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netherfeildren · 1 year ago

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Someone's Wife in the Boat of Someone's Husband .8

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Joel Miller x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Discussions of child abandonment

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Posted a day early bc I adore all of you so much <3

Artwork is Kiss by Edward Munch (1897)

Word Count: 8.1K

Read on AO3

You have to pick the places you don’t want to walk away from.

Joan Didion, The Book of Common Prayer

The passage of time is a strange thing when wading through the midst of grief. At once, a sort of liminal space you’ve created to enshroud your existence, protect yourself in. Like all time has stopped, and you’ve cemented yourself in this space where your pain and sadness was created, but also, with life continuing to churn around you without pause. So that you’re left to watch as everything around you passes by – all while you’re unable to move, breathe, change.

It was… saying it was difficult would have been laughable – inane – to move on from the scene in the park. The look on Joel’s face, his silence, Sarah’s cries for her mother. You wanted to be there for them, to know what was happening between them, if Sarah was okay, if Joel was okay. But you remain in your shroud instead, surrounded only by all the things you want, but will not let yourself have, surrounded by all the ghosts of your past you’re so fucking tired of holding on to.

The day’s been abysmal – exhausting and sluggish, and it seems as though everything that could have gone wrong, had. Like the universe was working overtime to turn your existence into one ridiculous, cosmic punch line. And now, well into the evening, and much, much later than you should be leaving the school, you make your way towards your lonely car at the far end of the parking lot. You’d had to stay late to figure out a delivery issue with your order of supplies for the rest of the semester and had lost track of time once again. Now nearing eleven PM, you’re exhausted and hungry and freezing – the true chill of late autumn finally sweeping into the city with an angry vengeance.

You’d had Sarah at the forefront of your mind all day, worse than usual, for some reason. You couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of her little voice asking you if you’d had as much fun with her as she’d had with you. She’d embedded herself into your heart in such a short time, and as inextricably as her father had. Just one more painful thing you had to carry on without.

You climb into your car and sit for a moment, head tilted back against the headrest, staring out into the dark night. You’ve felt on the verge of tears all day, a tight, pinched heat hovering just at the edge of your forebrain, ready to break and spill at the slightest provocation, and just sitting here now, after such a terrible day, at the thought of having to go back to your lonely, quiet house and get into a cold bed, only to dream about him, well, it has those tears rushing forward and spilling unencumbered from your eyes.

You must surely paint a very sad and pathetic image, sitting here alone in your dark car, crying over a man who you’d so definitively pushed away, you thought that whatever he might’ve felt about you at one point, would surely turn to hatred eventually, after having hurt him so much. The thought fills you with a rueful bitterness, and you think that after everything, it’s only what you deserve. You think of his coaxing voice, telling Sarah that it’d all be okay, and as you reach to turn the key in the ignition, you think that maybe you’ll get yourself an ice cream with sprinkles too, maybe that’ll make you feel even a little better, just like he’d said, make you feel close to them, but when you turn your wrist all the car does is give a pitifully sad sputter and croak and then nothing. You turn the key again, again, the lights on the dash flicker, and then it goes completely silent and dead. And yeah, this is just exactly what you’d expect. You’re sure that you’re being punished. Punished for ever getting involved with him, for falling in love with him, for pushing him away, for hurting him, punished for existing, perhaps, because God can things get any worse? You don’t think so. Your tears renew their vigor, and then you’re slumped over, brow pressed to the steering wheel as you sob. It’s so late and you’re so tired. All you want is to go home to him. All you want is to see him, to have him hold you and tell you in that deep, comforting voice that it’ll all be okay. Gerri had mentioned that she had plans with her sister tonight, you don’t want to interrupt that, and you realize, as you wrack your brain for what to do, that you have no one to call to come help you. It’s closer to midnight than not, and you’re entirely alone here, stranded in the cold night.

And at that terribly sad, despairing thought, you pick up your phone and dial his number. You don’t even consider the fact that it’s late, that he could be busy, asleep, with Sarah or his wife. The impulse is uncontrollable, you need him, you need to hear his voice. Nothing else matters. It only rings twice before that gorgeous bass is rumbling in your eardrum. Your eyes flutter shut at the sound of it, all your breath whooshing out of you in a pained exhale.

“Hello?”

“Joel–” you gasp.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” His voice is immediately full of panicked worry.

“I’m sorry to call so late. I– I didn’t–”

He says your name sharply, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I– I didn’t have anyone else to call, I’m sorry and a– a–,” you can’t catch your breath, “I– I didn’t want to– to call anyone else, and– and I’ve had just– just the worst day, and Joel– Joel, I miss you so much, and I’m so sorry,” you cry. “I can’t stop thinking about you saying that this was hurting you, that I was hurting you, and then Sarah, and– and now my car won’t start and I– I can’t, Joel. I just can’t do this anymore.” You let your forehead fall forward onto the steering wheel as you feel tears drip down your chin and onto your lap, digging your nails painfully into the leather of the wheel.

“Jesus Christ, where are you?” You can hear him moving around quickly on his end, the jingle of his keys. He says something you can’t make out to someone on the other side, and your heart seizes with panic for one second, but then: the snap of his fingers, and Tommy, I’ll call you, closer to the receiver, and your anxiety abates for a moment. “It’s eleven o’clock at night. Are you at the school? Are you by yourself?”

“Yes– yes, the college.”

“I’ll be right there, sweetheart. Don’t cry anymore, and listen to me,” his voice goes, suddenly, very serious, snapping you to attention, “You didn’t hurt me,” he says. “Okay? I don’t want you thinkin’ that. The circumstances, perhaps, but never you. Do you understand me?”

He can’t see you shake your head, but you do it anyway. I’m sorry, you whisper again. You know you did, you know your indecision and recalcitrance and rejection hurt him. “Wait, Joel–” you don't know what you want him to wait for because all you can think, all you can feel, is the most tremendous amount of relief you’ve probably ever felt in your entire life. He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming for you. It’ll all be okay now.

“I’ll be right there, baby. Don’t worry, and lock your goddamn doors.” You hear the slam of a door. “Ten minutes.”

He makes it in seven. Your cheek is smushed against the steering wheel, half of your face gone to numbness now, when his headlights swing into the dark parking lot. You pick your head up, blinking your blurry eyes, trying to collect yourself – stop your crying, but you’re dizzy, half lulled to sleep by the headache brought on by your tears and anxiety, and then he’s there at your door, rapping on the window and tugging on the handle for you to open it. You flip the lock, and he rips the door open, coming to a crouch in front of you and taking your wet face into his hands, swiping his thumbs beneath your swollen, aching eyes. Your tears fall harder. You can’t help it. He’s touching you, he’s here, after weeks and weeks of dreaming of him and hurting for him and missing him, needing him, he’s here and he’s touching you.

“Joel–” you sob, throwing yourself at him, wrapping your arms around his neck as tightly as you can.

“Fuck, baby, please, please, don’t cry like this. Please, you’re breakin’ my heart.” He rubs your back in long, soothing strokes, trying to calm your wracking sobs.

“I’m– I’m sorry – I can’t help it. I– I’ve missed you so– so much,” you hiccup. He presses your head into the crook of his neck, drapes one of your knees over his crouched leg to pull you in closer to him. You’re so warm, you mumble into his skin, delirious.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he soothes, “I’m here now. No more crying. I’m gonna make it okay. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. Not gonna let you miss me anymore, sweet girl. No matter what you say. This ends now.”

Please, please, you whisper again and again over the sound of your tears. You don’t even know what it is, really, that you’re pleading for. You only know that if he doesn’t give it to you, you feel you might surely die without it. “I’m so tired, Joel,” you whisper, as he holds you, settles you in his arms.

He follows you home in his truck after he gets your car to start again, says he wants to make sure you get there safe. You hope what he really wants is to just stay with you a little bit longer.

As you clamber out of your car in your driveway, your heavy tote weighing your shoulder down, he’s already there, gently gripping your elbow to help you out, sliding your bag off your shoulder and relieving you of the burden.

“I’m– I’m okay. You don’t have to.”

“Hush, let me take care of you,” he murmurs as he takes your keys from your grasp and slides his warm palm along the small of your back, urging you towards your house where he unlocks the door and follows you into the dark interior.

“Joel, it’s alright. If you need to go, or–”

“There’s nowhere I gotta be other than right here, sweetheart.” He sets your bag down by the door as you retreat to the far side of the living room. You need space to breathe, to collect your thoughts, or you’ll throw yourself at him, melt onto the ground at his feet and turn into a puddle of tears and desperate want right before his eyes. You think that what little dignity you’re still holding on to should be preserved right now, at least in front of him.

“Sarah?”

“Tommy’s with her.”

“Eva…?”

“She left,” he says plainly.

“On another trip?” And there’s a sort of desperate, hysterical edge starting to fill your voice at the look in his eyes. There’s something in his gaze that tells you that this is it, this is the point of no return for the both of you, for some reason.

“No, baby. She left for good. Weeks ago – got divorce papers in the mail on Monday.”

“Wh– but I–” you turn away from him, shaking your head and rubbing at your aching temple as you pace back and forth.

“You what?”

You stop your pacing, turning back to face him, entirely at a loss. “But I don’t understand…” you say, voice small – childlike.

He steps towards you, the most tender look in his eyes, “What don’t you understand, my love?” said so, so gently.

“She just left Sarah?” Your hot tears are falling once again, uncontrollable, causing your voice to hitch and break. The image of your mother, walking away from you with that tall, dark stranger, never turning back, never coming back to you. She’d gone away that day, and had never really come back again, not in any real sense. And now Sarah, the same thing was happening to Sarah. You feel a hot surge of anger rise up inside of you like a cresting wave. You go almost dizzy at the intensity of the feeling rising up, and you’re forced to reach out to the closest surface for support. A weeper in a long line of weepers, and you are so fucking tired of it. You never want to shed another tear over any of this ever again, for the rest of your life. You just want to be happy, you just want peace, you just want to let go of this interminable anger and resentment, let the wound close, please, please, please. Just let go of it already.

“I don’t– why would she just leave? How could she just leave her like that?” I don’t understand, I don’t, I don’t. How could she just leave like that? How could she just leave me like that? How could my mother just leave me like she did? How can a mother just go away and never come back to her little girl? You’d never understand. You couldn’t.

And yet, through the haze of your panic and grief, his voice breaking through the turmoil is loud and clear. You realize that his hands are on you now, cradling you in his embrace, pressing kisses to your hot face and hair, murmuring in that gentle, and reassuring tone you love so much: I’m here, I’ve got you, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here, and I’ll never leave either of you. I swear to you, I swear, I swear.

And once again you’re reminded of category, of the power of category and what comes before it and what comes after it. What is feeling before category? No longer possibility, but promise, promise, the promise of his love. For even if he hasn’t said it aloud, you feel it in the press of his hands, the reassurance of his voice, in his presence here, in this moment, coming to you when you needed him so badly, despite everything else. There is promise in the love he translates into your body, into your soul.

And then it breaks through the haze of your mind: my love, my love, my love.

And there is your category, after all.

You feel him sink to the ground with you held in his arms, and he cradles you as you cry. As you let out what you promise yourself in those moments, to be the last anguished tears you will ever shed for your past again, for the loss of a mother, for the idea of the right kind of love. He cradles you and pets your hair and whispers words of reassurance and love and comfort into your ear until you're lost to the sound of his quiet voice and his stroking hands, and you fall into the first sleep in months where he doesn’t visit you in your dreams.

You come to slowly, taking stock of your exhausted body. Your head throbs, but there is the most delicious heat seeping into you everywhere, comforting and heavy and blazingly hot. He shifts as he realizes you’re beginning to wake up, and his arms tighten around you for a moment, before he’s pulling back to cradle your head and look down at you. You realize that you’re both laying in the dark coolness of your bedroom. He must have carried you in here after you’d cried yourself into exhaustion, stayed with you to accompany you in your sleep.

He rumbles at you, deep in his chest, drags his fingers along your scalp and down the length of your hair, and your eyes flutter closed at the sound, at the feel of him. You love him so, so much. You are so in love with him.

My love, my love, my love. A shiver wracks through you, and you let out a tiny whimper.

“How do you feel?” he murmurs. “Can I get you something?”

“I’m–” you clear your throat, it feels raw, your voice coming out rough and scratchy, “I’m okay.” He’s quiet for a beat, taking your face in, and you bring your hands up to wrap around your throat, to keep yourself from grabbing at him, pulling him over you and never letting him go. You’re afraid, you don’t know what’s supposed to happen now. His wife had left his daughter, she’d sent him divorce papers, but you’d pushed him away, you’d hurt him, and he’d not come to look for you since. You didn’t know where you stood, despite him being here, despite his words and his touch, you were unsure what it was that would or could happen now.

He looks down at you for a second longer, and then nods once and moves to stand, pulling his arm slowly from beneath your head so as not to jostle you. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Okay, you whisper as he turns to go out into the kitchen. You lay there for a second, listening to the sounds of him moving around your home, and it fills you, once again, with the most intense of longings. You want to hear him existing in your home, in your space, for the rest of your life. You’re so full of love for him, love and longing and a deep awareness of how good and kind and caring he is, and you want the opportunity to be able to give him everything he deserves.

When you step out of your restroom a few minutes later, he’s sitting at the edge of your bed, a cold glass of water dripping down onto a coaster on your bedside table. You pause at the door, leaning against the frame to stop and stare at him. He’s still not cut his hair. You wonder if he’d let you do it for him. You have the ridiculous thought that you don’t want anyone else touching his hair ever again. It’s yours, he’s yours, and you want to be the only person in the whole world who gets the privilege of experiencing that sort of intimacy with him.

He stands too after a moment, and you watch his eyes sweep down your frame – fire for you burning in his gaze. He still wants you, and oh, it’s all you need to know. He lifts one thick, strong arm to drag his fingers through his overly long curls, and you admire the lacework of blue veins beneath the stretched skin of his bulging bicep. He lets out a deep, long breath, you watch the wide wings of his rib cage contract and expand as his lungs work. His arm falls limply to his side.

“Will you come over here?” he says, so softly, but with a note of distressed fervor at having you so near, and yet, not being able to touch you, but also, at the same time, afraid, afraid that you’ll reject him again. Your eyes flutter shut at the sound, and then you’re stumbling forward and throwing yourself into his arms.

He catches your skull in the firm grip of his wide palm, thick fingers twisting in your long locks, “This is it,” he says, looking down into your face, “You understand me?” And yes, yes you do. You realize that there’d always been a part of you that wanted someone to tell you, to claim you, to tell you that you were theirs without doubt or stipulation, to tell you that you belonged to them, and here he was, doing just that – had been trying to do so from the very first moment. The realization fills you with the deepest of comfort.

Your eyes flutter closed and you nod, yes, you whisper, I understand, and then you’re letting your head fall back on your neck, opening to him, and he’s kissing you, pressing his mouth to yours and taking you with a sense of savage, desperate victory. Finally, finally, the two of you have found yourselves on the same sure footing, finally, you can give yourselves to each other without anything else to interfere or hold you back.

His strong hand anchors your head exactly at the angle that he wants you, and he sweeps his tongue deep into your mouth, slick and wet and molten. His other hand slipping down your back to clutch the soft swell of your ass and press you up and into him.

He turns to slowly lower you down onto your bed, never once taking his mouth from yours. When you hit the soft surface he slides his mouth across your cheek, along the edge of your jaw, a gentle nip to the throb of your pulse and then further down to the wing of your clavicle. You drag your fingers through his hair, over his face, feeling the flutter of his lashes, the coarse roughness of his beard, the strong muscles of his neck and shoulders as his mouth moves over your skin. He pulls back to pull your top off and slide your trousers down your legs, and then he’s rolling you onto your side, your limbs divested entirely of their autonomy at the gentle maneuvering of his big hands, he unhooks the clasp of your bra, and then he’s pressing you entirely down onto your belly. Taking in the elegant sweep of your back, the delicate muscles twitching and trembling beneath the gorgeous surface of your skin. He slowly pulls your thong over the swell of your ass and bends to bite down on the supple flesh of your cheek – hard – laves his tongue over the hurt to soothe, and you keen, high pitched and wild for him, hips hitching in a needy little arc. He wants to mark you, brand you permanently. Write his name into your flesh, blood drawn for him to drink down.

There is a certain flavor of darkness swelling inside him, something possessive that demands he take you and mark you as his, only his, forever.

He pulls you up slightly by your hips and grips you by the meat of your ass to spread you wide for his inspection – red cunt, weeping and swollen already for him. So pretty, he tells you, praises you. You beautiful fucking thing.

He bends his head and licks the broad flat of his tongue from your clit, all the way through your sex to your asshole, presses his tongue there, just slightly, to let you feel the pressure at that secret little place he plans to eventually take for himself as well. Your moan at the feel of him there is loud and guttural. He clamps down on your hips, tight, to keep you from squirming away from his exploring mouth.

“Joel, please, please–” you beg, but it’s his turn now, his turn to do with you as he will. He flips you back over, tosses your legs over your head and pulls you up by the hips to start licking you in earnest. His mouth on your throbbing clit, his thumb in the cleft of your ass, he sucks on your clit hard, one foot planted on the ground, another bent on the edge of the bed, he supports your weight like that as he eats your cunt. “Knees hurt, baby,” he rumbles into your wet flesh. All you can do is moan and whimper his name over and over again. He licks into your fluttering hole, kisses and laps at your clit, over and over again, until he can feel the tremble of your thighs around his head and the shifting of your abdomen and then you’re coming on his tongue, scratching at his arms and sides, anywhere you can dig your nails into him and grapple for purchase.

“Please, please, take your clothes off, I want to feel your skin. I have to, please.”

He lets you down to pull back and reach around for the neck of his sweater, pulling it up and over his head, shucking off his jeans and boxers, and then he’s kneeling over you and pressing his entire heavy weight down into you, covering you with the broad expanse of his body. He squeezes and kneads your soft flesh, gripping the lush of your bottom to roll your wet core against his hard length. Your shared moan at the feel of the hot press of your aching flesh sliding alongside each other trembles through the lines of your body, and he pulls his hips back slightly, notching the wide head of his cock at your entrance and pushing into you slowly, slowly, so that you’re made to feel every throbbing inch of his thick girth. He shifts one of his knees further up beneath your thigh to anchor you more firmly into his lap and pulls his hips back and then drives back in, hard and deep so that his cockhead bumps at the mouth of your womb.

“Oh God, Joel– harder, please, harder, more,” you beg.

“Missed you so fucking much,” he groans into the crook of your neck, teeth nipping at the line of muscle that connects your throat and shoulder, putting more of his weight behind his thrusts so that he’s ramming into you in slow but devastatingly deep strokes, his hand anchored at the base of your spine to pull you onto his impaling cock. “So much, baby. Was going out of my fucking mind without you. Need– need you. Fuck–” he moans as your inner walls start to clench and flutter at his words. You press your heels into the small of his back to urge him further into you. You want him deeper, need him harder.

He hooks a hand beneath one of your knees then, spreads you wide and angles his hips down so that he can drill into you. He pulls his head back to look into your eyes, “Come on my cock, come for me, sweetheart. Lemme feel that cunt soak me. I need it.” You’re stuffed so full, cunt stretched obscenely wide, pleasure and pain coalesce in your core, his battering cock stoking the fire in your blood until your pulsing and throbbing around his unrelenting length, cunt clenching and convulsing around him, trying to suck him deeper. He bares his teeth at you and almost growls at your wet gush. You arch your back further, muscles pulled tight as a bow string, trying to let him in deeper, deeper, you think that it’ll never be far enough, but he pulls out then, suddenly. Your cunt clenching desperately around nothing, and you cry out, trying to hold him by his hair, dragging your nails over his shoulders to pull him back to you, but he’s bending and gripping the backs of your thighs to spread you wide, wide for the broad expanse of his shoulders, and he’s licking through the swollen mess of your cunt, lapping unrelentingly at your clit, licking into your opening so that you’re forced to roll into another cresting orgasm. Your muscles clenching and throbbing, a deep, searing heat coiling in your pelvis and unspooling in a rush of wet, musky slick onto his tongue.

You’re beyond words, thought, consciousness, almost – a wet, trembling mess of a girl. You think you’re whispering his name over and over again, can feel the vibration of words in your throat, begging for something you have no name for, perhaps his love, his devotion, but no, you know you already have that. You can feel it in the press of his hands, in the sweep of his tongue, in the murmured words of adoration and praise he presses into your slick skin. My love. He sucks hard on your clit, once, twice, and then he’s flipping you over again and pulling your hips up, up, up, and pressing the incredible thickness of his cock back into you, sinking deep down to the end of you, and holding there, grinding, so that you’re left clawing and mewling desperately for him to relent, to move, to go harder, something, anything.

There’s a part of you that thinks you want him to destroy you, to unmake you, to unravel you to your very core and then put all your pieces back together himself.

“ Fuck– look at you… so pretty stuffed full of my cock, baby. So perfect. My perfect girl,” he grunts, slamming his hips into your ass. All you can do is mewl and whimper pathetically, twisting the sheets beneath you in your shaking fingers.

“What?” he pulls out, presses the wide head to your clit, then slides back up and in again, so slow. “How does it feel? Describe it to me – use your big girl words.”

“Unghh– so– so good. I don’t– I can’t,” you cry, “… so full.”

“Oh, I know,” he coos, reaching around to pinch your clit, up higher to cup your swinging breast, twisting your nipple harshly, “I know it’s hard to think when you’re so full of cock, isn’t it?”

He deepens the curve of your spine with a palm to the small of your back, face pressed into the mattress, ass up and completely open and vulnerable to him. His hips against the backs of your thighs are unrelenting as he pulls you back onto him, impaling you on his cock over and over, his balls slapping wetly against your clit, his other hand twisted tight in your hair. You can feel the rebound of your flesh at each of his thrusts, and you feel him getting more and more desperate. The rhythm of his hips translating all the weeks and months of wanting and anguish and lies and secrecy you’d volleyed back and forth between the two of you in whatever pathetic attempt you could muster to stay away from each other. All his frustration at you for pushing him away, keeping him at arms length, the painful cage of his marriage. You can feel all that repressed exasperation in the battering of his thick cock against your womb, balls slapping against your clit. He’s like a muted bruise deep inside you and you moan, your eyes rolling back into your head at the throb that rolls through your body.

“Don’t stop, please. Never stop.”

“Yeah? Like that, baby?” he grits.

He pulls you up against him, with one strong arm, back pressed tight to his chest, and you can feel the sweat sliding between the two of you. His breath is wet and panting, moaning, in your ear. His thrusts growing harder, deeper, erratic; he bands the inescapable strength of his forearm across your chest, pressing your breasts up and squeezing your tit tight in his big palm. You keen at the twisting pain, and he turns his face into your hair and groans, whimpers, the sound sliding through your hair as you start to come around his length one more time, cunt clenched so tight it hurts, almost pushes him out, but he fucks you through it. Forcing himself in again and again. You can feel your wetness dripping and smearing across both of your thighs – the wet gush of it, obscene. Your whole fist is clenched tightly around two of his fingers, holding on for dear life as you feel him start to come, the waves of his release rolling through him and into you, coating your insides with his hot spend. His heat blankets the bruise inside you know you’ll feel tomorrow, soothes and incites it at the same time. There’s a sudden flash of desperate gratitude within of you. He’s marked you. You’re his now.

“I love the way you take me,” he breathes into your ear, “My perfect girl.” He grinds deep, and your muscles work to pull him further, pull his spend in further. Your whole body trembles and shakes, your cunt clenching tight as a knot, and then going loose and shaky so that you can feel the gush of his come start to leak out of the place where you’re joined. He plants one thick arm on the bed in front of you so that he can bend forward and let the both of you fall slowly to the bed, still buried inside of you. You continue to clench around his length, and he still has your breast clutched in his grip so that when your front meets the surface of the bed he’s draped over your back, so big and muscular and heavy, and you love the feel of his weight pressing you into the mattress. You turn your head towards him, so that both your sweaty brows are pressed against each other, and the two of you can breathe each other in.

You stay like that for a long time, letting your oversensitive bodies come down from their trembling highs. Everything is sweaty and sticky and slick with your mingled come. Overwhelming in the most perfect way.

Eventually he rolls the two of you over so that he’s not crushing you, your head rests against his chest – both of you catching your breaths still. His cock lays heavy and soft on his belly, damp from your mingled come.

You dance your fingertips along his hip, draw unseen flowers and vines that grow up towards his ribs and down his thigh. His own fingertips are a slow drag along the notches in your spine. Little pauses at each dip where he presses into your skin – he’s telling you something. Pressing a silent message into those beats, and you’re hyper focused on the feeling of it as you cover him in your invisible greenery.

“What are you thinking?” you whisper. He’s quiet for a long time, and you’re worried it’s something bad. Regret or a wish for something different. But then he says: “I haven’t been this happy in a very, very long time.” And what more could you want to hear from him in this moment?

“Wanna know a secret?” he says.

“Mhmm,” you hum, eyes closed, enjoying the feel of his dragging fingers over your damp skin.

“I stole your panties, that first time at the lake, the blue ones.”

Your eyes pop open, and you surge up to lean on one elbow and look at him, “Oh, you are so–” you swat at his chest, “I looked everywhere for those – I want them back!”

“Nah, they’re mine now.” He squeezes you into him, cranes his neck to nip at the swell of your naked breasts squished up against his hard chest.

You lay your head back down on him, and grumble, “You’re a panty thief.”

“I am.” And no one should sound that pleased, at the sound of that sort of accusation. “Prettiest little scrap of lace I’d ever seen in my life, I had to have ‘em. Blue’s my favorite color now, you know.” He fists your hair to bring your mouth to his, “Gonna buy you a hundred more pairs of blue panties for you to wear for me,” licks into you.

Later he says: “Can I tell you something selfish now?”

“Always.”

He’s quiet again for a beat, and you’re coming to recognize these silences of his as moments of gathering for his words, things that have never come easily to him. “Sarah’s the love of my life,” he says slowly. “Nothing has ever, ever made me happier than she has. I’ve never loved anything more than I loved her the first moment I held that tiny little baby in my hands. But sometimes– sometimes I just– I wanted something else, something other than just my child, something only mine– that makes me happy and belongs only to me. And she’s my daughter, and so of course she’s mine, right? But one day she’ll go away and make her own life, and what’ll I be left with? Just my memories of her? And– and sometimes I think I– I resent … not her, never her – but I guess the idea of that, maybe? I’m not sure that’s right… but that she’s my only source of– of joy. I resent that. And it — God, it makes me feel so fucking selfish and ungrateful … because I’m not, I’m– I’m grateful for the miracle of her every single day, it’s the first thing I think about when I open my eyes every morning, and I’d never, never discount that or– or not realize that she’s such a blessing and how fucking lucky I am to have her, but… I don’t know… Do you– you know? You know what I mean? Is that — that’s real bad, isn’t it?”

“No, Joel. It’s not at all,” you say softly. The look in his eyes devastates you. So unsure, so wary. Like you’d strike him down, like you’d discount his feelings, not even try and understand him. You cup his cheek and he turns to nuzzle his nose into the palm of your hand. “I know what you mean.”

“That’s what you are for me. That something else–” You’re quiet, taking in what he’s saying. “I don’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re not scaring me. You could never do that.” You wrap your arms tighter around his waist, press a kiss to his belly, nuzzle the space under his ribs. “You’re a father, but you’re a man too. You deserve something else – besides just fatherhood – something for you. To make you happy.” You think of your mother, of Eva, two people who’d, like Joel, also wanted something for themselves – something besides parenthood that was only theirs, but who’d not known how to find it without forsaking all the rest. And Joel… who’d sacrifice anything for his daughter, even you, you’re sure. But still he’d fought for you, he’d hoped for you, and now look at the two of you, here together finally.

You lay holding each other for a long time through the night. You think of the hours and days and weeks you spent lying alone in this bed, missing him, hurting for him, and now, to have him here with you, with nothing else in the way, it feels like the most sacred sort of miracle.

“Will you take a shower with me?” you ask him eventually.

“Yeah, baby. ‘Course I will.”

The two of you stand under the warm spray together, his arms wrapped around your back, enshrouded in the cocoon of heat and steam. Your face tucked up beneath his jaw, you lick the warm water that runs down the slope of his neck, pepper small kisses to the beat of his pulse, his ear, the dip of his collarbone. His hands sweep over you in slick, roving arcs, squeezing your ass, traveling the slope of your spine, encircling your waist, exploring the lines of your ribs. His fingers are thick and strong and they press between the spaces of the bones in your chest, as if he’s looking for a gap in the protective outer shell that enshrines you, looking for a way to sneak in and peer inside, to the heart of you. If you could, you’d split your very skin for him, let him live inside you forever.

Your mouth moves down to the notch at the base of his throat, and you lave your tongue there, tasting the flavor of his warm skin. Then to the thick muscle connecting his neck and shoulder, you dig your teeth in, sharp and hungry, and suck hard. Hard enough that you hear a little gasp slip out of him, his fingers tangling in your hair painfully, pulling on the sensitive strands, but not to rip you away, rather to press you closer, to make sure you leave a mark of yourself in his skin.

You move down to his chest then, peppering open mouthed kisses over the broad expanse of his muscles there. He’s so hard, so strong everywhere. So much larger and more powerful than you are, and yet, he has the keenest ability to make you feel stronger than you’ve ever been, imbues in you the ability to feel like there isn’t anything you couldn’t do. As if there were a tether connecting the two of you, some sort of invisible string born from his heart and running all the way to yours, funneling that interminable strength of his, right into you. He makes you strong. He'd always let you be as vulnerable or as strong as you needed to be in the moment. Even despite his anger or pain or frustration he still let you get here on your own. And you realize that you’d never been allowed to be soft or sensitive – never given the chance to show your underbelly, being brought up in such a hostile environment, but he’d always given you that chance. He’d always been gentle, patient, understanding. He’d never been annoyed or frustrated at your overwhelming tears and nerves. He’d always let you be all the things you’d always been, but also gave you the chance to be all the things you’d always wanted to be, the ones you hadn’t even thought of yet. The possibility for you to grow into anything you’d like to be is endless in his embrace. You nuzzle into the smattering of chest hair at the center of his sternum, then a kiss over his heart. You pause there for a long moment, press your cheek to the surface and listen to the pulsing echo of his heart beating beneath his skin. Your eyes flutter shut as the beat thumps into your ear, and you shiver. This is the sound of Joel’s existence. When you turn your face up to his, his eyes are molten, full of heat and hunger and yes, there is it, love. You can see it melting out of him like ore. He loves you.

How is it that two people can become so wholly intertwined that words become, eventually, entirely futile? Unnecessary. You don’t need to hear him say it, at least not now, not until he wants to, but you can feel it, see it, hear it in the cadence of his voice when he swore to you that he’d never leave you, that he was here and he would remain here, that he wasn’t going to let you miss him anymore.

You start to lower to your knees slowly, face still turned up to his, your eyes never leaving his, but his hands tighten in your hair, holding you in place. “I want you to fuck my mouth,” you tell him.

“You don’t have to, baby. Floors hard.” And hearing his concern for you, that he’d think of that when you’re asking him to let you suck his cock, it makes you even more desperate to please him like this.

“Please, will you let me?” You resume your descent so he’s forced to either let you go, or pull on your hair too hard. “Will you let me do this for you? I want to taste you. I want you in my mouth.” You press a soft kiss to the skin beneath his belly button, your knees reach the shower floor, another kiss to his hip bone, your tongue runs a line at the crease of his hip and thigh, and then another kiss at the space right beside the thick root of his cock.

“Shit– yeah… yes, I’ll le– let you. God, fuck–” he spits, teeth bared in a growl. You’ve sucked one of the heavy, hanging weights of his balls gently into your hot mouth. You run your tongue along the soft skin, suckle gently on the round shape within, giving the sensitive surface as much of your wet mouth as you can. “My fucking God–” he whimpers above you. You wrap your hand around his rock hard length, fingers not fully meeting around the thickest part of him, and slowly start to jack his cock up and down, squeezing your grip at the head in a little twist. You stare up at his face the entire time, and you watch his head fall back on his neck, the strong muscles of his throat working as he pants and swallows, trying to keep his control. You hum deep in your throat, let him feel the vibration of the sound, and his hips start to thrust slowly up into your working hand. You pop your mouth off his sac and finally give the angry, flushed head the gift of your mouth. You press a gentle kiss to the curve of his tip, opening your mouth to flutter your tongue over the wide tip. You can taste the salty tang of his precum, leaking in a steady stream. Then your tongue, gentle as possible, pressed into the slit at the tip and he jerks, almost mewling at that. He’s panting above you, whispering your name over and over again, telling you how good you are, how perfect, how much he loves your mouth, what a good girl you are for taking his cock like this. You finally swallow him down in one smooth go, as far back as you can, and you hold there for a beat, another, another, working the muscles of your throat to swallow and tighten around him. His entire body is shaking now, trembling, his fist in your hair is so tight your eyes smart, tears springing to the corners. You pull back, take a breath and start to bob your head along the throbbing length in earnest. You can taste his precum at the back of your throat, and with how hard he’s trembling, you know he’s close. You hollow your cheeks around him and lave your tongue around the head on the pull back, suck hard on the tip, and then slide back as far as you can go, wrapping your hand around the base of him, the part that’s too much for you to take comfortably. Your tongue runs along the sensitive underside, you focus on the tender spot right beneath the flare of the wide mushroom head, flicking your tongue back and forth until he’s growling and moaning, his hips drawing back to start to saw his length in and out of your hot, suctioning mouth. Fucking your throat in earnest, just like you’d told him you wanted him to.

“You’re gonna be a good girl and swallow my entire load, you hear me?” he grits. “Gonna spill down that little throat and fill your belly with my come.” And fuck, your cunt throbs and clenches painfully at that. You moan up at him, pressing your thighs together to alleviate the aching want there, your watering eyes, looking up at him with all the adoration and pleading you can call forth. Yes, yes, you want to tell him, please, give me your come, give me everything you have. I can take anything if it’s from you. He anchors your head in his hands and fucks your mouth, all the way until you feel the fat tip hit the back of your throat, once, twice and then his cock seems to swell even further, just for a second, and it kicks inside your working mouth as he starts to come. Thick, searing hot spurts of salty, musky come that you swallow as fast as you can. His torso tilts forward, one arm coming up to steady himself against the shower wall behind you, and he moans, deep and guttural, his blazing eyes trained on yours the entire time. “Fuck, yes– fucking swallow it all,” his voice breaks at the end, quivering. You can feel globs of come seeping out of the corners of your mouth, and when he finally pulls his spent length from your mouth, a small whimper as you run your tongue against the extra sensitive underside at the last moment, he scoops the leaking spend back into your mouth with his thumb, pressing on the flat of your tongue as he makes sure you don’t miss a single drop of him. “All of it, sweet girl,” he whispers, eyes wide and feverish, “Every last drop.” You wrap your lips around his thumb and suck, circling your tongue around the digit, making sure you don’t miss anything. When you pull back with a loud, wet pop, he’s already bending to hook his hands beneath your underarms and jerking you up and into him, pressing his mouth savagely to yours and licking into your mouth to taste himself on your tongue.

Chapter .9

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

#someone's fic #Joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x female reader #joel miller/you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fanfic #joel miller smut #joel miller fluff #joel miller imagine #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters

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yourbelgianthings · 9 months ago

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white noise live at the vermont hollywood, will wood / once in a lifetime, talking heads / from all hail west texas liner notes, the mountain goats / #2122, houses at night series, todd hido / welcome to night vale episode 244, liminal spaces / homecoming, green day / mabel episode 8, the freeze

#message from mirph #web weaving #words tag #will wood #talking heads #the mountain goats #welcome to night vale #wtnv #mabel podcast #todd hido #tw paranoia inducing

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fleetingspacee · 1 month ago

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Day 8 - liminal space/analog

There are hidden toshis in there lol

#all might #yagi toshinori #liminal space #analog #inktober #mightober #mightober2024 #eminktober24 #lmao this one’s a bit rushed on the colouring and my hands are shaking too #my art

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the1975attheirverybest · 10 months ago

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Being Funny In A Foreign Language

Chapter 8- Sorry Bout The Bomb Thing….

A/N: okay so wax play will be in the next chapter cuz plot reasons. Two more chapters to go!

Warnings: kinky smut.

———

Matty’s ears rung with a persistent pressure and the faint echoes of last night’s live show. He could still hear the crowds cheering, calling out his name; remnants of Waugh’s saxophone honking, muffled, as though filled with water, played in the background of his mind. This was a soundscape that Matty had grown accustomed to– welcomed, even– but in the solitary confinement of his hotel bedroom, he found it unnerving. Trapped him in a liminal space between the stage and reality.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, sitting down at the dining table to resume his idle scrolling.

Not Matty Healy trying to justify his white savior complex with a rant onstage…Lmao, homie didn’t even make sense half the time.

Matty Healy playing the victim talking about almost getting imprisoned in Malaysia. What else do you expect when you disrespect their culture? A colonizer thank you card?

MH just tryna cover up the fact that Malaysia was a temper tantrum over TS

Matty felt the bile in his stomach rise back up; his chest tightening; his vision blurring. He couldn’t bring himself to click on the ‘news’ articles that he was tagged in– their titles containing his name– and find out what industry professionals had to say about this whole thing, so he changed to his messages instead.

Matty:

hey

in town for msg soon

you around?

Lilly

Yeah! For a couple days anyway… wanna come over for a drink sometime?

Matty

Are you free right now?

****

Matty watched, proudly, as Lilly’s legs twitched around his arm. Judging by the fact that he’d rendered her breathless, he was pretty satisfied that he’d done his job right. He pulled his fingers out of her and brought them to his lips for a taste, sucking wetly. She reached out, lazily grabbing at his shirt in an effort to pull him closer.

“Your turn now.” she whispered, before pulling him in by the collar of his shirt to kiss him.

Though Matty had been receptive to her touch, responding to the kiss with eager lips, his mind raced with panic. He couldn’t feel anything. And not just below the belt, he just wasn’t excited at all. Why wasn’t he excited? Is there something wrong with his body? Is he physically ill? Is he gradually losing all of his drive?

Lily unbuttoned his jeans and Matty wondered how he’d found himself in this same situation with two different women. His body stiffened, he attempted to reach for her hands, but it was too late.

“Oh.” Lily looked down at his lap then back at him. “I- sorry. I didn’t realize that…you didn’t wanna- ummm. I’d just assumed you wanted to have sex. Cuz, you asked to come over and-“

“I did! I do! I want to….i just might- need a minute?” His eyes darted around the room as he spoke.

Lily smiled, “oh, alright. I can help you relax.”

Her hands roamed his body, running her fingers down his chest, sensually, before deciding to undress him. Matty closed his eyes, laying down and attempting to focus on the present moment. Despite his (and lily’s) best efforts, though, he couldn’t get out of his own head.

“Still nothing, huh?” Lily had asked when she’d finally kissed her way down his body. Something, she’d assumed, would’ve given him enough time to get into the right mood.

“I mean, hey, if you’re not in the mood, it’s no problem, really! We could just watch tv-“

“No! No, no. I am in the mood. Erm, but could I ask you to do something- I mean…can we try something different?”

“What’d you have in mind?”

Matty pointed to his discarded jeans. “Do you see my belt over there?”

***

“Are you sure it won’t be a problem? You’re already pretty bruised.”

Matty flipped over onto his back, briefly, to assure her one last time. “Those bruises are old now. They look more dramatic than they feel, I promise.”

She shrugged. “If you say so…alright. Ready?”

Matty closed his eyes, burying his face into the bedding as pain rained down on him. He tried to conjure up memories of the last time that someone had whipped him bloody, thinking back to Amelia. His hand reached between his body and the duvet, grabbing himself and trying not to call out another woman’s name in Lily’s presence.

***

Matty stared up at the ceiling fan as it rotated, on low mode, and tried to catch his breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he could tell that Lily had approached him with a glass of water, but he hadn’t yet regain full control of his body again. He couldn’t will himself to move. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Happy to accommodate him, she sat on the bed next to him, arranging a wall of pillows to prop him on. “Can you sit up for me?”

The question, surprisingly, made him nervous. He snapped out of his ceiling-fan-induced hypnosis and quickly jolted, sitting up before she could lend him a hand.

“Yeah, yeah….thanks.” He accepted the glass of water, gulping it down. “Sorry.” He mumbled, leaning over her to set the now empty glass down onto the nightstand.

“What for?”

He shrugged. “Don’ know.”

“What’s going on with you?” Lily placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and it took everything in him not to brush it off.

“Nothin’s goin’ on. Just…tired. And- I— think I need a cig. And a glass of wine or something.”

She laughed, shaking her head and shuffling off the bed once more. “Coming right up. And then you’ll tell me what’s really going on cuz that wasn’t what I was asking about.”

***

“So…” Lily exhaled the smoke out of her lungs, putting the end of her cigarette out in the ashtray between them. “Let me get this straight…you’re in love with her, but she’s with someone else?”

Matty blushed, fiddling with the stem of his wine glass.

“She offered to break up with the guy. But you made friends with him. And now you like him too much. So you gave up your guitar — which was like the equivalent of half your soul— just so he can surprise her and take credit for the surprise?”

Matty took a large sip of his drink just to have something else to focus on.

“Oh, and also you guys are sleeping together because one time your dick didn’t work and you cried about it in front of her. Am I getting this right?”

Matty’s eyes evaded her, smiling in embarrassment, “that’s…the gist of it, yeah.”

“Okay, I’m glad I got it right cuz,” she picked up a pillow, throwing it at his face, narrowly missing her target, “what the fuck is wrong with you, dude?!!! Why are you even here? In my bed instead of hers??”

“Oh, so you want me to leave, then? Fine, I’ll leave.” Matty attempted to move but she instantly grabbed his arm.

“You’re not going anywhere….and what do your friends think about your genius behavior?”

“Who? the boys? Well…..they’ve all given different versions of, like, ‘you either tell her how you feel or you move on’ sort of.”

“And you’ve done neither.”

Matty nodded.

“Instead, you guys are sleeping together.”

Lily fell silent. She refilled her glass first, then she topped off Matty’s as well.

“I can see that you’re dying to say something.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “Out with it!”

“You’re just so dumb.” Lily smiled. “Men are so dumb. Speaking of men…..have you seen a doctor about your….’bedroom issues’ ?”

“Mhm”

“And?”

“Well, I haven’t called about test results. So, I don’t know.”

“Matty-“

“I know, I know….”

Matty’s heart raced, his face felt warm; he blamed it on the wine. Spoke again before he could stop himself. “It’s just….i think I know what they’re gonna say.”

“The results?”

“It’s all in my head. It’s…it’s stress or psychological or whatever the fuck.” He sighed. “I mean, not to be that guy, but look at me. I’m the picture of health. I got that shit under control for tour and stuff-“

“I have noticed the, shall we say, ‘fitness level’ ?”

“Lily, are you flirting with m-“

“No. Don’t- change the subject!”

Matty chuckled. “Not changin’ anything. I’m just- I know that it’s my state of mind. I haven’t been….well- I haven’t been myself.”

Lily snatched the wine glass out of his hand, setting both of their drinks, and the bottle, aside to get his full attention. “And what’re you gonna do about it?”

“I-“

“Besides ignoring it completely, I mean.”

Matty shrugged.

“Have you been to therapy? Have you….seen a psychiatrist?” She watched the look on his face. “Don’t! Don’t you roll your eyes at me. Don’t do that. That’s what guys do. It’s so childish!”

Matty had been determined to ignore her remarks until he heard the word ‘childish.’ Now, he was invested. “What the fuck do you mean ‘childish’? Just cuz I don’t need everything that’s ever made me an individual to be pathologized and medicated, doesn’t mean I’m being childish.”

Lily had had this conversation too many times before. She’d lost count of how many men get offended by their own flaws. She was over doing the gentle thing, holding their hand, and walking them through the thought process to help them come to the realization on their own. “Has it ever occurred to you that, oh- I don’t know- that maybe .your new show, your repressed love, all of the self punishment, and all that is just because you’d rather be dramatic and theatrical and do a huge arena tour than say how you feel?”

“You underestimate me, Lillian.”

“My name is Elizabeth.” She giggled.

“What?” Matty’s eyebrows shot up. “No fuckin way. ‘Lily’ is short for Elizabeth?”

“Yeah it’s mostly that I think ‘Elizabeth’makes me sound like a 76 year old widow.”

***

Amelia bit her lower lip smiling at Matty from across the room. He knew what that sly look meant.

“Come with me.” Giggling as she led them towards the storage room in the back of the venue.

Matty liked giving her complete control, doing as she says, being a mess at her feet. He relished in the opportunity.

“Whe-where would you like me this time?”

“Just stay standing.” Amelia surveyed the cramped room full of boxes for a moment, “you can lean against the wall if you need it this time.”

Reminding him of the last time that she’d sucked him off in the party bathroom, causing him to fall to his knees.

“Thank you.” He squeaked. He was already slipping into submission. Already pliant and malleable for her.

“Lose the clothes.” She demanded.

“A-all the way?”

“Yes. And hurry. Tobias will probably be looking for us soon.”

Matty stumbled as he kicked off his shoes, and rushed to peel his jeans off, aware of her eyes on him.

“Matty? Turn around for me, would you?”

His heart sank, dreading what was about to happen. Reluctantly, he did as she’d asked and turned all the way in a circle.

“These marks….they look fresh. What- when-“

“I- have to tell you something.” He pulled his pants back up, wincing as the fabric brushed his bum. “I- erm, I broke one of the rules.”

Amelia already knew where this was going. “Which one?”

“I- I had an orgasm- without your permission.” Matty looked down at the floor as he spoke. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, his mouth felt dry.

Amelia’s face remained unreadable. “When?”

“La- last night.” He wished the earth under his feet could split and swallow him whole.

“Is that what those marks are from?”

He nodded slowly.

“They look pretty bad, have you looked after yourself? Disinfected the places with deeper cuts and-“

“No. I… I sort of, erm, stayed the night at her place and then came straight here. Haven’t had a chance to do anything.”

“She did this to you and then left you there? No aftercare?”

“No, no! Don’t say that! She’s not like that! She tried- but, erm, I wouldn’t let her.”

Amelia didn’t like the tightening in her chest that she felt as she listened to Matty defend another woman. She couldn’t quite figure out what she felt, but she had bigger, more important concerns at this moment.

“There’s a first aid kit in the tour bus bathroom, right?” Her face and tone unchanged, withholding.

Matty nodded.

“Let’s go then.”

***

Amelia gathered her supplies and set them on the bed in Matty’s tour bus bedroom. “Right then. Drop your pants and turn around.”

“I can do this myself, you know.”

“I didn’t ask. Turn around, Matty, c’mon.”

Not wanting to defy her any more than he already has, Matty complied. Amelia used her most delicate touch throughout. Slow and gentle, careful not to cause him any unnecessary pain, and pausing multiple times when she felt her hand falter. Matty pressed his lips together tightly, swallowing any and all whimpers or expressions of pain. He didn’t want her to feel bad. Not when she’s going out of her way to take care of him.

“Who is she?” Amelia heard herself ask.

“Just- ah! Shit…” he let out a groan as the antiseptic touched an open wound. “Just a friend I see whenever I’m in New York.”

“Do I know her?”

“N-no. She, erm….you two have never met.”

Amelia l withdrew for a moment as a sharp sting of jealousy washed over her. She didn’t know what she was most upset by, the fact that he slept with another woman, the fact that he’d let another woman hurt him — given her control

Over his body, trusting her to do what he needed— or the fact that she’d made him cum and got to see his beautiful, vulnerable body experiencing pleasure. Amelia was well aware that she had no right to be upset here. After all, she has a boyfriend. It wouldn’t be fair to expect Matty not to date or see anyone else while she carried on with her life. Still, she felt an unsettling ownership over him. And, she was now learning that she did not like to share.

She resumed her disinfecting, accidentally heavy-handedly, and saw Matty’s whole body flinch, a whimper of pain escaped him despite his best efforts to remain quiet.

“S-sorry.” He mumbled.

To his surprise, Amelia ran a gentle hand down his leg, attempting to comfort him.

“I know it hurts. It’s okay. Promise we’re almost done, alright?”

“Thank you.”

She smiled “let me know if you need me to stop, yeah? We can take a little break if you need it.”

Her words brought tears to his eyes.

“You’re mad at me.” Matty simply stated. “You’re mad at me. I broke the rules and you’re upset with me.”

He heard her unpack the bandages in silence.

“I’m gonna be punished for this, right?” He asked when she wouldn’t speak.

“I don’t know yet.” She pulled his clothes back on for him, delicately, making sure the waistband doesn’t come into contact with any of his sensitive injuries along the way.

“Amelia, I’m so sorry. I- I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what? Sleep with someone else? Why not? I do it!” She turned away from him, contemplating leaving the bus.

“Should’ve at least told you. Or asked you for permission. I- I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t bring herself to walk out on him. She sighed, turning back around. “I don’t wanna talk about this right now. Let me decide on my own. Now, since you didn’t get any aftercare, are you feeling okay? Do you need anything? If you’re experiencing any sub-“

“I’m okay. I promise. I’m perfectly fine. And I’m so sorry.”

Amelia stood there, frustrated, her head spinning, not quite knowing how to feel, or how she should feel.

“Would it - be okay if I hugged you?” Matty asked, his eyes pleading with her.

He took the small smile on her face as a yes and rushed to cling to her.

“You’re just so…” she felt speechless, wrapping her arms around him.

“I know, I know. I’m the fuckin worst.”

***

Several days, and tour stops, went by without Matty and Amelia crossing paths. She still attended every show, watching him come to life onstage every night to perform for his audience. Often getting caught in a moment with someone in the crowd, crying or laughing with them. Always, without fail, having the boys behind him. Even on his worst days, Matty always gave his job everything that he could. That much was guaranteed. It was off-stage Matty that troubled her. And troubled him. So, while they both did their jobs, attended meetings, carried on with business as usual, she hadn’t found herself knocking at his door late at night in quite some time.

Matty laid in bed late at night, still waiting, hoping tonight would be the night that she’d come back to him. As more and more nights went by with his hopes still unfulfilled, he would fall asleep thinking about Lily’s suggestion —or accusation, really — that he wasn’t channeling or processing his feelings with work, but repressing them. He wondered if his night with Lily fell into the same category. He wondered why he’d even gone over there at all. He would give anything to undo it. To have Amelia back in his bed.

Struggling to fall asleep, he decided to go down to the hotel lobby, get a drink, and if his brain was still functioning, perhaps do some work. He grabbed his leather jacket out of the closet on his way out, patting his pockets to check that he had his room card and cigarettes before leaving. When Matty opened the door, he found Amelia, standing there, looking up at him.

“Amelia!” He could burst with joy. “You’re here!”

She looked behind her, to make sure nobody could see them, then rushed into his room.

“Amelia, I- I have wanted to apologize, but I just can’t find the words to-“

She placed a finger to his lips, silencing him.

“I didn’t come here to talk, I came here so you’d get me off, so shut up and get on your knees.”

Matty wasn’t sure if that meant that she’d forgiven him or not, but he wasted no time in doing as he told. Eager to please her, and to show, if not tell, her how sorry he is.

***

A content Amelia reached between her thighs, grabbing Matty by the roots of his hair and pulling his head back, away from her cunt. She was still slightly out of breath from the orgasm that his mouth had given her and she enjoyed seeing his lips and chin glisten too.

“Look at me.” She commanded.

Matty’s eyes instantly met hers, his gaze unsure, humble.

“There’s my good whore.” She smiled, “it’s what you are, isn’t it? A whore? That’s what they call someone who’s happy to be spanked with his own built by just about anybody. Isn’t that right?”

Matty panicked, his thoughts racing. No! That’s not right! It’s much more complicated than that. Besides, it’s not like it was all the same to him. What he feels with her is different. Much more intimate. With Lilly, it was just sex. An attempt to prove to himself and his body that he could still feel it with other people. He learned the opposite of what he’d hoped to learn from sleeping with someone else. But he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to defend himself. Besides, she said she wasn’t interested in discussing this, and he didn’t want to risk her leaving again.

“Y-yeah. I am a whore.” It pained him to say. “Your whore.”

She let go of his hair, but he stayed in place.

“Oh don’t play that game with me, Matty.” She scuffed. “I bet you say that to all the women who force you to submit to them.”

Briefly, he considered prostrating himself on the floor and begging her to believe him. To accept his apology. But before he could throw himself on the floor, she’d reached into his underwear and pulled out his half-hardened cock.

He gasped, feeling her wrap her hand around his length, and squeeze, ever so slightly. His eyes fluttered shut, his jaw slack.

Amelia leaned forward and spat, using her own saliva as lube, she quickened her pace, pleased to see his arousal grow.

“Tell me something, Matty.” She spoke, still stroking him. “Did she jerk you off too? Hmm?”

“Wha-what?” His eyes shot open.

“The girl you slept with. You let her take control; what else did you give her? Did she suck you off? Did she fuck you? Did you fuck her?”

Matty struggled to remain focused, his self control was all dedicated to not cuming before she allowed him to. “What- no, no. I - promise- none of that….fuck, Amelia, you’re gonna make me— I didn’t— she didn’t. No fucking… nothing happened… ah, darling, please believe me- fuckkk I’m so close!”

“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”

“I- promise… Amelia. Please, Angel, may I come?”

“No.”

“I- promise. No matter what. No- ohhh shit- matter…who I’m with or not….you call and I’ll come runnin.’ You’ve got me. You- please!!!- can have me whenever you want.”

“You wanna cum?”

“So, so bad. Please darling may I?”

“Go for it.” Amelia instantly took her hand away, leaving him with a ruined orgasm.

She left him to writhe on the floor, listening to him cry out and beg, as she got dressed. “That’s for cumming without my permission.”

Barely coherent, Matty nodded. “Thank- you, for my punishment.” His legs still twitching.

“Oh, you think that was the end of your punishment? Sweet boy; I’ve barely started.”

As she made her way out of his room, Amelia wondered if what she’d done crossed a line. Was she hurting him with malice? Laying hands on him in anger? He always told her that was the basic rule of dominance and submission. You never do it out of aggression. She wasn’t entirely sure if what she’d put him through was for his sake or out of jealousy. Deep down, a piece of her was still upset with him for sleeping with someone else. She hated that.

***

Amelia pushed him into the supply closet, wasting no time in crashing her lips against his.

“You heard back from the doctors yet?”

He shook his head.

“Cuz you’re already hard for me. You’re an anomaly.”

Matty chuckled. “fuckin tell me about it.”

His eyes shot wide open, his lips stifling a gasp as he felt her hand wrap around the base of his cock. “Remind me again what we’re doing?”

“Puh- pun- punishment. For me.” He managed between pants.

“And why is that?” She changed up the rhythm, grinning when the surprise made him jolt.

“Cuz- I- didn’t- i broke the rules. Let myself have an orgasm without your permission.”

Matty felt his knees begin to buckle. He pushed his head back, leaning against the wall for support. Amelia thought the look of his throat slightly bobbing as he swallowed harshly was the most mesmerizing thing she’d ever seen.

“That’s right.” She snapped out of her hypnotic state “you get edged. Everyday. And you have no idea when I’m going to let you cum. All you can do is beg. While you take it.”

“Please, darling, I- may I cum?” His droopy eyes struggled to remain fixed on her, but he tried his best, he wanted her to see the need in his eyes and to know that he was being genuine when he said that he really, really needed it.

Amelia’s free hand tugged on his balls, slightly, the sudden sensation making him moan and lurch forward. “Fuuuckk!!”

Matty’s knees buckled, he crumbled to the floor, but, rather than give him a break, Amelia simply crouched down in front of him, continuing to edge him. She circled his pre-cum covered tip, admiring the way that his hips bucked desperately.

“Please- please, please, my love. I- need it, Amelia- I’m so, so close…”

She smiled to herself. She knew he was desperate, but enough to pull out ‘my love?’ He was so adorable when he relinquished control.

“You better hold it. You understand?” She changed up her rhythm.

“Ahhh! Fuck!” He cried out. “I- I will, I’m trying.”

“Hush! You’re being too loud. We’re gonna get caught.” She wrapped her hand around his neck, tightening her grip in an attempt to silence him, it was the last push that Matty needed to get him over the edge.

He panicked, trying desperately to warn her, but his voice only a mere squeal as she choked him, he thrashed helplessly, using every ounce of self restraint left in his exhausted and overstimulated body to keep from cumming. Luckily, Amelia had learned his body’s cues well enough by now. She knew he’d reached his peak and she let go before he could lose control loosening her hold on his throat as well.

His rock- hard cock twitched against his stomach, the blood rushing through his veins, his entire body felt sensitive, from head to toe, the pain of a ruined orgasm almost unbearable. He mewled softly, his naked thighs trembling, tears welling his eyes.

“Awww, Matty.” Amelia couldn’t fight the urge to comfort him, feeling a bit too guilty for denying him yet another release. Her hand cupped his face. She was a bit worried when he flinched.

“I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Matty nodded. Unable to speak. Still fighting for breath.

She settled next to him on the floor. Pulling him into her side, her arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“You good?” She asked once his breathing had finally evened out.

“Yeah.” He smiled, tiredly.

“Was that….too much?”

Matty shook his head.

“I didn’t wanna go too hard on you. Cuz we’ve got to get back to work soon. We can’t have you being a mess right now…but, your eyes- you look a bit gone.”

Matty’s body shook against hers as he laughed silently. “It’s just what human eyes look like at arousal. I’m fine.”

“Let’s get you dressed.” She mumbled, reaching for his clothes and helping to button up his shirt over his chest.

Matty’s clammy hands struggled with the waistband of his briefs.

“I’ve got it, it’s okay. I’ll hold it for you.” She lent him a hand. “Got your shoes? Good. Let’s go.”

“Think I just need a minute. You go. I’ll be right behind you in a bit.” He smiled up at her hugging his knees.

“What? No. I’ll wait with you.”

“I’m okay, Amelia. I promise. I just need a minute to come down and collect myself.”

“Well.” She sat back down by his side. “Take your time. I’ll just keep you company.” He took his hand in hers, squeezing it and laying it in her lap.

“You’re a menace, you know that?” He kissed her cheek.

They sat in silence for a moment. Matty soon felt impatient and pulled out his phone.

“Memes already?” Amelia shook her head, “you’re the most unserious man I’ve ever met.”

“I- just- need something to distract me while I come down from all of this” he gestured, loosely, towards the marks she’d left all over his body. “You know I can’t sit still.”

She smiled and leaned in to kiss his cheek. His skin was hot, red, and he was still shaky.

“Wanna see some funny stuff?” He moved the screen to be in between them.

“Okay, but no minions. Only YOU find those funny.”

As they scrolled through, alternating between Twitter and Instagram, and giggling, they slowly found themselves stumbling over the wrong side of the internet. First, it was,

Matty Healy is ugly, racist, sexist, oh and did I mention ugly?

Then,

Matty Healy needs to stop speaking over marginalized people with his white guy “trying to help” energy. It’s giving colonialism.

Amelia rolled her eyes, interfering to scroll past, when Matty had paused to check the reply thread. But, soon enough, they stumbled upon,

The drugs that mh used to be on must have melted his brain cuz wtf is this?

“I suppose that’s enough screen time.” Matty chuckled, setting the phone down in his lap.

“Matty…”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not. And that’s okay-“

“I don’t care. Whatever.”

Amelia looked down at his lap, the phone screen getting progressively dimmer. She grinned when a thought crossed her mind and picked up his phone.

“Amelia?”

Matty watched her thumbs move as she tapped the keyboard, seemingly typing something.

Matty Healy is ugly, racist, sexist, oh and did I mention ugly?

I’d make like your receding hairline and back away if I were you. You’re in no position to speak.

She smiled, satisfied, and scrolled on.

Matty Healy needs to stop speaking over marginalized people with his white you trying to help energy. It’s giving colonialism.

At least he’s helping. What’re YOU doing? Besides being an idiot on the internet, I mean.

“Jesus Christ, Amelia!” Matty attempted to claw the phone out of her grip, but she simply scooted away. “Amelia; stop!”

“What? This is a burner account right?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the point!”

She wasn’t paying attention long enough for him to make his point, she’d gone back to typing.

Here, I’ve linked the definition of colonialism for you. Maybe your Twitter brain rot will actually teach you a new word today!

The drugs that mh used to be on must have melted his brain cuz wtf is this?

Using someone’s addiction against them? Not very woke activist progressive brave of you, is it? He could outsmart you in his sleep, btw. Don’t worry about his brain. Worry about yours.

“Alright that’s enough clapping back for you, give me that phone.”

“But I’m having fun!”

It occurred to Matty that he’s much stronger, and larger, than she is. So he hovered over her, doing his best to appear intimidating. But looking into her eyes always made him weak.

“Give me that phone, Amelia.”

“Make me.”

“Alright, but you’re gonna be sorry you asked for it.”

***

Their rendezvous continued for a few more weeks. They found themselves fallen into a routine. One suggestive look, or nod, was enough to signal that it’s time to surreptitiously leave, and meet someplace private. There wasn’t a position of surface that Amelia hadn’t tried to bend Matty over, or prop him on. He was never allowed to touch. Neither himself nor her as she worked him up, bringing him to the brink of an orgasm, only to pull away when he most needed her. She’d sucked him off on her knees, taken to riding him to get herself off, and on one occasion, even tried a vibrator on the tip of his cock to keep him stimulated while tied up.

It seemed to work. At least as long as she watched him cry and beg for her, she felt certain that she had a hold on him. That she could prove it to herself. Not only that, but Matty was making progress on most days. He still had his setbacks and moments of frustration. And he would get punished for those, firmly. But he did his best to remain on track. Getting back to his routines and even attempting to eat properly. So, for all intents and purposes, this system of theirs, seemed to serve its purpose. That is, until, backstage in his dressing room, Amelia had accidentally pushed him too far.

Matty looked down at his own lap, pent up frustration bubbling within his chest. He felt his eyes sting with tears, his hazy brain, already struggling to find its bearings, began to spin. He sat back down on the couch that he and Amelia had just been lying on, his warm, naked body sticking to the leather.

“I- made a mess.” He announced, his voice filled with emotion. “I- swear I didn’t feel good. Really! But I- I couldn’t stop fast enough” He felt ridiculous for tearing up. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Amelia turned around, concerned, not so much by what he said, but by how he’d sounded when he said it.

“Oh.” Amelia smiled, at the sight of cum dripping down his stiff dick. “Did you spill over a little bit.” She giggled.

Matty nodded, frowning.

“It’s alright. We’ll get you cleaned up. There’s a shower at the end of the hall, yeah?”

Matty didn’t seem to be listening. “I- promise I felt nothing. It didn’t feel good or anything- I still hurt. I promise. Really. Honest!”

To demonstrate how obvious it was, Amelia swiped her finger over his tip, watching him wince and shudder . “Yeah, I see that.”

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Matty. It was an accident. And it doesn’t count as a real orgasm, you didn’t get any pleasure or release out of it, so.”

When she glanced at him and saw his face, her attitude changed. “Oh, babe. You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”

“Sorry. It’s really dumb. I just- I wanna be good. I wanna do as you tell me to.”

“You are, Matty! You’re so good. You take your punishment really well. It’s been - well, weeks. I mean, when’s the last time that you were edged like that without an orgasm at all?”

“N-never.”

“Exactly. Frankly, I’m impressed you’ve lasted this long. I haven’t exactly made it easy on you. You get what I’m saying?” She smiled at him but she could tell that he wasn’t persuaded. “Okay, why dont we wait a bit. You’ll take some deep breaths. calm down. Then we’ll go take a shower, yeah?”

Though Amelia had done and said everything to comfort him, Matty still had a nagging feeling in the back of his head that he’d fucked up. He’d nearly lost control, a difference of seconds could’ve made him a failure. His entire body felt out of control. He couldn’t get a grip all day. And it was obvious. To Amelia, at least. He wasn’t his usual, adrenalin-fueled ball of energy when working, he wasn’t making as many jokes or engaged in conversation. He moved slower, stumbled over his words more, and seemed anxious and afraid of everything.

Doing her best not to draw any attention to this change in his demeanor, Amelia tried all the subtle ways that she could think of comforting him. She remained close by, throughout the day, sitting next to him whenever possible, resting a hand on his back, bringing him food and water to make sure he wasn’t skipping any meals. She wasn’t sure if Matty had registered her attempts or understood that they were meant to reassure him, but she did it as much for her own peace of mind as for his. She hated knowing that he was disoriented and struggling. She hated knowing that it was because of something she had done to him. She couldn’t stand the fact that she’s unable to give him a hug or hold his hand right then and there without it being a major concern to everyone in the room.

So, if she couldn’t wrap her arms around him protectively and kiss all over his face, whisper reassurances into his ear, and let him know that he’s alright, she was going to settle for checking in with him throughout the day, bringing him food, refilling his water, placing a gentle hand over his arm whenever she noticed him retreating into his own head. Nobody seemed to notice the shift in her behavior, or if they did, nobody made it known. Except for Joshua.

“Is Matty okay?” He’d asked as soon as they were alone.

“What? Yeah…he’s- he’s fine. Just going through some stuff.”

Joshua made a vague humming sound that acknowledged her response as his eyebrows crossed. “He’s a good guy. Hope he feels better soon.” He held the door open for Amelia to walk through.

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, there’s a restaurant that Jamie told me about. Think we should try it while we’re in town. Wanna go out for dinner tonight?”

Amelia hated herself for what she was about to say. She hated doing this. But how could she not? “I- uhhh…can’t tonight. I think I’m gonna spend the night across the hall at Matty’s-“

“Again?!”

“I’m sorry! I know. We’ve hardly had alone time this week. But…I’m worried about him. I don’t think he should be alone right now.”

Joshua’s face dropped. “Can’t one of the boys hang out with him for a few hours?”

“I promised him that I would.” She lied.

“Right….” Joshua nodded. He took a long moment to accept his fate. “Alright then. Some other time maybe.”

Amelia felt awful letting him down. But she’d found herself in a position where she would inevitably let someone down, no matter who she chose. She reached for his hand. “I’m so sorry, Joshua. Maybe you could still go? Like with someone else?”

Joshua thought about it for a moment. “George mentioned being interested.”

“Great! I’m sure he’d love to go with you!”

He forced himself to soften and put on a smile, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah George is a cool dude. It’d be a good time.”

“Great, so, you’ll go?”

“I’ll go. With George.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek.

Watching him walk away, Amelia felt a knot in her stomach. What had she done?

***

“Are you going to punish me?” Matty asked, as soon as they sat on the bed.

“Punish you ? What for?”

He shifted in his place. “Well- earlier- I…”

“You didn’t break any rules, Matty. It was an accident. You get that, right?”

He nodded but rather than looking relieved, he seemed disappointed.

“Matty, look at me. What is it? What’re you thinking right now?”

“It’s just- I know it was an accident. But…it wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. And….this whole thing is supposed to be punishment for- when I fucked up and slept with someone else.”

Amelia reached an arm out, “come here for a second. Listen, remember what we said about rewards and punishments? How they’re meant to motivate you to steer away from certain things and towards others?”

He nodded

“Well, in addition to just being fun.” She winked, jokingly. “That’s why these rules only apply to things and behaviors that you can control. An accident is unintentional. You didn’t mean to. And you couldn’t have stopped it. Your body reacted reflexively. What would be the point of punishing you for that?”

Matty smiled, as a few stray tears rolled down his eyes. “Fuck. This is so silly. Why am I crying?” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.

“It’s not silly. It’s okay.” Amelia held his face in her hand, pulling him to her chest. “Matty, I think…I mean, I have to ask if these aren’t subdrop symptoms? You’ve been a bit off all day.”

Matty shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe. Could be.”

She kissed his head, slowly separating between their bodies so she could get off the bed. “Well, then, you stay there and relax. Let me take care of you.”

“You’ve been taking care of me all day-“

“So? I’ll do it all night, too.”

Her smile melted his heart. If he was being real, in one form or another, Amelia has been taking care of him for weeks. And the effort wasn’t lost on him. His gratitude was impossible to put into words. He really wanted to get better. If not for himself, then for her. So she didn’t have to feel like her support was in vain.

When Amelia jumped back on the bed, she’d brought her box of recently purchased sex toys with her, and matty felt a shiver run down his spine at the realization. What on earth was she planning to do to him tonight? The look in his eyes made her giggle. They both knew they were in for a ride.

“Gonna undress you now, okay?”

“More than okay.” He grinned.

***

“Matty?” Amelia called out his name when she felt that he was zoning out. “Have you had enough? It’s been a while. We can stop if you’re done.”

Matty shook his head. “No, no. I’m okay. Sorry I’ve gone quiet. I’m alright, though.”

She looked down at the hickeys and love bites that she’d left all over him, surveying her handiwork.

“For this next bit, you won’t be quiet, I promise you.” Her smile was almost menacing. “But first, open your mouth for me.”

Matty obeyed instantly.

“You know what to do,” she stuck her fingers into his open mouth. “Suck. Like your life depends on it. Cuz that’s the only lube you’ll be getting.”

Matty’s eyes widened as he fervently sucked on her fingers, hollowing his cheeks, gagging, tears running down his throat, and drool down his chin.

“Alright that’s it. Good enough.”

Amelia paused, admiring how beautiful he looked with his face flushed, his lips wet and pink, panting for breath.

“You did good, Matty.” She said.

Matty smiled, shyly looking away. But she could tell that he reveled in her compliment. It was kind of odd but extremely endearing to her that she could say the filthiest things to him and he wouldn’t bat an eye, but a simple word of praise flustered him endlessly. He always seemed surprised to find out that she was happy with him. It almost broke her heart.

“Ready?”

He nodded.

“You can tap out at any time, you know that, right?”

“Mhm. I- I do. Can you…erm, hold my hand? Please?”

she never knew why that was so important to him, something he asks for frequently, and often did with her even when he was the one in control. But she never questioned it. “Yeah, sure.”

She used her wet fingers to tease his hole, listening to him gasp and moan as he made a deliberate effort to stay relaxed. His hand squeezed hers when he felt her first finger slowly push its tip into him.

“Ohh fuck!” He cried out. His eyes falling shut.

“Feel okay?”

“Mhm, yeah, yeah.” He nodded enthusiastically. “Just…tight. It’s been a minute.” Blushing at his own words.

“I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

Matty seemed to grow more comfortable as she went on, slowly and cautiously pushing deeper into it him.

“Never done this on my- ohh Christ!- on my back. Before- fuckin hellll.” He whined. “F- feels- uhh…intense.”

“You wanna change positions?”

He was tempted to say yes, eager to hide his face away or get on all fours. But feeling vulnerable and exposed like this was new. He wanted to challenge himself. To take this step with her. “No, I- think I’m okay.”

“Sounds like you’re ready for a second finger.”

Matty whimpered, feeling his stiff cock twitch, his words getting caught in his throat, chest growing tight. “Oh, A- Amelia…that-“

“I love when you say my name like that.”

“I love- you- r name.”

She giggled. “Matty, honey, I don’t think you know what you’re saying at this point.”

Once satisfied that his body had adjusted,she abruptly pulled her fingers out of his asshole.

“N-no! That’s - I- why?” He complained.

“You’re so greedy, gosh.” She swatted at his chest lightly. “Because I’ve got this,” reaching over into the box and pulling out. Strap-on.

“Oh fuck.” Matty simply let out.

“As much as I would relish seeing you suck dick, I’m kind of excited to rail you until you break. So, maybe next time.” She squirted a generous glop of lube onto the toy, coating it evenly.

Matty was quickly rendered a crying, moaning, mess. Not that Amelia was bothered by it. She’d momentarily lost herself, admiring the way that he clenched around the artificial cock, the way that the you stretched him out, the way that his entire body responded to that pressure, his legs shaking, his cock bubbling with pre-cum. She slid in and out of him, listening for the beautiful sounds that came from his lips every time.

She knelt down, placing a soft kiss to his hip tattoo before holding on to both of his hips for more control and speeding up her pace.

Matty cried louder, his moans, and attempted thanks punctuated by her thrusts.

“Look at me, baby.” Amelia chuckled. He couldn’t hear her over his own voice. “Eyes on me, sweet boy.” Despite her attempts, matty seemed completely unaware of her commands. She just wanted to make sure he wasn’t too overwhelmed but she let him be.

She began to thrust harder, watching as a fresh wave of tears ran down his face. She had no idea that side of her existed, but now that it was out there, she was having a lot of fun. “Go ahead and touch yourself, Matty.” She said once his voice had disappeared from screaming.

“Really?” He attempted to speak, his throat hoarse.

“Yeah. No waiting; no pain tonight. Just pleasure.”

“You really mean that?”

She laughed. “You deserve to feel good, Matty. Go on, darling.”

Amelia watched his hand shake and slip a few times as she pushed into him forcefully. “You want me to get you off?” She offered.

“Y- yes please? Your hand feels better.”

“Flatterer.”

It didn’t take much to get him over the edge. After all, he’d been there all week.

“I can cum? Right now?”

“Cum for me.”

She watched his eyes roll to the back of his head, his entire body trembling harshly as he let go, his release strong and all-consuming. He’d attempted to thank her, but his words soon slurred, and all she heard, was a long, guttural moan.

She slowly pulled out of him, his still-quivering body ached. She heard him wince.

“Matty, love, could you turn on your side for me?”

She helped him lay on his right side before surprising him by thrusting back in. He hadn’t yet recovered from his orgasm, but he held his breath as she slid in.

“M-more?”

“Yeah. Think I’ll keep going. If you can take more.”

“I- I’ll - take whatever you want to do to me.”

“That’s sweet, baby. You’re being so good. But I’m trying to ask if you wanna stop.”

“Want whatever you want.”

She took his hand in hers, bringing it to her lips to kiss his knuckles. “You’re so beautiful.” She smiled gently. “anyway, the reason that I had you flip on your side is because I wanted to see if I could get this angle right. Let me try something.” She adjusted her hips, thrusting hard. A primal scream echoed from him. She’d found the right spot.

“Oh my godddd. Please don’t stop. Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Please, please, please…”

“What’re you begging for, baby?”

“Ohhh….i- I don’t knowww….”

She pushed the phallic toy all the way into his hole, and watched his body spasm around it.

“Sooo. Fuckin. Deep. Ohhhh. Fuckkkk.”

Matty’s toes curled.

“Wanna cum again?”

“Yeah. Yeah please can I?”

“Yeah, let go. Do it.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank youuuu.”

Matty writhed against the bed once more, his neck straining as his back arched off the mattress. He panted and strangled his own screams, but Amelia pounded harder into him, not letting up.

“Gonna go for a third.” She simply stated.

No longer able to speak, let alone protest, Matty simply nodded, before closing his eyes.

“Stay with me, Matty. You’re slipping.”

When he didn’t respond, she slapped his face lightly. “Matty, c’mon. Open those beautiful eyes, let me see you.”

He blinked up at her, slowly, and she knew he was barely present. His head too full of pleasure to process anything.

“Ride me. Go ahead and move your body. Cmon.”

after a longer response time than usual, matty mumbled “can’t. Too tired.”

“Do it, Matty. Cmon.”unwilling to deny her anything, he moved his hips slowly, with considerable difficulty. “Can’t. Too sore.”

“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.” Was the last thing he heard her say before he blacked out. He felt her push his knees into his chest, allowing her to thrust deeper, his entire body shook as she hit him exactly where he needed most. He attempted a half-hearted beg, but she understood anyway, and gave him permission to cum. The pleasure so good, so strong, that his mind went blank, his body acting on pure instinct. Not a thought in his mind, not a word on his lips, he laid there, shaking, heavy limbed, tears down his cheeks.

Amelia spoke softly, despite the fact that she was certain he wasn’t listening. She talked him through her movements like he so often did with her. “Gonna pull out now.” And when he whimpered in discomfort, she rubbed his legs. “I know, sorry, my love.”

Moments later, she sat next to him. “Gonna just…wipe you clean, okay? Just for now. We’ll get you in the shower soon, yeah?” She moved his body around in various ways to clean him up, and he made no effort to intervene or stop her. It was eerie, a bit concerning, and she would’ve assumed that he was unconscious, if it weren’t for the way that his weak hands attempted to hold hers when she brought a blanket over to cover him with. He was wordlessly asking for a cuddle. And who is she to deny him?

Amelia laid down behind Matty, wrapping her arms around him and pushing their bodies together so his back was right against her chest. Her hands resting on his bare stomach, she would occasionally stroke that skin, or gently scratch it, trying to make sure he feels something physical to ground him.

“Matty, are you with me?”

She felt his hand squeeze hers.

“Good. You’re good, baby. Did so well. I’m glad we did this.” After a moments pause, she spoke again. “Did you feel good?”

He squeezed her hand again.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes. My love, I know that you must be so out of it right now, but I need you to rally, okay? We gotta feed you and maybe take a shower.”

Despite her preemptive words, they remained in bed for a long time. Matty’s tears kept pouring out of him, Amelia held him tighter. He didn’t seem to be able to speak, or perhaps he had nothing to say, so she tried to do the talking for him. Out of helplessness, not knowing how best to comfort him, and out of worry, that she might have hurt him in some way.

“Tonight was a lot, yeah? Three orgasms after being pent up for so long? That had to have been overwhelming.” She whispered. “But you took it so well. Know it must have been difficult. Thank you for putting yourself through that. For me. You were so good. ” She paused, her hand moved to stroke the length of his arm. “You like giving up control, don’t you? But you struggle to do it. It’s cuz you’re in your head all the time.” She kissed his shoulder. “I get it. It’s what makes you so special. But it must be exhausting. You gotta give yourself a break sometimes. And I appreciate that you do that with me. Really. I do. Don’t think that I take this lightly. I don’t. Means a lot to me.” She ran her fingers through his hair. “Just hate that this is the only way you allow yourself some release. I wish you’d be nicer to yourself.”

She felt him wriggle in her arms, slowly, and clumsily, he turned around to face her, resting his head on her chest. He mumbled a broken, hardly audible, “thank you.” With a strained voice.

“Gosh you’re making it so difficult to get up. We can’t fall asleep…”

Matty did, of course, fall asleep. He couldn’t help it. His body was drained, all out of energy, his mind had slowed to a complete halt for the first time since tour had started, he couldn’t feel his legs and he had no voice to speak. Amelia held on to him for a while, still playing with his hair, watching him sleep soundly, feeling his chest rise and fall as he breathed. It was the most peaceful he’d looked in a long time. But she had to get them both up eventually.

She peeled herself away from him, rummaging through the suite to sort all the necessities. Once she was satisfied that everything was prepared for them, she crawled back into bed next to him, kissing him awake.

“Matty, darling, wake up.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry, baby, I know this is not what you want right now, but you’re gonna have a really hard time tomorrow if we don’t do this now. Don’t want you to drop and struggle all day, yeah?”

Matty’s eyes fluttered slowly, opening slightly. “Yeah.” He smiled.

She helped him sit up then handed him a glass of water and a bottle of his protein shakes that he always had on hand. “Need you to work on those okay?”

“What about you, Amelia?”

The fact that he was asking about her meant that he was slowly coming back into himself.

“I- I’m…I’ll eat later. Don’t worry about me right now.”

“We’ll share?” He offered. The gesture made her feel warm and fuzzy.

***

Steaming hot water ran down his back like a waterfall. Amelia had decided that he was too out of it to wash his own hair, so she’d hopped in the shower with him, running her fingers through his hair and lathering it with shampoo. Matty could hardly stop giggling and smiling the whole time. Especially whenever she took small breaks from washing him to leave small kisses all over his head and body.

Matty turned around, kissing her lips as steam filled their lungs and fogged up the bathroom around them.

“Thank you.” He whispered into her mouth any time that they broke, briefly, for some air.

“What do you keep thanking me for?” She laughed.

“For….just being you.”

***

Amelia placed a gentle kiss to his forehead as he slept, before tiptoeing out of the room the next morning. Even as she made her way back to her own room, she was already daydreaming about what they would do tonight, once she could come by his room again, after their long day of work.

At the other end of the hall, her boyfriend awaited. “Hi Joshua-“

“When were you going to tell me that you and Matty have slept together?” He asked, sprinting to his feet as soon as she walked in.

Amelia felt the blood run cold in her face. How did he find out? Had he seen them together somehow? They’ve been very careful. Made sure he was nowhere near them whenever they would sneak off. Perhaps not as careful as she’d thought.

“W- wha-what?” She babbled.

“I mean, I know it was before we met but I befriended the guy! Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

Amelia snapped out of her terrified daze. He doesn’t know. They have been careful. Everything’s fine. “Who told you?”

“George did. At dinner.”

“Damn you George Daniel!”

“No, no. Don’t be mad at him. He thought I already knew. He wasn’t telling on you.”

Amelia smiled, nervously, looking into his kind eyes. “Well, I- I’m sorry, Joshua. I didn’t know how to bring it up, and….you seemed to like Matty and I didn’t want to ruin that- didn’t want you to think about me and him….any time that you spoke to him.” She sighed, realizing that she’d run out of breath.

Joshua said nothing. He looked down at his girlfriend, who’d walked to sit on the end of the bed, her head held down in shame.

“Are you mad?” She asked when he wouldn’t speak.

“I- don’t know- I mean, you lied to me, Amelia. I asked you if you guys ever dated….you said almost.”

“No! No, I didn’t lie! We’ve never dated, I promise. It was just sex…I know that sounds a bit weird, but we have never been like ‘in a relationship.’”

Joshua hummed, taking in her words, studying her face. She looked genuine, she looked sorry. Like she was telling the truth.

“I guess…in a way….maybe I’m glad I just found out. Cuz, you’re right. I like Matty and…I probably wouldn’t have if you’d let me know from the start.” He forced a deliberate smile, attempting to dissolve the tension.

“So- you’re…not upset?”

“I mean…a bit disappointed but-“

“I’m so sorry!!”

“But not upset, no.”

“Do you…like…do you wanna know anything? I mean, there’s not much to know. Like I said…we weren’t dating or anything….mostly fucking.”

“ I think the less I know about that the better. For all involved.”

“So- we’re done talking about this?”

“Mhm. Unless you wanna say something?”

****

Amelia pushed the breakfast around her plate as her thoughts spun and weaved. Why did she feel a strange sense of freedom, for a small moment, when she thought Joshua had found out about her and Matty, when she pictured breaking up with him, she felt relieved. Was she a terrible person for feeling that way? Should she lean into it? Surely Joshua deserves to be with someone who doesn’t feel freed by the potential of losing him?

With considerable effort, she lifted her gaze up towards Joshua, looking him in the eyes. “Umm…Joshua?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to tell you something. There’s- we need to talk….”

He sighed, loudly, setting down his fork. “We’re breaking up aren’t we?”

***

Matty looked through the peephole to see Amelia waiting to be let in. He unlocked the door quickly, delighted by her early visit. Amelia, on the other hand, was too angry for pleasantries.

“Can I ask you something?” She tapped her foot, crossing her arms over her chest.

“‘Course.” Matty frowned, unsure of what he was about to face.

“What happened to your Fender Mustang?”

#matty healy fanfiction #matty healy smut

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that1garrulousfan · 4 months ago

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OC AND/OR DRAWING IDEAS FOR ARTBLOCK

🌸 - Interacting with a canon character

🎀 - Dress them in your favorite outfit and/or an outfit you wish you had

🔥 - a r s o n

🎃 - Halloween costume

🦾 - Robot or cyborg

🎤 - Singing

🎁 - Reacting to a present they received or waiting for a reaction from someone they gave it to

🛍️ - Shopping

👑 - Royalty

😈 - Villain

🖤 - Emo/punk/grunge aesthetic

🪡 - Working on a sewing projecting (or crocheting!)

🔪 - Horror art

🧥 - Investigator or a detective

🎬 - Film director

🤿 - Snorkeling and/or swimming

🥸 - Disguise

🍂 - Autumn

🍀 - St. Patrick’s Day

🪖 - Soldier

👾 - 8-Bit

🧤 - Gardening

⛲️ - By a water fountain

🎄 - Decorating a Christmas tree

⚽️ - Playing soccer/football

🏀 - Playing basketball

🏈 - Playing football

🎾 - Playing tennis

🏐 - Playing volleyball

⚾️ - Playing base ball/soft ball

🏓 - Playing ping pong

🪵 - Gathering firewood or just with logs/wood

🎡 - At a carnival

🕷️- Reaction to a spider

💐 - Giving or receiving flowers

💌 - Confession

😒 - Annoyed and/or sarcastic

🤣 - Laughing

🎫 - Buying tickets

✈️ - In an airplane or at an airport or boarding the plane

🐚 - Collecting seashells and/or at the beach

🤩 - Amazed

🌝 - Waiting for a reaction (specifically a prank or something obvious or “You’ll see” expression)

🎮 - Playing video games

🍔 - Eating a burger or other fast food

🎒 - Buying school supplies and/or getting ready for school

☔️- Standing in the rain with an umbrella

🌂 - Going out into the rain

🚗 - Driving and/or driving test

💅 - Painting nails

🧣 - Wearing a scarf

🤳 - Selfie (maybe with a few friends)

🪺 - Stumbling across a bird’s nest

🍳 - Making breakfast

🛹 - Skateboarding

🥧 - Baking a pie and/or cake

🪩 - Dancing and/or at a party

🤡 - The character’s most embarrassing moment

✨ - Star gazing

⛳️ - Playing golf

🪅 - Breaking a piñata

❄️ - In the snow

🛝 - In a liminal space

🐍 - Their reaction to a snake

🍉 - Eating a fruit

🍽️ - Setting up a table (maybe as a waiter for a restaurant or just a family/friend dinner?)

🕶️ - Wearing cool shades

🥠 - Opening a fortune cookie

🩰 - Ballet

🎼 - Learning and/or practicing music

🎯 - Playing with darts

🚲- Riding a bike

🛴 - Riding a scooter

🎪 - At a circus (maybe a d i g i t a l one???)

🖼️ - Admiring art (or not)

🍋 - Trying to eat this

🍨 - Eating an ice cream

🥯 - “A bagel… Two bagels.”

🎢 - On a roller coaster

🎭 - Acting

🛶 - Kayaking or canoeing

📸 - Taking pictures of random objects for no reason :]

🪐 - Trip to space and/or on a planet

💻 - Working on something on the computer

🙌 - With something they admire

🌶️ - Trying a spicy pepper

🫖 - TEA PARTY

🪨 - Rock climbing

🪃 “Wanna know the difference between your honor and my boomerang, Zuko?” “What?” “Your honor will never come back.” “THAT’S NOT FUNNY, SOKKA—“

⛽️ - Getting gas

🧭 - Using a campus

🏕️ - Camping

🌳 - Sitting under a tree

I may reblog and add more later but I hope this helps for now!! Best of luck y’all!! 💖

#art block #art block help #kinda

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lockwoodandcobigbang2023 · 10 months ago

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2023 Lockwood & Co Big Bang Master Post

(Currently updating every day)

January 27th, 2024 Fics & Art:

Team 32: Fic: The Boy Out of Time Art: Here Team 31: Fic & Art: so this is love Team 17: Fic & Art: Boy's Dont Cry Team 24: Fic: journeys end in lovers meeting Art: Here

January 28th, 2024 Fics & Art:

Team 3: Fic: (the horrors of the night melt away) under the warm glow of survival of the day

Art: Here Team 7:

Fic & Art: Stone Walls and Light Cracks (This will be us)

January 29th, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 8:

Fic & Art: When All Is Said And Done

January 30th, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 4:

Fic & Art: Wrapped Up In You

Team 12:

Fic: Liminal Spaces

Art: Here

Team 18:

Fic: 55 Minutes Isn't Nearly Enough

Art: Here

Team 21:

Fic & Art: Reason In Madness

January 31st, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 2:

Fic: if you knew what the bluebirds sang at you (you would never sing along)

Art: Here

Team 9:

Fic & Art: Welcome to My Table, Bring Your Hunger

Team 34:

Fic: Part and Parcel

Art: Here

Team 37:

Fic: We Don't See The Sun Anymore

Art: Here

February 1st, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 11:

Fic: Educational Content

Art: Here

Team 19:

Fic & Art: On The Wings of a Wild Grey Heron

February 2nd, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 15:

Fic: listening to lovers rock

Art: Here

Team 20:

Fic: Nobody Knows You, The Way That I Know You

Art: Here

February 3rd, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 36:

Fic: Who You Gonna Call?

Art: Here

Team 43:

Fic: the sum of our shadows Art: Here

Team 44:

Fic: truth's got its eyes set on you

Art: Here

February 4th, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 28:

Fic: lazarus syndrome

Art: Here

February 10th, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 10:

Fic: When You Tell Me You Love Me (I Can Actually See It)

Art: Here

Team 38:

Fic & Art: Lockwood & Co. The Other Side

February 14th, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 35:

Fic: Vertigo

Art: Here

Team 39:

Fic & Art: when the night was full of terrors (and your eyes were filled with tears)

Team 42:

Fic & Art: to live for the hope of it all

February 19th, 2024 Fics & Art

Team 30:

Fic: Only The Strong Survive

Art: Here

#lockwood & co #lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #george karim #bigbang2023 #locklyle #lucy carlyle #lockwood and co fics

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void-imp · 1 year ago

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OCS as OBSCURE ASSOCIATIONS with jab

i was tagged by @lilypixels @agena87 @wldestluv-rs @mattodore and @hell-dusk! thank you so much. 🫶

ANIMAL: bat, jellyfish, white stag, barn owl, birds in general.

COLORS: generally purples, blues, pastels, pale grays. bright, cool cyan. black.

MONTH: february

SONGS: i'm so afraid - holland. he also has a playlist.

NUMBER: out of the trio, he is 1. other than that i mostly associate him with even numbers like 4 and 8.

PLANTS: forget-me-nots

SMELLS: mint, clean sheets, cotton candy, wet concrete

GEMSTONE: opalite

TIME OF DAY: 4AM

SEASON: spring

PLACES: outer space, cities at night, airports and liminal spaces

FOOD: instant noodles, small cakes

DRINKS: bubble tea, iced coffee, strawberry frappuccino

ELEMENT: air

ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS: libra, pisces

SEASONINGS: lavender, licorice

SKY: starry night sky

WEATHER: rain, clear nights, morning fog, days that are so cold you can see your breath

MAGICAL POWER: ability to see and communicate with ghosts and spirits, rapid teleportation through space

WEAPONS: hobby knife

SOCIAL MEDIA: instagram

MAKEUP PRODUCT: lipgloss

CANDY: blue lollipop, bubblegum

METHOD OF LONG DISTANCE TRAVEL: airplane

ART STYLE: pixel art, digital art, watercolors

FEAR: fear of forgetting

MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE: ghosts

PIECE OF STATIONARY: sticky notes, glitter pens

THREE EMOJIS: ☔️🌌😈

CELESTIAL BODY: stars

tagging @simmingonthelow @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy @adelarsims @iowaisms @madfeary @gothoffspring and @raiiny-bay

#tag game #oc:jab #long post

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murasakibonnet · 1 year ago

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Liminal Space Notes:

Without completely reiterating the masterpost! for this au, this proposed alternate universe explores the boys (sans donnie) traveling 20 or so years into a future. A future abundant with Donatello’s influence whose had to face trials and tribulations in the absence of his brothers. Given nearly complete control, Donnie crafted a world where arts and sciences were the key focus of society lending itself to the cyberpunk theme.

Through decades of practice, Donatello pushed and continues to push himself towards complete mastery of techno-mysticism where his only perceived limit is his own imagination. Most of his technique is centered around the fusion of his mystic arts with nanotechnology, which in application can be used to create anything from separate robotic entities to even clothing. (He calls his brand of nanotechnology ‘Dots’ shortened from Donatello’s Robotics) and they very crudely look like this:

Because obviously he had to incorporate his logo every chance he got. (It was broken up into basic shapes since his brothers may have been absent for 20 years but their impact on Donnie has always remained.)

All of this being overexplained purely to rationalize two things about Raph’s clothing design for his au. One, being he wears a battle shell and in turn, Two, the jacket Raph wears is technically backless as turtles are in fact connected to their shells, so the jacket and the battle shell can connect/disconnect for a seamless design. As ref (from a separate wip) this is what it looks like from behind:

#rottmnt #tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #inktober #no prompt #practice instead #colored day 8’s prompt for practice #I’m so ready to be done with inktober #rise! donatello #donatello #rise! raphael #raphael #cyberpunk au #liminal space au #genius mys-techwear #bonnet’s infodumps #at some point I’ll explain all the design choices for each of the turtles clothes #they’ve been so fun to concept

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sephirthoughts · 6 months ago

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Father: Verb

Summary: 11 year-old WMD Sephiroth is assigned a new handler/bodyguard, named Vincent Valentine.

rating: teen and up (prev chapter and ao3 linked at bottom)

Chapter 8: The Belly of the Beast

“You keep saying things that don’t make sense,” Sephiroth said angrily. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to confuse me, or if this is some kind of attempt at a joke, but—”

“You claim not to believe me, but you felt it, did you not? His pull on you. Your connection to him.”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t…know what you mean.”

“Never try to lie to me. I know you better than you do,” the older version said, with that softly inhuman smile of his. “That child is the reason I was able to find you, here. The reason I still exist, despite my body’s death. He is…an anchor point, in four-dimensional space.”

“Why? What’s so special about him?” Even as Sephiroth asked the question, he felt a thrill of numinous familiarity, as if he was on the verge of recalling some profound truth, that he’d forgotten.

The older version’s smile widened. “That’s right. Remember. Remember him, on your own.”

“No. No, I can’t,” Sephiroth insisted, shaking his head. “How can I? I’m not you, yet.”

“But you will be. The reason you remember that child, though you never saw him before, is because souls are not governed by time and physical space. They navigate by anchor points in the liminal space, created by events of great emotional impact, or a deep attachment to another human soul.”

Sephiroth frowned. “But why that boy, then? If it’s about attachment to another soul, shouldn’t our anchor be Vincent?”

“Vincent is not human.”

“Are you saying that Vincent…doesn’t have a soul?” Sephiroth said, aghast.

“He does not have a human soul,” the older version explained. “Chaos is woven into his being and has changed his nature, entirely. Cloud Strife, on the other hand, has a super-human soul.”

“What is that?”

“The only thing I can liken it to, is him carrying a brighter light, than most. Because of this light, he is able to draw people to him. Compel their loyalty and adoration. Make them attached to him. He has no idea he is doing it, of course, nor do others.”

“He must be pretty charismatic, then.”

“Not really. He does not seem particularly special, at all, at first blush. Outwardly, he is…rather small, and a bit too pretty, for a boy. His looks make him appear unimposing and even vulnerable. Inwardly, he is a morose, solitary, single-minded youth, in constant mental and emotional chaos due to a laundry list of traumas. And yet, everywhere he goes, he collects allies and admirers, like a sun drawing worlds into its orbit. That day he ran into us in the bakery, we began to be affected by his gravity. But something peculiar happened. He attached to us, as well, which he has never done with anyone else. That mutual attachment is what has enabled me to retain my sense of self in the lifestream, and overpower its desire for reunification. It was no accident that you met him precisely at the turning point of your entire life. His attachment to us drew him to you, at our moment of greatest crisis, and our attachment to him guided me here.”

Sephiroth arched a dubious eyebrow. “Are you seriously saying it’s all thanks to true love?”

“Love? What has love to do with two souls being bound together in eternity?”

“Can you hear yourself, when you talk?”

“I see we haven’t yet developed a sense of humor,” the older version chuckled. “No matter, you will have time to grow, in all aspects. You will become the man we should have been. The man we could have been, had fate taken a different turn.”

“You keep calling this a turning point, but I don’t understand why. What’s so significant about this moment? Why not go back further, to before all of this even happened?”

“We cannot go back, to before Cloud Strife existed. Even if we could, all we could do would be to prevent our own birth, which would defeat the purpose. This moment is the first hinge upon which fate turns. Not only for us, but for this world. Together, we will alter the crucial condition, and change the fate in which Vincent kills us.”

“It must be Vincent. But how do we know for sure? And how will we know we’ve changed our fate?”

“I represent a second pivotal moment. When we altered our fate, in that moment, the future timeline collapsed, and future versions of us ceased to exist. Now, my own time, which is your future—and by extension, me—are only potential outcomes. Once the path is truly severed, everything will be erased, all the way back to you. We will know, because I will cease to exist. Then, you will finally be free of our fate. Free to choose who and what you are, what life you will lead, and who will be by your side.”

“If that’s all true, why don’t you do it yourself? What do you need me for?”

“In my current form, I can only affect this reality in minor ways. I need a physical body, through which to channel my power. Your body, to be exact.”

Sephiroth balked. “What? Why?”

The older version laughed. “I am extremely powerful, little fool. Any body but our own would be destroyed by the force of the energies I command.”

“You want to…possess me? But doesn’t possession push out the original soul, and effectively kill the host?”

“Were I to possess a body that is not my own, that is how it would work. However, the universe makes no distinction between you and I. Since we are one soul, I can enter your body and coexist with your consciousness. If it eases your mind, I will only borrow control, when necessary.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Aside from the fact that I am you?”

“Because of the fact that you are me. If I was a time-traveling ghost, and I wanted to steal myself a body, this is exactly what I would say.”

The older version leaned down, and spoke into Sephiroth’s ear. Gradually, his blue-green eyes went wider and his lips parted.

“I—I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes.” He looked up resolutely into his future self’s face and spread his arms. “I’m ready. Come inside me.”

The older version choked. “Please…do not say it like that.”

“What? What’s wrong with what I said?” Sephiroth frowned.

“Nothing. Nevermind. Before we begin, I must warn you, when we are connected by a body, some of my memories will intermittently overflow into your consciousness. It will be…painful. But this is the burden you must bear, to re-create the world.”

Sephiroth made a face. “The burden I must bear, to re-create the world? Gods, how did I ever wind up talking the way you do? You sound like a villain from a stage drama”

“Ha. One day, you may find out.” The older version smiled and held out his hand. “Come. Let us defy destiny together.”

Sephiroth hesitated, then reached out and took it.

Instantly, his vision went black, and he felt like he was spinning wildly in a soundless, lightless void. After a second or two, the extreme vertigo stabilized and his senses returned. He was still standing in his quarters, facing the kitchen. But the older version was nowhere to be seen.

“Are you here?” he asked, half under his breath.

I am here. Can you not feel me ins—ah, I mean. Feel my presence?

“I can, now. What do we do, next?”

Give me control.

Sephiroth consciously slackened his will and let the other take over. He was immediately assailed by that dizzy numbness again, but not nearly so badly as before, and he retained his sight this time. The other spun them around and jerked their head up, looking up at a spot in the ceiling.

Found you.

A serpentine smile spread across Sephiroth’s face. At the same time, there was a loud bang. The room went dark and the whole building seemed to shudder, as hundreds of electrical circuits blew out simultaneously. A moment later, the backup generators kicked on, and the emergency strips along the floors and around the doorways cast the room in amber light.

Sephiroth felt his limbs and torso warp and stretch, and saw their perspective move much higher up, as the other shifted his body into his own adult form. The door blew off its hinges with a bang, slamming into the wall across the way, as they stepped out into the dim, emergency-lit hall. In response to the noise, a patrol of helmeted Shinra guards came running, weapons drawn.

“Intruder! Identify yourself!” the leader barked.

The older version waved their hand. Purple bolts of lightning crackled down the hall, zapping the entire troop of guards, at once, and causing everything made of glass to violently explode.

“Whoa! When do I learn to do that?” Sephiroth asked, excitedly.

In Midgar, during your SOLDIER training.

That dizzy disorientation spun his mind around, and suddenly the scene before him had shifted. He was standing atop what seemed to be a massive, industrial supercomplex. The wind was blowing in his long, silver hair, and the sun was setting, in a riot of brilliant golds, over the sea.

“…is the gift of the goddess. We seek it thus, and take to the sky,” a voice was saying, behind him. A voice he’d never heard, and yet knew as well as his own. Achingly familiar, and somehow far away.

He turned around, to see two people. A big, burly young man in black, and an exceptionally beautiful young man in a burgundy coat, with auburn hair. He knew them. Genesis, the redhead, was seated on the bulkhead-like steel housing, reading aloud from a book, and Angeal, the man in black, was leaning against it, beside him.

These were his friends. His best friends. And yet, there was an element of bitter pain, in the joy that welled up inside him, upon seeing their beloved faces. These were people he had loved…and lost.

“Ripples form on the water’s surface. The wandering soul knows no rest,” Genesis concluded.

“Loveless, act one,” he heard his older voice say.

“You remembered,” Genesis said, snapping the book shut and hopping down from his perch.

“How can I not, when you’ve beaten it into my head,” he replied, in a bantering tone.

With that, weapons were drawn, and battle stances assumed.

“Don’t take Sephiroth lightly,” Angeal advised.

“Noted,” Genesis snorted, then they rushed in to the attack.

Sephiroth had no control of this body, in the memory, but he could feel everything, as keenly as if he were really there. As blades clashed and sparked, it became quickly clear that these two were superhumans, and that they were no match for him, even together. He blocked everything they threw at him, even their coordinated dual attacks, with perfect ease. What kind of monstrous strength was this?

As the fight progressed, high into the sky, full of exploding firebolts and deadly arcs of sword-light, that sliced the giant industrial complex to ribbons, Sephiroth realized with a dawning sense of wonder, how far he had yet to go, to be as strong as his older self.

Just as the simulation fell apart, around the three young men, and it became apparent this was a training arena, he lurched out of the memory, back into the present.

“Your friends,” he said breathlessly. “Genesis and Angeal. What happens to them?”

They are both gone. Maybe, one day, you will find them again, for my sake.

“I will. I promise. I will save everyone, this time.”

Sephiroth looked around, to see that they were just stepping out into the main hall, where the elevators to the other levels were. More troops of guards came rushing up and were tossed away, with a wave of his hand. Purple lighting crackled along the walls, and non-uniformed Shinra staff were screaming and running away, as fast as they could.

Your turn, little fool. Deal with them.

Sephiroth regained control of his body, which shifted back to its usual, teenaged form. With a flick of his wrist, a wall of flame tore through the Shinra Manor main hall, burning the woodwork black, and incinerating everything in its path.

All the sudden, a wave of nausea struck him. There was something…something about a wall of fire, just like this…

Focus. Shinra has dispatched its army. There are squadrons converging on the manor, with airborne support inbound, from the north, south, and west.

“Ugh, you take over,” Sephiroth groaned. “I’m…dizzy. I think I’m gonna—”

His vision went sideways again, and he was plunged headfirst into another memory.

This place wasn’t like anywhere Sephiroth had been, in the manor. But there was something eerily familiar about it. It was dark and musty, with stone walls and ceiling, like it was underground. A forest of huge, ancient bookshelves reached all the way to the ceiling, and were piled haphazardly with old books.

The aisles between them were narrow and cramped, and everything was strewn about and disordered, with books lying all over the floor, almost as if someone had dumped them off the shelves. He was seated in the center, at the large, mahogany desk, reading by candlelight, of all things. His black gloved finger scanned the lines of a project journal, written by hand, in ink.

“Sephiroth?” a voice said, from the center aisle.

He glanced up. It was a good-looking young man, in a black uniform, with spiky black hair and bright-blue mako eyes. Something about him made Sephiroth think of Angeal. That’s right. Angeal was his mentor. This one’s name was Zack. Another pang of bitter pain. Another one he’d lost.

“Uh. What you got, there?” Zack asked, uneasily.

Before Sephiroth had a chance to reply, the memory flickered and blinked, as if someone had switched the channel on an old cathode-ray television, and the scene changed.

Vincent staggered, clutching his abdomen, where a long, thin blade impaled him, all the way through, sticking out of his back. He stumbled forward, as Sephiroth yanked the sword out. Sephiroth caught him, before he fell, and Vincent leaned heavily on him.

A sea of flames billowed and roared all around them, accompanied by screams and wails, and the muffled thunder of explosions in the distance.

The sword wounds all over Vincent’s torso were oozing a black, tar-like substance, that must be his blood. The ragged holes in Sephiroth’s chest, torn open by shots from Cerberus, had already begun to knit back together.

“Vincent…do you love me?”

Vin—cent—do—y—love—

The memory spat him out abruptly, back into present, where his older self had turned the central area of the manor into an inferno, the heat of which made his eyes sting. Amid the calls of soldiers, from outside, and the sound of windows being smashed on the upper levels (probably by people trying to escape), Sephiroth stood, unmoved.

“What were you reading, in that book?” he demanded. “Why did you feel so…manic and strange, in that memory?”

It’s none of your concern. None of that will matter, after tonight.

“Wait, are you switching the memories, intentionally? Are you controlling what I see?”

There are things it will only hurt you to know. Things I wish with all my heart I could un-know. We are giving you a chance to live unburdened by all of that.

“What about Vincent, then! You said he kills us, but I saw you stab him! I saw you hurt him! Why did you do it? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?!”

Because we knew you would not understand, and that you would react the way you are reacting now.

Sephiroth wrested control of his body back from the other, with a violent wrench, and refused to move an inch.

Do not be childish. There is no time for—

“No! I’m not going another step until you tell me what you’re hiding from me!” he shouted, over the thrum of helicopter rotors, right above the manor’s roof, by the sound of it.

You will regret knowing.

“Not as much as you’ll regret not telling me,” he shot back.

Very well. But we warned you.

Once again, the vertigo overtook him, and he was plunged into the sea of memory. Before, it had been gentle. Linear. Coherent. This time, it was a rapid-fire cascade, thousands of tiny points of light in vivid colors, scene after scene, flashing by within milliseconds.

He saw Jenova in her true form, Hojo, Lucrecia, Vincent, Glenn, Rosen, Genesis, Angeal, Zack, Lazard, Rufus Shinra, and hundreds of other faces. This older version was far more than just him, from eleven years in the future. The others were all within him. All the future versions of himself, up to the last one. The one who learned how to reverse it all. How to reject destiny and rewrite fate.

He saw the last one choose death. Saw him navigate the lifestream, in defiance of the will of the universe. He saw all those futures, folding back on themselves and collapsing, as each turning point was ignited, like a fuse burning down. And his was the stick of dynamite, that would blow it all sky-high.

The claws of these potential realities had caught hold of him, and began to tear at his mind and gouge his flesh. He was bleeding. Coming apart. Losing himself in them. They were so much stronger. So much older. He was only a child…

Then he saw Cloud Strife. Saw him in brilliant blue and gold. Saw him as a child and a young man. Saw him cold, hateful, cursing, silent, angry, grieving, helpless, pleading, terrified, wounded, full of worship and admiration, and always so achingly, heart-piercingly beautiful. In that sea of darkness and chaos, he was the only constant, shining like a pole star. Guiding him back to himself.

Sephiroth grasped onto Cloud and finally managed to drag himself back from the sea of memory. But living an entire potential lifetime in a matter of seconds, was no easy thing to withstand.

When he emerged, he fell to his knees, clutching his head and curling into himself, screaming hoarsely. A visceral roar of unfathomable, wordless agony, that cut through all the other clamor and noise, like a sawblade.

The riot gear-clad soldiers outside in the courtyard faltered, looking alarmed and confused. No one had reported that any…creatures had got loose, but everyone knew the rumors of what went on here. Their commander ordered them to hang back, while he radioed CQ for advice. These units had never fought monsters, after all, and were ill-equipped to do so.

Inside the manor, a little boy was crouched on the floor, sobbing amid the flames and wreckage. But he never cried, Sephiroth told himself, frantically trying to wipe away the tears, as they welled up and overflowed, streaming hot and unchecked down his waxen face.

Do you understand, now? Some wounds can never heal. Some wrongs can never be undone. We had to erase all of those years from existence. To rewrite them, from a blank page. To do that, each of us had to die, to go backward, to find the next anchor point, and transmit our purpose to the next self, before we ceased to exist. You are the last. You are all of us. You are the one who will move forward, into the unknown future.

“I am all of us,” Sephiroth repeated dazed and wavering. “I am all—”

He broke off and fell forward onto his hands, dry-heaving, spitting foamy saliva all over the sooty, debris-strewn floor. When the fit passed, he pushed himself back up, panting and pale, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I am…all of us,” he said weakly. Then again, with a little more energy, as he staggered to his feet, his voice growing louder and steadier with each repetition, drowning the others in his head. “I am all of us. I am all of us! But you are only parts of me! You are phantom limbs! Echoes of a future that no longer exists! You’ve given me our knowledge, now give me our strength! I will forge the path you all died to create! I will rewrite fate, once and for all!”

Ah…no longer a little fool, we see. As you wish. All the power we accumulated, till the day the last of us died, is now yours. Use it well.

A prickling electric sensation rushed through his body from head to toe. His mind cleared and his senses became hyper-acute. Time slowed in his perception, as his power surged and pulsed, making his hair float, like he was underwater.

His black wing burst from his back, shedding inky feathers and glimmering, purple sparks, as it unfurled majestically, behind him.

He held out his hand and the great blade Masamune appeared, keen and cold and bright. Bloodthirsty as ever (also a good deal longer than he was tall, in his juvenile form). In his other hand he gathered the darkness—the agony, bitterness, hatred and rage—from the earth itself, drawing it into a jet-black orb of whirling shadows, in his palm.

Just then, the beleaguered Shinra forces finally stormed the manor, with a cacophony of shouts, and the hurried thumping of heavy boots, on the wood floors. At least a hundred soldiers, all told, surrounded the one boy, with glowing red targeting lenses in their helmets, like mechanical spider-eyes, and automatic rifles raised and ready to kill.

“Asset, drop your weapon!” the commander shouted. “If you do not comply, we are authorized to use lethal force! Stand down, now!!”

Sephiroth turned his head, to look at the man, and the ring of soldiers took a few anxious steps back, in unison, widening the circle around the silver-haired child.

There was a tense beat, like an indrawn breath.

Sephiroth smiled.

The spinning orb of darkness detonated, with the force of an atomic bomb. The earth quaked and the sky trembled. The soldiers were obliterated, the manor walls exploded outward, and the roof was quite literally blown off. The spherical shockwave that followed, immediately after the flash, reduced most of the outer wings of the building to ruin.

The helicopters flying overhead were knocked away by the blast and went careening out of control, streaking through the sky like dizzy meteors, before they smashed into the ground and the outbuildings.

Amid the falling masonry and flying glass, in that hell of destruction and death, Sephiroth walked calmly on, to the pile of twisted metal that had been the bank of elevators. Tossing away the destroyed elevator car, he uncovered the shaft; a yawning pit, that lead to the belly of the beast.

More helicopters were inbound, as well as more armored transports, in the distance, carrying Shinra troops. Spotlights were shone on him. Voices amplified by bullhorns demanded his surrender. The one-winged angel ignored them and stepped into the elevator shaft, vanishing from their astounded sight.

He closed his eyes, freefalling into blind darkness, till the last second, when he flicked his wing to slow his descent. His boots touched down lightly, on the worn, rust-stained concrete. Black feathers fell around him, like nightmare snowflakes.

That way. This storage area leads to the secret archives, and then the laboratories. That’s where the old man is keeping our genetic material. We’re going to destroy it all.

“Vincent first,” Sephiroth growled, through his clenched teeth, as he waved his hand and blew a huge steel door open, with an echoing boom.

Of course. They’ll have him in that lab. If he’s not in the arena.

“Arena?”

He’s the worst of the abominations they created—well, aside from us. They use him to dispose of all the others.

Through the door was a narrow passage, which led to the secret archives hall. It was exactly as he’d seen it in their memory, only a lot less uprooted and tossed about. For a moment. Then a tempest of flames swallowed this room, and all the dirty secrets it contained, and the god of destruction moved on.

Next was a large, dirty, mostly empty area, that looked like it had been used to house vehicles or heavy machinery, at some point. On the other side, was a concrete wall, with a heavy, steel door, and a much larger, garage-style door in it. A lazy swing from Masamune, and both doors collapsed, along with the entire wall, cleanly sliced into a hundred geometric pieces.

Sephiroth stepped through the dust cloud into what looked like a Russian base from cold-war-era spy film. It was so comically dark and industrial and outdated, he could hardly believe it could really be in use. There were even exposed pipes all along the ceiling, some spitting out clouds of steam. At the intersection of three hallways, he paused, tilting his head to one side, as if listening to some distant noise.

Then his eyes ignited with green fire, and a venomous smile curled the corners of his perfect lips. “Ah. It seems I’m not the only monster, here.”

THE AUTHOR HAS SOMETHING TO SAY genesis: are you fucking serious? we came all this way and we only get a cameo?? genesis: SEPHIROTH YOU SPOTLIGHT STEALING BITCH YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS zack: i'm just happy to be included! thanks everyone! angeal: angeal: who the hell are you guys talking to?

link to prev. chapter

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