfriend was searching for a more vanilla term.
"Sure. That." Steve replied with an amused little grin and Eddie knew right then and there that Steve was feeling better if he was getting one of those smiles.
Without warning, Eddie leaned in to press a soft kiss to Steve's lips before pulling back. "Brat." He took a moment to pretend to examine him, going so far as to thoughtfully tap his chin for dramatic effect. "You feel up to watching a movie on the couch with me?"
Steve looked amused at first, but he was quickly looking more and more distracted. "Yeah, I... I think I can manage- that..." His eyes went unfocused as he tried to respond to Eddie's question and Eddie knew pretty quickly what was going on as his eyes flicked to Steve's cherry-red, chapped nostrils that twitched and flared.
"Hiih... IXX'TShhuh!" Steve lurched forward towards their laps again with his powerful sneeze that had tears springing to his eyes. "Ugh, sorry. That might end up happening... more- heh...ihh-hh! ISSHHuh! God, sorry." 
. . .
Twenty minutes later found Steve curled up in Eddie's lap on the couch with Princess Bride playing on their television. Eddie was playing with Steve's hair as his head rested on his shoulder, legs sprawled over his lap.
They were both covered in a blanket and Steve had the box of tissues in his lap, one in his hand which he kept dabbing at his nose with. Eddie was doing his best to pay attention to the movie, but if he was being honest with himself he could quote the whole thing from start to finish just by where in the musical score they were.
So instead he doted softly on Steve who was sleepily watching the movie. Not much energy to do anything else as Eddie pressed soft kisses to his forehead, hair, eyebrows, and even the bridge of his nose once.
Though that had made Steve's eyes well with ticklish tears and his nostrils flared as his breath hitched softly, "E-Ehhddie, that's gonna... huh-! m-make me s-sneeze..."
"Oh, is it?" Eddie practically purred as he lifted a hand to gently tap the pad of his pointer finger against the side of Steve's nose. "Hadn't noticed."
"IHIshhiiew! IXt'Hue!" Steve exploded moments after the tap like that was all he needed to be set off. Eyes watering, bright red nose twitching and shining ever so slightly around the chapped rim. "Ugh, snf! you're a menace, Munson. Absolute snff! menace. Those good for you? Or should I nix the tissues and use you instead?"
A shudder ran through Eddie at Steve's words and he groaned, letting his head tip back. "That's playing dirty, Stevie, and you know it. You can't dirty talk me while you're sick and sneezy." Then came the soft feeling of plump lips traveling over his throat and the subtle brush of a damp nose tip against his Adam's apple.
Eddie would deny at all costs the noise that garnered from him.
It did get Steve to chuckle, though. "Like you tapping my nose isn't playing dirty. You made me sneeze. That- hhh... oh h-hang on... gonna- hihh..."
This time Eddie didn't get to watch Steve's build up, but he could feel it. Every stuttering inhale pressed up against him, the way his fingers curled against Eddie's shirt ever so slightly, and how Steve tucked into his shoulder with a final wavering. "Hihh-ih!" Before finally pressing his face into Eddie's neck and shoulder as he sneezed, "IHHxT'Shuh! Ohh- snf! shit, I forget what I was saying." He admitted, chuckling a little again as he pressed a tissue to his running nose.
Meanwhile, Eddie was getting his heart rate under control and running his fingertips lovingly along Steve's back up and down. "Bless you, pumpkin. Okay, I promise-" And Eddie made a little X over his heart with his free hand. "No more teasing my poor boyfriend's nose unless he asks or he's all better, deal?"
And then Steve gave him a wicked smile. One that only meant one thing. "I never said it was a bad thing, Eds."
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voidshrub · 5 months ago
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Hello Boots n’ Bombs nation I love them so so so much I want to inject them into my bloodstream
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baldursgate3tempobsessed · 1 year ago
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Soft Astarion Jealousy
Now with part 2!
I love Ascended Astarion because he's horrible but the sweetness of the other end of the spectrum is impossible to deny. He's just so in love and grateful I can't 🥺🥺
So here's some jealousy that isn't psychotic. Well it is but not as bad:
Astarion never expected to be the jealous type. He always thought...well. In all honesty he never thought about the reality of having a relationship. He didn't even think it was possible for him, let alone the idea that he would actually want it. Even with you, even after he admitted a fraction of his own feelings to himself, he never thought that he would be so... possessive. Though admittedly, he had very good cause for it.
Because you were frustrating. So, so frustrating. For some idiotic reason, you simply didn't understand how alluring to others you really were. You were a pretty little thing, yes but that wasn't the problem. It was so much more than that. And he knew that the others wanted you. Every last one of them. Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Wyll, Karlach, Gale, Halsin. All of them like moths to a flame. And that wasn't even counting all of the strangers you had met on your journey, the extras that thought they had a shot with your greatness. They all wanted you in ways that made Astarion seethe. And the desire from others wasn't even the kind that he was used to, the kind he understood like the back of his hand. Because you didn't need to seduce to cultivate desire. All you needed to stoke the flames was merely your presence. Experiencing you was all that was required for people to know they wanted more.
Astarion knew that the others weren't just looking for a bedmate, they wanted you for the same reasons he had grown to. Your empathy, your desire to understand those around you. Your fearlessness, your infuriating habit of always trying to do the right thing. They wanted you for your laugh, the way your eyes would crinkle in the corners when your smile was too wide. Your silly jokes, your endless hopefulness for a future. It felt as though everyone around saw you for the gem that you were and it was... concerning. Extremely concerning.
Astarion hated thinking about things like this. He loathed admitting the truth to himself even more. But he was...terrified of losing you to someone else. Especially since it could so easily be done. He was so very lucky that you weren't the brightest, or at least not when it came to matters of the heart. You could do so much better than him, a fact that was incredibly obvious to everyone around you. Everyone but you, a luck that Astarion did not take lightly. But how much time did he have before it ran out? Would it ever?
Perhaps it was delusional, but he was starting to think when all of this was over, assuming neither of you perished anyway, that...it could just be the two of you. Living together, exploring the world, even if it had to be under the cloak of night. Maybe... maybe the two of you could even find a cure for his unsavory condition. The thought itself was incredibly stupid, but then again, it was just as idiotic to believe that there was a cure to the Mind Flayer parasite. But here they were, closer then ever. And if that was such an impossibility turned into reality, perhaps a vampiric cure wasn't so impossible. Or maybe even finding an alternative method for immortality for you, without the downsides of his own. Anything that could just keep you both together, for as long as possible. It was an unrealistic dream, that would never come into fruition. If anything it was dangerous, so very dangerous to even entertain the thought of forever. Especially when your connection was so tenuous.
Astarion would never be stupid enough to thank Cazador for anything but...he'd be lying if he said he wasn't appreciative for his own lack of subtly when it came to seducing you. Even if it originally was for distasteful reasons, it still got him ahead of the pack. If he had been less calculating, less astute, there was a sincere chance that you would be warming someone else's bed at night. Callousness would never be without it's uses, even if it led to uncomfortable situations like his current infatuation.
What would he do when you inevitably wanted to leave? How could he survive after having something so...good. Someone so caring, someone who for some very horrifying reason liked being around him. And the sex... it was fabulous. He was a massive fan of your intimacy, when he was capable of participating in it. He adored it, he adored you, your beauty, the sweet noises he could coax from your mouth, the europhia of being inside of you. Then there was the fact that you could be intimate without any traces of it devolving into lovemaking. He had never been gifted with the ability to say no before, so often and so freely without a single fear of punishment. If anything, it felt like he was rewarded when he was honest with you, when he would share his sudden fits of discomfort in his own body, the memories that plagued him and doomed him to staying stubbornly soft. You would never get angry, never even disappointed. You would just listen and smile, always adorable when you would ask, "But I can stay for a cuddle, can't I?"
An extremely silly question, considering the two of you hadn't spent a night apart from each other since you'd made it to the Shadowlands. Yet it never failed to make him melt.
It was getting worse, these feelings. He just wanted you around, by his side, constantly. Constant enough for him to get the ridiculous urge to hiss at anyone else who dared to come near you. He felt an intense need to protect the closeness the both of you had cultivated, the kind that he had never been allowed before. He had no interest in sharing you with your own friends when it came down to it, let alone another lover.
Which is precisely why his original, mild distaste for Halsin turned into a full-blown hatred the night he had the gall to proposition you.
It had felt like a shard of ice going through his chest when you bounded over to him, laughing about one of his greatest fears coming much too close to reality, "You won't believe the conversation Halsin and I just had-"
"Ah, I was wondering when you were going to ask me about that," Astarion laughed, purposefully interrupting you. He had no desire to hear the specifics of that conversation. He didn't even want to be having this conversation, where you were inevitably going to ask if it was okay to explore someone else.
The answer was no. Never would he be okay with it, allowing someone else to be close to what should have been his. But he needed to think strategically here. To say no could be disasterous. If it became a game of choice between him and Halsin... he's almost certain he would lose. Halsin was everything he wasn't; caring, giving, sharing in your worldviews in a way that Astarion never could. He couldn't risk it, he wouldn't. Having you at all was better than nothing.
"But I'd never even consider something like that-"
"It's fine," Astarion interrupts again, the fakest smile he can muster plastered on his face. The pain was worth the risk mitigation, he was sure of that. But... he still had to ask, "But is this because we haven't...y'know, in awhile?"
A sick part of him prays that you'll say yes. Because if that's the reason, he could do something about it. He could force himself if need be to always tend to your needs. Especially if it meant keeping you to himself. It was such a small sacrifice in comparison to the rest of his life. He would do it in a heartbeat if you demanded, anything to just make you stay.
But that was not the answer he received. Instead you frowned, looking him up and down, "What? No, I-Astarion no. Please don't think that. What we have together is so special to me. The physical part of it is lovely, perfect even. But...it's not what we are."
It's almost comforting to hear you say that. But then why did that make the situation feel so much worse? If it wasn't sex you were after then that certainly meant you wanted more with Halsin as well, did it not? But it was too late to rescind it now.
Astarion nodded, a confused mixture of hurt and gratefulness swirling through him, "I just needed to know. But if you're satisfied with me and just want to explore, go right ahead. I'll be here when you're done."
You nodded slowly, brow furrowed when you asked, "So...we aren't exclusive then?"
"No, of course not," Astarion confirmed, ignoring everything inside of him that was screaming for him to take it all back, "We can be as open as you'd like."
"I see..." You said, trailing off with a frown. You coughed into your hand, looking up at him sharply. Sharp enough for him to be sincerely confused, "Does this mean that you'll be speaking to me before you explore your other options?"
"I-yes? If you want?" Astarion answered, a new type of unease settling in his chest. You didn't seem very happy with this conversation, despite his best attempts to give you what you wanted. Where had he gone wrong? Was he already working to throw you into the arm's of another man, without even trying?
You were still frowning at him, your look cold in a way that made him feel particularly ill, "Please do. I'd like to know everything. I'm going to speak to Halsin, get this all sorted. We can talk later."
And then you were spinning on your heel and marching away, like Astarion was the offensive party here. It made no sense. He had done it all right, hadn't he? Agreed to it immediately, didn't make you feel guilty, had tried to be what you wanted. How had he failed?
He didn't wait around to see you go to Halsin. Instead he went straight back to his tent, closing the flap as he laid down. Great. Fantastic. Now he would have to be aware, perhaps even hear you being with another, while simultaneously reliving that horrid conversation in his head for the entire night. The hurt and worry was making his mind wander to uncomfortable places. Perhaps...Halsin could be dealt with in another way if things became too serious between the two of you.
Would poisoning the man be too extreme?
But before Astarion had the time to start thinking of a more detailed plan he was interrupted. Suddnely, moonlight was filling his tent, with your silleoute shining in the darkness.
He blinked up at you, confused, "What are you doing here?"
You frowned at him, looking hesitant in the entry way, "Should I not be? I thought-I can go if you'd like."
"No!" Astarion blurted out, loud and desperate enough to make him cringe. He cleared his throat, trying again, his voice still a touch too pitiful for his liking, "No, no, come here darling. Of course you're always welcome. I just assumed you would be busy."
To his relief you listened, crawling into the bedroll next to him. Astarion didn't waste any time in wrapping his arms around you, relieved to humiliating degrees that you had chosen to come back after the deed. Though...you didn't quite smell as he had thought you would. There were no traces of the floral, woodsy smell of the druid on your skin. Just the sweet, pleasant scent that he had grown so fond of.
You sighed as he tucked you against him, the warmth of you enough to make him relax for the first time that night. You laid together in a pleasant quiet, one that Astarion was actually scared to disturb. Despite the fact that he desperately wanted to know what happened between the two of you.
But you broke the silence for him, muttering into his chest after the two of you were settled, "I'm...sorry for being snappish earlier. I shouldn't have been. You didn't do anything wrong, and I know I don't own you. I shouldn't have assumed."
Astarion frowned, pulling back to get a proper look at your face. You looked hurt, sad even. Like you were the one who had gotten their heart broken. He could feel a curl of distaste settling in his stomach, annoyed that this felt as though the situation was being placed back to him. He had played his part, perfectly. What more could you ask for? What was there to assume?
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," Astarion carefully said, his eyes fixed on every micro expression on your face, "What did I do that could have been construed as incorrect?"
"Nothing!" You rushed to say, shame coloring your cheeks, "I was being stupid. You never promised me anything. I just...assumed. Wrongly that we were something we aren't."
That didn't-he-what? Astarion frowned at her, his confusion evident on his face, "What did you think we were?"
You looked uncomfortable, avoiding his gaze when you answered, "I thought that we were...together. Alone. Just us. But if that's not what you want I understand. It's fine-"
"What in the hells are you talking about?" Astarion blurted out, his anger and pain bubbling to the surface, "I haven't done a thing. And we were just us before you decided to galivant off with a bear of a man!"
He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. So much for playing things safely. No, he couldn't even have the self-control to stay quiet. He always had to ruin everything.
But surprisingly, you didn't look angry. If anything you seemed just as confused as he felt, "What? I didn't-we didn't do anything! When did I say I wanted to do anything with Halsin? You were the one saying you didn't care!"
You weren't making any damn sense, "Well why else would you ask me about it?"
"I didn't!" You huffed, glaring at him, "All I was going to say was that he asked me. And I wanted your help on how to best turn him down! And then you jumped at the chance to push me onto someone else-"
"I did nothing of the sort!" Astarion seethed back, "If it was up to me you would never look at another man again! Or woman for that matter!"
It was an odd feeling, to be arguing while holding each other so closely. But Astarion had no intention of letting you go anytime soon, even if he could feel you squirming against his ironclad grip when you fumed at him, "Then why would you say it was okay?!"
"Because I don't want you to leave me!" He shouted back, loud enough to snap him out of his own anger. All of his fury was instantly replaced with fear. Gods, why had he felt the need to say that? To lay his biggest insecurity out on the line. Why not just hand you a stake while he was at it, since he was so eager to give you the tools to destroy him.
But you were still seething, hissing back at him, "Why praytell, would I leave the man I've been in love with for months? Hm? Please, explain it to me!"
Astarion couldn't. He was too busy being shell-shocked at the confession, feeling too many emotions at once. Joy, relief, somehow even more fear than before. You so freely said the words that he had done his damndest to bury, to ignore. But now they were out there, filling him with a horrifying joy.
He wanted to say it back. He did. But he couldn't get the wrecthed words out. Instead he was just staring at you like an imbeicle, his mouth hanging opening at the confession.
But his silence didn't make you falter. Instead you looked determined, near fierce as you grasped his face into your warm hands, "I love you Astarion. You don't have to say it back. That's not what this is about. But I want you. And only you. If you want the same of me then you must tell me. Now."
Astarion let his hands flutter over your wrists, humiliating tears prickling at his eyes. But at least his vocal chords allowed him to answer you this time, "I do. So much more than you know. I want us. Just us. No one else."
The words were flowing out of him, too fast and sincere for him to make the appropriate edits in his head. He was saying too much, feeling too much, giving too much. But the way your eyes brightened at his words, the way you grinned at him before pulling him in for a sweet kiss made it suddenly feel like he wasn't giving anything up at all.
As much as he loathed to admit it, Astarion was exceedingly grateful for Halsin's existence after that night. He would never have had the gall to demand you to himself without a trigger, without the anger you both shared at being misunderstood. Because now, you were his. His alone, the proclamation coming from your own lips. And he was free to stop hiding how much he had wanted it. How willing he was to do anything to keep it. He let himself off his own leash after that, leaning completely into the mutual ownership you had of each other. No more would he silently sit back and seethe as a stranger flirted with you. No, now he'd be upfront and center, with a possessive hand around your waist as he glared them down, more than prepared with a confidence-shattering quip on his tongue.
He started to let all of his urges seep through, taking full advantage of your willingness. If Wyll looked at you for too long at the fire, with a touch of something that Astarion didn't like in his eyes, he'd effortlessly pull you into his lap onlookers be damned as breathed you in. If Gale suddenly had a suspect offer to teach you some new magic in a secluded location, Astarion would invite himself, impervious to any glares sent his way. And when he felt as though all of them were being a bit too flirtaious, he was more than happy to put them in their places at night. Spending hours upon hours making you scream his name in bed from pleasure, loud enough for everyone to hear and know exactly who you belonged to.
He couldn't care less if it added to his own unpopularity amongst their merry-band of rejects. Their opinions didn't matter. Not when you were eating all of the sudden attention up.
You let him do it all because you understood him, in ways that no one else had bothered to before. You knew who he was, what he wanted, the extent to how much he craved your attention. And you let it all happened, reveled in it even. The intense shows of affection. Because you loved him. And he loved you. And one of these days he'd allow himself to admit the obvious.
But for now, he had what he wanted. What he needed. And in the first time in his life, even with disgusting tadpoles squirming his his brain, Astarion was actually...happy.
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pricetagged · 2 months ago
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Idk how to label this. Wifehunter John?
The idea of possessive/obsessive John manipulating a situation and stealing a wife for himself struck me, so just coughing the idea up while I sneak away for a coffee before I actually have to start work in 20 mins 💖 entirely unedited, abrupt ending
Masterlist l Part Two
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For someone married to his job, he has put quite a bit of thought into what he is looking for in a wife. Namely, that she's already married.
His reasoning is threefold. He can admit to himself, firstly, that it satisfies his need for control. Competency. He's a busy man with a demanding job. Not quite retired yet, no time to build his own from scratch. With this, he gets a wife boxed up and ready-trained. Broken in.
Secondly, the need for control bleeds into his saviour complex. She'll need a shoulder to cry on, someone strong and capable to get her back on her feet. She'll be feeling a little fragile. Needy. Perfect.
And thirdly, it does something wild to his jealous, possessive streak. The idea of taking something precious, of breaking her bond to another man and tying it to him? Delicious. The idea that she used to be someone else's, that he has to imprint himself onto her knowing that in doing so he is erasing the imprint of another man? It has his teeth aching, grinding even as heat rises in his belly. Stirs at him.
The idea swirls lazily in the back of his mind, never quite finding the right time or right partner. He bats at it a few times, lazy cat playing with the notion, seeing how far it can stretch before it snaps. Eyes up pretty things everywhere he goes, glancing down at their left hands just to check, but nothing quite tugs on that string. Until one day it does when he's outfitting the security system at your house.
It's side work. Cash in hand, word of mouth. Something to keep him busy when on mandated leave. Something to keep in mind as his retirement from active duty creeps closer. And your husband is a real piece of work, all blustering braggadocio energy. Young buck, not knowing his place in the herd. Not knowing that he'd be better scratching his antlers off on a tree than going head-to-head with a gristled thing like John.
It's like John's energy, his presence in the house, sends alarm bells ringing in your husband's mind (Be the man. Don't back down. Puff up your chest and strut). And it plays so perfectly into John's hands because your young buck doesn't realise that what he's really doing is fawning. To John. (Look at me, be impressed by me!) He makes his biggest mistake in putting you down in front of him, trying to sidle up to John and create some kind of desperate camaraderie. Ordering you to bring tea to the men at work. Rolling his eyes at your attempts to talk, to ask questions about the work being done. Waving you off so he can stand and watch the proceedings. Like he could supervise. Like he has any clue what he's doing.
Only the promise of the long game keeps John from levelling him with a hard look, from calling him outblike he'd love to.
He hears you both in the in the other room, having swatted the young buck off like a particularly virulent pest. Noisy and bothersome. Not needed - or wanted- in this home. And entirely too stupid to realise that John wasn't being jocular in his dismissal.
You've been scribbling away for the past few days, something occupying your time, keeping you happy and hidden away in the kitchen.
"You're not serious, are you?"
"Well, yes," he hears the slight quaver in your voice before you find your footing. You've got at least a bit of spine. Good. "You said that I should find an occupation. Not just 'laze around the house playing housewife'. This is what I-"
"Oh come on, I didn't mean- You don't think that this is viable, do you?"
"Well... I love gardening. And I'm good at it. And there's no reason that it can't be more accessible for people, especially with the current economic-"
He cuts you off with a scoff. "Dear, just- I don't want you to be disappointed. I think you don't quite understand the time and effort this will take. And you know nothing of marketing, publishing. Why don't you put that away and start on dinner?"
And oh, isn't that delicious. He can taste it now, that idea that has been swirling. It's thick, almost tangible on his tongue. The tension in the house, the bitter lacryma of stifled tears. The slight acidity of words you left unsaid. It has his mouth watering, pupils dilating.
And when he's packing up that evening, tools and materials tucked in to the heavy workman's case, he swings by the kitchen on his way out. Catches the way something is jutting out slightly from the bin, lid slightly askew. When he pulls it out he realises it's some kind of notebook, carefully (lovingly) bound. Pictures pasted, mindmaps and notes and plans scribbled in the margins. Your gardening tips. Kitchen scraps, window boxes, rooftop plots. Urban gardening. It's deeply thoughtful, well researched.
A labour of love, lying in the rubbish.
Sweet, clever little thing. That just won't do.
He leaves your house with a little piece of you tucked away in his toolkit and a nice plan forming. He'll be back, of course, not quite finished with his work. He'd planted a few little links into the system he'd almost installed, projecting not just to the monitor in your home but also in his. Got to keep his eyes on you, keep you safe and cared for in ways that your useless husband can't.
Finding that book was a boon. He'd say it was divinely ordained if he believed in all that. It weighs heavy in his toolbox as he whistles out the door.
Now, how to get you alone and return it to you..
________________
This idea may have been done before? I'm not sure, sorry! I've seen a lot of possessive John floating around. Tagging @stellewriites because I said I would last time, and you've been so encouraging of my nonsense.
Anyway I've got like 4 long-form WIPs that I'm working on, so I may never actually write this one but thought I'd share since that image set I just reblogged made me feral 💖
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hyukascampfire · 26 days ago
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IT WIŁŁ COME BAC₭ ⠀,, k.th
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it’s a small world. you knew this, but you came to really believe it when you ran into an old classmate at the grocery store on a snowy vacation. how strange is that? even more so when he shows up once more at the door of your cabin, frozen from the cold and needing your help. ִֶָ. ´-
⸺ listen to the playlist
ㅤㅤ៶ㅤ ( 🗝️ ) ・ 6.9k
𝖕airings ˒ yandere!taehyun 𝑥 reader
ℊ ; smut ˒ thriller ˒ yandere
𝖜arnings ˒ dubcon!!, baby trapping, dark & yandere themes, taehyun has a warped view of the world, doggy, rough sex, mentions of breeding, stalking, he’s slightly off putting, possessiveness & jealousy… duh!, hard dom!taehyun, nasty freaky stuff, corruption but like not conventionally?, unprotected sex, mentions of not taking birth control, creampie, biting and hickeys, obsession, DDNE please read these and decide for yourself if you’re comfortable reading! let me know if i’ve missed any tags.
✎୭ ashlynn's note this one is a delicious gift from 🍵 anon!!! i’ve never gone this dark. IM KINDA NERVOUS. i really hope you like it!! please let me know if i miss any tags!
﹙⋞ ﹚... back to the 𝓂asterlist
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“Taehyun?”
The man turns around, brow pinched and eyes searching for who’d said his name. When those sharp, intelligent eyes land on you, familiarity passes over them. In the black, there’s a shine, and the shape of them softens into something else; something you’re more used to, on him.
“Hey,” he says. His arms are full of supplies and groceries. Knitting his strong brows together, he says, “What are you doing out here?”
You toss the chips you’d been grabbing before you noticed him into your cart. It falls with a crinkle down onto the mountain of other snacks just like it. You should probably pick up some real food, too. The others shouldn’t have made food your job. If it was up to you, the cabinets would be stuffed with an array of quick snacks. Cooking isn’t really your strong suit. 
“I’m gonna spend a few nights at a cabin here with some friends. We wanted to find some snow, since it never snows back home,” you say, and then you laugh at the absurdity of finding someone from your hometown all the way out here. What are the odds of that? Especially since everybody graduated and scattered out into their own moving lives. “What are you doing out here?”
He reaches up to push his glasses up his nose, an easy smile on his lips. The sight of it brings back memories.
Taehyun and you had not been the closest in high school. You were in different crowds, and he kept to his own anyway. But the few times you two did interact, by some assigned group project or an incidental brief exchanging of words, he was nice enough. 
He changed a lot, though. If someone were to ask you yesterday if you remember him from school, the image you would’ve imagined is at stark odds with the man standing  in front of you now. Where the long, lanky limbs and unsure demeanor of a boy once was, there is now all the confidence of a man. The angles of him are sharper, more defined and chiseled. And, his shoulders… He’s gotten broader, too. The butterflies in your belly are strange; It’s strange feeling like this over a man you might not have looked twice at years ago. He wasn’t ugly by any means, back then. You just… had an eye out for other things. Your palate was different.
He answers, “Touché.” Stepping back, he lets another customer push their cart through the gap between you. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. What have you been up to? Back home for break? It seems like everybody from school moved on. It’s nice seeing someone from our class.”
It’s not an answer to your question, but the snow gear and thick jackets in his arms tell you enough. He’s seeking snow, too. Snow birding is really the only way that you might see snow, here. Snow really only ever comes to the mountain peaks. Speaking up over some storewide announcement that makes the bustle around you impossibly louder, you say, “Oh my god, right? That’s what I was just thinking.” You make your tone light—the kind of saturated sweetness that comes with small talk, all manufactured and stilted. It’s not necessarily awkward; you just are clumsy with this kind of conversation. You just ramble to fill the space. “I… Just have been working. Never went to school. Did I tell you that you look good? What have you been up to?”
For a moment, you think you see a glimpse of something… strange pass over his eyes. Something that makes you feel weird—one of those hair-rising feelings that you cannot explain, but feel innately to your core. A primal hunger being fed, a twitching of his lips, as though vindicated. It’s gone in nothing more than a blink of an eye, and barely even was there in the first place. You’ve got a mushy brain from driving all day, anyway. What a strange thing for your mind to make up, though.
“Nothing much. Work for me, too,” he says, shrugging. “Finally got the chance to get away from it, and decided to come out here.”
Another shopper comes shoving themselves between you. Clearly, your catching up is an obstruction on their very important, very urgent shopping trip. Taking the hint, you tell Taehyun, “I get it, believe me. But…” You gesture at your groceries. “I’ve gotta finish up shopping before everybody gets here. It was nice seeing you! I wish I could linger, really.”
He offers you an easy smile, letting his crossed arms fall away from his chest and shaking his head. “No big deal. I’ve got some stuff to pick up, too. Have a nice one, yeah? Don’t get caught in the blizzard, or anything.”
Snorting, you dip your head  goodbye and say, “I’ll try not to.”
The hardwood floors creak beneath your flustered pacing. “Are you serious? How long is it gonna be?”
“I’m sorry? I didn’t expect someone to slash our fucking tires?” Your friend’s voice cuts in and out through the speakers, one of the few hollow sounds in the cabin. Aside from you and the decor, it’s empty. “I’m sorry that you’re stuck out there, but there’s nothing we can do. You’re going to have to wait it out for a few days. At least until we can get there.”
Gritting your teeth, you give her a tactful Okay, bye, and thumb the big red button. The sound of the call ending echoes, too. Curling your arms around yourself, the whole place feels big and haunting. The howling of whipping wind and snow against the windows doesn’t help.
Someone had slashed their tires, and now you’re going to be here alone. For days. If being alone wasn’t already making knots of your belly, that was. It’s startling: going out of your way to slash someone's tires, but making no attempts at stealing the car or anything in it. Either it’s personal, or somebody just wanted to ruin somebody else’s day. Both leave a sour taste in your mouth.
Your every limb goes rigid at a thump, and in the corner of your eye, there’s movement. When you whip your head to look fully in that direction, all that moves in the window is snow like haze and the trees bending in the same violent wind. Nothing but night and the storm.
Beside yourself, you inch toward the window to look closer. Tugging a thick, willowy curtain to one side, you do a scan.
Sat in the snow, dusting over with heavy white flakes as you look, are a pair of glasses. You are not stupid enough to go out and get a closer look. 
With the fireplace roaring, the place doesn’t feel so empty. 
You waited all day for the snow to stop coming down so hard. If you’re going to be alone here for days, you want to go out and spend the daylight away around other people.
Really, you just don’t want to be in this cabin all by yourself. You have a bad feeling. It;s unfounded, maybe. But you do.
The snow does not stop falling, and the wind does not stop blowing it into thick piles. It’s everywhere: the whole entire yard is coating thick with it, and so is your car. Could you even drive away in this, if you needed to? Maybe after thirty minutes of plowing snow. You’ve at least kicked enough of it away from the porch to open the door.
At some point, hope for doing anything but toiling around in here dwindled away. With what embers of excitement for vacation you have left, you tugged on some knitted socks and played Christmas classics off your phone.
You’re still playing them as you decide to cook something up. You’re not the best cook, but what do you have to lose? It’ll only be you eating it. If it goes awry, you’ve still got snacks to make into a meal. 
The kitchen comes alive while you work. You tug out all the pots and pans that the cabin owners provide, clicking the stove on while you dance and hum along to the songs that you’d seemingly come out of the womb knowing. Pulling the fridge open to the song of Silver Bells, you decide on something ambitious and set ingredients out over the counters. 
You don’t even get to slicing before there’s a knock at the door. Three very solid, very resounding knocks. The knife makes a clattering sound as you let it drop to the cutting board.
There shouldn’t be anybody out here. Maybe your friends got the car up and running, and forgot to let you know. Your heart thrums a wild, crashing beat, as you swipe your phone up to shoot a quick text.
At the top of a screen, a text comes in from an unknown number. Your belly does a frantic swoop, a thousand different thoughts swarming and shoving to be the one at the forefront of your mind. 
+1 [678-999-8212]
Hey, it’s Taehyun.
+1 [678-999-8212]
I’m sorry if this is weird, but I’m the one who just knocked at your door. I wanted to hike up to my cabin but I’m lost as hell right now, and recognized your car outside
+1 [678-999-8212]
Thought it would be better to ask you for help instead of a random.
You take a moment to blink at the glow of the screen. Taehyun was the one knocking on your door? That both settles you and kicks up more questions. What are the odds that you both rented out cabins from the same people? The world is small; you’re reminded that a lot, these days. 
Sliding your phone into your back pocket, you head for the door. He’s got to be freezing. It’s coming down hard out there.
The door swings open to Taehyun’s face just as frost-glazed as you expected. His jaw chatters and his nose and cheeks are a deep, winter-pink. Despite it, his mouth pulls into a friendly smile—the kind that illustrates in the humorous corners that he is aware of the absurdity of his situation, as well. He keeps his hands tucked into his pockets, a thick winter jacket zipped up to the top dusted at the shoulders with fat snowflakes just the same as on top of his coal-black hair.
“Oh my god,” you say. A laugh seeps through the cracks. “I’ve got the fireplace going hot. Do you wanna come in? How long have you been out there?” Stepping to one side, you offer him entry into your home. Temporary home, that is. 
He tries to rein in the shivers, you can see it in the smile he’s got plastered on his face and the way he buzzes and trembles around the edges like the bitter cold is trying to push against his skin and escape him. “If it doesn’t bother you,” he says, stepping in past you. When he passes, thick in the air, he smells like smoke and the dark woods—it’s musky and familiar, but also haunting in the way that the wilder edges of a forest could be. 
He smells nice. Really nice. The kind of blend of manly musk and cologne that makes a woman look twice. It makes you look twice as he passes, at least.
Him standing there now, eyes roving over the cabin’s wood walls and the knitted blankets and the fire whispering from the living room, you realize how strange it is to be here with an old classmate that you haven’t seen for at least three years. How awkward it is. 
“It doesn’t bother me at all. You did scare me a bit, though,” you say, shooing the wispy chill away with a close of the door. “I’d rather you not freeze to death out there. It’s, like, ten degrees.” You tuck your arms across your chest. “What made you go hiking in this? It’s been nasty today. I haven’t even been able to leave.”
His cheek twitches with a dimple. Even back in school, you noticed that. Then, it’d fit right into his face. Now, it’s a delicious contrast against his angled face. “Sorry I scared you. I knew it’d be weird, but… Yeah, I was freezing out there. I seriously thought I was going to die.” Hair brushes over his eyes, their cunning and sharpness something that draws you in. Like two swirling, black pools of swirling water, they beckon you in a way that you can’t quite digest. “It wasn’t too bad down by the car, and I didn’t know there was a whole damn trail up here, so I… yeah. It got bad.”
Snorting, you nod. “I bet.” You’re not sure what else to say; your mind freezes over in an impermeable frost. You tap around with a pick to try and find words, but there’s no getting through it. You hardly know him. What do you talk about? What are you going to talk about, considering the fact that he’s no doubt going to be here for some time? Until it stops blizzarding so hard outside, at least. 
Charging through the tense moment with a brassiness that you do not remember him carrying back then, Taehyun nods a gesture toward the kitchen and the dinner you’d been in the middle of making. “Making something?” he says. The low, warm light of the cabin washes over him and make his face something cozier than it’d been standing frozen at your front door. It also makes a show of the angles of his cheek as it turns, and the tall line of his nose. Something on him is missing. You can’t capture the notion or put your finger on it, but somewhere in the depths of memory, you feel like there was something there that isn’t here with him now. Maybe it’s a different styling of his hair from the last time you saw him, wind-swept as it is now. Or maybe you’re just stir-crazy. 
“Yeah.” You nod, watching in place as he ventures into the kitchen. Narrowing your eyes down, you try to pinpoint the thought. Is it something small? A pair of earrings? “I was gonna cook up something warm for dinner, but I’m not the best cook. I don’t burn anything, but… it’s never great, you know?”
Taehyun tugs his jacket off his arms, and you confirm that it’s not a certain jacket or something. “I’ll help,” he says, discarding the heavy thing. “Make myself useful.”
“Oh!” you say, bringing your hands together in realization. “Are you not wearing your glasses? Holy shit, I’ve been staring at you thinking something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell what it was.” 
He furrows his brows, corners of his mouth twitching. The look passes over his face in nothing more than a split-second, before something else plasters over it. He crinkles his nose and says, “Huh. I didn’t even notice…” The knife you’d left to let him in glints as he picks it up to assume where you’d left off. “Didn’t you say that you were here with some friends? Is everybody asleep already?”
You trace the lines of his face where those brown glasses had rested the last time you’d seen him. He must’ve forgotten them in his cabin this morning, or something, before he went out. You grab a pot and fill it over the sink for noodles. “Actually, they all got caught up back home. It’s literally just me here for days. I’ve been so bored.” Over your shoulder, you add, “I’m just making some fettuccine and chicken.”
“Caught up?” he says, voice casual and occupied. The sound of the knife against the cutting board as he slices follow his words.
“Yeah. Someone messed their car up bad… Like, knife to the tires and the windows were smashed in all over the seats. It was fucking terrifying.” Clicking the stove on, you set the pot to boil. 
Taehyun doesn’t answer for a few minutes. You look over your shoulder and find him working in the chicken still. He answers, his eyes dragging up to you for a quick moment before making sure he doesn’t cut a finger off, “Did they steal anything?”
Turning to him fully as you wait for the water to bubble and turn over, you say, “That’s the weird thing. They didn’t steal or anything, they just fucked it up and… left.”
“Huh,” he says, furrowing his strong brow down at his working hands. “Yeah, that’s weird. That’s some personal shit. Maybe someone had a shit day.” The end comes out around a breathy laugh.
“Yeah, maybe.” You crack open the cardboard flaps and pour the noodles into the pot. “Still… scary.”
Taehyun takes over the cooking, and you’re happy to entrust dinner to him. He works diligently, and the sight of his back as he stirs and chops and seasons—it’s mouth-watering. This way, you can fully admire him as he does. You’re not much help, anyway. Instead, you just start the gentle hum of Christmas music once more and stay out of his way.
It’s nice to have somebody here. The howling of the wind and the echoing of your own movements back to you has started to become haunting. Maybe having Taehyun here is a bit unconventional, and it really should be your friends here with you, but having him here is the better outcome than some creep being the one knocking at your door. It’s nice to have him here in case that does happen, too.
It’s not like he’s bad company, or anything, either.
When the entirety of the cabin is full with the smell of warm dinner and your conversation, you swoop back in to offer help with something you can manage. Stepping beside him, indulging in his rich scent once more, you plate the dinner he’d made for you. Steam dances up from it and beckons your tastebuds. “You’re, like, a Michelin chef. What the hell? Thank you.”
He doesn’t answer, and in the corner of your eye, you catch his knuckles going white around the counter’s edge where he leans his weight into the arm. Frowning, you go to look up at him.
It leaves his face when you catch it, but you find him looking down at you… different again. Darker, as though the pupils at the center have grown hungry and eaten up the chocolate there. You think you see his jaw tightening and a hard swallow bobbing in his throat, too. His face is so close like this, you can see the plush turn to his lips and the darkness beneath his eyes, and even the chap of his lips.
Flustering, you take a step back and do your work there. You’d stepped way too close to him. Does he think you’re weird? You’ve always been the type with a scarce personal bubble; you forget that others don’t work the same.
“It’s nothing much,” he finally says. It’s cool and collected once more. “I make this all the time. It’s one of my favorites.”
Handing him his plateful, the chicken glistening with glaze and the noodles a swirl of cream and garnish, you say, “You’ll have to write down the recipe for me, or something. I totally want to make it for myself.”
Accepting it with another easy grin, he says, “Yeah, sure.” He forks a bit of chicken off the plate.
The smile does not reach his eyes.
The longer you look at it, the worse the feeling gets.  Black and scrawled in wobbling lines, jagged and dark in places where he’d gone over a line a few times, you just… feel like you’ve seen it all before. It’s a smokey, tainted memory, far-off and obscured no matter how you squint your eyes.
Why do you remember it? Why does the sight of it crawl like dread under your skin and wilt? Sure, you went to school with Taehyun, but you don’t really think recognizing his handwriting should feel like this. Who even pays attention to the handwriting of somebody you interacted with once or twice, anyway?
God. You are dramatic. You kick your legs out of the comforter, swelteringly thick and quilted with a gaudy winter pattern of reds and browns and whites, and fold up the paper to place it on the darkwood bedside table.
The click of you flicking the white switch on echoes off the bathroom’s tiled walls. You reach for your toothbrush on the counter, and then the world goes dark around you.
You freeze, eyes frantically blinking and straining against the blackness to adjust. The power had gone out. There’s a few beats of you stricken in place, toothbrush in hand, thrown for a loop.
Then, the whole cabin goes out as the power to the heater dies, too. You swear. 
Your journey down the hallway is a stumbling of legs and the grooves of the wood-paneled walls against your fingertips. It’s the pitch black of night out here, too. The only thing you can see is the static that fills up the gaps when it’s dark. “Taehyun?” you say. Is he asleep already? You don’t even know where the room he’d taken for the night is, relative to where you are now.
Nothing answers you for a few moments, and then from an opening door, light floods like a miracle. The shape of him, the light from his phone’s flashlight just enough to dimly illuminate his features, comforts you. His hair is ruffled, like he’d just drug himself from bed.
“Power went out,” he says. It’s awfully loud, now that you two are the only sounds in here. 
“Yeah, I think I just had a little heart attack. I was up brushing my teeth.” Why hadn’t you thought to use your phone’s light? “The heater… We’re gonna freeze to death. Do you think they have a generator, or something? The fireplace doesn’t really do much…”
He features glow in as he moves the phone. “Mine didn’t. It’s fine, my room’s got a fireplace in it. We can close the door and get it warm in there.”
“Better than nothing,” you say, shrugging and following him in.
You plop on his bed, the surface of it cold and plush, while he works on kindling a fire. “This is, like, nowhere near where I thought I’d be for vacation.”
He readjusts the logs, dry and perfect for burning, into a point. Poking and prodding, Taehyun says, “Not having fun?”
You snort at the dry and flat delivery. “Friends haven’t even gotten back to me, I’m snowed in, and I’m locked in here with a total stranger.” You draw out the last word as a joke, your smile painting the tone playful, but it’s the truth. You don’t know Taehyun one bit. It’s just as strange and unpredictable as the other things on the list of things that have gone awry. “I guess I had a good dinner, so I can’t be complaining too much.”
Curling up to his full height, he takes a knee and settles into the bed beside you. “Make some room for this stranger, won’t you? We should probably try to use our body heat.”
Laughing, you go to say something to rift off his joke. It dies in your throat when he doesn’t join you. In an awkward sort of panic, you wince and say, “Yeah, it’s cold as hell. We’re gonna freeze to death in our sleep.”
And, ridiculously, you crawl under the covers. You don’t know why you do it; maybe it’s because he’s completely serious and watching you, or maybe because it’s true that you might actually get so cold in your sleep that you die if you don’t. Either way, you do. You don’t know which way to settle: facing him or with your back turned to him. Both are strange, but which is stranger?
Facing him, you decide that turning your back to him just doesn’t settle in your soul right.
“Weird night,” he says, sliding himself under the blanket’s covering. The same blanket that you lay in. “But…” he says, eyes flickering over you laid there. He looks as though he’s going to say something else, but he decides against it. “Good night.”
He does you a favor and turns his back to you.
Night still holds the world in its claws when your eyes flutter open.
You shift to try and find that perfect position that’ll lull you back into sleep, slipping your legs over the sheets and shifting your cheek against your arm and wiggling your hips against the solid pressure behind you.
The pressure behind you. Stilling, your eyes fly open.
The weight of Taehyun behind you, his chest rising and falling, and the warmth of him, pierce through sleep’s haze like a white-hot knife. You’re all the way on his side of the bed, pressing your bottom into him. Shame creeps its wicked way from your chest and then out through your skin, blazing the skin of your cheeks. You push up on an elbow to scoot back to your side of the bed as slow and covertly as you can manage.
Fingers like teeth, biting the skin of your waist, stop you. Your heart jumps.
“Don’t move.” Taehyun’s breath and words curl out over the juncture of your neck like a chill. He lets you sit in that for a moment, your heart thumping like a frightened bird in a cage, before he says, “It’s weird. Weird that when I suggested you sleep in my bed, you looked so nervous. But, look where you are now.”
Your voice comes out strangled. “I’m sorry.”
When his palm slides down from your waist to brush over your belly, you begin to think that it’s not an apology that he wants. Your stomach does untamed dips and rolls. It’d been the cold that you were afraid of, but now it’s the blistering heat that blooms where his touch goes that grips you. 
“That didn’t take very long.”  Like a trail of growing, raging fire, he takes that hand and brings it down the lengths of your body. Over your hip, and then down the supple curve of your ass, and then down the back of your thighs, where he toys with the notion of slipping it between the seam there. “It never did take much for you to give those men your body. Give them what was mine. Don’t worry, I’ll make it right. I’ll make you right.”
Your mind turns over itself, a thousand stray, blinding thoughts bursting at the seams and all asking for your attention. You don’t know which to start with; you don’t have the slightest clue what he means. Asking any of them out loud seems absurd, and the notion crumbles to dust when he brings his arm down your front to cup your heat.
“Face in the bed, ass up.” He commands it in your ear like ice: absolute and biting. “It’s how you like it, isn’t it?”
Doggy is how you like it. You don’t know how Taehyun would know that. What you do know, though, is the way the simple words kindle hungry fire in your cunt. Dragging yourself from the heat of the mattress in a bleary, glazed-over mess of limbs, you paint yourself into an obscene picture: your cheek presses into the mattress, blazing with disbelief, your eyes wide and gone and the mess of your hair obscuring them, and your back the delicate arch of sex and sinfulness as you display your ass high in the air for him.
When you look at him to see how he likes it, you don’t find the man that you saw in the grocery store, nor the man that you let into your cabin. The look you find, vacant and overflowing with an untamed hunger, raises the hair on your skin. It’s off. 
“Taehyun,” you say. It’s really just to speak—you don’t have words. 
He runs a hand down the curve of your back. His voice comes from behind you, now. “This should’ve been just mine. But you never did look my way, did you?” Your body jumps when his hands find your hips and the fabric in the way of your skin there. Hooking his thumbs under both the waistband of your bottoms and your panties, he drags them down your thighs in a slow crawl. Each inch of blazing skin bared to the air tingles against the cold and under his gaze as you feel his eyes eat it up. 
That’s what his eyes do: they eat and they eat, taking up the space around them like ever-hungry blackholes until there is nothing but their absence of light and their heaviness. That was the pull you remember in the store—a force like gravity beckoning a perverse finger at you and leaving you nowhere to go but toward him.
He pulls the fabric until it’s bunched at your knees. Prodding a finger, just the very end of it, at your hole. You flutter around it, belly turning. “Why didn’t you look my way?” he asks. The rustling of him working on his pants has you twitching and shifting hot against the covers. 
“I don’t know what you mean.” You’re only able to choke out the words, heart jumping up into your throat as he takes his hand up your back, pins and needles following his path and pushes your head into the mattress by the back of the neck.
Breath hot over your cheek, he says, “Is this what you want? To be fucked like an animal?” You know he means the position. Your mouth goes dry. “You’re better than that. But, if it’s what you like, I’ll fuck you like it.”
You have a thought. It’s fleeting and fuzzy like the rest of your mind, but you catch it just long enough to turn it over once. When you’d seen Taehyun, you were struck by how he looked more like the kind of guy you might go after than the lanky, off-putting one you remember. And, now he’s set on how you like to get fucked.
The tip of his cock at your entrance sends the thought to smoke and the aftermath clogs your cognitive function. Your mouth falls open as he presses some inches in, slow and enriching. But then he pulls the slight length out to collect some slick and tap his cockhead to your clit. You jolt against the sheets.
When he slides back in this time, he makes sure to brush your hair out of your face to watch every last inch of you taking him reflected in the furrowing of your brows and the glassiness of your eyes and the pink of your cheeks.
He stills when he reaches the hilt, his hips flush to your ass, his shadow falling over you as he leans to bring his ear to your mouth. “You should’ve looked my way. Things could’ve been so different. It’s okay—I’ll make you realize. I know who you really are. I’ll wash this all away and clean you up and make you good again.”
He doesn’t leave space for words or thought. Not enough for you to taste the rust like rot over his iron words. Planting his heels on the bed and shoving your face further into the bed, he starts his hips in a rhythm that has your breaths stuttering and achy wines clawing out from the prison of your chest. He does not move precisely, nor is the bucking of his hips pointed, but it’s a crashing sort of ruin. It doesn’t matter if he finds that spot inside of you. He’s going to consume your every sense: he steals the taste in your mouth and replaces it with himself, steals your hearing with his pants and grunts, steals your sight as his cock twists your insides up, and steals your ability to feel anything but him. He steals your breath, too. Just as a wicked little souvenir. 
“Hhh—fuck, Taehyun, holy shit,” you say. A procession of crude and mewled cries come tumbling out your mouth after your words. No matter now you filter your sounds to try and maintain your decency, he just drags them from you anyway. 
Bringing his hand up to splay his hand over the entirety of the back of your head rather than the delicate back of your neck, he grits out, “Filthy-fucking-mouth.” He punctuates the words with a hollow smack of his skin against your ass. It’s the sound of sex incarnate—your skin burns hearing it clashing against the rest of your debased sounds. “And it’s just for me, now. Isn’t that fucking great? None of those vile pigs are gonna touch what’s mine again. Not after this. You—” His voice tightens when a certain spot he nudges in your cunt sends it clinging to him and sucking him back in at every return. “You were really testing the limits to my patience. Do you know that?” He drags his hand over your face, smearing obscenity over you with just his tainted touch. “Of course you fucking don’t. You don’t notice shit. It’s why you let this world walk all over you. It’s why you need me.”
As hard and fast as he fucks you, he doesn’t exchange full strokes for it. He pulls completely out of you each time he snaps his hips back, and then meets your ass in burning collisions when he slips his cock right back into you. You struggle for breath, trying to feed your oxygen-starved brain to contend with his snarled preaching. Never once do you catch a full chest of air, though. It turns your thoughts liquid, stupid and simple. “Taehyun—Taehyun,” you say, throat tight. The sheets are stifling against your clammy skin, and the hair around your neck is damp. You take fistfuls of the bunches fabric and his other hand on your hip to ground yourself. 
You are beyond grounding. All that floats in your head, one bare thought, is the beginnings of terrifying tightness in your lower belly. Only the sharpest things shove through the shadow permeating your mind. Nip. Bite. He drags his teeth over the soft curves of your shoulders and the expanse of your back. Anywhere he can reach, really. His mouth paints you in aching splotches—the kind that will speak of him should anybody other see your body. The kind that speaks already of who they belong to. You eyes and throat burn.
Taehyun brings that hand he’d been molding into the fat of your hip and curls the muscle-corder forearm across both of your hip bones. A bar. A cage. His solid chest works similarly as he blankets himself over you, speaking into your wild tousle of hair. “Fuck–Gonna cum now.” The friction of his cock against your walls becomes something more unpredictable. The tightening of that knot, just on the verge of a snap that might reverberate through you and crush you into nothing more than bitten flesh and eroded virtue, sits on the horizon. It’s a terrifying thing to be rushing toward. “A—and then they’ll realize that you’re mine. They’ll never put their goddamn hands on you again. Not when your body will have me written all over it.” You can hear the tightness of his gritted jaw, the words seething like black, festering corruption. They fall over your skin and taint you, too. No longer do you shake and tremble against him with innocent little squeaks. Gilt with his words as he speaks them, your body stiffens and your cries go hoarse and pitiful. You try not to think about how you sound. “Isn’t it so good? We’re perfect together. You’re perfect underneath me. Do you know how many—how many times I fucked my fist thinking about you like this? All I ever wanted was for you to realize that we are so much better than the rest of them. It’s always meant to be us. Why did you let them touch you? Dirty your skin?”
All you manage is a heaved cry. He pins you to the mattress and begins fucking you into it. In the black of your eyelids, you watch purity go to dust.
“Take my load, baby. Stay still,” he says. His voice goes soft, like whispers. Like he’s gotten everything he’s wanted, now. 
You squirm beneath the weight of him, hips reining against the arm he holds you there by the hips with. Alarm bells ring, booming and thunderous, but in this state of mind, they sound like the music of climax. To the beat of the bells and his hips, blazing through your reddened bottom and your utter inability to breathe, you go tumbling toward that terrifying release. 
Taehyun’s steadfast pace stutters. “It’s okay,” he tells you, clearing your clammy face of hair once more. His face is right in yours, his eyes heavy and consumptive. “Just let it happen. I’m gonna breed you up, and then it’ll be forever. We’ll be forever. Can’t let you get away again. Not when I’ve got you now. I need you to take it. Can you do that for me?”
Managing one last mhm, all your sounds catch in your throat. You stop meeting halfway, muscles twisting and turning and raging against the profound, terrible wash of it. Eyes flying open, your cunt clings to him, insides fluttering and rippling in a way that begins delightfully, but toes the line of dreadful as his cock continues to tighten them further. Lightning strikes from your core, crawling and crackling from it. It moves your thighs, convulsing them in tandem with the same release wreaking havoc in your stomach.
Cursing low in your ear, he fucks you frantically, fingers planted on your hips. His cock twitches against you a few times, and then the arm he’s supporting himself on collapses down to the elbow and he’s pinning you and shooting white-hot cum right into you. Your shoulder takes the imprint of his cheek as he nips the shoulder he hangs over. His hips twitch, rolling to ride out his high with deep, chesty groans, and then jumping up to spurt a little bit more into you. His panted breaths fall against your skin like fire. 
You blink bleariness away from your eyes. For a few long minutes, that’s all you do. Your chest races so much so that you feel the pulse in your neck and the thumping of it where it rests. Your insides are liquid and intangible, blood slow just as slow as your thoughts.
When reality seeps back through your veins, though, Taehyun’s tugging his chest from your sweaty meeting of bodies. His fingers dig right into the reddened skin where his hips had abused your bottom to hold you open. To view you, and the slow oozing of his seed from your hole. The weight of his gaze sends you fluttering. With the movement of your hole, more of the hot and thickness comes seeping out, slow like molten passion down the shape of your slit and then over your clit and then dripping down onto the bed from you.
The feel of it has you swallowing hard. Holy shit, you are stupid. So painfully stupid. So, you’re just letting men cum inside while you’re not on birth control, now? Ones that you haven’t seen since school? Ones that talk like… that?
Tapping your thigh and pressing a hot kiss to your outer hip, Taehyun says, “I’m gonna go check the breakers. You take it easy here for a second.”
Whiplashed, you nod. There goes that pristine, normal mask again. You watch him go, heaving yourself up from the nasty bedding to be greeted by the musk of sex humid in the air. You think a thousand little thoughts, watching the wall as you go far away in your mind.
Everything that he said… That was not just a little weird, or a little kinky. It was bone-chilling. The taste in your mouth, still tainted by him, sours.
You pull out your phone. Pressing it to your ear, your blood runs sluggish still. 
The cabin owner’s voice comes staticky through the speakers, asking you what you need help with. You ask about the power outage and where the breaker might be, debriefing him on Taehyun ending up here because he wasn’t able to make it to his own cabin, and how you think that the storm outside might be why the power’s gone out.
The cabin owner’s answer makes you pale.
It’s not a crashing realization. Not a thundering storm reaching its climax, nor a firework plasma and explosive at its center but flashy as it sparkles, nor a searing knife to the gut. It’s a slow, dreadful feeling, sinking to the depths of the ocean with a weight around your ankle and the realization that there is no getting back to the surface. It is drowning with water in your lungs, knowing that you swallowed that water down. 
You know why you recognize that hand writing, and you know why Taehyun was missing his glasses, and you know why he had your number even though you have no connections, and you know why he was able to find your cabin by your car despite never having seen it, and you know why your friends never made it here. He, long and spindly legged, the spider, did not even panic when you grazed by the hints toward what he really was. You were all ready in his web, anyway. All he had to do was wait it out and watch you, caught, oblivious, squirm. And, squirm you did.
“What other cabin?” 
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✎୭ ashlynn's note AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! i’m sorry this one came out later, i had to make that ending tie up well.
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ellecdc · 1 month ago
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I'M BACK AGAIN!! And this time I was wondering if you could take me in cause:
☃️ baby it's cold outside: "so, how much longer do you plan on using me as your personal space heater?" with Remus?
AGAIN CONGRATS ON 5K!! ε(´。•᎑•`)っ 💕
thanks for your patience, and thanks for celebrating with me Ivy! hope I did this justice <3
Remus Lupin x animagus!reader who only sees him as a warm jumper [789 words]
CW: fem!reader, end of term mental breakdown, friend's being cheeky, fluff
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It was one of those incredibly unusual evenings where the boys’ dormitory was full yet quiet. 
Sirius was lying upside down on his bed; long hair trailing off the foot of the bed where he hung his head as it bobbed to the music playing in his headphones that Remus had gotten him for his birthday. 
Peter looked to be about 12 minutes away from bursting into tears as he sifted through his Herbology text in a last ditch attempt at boosting his grade in that class.
James was currently laying on his stomach as he watched the Marauders Map, waiting for Lily to finish her prefect rounds so that they could sneak off to the headboy and head girl’s common room. 
And Remus? Well, Remus was sitting up against the headboard of his bed with a book in his hands. Or at least that’s what he appeared to be doing.
What he was actually doing was waiting for you. 
And sure enough, approximately 37 seconds before Peter would have burst into frustrated tears, the dormitory door that had been left cracked open was nudged open further by an entity that none of the boys could see from their current positions, but the tell-tale brrpp gave away your arrival. 
Remus was smiling before he felt a small body land on the foot of his bed, prompting him to move the book out of his line of sight so he could see the small, calico cat kneading biscuits into the throw as you slow-blinked at him. 
“Hello, dove.” 
“Would you two stop being so sickeningly sweet?” Sirius scowled at him as he lifted one of the speakers from his ear. “Show some respect; Pete’s on the brink of a mental breakdown.” 
“If they wait for Pete’s mental stability to be affectionate, they may be waiting until next term.” James offered without looking up from the map. 
“Don’t worry about m-me, Moony.” Peter snuffled through a hiccup before the curtains surrounding his four poster bed shut, a silencing charm being thrown up moments before the Marauder’s knew a sob spilled out of him. 
As bad as Remus felt for his friend, he was glad you didn’t seem too worried about Pete, quickly shoving your head under the hem of his jumper and eliciting a disbelieving laugh from Remus.
“I should’ve known, you little minx.” He chided as you slithered your lithe feline body under the fabric before poking your nose out of the neck hole. “I’m nothing but a warm jumper to you, am I?” 
You responded by purring rather loudly and kneading the fabric of the shirt separating you from his bare chest. He was happy for that barrier when your claws caught on the stitching. 
“Some would be honoured to be her warm jumper, Moons.” James scolded playfully, offering your feline form a smirk and a wink when you poked your head out to blink at him thankfully. 
“I’m sure you would, Prongs.” Remus chuckled. “Come on, how much longer do you plan on using me as your personal space heater?”
“Wait, we can do that?” Sirius asked quickly, sitting himself upright to look at Remus eagerly. Remus responded by closing the curtains of his own four poster bed.
“Come’on, dovey. What if I wanted to cuddle with my girlfriend?” He pouted.
And Remus Lupin was sure he'd never felt more dumb than he had at that moment; hadn’t he ever learned to let sleeping cats lie?  
Opting to give Remus probably exactly what he’d asked for but certainly not what he wanted, your feline form stretched back into your human one; a cheshire cat smile on your face that was merely centimetres from his own as your neck was still protruding the neck hole of his jumper.
“Merline, dove. No.”
“What?” You asked innocently. “Didn’t you want to cuddle with your girlfriend?”
“I wanted to cuddle with my girlfriend, not be smothered by her.”
“I don’t know, Moons.” You murmured, narrowing your eyes at him playfully. “I’m getting mixed signals here.”
“You’re stretching the neckhole out!” 
“Right, and what do you suggest, Remus? That I vacate your jumper?” You scoffed as if that was the most ridiculous thing you’d ever heard. “Come now; you know you’re nothing but a warm jumper to me.” 
“For Godric’s sake, fine. Fine. Shit, you’re a nuisance.” He conceded, though you seemed to know it was all good natured by the smile on his face.
“Thanks Moons.” You cheered before pressing a hard kiss to his lips and then melting back into your cat form. 
Remus settled back comfortably into his bed, relishing the warmth of the tiny space heater you created on his chest and the rumbling purrs your happy form emanated. 
He was sure that if he was a cat, he’d be purring too.
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gingernut1314 · 2 months ago
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The Water's Cold Embrace Masterlist
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Content: Female reader x Slico, pre-Arcane season 1, will go into season 1 but much later, young Silco, Vander, Sevika, Felicia, Connol, & baby Viktor, Vi, Powder, Viktor's parents, canon typical descriptions of violence & death, reader has water manipulation powers, sex (further warning in individual part), drugs, smoking, revolution, unrequited love...or is it???, friends to lovers, slow burn, slight Arcane season 2/League of Legends spoiler (Janna, Felicia/Connol)
A/N: since season 2 came out I was reminded that I had some bits and pieces of this story I made while watching season 1 and thought, hey, now is a good time as any to put them out there into the world. I wanted to write for the characters pre-season 1 cause how fun would it be to write for all their interactions before everything went to complete shit? It's so much fun and thus this fic was born lol. I hope you all enjoy!
↞ to Arcane Masterlist | Request Rules | Blog Navigation ↠
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Guide:
⏳ = Coming Soon 🖋️= Ongoing 🧨 = NSFW
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Setlist: (Full Playlist)
Blood//Water
Love and War
Living in the Shadows
Snakes
Mermaids
The Angry River
Start a War
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The Water's Cold Embrace: 🖋️
Prologue:
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 1: The Winds of the Undercity {1.2K}
Act 1:
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 2: Turkey and Cheese {2.7K}
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 3: Sack of Potatoes {2.9K}
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 4: Just a Bedtime Story {3.7K}
Act 2:
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 5: Don't Jinx It {4.5K}
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 6: Bit of Friendly Banter {4.1K}
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 7: The Water's Embrace {5.9K}
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 8: Head On {7.6K}
Act 3:
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 9: Like Seahorses Do ⏳
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 10: .... ⏳
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 11: ... ⏳
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 12: ... ⏳
Act 4:
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 13: Wailing Sea Witch ⏳
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 14: .... ⏳
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 15: ... ⏳
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 16: ⏳
Epilogue:
ᥫ᭡ Chapter 17: The Waters of Zuan⏳
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frownyalfred · 4 months ago
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the rumblings about the Batman 2 setting reminded me of how cool a snowed-in Gotham would be for a fic or movie setting. power/electricity grid is either out or about to fail. people are trapped in their homes and apartments by ten and fifteen foot drifts, with more snow inbound. the city breaks down within hours, as people abandon their jobs (cough, Arkham) and try to escape the city.
The Bat enters a new version of a familiar playground, an iced over city where cars can’t drive, grapple lines don’t catch, and frostbite sets in within minutes of exposing skin. How do you protect your city? The vulnerable freezing to death? How do you connect aid stations and Good Samaritans to the people who need help when Gotham’s criminal underbelly has decided now is the time to fight back?
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starrystevie · 11 months ago
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"what are you doing," eddie mumbles in confusion, hair fanned out on steve's pillow, the moonlight streaming in giving him a hazy halo.
there's a hand on the side of his face and it's cupping his cheek, thumb stroking over his skin. it's soft, so soft, too soft. another hand is trapping his against the mattress, fingers trailing over his forearm before tangling into his own and squeezing tight. it's gentle, so gentle, too gentle.
eddie isn't soft, eddie isn't gentle. eddie isn't making love in a full size bed with wallpaper that matches the drapes. he isn't fluttering kisses in time with fluttering heartbeats and the fluttering wings of butterflies trapped in his stomach like the most lovely cage.
eddie is fucking at 2am when there's enough intoxication to make him look like he's worth it. he's rough and wild, quick and easy. a means to a barely wanted end because he's there and willing and with long enough hair to let people imagine he's someone else.
he should be caged instead of the damn butterflies. he bares his teeth and thrashes his limbs just to fight and see what he can get away with. he laughs loud and brash in the face of sweetness just to see anger, just to see hurt.
he has half a mind to think he's a feral animal that's hardly been trained, performing in some fucked up circus that charges two bucks to see him snarl and hurl insults at anyone who passes by. he bites at the hands that try to touch, try to feed, proving to the onlookers that he's only worth the pocket change they pay to see him.
but steve. he's holding his face like he wants to, holding his hand like it's the most important thing in the world. he's pressing kisses along eddie's jaw without any hurry, without any rush, kissing just to kiss. feeling just to feel. he's like a ray of goddamn sunshine even in the darkness that midnight provides, warming eddie from the inside out.
eddie wants to run. he wants to scream. he wants to feel like he's allowed steve's soft and gentle but he's-
"is this not okay?" and now steve's looking at him with all of whatever he's trying to give him lacing into his face, his eyes and spit slick lips sparkling in the moonlight like a shiny new toy. "do you not like it?"
concern and care are different sides of the same steve shaped coin and if eddie looks hard enough, he can see them blurring together in his frustratingly beautiful sparkling eyes and those damn butterflies start to come back.
"no, it's-" he let's out a sigh, relaxing his tight muscles and sinking into the bed, sinking into whatever steve is willing to give him. "just different, is all. good different, i think."
steve smiles and eddie shakily mirrors it back, before he's ducking his head again and slotting their lips together, fingers still holding tight to eddie's, still cupping his face like it's something precious.
eddie's come to terms with the taste of the metal bars of his cage, teeth wearing down as he tries to bite his way to freedom. maybe this time he'll let himself get used to the taste of soft and gentle smiles if it means loving steve.
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daftpatience · 6 months ago
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youre always cold but damn it if youre not my friend
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fic thoughts that have been heavy on my mind lately
Cold fic continuation where they're moving into their new apartment and some feelings are felt. and danny having to go away for tour and feelings being felt. and. danny confronting the reader on her not letting him care for her.
sweetheart josh jump forward to current jullet josh. still just as bratty still knows their ass belongs to reader.
the record store running shy jake fic I started and never did anything with
putting jake in your lingerie. gigling a little but also realizing things. buying jake his own lingerie. unwritten, just been rotating it in my brain a lot.
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fuckin-sick-bih · 1 year ago
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not to be a slut or anything but UGH i am in such the mood to write about my OC Hale stuck with a wretched cold in the most insufferable town meeting he can't get out of
i will be going feral about this under the cut
can't focus on anything with how badly he needs to sneeze, and can't leave because that's not very Future Head Alpha Of The Town of him. PLUS his dad Morgan, the notorious asshole running the town, is watching like a hawk from across the table while also keeping the meeting running through every sniffle, stifled sneeze, and uncomfortable shuffle/shiver from Hale.
poor thing is just so stuffed up, can barely breathe so he does his best to breathe quietly through his mouth only it just makes his lips chapped and hurt. every stifled sneeze sounds horribly congested now. pinched off and squelching when he pinches his nose to try and keep them contained.
he just can't do it without using a hand anymore. usually he's great at stifling, could do it all day long, but now he can only just barely hold back the messy, coldish sneezes that threaten to tear through him.
he's exhausted from all these food rationing meetings and it's only just the start of winter. when he pauses to rub at his temples or his eyes, maybe even at his sinuses a little, he can feel Morgan's eyes boring holes into him. glaring him down. so he slumps as much into his seat as he's allowed and powers through.
when it's all finally over and he stumbles home into his drafty, musty little apartment to curl up on the couch he drops right to sleep.
i'm torn between hurt-no-comfort or hurt-then-comfort
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HOW DEEP IS YOUR DEVOTION? ; SATORU GOJO
synopsis; you’re his knight, and he’s your prince. (if only it were that simple.)
word count; 6.6k
contents; satoru gojo/reader, gn!reader, royalty au (..but no effort put into making it historically accurate in any way oops), knight!reader x prince!toru!!, childhood friends, mutual pining, fluffy overall, some hurt/comfort too, vague allusions to abuse (reader is punished by one of the castle maids as a child but it’s only really hinted at), knight!reader is horrendously devoted but prince!gojo is arguably worse, he would burn the world down if u asked nicely <3
a/n; big big BIG thank you to @/teddybeartoji for having the biggest brain in the galaxy and infecting me with this concept <33 if u pay attention while reading you can tell the exact moment i started slowly spiraling into insanity
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you are five years old when you meet the prince.
five years old, a mere child, and too young to be blinded by such brilliance. too young to be where you are; curled up in a dark alley, back against a grimy brick wall, covered in bruises. like a beaten dog — scrawny and afraid. waiting for a strike that never comes.
the boy in front of you is also five years old, but you don’t know that. something in him looks older, somehow, something in the way he carries himself. like he doesn’t have anything to be afraid of. like he’s never even felt fear. he parts his lips and speaks like he has the right to, like he’s comfortable in his own skin, a radiance so blinding you could mistake him for the sun. too much for you to bear.
”does it hurt?”
the words fall on deaf ears. but you flinch, your body reacts, a tremble down your tiny spine. you hear the sound but not the words. too mesmerized, too paralyzed, unable to look away from the blue of his eyes, painted with rich watercolour hues. seeping into the world around you like ink on paper, cobalt and aquamarine and something else, something you’ve never seen before —
a blue so jarring it makes you shiver.
the boy has an innocent face. almost girlish, plump cheeks and long lashes, clean clothes and smooth skin. a little too pretty to be out here, you think, in this part of town — too pure to be anywhere near someone like you. he’s above you, that much you can tell. a pretty, innocent face, untouched by dirt or ache; the face of royalty. an entirely different species.
there’s something keen in his eyes, a contrast to his childlike features. a sharp gaze, something that sees through you, something that won’t look away. something mildly frightening. enough to have you cowering in fear, hugging your knees closer to your chest.
but then he smiles. and it’s sincere. sweet, vibrant, all honey and milk and a world you cannot reach.
a smile so captivating you take his outstretched hand, and let him drag you away to god-knows-where.
(that's how it begins. the dynamic that’ll follow you into your adult lives; satoru takes the lead, and you follow. no matter where he’s going.)
satoru gojo, as you soon come to learn, is the prince of the nation you reside in. the only child of the royal family, born with talent and prestige, fame and fortune, set to become king. a different species, indeed.
but he brings you home with him, to a castle so grand you feel as if your very presence is an insult to the architects who designed it, and convinces his parents to let you stay. it’s surprising, but you don’t protest; following him like a puppy at his trail. and he’s stubborn, insistent, demanding that he get to keep said puppy. 
the king and queen don’t care one way or another. they glance at you with apathy, and tell satoru to do what he wants — but convincing the scary and displeased castle maids takes some work. 
satoru doesn’t waver, though. he holds your hand in his, and demands that you be treated with respect.
and he wins. he always wins.
that’s how you become the prince’s playmate. raised alongside him, allowed to stay close, eat from the same food. he won’t settle for anything less. defending your honour, always, before you even know what honour means. before you care.
time passes slowly. joyously. every day is a new adventure, as you attempt to get used to the miracle that is your new life — sweet and silky, apricot blossoms and fresh peaches, duvet pillows and a bubbly laughter you didn’t know you still had. he coaxes it out of you, with every secret midnight outing, every bout of mischief he drags you both into. 
satoru has nice hands, uncalloused palms, fingers that grasp yours and don’t let go. he takes you outside, to see the stars, to catch fireflies in the dark of night on top of the hill that oversees the castle. to take a dip in the river just below it, gleaming a silver hue under the blue shade of the moon. you worry about getting in trouble, but he reassures you — the prince can do what he wants.
that might be true, but you are no prince. not even close. satoru may safeguard you, but all you’ll ever be in the eyes of the world is a stray he got to keep.
and one time, only one time, you do face the repercussions of your midnight outings. you, and you alone. a bad influence — seething words, buzzing in your ears. an angry castle maid, and a stinging pain in your cheek. blurry tears. 
but that’s an incident no one in the castle dares to speak of.
(you’ll never forget that look in his eyes.)
satoru is an odd boy. he keeps you close, always, clinging to you like he needs you to breathe. you don’t understand why, but you’ve learned not to question him. the castle guards all know you as the prince’s best friend, and some part of you knows that’s all you’ll ever amount to. but you don’t mind.
because you love him. at five years old, six years old, seven and beyond, you love him. satoru gojo, the kindest boy in the stratosphere. 
a boy who keeps finding you, no matter where you are, who tugs you along as naturally as the rise of the sun. who raids kitchen cabinets with you and always makes you laugh, little giggles and chuckles that have him beaming proudly. a boy who cleans your wounds with a serious expression, and tells you that he’ll protect you forever. 
(you tell yourself the same. that you’ll protect him forever and ever, until you run out of air to breathe. a boy so sweet you’d die for him.)
a pledge is made. you make it before you know what a pledge is. pledging to protect him, to become his sword, because even as a child you understand that his life will be difficult. you see it in the dullness that sometimes comes over his eyes, the apathy of his so-called parents, the hours he spends locked up with nothing but a pile of dusty books to keep him company. 
so you decide to become his knight. his, and his alone. 
it’s challenging. but you push through; training with another aspiring knight, miles better than you, black hair tousled by the breeze as he knocks you off your feet for the thirtieth consecutive time. wincing as the girl who sometimes watches your sparring patches you up, soft hands cleaning your wounds so tenderly that you almost choke up.
and eventually, as the apricot blossoms of the castle orchard wilt and bloom over and over in a flurry of pure white, your dream comes true. 
there’s something playful in satoru’s eyes, when he places his blade on the curve of your shoulder. something sweet and fond, and just a little bit ironic — as if you’re still seven years old, and playing house. 
you want to tell him that it isn’t a joke. that you’re serious, about this, that you’d tear your stomach open to keep him safe. but you know he’d just laugh. so you let the words clog up your throat, honey-sweet devotion sticking to the walls of your esophagus. breathing in through your nose, as he speaks. as the words you’ve waited to hear flow from his glossy lips.
when all is said and done, satoru smiles. he calls you his little knight, and you can tell that he’s teasing you. indulging you, as if he’s in on some joke that you aren’t. but you’ll take what you can get.
you call him my prince, expecting him to laugh it off, but his smile begins to fall. and a pang of ache rushes through your soul, instantaneous, guilty, although you don’t understand why.
so you keep calling him satoru. even though it’s more than a little unprofessional, and you become painfully accustomed to receiving a few judgemental looks here and there. a knight and a prince shouldn’t be so very close, they think, and you don’t disagree. but there’s nothing they can do about it, anyhow.
the prince and his knight can do what they want.
not much changes. you’re his knight, but he treats you the same as before. he’s playful, a little goofy, and you indulge him. as always. attached at the hip, bickering and bantering, bouncing off each other effortlessly. and satoru never bothers to hide your history, the soft spot he has for you; it’s in every fleeting glance, soft tilt of his head, teasing call of ah, there’s my favorite knight. 
(you’re no stranger to jealous looks. sometimes a pout on the lips of a pretty girl, a crease between the brows of one of your fellow knights. and sometimes a glare, from his fiancée — a woman he was engaged to before he was old enough to speak.
but you don’t mind. you’ve never cared what anyone but satoru thinks of you.)
satoru never loses his smile, that effortless air of confidence. the charm that makes people want to follow him, a charisma you know well. one you fell victim to at five years of age. he’s still just a prince, far from being a king, but he receives the same respect.
and that keen, sharp glimmer in his eyes never quite goes away; the hardened shell around his heart unbroken. you see it in fleeting glances, during meetings, ones he allows you to attend despite your status. when he speaks to a room of people with more power than you can imagine, his voice unwavering. back straight. elegant, serious, the presence of royalty — enough to receive respect without even trying. 
but he still shoots you a smile, easygoing, when your eyes meet. one only you can see.
as for you, the step into knighthood is a clumsy one. but you take your duties seriously, and adjust properly. a deep devotion runs through your veins, from your beating heart down to the tips of your fingers, where a sword lies clutched. you keep it close, always, ready to serve. to obey. to protect. 
all of it for one person.
all you do is for him. duels in his honour, beasts slain for his peace of mind, and he’s always there to welcome you back. wiping the blood from your cheek, tenderly, smearing his untainted skin with red; all while he looks at you softly, a coo or word of praise waltzing on the tip of his tongue. 
that’s only for when you remain unscathed, though, when the blood on your cheek isn’t your own. when you get hurt, it’s different — something begins to brew inside his eyes, and you can’t tell what it is. but he insists on bandaging you himself, paying no mind to your meek protests.
sometimes, you’re more reckless than usual. your injuries worse. sometimes he looks upset, angry with you, and doesn’t speak. you don’t, either.
a strange look comes over his eyes, every now and then. when you get down on one knee, to kiss his hand, the metal of the ring on his finger — and if you look up, you’ll see it. simmering inside those blue depths, something just as fond as it is sad. troubled, you think.
(something tells you he’d kneel, too, if only you’d let him.)
the bond between you remains intact. even as you begin to shoulder more responsibilities, more duties, even though you don’t have as much freedom as you used to. even though you seem to get less time to spend with each other every single day. but you stay together, even so; just like when you were children, running around and causing trouble, more than you could get away with now. 
despite everything, satoru has grown up into a fine man. and you couldn't be prouder.
“do you think i look good in black? be honest.”
you throw him a glance. curious, somewhat perplexed, eyeing him up and down.
satoru is wearing a white blouse, puffy sleeves and a low neckline, showing off the skin of his bare chest. no black colours to be seen. you think back to that banquet he attended last month, forced into an expensively tailored black coat. a corset around his waist. and then you hum.
“sure you do.”
”suguru said it makes me look like a try-hard,” he scoffs, crossing his arms. tilting his head in your direction. ”do you think he’s jealous?”
”definitely.”
a moment passes. 
satoru narrow his eyes, and gives you a dubious look. clicking his tongue. ”… something tells me you aren’t taking this seriously.”
”i am,” you assure him, a lazy smile at your lips. meeting his gaze, that displeased little pout. still smoothing a brush down the mane of your horse, the smell of hay soothing your muddled senses. ”just tired. you look good in anything. you know that.”
he hums. silent, the sound of a spring breeze filling in the gaps.
it’s late. outside the stables, the world is engulfed by a dark sky, almost too murky to see anything. hazy stars glimmer in the distance, and a sense of fatigue gnaws at your bones. it’s been a long day, and yet you’re here — doing even more work. just a little more.
and satoru’s right there with you. even though he’s just sitting there, on the floor, not lifting a finger to help. not that he has to. insistent on spending some quality time with you, keeping you company. just talking and munching on the food he snuck in, bread and cheese and an expensive bottle of wine, that he leaves completely untouched. he tries to leave some of everything else for you, though. keyword being tries.
a sense of peace simmers in the air. palpable, almost enough to taste, as midnight air streams in from the opened doors, chilly and pleasant on your skin. ruffling the thin fabric of your clothing.
and it’s nice, you think, just to have satoru there — talking about this and that, complaining about all the annoying people he had to meet yesterday, yawning every now and then. nostalgic. like this, it almost feels like you're still kids. back when you spent every single hour of the day by each other’s side.
it’s been a long time since you got the chance to speak like this. satoru’s been busy, and so have you. more so than usual.
”are they running you ragged?” he suddenly asks, and you don’t realize you’ve spent the last minute staring into space. resuming your brushing, with steady hands, but turning your head to meet his gaze.
”need me to…” he makes a slicing motion with his hand, right over his throat. a glint of mischief in his eyes. ”handle it?”
and you scoff. amused, but answering him seriously; unsure if his question is all-together humorous, if it doesn’t carry a hint of something genuine too. ”of course not.”
there’s a weariness in the way you blink. the way you pet the animal in front of you, having finished getting the dirt and blood clots out of her mane. she lays down in her stall, and you smile. turning around to rest your back against the wooden border between you, a respite for your aching bones.
it gets just a little bit tiring, sometimes. fighting, patrolling, helping townsfolk. protecting the castle, making sure everything is in order. killing whatever needs to be killed. cleaning the stained silver of your sword.
but…
”it’s my duty,” you answer, seriously, and it comes out sounding like a vow. because it is. 
you avoid his gaze, but you can feel it, as you pick up the wine bottle by your feet and pop the cork. soft moonlight flits in from the windows, illuminating the green glass. a chartreuse glow that reminds you of fireflies, shimmering in your grasp, and for some reason it soothes your heart.
satoru only hums, far from approving. popping a piece of cheese into his mouth. 
after a brief pause, he continues. ”you don’t have to be so serious all the time, you know.” his voice comes out a little raspy. it’s got a certain tilt to it, one that means he wants you to take him seriously. ”not around me.”
you take a sip of the wine. expensive, blood red. it’s too sweet for your taste, heavy on your tongue.
”… i’m less serious with you than i am with others.”
satoru sits up a little straighter.
”yeah?” he grins, a kind of satisfaction blooming in his eyes. cerulean and sweet. almost smug, you think, like the cat that got the cream. ”that’s good. you really should loosen up, though.”
a glance. fleeting, just to see him — but he isn’t looking at you. he’s looking outside, through the opened window, at the sway of the apricot trees. white petals flitting in, landing by his feet. in his hair.
when his eyes meet yours, they’re smoothed over by that something you can never put your finger on. a blend between longing and fondness. crinkled at the edges.
”you’ve got a pretty smile,” he exhales. ”be a shame not to show it off.”
when you look at him, really look at him, you see it. that fatigue. it slips out when he talks to you, a sincere way of speaking that never quite allows him to hide his emotions. you hear the hint of a yawn, can practically feel the weight on his shoulders. the weight of an entire nation. a weight he was always bound to carry.
(you could never bring yourself to be even remotely alright with it.)
“have you been doing okay?” you ask, and satoru blinks. there’s a soft look in your eyes, as they trail over the contours of his face, his lashes catching the light of the stars. an innocent, pretty face. but he looks tired. frail. like he hasn’t been sleeping properly.
something rotten bubbles up inside your throat.
”they’re running you ragged, too,” you say, hand settling on your hip. where your sword usually is. unconsciously, on instinct — or maybe just to make him laugh. ”need me to step in?”
satoru chuckles. husky, mellow. dripping with soft amusement.
”settle down, little knight.”
a moment passes. silent. his eyes flutter shut, for a second, and a breath slips from his lips. almost a sigh. in the distance, you hear the quiet coo of an owl. 
”of course,” he eventually answers, opening his eyes. and you think he looks a little resigned. but smiling. self-deprecating, you think, although he’d like you to assume otherwise. ”all of it is just preparation, anyhow.” 
a flimsy smile, as he looks into your knowing eyes. ”it’s what i was born for, wasn’t it?”
you purse your lips.
“… i don’t think so.”
another chuckle. a little delighted, this time. 
“yeah,” he cranes his neck, emitting a low groan. “me neither.” something sweet blossoms in his eyes, sweet like the crunch of the apple he bites into, juice dribbling down his chin. ”but it is what it is.”
a beat. you part your lips, trying to find the right words. ”tell me if there's anything i can do,” you settle on. the same words you always choose. ”anything at all.”
satoru smiles. “right.” his voice carries a teasing tilt; almost a purr. ”there’s nothing you wouldn't do for me, hm?” 
“— there isn’t.” you smile. “nothing at all.”
he blinks. a little dazed, for a second, and you watch as his ears redden. slight, enough for you to notice, but gone before you can bring it up. a contemplation smooths over his features. and a pleasant breeze flits in, ruffling his hair, apricot petals kissing up his skin. he looks at the apple in his hands.
then he sighs. placing his palms on his knees, and rising to his feet. his arms twitch, muscular beneath the flimsy blouse, and you gulp. although you aren’t sure why.
“alright, then.” his eyes flicker in the dim light, sharp and decisive. he crosses over to you with long strides. “there is something you can do.”
when he’s close enough, satoru reaches out his hand; opening his palm. a silent beckoning. you look at him, not saying a word. his expression is unreadable. 
then you intertwine your fingers with his. unquestioningly, even in the midst of your confusion.
(it reminds you of that day. when he pulled you up to your feet, held your hand in his and refused to let go. leading you to the promise of something better.)
no matter where he goes, you follow.
and satoru grins. it’s sweet, just like back then, a smile so vibrant you wish you could tuck it into your sleeve and keep it there forever. he curls his fingers around yours, gentle, fondness bubbling up inside his eyes. for a second, you think you see the sun.
“come with me.”
at first, you truly aren’t sure where he’s going to take you. hand in hand, you begin to walk, feeling the midnight breeze nip at your skin. beyond the castle walls, away from the hustle and bustle of the nearby town. satoru holds your hand and smiles, tousled tufts of white hair swaying with the wind, leading you to a place you know well. a place where the air tastes like freedom.
it’s the river you used to play by as children.
gleaming a solemn silver under the evanescent moon, framed by bushes of lilacs, blooming indigo and violet and pure white. butterflies flutter about, almost glittering, blue wings settling down on the leaves. the scent of nectar hangs heavy in the air. on top of the hill just above you, you think you can spot tiny little glowing dots; green and yellow, buzzing around. dancing merrily, now that there aren’t any troublemaker children left to trap them.
satoru lets go of your hand, to roll up his sleeves. the hems of his pants. then he’s taking a step forward, dangerously close to the edge of the river, and you can tell what he’s thinking.
“ah — wait —“ you stumble forward, to grab hold of his arm. a worried crease forms between your brows. “that's dangerous, satoru. you could slip and fall.”
he turns to face you, a teasing mirth in his eyes. smirking lightly. “oh? is that so?” he hums, a slight tilt of his head. then he’s stepping closer, so close you feel his warm breath on your skin, but you will yourself not to step back. “wanna know what i think?”
he leans forward, just a little further, warm air brushing against the shell of your ear. flushing beneath it. his voice comes out low, a sleepy lilt, dangerously raspy. hand ghosting over your waist.
”i think you’re too scared to get in.”
you blink.
”… really?” you deadpan, stepping back a tad. satoru looks pleased with himself.
“really,” he purrs. “you were always like that. could barely dip your toes in without shivering.” he reaches out to pinch your cheek, a coo on the tip of his tongue. ”scaredy-cat.”
you raise an unimpressed brow. satoru steps back, inching closer to the river, until a quiet splash tells you that he’s standing in the water. lapping up his bare legs, not enough to even reach his knees — it felt a lot scarier when you were smaller. he’s still holding your hand, very loosely, fingertips ghosting your own. 
“c’mon,” he coaxes. soft, encouraging, a playful glimmer in his eyes. teeth catching the light of the moon. “or is it too much for my brave knight to handle?”
satoru laughs, when that makes you furrow your brows, attempting to hide the flush of your cheeks. a warmth spreads through your chest at the term of endearment, and you bite your lip. melting a little. 
his knight. his favourite knight.
“... fine,” you tangle your fingers in his own. sighing deeply, taking a tentative step forward. “just be careful, okay? i don't want to deal with your whining if you hit your head.”
“ah, but you’d kiss it better, no? if i asked?” he flashes you a honeyed grin, eyes rich with amusement. you hope the darkness of the night is enough to hide the red of your ears.
a grumble buzzes in your throat, locked behind your pursed lips. something in your jaw goes tight.
the man in front of you softens. parting his glossy lips. he says your name; slowly, thoughtfully, as if savouring every syllable. dragging them out, speaking with a lilt that tells you he’s being sincere.
“— loosen up. it’s just you and me.”
so you do.
and it’s odd. how easy it is to get lost in him, the watercolour of his eyes, the brightness of his grin. how pliantly you let him whisk you away. before you know it, you’re playing in the water — because satoru splashed you, laughing at the shock on your face and the shiver of your spine, and you had no choice but to retaliate. 
the sound of his laughter fills the air, sweet and bubbly. deep and giddy. strands of hair stick to his wet skin, droplets running down his neck, but his grin never falters. bright and toothy, boyish. he looks younger than you ever remember him being. like there’s no weight on his shoulders, none at all, only soaked fabric weighing him down. a flimsy, see-through blouse.
you think it’s ridiculous. two grown adults, splashing each other like children. but his melodic giggles are contagious, and before you know it, you’re laughing too — and satoru looks at you like you hung all the stars in the sky. through dewy eyelashes, with cerulean eyes that melt into the pale blue of the moon and the silver of the river. filled with wonder.
a particularly ruthless splash knocks him off balance, and he has the instinct to reach for your arm; stumbling, slipping, dragging you down with him. you land on his chest, cheek against his neck, his pulse against your skin. erratic, joyous. fluttering happily. his chest is heaving, lifting you up and down, a little, rhythmic and comforting. 
a sudden yelp slips past your lips, as you get snapped back into reality, into the realization that you basically just pushed your own prince into a river and used his unfairly soft chest as a cushion. a mumbled string of apologies escapes you, as you attempt to get up, scrambling to find footing.
but satoru wraps his arms around you. tucking you under his chin, keeping you flush against his chest. nice and still. 
and then he sighs. a blissful little breath, fatigue seeping out of him. into the air. 
“stay like this, for a bit,” he rasps. ”it’s okay.”
his heartbeat resounds in your ear. warm and rapid, like claps of thunder, coaxing you into closing your eyes. satoru has always felt so very safe. the water of the river is cold, seeping through the fabric of your clothing and sticking to your skin, but…
(he’s warm.)
silence. and then, a whisper; frail, slipping past his lips, gently slicing the silence in half. softer than you've ever heard him speak.
“i missed this.”
nuzzling into his neck, you breathe him in. he smells like sandalwood and dried roses, buzzing with warmth, heavy arms around your waist. solid. when did he get so big? you used to be taller. 
then again — that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?
“… me too.”
“missed you,” he continues, his jaw on top of your head. it’s a sincere confession; childlike in its innocence. “missed hearing you laugh like that. feels like it’s been so long.” 
you stay silent. unsure of what to say. satoru continues, and you let his husky voice carry you away, the tremor of his chest running through your entire body. soothing like a lullaby. 
”we haven't had much time together, lately. i’ve been worried,” he admits, and something about it strikes you as rather sheepish. a little ashamed. ”it bothers me that i can't be there to watch over you. make sure you're treated with respect, you know.”
a sleepy chuckle. muffled into his shoulder, almost a scoff — slightly exasperated. little droplets cling to his skin, sticking to your lips.
”relax, your majesty,” you tease. ”i promise the other knights aren’t bullying me.” 
satoru pouts. you can hear it, when he speaks. ”i’m serious,” he huffs, squeezing you lightly. ”and it’s not them i’m worried about. suguru’s there.”
another scoff threatens to escape your throat. you want to tell him the only knight that should be suspected of bullying you is suguru himself, but before you can even think to part your lips satoru’s beaten you to it.
”they all treat you so carelessly.” there’s something cold to his voice, an irritation tugging at his teeth. oddly seething. ”like you exist to serve them. like you’re disposable.” 
a moment passes, heavy with a silence so thick you don’t dare break it. when he speaks again, it’s an order. a demand. 
”i want you to tell me if they go too far.”
silence. again. you can do nothing but gnaw at the flesh of your bottom lip. 
(he isn’t wrong. but that’s simply what it means to be a knight — half-human, half-weapon. an unattainable ideal, stuffed inside a suit of armor.
when a weapon breaks under the force of a slash, the only choice is to throw it away. that much you know.)
”it’s fine. i’m not that fragile,” you weakly protest, but it’s not enough. satoru huffs.
”you’re a human being,” he reminds you. strangely stern, for once. chastising. ”you deserve to be treated with respect. knight or not. fragile or not.”
a deep inhale. he breathes in, and the rise of his chest carries you with it. his voice buzzes with something, a slumbering kind of fury. one you haven’t heard in years. 
“if anyone gives you trouble — if anyone hurts you… if anyone makes you feel unsafe,” he almost spits the words, like they’re venomous, sacrilegious. ”tell me. i’ll destroy them.”
silence. and then, a chuckle.
that’s all you can manage; that one meek little breath. resisting the urge to cower, at the love that clings to every word he speaks. angered affection. a promise, dangerously genuine, like a growing wildfire. ”i can take care of myself, satoru,” you remind him. hoping it’ll soothe him. ”you know that.”
but his grip around you only tightens. gentle, even still. as if you’re made of glass, a firefly cupped in his palms. he lets the silence linger, for a moment.
and then; 
“i’d do it, you know.”
“… do what?” you ask, though some part of you already knows. 
satoru’s reply is instantaneous. an arrow hitting its target, cold and concise, decisive. frighteningly honest. almost a growl, flattened, a hint of teeth behind his soft lips. ”destroy them. anyone.”
”i’d tear this nation apart if you asked me to.”
(ah. that look in his eyes — one you remember well. strung together with blurred memories, the sting of a palm on your cheek, a castle maid you never saw again.)
you search for the words. biting back a gulp, hesitant. “… i wouldn’t.”
“i know.” satoru yawns, breathing you in, voice shifting back into the softness you’re so used to. your shoulders relax. “but i would. if that’s what you wanted.”
and it’s a little scary, the depths of his devotion. but you’re almost certain you’d do the same for him. maybe you're both a little sick in the head, a little too eager to serve your hearts on a silver platter.
“it bothers me, you know.” satoru breaks you out of your thoughts. gentle, a soft lull of his tongue. ”when you get hurt. when you fight for me.”
“i know,” you murmur. you’ve seen it in his eyes, a worry he’s not as good at hiding as he thinks. ”i want to, though.”
“and i want you to be safe.” a chuckle bubbles up in his throat, just a little bit rueful. “you never listen, do you? so stubborn, i swear. always worrying me.”
you bite down on your lip. he sounds… a little sad.
“… sorry.”
a moment’s pause. then he shakes his head; cradling you close. “it’s fine. i’m here. always,” his palm runs down the small of your back. ”in case anything happens.”
he inhales. ”and when i become king —” a beat. he swallows thickly. ”you’ll never have to worry again. no one will be able to touch you.”
”satoru,” you crack a small smile. amused. raising a single eyebrow. ”i’m not worried. i can protect myself.”
”i know. but i’m saying you don’t have to.”
and then he’s pulling back. just a little bit, just enough to see you. cheek smushed against his chest, comfortable and soft, more unguarded than he’s seen you these past few months. it’s enough to get his heart racing. enough to have him reaching out, fingertips ghosting over your hand, tangling your fingers together. bringing it to his glossy lips. a chaste kiss, brimming with unspoken murmurs of love.
”— i’ll protect you forever,” he vows. ”remember?”
there’s devotion in his eyes. heavy, a vow he’ll never quite be able to voice in full. something that makes the blue of his eyes glow even brighter, cerulean, aquamarine, a blue so jarring it makes your heart beat faster than it should.
you blink. starstruck, caught in a daze, lost within that sea of blue. distracted by his warm breath on your cold skin, the soft whisper voiced against your knuckle. something shy blossoms in your chest, enough to have you averting your gaze. 
“... you really don’t care about the dynamic here, do you?” is all you can reply. a meek scoff, a weak attempt at hiding how flustered you are. “i’m the knight. i’m your protector.”
“oh, i know.” a smile sticks to his lips, playful, the back of his hand caressing your cheek. a coo on his tongue. “my little hero. what would i ever do without you?”
a roll of your eyes. satoru chuckles. in the distance, you hear crickets chirping, a breeze rustling the lilac bushes all around you. he’s still cradling your cheek, smoothing over your wet skin, brushing a drop of water away with his thumb. clinging to your bottom eyelash.
“i don't get it, though.”
you blink. when you meet his eyes, satoru looks a little perplexed. muttering under his breath, absently rubbing circles over your cheekbone. you resist the urge to close your eyes again, biting back a blissful sigh.
”a prince shouldn’t care for his knight…” he repeats, like he’s heard the string of words a million times before. ”the idea of that. i don’t understand it. never have.”
the smile that blossoms on his lips is soft, indescribably so, as if he’s looking at the most precious thing in his life. rich and warm, like wine in your veins, nectar on your tongue, a chest pressed against your own. dripping with fondness.
satoru tilts his head, as if in confusion — but he’s smiling. “what’s so strange about wanting to protect the one dearest to my heart?” 
his hand slips from your skin, a warmth leaving your cheek. only to search for your hand, again, cradling it in his larger palm. placing it right over his chest, against the soaked material of his blouse. ”feel that?”
you do. a rhythmic rise and fall, a soft flutter from the depths of his ribcage. as if it’s itching to break out, out of the cage that binds it, the hardened shell around it. a heart too big for his body.
”it’s you,” satoru whispers. ”all for you.”
a moment passes.
silently, you lean forward; tucking yourself into his neck. into that comforting warmth, wet skin beginning to dry, the steady thrum of his heart right by your ear. you listen. not saying a word, afraid of what might leave the confines of your strangled throat. it feels as if your heart has begun to crawl upwards, sweet honey blocking your airways, and all you can do it feel it pulse. 
all while satoru gazes at you, fondly. placing a big palm on the back of your head.
fireflies dance in the distance. butterflies flutter about. strings of lilacs bloom under the glow of the moon. and satoru’s heartbeat never changes, never falls out of tune, a sound you would recognize even if the sky were to shatter, if the world were to end. the sound that saved you, the boy who dragged you out of hell. into his light. 
satoru gojo is everything. he’s the beat of your heart, the silver of your sword, the reason you believe in goodness. he’s your prince, your favorite person, and you’ll protect him until your very last breath. until the world runs out of oxygen.
a boy so sweet you’d die for him.
(a boy so sweet he wouldn’t want you to.)
a shiver runs down his spine — sudden, a shudder of his bones, and a quiet little sniffle. you feel it, hear it, and don’t attempt to bite back the fond smile that slips into the curve of your lips.
”c’mon,” you beckon, almost a coo, placing your palms on his chest to hoist yourself up. ”let’s go home.”
but satoru shakes his head. and then he traps you again, strong arms around your waist, pressing you against him. you could escape — you’re almost certain you’re stronger — but you don’t quite have the heart to. ”it’s fine,” he huffs. almost a whine. ”stay.”
”you’ll get sick.”
”i never get sick.”
a deep exhale. tumbling from your lips, just a little bit humorous. mostly exasperated. ”that can change,” you mumble, fingertips dancing along his exposed skin. absentmindedly.
a smile. one you can’t see, but you hear it clear as day. he sounds content, like he’s got everything he needs right in front of him. ”some things never change,” he informs you. pleased. ”just look at us.”
and he’s right. so you don’t say anything else. 
but your heartbeat quickens, only for a beat or two, and you’re almost certain he feels it. if he does, he opts not to tease you for once, and you’re grateful. and so the silence lingers. as if time has begun to freeze, into an eternal dusk, a string of silent seconds. broken only by low melodic chirping from faraway fields, his soft breaths in your ear. 
until satoru suddenly chuckles.
“hey,” he hums, shifting a little, the river swaying around you. pulling back to meet your gaze, eyes crinkled and voice raspy. “wanna know a secret?”
you raise your head. a dubious look on your face, one that has him breathing out an amused puff of air, like you’re getting ready to hear a bad joke. “... what is it?”
before the words have fully left your throat, he’s resting his forehead against yours — breath fanning over your lips. a pleasant shiver trails down your spine, at the close proximity, goosebumps spreading across your chilled skin. only exacerbated by the whisper that follows, so quiet you almost don’t know if you heard him correctly. childlike in its sincerity. a sunlaced smile woven in between the vowels.
“i think i was born to meet you.”
(a sentiment so sweet you barely even feel the warmth of his lips meeting yours.)
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baldursgate3tempobsessed · 1 year ago
Text
Astarion Jealousy Part 2
The graphic extension to this but a lil less serious and definitely not sfw.
CW: Jealous spawn astarion who is still a sweetheart, but the drow twins get under his skin. graphic sex scenes, oral, relatively tame honestly. The sex part will be under the cut btw which is m/f. Also vampire man drinks blood. mentionable incorrect language for sex workers
~
It was odd, being home in Baldur’s Gate without the threat of Cazador always looming. Odd, but equally as wonderful. It had been so thoughtful, if not a little idiotic for Cazador to end up being your first stop in the city. The fight itself had been a blur, a barrage of intense emotions and bloody violence. Astarion had come so close to losing himself back there, losing everything that made him better than the man who almost ruined him. But then… you stopped him. You saw something more in him, a chance for a better life. A more meaningful life, away from the shackles of vampiric power obsessions. 
He was officially free. Now he could exist without any fear of his disgusting master’s retribution. He could just… be. Well… not including his darling’s own myriad of enemies that seemed to follow them about everywhere. And there was still the matter of defeating the elder brain, and lord knows if any of you made it through that alive. But at least his personal demons were slain and out of the picture.
Every little step counted after all. Perhaps some of your delusional hopefulness had finally started to rub off on him, but Astarion was actually starting to look forward to his future. Your future, together. All he had to do was get through a few more perilous adventures and then he’d really have you all to himself. 
All that said, Astarion could really go without the frequent visits to the local brothel. Was it the best place in the city for gathering information? Yes. It seemed that every walk of life in Baldur’s Gate found their way into Shar’s Caress and if you were going to find alternative passage to the underworld, this would be the best place to find it. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. For one there were the unwelcome advances to his own person, the concept of grace and personal space apparently left at the door. He was so very close to breaking the hand of the next person who thought it was appropriate to grab his ass. And if they could afford to get kicked out he would have by now. Your verbal, angry tirades in his defense could only scare off so many. 
But as terrible as his own discomfort was, it was nothing in the face of how often you were being fawned over. What was it about you that seemed to drive everyone mad? Yes you were objectively attractive, but this was frankly getting out of hand. First there was the green skinned druid doing something sensual to your mind, then there were the general stares and whispers as you walked by, and now a pair of gorgeous drow twins trying and failing to proposition you. 
It was getting tiresome. There were only so many times a man could take his lover being offered “free” services before he snapped. 
On one hand, he could respect the dedication they had to the craft. He could be considered something of a hired whore himself in his time, the old, “the first one’s free” was a tried and true trick. And he also knew, vaguely, that no one was actually trying to steal you from him. But on the other, he couldn’t help the fact that he wanted to claw their eyes out for looking at you so brazenly.
He hadn’t expected the eyes of the woman to wander over to him, like she was just noticing the possessive arm he had wrapped around your waist, “Is that your partner with you? How would you both feel about having a little fun?”
Absolutely fucking not. Maybe the old Astarion would have smiled and nodded, ready to do whatever was asked of him. But the man from that wretched era had died, or at the very least was dying. And he would be damned if he let you lay with another, never less participate in it. 
Astarion interrupted your overly-polite attempts stuttering of a refusal. He glared at them both, a sneer painted on his face, “We’ll be passing on that. You’d think the first no would have sufficed, but I suppose it’s not fair to expect everyone to have basic language comprehension. Now as illuminating as this conversation has been, we have places to be. Excuse us.”
Then he was pulling you away, happy to ignore the offended huffs of indignation he had left in his wake. 
“We’re supposed to be investigating, remember?” You said with a giggle, not even questioning him as he dragged you to the second floor, “Being rude is not the way we’ll find travel to the hells.”
“I highly doubt they would have been of use,” Astarion said as he pushed you into the first empty room he could find. He felt off, maybe even a little crazed as he turned to you, “Tell me darling, what is it about you that makes you so irresistible, hm?”
He crowded you against the closed door, ducking his head into the crook of your neck to breath you in. You smelled heavenly, you always did. He could trace the barest whiff of your blood from beneath your skin, always calling to him. You were the sweetest thing he ever tasted. Delicious even, for more reasons than one. 
“T-They just wanted my coin,” You gasped when he started to suck bruises into your skin, “That’s all.”
“I think they wanted a bit more than that,” Astarion bit out as he shoved his thigh between your legs, “What will it take for others to realize you’re mine.”
His hands were wandering, resting low to grip your hips. He was using them to move you, forcing you to grind against his thigh. You grasped at his shoulders, trying to bite back a moan as you stared at him with wide eyes, “You want to do it here? Does that door even lock?”
It looked like it didn’t, not that Astarion cared. Maybe walking in on him ravishing you would finally start getting the point across of who you belonged to. Astarion shrugged, "There are less appropriate venues than literal whore houses."
“But-”
“But I can tell you want it,” Astarion interrupted with a smirk, his hands barely working to move your body anymore. But that wasn’t stopping you from rubbing yourself all over him, “Just look at you darling. Desperate little thing. But if you really don’t want to…”
Astarion made a lazy attempt to step back, laughing out loud when your desperately pulled him back, your desire finally winning out over your common sense. But you were glaring at him, obviously annoyed that he was so good at riling you up. He had seen that look before, the one that just screamed that you were scheming something. 
He just hadn’t expected you to drop to your knees in front of him, huffing as you started to undo the fastenings to his pants, “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bit of a shit?”
“Maybe,” Astarion said with a strained laugh, his breath catching when you pulled his half-hard cock out, “But it seems to keep getting me the things I want.”
You rolled your eyes before licking a wide strip up his cock, like you weren’t directly proving his point. You looked amazing own there, you’re half-hearted glare morphing into a blissful haze. 
Gods, how were you real? Astarion wasn’t quite sure why you were such a fan of getting him down your throat, but he knew that he was a lucky bastard for it. 
“Sweet girl,” Astarion sighed, letting a hand drift down to tangle in your hair, “Sweet girl with a perfect mouth. And you’re all mine, aren’t you?”
You made a small, affirmative noise around his cock, taking him in deeper as you clutched at his thighs. You were so good at this, so well-trained after months of being together. He loved the soft, wet sounds that would escape your lips as you swallowed him down, the pretty way your eyes would water as you encouraged him to fuck your throat, how you would squirm in place on your knees, no doubt ruining your panties with how wet you were getting. 
And no one else would ever know. No one would get to see you like this again, feel you like this. Needy, desperate, and his. Oddly enough, that thought was what sent him over the edge. He came down your throat, groaning as you eagerly swallowed around him. 
You pulled off of him slowly, panting while you smiled up at him. There was the smallest string of spit mixed with his come, connecting from the head of his cock to your lips. You licked it up, still clinging to his thighs as you hazily stared up at him. Sweet enough to make his heart skip a beat, and his dick give a valiant twitch.
He pulled you to your feet, not wasting any time in smashing your lips together. He spun you around, pushing you towards what he prayed was a clean bed. 
He pushed you back onto the sheets, making quick work of tearing your pants down your legs as he grinned down at you, “Your turn.”
He kneeled in front of you; spreading his hands over your splayed thighs to peel off your underwear. The core of you was already glistening, slick enough to make Astarion’s mouth water. He licked his lips as he spread your legs further apart, shameless as he feasted on you with his eyes. 
You were shaking in his hold, biting your bottom lip when you whined, “Stop staring already…”
“But you’re so pretty here my sweet,” Astarion cooed, tracing a single finger over the seam of your cunt, “And you’re dripping. Poor thing, have I kept you waiting too long?”
You nodded excitedly above him, your hips bucking when he let his fingers dip in further between your pussy lips. He lightly traced your clit, softly laughing at the way the simple touch made you whine.
It was his own fault that you were so needy, a fact that brought a smirk to his lips. You always got so wet after you had him down your throat, soaked and gorgeous. 
Astarion dove right in, loudly moaning as he licked into your folds. He dragged his lips upward to suckle on your clit, basking in all the cries and whimpers escaping you.
He licked back down, teasing your hole with his tongue as your legs quivered around his head. He let the sharpness of his fangs scrape against you as he started to fuck you with his tongue, threatening your most intimate places.
He knew you liked that; little minx that you were. The slight risk of pain that was always looming. It made him want to sink his fangs in you for real, a hunger that he'd sate after he had you gushing into his mouth.
You were already close, he could tell from the way your cunt was tightening around his tongue; too worked up from the thrill of being in public and the taste of him still lingering on your tongue. Astarion trailed talented fingers up to rub against your clit, his tongue still curling inside of you as you cried out. Finally falling over the edge. But that wasn't stopping him from continuing to play with you.
You had to tug on Astarion’s hair for him to finally pull away, too over sensitive to handle his talented tongue. You were still trembling by the time he leaned back, licking his lips. He rested his head on your thigh, obviously pleased with himself as he grinned up at you. He could feel your heart racing against his cheek, the sound of your blood pumping singing through your veins. It had his mouth watering for a completely different reason. 
He let his fangs drag against the delicate skin of your inner thigh, looking up at you through his lashes, "Can I?"
A superfluous question. Not when he already knew the answer before it escaped your lips.
“Y-yeah," You mumbled, lovingly gazing down at him. He would never tire of seeing that look on your face, "But be gentle? Please?” 
"Of course my love," Astarion murmured, before promptly sinking his fangs into your flesh. He had to hold you down from the way you were still trembling, your quivering only getting worse at the pleasure mixed with pain. He didn’t let himself go rabid, just enough to get a taste. He was pulling back too soon, smiling to himself at the little whine you let out. He gently licked over the wound before standing, not yet swallowing the last drops on his tongue.
Instead he leaned forward to kiss you, more than happy to share the sweet taste of your blood as he slipped his tongue into your mouth.
“Thank you my dear,” Astarion sighed as he pulled away, “That was exactly what I needed. Now I think that’s enough investigating for one day.” 
You sighed, taking the time to card your fingers through his hair, “Agreed. Though you might have to carry me out of here now.”
Wasn’t that a wonderful idea?
Astarion hummed as he pulled your clothing back on, “I think I like the sound of that," He didn't give you time to respond, too busy sweeping you up in his arms with a grin, "I'll be taking you up on that."
You squeaked when he hefted you up, bridal style, “I wasn’t being serious!”
But it was too late, Astarion was already kicking the door open. He shrugged at you, completely shameless as he winked at a few onlookers, "Then you shouldn't have suggested it."
You groaned, hiding your face in his shirt as he happily took you outside, “I’m going to get you back for this. I hope you know that.”
Astarion laughed as he kissed the top of your head, “I’m sure you will.”
It was a childish stunt, borderline on par with a jealous tantrum, but gods, did it feel good. Good enough to sate Astarion's obsessive tendencies for an impressive amount of time. Under normal circumstances. 
But what about your lives were normal?
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gutsby · 9 months ago
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Wingman
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Pairing: Himbo!Joel x Reader
Summary: Your bestie braves the tampon aisle for you.
Warnings: 18+. Period crackfic starring Himbo!Joel—don’t take it too seriously. R has a uterus that hates her. Mentions of blood, cramps, & hangover-induced puking. Dirty talk, f!masturbation. One (1) Mean Girls reference.
Word count: 1.7k
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You were fucked ten ways to Wednesday if you didn’t get your hands on some soap, a steamer, and a supersized box of maxi-pads in the span of the next eleven minutes.
Joel Miller moved like molasses on a flat slab of granite.
“WILL YOU HURRY— THE FUCK— UP?”
Your cheeks were hot. The night air was cold.
Every other word that managed to claw out of your throat was punctuated by a breath—your stomach clenched, and the sex organ below it was in hysterics.
Joel continued to lace up his loafer, clumsy as ever.
“O-kay, okay,” he hummed, “Steamer, soap, and, uh…”
“Pads!”
“Uh-huh. Right. So what kinda…blood stuff is it, again?”
The words were like an aspersion on his tongue. At the ripe old age of forty-seven, Joel still hadn’t quite learned to jibe with the menstrual product lingo, and it showed.
“Heavy flow. Any brand. With wings,” you hissed.
“Boneless or traditional?”
And if he hadn’t been standing outside the truck, foot propped up against the driver’s seat while he tied his shoe, you likely would’ve smacked him upside the head. The glare you gave him was sufficiently vicious to extinguish the smirk, though. Your hand made a fist in the front of your dress, and you groaned, leaning inward.
Joel got the picture and finished his bunny ears quick.
“Sorry.”
Then, a little more sheepish as he straightened up,
“I’m goin’. Be just a minute.”
And he was off.
Your body curled into a ball as soon as he left. It cried in pain, to nothing and no one around but that fugly slut, the nastiest skank bitch you’d ever met, your uterus.
There was no way you and Joel were making it to this rehearsal dinner. You needed to be at the venue by 7:00, the clock on the dash read 6:11, and you were, currently, twenty miles shy of Fredericksburg with a rag between your legs and your best friend scouring the local H-E-B.
That afternoon you’d been running late, so of course you’d thrown on your thin, satin, pre-wedding-ready dress before you left—and forgotten a change of clothes. Joel had been hungover from all the batshit bachelor party antics, so of course you’d had to stop three times along the way just so he could throw up on the side of the road. And, though your friend was many, many things, discreet was not one of them, so of course he’d told you, point-blank, when he saw you reaching for something in the backseat with your butt sticking up:
“You been pissin’ tomato juice or somethin’?”
And you’d looked back in abject horror.
Of course your period had come a week early and made you bleed straight through your bright yellow dress.
Maria was your best friend. You were her maid of honor. Tommy’s groomsmen happened to be the most fuckable bunch you’d ever seen—save for Joel—so there was no way you’d be caught dead at that dinner with the flag of Japan on your ass. And Maria had bought the dress just for you, so you felt like you had to get this bloodstain out.
You lifted your head to peer out the window. Even with the help of a fistful of ibuprofen, you could barely move.
6:29
“Dude, where are you?!”
It was like your phone and the FaceTime call to Joel had just materialized on their own. The man on the screen was blinking slow. Ogling something in front of him.
“So ‘L’ stands for…long?” he said after a beat.
“No, that’s light, Joel, I need a heavy one.”
“This one’s got cardboard in it, I think.”
“That’s a tampon applicator, dipshit.”
In a blink, Joel’s eyes flitted to his phone. His nostrils flared, and he met your gaze with a scowl of his own.
“Well how the hell am I supposed to know that? Only stuck two— three things in a pussy before and it sure as fuck wasn’t cotton,” he griped, and if he were any less mature he likely would’ve rolled his eyes. Drama king.
You winced as another cramp rolled through you. You shook your head and tried to regain your composure.
“Just find a heavy-flow. pad. with wings. for me. Please.”
Joel sighed and turned back to the shelf, eyes searching.
It shouldn’t have been this hard, but it was. You had no doubt Joel had never willingly touched a pussy product before in his life, so the road ahead was treacherous. Silently, you felt the urge to tell him he had no business being in pussy at all if he didn’t bother to learn what came out of one every month, but you let him cook.
His dark, greyish brows drew together in concentration. He leaned forward and reached for a box. Then stopped.
Went low to grab another, before pausing to show you.
“Very close, Joel. That’s a pantyliner.”
You felt somewhat like a mother showing a headstrong four-year-old how to copy shapes onto paper. No, darling, that’s a diva cup—and be careful with that crayon. Joel stood and he stewed and, by the look in his eyes, you’d already resigned yourself to another ten minutes of this back-and-forth rummaging at least.
Then you shifted in your seat, pushing your legs down a bit. They rubbed, of course. In spite of the pain that had seized your whole lower half, you felt a sweet, dull pulse.
You stared hard at Joel’s face on-screen to make sure he hadn’t seen it in yours, but damn that friction felt nice.
Sensitivity elevated with the influx of hormones, no doubt, you sat tight and tried to enjoy the feeling on purpose for a moment. You slowly sucked in a breath.
“Aw, hell, there’s just too many’a these damn boxes.”
You flexed your thigh muscles and let out a sigh.
“I don’t know how y’all do it,” Joel grumbled.
Keep looking, Miller. Just keep looking.
Slowly, your hips began to stir, and one small grain of pleasure gave way to a jolt—a twist in the pit of your belly that made the pain less grating. You leaned into it more.
Holding your phone, you could feel when Joel let out a frustrated groan. The sound low and almost enticing.
Wait.
Wait.
“Gross,” you said out loud, half-whispered.
You couldn’t help it. Joel was one of your closest friends; a man who loved beer die, Pall Malls, and Keith Whitley like nobody’s business and gave suffocating bear hugs whenever he was sweaty just to gross you out. You weren’t supposed to find men like that attractive.
But when the grit of his voice was just so nice…
“What?” Joel stopped to look down again.
“What?” you shot back, instantly.
A frown tugged at his lips.
“What’s ‘gross’? Me?”
Not…exactly, no.
More disgusted with yourself than anyone else, you clamped your legs together and shook your head. You tried to swallow, as if the action might suck the pleasure down with it, but the hot, throbbing sensation only grew.
You were practically grinding into the towel that had been stuffed between your thighs when you heard:
“Wings!”
An exceptionally proud Joel displayed a box of extra heavy-duty maxi-pads, with wings. He was grinning.
You weren’t sure if you thanked him next, congratulated the man, or what. You probably strung some words together and tried to return the smile as best you could, but who knew? The next thing you saw was that the line had gone dead, the truck was silent, and all that could be heard above the hum of the engine were your moans.
You braced yourself against the seat and rolled your hips even harder. Out of habit, you caught your lip between your teeth to prevent a louder sound from escaping, but then you remembered there was no one to hear you but you—for now. Your palm pressed flat on the dashboard, your knees squeezed even closer, and your vision flooded with soft, minuscule pinpricks of an all-too-familiar hue.
The only thing new to you here was Joel—the thought of him had never crossed your mind in moments like these.
But now you were closing your eyes, humping the seat with nothing between your body and the old, weathered upholstery but a scrap of fabric. And you were moaning his name. Imagining a face that was littered with coarse, grey stubble—you might’ve teased him for that once or twice before—and lips that were soft. So soft against your own that you wouldn’t think twice if he tried to slip his tongue inside and hold the sides of your face as he filled your cunt to the brim. In fact, Joel’s mouth would be a welcome distraction. Knowing how foul he was in even friendly confab, he’d undoubtedly be whispering the most vile things in your ear while he fucked you.
Reminding you, quietly, that you made such a pretty cocksleeve for him—why didn’t we try this sooner?— and how you’d be the sweetest thing if you just gave his cock another squeeze and made yourself cum all over it.
The mental image of that alone was inducement enough.
You felt a hot, euphoric band of something start to give way inside you. It tightened up, twisted—then snapped. Your mouth fell open and your thighs clenched tighter, grinding desperately in tandem with a pace you’d hoped Joel might’ve set if he were laying there underneath you. You clung to one last thought of him gripping your hips and bruising your walls with the force of his cock driving in and out, over and over again until, eventually, his cum was leaking out through each fluid thrusting movement. It was all your body could take, conjuring thoughts of his load spilling into you and onto him in warm, wet, sticky—
Whistling.
Someone was whistling outside. Walking up to the truck.
You were still coming down from the staggering heights of your climax when the driver’s side door swung open. You blinked furiously, as though to drive all the filth and depravity and need from your eyes before he could see.
It didn’t matter.
Joel was too amped up off a white plastic baggy to be concerned with much else as he plopped down beside you and smiled—beamed, really. Completely oblivious.
Your extremities were still twitching with the residuum of bliss when he reached for your hand. His eyes somehow warmer than they’d been all that day, they sparkled and shone and crinkled at the corners in a way that seemed to say the words before his mouth had uttered a sound.
“I got three boxes to be safe…”
Joel was really too sweet.
“…and some chocolate for your cramps…”
Always so considerate.
“…and you look real pretty when you cum, by the way.”
This motherfucker.
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