#fic: endeavours too short of desires

[just-trying-to-fangirl-in-peace]

Inspiration (Sauron x fem!Elf!reader)

-> in which you struggle coming up with new designs for the Nine, and the Lord of Gifts helps you overcome your creative block

Warnings: smut (p in v, cockwarming, tease and denial, dom!Annatar vibes), reader hesitates at first because she’s surprised by Annatar’s advances but she’s on board with it, manipulation cause she doesn’t know Annatar is Sauron, small discrepancies with the canon timeline for the sake of the fic’s (very little) plot, unrealistic(?) method of solving artistic blocks (the irony is that I wrote this fic to get out of writer’s block with another one and it worked😆)

Mature content below the cut - minors DNI!!!

“How fares your progress?”

Lord Annatar’s voice nearly startles you when you see him approach. You thought you were alone in the forge room, with nothing but your thoughts and the unfinished Ring designs currently staring in defiance up at you from a piece of paper.

“Well enough,” you say, reflexively. Then sigh, letting your pencil fall on the table. “Well, in fact... it is slow,” you confess, glancing at Annatar as he walks towards you. You wince internally when he looks over your shoulder at your sketches. “My skills are no match for Lord Celebrimbor’s, and even he has had difficulty finding the right designs.”

“And yet he chose you alone to carry on with the efforts in his absence,” he argues, even when faced with what you deem to be your far-less-than-satisfactory attempts. Looking up, you find him offering you a sympathetic smile. “You sell yourself short, my friend. It is a real pity.”

You avert your gaze, attempting yet surely failing to conceal your fluster. His compliments, however small, always have a sincerity about them that touches you deeply.

Lord Celebrimbor had, quite literally, worked himself into oblivion after one too many failed attempts at crafting the Nine, and more hours without rest than even an Elf could endure. He had refused to retire to his chamber for some much needed sleep until he had fainted upon his own worktable, and even then, he had refused for anyone but you to even attempt to create new designs for future tries in his absence. He had been odd, of late, mistrusting and, dare you say, even irresponsible at times. But you were his oldest and most trusted apprentice, and that seemed to earn you some of the good will he still had left.

Not that you feel he has made you much of a favour, leaving you to labour alone on such an intricate task. You are not exactly freshly rested yourself, and you have seen so many Ring designs in the past few weeks, you seem to have been drained of the ability to come up with any fresh ones.

There was only one idea you had that might help you, and you had risen from your seat and sat back down two or three times already, changing your mind about whether you should seek out Lord Annatar or not. Whether it would be appropriate. Now that he has come to you, however...

“I was wondering...” Your eyes wonder about the room, hesitating to meet his. “If it isn’t too bold to ask...”

“Be at ease,” Annatar intercedes with that same gentle smile, and it isn’t so difficult to look at him anymore. “My very purpose here is to aid you in your endeavours. You need not hesitate to ask for my help.”

All of a sudden, you feel quite silly for ever doubting you could speak with him openly. He has been most willing to share his knowledge as he worked closely with you these past few weeks. It’s just that now, he has taken on Celebrimbor’s duties as Lord of Eregion as well, and you hate to feel as though you are keeping him from more important matters simply because you cannot seem to handle your own given task.

“It’s just that I feel so... utterly uninspired,” you confess, casting a dismayed look to the sketch-filled papers in front of you. “The proportions, the aesthetics... I cannot seem to get all the elements right at the same time and the more I try, the farther I stray from the desired result.” You raise your gaze to Annatar’s. “Might you spare a moment to assist me, if only with one design? I’m sure it’ll be inspiration enough for me to finish the others whilst you tend to the affairs of the city.”

“Of course,” he says, placing a reassuring hand on your shoulder. With the other, he picks up the piece of paper, and you are now grateful that his attention is solely on the drawings, for the sudden contact has made you rather flustered. “You see,” Annatar says, contemplating the sketches, “sometimes the artist’s mind, though creative as ever, tends to... restrict itself, in the most frustrating way. So great is the desire for perfection in the end result, that it stifles the natural flow of the precious ideas without which no result may be reached at all.”

You resonate with the wise words, but you are not sure you understand the advice they carry.

“Are you suggesting I... draw whatever design I like first and worry about the practical aspects of it later?”

“I am suggesting,” he says, putting the paper down, “that you do not worry at all.” You frown. With that, you do not resonate at all. But your main focus now is that Annatar steps behind you, this time placing his hands on both your shoulders. Your heartbeat quickens as he speaks, at leisure, “That you do not even... think about the task at hand—not entirely—and that you simply... give in to your most natural instincts.”

“I am... not sure I understand,” you say quietly.

After a moment’s silence, Annatar asks, “May I show you?”

You knit your brow, unsure. You had expected him to help you by simply completing one of the sketches, or even just discussing some new ideas. These cryptic words, along with the physical contact, is all quite peculiar.

But you do trust him. You more than trust him, if you’re being honest. That is why the sudden closeness feels rather nice, though you do not wish to make a fool of yourself by showing it.

In the end, you give a small nod.

“Very well,” he says, and you hear the pleased smile in his voice. “For that, you need only resume your work, and trust me.”

Failing at producing quality designs right before his eyes doesn’t sound exactly ideal, but you put your faith in his methods, whatever they are. You pick up the pencil once more, bring a fresh sheet of paper before you, and begin your fumbling attempts anew.

You note—how could you not?—that Annatar has yet to remove his hands from your shoulders. Because of that, you sit more upright than you usually do, but you doubt changing your posture is his sole purpose. Slowly, he begins to move, thumbs brushing your skin, then softly pressing down onto it in a languid rhythm.

You are grateful that he cannot see the wide-eyed surprise on your face as it dawns on you that the Lord of Gifts himself is giving you, a common Elf, a massage. His thumbs come to knead the flesh at the base of your neck on either side of your spine, and the slight pressure feels divine, especially when you have spent so many hours hunched over the table. You bite down an audible sigh, willing your hand not to waver while you work. You still do not feel particularly inspired, but if he meant to bring you relief from the constant stress of the past few weeks, his efforts are most certainly appreciated.

You mean to offer him a polite and rather bashful thank you, when one of his hands begins to stray. His fingers leave a tingling trail across your skin as he draws them up your neck, softly cupping your jaw from behind. You are quite stunned by the gesture, and find yourself retracing the same pencil line a few unnecessary times before you move on. His fingertips graze their slow way up your jaw, straying briefly through your hair before they reach your earlobe. It’s almost as though he is drawing his own intricate pattern along your skin, and your hand slows in its movements as your heart races in your chest.

Surely, he would not— oh, but if only he did—

And he does. His fingers take their sweet time tracing the shell of your ear, and finally, they reach the tip, where they catch the pointed bit of flesh between them, tugging ever so gently.

Your breath catches in your throat, shivers rain down your spine, and your hand freezes on the page. Because your kind do not touch one another’s ears in such a manner unless they are, or wish to be, courting. The simple reason is that, as you are now vividly reminded, those pointed tips are quite sensitive to touch, erogenous in nature for most Elves—including yourself.

You do not question Annatar’s wisdom or the grace with which he has assimilated into your ways of life, but perhaps he is somehow not aware of this particular intimacy-related aspect? Should you let him know, as courteously as possible? But then how would you explain that you had felt his intent, and despite having been given all the time in the world before his fingers had reached that most tender spot, you had done nothing at all to prevent such a caress?

Before you can decide, his hand returns to your shoulder, any movement halted.

“Is something the matter?” he questions, concerned.

You cannot tell him. You simply cannot. In truth, you miss the touch already.

“No—” you clear your throat, willing the waver out of your voice. “No, my lord.”

“Then, why have you stopped?”

He sounds genuinely curious, as though he could not fathom what had affected you so. You give no answer, other than to put pencil to paper once more. The moment you resume your work, his hands resume theirs—massaging, caressing. He does not touch your ears again, though his fingers do come dangerously close to doing so as he runs them through your hair, and you berate yourself for hoping each time that they would find those sensitive peaks again, catch them in their delicious hold.

So distracted you are by the prospect of it and the images you strive to continue creating, you do not even sense Annatar leaning down. Not until you catch a glimpse of long, blonde hair at the periphery of your vision, and then there is the soft graze of his lips over your neck. You draw in a sharp breath as your skin is set alight, and the pencil slips from your fingers.

“My lord!” you gasp, chest heaving as you whip around to fix him with a most alarmed look. There is no misinterpreting the intent behind that particular gesture, and he knows it very well.

But he doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest as he stands to his full height, seeming to you more majestic in appearance than ever as you look up at him.

“Keep drawing,” he instructs calmly. “Unless you wish for me to stop.”

Your brow furrows even further, your confusion growing, and then—

It all clicks in your mind.

The rules he has demonstrated thus far are simple enough: you stop, he stops. It’s both a condition and a reassurance. You do not have to outright refuse him. You need only refuse to continue drawing, and he shall leave you be, and all will return to the way it was before. But if you do pick up the pencil, it would be tantamount to confessing to the desire you have held secret within your heart for weeks, and that would change everything. Not to mention it would be unprofessional. Most inappropriate.

Your skin still sings where he has touched it.

Be it courage or folly, you turn away from him, pick up the pencil, and draw.

You think you can feel a smile on his lips as they return to your neck. This time, you close your eyes, finally able to savour the sensation—only for a moment, though, for the blissful touch depends on your ability to keep forming shapes on the paper, so you open your eyes and do your best to conjure some semblance of a coherent design as Annatar peppers your skin with unrushed, tender kisses. His lips are even softer than you had imagined, and you tilt your head lightly to offer every inch of skin within his reach. Now that the door has been opened, there is no more use pretending like you do not crave his affections.

Before long, his fingers ghost along the neckline of your dress, then his hand ventures below, to the swell of your breast. You do not make the slightest move to stop him. In fact, you pray to the Valar for the ability to keep your hand drawing at least somewhat relevant lines on the page. For you keep reminding yourself that if you stopped, so would he, and you cannot fathom the loss of his delicate grasp of your soft flesh. He easily finds a stiff nipple, peaking through the fabric of your dress, and tugs it between his thumb and forefinger. You shudder, holding back a whimper—but to your embarrassment, the beginning of one does escape you when his hands and lips suddenly leave you.

“Do you need a respite?” he says with a tinge of admonishment. You’ve abandoned your efforts on the paper without even realizing. You shake your head, not trusting your voice, wishing for nothing more than to feel his touch again, and resume scribbling lines on paper.

“Very well,” he says, and his hands return to you.

It’s increasingly challenging to keep drawing through each graze of lips, each brush of your ears, each tease of your nipples through your dress. It’s already so much, so fast, and yet it only makes you long for so much more. You’ve given up biting back the soft moans in your throat, lacking the power of concentration to spare for that purpose as well. And you certainly cannot help how your thighs press together in a futile attempt to ease the ache growing between your legs.

The sketch of one Ring is already finished, but you don’t even stop to consider whether it’s satisfactory before you begin another. His method shall be most efficient in increasing the quantity of your work, if not the quality. Would he do this with any other smith, you wonder, simply as a means of encouragement? Is this what he has been doing to Lord Celebrimbor on the late nights when the other smiths have gone to sleep, and they alone remain to carry on working in the forge? The thought stings, but the only question on which you can truly focus at the moment is how much further will he go with you, right here and now? As if in answer, his hand begins a most tantalizing descent, over your stomach, down to your navel, and you desperately repeat to yourself to do not stop drawing, no matter what, as you part your legs to receive him without shame.

When he cups you intimately through the fabric of your dress, you truly do not know by what force you are able to keep the pencil on the page, let alone keep wielding it. But thanks to the muscle memory acquired over many years of training, you do, even as you whimper and rock your hips into Annatar’s hand, even as he massages the throbbing bud which had longed for his touch on the shamefully many nights you had stroked it yourself while thinking of him. You wonder if he can feel how wet you have grown for him even through the fabric of your dress, wantonly hope that he does—

He stops. Even though you haven’t—you are so sure of it, you’ve been so careful. You only cease drawing when he lifts himself from you and you turn to him with a questioning, pleading look.

“Stand,” he instructs simply.

You nearly protest. But you remember yourself, that you are meant to be putting your trust in him, and do as you are told. You are hyperaware of the wetness between your legs as you stand, leaning against the table for support. The haze of desire has left you pleasantly weak.

Annatar steps towards you, facing you fully for the first time since he has begun to touch you intimately, and it is both relieving and electrifying to see that desire darkens his gaze as well as he takes in your breathless state. Taking gentle hold of your chin, he lifts it so your eyes meet his, and not a moment later his lips are upon yours, soft and tender. It’s barely more than a short peck, just enough for you to melt into the kiss only for him to pull away before you can fully savour it. This teasing of his is so maddening, like a game to which the only rule you know is that you either submit to his rules, or forfeit altogether, and you can only hope he will not leave you wanting in the end.

Stepping back, be pushes his robes to the side, and proceeds to unfasten his trousers with relaxed, steady movements under your longing gaze.

He pauses whilst he is still decent, and patiently asks, “Will you welcome my flesh?”

Welcome it? You could think of little else for weeks.

“Yes, my lord,” you murmur.

Only then does he bear himself to your gaze. He is a masterpiece, hard and swollen and glistening at the tip. The state of his cock denotes much more impatience than he demonstrates as he gracefully seats himself in your chair. Your cunt clenches around a gnawing emptiness at the mere sight.

“Return to your seat, then,” he invites with a cheeky little smile.

You find it strange that he has not pulled the chair away from the table, sitting in it as though he means to work there himself, rather than receive you in his lap. But you obey either way, a daze of elation coming over you. It’s such a foreign, illicit feeling, pulling up the skirts of your dress with trembling fingers as you step between the chair and table to face Annatar, ready to straddle him.

Before you can lift one knee onto the chair, he stops it with a gentle but decisive hand.

“I do not believe you have finished the designs,” he says. “Have you?”

Frowning, you give a slow shake of your head. His tone nearly makes you feel like a chastised student. Disoriented, you are nothing but pliant as his hands guide you into turning around so that you are now facing the table. Surely, he cannot mean for you to keep drawing once he is inside you? You could barely manage to control your pencil strokes whilst you sat relatively unmoving with his hands upon you, you could not even manage to find the paper if you begin to ride him.

You are about to ride him. Lord Annatar. The thought banishes any such concerns from your mind, leaving nothing but blinding lust in its wake. He adjusts you so that your legs are bracketing his thighs, pulls your garments out of the way to expose your soaked folds, and guides you down so that the tip of his cock is only just breaching your entrance.

That initial stretch alone pulls a small whimper from you, and you plant your hands on the arms of the chair for support, trying not to make any rash downward movement that might hurt you both. But his hands are strong and so safe on your hips, and you surrender to their guidance as he eases your joining. He slowly teases the tip of his cock in and out of your cunt, each time reaching a little deeper than before, until you cannot take it any longer and and sink onto his length completely.

The stretch pulls a mewl from your throat as you finally settle in his lap. You strive to catch your breath, looking down as if to reassure yourself that this is, indeed, real. Your dress covers the place where he has disappeared inside you, but you are so heavenly filled by the length and girth of him, you fear the sight alone might cost you your sanity. You whine, your eyes falling shut as Annatar pulls you to his chest, one hand pressing down on your belly whilst the other gently wraps around your neck, and he whispers in your ear, “How does this feel?”

Your voice is no more than a trembling whisper, “Wonderful.”

You cannot bear to wait a moment more. You try to circle your hips in his lap, moaning as his cock begins to prod at all the most delightful spots within you—

He plants his hands on your hips, trapping them in a firm hold.

“Be still,” he demands. It’s no easy feat, but you settle down, awaiting his direction. “Good,” he purrs in your ear. “Good. Now...” he pauses, letting you quiver with anticipation, “you shall remain still until you have finished the designs.”

Your eyes shoot open, wide and confused as you twist your head to look at him. There is no trace of jest in his eyes. Even the pleasure he feels in the warm embrace of your cunt is a faint glimmer beneath the surface of his determination, subdued with utter discipline. You realize he truly means his words, and you despair.

“But...” You cannot even make a coherent plea. So dreadful is the thought of enduring the pleasure of having him inside you without pursuing it, you are reduced to little more than a pitiful whine, “My lord—”

“Shh,” he coos, tenderly kissing away a tear that had slipped down your cheek, aiming to soothe you as if he is not the very source of your torment. “I know,” he murmurs. “I feel it too. This all-consuming ache to reach fulfillment, this longing for release... the wonders of your mind crave the very same. Open the door to set them free, as you have opened yourself to allow me in. You managed well enough before .”

“Yes, but you were not...” You grimace, clenching around him without meaning to in your anguish. “It’s so deep—”

“And you are so warm. So tight,” he breathes out, hoarse with want. “Yet I shall wait, patiently, for as long as I must. For your sake.”

His tone leaves no room for argument, which only worsens the ache between your legs. But you know by now—either play by his rules, or stop the game altogether.

You sigh, defeated, and nod. “All right.”

Annatar presses a light kiss to your temple, a gesture so sweet and chaste, it makes your head spin as much as his praise. “Good girl,” he rasps out. “Go on, then.”

He offers some support as you will your limbs into cooperating and begin to lean forward, towards the table. The movement jostles his cock within you ever so slightly, and you groan as you withhold from moving your hips in search of any further friction. The position is somewhat awkward, with you leaning over the page from a slightly too high angle, but you plant your elbows on the table and get on with it, determined to see this through.

If someone had told you this was how you would finish the designs—seated in Lord Annatar’s lap, his cock buried snugly inside you, so perfectly stretching you out that it drives you to the brink of insanity—you would have called them a most impolite adjective, and slapped them for good measure. But even less probable, even more scandalous, is that it’s almost easier this way. After a few moments of adjustment, you no longer scratch out attempts before they’ve even begun to take shape, or overthink each stroke of the pencil to the point where you forget what your overall intention had been in the first place. The wonderfully torturous stretch of Annatar’s cock within you takes over that part of your mind, and what is left of it is high on the thrill of it all, the anticipation, the graze of Annatar’s fingers as they trace the occasional languid line along your spine, so tender and encouraging.

The practical knowledge is there, deeply rooted in your mind from years of practice, and the creativity is a gift that’s never truly left you. But it is only now that you finally understand how to let them intertwine without trying to control it, to give in to the flow of inspiration the same way you are giving in to him.

And he keeps his word, sitting silently until the last stroke of your pencil, his hips never once giving the lightest stir. Only when you sit back to show him the finished sketches does he lean forward slightly, taking the paper from your hand as you take deep breaths to cope with the new stimulation.

You plant your hands on his knees for support, nerves filling you now that the creative haze is over. You are left only with great unfulfilled lust, and the creeping doubt that, perhaps, your work is no more adequate than it was before. You’d found a way to push through so far, but you are not sure you could manage such a feat a second time if he asked it of you.

But you would try. You would try anything, if it allowed only the sliver of hope that your Lord Annatar would finally take you, unrestrained and to sweet completion, at the end of it.

To your great relief, when you turn your head, you find him studying the paper with a most appreciative smile.

“See what you can accomplish when you give yourself permission to do so?” he says, caressing your thigh as if in reward. “These are splendid.”

“Thank you, my lord,” you murmur. Before, you would not have dreamed to ask for more than such words of praise. Now, you bite your lip and entreat, “May I... May I, please...?”

“Seek your pleasure?” His voice is knowing, teasing, as if he is not furiously hard within you this very moment. Even after all this, a bout of shyness makes you avert your gaze briefly as you nod. “No,” he says seriously, and your eyes snap to him in alarm. “Not in this manner,” he goes on. “I wish to look upon your face.”

You have no doubt he meant to have your heart lurch in your chest. There is a wicked side to this messenger of the Valar, a shadow hidden within the light with which he surrounds himself. It only arouses you further.

Annatar helps you stand, and the emptiness left behind as he slips from within you would render you an inconsolable mess, if it weren’t for the promise of soon-to-be-found relief. You can’t help but eye his cock, drenched in your arousal and bobbing enticingly as he rises to his feet as well. He sets the precious sketches on the table with care, then turns to you with, at last, unveiled hunger, and reaching to the back of your thighs, hoists you in his arms in one swift move.

You wrap your legs around his waist, cling to his shoulders, and gasp as he carries you to the nearest wall, pressing your back against it. He holds you up effortlessly, even as one hand slips between you to touch your clit directly for the first time. The bundle of nerves has been helplessly throbbing for so long, it only takes a few firm strokes of Annatar’s fingers to have you fall apart with a brisk whimper, burying your face in his neck.

“How sensitive,” he muses, quite content as you pant through the sudden burst of pleasure. “You have craved my touch for a long time, have you not? I admit it has been quite distracting.”

There is the slightest hint of accusation in his voice, and you know he doesn’t just mean since he first touched you today. You must have failed, in all those weeks you worked together, to withhold the lustful thoughts he invoked in your mind from showing in your eyes. And so you had distracted a messenger of the Valar from his work on the crucial task to save all of Middle-Earth.

“Forgive me, my lord,” you whisper into his hair.

“Whatever for?” he asks as though you’ve said the silliest thing. Cupping your face, he tilts your head up so your gaze meets his. “Have you forgotten my name?” he speaks softly. “I am here to give.”

And give, he does. He slides inside you to the hilt, gladly welcomed back by your still-aching cunt, and this time, finally, finally, he withdraws and sinks back in once, then again, thrust after thrust until he builds to a quick rhythm that has you drowning in the pleasure after which you had thirsted for so terribly long. A string of ‘pleases’ leaves your throat, unbidden, even though you can hardly ask for more than the stretch of him inside of you, the relentless press and drag against places so sweet and deep within, the ceiling is filled with all the stars in the night sky as you throw your head back against the wall with abandon. Annatar leans in to kiss your neck, his tongue setting your skin even more ablaze. Your sole remaining ability is to moan and cling to him, receiving the pleasure you are being given.

Sauron is deeply satisfied as he takes his own. He has been aching as well, though the Maia is far more skilled at mastering the urges of his flesh. You had been quick to obey, eager to follow his commands, even without his influence nudging at your mind to suit his purpose, which in itself was as pleasurable as having your tight cunt wrapped around him as you worked. And now you are so pliant in his embrace, moaning in sweet submission as you reap the reward he most graciously offers—the very picture of the peaceful surrender he seeks to accomplish through the Rings. If only every being in Middle-Earth would accept the blessing of his authority as easily as you have, they would spare themselves so much wasteful bloodshed.

Perhaps he will keep you safe from it. Perhaps he will keep you to himself.

But you don’t know what is to come, nor would you care as your pleasure crests towards its peak, and you cry out with the force of your release, clenching around Annatar’s cock.

“Thank you,” you mindlessly gasp in between whimpers as he generously fucks you through it, “thank you, thank you, thank you—”

With one last, brutal thrust that pins your hips to the wall, Annatar groans, long and deep as he throbs and spills inside of you. It occurs to you that he has barely made a sound besides his laboured breathing throughout your coupling. Before he even slips out of you, spent, you wonder if you might have the privilege of hearing more in the future.

He is gracious enough, as your high subsides and you catch your breath, to carry you back to your chair. You doubt your legs would support you this very moment. He sets you down, fixes his robes, then stands before you as poised as ever. If it weren’t for the spark of mischief in his eyes, one would think you had done nothing but discuss Ring designs over a cup of tea.

“Thank you, my dear,” he says, retrieving the sketches from the table, “for your most valuable work.” He admires them for a moment, then gives you a knowing smile. “Do not hesitate to ask for my aid, should you need it again.”

With a polite nod, he leaves you sitting in your chair by the table, much as you were when he had found you. Only, at that time, his spend had not been pooling between your legs, and it was hard to imagine it ever would be.

You smile to yourself. What an unconventional emissary, and how lucky you are that the Valar have sent him to guide you in your endeavours. For indeed, you are sure you shall require his assistance again quite soon.

Sequel -> Further inspiration

[merv606]

Thinking about Puritan Daniel's wedding vows after you mentioned how Daniel said honor and obey in your latest fic. Because imagine how wild they'd be in anything-goes ABO verse!

"I promise to please and pleasure you whenever and however you desire, Sir.."

"I give my innocence to you so we may be blessed and I will birth your pups",

"I promise to kneel before you, to respect you as the Master of our home, Alpha"

And so on!

As his maidens are preparing him for the marital bed, they remind him to “honor and obey your husband.”

The same words he spoke in his vows not too long ago. 

He’s nervous, skin erupting in goosebumps as they fix the nightshirt in place.

Not nervous because of his alpha, now his newly made husband. 

They had been betrothed for years, ever since he presented and Terry had laid eyes on him, and they were only allowed to spend time together, chaperoned time, a few weeks before Daniel was of mating age, as Terry planned to wed him the very day he did. The man had been nothing but kind to him, sending gifts, beautiful letters, and he made sure his family was taken care of in the years leading up to the marriage, and that Daniel had everything he needed or wanted. 

Terry had been nothing short of a gentlemen and perfect alpha. 

His head handmaiden, an older woman, noticed his slight trembling as they dress him in the traditional loose nightshirt, in a sheer white, so that the omega, while dressed, is on display for their alpha when he enters the bed chambers. 

It can’t be from the cold - Lord Silver had made it clear that the fires in both the antechamber where they are preparing him and the bed chambers where their marital bed is are to be keep roaring, so as the omega, a slight little thing, isn’t cold or liable to catch a one.

She knows how long the Lord has been waiting for this and is endeavouring to make his little omega as comfortable as possible. 

“Are you feeling ill?” she asks, worried that they might have to fetch the doctor. Although he had been looked over this morning as part of the health check, as well as for other reasons. 

The heir of a silver could only be bared by an omega of pure status. 

“No, I …. “ he fiddles with the hem of the delicate night shirt. “It’s just that …. I’m still not quite sure ….” what I have to do, he thinks although he says, “what to expect.” 

The younger ones giggle and she shushes them. 

“He will show you these new duties.”

“Duties?!”

He had gone through the required omega courses a year leading up to this, as was normal in wealthy families of power and status, such as the Silvers, who also had a thread of nobility running through their lineage. 

Why he choose a commoner of little standing, absolutely no dowry to offer, is still beyond Daniel. 

Lord silver could have had anyone he wanted. He was the most eligible and sought after alpha. Although he bedded both male and females, he did lean towards male omegas, who were more rare than their female counterparts. 

Still, if he wanted, he could have had all the male omegas, not just in his lands, but all around rounded up to be picked from.

But he hadn’t. 

He had seen Daniel and declared that the boy would be his and that was that. 

Daniel had wanted his family taken care of, which Terry had done.

He’d also handsome, making Daniel’s omega parts feel funny, and he was kind, so Daniel was excited about this day / had been counting down to it.

He wants to get this right - to be the best mate and husband for his alpha and to repay the kindness he had already shown.

“Marital duties -

“And what are those marital duties exactly?”  he asks. 

“He will take his husbandly rights,” she answers, although it isn’t really an answer, but she is unable to explain anything else to the nervous omega. 

Oh yes - that had been mentioned in his lessons, but  all they said were the physical expression of an alpha’s love and desire for his omega.

It had all been very secretive. 

He was told to be responsive to his alpha’s advances, to be warm and welcoming which, he still doesn’t know what they mean by that. 

“That is where I …” he tries to recall the words … “receive my husband.” 

Again the younger handmaidens giggle and are shushed. 

He recalls now the vows.

“I give to you, my alpha, my husband,  both my body and my heart, I will do my duty as your  mate which is your right to take and receive your blessing.”

He didn’t really know what all of it meant, although he knew  a blessing meant a child, which he needed to cement the marriage or else, it could be contested, which he did not want. 

However it happens though, he hopes he falls with child soon.

“Yes,  do not worry. He will show you what it is you need to do,” she smiles warmly and he smiles back. 

A golden goblet is brought to him.

“It will help with the nerves,” she explains and he gulps it down. 

He’s lead into their bed chamber now, and he’s left standing there, alone, but it’s not for long, the door opening moments later, his alpha, resplendent in dark red robes comes in.

As his alpha - his husband - approaches he feels the hairs on his neck and arms stand up on end, although he can’t say he feels in danger. There is something in the air he can’t quite place, a movement to it, a heaviness, and he shivers despite the warmth of the room from the roaring fire by the bed.

His alpha is looking at him with an expression he can’t quite place. Daniel would say it was almost hungry - the way a starving man looks at food but what could he possibly be hungry for, Daniel thinks, looking at me.

The alpha’s eyes sweep up and down and Daniel knows everything he is is visible to the alpha - and his first instinct is to try and cover himself, the soft brown nipples hardening against the soft, sheer nigh shirt and the thatch of brown hair lower still, but his handmaiden’s voice in his head from earlier, reminds him.

“Do not try and cover yourself,” she said, knowing how the pious boy would probably react. “You belong to your alpha now.”

He had nodded.

“Everything you are is his, and he’ll want to see. He has waited long enough.”

He shivers as Terry steps closer, his hands clasping the hem of the night shirt to keep them from going up to block his body from the alpha’s appraising gaze.

“You look lovely.”  A hand on the side of his face, tracing along the edge.

The alpha leans down, pressing his lips to the omega who responds as best he can, never having been kissed before.

The few chaperoned dates they had, allowed Terry only the ability to kiss his hand, and, in one am occasion a chaste kiss to the corner of Daniel’s mouth which had sent pleasure zipping down his spine, setting into his special place, his omegahood throbbing in a way he never felt before. The feeling was new and scary, yet welcome.

Now though, the pleasure has him not only throbbing but pulsing, pressing his legs together instinctively, and he feels … something down there … it feels almost wet between his legs.

A hand up his nightshirt now, that Daniel didn’t even register, fingertips tracing the slick folds that hide his most secret place and Daniel gasps as his husband’s fingers brush against something that send sparks of pleasure through him. It must be his rosebud, something the omega was forbidden to ever touch and he knows now why.

It throbs and aches, a warm blooming from within as the fingertips start rubbing up and down, then in small circles which start featherlight but turn more firm and demanding.

Daniel gasps into his husband’s mouth, who takes the opportunity to slip his tongue inside, tasting his prize, as his other hand finds small sensitive nipples, rubbing them to hardness through the sheer garment,

His legs spread of their own accord, body reacting on instinct, opening for the alpha.

He slots his hand between them now, Daniel whimpering as his hips start moving, once again, his body reacting for him, his mind hazy, rubbing himself along the edge of his husband’s hand, forgetting himself; his behaviour wanton.

“That’s it. Find your pleasure little one,” the alpha praises, and he can hear wet noises as his hips work faster and faster, the hand between his folds now.

His head swims, his limbs loose and relaxed, the elixir from earlier coming into affect. The pleasure is mounting and mounting, and unbeknownst to him, he’s soaking his husband’s hand.

Then he feels it - waves crashing over him, his omega cunt clenching.

Terry brings his hand up, dripping the omega’s slick and release, licking it clean almost lazily.

“What ….” He starts and his husband chuckles.

“That was an orgasm,” his alpha explains. “You came.”

He’s gently laid out on the bed, large hands splaying his thighs open wide, his night shirt ruched up around a slender waist.

His husband’s hand finds it way back between those spread legs, fingers dipping in to trace his entrance, still shuddering in aftershocks.

More slick is gathered, Terry bringing them to his mouth, groaning at the taste of his omega’s pleasure.

Daniel comes back to himself, realizing, with horror, of his behaviour … what does his husband think of him.

“Now, now, none of that. These are my husbandly rights …. “

Oh, Daniel thinks.

“These are your duties to me on our marital bed …” and anywhere else Terry plans to have his little mate. No part of the house will go unchristened … nor any part of his mate’s body for that matter.

“Private vows now, just between us. Repeat after me.”

“I promise to please and pleasure you whenever and however you desire, Sir,” Terry says and Daniel obediently repeats. 

“So I shall do the same for you - endeavour to bring you pleasure.” 

“And a blessing?”

His husband opened his own robes now, and Daniel sees his first glimpse of his husband in all his glory.

His manhood, for the omega was taught the rudimentary biology of an alpha, the differences between them and omegas, is quite bigger than the vague drawings he was allowed to be shown.

“Many many blessings,” Terry promises, stroking himself as Daniel’s legs are opened once again. “All in due time, but we’ll get started now,” Terry says as the alpha presses his lips to his special omega place, knowing a second orgasm will only help in getting his mate’s virgin body to open for his cock,

He plans to keep the vows he just uttered, and needs his little mate loose and relaxed, and Daniel feels blessed already. 

I was imagining an old fashioned night shirt for this as pictured below BUT sheer and shorter.

[farmergilesofham]

The Vanguard Swimsuit Fic, part 2

"Guardian! What brings you here so early?"

Saint-14's slightly tinny voice echoed across the mostly-empty hangar, causing one or two people to turn and look for a moment, before drearily getting back to their own 4 a.m. work.

"Well..."

"Something is wrong?"

"Not... exactly. I'm- hmmm..." the Guardian mumbled, so quietly that Saint leaned in a little nearer.

"Alright, enough stalling," The Guardian finally managed, stepping conspiratorially even closer, hoping the vast metal space would not pick up enough of what followed to embarrass them, "I'd like to ask if you'd... like to..."

"Anything you need for help, I can do." Saint cut in, voice just barely lowered, placing a reassuring hand on the Guardian's shoulder. The Guardian wrung their hands, staring at the ground for a few more agonising moments before finally asking:

"Would you like to be... in a calendar...?"

There was a moment's pause. The Guardian's breath caught.

They looked up. A pigeon had flown up and landed on Saint's shoulder, and the towering Titan was now stroking its head with a single finger, thinking.

"What calendar is this, Guardian?"

"Um. Well, uh. Y'see, the uh... the Eliskni Quarter rather needs some more funding, but without the handy presence of space pirates, the Vanguard's been a bit shot on how exactly they can drum up any money."

The Guardian paused, but Saint gave no comment, so they went on.

"So uh, I had the idea that perhaps if we made something as desirable as pirate... ahem, uh, 'booty', then maybe we could fleece-- I mean, convince other guardians to spend their hard-earned glimmer on it, then send all the proceeds to building up the Eliskni Quarter?"

Saint looked down at the Guardian, contemplating for just a moment before bursting into raucous laughter.

"Huh- what-"

"Guardian! Goodness, I thought you were here to suggest something dangerous! I will gladly do anything to help Misraaks and our Eliskni friends!"

"Now tell me, what exactly do you want me to do for this calendar?"

--

About thirty paces away, Juan José Partinax was typing up some work emails, looking studiously at his screen while straining his ears to hear what The Guardian (Crota's bane!) was saying to Saint-14, as they stood conspicuously huddled together. The enormous, smooth metal hangar was usually too loud to hear anything, but this early in the morning, the sound travelled undisturbed for long enough to just about make out what they were saying.

What he heard soon brought a reddening heat to Juan's cheeks, and it took a few seconds for him to realise he had already sent the final email, though his hands still tapped absent-mindedly at the holographic keys. A heavy clang signalled the docking of an early courier, right as the Hangar-worker took a furtive look at the two legendary figures.

Saint was laughing again, and this time was joined by the Guardian until both lightbearers' knees grew shaky, the Guardian even stumbling before calming down.

"HEY, JUAN! YOU SAID YOU HAD A PACKAGE FOR ME?"

The familiar voice cut through the near-silence of the Hangar, leaving Juan with just one more second of staring, before he turned somewhat reluctantly to shout back at Go Sangbu, the lovely - if very loud - jumpship clamp operator.

--

"Oh, and, Saint?"

"Yes, Guardian?" the Titan boomed, voice still on the very edge of a chuckle.

"Let's have that bet. Ten thousand Glimmer says you can't manage it."

"Ha! You will lose your money, Guardian - I do not wish to part you from your hard-earned Glimmer so easily!"

"Yeah yeah, we'll see. The day anyone manages to convince him to wear so much as a pair of shorts, I'll eat my hat."

And with that, the fellow guardians shook hands, said their farewells, and waved goodbye. Feeling a good deal better about themselves, the Slayer of Gods practically skipped back up the stairs to the main Tower courtyard, barely containing their glee at managing to get the big ole pigeon-lover's support in this silly endeavour.

Saint, meanwhile, was beginning to seriously wonder how he was going to convince Osiris to wear a bikini.

xxxxx

End of Chapter 2! The silliness continues

Next time, on The Vanguard Swimsuit Fic:

Will Lord Shaxx be as easy to convince as the bird-loving Saint? Find out next episode in: "Shaxx's Claymore"!

[leiascully]

Fic:  Endeavours Too Short Of Desires

4500 words | Teen | moody atmospheric vignettes from season 6 and a hike in the woods that never was

A/N: This isn’t new.  I just wanted a tumblr copy.  It is, as ever, for @dilkirani

I.

"Nothing ever happens," Mulder wakes himself saying, jerking back from the depths of sleep.

Scully's face is a stern half-moon in the driver's seat.

"Hmm?" she says, eyes on the road.

"Dreaming," he says rather pathetically, hauling one shoulder up.

"About your love life?"

"Hah," he says. She smirks to herself. Every now and then he remembers she is someone's little sister.

A semi oozes past, its bulk as eerie as the lanternfish Mulder saw in a photo, the small lights set to tantalize with false promises of goodness within. The rental car hurls them through the night, back to the hotel, after the long day of pounding on the doors of innocent farmers. The air conditioner has the same hushed burble as his aquarium filter. The night is clear enough to swim in. If he rolled down the window, the dark would spill in and flood the car. He spins out a story in his half-awake mind: he and Scully, in their rented (though stolen would have more glamour) subaquatic transport are speeding towards the last outpost of civilization to confront the crooked Merpolice. He finds he is holding his breath and abandons the narrative. More apt to be pioneers. The thought of Scully's face hidden behind a ruffled bonnet is too entertaining to pass up.

"Think the Homestead Act is still in effect?" he asked.

Her mouth crimped. "This isn't a Conestoga, Mulder, and you're not a country boy. You'd starve without a deli."

"You hunt, I gather. What do you say, partner?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"After seven years, you expect me to be suddenly amenable to your lunatic schemes?" She makes a smooth stop at a deserted crossroads and sets the car in motion again.

"But you were so good with those pigs," he wheedles.

"Only you would want to settle down by actually settling," she says, putting the turn signal on though there isn't another car on the road. She pulls into the parking lot and noses the car into a slot, equidistant from the cars on either side. He hovers as she unlocks her door and slips in.

"Night, Mulder," she says, tipping her head against the frame.

"Night," he says as she pushes the door to and slides home the bolts. He lays awake in his mirror room, arm cocked over his head so that the back of his hand rests against the wall, trying to feel her heartbeat through the dark.

II.

What the hell are they doing?

There was a time his days had purpose, but now he finds himself floundering. A day's work? A life's work? A fine romance, a deadly drama, a comedy of errors? Scully is no waifish Ophelia, but there are days he fears they'll all end up dead due to the miching mallechos set off by his own determination. At least piles of manure aren't as likely to kill them as most of his demons.

He remembers when he met her, the cool firmness of her handshake and the bad cut of her suit. She is leaner now. Honed is the word he would use: it suits the way they scrape against each other. She has the clean compact lines of his Sig and he reaches for her the same way in a crisis. She isn't pretty. The word isn't in her vocabulary, with all the frou-frou softness it implies. If he can say she is beautiful, it is the beauty of the scalpel's edge. He feels softer by the day, his hand always half-extended to her. There are weekends he orders two coffees just because he forgets she isn't there. He drinks the second and buzzes for hours, having learned to tolerate cream in his coffee rather than face the shades his brain creates.

He dreams about picket fences and Scully with a fond palm cupped over the head of a blond boy. He wakes in a sweat. She deserves more. Not just someone who calls to say, "Hey, I found a musty old file, want to get takeout and give up your weekend?" She merits someone who calls to say instead "I was thinking of you" and leaves it at that. She deserves to be the sign and the signifier. He still loves the hunt, too, with a modern man's shame over the thrill of the chase. Dress it in a suit, give it a pistol, and call the hunt a puzzle or a profile or a case, but she's right: he gets off on it. She rides with him, but it doesn't take her to the same place. Bad motels, bad food, his everloving need to track the villain to his last hideout. Or maybe she does feel the call of it these days: he's guilty about that too. What has he made of her, this serious woman whose family hardly recognizes her? The two of them in coordinating blacks, him stooping along in the shadows with her ramrod-straight and stern beside him.

Who would she be if she weren't his Scully? How many hours of laughter has he stolen from her? How many years of ease? He feels the weight of his debts as an ache when he runs, a tug between his shoulders when he drives.

III.

So she isn't pretty (too severe, too pale of skin and sharp of chin) and she rubs him, god, the wrong way entirely with her pointed insistence on the rational. There are days lately that they just prickle at each other until the air is so charged he isn't sure one of them won't take a swing. He gets smug and she gets arch and he wants to remind her of Scully-that-was with the bad suits and the naivete, but the quips dry up when he looks at Scully-that-is, who might just shoot him to shut him up, her eyebrow cocking almost audibly as a pistol. It was easier when they were upstairs, Moose and Squirrel against the Badinovs. Now they've won and they're back in their weird seclusion, and he spends all day trying not to think about things. Diana and Spender and the enormous scar on Scully's stomach and a normal life and that's just for starters. Scully nags at him: he should be thinking of his knees, his cholesterol, his prostate, his geriatric future chasing phantoms, and he almost blushes under her cool stare as she dissects him and gets irritable about that.

"You want to be the one saying I told you so for once?" he snaps. "I'm sure when I'm dead you'll find a reason." She doesn't rise to the bait, just purses her lips and turns away, and he spends a couple of hours coming up with a good retort for her to have said. "Sooner rather than later" or "I've already seen you naked, I understand the situation" or a reminder of how it's her logic that turns him into something the world doesn't shun. But none of them measures up to her eloquent silence and the fact that she's still here (god, the miracle and the thorn in his side) and it makes him crankier and crankier until he has to go to the vending machine and buy a candy bar to drop on her desk. She raises an eyebrow and splits it with him, both of them with sticky fingertips and dense mouthfuls of nougat and peanut. She swallows with an effort, taps her lower lip with one finger. He licks exaggeratedly at his mouth and tastes caramel. She nearly smiles.

There are some days they're so in sync it's as if they're sharing a skin. He never thinks of it until later, when he turns and she's not there. But they haven't either of them been there, lately. In the bullpen, he can't even stare surreptitiously sideways at her profile.

They talk on the phone in the evenings, too accustomed for self-consciousness. He doesn't remember how many times he's heard her fall asleep, even in the middle of some hushed dispute. He thinks of her, limbs askirl in the comforter, wearing those shapeless pajamas. He wants to ease her out of them, put her in his oldest, softest t-shirt, watch her curl around him as she dreams. Hell, he'll let her drool on his chest if that's what it takes to see her unlimber that prickly standalone self-assurance. She must have been a girl once, laughing with those blue eyes, listening to rough-voiced men croon about how they needed her to need them. He likes to think that he could stop running long enough to spend the morning reading snippets of news stories to her.

IV.

He stares at the phone on the table. It lies there, implacable. He sighs, picks it up, and hits the button.

"Scully."

"Scully, it's me."

"Mulder," she says with a touch of reproval, "it's Friday night."

"It only feels that way because it gets dark early," he says, glancing at the dusky mirror of his window.

"Mulder," she sighs.

"Yeah," he says, and almost hangs up.

"And?" she prompts.

"There's a haunted wood in West Virginia that's very scenic this time of year," he says.

"Haunted?"

"The hotel has a hot tub," he says. "And the hike up to the site is gorgeous."

There is a long moment of silence. He hums The Eagles under his breath.

"Pick me up in half an hour," she says and hangs up.

They spin out the long miles between haunted places together in a silence he likes to call comfortable. He has been a connoisseur of silences since Samantha disappeared: his mother's, Phoebe's, Diana's. Scully's are sometimes cool or pointed but never cruel. The evening dims into early night. He wants to hear stories of her childhood, wants to relate the play-by-play of sandlot games from the days when Samantha was there, pigtails bouncing against her shoulders as she scrambled for a foul ball and held up the game. Instead he tunes the radio to NPR and feels Scully slouch next to him, relaxing into a concert of Bach's sonatas. She props one stocking-sheathed foot on the glove box.

"You like Bach, Mulder?"

"I live for Bach," he says easily. She flashes him a look and he quirks his mouth in a doesn't-matter smile. Those are times he doesn't like to think about, when they were separated, when he abandoned her without looking back and she came anyway to save him from his follies. Dana Scully, Our Lady of Second Chances. He'd lay flowers at her feet, but she doesn't suffer reverence well, the deflection of affection almost automatic between them. Not all wisdom has benefits, he thinks: too wise to woo, they are stuck in the stasis of longing and denial.

The stairs to the basement still smell like smoke when he goes to salvage his files, and his car still smells like Diana's perfume, however he tries to air it out. Betrayal has an acrid bite in his nose. Scully's hands are ashy as they sort through burned fragments of manila; he is aware that he does not deserve her.

West Virginia will not solve any of this, but he is longing for the old earnest purity of the supernatural after the months and months of bureaucracy. After the indignity of being dragged out of their basement. After the wedge Diana has put between them, after his new disillusionment, after his near-drowning. A nice trip to the woods, one that won't end in some ancient hollow filled with bones or the two of them dehydrated beyond recognition. It is tending toward autumn in the mountains, and he has hope again.

V.

She's seen him naked before with those doctor eyes, one self-inflicted health concern after another. He frets that when the day of glory comes she won't see him as anything but a collection of troubles bundled in a too-familiar skin. Where's the mystery of undressing each other when they know all the scars? Where's the room for shadows and secrets and discovery?

All these dreams of yielding, but in the light, they brace their feet and bicker, an endlessly rehearsed debate.

They get in too late for the woods, just collapse in their separate rustic rooms. She yawns through breakfast, but he plies her with coffee and drags her up the mountain.

"What am I looking for?" she asks, her feet clompy in her boots. She has brought a pack with food and water and a good pocketknife. He has a compass in his pocket and a pamphlet in his bag about the local hauntings.

"Any sign of haints, spectres, manifestations, you know."

"Projectile vomiting?" she asks wryly, and pushes up the sleeves of her fleecy pullover.

"Breakfast wasn't that bad, Scully. Now get ghost huntin'."

"Mulder, is this an apology?"

He stretches his legs and outpaces her, scrambling up outcroppings just because he can. The ghostly copse is bright and sunny, the leaves just edged with crimson and yellow.

"Look at that, Scully," he says, putting out his arms and spinning. "Have you ever seen a place more positively haunted?"

She laughs, unpredictably. They eat apples and spit out the seeds. She chose the apples from a bowl in the dining room; he doesn't recognize the names of the varieties when she says them. He thinks, briefly, that he should give it all up and they could grow apples instead. In the evening they sit by a fireplace and the owner of the inn tells them all the ghost stories. Mulder takes notes. Scully stares dreamily into the flames. They slip into the hot tub under the stars, Scully in a very functional one piece, her towel close at hand against the chill in the air. They seem to be the only guests at the lodge. He swats at a lonely mosquito. Scully peers up at the sky.

"You know," Mulder nudges her toes in the water, "if we went up there now, maybe we'd catch Old Smoky in the act of spooking deer."

She regards him, her eyes half-lidded through the steam. "Mulder, was there even a ghost here?"

"There's always a ghost," he says.

On Monday, they don't talk about it.

VI.

Sometimes he sees himself as she must see him, on bad days. Hulking, crowding Mulder, deranged Mulder, screeching inanity even the Gunmen would discount out of hand. Broody, sulky, disturbed Mulder, who hasn't had a date or even a bedroom in years, who has more than once held a gun on her. Same old same old, dragging her across the nation's pale and seedy underbelly for the sake of an anonymous newspaper clipping or a breathless phonecall.

"Why do you trust these whackos?" she asks once, point blank Scully bluntness. "Mulder, are you just aching to have faith in someone?"

He bristles, ignoring the opportunity to be sweet. "They're not whackos. They're truthseekers."

"They're attention seekers." She is already turning away.

"Please don't undervalue my work," he says stiffly, stirred into adolescent sudden outrage so that his elbows jab at the fabric of his suit and his ears feel too large, awkward, hearing sly whispers. "However little you may respect these people and their struggles to confront the paranormal aspects, things that people like you say shouldn't exist, they deserve at least the justice of being listened to. This is my life, Scully. I'm not apologizing."

Her shoulders tilt. "It's become my life."

He punches the buttons on the radio until he finds a classic rock station and taps the steering wheel, trying not to turn around or beg forgiveness. Maybe he'll miss the exit, just drive until they find her magical normal-normal suburb so that she could trot up some manicured walkway to a boring husband and two point five adopted children, since he'd taken the chance of her own from her. Picket fences, Irish setter, parade of heart attack victims and plain vanilla old folks splayed across her morgue table. Maybe that would suit her, he thinks, as they grind into the parking lot. He feels guilty later and turns his plate so she can steal his fries, but she is looking out the window.

The informant is an unqualified whacko.

VII.

She is asleep, her breath a rhythmic fog on the window. Her hair has drifted across her face like autumn coming on. He can see the pulse in her neck. The compact loveliness of her startles him: pulse, respiration, the flicker of muscle as she shifts. She is so solid: the brace of arm from wrist to shoulder as she sights along her gun, the stance of her when they argue. Her skin in the moonlight looks bluish, the milky color of old marbles. She had been almost heavy in his arms, that time in Antarctica, as he'd struggled to clothe her in the meager layers of down and Goretex. The two of them in the clothes he'd worn, sharing his warmth, sharing his skin. As he'd lifted her, he'd caught his own scent on her neck. Her damp skin, bare inside his parka. The two of them breathing in the defiance of the fathomless cold.

And now this, after the whacko. Each of them lost in particular frustrated solitude inside the cocoon of the rental car. The sussuration of tires on the highway. The clear air of the desert so unlike DC, with its concrete memories of swampiness. Go west, young man, he thinks as the car spins northeast back to the cluster of lights where their hotel hunches around a rock garden. Go west and grow up with your country. That made three times this year he'd dragged her along, restless in the bullpen, craving the nocturnal thrill of exchanged information. Cloak and dagger, he would say, thinking of spy movies. Like taking a woman's number in a dark bar, Scully would say, Mulder, what were you thinking?

VIII.

He shows up on her doorstep at Halloween, painted corpse grey with false stitches inked over the real scars. "Trick or treat," he rumbles, and she steps aside.

"You know Frankenstein was the doctor, Mulder."

"Didn't your mother ever warn you about things that go bump in the night?" he says over his shoulder on the way to the candy bowl, but she ducks past him and rations out three bite-size bars into his palm. "No apples? No granola? Why, Doctor Scully, what wicked indulgence. You're letting these kids live it up."

She half-shrugs, her shoulder cantilevered by the crook of the opposite eyebrow. Scully at equilibrium. "Any remnant of true ritual has been superceded by the commercialized sugar high, Mulder. The offering's only a gesture at the amalgamation of centuries of superstition and pagan belief."

"And yet," he murmurs, "think of the dental bills."

Her mouth quirks. In her line of work, he supposes, they appreciate distinctive dentition. "Not my watch. Plus, I like my windows unegged."

They watch bad monster movies on tv, punctuated by commercials and insistent variations on ghouls, heroes, and cartoon princesses. She rambles on about Samhain and Egyptian ritual and the bourgeois dilution of tradition until he unwraps a candy bar and pushes it between her lips. Not that he doesn't love to hear her talk, especially about fertility and death and holy holies and the human tendency to enjoy having the hell scared out of them, but it's Plan Nine From Outer Space and this is the good part.

She swallows, licks her lips, waits for commercial, worries a bit of peanut from between her back teeth. "I was you with all that Samhain stuff, you know. I don't think they sell Flowbees anymore, but I thought about stealing your awful ties."

"You may talk the talk, Scully, but you'll never encompass the Mulder mystique." She grimaces at him. "You're too short and too functional."

She brushes her knuckles against his knee and pretends it's an accident. "Happy Halloween, Mulder."

"Happy Halloween, Scully." He thinks his heart is growing three sizes larger, wrong season or not.

IX.

She pushes his hair back from his injured brow with a remarkable tenderness for a diagnostic. He touches the small of her back in possessive deference. They do not speak of this. It is a language of bodies, all fingertips and shoulders and the comfortable bump of knees under tables that are too small.

He steals her keys at Christmas out of hope.

They are often at odds. He knows she is seeing Diana around corners. The consummation goes on devoutly wished and entirely unconsummated; they are both restless with only their own skins around them. He is still hearing Padgett's voice on a loop (the lurid whisper, the revelation she didn't flinch from, so how could it be true except that she is not the swooning type), still seeing Ed Jerse's all-American face and blistered arm. The precedent of her lovers depresses him, but then, she's not tall, dark, and top-heavy. Tastes change.

He worries that he loves her by association. He worries that she tolerates him simply because she's used to him. In the daylight, in the office, their lives feel so ordinary. Two hired guns for the FBI, overeducated, underpaid, no scope at all for the kind of epic love he wants to believe they could share someday when they get around to saying it. When they find a safe space. "Son," says the bottom of the whiskey bottle some nights, "you're delusional."

He wants to believe.

"All right," she says at Christmas, exasperated, "I'm afraid. But it's an irrational fear." Scully tough as textbooks, always reaching for the quantifiable and the explicable. Love they can't riddle away so they ignore it, mired together in their apprehension, except for shining moments like Christmas morning, months ago. He knows this fear is rational, this fear of this, of them, as real and rational as his fear of Them, the consortiums, the shadow-men. She is not afraid, he thinks. She is not afraid of anything. She has confronted her demons and emerged cool and whole. But they push each other away.

He can't decide what he wants. Only her, to have and to hold away. She is exactly right and exactly wrong and there are days he wants to claim her and days he wants to put half the world between them for one reason or another. Mostly he just wants to go on like this, idle days in the basement. Funny. He can't remember when he stopped trying to keep her at arm's length. She was the spy sent in from the cold. Now she holds the earth steady as they boxstep around the space between them, though she sidles up almost under his arm now and then.

X.

An ordinary stakeout, undercover work for someone else, placating the powers that be. They are in a restaurant. He has his arm slung over her shoulders, for verisimilitude, he tells himself. She doesn't quite lean into his side and toys with her drink: tonic with a twist. He murmurs nothings about the news, about some new article he read on acupuncture for abductees. She tips her head up and peers over his chin to give him the skeptical glare.

"Mulder, why do I think you have an appointment for tomorrow morning with this acupuncturist?"

"Hey," he says, "I'm not an abductee. But if you want to go...."

She starts to turn away, gives him the one-eyed fisheye. He is startled by the depth of blue of her eyes in the dim. Just as he starts to worry he's stirred up too much of the aching past, she shifts her hip against his.

"I'm packing," she reminds him. Her lips pucker in that amused way that makes him think of a perfect plum he ate on a summer beach, half-stolen out of a joint packed lunch as Samantha picked the crusts off her sandwich.

"Come on, Scully," he prods teasingly. "Maybe if you clear your chi, the crazies will quit following you around."

"I sincerely doubt it," she says, and for a moment, her head touches his shoulder. "Isn't that what we're here for tonight?"

Let's ditch it, he wants to say. You and me and a pizza and some beers, what do you say? Forget this Bureau shit. Dinner and a movie.

But she's already scanning the room again over the rim of her tonic, though she's still settled against him. He sighs and picks up a cold fry, leftover from what used to be lunch - they wouldn't let the waitress clear the table. Skinner spooked her pretty good too, Mulder thinks, wondering if he can flag the girl down for a piece of pie. But she's pinballing her way across the far edge of her section, avoiding them.

"You know it's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel?" he says experimentally.

"Should have led with the Mystery Science Theatre marathon," Scully counters.

"Scully!" he says, charmed.

"I get the TV Guide too, Mulder." She flashes a quick grin. "Better than skin mags."

"Research." He cranes his head. "Is that Grubeck?"

"Or his twin," Scully says grimly. Mulder lifts the arm from her shoulders and waves at Grubeck, who makes his way slowly to them.

"What's going on?" Scully says. "Is the surveillance over?"

"Dincha hear? Team shagged 'im block from here four hours ago." Grubeck squints at them. "Finito."

Mulder feels his eyes tighten with anger. Deliberately forgotten, left in this restaurant. For himself he minds less, but Scully doesn't deserve it. Grubeck shifts from one pudgy foot to the other.

"Well," says Scully dryly. "Looks like there is such a thing as a free lunch. Or at least an expensed lunch." She drains her tonic and touches his arm.

It was easier to be alone, but the rough joy she raises in him is a better armor than misery. He stands tall, towering over Grubeck, and ghosts along behind Scully as she strides out of the place, his fingertips grazing her spine. It is one of those DC end-of-summer evenings: the air is thick and gold as honey, so that breathing is a slow effort. Scully's idea of civvies is a tank top and a filmy skirt that looks as if she inherited it from Melissa: Mulder admires the bronzy glaze of sunset on her collarbones. She stops abruptly at a corner and props her hands on her hips.

"I feel like smacking the crap out of something," she announces. "Let's go to the batting cages."

He loops his arms around her when they get there, reminding her how to hold the bat; they both pretend she's forgotten. The nape of her neck smells like a picnic. He tries not to breathe her in too noisily. She plants her shoulders against his chest and crows when they connect. Later, tired of the machine, he lobs easy underhanded pitches for her and teases her for the wiggle of her hips as she sets up to swing.

"Technique," she insists, and slaps one back at him so hard and fast he has to dodge.

XI.

That night, like every night, he can't believe he doesn't say it.

[kinkyfortheyanderes]

Howdy! I’ve been looking lately and I have noticed a drastic shortage of Alpha Endeavour/Enji Todoroki x female omega reader fics. I would prefer nsfw/smut/lemon like the reader surprisingly sent him into a rut by accident. I’m a sinful person so pls don’t hold back on the bdsm sauce. Thank you!

Dirty little slut. He doesn’t say it to your face, not yet at least, but it's his favorite nickname for you. Mind you its not out of hate—more like annoyance—because of how you always flaunt those legs and hips of yours around the office.

A young upstart of a sidekick. Having just graduated from UH this year and getting a position in Endeavors office is no joke. You clearly are talented at saving lives. But Enji quickly realized you have another, more secret, talent. 

Seduction.

It’s as if you want to be fucked constantly, and over every single surface. Sure, you were on omega suppressants but that didn’t help with the smell. Sickly sweet lilac and lavender, with the briefest of hints of jasmine. You smelled of un-plucked flowers. Unless you were really that naive, you would have been able to tell that your scent was strong. No, clearly you were a smart girl. 

You were doing this on purpose. 

He could tell you’ve never been around especially powerful alphas. Enji is able to catch the quick glances down, then up to his eyes followed by a subtle lip bite. An act of clear submission, whether you knew it or not. Always having your hair up, neck exposed. Ripe for the picking.

All of this leading to now. Here you are. A young, clearly untainted Omega—whose suppressants barely hid the overwhelming scent. Currently Enji already dealt with one of the most stressful days of his life dealing with number 1 hero duties. Strung thin at this point, Enji is barely able to hold back when he gets hit with your scent. Fuck. Is it really that hard to think of how you make him feel? Do you really go out of the house thinking that you don’t smell this strong? You had asked him a simple enough question, something about the unusual increase in villains within the area—no doubt interesting to him if anyone else had said it. Since it was you though… His eyes mind was anywhere else but on those fucking figures—more specifically, they were on your figure.

A nice pencil skirt clung to your hips and squeezed your thighs. Something he wanted to do at the moment. More importantly though was your shirt. Two things could have led to your choice of attire. One, you never tried on the shirt before and didn’t realize just how see-through it was, or two, in your desperation for his cock you’ve stepped up your seduction game. The correct reason was clear. From where Enji was standing not only could he picture his hands molded on your ass like that skirt of yours, but he actually saw just what was awaiting him under that flimsy shirt of yours. Breasts slightly moving along with your mannerisms as you talk about god knows what, as your bra—a nice lacy little thing— showed the faintest of outlines of two especially eager nipples. Enji couldn’t help the rising temperature, nor does he even try to at this point. Only giving off a power exhale as he tries to lift his gaze to your face. 

And there it was. 

The look down, the bite of your lip, and the sheepish look up. Enji didn’t even register you still prattling on about current goings on as his lust hits him full force. You were obviously here to help him de-stress. God, what a good omega you are. Enji even feels guilty for not having indulged your blatant advances earlier. Thank god he can rectify that now.

With a quick remark about his upcoming meeting—a lie, and a proposition of continuing the conversation in his office as he gets ready, the two of you resume the one-sided chat there. Two people, two very different ideas of what is about to happen now that they are behind closed doors. 

One, either foolish or oblivious, looks forward to having an in-depth discussion about the current villain statistics. Clearly a smart, well-to-do hole hero in the making. The other, perverted and delusional, teems with excitement about how he can release the sexual tension he the two of you are feeling. 

Your mind on civilian survival rates, you didn’t even realize Enji making his way to you until the light from the ceiling was blocked out. In its place a disheveled Enji almost pants with lust. His face red and his body somehow hotter than ever. His smell—a heavy mix of musk, charcoal and fir—bombards your nose while your ears and eyes are lambasted by heavy breaths and the lewd display in front of you. Too busy processing his sudden approach and appearance, another surprise awaited you in the form even hotter air warming your stomach area. A quick glance down and immediate glance up in shock is all you need. 

Enji, the number one pro hero, is in rut. More specifically, a rut aimed—quite literally by the point of his penis—at you. You’re expert detective reasoning is cut short by Enji closing the gap between you two. With a bruising grip he grabs your ass, squeezing as if you would slip through if he didn’t. The cry that would have come out of you mouth instead goes into his as he captures your lips into a crushing kiss. 

___________________________________________________________

Hey, it’s me. Rena. If you can’t tell I wanted to get it done before I cast myself into the flames of Oblivion. It might seem like the reader is actually trying to seduce Enji but I image him as the kinda creep guy that interprets regular/accidental behavior as absolute signs that the object of his desire 1000% wants to choke on his cock. 

Actively writing the smut now. Just doing it in bits and pieces because it is my first time writing this kind of stuff.

Anyway here is some Enji that you guys were craving. Seriously though, remind me to finish writing this. I feel like it would make a good sex scene. Actively trying to make this a good sex scene now

[00gangfriend00]

I was tagged by @jade-marie and @bourbon-ontherocks to list my top 10 books  fics I read in 2020.

and lemme tell you..

i’ve been WAITIN’ for this one!!

This IS a bit tricky because I spent most of 2020 just lurking on AO3, no acccount, no commenting, no kudos. so there are just so so so many fics that I remember pieces of, and have little headcanons that LIVE with me but I have no idea who the author is or what the fic is called.  

so.. that being said, the top 10 is ever changing and could never be fully complete. I just love every author and every fic, you are all so wildly talented. 

❤  a song inside the halls of the dark - ms_scarlet  (@mego42 )

This fic has everything!! a sexy ex-lover rival gang leader, relaxed rio, angry rio, angsty kitchen sex rio. LOFT rio. AND it’s my favourite post-S2 reckoning of all time. There are moments in this fic that I just want to SPAM the gg writing room with. like scrap ur plans. DO. THIS.  Overall, this is such a creative and well-written series.  The characterization is superb, the smut has.... so many feelings, and the angst is AMAZING. There are a couple chapters (I wont give spoilers) that involves Beth in a hotel in Canada that I legit could not stop reading. it’s just all... so damn GOOD. favourite line: You thought I could be something, right? Well, this is that something. The bitch you trained bit back. 

❤  we’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks - BourbonOnTheRocks  (@bourbon-ontherocks)

Whew! this fic has EVERYTHING. safe house brio. KARMA. brio ignoring each other. snippy, cranky brio. baking shows. mick overhearing loud shower sex. zero communication. brio getting high and giggling! all the feelings. I looooove this fic. like I LOVE it.  it's so creative and it feels so real!! I can play it like a movie in my head. There is so much fun smutty build up, so much tension, anxiety and a very, very, good Thaw Of Feelings which is my fav. I will forever have a soft spot for safe house fics, but this one hilariously twists the trope by doubling down on their idiot stubbornness. genius. favourite line:  He's using her and she's using him. Maybe it's the only thing they're truly equal at.

❤  my girl - elizabethmarks (not on tumblr?)

This fic has everything!!!!!!! (but TW that everything is not for everyone, as the plot primarily revoles around a rape scene.) This fic sets up some of the most soft, emotional, protective brio moments. I also adore how this author handles the delicate subject matter. I work from time to time as a crisis advcate for women and ...... this fic is so accurate and well written. All the emotions beth feels, the way rio reacts to her. everything. I have read this SO many times. It also inludes a Mick POV that will TUG at your HEART.  favourite line: *When on route to Rio’s loft* Rio nods, with that gentle look he has. "Alright, mama. Let's get you home." There's a beat, they both catch it, but neither of them make the correction.

❤  working on things - odenkirk (not on tumblr?)

THIS fic, now this fic has everything!!!!!!!!! masturbation! sexting! weed-smokin horny rio! DEAN?!??! in a way that didnt repulse me???? SEX. kinda threesome??? a heck of a lot of things that I didnt think id be into but then read it and was like HUH, guess i AM. and last but not least, deliciously perfect characterization. This is a fic I ask you to take a risk on. It will pay off. Its fun and oooh soooooooo sexy. Yes, dean goes to pound town too, but I promise- odenkirk makes it WORK.  Blush meter: off the charts. I had to put my phone down and reckon with Jesus.  favourite line:   Rio: Don't get precious, sweetheart. It's you cuz it's you.  AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

❤ miles before you sleep - FakePlastikTrees (@nakedmonkey)

THIS AUTHOR has EVERYTHING! FakePlastikTrees is one of those authors where... I read one fic - then buckled my seatbelt and clicked on her account so I could systematically read through every. single. fic. They are often short scenes that feel so true. Her Rio characterization makes me green with (benevolent) envy. and her smut?? oof. top notch.  This fic in particular lives in my heart because it really truly feels like a missing GG scene between Beth and our favourite tattooed babysitter. The atmosphere is tangible and the author slows time down for these two, it stretches out like you are smokin in the suburbs with them. I love a MickFic and this one is top tier. 

favourite line: “Oh come on. He’s a little unhinged.” “Takes one to know one.” 

❤  people can be so cold - s_t_c_s (@sothischickshe)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh this fic has EVERYTHING. scrabble competitiveness! annie speaking truths! christmas beth! christmas rio?!?! delicious bickering! CABIN isolation!  gift giving perfection! I could go on and on and on.  This fic just pulls you straight in. stcs crafts the timeline so effortlessly, and weaves it with so many endearing and authentic feeling details (beth has her own ‘guys’ now, and we know this bc she gives them sweets and food. OF COURSE) The longing between her and rio is so RICH. if you want your heart to swell a million sizes - this is the fic for you.  favourite line:  They hadn’t – been intimate yet, back when she got him arrested, or the first few times he’d shoved a gun in her face. And the sexual part had been all done and dusted prior to their, god, kidnapping and shooting fiasco. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t present throughout – a hovering spectre, forming a treacherous spine through all their endeavours.

  ❤ listening through the air shaft - ms_scarlet (@mego42)

now this fic. actually for real, has everything. because its every POV you never knew you NEEDED.  and mego42 absolutely nails each and every one. especially Dean. Its a complicated look into his blubbering sexist mind, and misguided fixations that is really well-written. The way in which brio has their own arc throughout the chapters, but told through the eyes of those around them - is amazing. this fic just makes you love every character even MORE.  favourite line: well.. annie, mick and ruby have a group chat and thats all you need to know. anytime that comes up = favourite line.

❤ instigator - nomind (@inyoursheets)

be still my bisexual heart. this fic has everyONE! Yes, this fic dissolves into perfect threesome smut BUT before you get there, you get this awesome set up of a dangerous-feeling connection between Rhea and Beth. They are honest, open and fully acknowledging the fuckedupness of their desire. For how small a part Rhea has in the show - this author NAILS her voice, it’s uncanny. Both of them talking about rio? sign me up. Rio coming home to it? sign me UP.  favourite line: “Jesus,” she hears behind her. “What am I looking at right now?” Rhea smiles down on her, ignoring him, running her fingers through Beth’s hair.

** shout out to another be-still-my-bi-heart fic : @sothischickshe​’s “its a dirty, dirty, game”

❤ do not pass go - linzackles @mrslackles

this. fic. has. every. thing.  I am currently putting every single important thing in my life on hold to PLOUGH through this series. like full speed ahead. UGH. marcus!!! beth and rio at an event! a fancy one! big bad business dudes! betrayal! beth making bad choices! rio unable to fully communicate the weight of his desire for her! angst! just excellent, excellent, excellent plots. i like everything!!!!! favourite line: truly impossible. they are all art. but this one made me cackle.  Shrugging, she responds. In the bathroom, eating nuts.Annie’s reply comes through instantly. Rio’s???????

❤  meet me under the mistletoe - sdktrs12 (@sdktrs12)

this fic.... has.... everything. I want to include this not only because I loooOoOOOved it, but also because this author just has a talent for creating holiday themed brio fics that are not in the slightest cheesy, or forced. which is... hard! to! do! I read her halloween series while in quarantine, and it became apart of my little daily routine. each fic containing at least one moment that made me go AHHH these two!!!!!  so in short - thanks for infusing all my holidays with stellar brio. then christmas comes around and she nails it again! beth and rio begrudgingly working late?   YES. they migh each have a date but they dont DARE talk abut their jealously? YES. Bourbon as a third character? haha YES! Beth looking smokin hot? YES.  favourite line: “Is that your move? Meet me under the mistletoe?”  “Oh baby, you know my moves.”  

and PHEW. there ya go! 

Thank you amazing fanfic authors for making my year 10000000% better. 

I TAG @whiskeyjack @purplemagic @sdktrs12 @joeyjoeylee @ama-ssiempre @roxy206

[hinac0lada]

make it with you

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆: kageyama tobio/reader 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: another song inspired fic. ben&ben rly out here doing the best. hearts out for best boy hehe. this is another attempt at fluff so,, feedback would be nice. <3 [ graphic by me not exactly proud of it hnnng ]

kageyama treasures every moment he has with you. he thinks every second, minute and hour counts. time wasn’t very forgiving, after all. he likes that you can see pass through him and accept him. in spite of the rough exterior you’ve come across before forming a friendship with the hotheaded setter, you personally think that being close to karasuno’s genius player was a notable achievement in itself.

kageyama has become somewhat comfortable around you. he tends to sputter his words, which was unlike the milk lover boy. he’s less awkward and more open with his thoughts around you. he likes how you keep him company - something he wouldn’t dare admit out loud; for he suspects his team mates would never let him live it down, especially a certain short carrot-colored haired teen.

even with that said, time wasn’t going to be generous with him if he continues this charade of growing infatuation with his senior.

morning classes were always dull. the raven haired teen doesn’t have the urge to dwell on about the slow ticks of the clock plastered on the wall atop the chalkboard. time goes at a normal pace. a relatively slow one at that. nothing is indefinite. it’s just how things are.

he sticks to a routine he’s developed as days have come by. after classes he changes into his gym uniform, does training in the gym, back to academics and repeat. fair matches come by and go as they prepare for nationals. he’s not nervous (well, maybe a little). he anticipates the day it were to come.

he doesn’t doubt his skills. he doesn’t doubt his team mates will lead them to victory. he doesn’t doubt hinata, either. he knows he’s done his fair share of growth.

it was just enough for him.

everything he’s ever done didn’t come without a barrier blocking him from achieving his goal. his rigid endeavours come with a blend of synergy and control. it tears him to maintain balance between the two attributes. enrolling in karasuno taught him differently than the way he was treated in junior high.

he made friends along the way. friends who saw through his previous arrogant demeanor and desire to surpass the very best.

he’s learned unity.

he appears to have a weird thing for whenever he has spare time or when he does something outside of the volleyball club. during lunch break, he manages to always catch you alone near the vending machines, scribbling away in a little notebook you carry around with you. neither of you acknowledged the other at first, seeing as how he only aims to get a carton of milk to quench his thirst.

the first time you spoke to him was when you required critique from someone for your project. it was due your next class, so you asked the person closest to you, even if you didn’t know who he was.

“excuse me, could i spare some time from you for a moment?” you called out to the ravenette, who glances your way with a confused expression. he gets closer all the while still sipping on the same carton of milk he always buys on the vending machine. “uh, hey?” 

“sorry, but could i get your opinion on this? it’s important,” you ask sheepishly, turning your notebook around with a mini-canvas on top. you’ve used your notebook as some kind of surface to draw on for your work. the taller teen gazes upon the canvas painted with vibrant colors mixing with one another in a delicate manner. it was a fine piece, even though he didn’t really get the meaning behind it. the oil paints overlapped each other, creating a rough yet nice texture for the imagery you’ve chosen to depict on the media. “it’s.. good.” he awkwardly stammers.

“huh? is that all you’re going to say?” your lips was pulled into a small frown, dejected at the dry comment he stated. “tell me more! maybe there’s something wrong with it - or maybe yet, something’s missing from this? should i add some other details or─ ”

“h-hey, no need for that!” he interrupts with a small scowl. he didn’t mean to have that kind of expression, but you were fussing over nothing. “it.. it looks great. i think you just need to fix that part over here,” he points to one messy part of the painting. “it looks all bundled up and confusing.” you beam at this, grinning at the puzzled and stiff teen. “aha! thanks so much, milk boy! i owe you for this!” and with that, you scurried off to the main building.

kageyama was left in a trance. what had transpired left him puzzled, a bit flustered and something else he couldn’t fathom. 

he did feel a bit irked at the name milk boy. 

───── 

“no, that’s wrong kageyama-kun. it’s supposed to say ‘enormity’, not ‘ennourmity’.” you scold him lightly as you corrected his mistake on spelling. he isn’t that good at english, so he turned to you for help. he’d rather ask you to assist him than beg tsukishima to tutor him again.

it’s been a couple of weeks since you first interacted. somehow, you’ve gotten close with your underclassman. with the promise of owing the setter for (not much, in his opinion) his helpful incite, you brought some pork buns as a treat. since then, you’ve practically hung out during lunch break. it appears as though you don’t hang out outside of these breaks, but why question a good thing?

“ah, i see. sorry.” was his nonchalant reply. you pout, reaching for his ears and tug them lightly but harsh enough. he makes a surprised noise of protest, narrowing his eyes at you. “oi, what was that for?” he holds up his thumb and index finger to numb the little burning itch on his right ear.

“you always seem so bland! show some emotion will you?” you giggle at his baffled expression. he rolls his eyes at this. “i’m not bland, dumbass. i do show emotions, in case you didn’t know─” 

“yeah, you only show emotions whenever you’re angry, bakageyama!” you duck your head as he attempts to swing his arm at you. you stick your tongue out at him, scampering away when he gives chase. it was fun teasing the first year. he seems so tense and so awkward. he needs to loosen up a little.

“HAHAHAH─ okay, okay! i give, i give!!” you squeal as you’ve been backed into a corner, his hand still has that strong grip on your head. you attempt to move his hand - slapping it even, but he wouldn’t budge.”bakageyama-kun, is that any way to treat your senior?”

“for a senior, you sure do act childish,” before lifting his hand, he manages to mess your hair up from its initial neat state, making you groan at him. he returns to where you both sat, picking up his things and stuffing them back into his bag. “ha? where you going kageyama-kun?” you inquire as you brush some array strands of hair back down with your fingers.

“i have practice next. you should get back too, [last name]-senpai,” he hands you your bag, walking past you. “oh. well, ask me again if you need help anytime soon!” he nods in affirmation, waving a goodbye as went on your separate ways. he stops by the vending machine, only to discover there weren’t any milk boxes left. he sighs in dejection, opting to trudge along the steps to the gym to change into his gym clothes.

setting his bag down, he feels something rectangular and hard through his bundle of clothes. taking it out, he discovers it was a milk carton with a sticky note on it.

‘remember to work on your english more, kage-kun!   - your smart senpai, [name] :P’

he didn’t know when you’d sneak this inside his bag without him knowing, but he certainly wasn’t complaining.

─────

kageyama swings by your usual spot, looking even more tired than usual. he says it was nothing, focusing on completing his needed lesson for the day. you try to tell him you could tutor him another time, but he insists it was not a problem. it’s hard to constantly look out for him when he looks like he’s about to pass out.

“kageyama-kun, i really suggest you should take it easy. i mean, look at you! are you even getting enough sleep? are you eating well?” your concern over him makes his heart flutter, but he couldn’t focus on that when his vision started getting all fuzzy. “it’s nothing i─” he cuts himself off with a yawn, tears slightly forming at the corner of his eyes. he must not realize his own fatigue, yet he doesn’t want to listen.

“i still have practice..”

“no, you don’t.”

you decide to stop the work you previously helped him on, cleaning up your things and packing them inside your respective bags. he watches you silently, fighting the urge to pass out. he’s been pushing himself a little too hard. he practiced with hinata the other night to work on their new quick that he must’ve not known how much time has passed. he usually does this though, so he doesn’t understand why he feels much more tired and sleepy.

he doesn’t know how and he feels too drowsy to question why he ended up in the school clinic with you by his side. he promptly passed out on the bed as you got there. you’d have to stop by the gym to tell them of kageyama’s absence. honestly, this boy can be too much for you sometimes.

despite knowing you have your own club to get to, something in you doesn’t want to leave his side. but you’d get scolded if you skipped out. 

you went back to your usual spot near the vending machine, popping in a few coins and purchasing your selected drinks. smiling, you skipped back to the clinic, placing kageyama’s favorite drink on the table on the opposite side of the bed. you pulled out another sticky note, writing a short message and sticking it on the small carton.

sighing, you picked up your things, stopping by the door to give the sleeping male one last glance before heading to your club.

‘don’t go passing out during your matches, okay? - your caring senpai, [name] >:)’

─────

“you know, you’re the first person i ever let watch while i do my work,” you give him a small smile as he pays close attention on your canvas. you both had free time today, so you hung out at a nearby park. he’s bought some snacks along while you brought your art supplies with you. he watches you intently as you recreate the image in front of you; grassy field, trees blending in the background on the left side while the sun was nearing dawn. it was beautiful picture.

“oh.” he says dumbfounded. you don’t give a sign of acknowledgement as you went silent, intent on finishing this piece.

“you’re the first person i can be.. more open to,” he pauses. “i mean, like.. i can tell you anything without being judged for it. and i’m grateful.”

you focus on the painting breaks, glancing at him beside you. you smile at his words. he can be sweet when he wants to be, in his own way at least.

“and i’m honored.” you gaze returns to the canvas.

minutes after you finished, you set it aside to dry. you placed your dirty paint brushes in a plastic, mentally reminding yourself to clean them when you get home before finally focusing on the male in front of you. you made small talk. it didn’t matter which topic it lead to, talking with kageyama was nice. he wasn’t as dull as you thought he was, and he didn’t think you were too annoying.

as you ate your favorite snack, he mutters something underneath his breath, the tips of his ears glowing a light red. “hm? what is it?” you lean closer to him, wanting to know what he was going to say.

“.. i said thanks. for those milk cartons you’ve bought for me the past few days.” he mumbles as he avoids your gaze. he had been wanting to thank you for a while. even though he did so already, he still felt flustered. it appears he’s learned the term of having a crush shortly after spending a hefty amount of time with you.

he's adorable, you think. it was probably rare to see him like this. you chuckle at him, unwrapping your snack to finish the rest of it.

“it’s not a problem at all, kageyama-kun.”

─────

karasuno wins the game by two sets. kageyama glances at the stands above, eyes scanning the crowd for a specific [h.c] haired female. you promised you’d watch his game. and you did. his eyes met yours, navy blue clashing with [e.c] irises. you beam from the stands, waving your arms wildly at their victory.

“great job, kageyama-kun!! i knew you had it in you!” the third years share a knowing look. nishinoya and tanaka pat his back albeit a bit too hard in pride with a few teasing comments. his other fellow first years snicker at his flabbergasted expression that was quickly replaced by his usual scowl. 

despite being teased by his team and gaining even more snarky remarks from tsukishima, you coming to watch him play was more than a victory for him.

kageyama, while rummaging through the bag he uses to store spare clothes and his uniforms, feels yet another soft and hard materials from his belongings. he pulls out a small carton of milk along with a plastic filled with his favorite snacks.

‘good luck on your game today! i know you’ll do great! - your loving senpai, [name] <3′

to him, you were more than enough.

[i-was-nereva-rine-here]

So, a while ago I wrote a thing about my mc that includes the Breton Hero, I’m revamping the actual fic at the moment but here it is?

@daggerfall you asked, here it is

"We meet the King tonight," Gloria smiled, painting her lips red once more. Britta glanced at her and shook her head.

"Paint your lips one more time and you'll be badly thought of. Anyway, we may not meet the King." Gloria rolled her eyes and painted her lips again.

"You're only saying that because you don't like the King," Gloria shrugged, "it doesn't suit you, not liking people. You might meet the love of your life at this dance if you even know how to do any."

"Gloria we all know that it doesn't matter," Britta grumbled, "we'll be employed by some lord or lady and we'll go off to wherever they go." That was the truth of it, tonight was a party, yes, but it was the mage's opportunity to find some employment - or for it to find them. Britta had little interest in doing such and if she hadn't needed the money, she would have quite happily gone to do something else. Anything else. She had no desire to end up like her mother.

"Are you two done bickering?" Asked a voice. Britta turned around and gave a smile to the owner,

"Why hello to you too Amelie, could you warn us next time, in case we're, I don't know, getting dressed?"

"If you were still getting dressed then you'd have a problem," Amelie snapped back, "you need to leave and soon, the King is not one who is kind to those who are tardy." Gloria nodded and left without another word. Once she had gone, Amelie came to her sister and embraced her, tidying the collar of the blue dress she wore.

"Mother's dress," she remarked, her voice quiet, "she would be so proud of you, Brittie." Amelie kissed her sister's forehead, holding her face, taking a good look at her, "she would."

"And I'll make her proud by saying no to any Rielle who comes near me," Britta smiled, touching the tip of her ears, "I should go speak to grandmother before she bores Gloria to death." Amelie nodded and let her sister go, watching her as she descended the stairs. The Rielle would never leave them in ruin again, Britta would make sure of that. Amelie would stay here, as she had always wanted, and her sister would go out into the world. Adventure would find her, eventually.

"Baenemathir," Britta sighed, "I'm ready." The old altmer sat in her chair as normal, an anxious-looking Gloria stood by the door, Amelie at the top of the stairs. Was this really where she was saying goodbye? Britta stopped and closed her eyes, she imagined that her mother was there too, smiling at her, telling her that everything would be alright. Father too, fishing net over his shoulder, a grin on his face looking at his daughter with pride.

"You must not dwell on them," her Grandmother sighed, she had gotten up and come to Britta while her eyes were closed, "they would not want you to do so." Britta nodded, she understood the words her Grandmother said but could not give her own words. Her tongue twisted in her mouth and would not come loose. Golden hands, dulled by age touched her face before taking one of her hands, placing a ring on her finger.

"This belonged to your Albaenamathir," Britta's Grandmother explained, "and her mother, and her mother before. You come from a line of great mages, both of you," she looked up to Amelie, always anxious of her true abilities, "you will carry your name well, even if it is taken away from you." Britta smiled, her Grandmother had never liked that women gave over their surnames to the men they married, "now go, and make your own name." Britta went to the door, her fingers running over the ring on her other hand. She stopped at the door as her Grandmother added, "you too, Gloria." Gloria stuttered out a thank you to Britta's grandmother before the two departed.

The palace was by no means grand enough for a High King, the High King had commandeered the home of King Casimir for his party - celebrating the treaty between the Redguards, Orcs and Bretons that would pit them against the Mer and Eastern Tamriel dwellers. Provided there was no one on the throne of course, in name it was a trade treaty and it would stay that way until someone declared war. They dared not talk of it but in hushed whispers over tankards, everyone knew that war was coming.

Britta and Gloria kept to the sides, mixing in with crowds as they watched people enter to grand announcements, all walking in as if they were the best thing that had happened to Mundus. Britta looked upon them all with a distaste until the King entered, afraid for her head should he see her. He was tailed by two generals, both dressed in Daggerfall guard's garb, and a third man followed. He seemed to prefer the comfort of familiar clothes that allowed him to move. Although he was not armed here, there were pockets on the front of his clothes that would hold knives, a slot for a bow to go over his torso. All he carried was a sword, as all the men and some women did, however, it was not at his side but strapped to his back.

"You're staring," Gloria whispered, "don't miss bowing to the King."

"I won't," Britta mumbled back, her eyes still on the third man. He had a box-like jaw and wide nose, short mousy hair went where it pleased and blue eyes shone like none she'd ever seen. Maybe Gloria had been right. 

She did not miss bowing for the King and when she lifted her head the man who trailed his King was looking directly at her and only her. She watched him, her head still slightly bowed, he returned the action, lowering his chin a little before lifting his head and turning back to follow his King.

"Look at you," Gloria remarked, they had been set free and allowed to mingle, "catching someone's eye, do you know who that is?" Britta shook her head, looking around the room, rescuing two glasses of wine from a server who happened to walk past. Gloria shook her head at her friend.

"That, dear friend, is Rohan Dalorien," Gloria smiled, "some say he's the King's personal assassin, the Dark Brotherhood have their own contract on him because he takes work from them - well, that's the rumours."

"I'd say they're rumours, assassins don't tend to parade around showing themselves to be almost completely unarmed," Britta remarked, sipping on her wine, "he'll be a Captain in the King's guard, they've been called assassins before." Britta sipped more from her wine. Her eyes danced about the room, looking for the man again. There must have been something about his eyes that was...she couldn't describe it. Perhaps he'd had some curse put on him, or if he was the King's assassin a payment for being able to hide.

"Why, if it isn't Brittanna Highmore," a voice called across the crowd, making their way towards her.

"Duke Rielle," Britta sighed, "you're here," Britta hated the man with a passion. Once, her mother had been in the service of the Rielles as their mage but had struggled under them and been driven to something Britta preferred not to speak of. They often got her name wrong as well, it seemed that would be passed onto Britta. Gloria tried to leave but Britta grabbed her wrist, she wasn't leaving her alone to deal with this.

"I did not think you'd attend, your mother-"

"Don't talk about my mother, your grace, you were a child," Britta interjected, "I'm sorry to hear of your father's passing, I'm sure you will make a great leader in his place."

"Every leader needs a mage," the Duke remarked but Britta was quick as she had been before.

"I won't be offering my services to the Rielles I feel that should be plainly obvious to you, Duke Rielle, though I thank you for the offer."

"And I'd advise you leave the Lady be," another voice came into the conversation, Britta let go of Gloria's hand and allowed her companion to slink away. She turned to see the very man they had been speaking about not moments before. Rohan Dalorien. He did not look at her but Rielle, who quickly departed, going to find his wife no doubt, or some other girl. The Rielle's took whatever liberties they wished and had done since they had fought at Glenumbra - they thought they had a right to it, immortalised in song.

Rielle gone, Rohan turned to Britta and took her hand, kissing it, introducing himself to her with a smile. Britta did the same, Rohan finding his own glass of wine, glancing around the hall before he turned his smile to Britta. She found his eyes again, wondering if they were something magical at all, perhaps he had just been looking. However, from his eyes, Britta found her own eyes wandering to his mouth before they quickly snapped up again.

"You don't ever feel like you belong here," Rohan sighed, "I can see it on your face, castles don't suit you."

"I prefer my little house in the Daggerfall streets, I doubt I'll do well under these lords," Britta smiled, she looked at his mouth again and could have sworn one side was scarred but nothing was there, aside from stubble.

"There's always Lord Sidrad, he's...he's not the most powerful of men, likes to entertain guests and more of a merchant than a lord but he can pay you and you'll stay in Daggerfall," Rohan suggested, he took another look at Britta, who shied away from his gaze, "you don't look the type to want power anyway, especially if castles seem to put you out of place." Britta smiled, looking the other way, seeing that Gloria had been cornered by two Ladies of Emeric's Kingdom. It would be a shame to see her friend go all the way to Wayrest without her.

"I will endeavour to talk to this Lord Sidrad then," Britta nodded, "home is where I belong."

"I wish I could say the same, this is the first time I've returned in...years, since I was seventeen," Rohan sighed, looking around the castle, "though I'm not sure the castle would be somewhere I call home. I belong to the fisher's district." Britta almost laughed, letting out something that sounded like joy.

"Myself as well, father was a fisherman, lived there all my life," Britta couldn't keep the smile off her face. She felt Rohan's eyes on her and turned her head to smile at him but he was looking at her with something of an interest. His eyes studied every part of her; her ears, amber eyes and thin mouth, the tint to her skin that wasn't quite Breton.

"You're a Highmore," Rohan smiled, pleased with his deduction, "what happens when an Altmer and a Breton come together, we get you. No wonder you're a mage."

"It doesn't benefit us all," Britta's voice became harder and she instead occupied her eyes with the room, she wasn't sure how she felt about his words, "my sister is...she could have fared better and although we are Highmores, we...we are diluted, my last Altmer relative is my Grandmother - don't believe what they wrote about mixing of races, or at least, don't take it at face value, my mother looked like a Breton."

"I'm sorry if I've caused offence, it wasn't my intention," Rohan sighed, "but being who you are, I'd almost advise you to approach the King for position."

"I do not have the untapped Magicka others have, my mother did, it appears to have skipped Amelie and I," Britta smiled, looking back at Rohan, "anyway, you're far too right about me not liking castles, I don't think I'd be suited to working for a King. If you'll excuse me, my friend seems to be in a spot of bother." Britta smiled and when to leave but he caught her arm and turned her back to him. For a moment he looked at her, his blue eyes wild.

"When the King calls for dances, come find me," he asked, "it'll keep you from Rielle." He let her go and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Britta to go and rescue Gloria from the Wayrest women.

It turned out she wasn't saving her at all, Gloria seemed quite fond of them and pulled Britta into their conversation with ease. They asked about her a little but Britta feigned nervousness, should their attention turn from Gloria to herself, she'd never be able to forgive herself. They asked about who she intended to find work with, told them of Rohan's suggestion to which they shook their heads.

"He'll take some work," one sighed, "he's not stingy though, he'll pay you well." He's no Rielle then.

"I'm sure she can handle it," Gloria smiled, "she's good with peo- Britta?"

"The king's about to call for dances," Britta mumbled, "find yourself someone to dance with, Gloria." She disappeared again, Gloria staring after her.

"I think your friend may have found someone, pity he can't employ her," one of the ladies smiled.

The King called for dances but Britta had not found her companion and looked around for him, trying her best to avoid the eyes of the Rielle Duke. She felt a hand on her waist, guiding her into the fray of dancing. They spun her and revealed it to be Rohan. He had quick feet and Britta found herself fighting to keep up with him at points, glad he was slowed by group dances that people were no better at than she was. Where does a fisher's boy learn such skill at dancing?

It seemed to last forever, the twisting and the turning, only taking a moment to kick off her shoes and toss them to a startled Gloria. She could have done this forever. She found herself laughing and smiling throughout, Rohan doing the same, eyes never off one another. Changing partners they would always find one another again and when it came to the final dance, exhausted, they clung to each other, content with slowly moving around.

Then it ended, just like that, Rohan was called away.

"You really did everything but find a lord, didn't you," Gloria sighed, "you're a piece of work, Britta Highmore."

"I take it you'll go with the women you were speaking to?" Britta asked.

"Miss Highmore?" Interrupted a voice, that of a middle-aged man, whom Britta discovered was wider than he was tall and losing more hair than he seemed willing to admit. She bowed her head to him and nodded, "I've heard about you, seen you as everyone else has, I believe you're looking for employment."

"I am, as every other mage here, to who do I owe this introduction?"

"I am Sidrad, you were suggested to me by the King's man, Dalorien," Lord Sidrad answered, "I require a mage, you need a lord to serve. I believe I am your answer."

"If you are offering than I accept," Britta tried to smile, trying not to be preoccupied with the room, "if that is what you are suggesting."

"It is indeed, come by the docks tomorrow, I shall see if my decision is wise," Lord Sidrad nodded, "enjoy the rest of your night, Miss Highmore."

The castle began to clear at the stroke of midnight and the two women walked home with one another, hand in hand, discussing the night. Gloria was to leave within the week, her ladies worked in the employ of the King, digging up the ground and Gloria would protect them. It suited her, she'd always excelled at healing magic. Britta was to remain here, she might even be allowed to live in her home, Sidrad didn't seem to fear for his life as other lords and ladies did.

"You’re home," Amelie smiled as Britta tiptoed into the house, "I've heard about you already, dancing with a King's man."

"He found me employment, I can't complain," Britta brushed it off, "he was very kind, from Daggerfall."

"You found yourself a native of this lovely city, our lovely city, who finds you employment," Amelie was almost laughing, "he sounds too good to be true. Is he handsome?"

"I've never seen eyes so blue," Britta grinned, "saved me from Rielle as well." Amelie wrinkled her nose at the mention of the Rielle duke but before she could say anything was interrupted by a knock at the door. The two sisters exchanged glances and Amelie retreated into the darkness of their home. Britta turned to the door, her hand tense and ready to spawn something to defend them. She opened the door a crack, peering out. No one there. Odd. She looked down to see a note on their doorstep.

She cast upon it but there was no rune that would go off when she picked it up, nor any other enchantment on it, so she knelt and retrieved it from their doorstep. There were a few lines on it and it looked as if they'd been written in haste.

Write to me, use this and they'll find me wherever the King has gone, I'm the only one with my name

Rohan Dalorien

King Emeric's Employ

"What is it?" Amelie hissed as Britta shut the door, casting fire on the candles so the room lit up.

"Rohan wants me to write to him," Britta smiled, "I might have gotten more than just a dance it seems, I suppose I should thank him." Amelie smiled at her sister, coming to her and embracing her. Britta engulfed her sister in a returned embrace, holding her tightly. What if she had to leave? She didn't think she could leave her sister alone with just their Grandmother - she may have been an Altmer but she was growing old - all had to die eventually. Yet, to earn her keep, go out into the world like everyone else.

"Don't worry about us, sister," Amelie smiled as she pulled away, "just come visit every now and then."

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Roll With It

Rated: T

Roll With It

Roller Derby Grudge Match this weekend: Storybrooke Princesses v Hyperion Hyenas

Gold shook his head as he stared at the sign in the window of Granny’s diner. It wasn’t that he had anything against the sport of roller derby in and of itself. He just didn’t see why it had to be so dangerous and he especially didn’t see why Lacey French had decided to choose it as her main hobby.

He didn’t care about Lacey for herself, of course. That would be preposterous, and anyone who put forward such a notion to him would receive short shrift in return. No, he was simply concerned that if Lacey received an injury whilst competing in roller derby, then she would be unable to perform her duties in the shop and he would have to go through all the tedious processes of hiring someone to replace her.

Oh, who was he kidding? He couldn’t bear it if Lacey were to get hurt, and he’d sooner get run over by ten angry young women in roller skates than actually admit that to her.

“Hey, Mr Gold. Are you coming on Saturday?”

Ruby came over with his take-out order and for a moment, Gold was completely disorientated, his mind having been caught up in a cycle of increasingly dire scenarios involving Lacey being carted off to hospital.

“Mr Gold?” Ruby rustled the paper bag containing his burger and fries and Gold finally came back to himself and grabbed it off her. She nodded towards the poster. “Coming to see the Princesses score another victory over our arch-rivals? We’ve been in training for months for this. We’re going to annihilate them.”

Gold was all too aware of their training regime, as Lacey had kept asking for time away from the shop to go to extra practice sessions. Gold had made various snide remarks about her priorities and her having a death wish, but ultimately he had always let her go.

He shook his head. “It’s not really my thing, dearie.”

“Ah, come on, it’ll be fun! We need all the support we can get! Don’t you want to cheer Lacey on?”

“I have no desire to encourage my assistant to do anything that might cause her to leave my employment with a broken neck,” Gold snapped. “Good day, Miss Lucas.”

He left the diner before Ruby could say anything else, and he did not turn back to see the wry smile on the waitress’s face.

Lacey looked up from the inventory books as Gold came back to the pawn shop with their lunch.

“Ruby’s been touting for ticket sales to the big match, I see.”

Gold looked down to find a flyer for the match sticking out of the top of the paper bag. With a muttered curse, he grabbed it and screwed it up into a ball, launching it at the bin with rather more force than necessary. Lacey, sitting several feet closer to the bin, just watched it as it fell short and rolled under the counter. She raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I guess that answers my question of whether you’re going to come and support your best and only assistant in her sporting endeavours.”

“You won’t be my best and only assistant if you end you end up in traction as a result of this,” Gold muttered. Lacey laughed.

“Are you worried about me, Mr Gold? Concerned for my safety?”

“Yes. I mean no. That would be ridiculous. Good help is hard to find these days, that’s all.”

Lacey sighed and went back to the books, taking a bite from her burger. “Yes. Ridiculous. Of course.”

They didn’t speak for the remainder of their lunch break, and their conversation afterward remained strained for the rest of the afternoon. Gold got the distinct impression that he had said something wrong, but he couldn’t quite work out what it might be.

It was only once they were closing up for the night, Lacey about to head off for the final practice before the big match, that the question crossed his mind and was out of his mouth before he had chance to rein it in.

“Why do you do it, Lacey?”

“Do what?”

“Roller derby. Why do you do something that’s so risky? Is it the adrenaline rush?”

Lacey smiled. “In a way, I supposed. But that’s not the full reason.”

“So, what is it?”

“Honestly, Mr G, if you can’t figure it out on your own, I’m not sure that you deserve to know.”

She left him stunned in the twilight, disappearing off towards the sports centre, and it took Gold several minutes to come back to himself. He was going to have to get to the bottom of this.

It was obvious that Lacey herself wasn’t going to give him any more information. To that end, Gold decided to make a return trip to the diner and speak to the one person who knew Lacey better than anyone, except Lacey herself, of course.

“Morning, Mr Gold,” Ruby called from behind the counter as he entered on Saturday morning. “You know we’re only open for breakfast as Granny and I’ll be at the match later. What can I get you?”

Gold perched awkwardly on one of the counter stools and ordered coffee.

“So, what brings you here bright and breezy on a Saturday morning then?” Ruby asked as she poured. “Rent isn’t due till next week and I know you’re not really here for the coffee. You’ve made enough disparaging remarks about it in the past.”

Gold looked down at his mug. He certainly wasn’t here for the coffee and he had no intention of drinking the one that Ruby had just poured for him, but he needed some kind of legitimate excuse to talk to her.

“My guess is that you’re here for conversation.” Ruby leaned on the counter, a wolfish smile creeping across her features. “Lacey told me all about your chat last night. I thought you might come looking for an inside source.”

“Well?”

“Well, what do I get in return?” Ruby grinned. “A deal is a deal, Mr Gold, and it needs two interested parties. What do I get out of this? Tell you what. If you drink that mug of inedible sludge, as you so memorably described it last week, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

With a begrudging sigh, Gold took a gulp of coffee and grimaced. Ruby grinned.

“All right. Now we’re getting somewhere. So, you want to know why Lacey does roller derby, am I right?”

“Yes. She gave me to believe that there was a reason other than the adrenaline rush.”

“Well, I would say that there are several reasons. It’s great exercise, for a start. She’s always panting and dripping with sweat afterwards.”

Gold shifted uncomfortably on his stool. That was definitely not an image of Lacey that he needed right now. Ruby just smirked, and Gold was certain that she was doing it on purpose.

“Aside from that, it’s a great way of releasing pent-up aggression and distracting oneself from certain romantic and sexual frustrations.”

The aggression Gold could well believe. They bickered enough in the shop that Lacey probably needed violent contact sports so as not to break any of his stock. Or him. But…

“Romantic and sexual frustrations?” His voice should not have sounded so squeaky.

“Yes. You know. When you spend your working life in very close proximity to someone that you really like and want to jump their bones, but they’re so unresponsive to your messages that you think they’re either being very polite and wilfully ignoring you, or they’re actually an idiot. You need some way of distracting yourself from those… urges.”

For a long time, Gold didn’t say anything. It was all he could do to keep breathing normally as he processed what Ruby had just told him. Lacey fancied him. Lacey had… sexual frustrations regarding him. He’d often thought of her in the same way, but he’d never believed in the slightest possibility of those feelings being reciprocated.

“Drink up, Mr Gold.”

Gold drained the rest of his coffee without even tasting it, and he left the diner in a daze. He was definitely going to have to do something about this new information, and to do that, he was going to have to brave the roller derby.

Havin sat through the entire terrifying match, unable to cheer the princesses on to their victory due to his heart beating in his mouth the entire time, Gold vowed that he was never going to watch roller derby again for fear of it giving him a heart attack.

Still, he had to do what he had set out to do, and he remained in his seat near the back as the players came off the track to meet their family and friends and receive their well wishes. He saw Ruby catch Lacey’s arm and point up at him in the stands, and Lacey grinned as she undid her skates and came up towards him.

“I believe congratulations are in order,” he said as she reached him.

“Thank you. We absolutely smashed them, but then, we knew that we would. So, you came after all. I thought that you didn’t hold with all this.”

Gold thought about giving some witty remark, but they’d been reading each other wrong for so long that honesty was probably the best policy by that point.

“I was worried about you,” he admitted.

Lacey smiled and kissed his cheek. “That’s nice to know.”

“And, I, erm, I know why you do it, now.”

“You do?” Lacey raised an eyebrow, wanting him to say it.

“Ruby mentioned certain romantic and sexual frustrations. I was wondering… Maybe I could also be an outlet for these?”

Lacey didn’t answer, and Gold could not say anything else because then she was pulling him in by the lapels, kissing him full on the mouth with all the force and determination that she’d shown against the opposing team out on the track. Gold was all too happy to concede defeat.

[writing-apprentice]

A Gothic AU

Author’s Note: This is a not so great fic idea that I had to get out of my head. I just thought a Gothic AU would suit the Seeds from Far Cry really well so I just went with it. If anyone is interested, I might post more, but for the most part, it’s just something to work on so I have somewhere to put some restless energy.

Also, I said if I ever wrote something I’d tag @seedlingsinner. Hi, I’m the annoying au anon. Thanks for putting up with my long-ass asks, and for the inadvertent encouragement the other day (I sent the ask about it feeling too long too =/ )

Anyway, here’s a thing.

Warnings: None, really, everything is implied so far. It’s mostly set dressing and setting things up.

Miss Rook Faulkner had been called many things by a variety of people. Her teachers had called her troublesome, rebellious, overzealous, too high spirited and, in the case of the nicest teacher at the boarding school, a delightful and opinionated young woman. Her mother had called her many more things, including ridiculous, petty, fanciful, too serious and a variety of other contradictory insults depending on how little attention she was paying to the constant pursuit of a suitor that her mother expected of her. The most important thing she had been called though, and perhaps the thing she treasured most, was to be called a friend by the dear Miss Faith Seed.

As much trouble as Rook had made at her boarding school as she grew, she had ever been accompanied, and indeed encouraged in her endeavours, by the equally as mischievous Faith, someone who Rook admired and cared for more than she could put into words. When the two had graduated from school as fully accomplished young women, they had made their promises to stay in touch, and Rook had been more grateful than anything when the first letter from Faith arrived. Compared to her mother’s constant search for a husband for Rook, Faith’s idyllic life in the country with her brothers sounded almost magical. When, after a season of Mrs Faulkner doing her absolute best to thrust Rook into any social situation that she possibly could, Faith finally sent an invitation for Rook to visit, she was so overjoyed that she barely remembered she had to run the idea past her mother first. When she remembered, immediate despair took hold.

Her mother had dismissed her out of hand at first. She found it improper and too risky and she remembered the gossip about that Seed family and no daughter of hers would ever be caught dead at their household. It took the entire spring of begging and subtle mentions of the many estates in the country and bachelors that may inhabit such estates that finally convinced her mother to allow her to go, just for a month.

That was how Rook found herself in a carriage, bag stowed away and staring contemplatively out the window. She imagined she looked rather like some protagonist in one of her novels, staring wistfully into the countryside as it passed her by. The thought amused her, as she spent the time switching between watching the world pass by and reading a novel to pass time. It was a couple days journey from her home to her friend, and while she found herself impatient to see Faith again, Rook managed to find the time to rest as the journey continued and to contemplate the dreams that such rest brought her.

The most vivid was on the night before her arrival. Before that, there had been only glimpses really, she felt rather than saw the darkness, the storm that seemed to be around her. She smelt hay, and rain. It wasn’t until that night she saw anything for the first time. She seemed to be out in the cold, the wind howling at her, and the only shelter in sight seemed to be some sort of stable. She headed towards it, shutting the doors behind her as she entered the small area. The light from the lantern she carried didn’t carry far into the room, as the shadows around her seemed almost oppressive. She stepped in further, calling out, and hearing nothing but the sounds of horses shuffling somewhere in response. While Rook had experience with horses, indeed riding had been a skill she was taught, there was something disconcerting about the shuffling noises that came from within. As she carefully took a step closer, she saw a shape in between the stalls and woke with a fear that she could not explain.

The dream was bizarre, but it was quickly put out of her mind the next day as she prepared for the final stretch of her journey to the Seed Estate. She practically bounced in her seat as she waited for her carriage to arrive, ready to see her dearest friend after far too long apart. Her excitement was almost so much that she nearly managed to shake the feeling that, as she watched the woods pass by, something watched her back.

Overall though, her journey was pleasant, and she was overjoyed as her carriage entered her friend’s estate. It pulled down a long driveway, past green lawns that stretched to the forests that bordered the estate. The beautiful stone manor came into view, with a small courtyard waiting in front for the carriage to pull in. Rook could barely make out the edges of some sort of pond or lake behind the manor, and she couldn’t help but sigh at how beautiful the area was. This month would be magnificent, away from the city air and the heirs who frustrated her, catching up with her dearest and most trusted companion.

The carriage came to a stop, and the coachman had barely helped her down before a familiar young woman rushed up to embrace her. Rook couldn’t help the short breath of surprise, equal parts shocked at such a strong display of emotion and glad to see her friend, before she squeezed back, hugging Faith just as tight. After a moment the two broke apart, grinning madly at each other. No matter what was occurring around her, Rook had always found Faith’s smile infectious.

“It’s good to see you!” Faith said, continuing to grin at Rook.

“It’s good to see you too Faith, and I’m ever so grateful that you’re willing to have me.”

Faith waved a hand dismissively. “Of course we’ll have you, any time you desire it. My home is your home, you’re always welcome here.” Faith’s smile softened a little as she looked at her friend earnestly. The soft smile was gone but a moment later as she added conspiratorially, “especially when your mother is determined to drive you away by hounding you with suitors.”

Rook let out a groan, shaking her head. “Don’t remind me Faith, I have to go back at the end of the month, and I shall gladly put such thoughts from my mind ‘til then.”

A flicker of some emotion Rook couldn’t quite place passed over Faith’s face, but it was gone too quickly for her to dwell on it, banished by another brilliant grin. “Then I shall make the most of having you while you’re here”, Faith assured her, taking her arm. “Come though Rook, come in and relax. You won’t have to meet my brothers until dinner, and you will have plenty of time to rest from your journey ‘til then. I’ve told them all about you, you know, and they’re eager to meet the woman who has gotten me into so much trouble!”

Rook couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped her as she gently swatted Faith’s arm. “You started just as many of our little endeavours as I did, perhaps even more. I daresay you are rather the instigator, and I just your hopeless, lost follower.”

Faith chuckled as one of the household staff opened the door for the two to step through. With a gesture from her, the household staff went about retrieving Rook’s bags and bringing them inside as Faith led her through the home to her room, filling her in on the minutiae expected of a host. She paused as she opened the door to Rook’s room, a beautiful space that had a lovely bed, a desk, and a large window with a view across the lake. Rook couldn’t help but smile at the view as she stepped in.

“Faith, this is a beautiful room, and I must admit I am in love with this view.” Faith chuckled in response, seeming to relax slightly.

“I’m very glad you like it. The library is just down the hall too, should you find yourself in need of a good book while you’re here, and my room is nearby in case you need me. We have a bell system in the rooms too, so should you need a servant you have but to ring and one will come to your aid.”

Rook smiled at that, shaking her head a little. “I doubt I will need to use your staff too much, I’m still rather self-sufficient. Plus, I’d rather not draw them from their duties. Thank you though Faith, truly.”

Faith smiled, taking a small step back. “I shall leave you to freshen up then. If you need anything, just let us know.” Rook nodded, and with that Faith stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. Rook couldn’t help but give one last look around the room in amazement before she went about the process of settling in. This month was going to be heaven.

After a brief break to refresh herself, Rook peeked out into the hallway, looking around for her friend. She supposed she could call out for her, but Faith probably had other things to do, and she had pointed out where the library was. After deliberating a moment longer, Rook headed down in the direction of the library.

It wasn’t too hard to find. The large oak doors that led to it were open, and Rook headed inside without a second thought. The library was enormous, and she couldn’t help but look around in wonder. There was shelf upon shelf of books, and as she walked along an aisle, running her finger along the titles, she noted someone had gone to great care to organise and alphabetise them. She smiled to herself as she reached the end of the row, looking around and noticing the large window, with its own window seat built-in. She headed towards it, noting the beautiful view of the woods that stretched beyond, and the small building in a paddock close to the house. A stable, she had to presume, that looked eerily familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She turned back to examining the books, noting what books of each author that they had.

She was startled by a voice as she reached the end of the next aisle. “And who might you be?” The voice purred, making her jump at the sudden noise. She looked in the direction it came from, noting the profile of a tall man in one of the plush reading chairs.

He was tall. Even though he was sitting, she could tell he’d tower over her if he stood. He had reddish hair that glowed in the light from the window, and he was watching her out of the corner of his eye, the book she had presumably interrupted him from still open on his lap.

“I’m Rook Faulkner, I’m Faith’s friend. I-“

“Ah, I know who you are now.” He closed his book, setting it on the table beside him before standing. “I’m Jacob, Jacob Seed.” He bowed, and she was halfway through her curtsy in response when she noticed it.

A large scar bisected his face, the skin seemingly marred by fire at some point in the past. She hesitated only slightly in her curtsy, mulling it over. She remembered when Faith had come to her at school, crying over a letter about how her eldest brother had been hurt in the line of duty. She had assumed he’d be missing a limb or another injury that seemed to be more typical of the conflict.

She must have paused too long, as he seemed to realise what had happened. His smile became tighter, seeming stressed and, perhaps, disappointed. “Ah, apologies Miss Faulkner, I suppose Faith didn’t warn you about my… disfigurement. I’ll try to stay out of your sight to avoid offending your sensibilities.”

A frown creased Rook’s forehead as he started to turn away. “I- It doesn’t bother me, sir, I apologise if I reacted poorly. I was just remembering when Faith got the letter about it, that is all. Please, don’t let me chase you from your reading spot.”

He seemed to stop at that, and he turned back to her, a slightly more genuine smile returning to him. “You sure this grizzled old soldier isn’t going to scare you away from the library. Miss Faulkner?”

Rook snorted in a rather unladylike manner, before realising and coughing lightly to try to cover it up. Judging by the amused twinkle in Jacob’s eye, he’d noticed all the same. “Please, Mister Seed, I’ve never been one to let appearances affect my judgement. You’d have to try far harder to scare me.”

He chuckled at that, seemingly at some private joke, before leaning against one of the shelves. “Brave one, aren’t you, Miss Faulkner?”

Rook smiled in return, looking up at him. She had been correct in her assumption about his height. Even leaning, he was at least a head taller than her. “Please, just call me Rook. Miss Faulkner sounds far too similar to my mother.”

He laughed at her grimace, a deep rumble that made her smile again too. “Alright then, as long as you call me Jacob. There are too many ‘Mister Seeds’ in this house otherwise.”

She nodded in agreement. “It’s a deal.” She extended her hand, a small smile on her face at the notion of shaking over such a silly little matter. He took her hand in his, shaking it, and she couldn’t help but note how much larger his hand was than hers, and how warm too. He squeezed her hand before letting go. “Very well then, Miss Rook.”

She felt a blush rise in her cheeks, although she wasn’t sure why, and he smiled at that, something darker lurking behind his eyes. He seemed about to say something more, but as he opened his mouth Faith appeared in the doorway behind him, grinning. “That’s where you’d gotten to”, she said with a grin, drifting in. Rook felt herself take a step back from Jacob, wondering when he’d gotten so close, before smiling over at Faith. “Making trouble and harassing my brother, it seems”, Faith teased, a cheeky grin pulling at her lips.

“She’s doesn’t seem as troublesome as you made her out to be, little sister”, Jacob chimed in, grinning down at Faith. “Unless this has all been some sort of distraction so that you can fill my bed with frogs or some other dastardly prank.” He raised his eyebrow, looking between the two with a teasing smile. Faith giggled, and Rook couldn’t help but laugh too.

“You have nothing to fear, Mister Jacob, that punishment is reserved for wicked old nuns who insist on confiscating our hard-earned books.”

“If, by well-earned you mean stolen from the library”, Faith chimed in, stepping forward to wrap her arm through Rook’s. “But you must excuse us brother, we have mischief to make elsewhere. It’s been far too long, after all.” Faith grinned between the two, already starting to move with Rook towards the door.

“I shall see you later, Mister Jacob”, Rook called over her shoulder as they headed through the door.

“Later then, Miss Rook”, Jacob replied, his voice following behind them as they left the room.

Faith took Rook out to have a brief stroll by the lake, filling her in on her time after school and what she’d been up to. She’d been reading and focussing on her art; she’d even been able to convince her brothers into allowing her to study some of the sciences. Rook would hate to admit it, but she was terribly jealous. As shameful as it was to think, sometimes Rook envied the freedom that not having parents gave Faith. She instead relied on her brothers, who some would say indulged her far too much.

It was nice to hear Faith talk though, Rook found herself thinking too on how much she’d missed the company of her friend, her voice and the small laugh she had that always managed to make her smile.

They finished their walk, and Rook went to her room to refresh herself and write a letter to her mother to say she’d arrived safely. Hopefully, she could post it sometime tomorrow.

She changed into a different dress for dinner, a lovely blue muslin dress that, with white gloves to match. She pinned her hair carefully up, and with a final nod deemed herself ready for dinner. Faith met her at the stairs and walked with her down to the small living room, where three men were already gathered. One was the tall redhead from before, Jacob Seed, and while Rook did not recognise the other two, she could only assume they were Faith’s other brothers.

One was taller than the other, although still not as tall as the eldest. He had dark hair, longer than she expected, and pulled back in a bun. Beside him, talking rather animatedly, was a shorter man with equally dark hair, a well-kept beard, and beautiful blue eyes that flicked up to focus on Rook and Faith as they entered.

“A discussion for another time, brother, for it appears our guest has joined us”, the younger man said with a smile in Rook’s direction. They all turned to face Rook and Faith, bowing. Rook curtseyed in response.

“This is Miss Rook Faulkner, my dear friend. Rook, you’ve already met Jacob, but these two are Joseph and John, my other two brothers.” Faith smiled at Rook, before turning to her brothers slightly mischievously. “Play nice, she’s dear to me and I shan’t have you scaring her off.”

The younger one, John, laughed as he straightened from his bow. “From what I’ve heard, we’re supposed to be frightened of the two of you reunited.” Rook chuckled softly.

“Only if you do something to bring it on yourself. We are merciful, after all.” Faith giggled at Rook’s statement, as did the man with the bun, Joseph.

“We’re overjoyed to have you in our home, Miss Faulkner, and we hope you enjoy your stay with us”, Joseph said with a kind smile.

“Please, just call me Rook.”

“Miss Faulkner sounds too much like her mother”, Faith added with a slightly wrinkled nose, before giggling.

“Miss Rook it is. Shall we head into dinner then?” Joseph asked, gesturing to the doors to the dining room. Faith nodded, leading the way as they all entered to sit for dinner.

[merryfortune]

Betrothal in a Nutshell

Hello @justanotherotakuandartist here is a tumblr upload of your gift fic <3

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc V

Ship: Serena/Yuri

Word Count: 5.5k

Synopsis: Prince Yuri is certain that the girl whom he is betrothed to is an imposter so his mother, Queen Yoko, devises a plan to prove Princess Serena's identity. 

  “Mother!” Prince Yuri exclaimed, as his hands flapped about in utter disbelief over what had unravelled just mere moments ago. “I refuse to believe that thing of a girl is a princess!”

  “Yuri!” gasped Queen Yoko. “That is no way to talk of your betrothed.”

  “I refuse.” Yuri said, lifting his chin and brow indignantly and stamping his foot. “You cannot make me marry that heathen woman.”

  His mother glowered. She was uncertain of where she had gone wrong, either in raising her darling Prince Yuri or in introducing him to his fiancé. It couldn’t be the former, surely, not when he was – usually – such a gentleman and his elder brothers had no such personality problems.

  Really, the origin of this problem could be traced back to the fact of the notion was it was the spoilt and entitled fourth princeling of a royal family turn to be married off. Due to his nature, something a touch twisted and very finicky, he had high expectations of the woman whom he would be married to and thus far, had been unable to find such a woman. Each woman he was presented with, he wrote off as too fat or too thin, too tall or too short and so on and so forth.

  Thus, he told his exasperated parents that he would only marry if they could find someone with skin of luminous moonlight, eyes which were as green as farmland in spring, and hair as soft as the petals of the beloved flowers that he tended to in his private and most royal greenhouse. He desired a woman as firm as oak and as graceful as elm. And so, his parents endeavoured to find such a fanciful woman of good background and, thus, Queen Yoko and King Yusho were quite certain that they found a girl in the young Princess Serena from the faraway kingdom of En Moonlight.

  She who was exactly as their fourth child described. She had hair the colour of violets, just like the pedigree of plants whom Prince Yuri adored. She had eyes of verdant green, like a jungle and a pale complexion befitting of that of the moon’s surface, but far smoother. She was deft and swift, and they were confident their son would become enamoured with her upon meeting.

  That was not what had happened. Not even in the slightest.

  Mere moments of ago was when such a meeting was supposed to have occurred. And when such a meeting did occur, it was not a meeting of smouldering facial expressions and polite laughter. They had met, instead of with an explosive flirting, but with an explosive rivalry. Their personalities immediately grated and grinded against one another; locking each other in argumentative verbal spars which even escalated into physical ones too. Princess Serena, who despite her elegant garb, was quick to prove herself as firm as oak and graceful as elm when she was able to take Prince Yuri’s arm and all but break it in a matter of seconds.

  It was only when the Prince’s consorts stepped in, did Princess Serena release her betrothed from such a grip. And from there, the jester Dennis was able to diffuse the situation by distracting Princess Serena with jokes and the bodyguard Sora was able to remove Prince Yuri from the situation, bringing him to a powder room where he could reconvene with his mother.

  “I refuse to marry that hellion girl. She is a spawn of the underworld.” Prince Yuri snarled.

  “As your mother and as the Queen, you will do such a thing.” Queen Yoko stared down her son. “I am certain that such a girl is perfect for you. I consulted the finest soothsayers in the world, and we are all certain that girl is the best fit based on that which you asked for, my darling boy.”

  “Your soothsayers must be wrong then. I could never be compatible with such a scoundrel of a woman.” Prince Yuri said.

  “I disagree and you will be married to this woman or so help me, Yuri, darling.” Queen Yoko growled.

  Outside the powder room, Sora grew uncomfortable, but he couldn’t help but pipe up. So, he swung in and took the chewed candy from his mouth. He sighed.

  “What if we something has gone wrong… regarding Princess Serena, your highnesses…” he drawled, uncomfortable.

  Both Prince Yuri and Queen Yoko glared at him and he took another breath.

  “I don’t doubt the soothsayers; that stuff’s above my head and I don’t know much about love or princesses, but, like I do know security detail and let me just say, those girls – the ones who came with Princess Serena, uh, Gloria, Grace – they don’t exactly scream “bodyguard” to me.” rambled Sora.

  “Get to the thick of it, Sora.” Prince Yuri spat.

   “So, not to posit something’s gone wrong but it is possible we have the wrong girl and the real Princess Serena has somehow been intercepted and we have a fake in our midst.” Sora said.

  Prince Yuri’s eyes widened whilst his mother’s narrowed.

  “That is exactly what must have happened!” Prince Yuri exclaimed, vibrating with excitement. “We clearly have a fake in our midst. Somewhere, somehow, the real Princess Serena is waiting for me and that rapscallion in our drawing room is a fake! It’s all so clear to me now.”

  “Sora.” Queen Yoko said, her voice as sharp as the edge of a blade. “That is the real Princess Serena. This is all poppycock.”

  “No, no its not.” Prince Yuri argued.

  “Then let’s test this ridiculous theory of yours, then. I believe you will find that is, beyond doubt, the real Princess Serena.” Queen Yoko said.

  “But, um, how do you think we should do such a thing, your majesty?” Sora asked.

  Queen Yoko’s brow drew in, knitted together and she then glanced at her son. An idea struck her. She smiled cattishly.

  “I have an idea, one which will very much satisfy you, my dear son.” Queen Yoko drawled.

  “Elucidate me, mother.” Prince Yuri hissed.

  “All we require is a peanut shell and with that, we can deduce if Princess Serena is indeed of noble blood or not.” Queen Yoko said.

  “A peanut shell?” Prince Yuri echoed, incredulous.

  “Surely you keep peanuts in that little greenhouse of yours, Yuri.” Queen Yoko said.

  “I mean, I do. And I wouldn’t call it “little”, Mother. My greenhouse is quite expansive, you would find if you paid attention to me just as much as you paid attention to your golden boy, my elder brother Yuya.” Yuri sniped.

  “Oh hush, I love all my boys equally.” Queen Yoko insisted.

  “Some more equally than others.” mumbled Prince Yuri under his breath.

  Queen Yoko, unimpressed, clasped her hands together and frowned. “Back to the matter at hand, my darling and handsome son. I still require that peanut shell, my dear.”

  “Very well then. I will go to the greenhouse and acquire one.” Prince Yuri sighed.

  “After that, you will hide the peanut shell in Princess Serena’s sleeping quarters. we will put Princess Serena to the test. If she can feel the peanut shell in her bed, beneath her mattress, then that will prove her noble worth. After all, even the most hardened, warrior princess will be susceptible to this trick.” Queen Yoko said.

  “I see.” Prince Yuri’s eyes shone cattishly. “And, if she is not of noble blood, then she will not feel such an inconsequential thing. Very well then, consider it done Mother. Thank you for your insight.”

  “Your welcome.” Queen Yoko replied.

  With that, Prince Yuri was dismissed. He grabbed Sora and then made a beeline for his greenhouse. As he had mentioned before, his greenhouse truly was quite expansive. The glass panes it was composed of were able to contain what was, essentially, a foreign jungle. Prince Yuri had an affinity for the foreign and poisonous so, entering was something for the brave of heart. Even his dear companion Sora trod uncertainly within the greenhouse which was set up like a maze and yet, Prince Yuri kept his shoulders back and had an air of confidence as he navigated his greenhouse.

  It seemed strange to Sora that Prince Yuri would even have peanuts in his greenhouse. After all, they just passed by all manner of the strange and grotesque. Something like a peanut bush seemed far too mundane for Prince Yuri’s interests. Though, peanuts were a common allergy and one which could lead to fatalities in the worst-case scenario so Sora supposed he could understand why Prince Yuri would have such a plant.

  Though, his peanut bush truly was quite neglected. It was small and uncared for. Cared enough for it to survive, but Prince Yuri held it in disdain as he plucked a single peanut from its entanglements. He inspected it then passed it to Sora who sighed and cracked it open for him.

  “Want the nuts?” Sora asked.

  “No, you have them, thank you.” Prince Yuri replied.

  “Yum, thanks.” Sora said as he popped the two nuts in his mouth.

  He handed back the shell to Prince Yuri who was, once more, in a hurry to get where he was going. He was beginning to formulate a plan to ensure that he would not have to be married to that brute of a woman. He would simply have to interfere with his mother’s inane plan to prove the worth of the girl to him and it ought to be easy enough. After all, she was their guest and therefore deserved nothing but their utmost luxury.

  Soon, Prince Yuri and Sora returned to the drawing room of the castle. He smiled, ominously, in the hallway with Sora standing guard. Dennis, inside, breathed a sigh of relief and ceased his juggling.

  “Thank goodness, you’re back. I am completely out of ideas for entertaining your betrothed, Prince Yuri.” he sighed.

  Prince Yuri pulled Dennis aside, rather than continue the conversation. Sora replaced Prince Yuri’s stance in the hallway.

  “I need you and Sora to do a little favour for me.” Prince Yuri said.

  “Oh, uh, sure.” Dennis said. “What is it?”

  “I need you to hide this peanut shell in Princess Serena’s bed. And, speaking of her bed, I need you both to put as many mattresses and linen and sheets and pillows on it as physically possible. After all, our guest deserves to be comfortable.” Prince Yuri said.

  “On it, boss.” Sora said.

  “Wh-Wh-What?” stammered Dennis.

  “It’s a long story.” Sora sighed.

  “Now run along you two. I will… keep Princess Serena distracted in the meanwhile.” Prince Yuri said.

  “Very well then.” Dennis said with a curling curtsey.

  With that, Sora and Dennis were dismissed. They scurried off quickly and Prince Yuri waltzed into the drawing room. He had his shoulders back, chin up, and not even the slightest inkling of a plan in mind. Well, he knew the outcome of what he wanted. He didn’t want a broken arm and he didn’t want Princess Serena to catch onto the subterfuge that was going on in her private quarters.

  The moment that Prince Yuri entered the room, officially, Prince Serena’s ears pricked up. She crossed her arms, the bodice of her dress shimmered as she moved petulantly, and she frowned. Prince Yuri immediately went onto his hackles. Though she was dressed finely, he knew better than underestimating her. Underestimating her previously had caused her to lock onto his physical weakness and crown herself as dominant between them. Prince Yuri most certainly did not want a repeat of that.

  “Back for round two? Or perhaps mummy’s told you to play nice with me or else your royal behind will get quite the spanking.” Princess Serena taunted.

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” Prince Yuri replied.

  Princess Serena pouted. Tutted. She absolutely did not believe Prince Yuri and that left a sour taste in his mind. But her demeanour softened. She huffed and let her arms fall back to her side.

  “So, like, what are you here for?” Princess Serena asked. “You sent your jester away and now I’m bored. And you’re no fun. I have no idea how we’re going to make this relationship work.”

  Prince Yuri was genuinely reviled by such a statement. What an impudent girl, he found himself thinking in the utmost disdain. All whilst becoming more and more certain she was some imposter fiendishly after his life or his wealth. His brows knitted together as he locked his heart – and slightly more importantly, his mouth – up tight.

  Princess Serena huffed and sighed, even kicked her foot, her dress rippling. “The silent treatment, huh?”

  Prince Yuri’s ears pricked at that. That wasn’t his intention but letting her project whatever she wished onto his completely and totally guarded self. Actually, keeping his mouth shut for as long as possible to sate Princess Serena’s social needs seemed like a good plan. But, having no plan, all plans seemed like good plans at this point. Still, he would keep his options open based on whatever she said.

  “Like, I get it.” she said, voice heavy like a stone. “I was… rude.”

  “Rude?!” Prince Yuri scoffed, unable to help himself. “You very much endangered me with your inexcusable, ruffian behaviour!”

  “Yeah, and I’m sorry about that. I’m not… I’m not good with people.” she confessed.

  Princess Serena kicked her foot again. Her brows knitted together, and her gaze began to drill into the stone underfoot. She pouted. And, Prince Yuri may not want to admit this, but she actually looked quite adorable in her petulance. It was strange, but it seemed like it was coming from a place of awkward sincerity.

  Not that Prince Yuri would believe such a thing when he was still of the utmost certainty that the woman before him was some sort of ill-intentioned fiend.

  “I wasn’t really… brought up to behave, I guess, you would say… Like, I’m very…” She made an odd hand gesture which seemed borne of frustration. “I’m very socially stunted. Awkward? Yeah. Something like that. I know it’s rude and I shouldn’t have done it, but I was kind of scared. Like, you’re some strange man and now we’re supposed to get shacked up together or something. I was worried if I didn’t, like, prove myself as dominate or something, you would take that as your invitation to walk all over me in this marriage and there is no way in Hell, I’m going to let that happen. I’m the strongest swordswoman you’ll find anywhere, I swear.”

  There were two parts of her rambling that Prince Yuri found fascinating. The first was her making reference to being socially stunted. He didn’t want, to but he could emphasise with that. He had grown up quite lonely; feeling lesser than his elder brothers and always trying to find some way out of their shadow but mostly failing to. As such, he had always felt starving for praise and validation, but he never got to eat his fill of such things unlike his gluttonous brothers. Not to mention, his keen intellect had often made peers feel lesser to him and that indignation at being obviously inferior had made Prince Yuri more enemies than friends. So, against his will, Prince Yuri could, perhaps, understand Princess Serena in this element despite his suspicions of her.

  The other thing which piqued his interest was Princess Serena having made mention of her being a swordswoman. That very much intrigued Prince Yuri as fencing was one of his hobbies. He would call himself the fiercest and well-versed in the sport amongst his brothers. He was easily the most blood-thirsty of them and Princess Serena had already severely proven such a streak in herself, so he was intrigued. He quirked a brow at her mention of it.

  “Very well then,” Prince Yuri began diplomatically, assuring himself this was okay because it was to be done in the guise of good will and not good will itself, “then let’s put this evening’s past encounter behind us. So, en Garde.”

  “En Garde?” echoed Princess Serena, confused.

  “Yes. I desire to duel you. I believe that will be the easiest way for us to, er, get to know one another. After all, since you’ve voiced your true intentions, you must be interested in making this arranged marriage work.” Prince Yuri said, his voice laced with dulcet, poisonous lies as he had already made his plans to sabotage this ill-fated union.

  Princess Serena smiled. “Very well then, princey-pooh, let’s do this.” she said with her hands on her hips.

  With that, Prince Yuri made the decision to lead Princess Serena away from the drawing room – and her private quarters which were still, hopefully, under reconstruction – and towards somewhere she may be permitted to be rowdy. Princess Serena, not realising this invitation was duplicitous, took it in heart and decided to latch onto Prince Yuri as he led her through the halls. It was strange, but her touch made Prince Yuri feel prickly and warm. He told himself that this was his intuition affirming that her presence was supposed to be a negative thing in his life, even if this feeling made his heart feel light and fluttery. All whilst Gloria and Grace Tyler, the body guards, watched on from a reasonable but protective distance.

  Whilst Prince Yuri took Princess Serena in one direction, his own consorts were far further along in a completely opposite direction. Their endeavour to fulfil Prince Yuri’s request had them dashing and darting from the guest rooms to the linen closets and back again. In the time that they had, which they feared were much, they were more than able to transform the royal guest quarters from ample to beyond luxury and straight into the territory of the gauche and absurd.

  The guest quarters, and there were quite some prepared rooms given that this was a castle, had been luxuriantly decorated for the leisure of their guests. Though, admittedly, guests were few and far between and the young Princess Serena had been their first in some time. And her bedroom which had been prepared had been spruced up to make a good impression upon her as she had come with the intent of becoming a bride, after all. A good impression was necessary, but she hadn’t been shown her room and now that Sora and Dennis were through with all but thrashing it, they had no idea what her impression of it would be.

  Especially now that they had stringently obeyed their instructions. The already opulent room had been plied higher still with mattresses and pillows and silks of every kind. Before, it had been handsome and now it was something else entirely.

  But in Sora and Dennis’ endeavour, they had roused the attentions and suspicions of the other princes; Prince Yuri’s elder brothers. They curious as to what was going on, especially since Sora and Dennis had taken to guarding the entrance to Princess Serena’s guest bedroom, but they were assured that nothing of ill-intent was happening. Though, the three young gentleman all sincerely and severely doubted that but, Dennis and Sora were tough on them. Immoveable, really so Princes Yuya, Yuto, and Yugo were given no choice but to move on when they were unable to get Prince Yuri’s consorts to budge in their duties. They were, however, told that all would be revealed come morning and that was not exactly promising but they had little choice in the matter.

  Meanwhile, on all but arrival, Prince Yuri and Princess Serena locked themselves into games of friendly sparring. Though, friendly might be the wrong word as both heirs were very vicious in their attack upon the other – all supposedly in good nature. Still, it was strangely encouraging to both of them in the progression of their relationship to see how they looked, glistening with sweat, cunning in their eyes, and a rapier in their hands.

  Princess Serena found the matches thrilling. Prince Yuri kept her on her toes and posed a challenge the likes of which she had never encountered before. He was sly and unafraid of playing dirty; something she didn’t want to encourage but it was completely different from the masterful and respectful duels of those in her court. Those who could not risk sullying the match due to their station. Here, in a foreign chamber to duel, Princess Serena was not deprived of such mars. It was exhilarating.

  As for Prince Yuri, he would would deny all such allegations that he was enjoying the matches with Princess Serena and therefore bonding with her which was positive. Despite his more underhanded tactics. Prince Yuri would prefer to believe that he was studying the minx before him for her weaknesses in her swordplay as he was still deludedly convinced that she was some imposter.

  For the most part, Prince Yuri and Princess Serena were evenly matched in talent and in strength. Such realisation was peculiar within the context of their back-and-forth exchanges given that Prince Yuri did not duel honourably, unlike Princess Serena. Still, it stoked a personal fascination between them which soon culminated in a heated moment underpinned by Princess Serena’s sharp actions.

  It was she who prevailed. Prince Yuri would call it luck, but Princess Serena would call it skill. But, somehow, Princess Serena was able to top Prince Yuri and his dirty deeds. It was she who had him at the end of her rapier; not the other way around. And so, Prince Yuri looked up at the girl, a playful snarl on his lips. He was intrigued as he riffled through the memories so quick and formless that it was difficult to discern why he was on his ass at all and why it was she who had the tip of her weapon beneath his chin. So close and so tactful.

  “One point.” she said.

  Her eyes, as they looked down on him, sizing him up, were a sharp and verdant green. They were alluring in their smugness. But Prince Yuri could only click his tongue. His demeanour impressed, but ultimately petulant.

  “Very well,” he huffed with half a shrug, “you have me trounced, for today anyway, darling.”

  “You wag your tongue too much.” Princess Serena replied.

  “Now, would you do me the honour of allowing me to get to my feet?” Prince Yuri asked.

  “Of course.”

  Princess Serena sheathed her rapier and extended her hand. Prince Yuri hesitated but he figured it would be gauche, and therefore detrimental to his ulterior motives, if he slapped her hand away like he so very much desired to. So, his hand slotted into hers and he was surprised by how soft her palms were and how delicate her fingers were. However, any illusions of glamourous, princess-like qualities that Prince Yuri may or may not have suddenly acquired in that moment were ruthlessly dashed. Princess Serena uncouthly yanked Prince Yuri to his feet and sent him stumbling.

  He huffed as he tugged on his jacket, adjusting himself and swatting at dust. He looked over his shoulder and pouted.

  “I think we ought to retire for the night.” he said. He hoped that Dennis and Sora had had sufficient time to improve Princess Serena’s private quarters for the sake of his mother’s inane game.

  “We?” Prince Serena echoed, incredulous as a playfully scandalised look crossed her face. “As in you and me? Together? In one bed?”

  “Wh-What? No. That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Cease putting words in my mouth.” Prince Yuri stammered, completely thrown off-kilter by Princess Serena’s flirtations.

  “I know, Yuri, I’m just teasing. Very well, have me shown to my room.” Princess Serena said.

  Prince Yuri scowled and glowered at her familiarity of him but obliged reluctantly. So, he returned her to the west wing of the castle which was designated for living spaces. And as they walked together, Princess Serena had her consorts, Gloria and Grace, fetch her things from the drawing room so she may change into her pyjamas, as well as use her own pillow which was far more appealing to her than using some strange and foreign pillow.

  Of course, once Princess Serena got to her room, she realised that having to deal with a pillow which simply just ‘wasn’t right’ was going to be the least of her problems. Really, she should have known something was amiss because Dennis and Sora – her betrothed’s consorts – had practically jumped out of their skins upon seeing her and Prince Yuri.

  “We hope the accommodations are too your liking, our lady.” Dennis said with a sweeping hand gesture as he permitted entrance into the room.

 “Is everything good?” whispered Prince Yuri to Sora whilst Princess Serena mystifiedly stumbled into her private quarters.

  “Everything.” Sora snickered.

  “What on the Gods’ green Earth is going on here?” Princess Serena exclaimed.

  She was awed in how baffled she was. Her eyes were wide open as she was forced to confront the very bizarre sleeping conditions expected of her. Never in her life had seen so many mattresses and pillows piled high on a bed. It looked as though they all went up unto the ceiling and as though there was barely any room for her to sleep at all.

  “How am I meant to sleep here?” she asked, hostile.

  “This is a very old custom in my lineage. Every princess must spend one night in the most sublime luxury we can present, or it would bring disgrace to our House. So, please, just for one night, my dear Princess Serena, please put up with it for if you reject it, you reject my hand in marriage. I refuse to court a woman who would not respect such a long-held tradition.” Prince Yuri lied.

  Princess Serena erred and she glanced at the consorts. Sora had his hand clamped over his mouth in restrained glee. The other looked as innocent as the day he was born, flashing her encouraging smiles to validate the truth of the matter. Princess Serena then conferred with her own consorts. Trusting their judgement. Gloria made a cut-throat gesture whereas Grace looked positively over the moon with how novel it was.

  “Very well then, I shall honour this custom. I am many things, including rude but if you so wish then I shall… I shall sleep here.” Princess Serena conceded.

  In smarmy bluster, Prince Yuri rushed her and grabbed her hands. Once again, noting of their softness as he smiled with duplicitous intent. Yet, it was a pretty look on his cattish face regardless.

  “Thank you so very much, my love, now please, sweet dreams. I hope you want for nothing during the night. Enjoy your stay here. I shall see you in the morning, my dear.” Yuri said and in his, mouth as he spoke what were intentioned as lies, he couldn’t help but feel a sweet and fizzy feeling. It was giddy. He almost liked it.

  Princess Serena swallowed. “Very well then, Yuri, I shall see you in the morning. Sweet dreams.”

  Then, to seal the faux sincerity, Prince Yuri pressed a kiss onto Princess Serena’s cheek. Her heart fluttered and his lips tingled. He smiled and then pardoned himself and his own consorts, leaving Princess Serena in the dark with Gloria and Grace.

  Gloria and Grace aided in helping Serena to the mount of her bed. It was a struggle and a half, but Princess Serena was able to get to the final layer and she snuggled in tight. Gloria and Grace bade her good night and Princess Serena was alone. She took a breath and closed her eyes and as she tried to lull herself to sleep, she was racked with the sensation that something was very wrong.

  Meanwhile, Prince Yuri entered his own bedroom and he felt grand. And he felt that way all throughout the night. A beautiful and wondrous slumber because he was utterly certain that come morning, he would be able to oust Princess Serena as some sort of con-artist and he would never have to marry her.

  Though, his sleep was tinged with haunted memories of her sharp eyes and her sharp rapier. He would miss having someone to spar with who was prepared for underhanded tactics and had rather soft hands and a kinship with him regarding lonely childhoods. But, overall, Prince Yuri slept fabulously even if there was a bittersweet element to what he believed was his impending victory.

  Princess Serena was sleeping similarly in her meticulously and heavily laden bed. By all accounts, this was the truest height of luxury as it felt as though her bed consisted of several stories and each layer was soft and fluffy and yet… something was intrinsically wrong. It was uncomfortable. There was something, somewhere, which was causing her inordinate contrary.

  And it wasn’t just the sugar and ice personality of her betrothed. One moment he was being awful to her and the next, it felt like they were making genuine strides in their potential relationship. Princess Serena could hardly believe that she had found herself enamoured with such a peculiar young man. But alas, she had though she may not want to admit it forthright.

  Still, the hours bore on and soon, in came the morning sun and Prince Yuri could not have been more thrilled. He had not felt so refreshed. He couldn’t wait to have this fraudulent princess exiled from his kingdom, and more importantly, from his heart which was beginning to waver from its initial ambitions. The morning sun was sweet but the thought of victory sweeter. Even when tinged with the bitter of not having the chance to continue duelling with her or continue admiring her more splendid qualities.

  With a mixed expression, Prince Yuri drew close to Princess Serena’s chambers and he was not the only one. His consorts, her consorts, his brothers, and his mother had all drawn in close. They all wanted the culmination of all the strange on-goings and schemes which unfolded.

  Thus, Princess Serena was permitted to descend from her bed. Something that Prince Yuri’s elder brothers were shocked to learn the decadent existence of. Their mother, Queen Yoko, looked confidently pleased with herself. She should have known her cunning fourth son would put in place a countermeasure, but she knew the match to be true tinder, so she allowed it.

  And it was her voice which crooned through Princess Serena’s private quarters: “Good morning, my soon to be daughter-in-law, how slept you?”

   Princess Serena’s hair was a shock of indigo and her eyes had lost their verdant, green gloss. She was pale with purple bags under her eyes. She looked more haggard than redolent. She sighed.

  “I slept awful…” she admitted.

  Prince Yuri stiffened. “Awful? You say?” He was nervous. Fidgety.

  “Yes. Awful. Horrid. Terrible. All through the night… It felt like something was digging into my bloody back.” Princess Serena said.

  “Oh Serena,” chided Gloria, “no need for such language.”

  “Oh yes there is Gloria!” Princess Serena argued. “I have never heard of such an insane custom and I slept awful! It – It was like something was underneath all those mattresses and it tortured me through the night.”

  “And what sort of something might that be?” Queen Yoko asked as she glanced between Dennis and Sora.

  Princess Serena scowled. “I dunno… a pea?” she murmured.

  “Close. A pea-nut.” Prince Yuri corrected her.

  “A peanut?” Princess Serena echoed.

  Prince Yuri huffed and he stepped forward. For the third time, he clasped the girl’s soft hands. He looked stridently into her eyes. He took a breath.

  “I must confess,” he began, “I lied. There is no such custom.”

  “I knew it!” Princess Serena exclaimed.

  “But I was convinced by my conniving mother to give you a try. I was concerned you were not ladylike enough for my heart, but I realise now that there are for more interesting things about you than your manners. Such as your swordsmanship and your abrasion. I was… unwilling at first, but truly, you may have my heart, dear and sweet Serena.”

  Princess Serena’s heart pounded. She blinked; eyelashes, and her heart, were sent a-fluttering. She smiled.

  “Thank you, Yuri.” Princess Serena said and for the first time, Prince Yuri let his heart sing with girlish praise over her lack of manners and her overt familiarity.

  “I would be honoured if I could take you as my bride as I see you are not a fraudulent princess or some hellion girl. Well, I mean you are, but I’ve decided I would prefer a shrew to some perfect doll. I would prefer you a thousand times over any other woman that the soothsayer might be able to match me.” Prince Yuri continued.

  “Hey, calling me a shrew was uncalled for, but very well. I accept. And I would be honoured if I could take you as my groom.” Princess Serena replied.

  “Aw! I love a happy ending.” Grace cooed, only to have her sister elbow her.

  But she wasn’t the only one. The rest of the court were similarly pleased by the fact that Prince Yuri and Princess Serena could begin a union which would signify a happily ever after for them both.

[lilydalexf]

👽 Random X-Files Fic Rec

This story is so lush and visceral. Mulder narrates here and sees himself and Scully so clearly and beautifully even as there's so much he can't understand about not just her but about his own smitten self. I could go on, but you should just read this immediately.

Title: Endeavours Too Short Of Desires Author: leiascully (@leiascully) Summary: Not all wisdom has benefits, he thinks: too wise to woo, they are stuck in the stasis of longing and denial. Length: 4,523 words Classification: MSR Rating: Teen and up Spoilers: Season 6 Favorite line: Now she holds the earth steady but they boxstep around the space between them, though she sidles up almost under his arm now and then.

Read the story!

[forthebetterevil]

the fattest personal ramble i’ll ever post on this hellsite coz i need to get it out of my system

about heart flutters and confusion from an asexual who has yet to figure out (or is very close to figuring out through this ramble?) her romantic orientation

okay so let me get this out of the way: i’m asexual. specifically autochorrisexual. shipping brings me joy and those nasty (but not TOO nasty...) E-rated fics are what i’m down for, but i balk at the thought of my own self being involved in any sex-related activity. i have never wanted to engage in sexual acts with anyone in my life, and i swear i have TRIED to think about it, daydream about it, to “test” if my mind can really fathom the act of sex upon my own body.... i can’t. my mind literally snuffs out the mental image of sex when i am the subject, as if it isn’t possible, and especially since i don’t desire it. (i’m pretty okay with imagining 2 OTHER people getting down on each other tho.) i’m asexual so i don’t actually know what sexual attraction is, but i did try to search a bit on what that feeling is, and i’m not gonna lie, i can’t relate a single bit fam, which further helps me solidify my asexual identity.

that solidification didn’t come easy. i had to go through countless rounds of considerations, to try to pick apart the str8 agenda that society and mass media have been feeding me for as long as i lived. but once i realised this label worked far better for me than any other label in the lgbtq spectrum, i was like, yes! i found it! i found me. and i have never found anything contradictory to the label that i found for my sexuality. so that’s gr8 m8 8/8 coz that gave me the feeling of security of knowing myself, and i could read up on similar experiences through other asexual people online and not feel like i’m just immature for my age or whatever crap people think of asexuals (i didn’t read what aphobes on tumblr have to say because why would i want to make myself upset when i’m just living my life...).

whoops i rambled but YEAH SO I’M ASEXUAL. (thanks tumblr for introducing this concept to me, for once, because without tumblr i would just be confused and irritated i’m not feeling things that i “should”)

as some of you might know, if you’ve done some digging about your sexuality, a common theme that pops up in explanations is the distinction between romantic attraction and sexual attraction. i already got the latter nailed down, hooray for me.

what’s romantic attraction then? this question would push me down the rabbit hole and end in me still pummelling but now into a bottomless water body where the surface i hit is the question, “what’s LOVE, then?”

i lazily decided i wouldn’t need to deal with romantic attraction if i never experienced it, so i just didn’t define my romantic orientation. lol. i mean, i only had a crush once in my life and that was when i was 9-years-old but that little “infatuation” lasted for about 10 years because that’s how fixated i get on things (and as it turns out, people) i favour LMAO so...?? during the period of my asexuality discovery and general maturation, i figured i only liked him for that long because of the IDEA of what i THOUGHT he was like --- i didn’t speak to him for extended periods of time during those 10 years, so clearly who my heart wants isn’t him, but just what i thought he would be like (something like the “perfect man”, but mixed in with his “flaws” i knew i could tolerate, because he’s human too and i try to be reasonable).

and it was also then that i learnt Love was a Choice. SO. i let go. i still look up to him and stuff, but i’m not going to let that millennium-long crush take up unnecessary space at the back of my mind anymore.

i was putting my bets on grayromantic or demiromantic, but this time i wasn’t, and couldn’t be, as sure of my identification as i was when i knew i was asexual. i don’t know. i can’t say it’s because i yearn for affection because frankly speaking i can go without it, i can be quite detached and can remain that way for a long time. maybe it’s because i didn’t want to dismiss the possibility of experiencing a (generally) positive feeling poets wax lyrical about. i mean nothing wrong if you’re aromantic, but i felt like i had the CAPACITY to love romantically. whatever that meant.

k i’ve rambled enough. long story short, someone new caught my eye (not literally lmao looks ain’t shit to me), and i don’t know what to make of it. so here’s my confusion.

(pardon me for coming off like a 13-year-old with a crush, but i legitimately thought about all this shit over the past few weeks)

his personality is lively and charming (to me!). his humour isn’t totally in sync with mine, but i can still chuckle along. he’s not a toxic hetero dude (yeah low bar but i just had to put it out there), he supports the LGBTQ+ community (i don’t know his sexual orientation but it doesn’t matter to me). he has Intellectual Opinions that aren’t obnoxious or are spewed to seem like a smartass or edgelord. he puts effort into his endeavours, he has a good attitude in general. oh and here’s the best part: i can’t properly gauge if i caught HIS eye, but if i did, he’s not showing it in creepy ways that other boys have. (small example: we all stay in something like a hostel. i offer to buy a snack from the convenience store for this dude who happened to be studying in a common area on my level at 2am (lol what’s a sleep schedule m’pals), because i’m going to go there at that very moment. mind you this dude and i have only recently been acquainted. dude says no thanks. i’m like okay. i go to the convenience store. i picked my items from the shelf, turn around, and BAM, HE’S RIGHT THERE. “um didn’t you say you didn’t want anything?” “oh no i just thought of following you here. it’s late.” you think it’s sweet or some shit but no because the convenience store is located within the university grounds and our country has one of the lowest crime rates ever so the reason he was giving was pretty illogical, no one does this shit. now i’m socially obligated to feel thankful for your chivalry or some shit??? i hate that. these dudes don’t ever fucking consider the context of chivalry before acting on it, did you legitimately think i would be comfortable and safer with you, a mere acquaintance, “accompanying” me to the store. ugh. ok whoops i digressed.)

here i admit, my heart flutters when i see him. so now i ask myself... is this infatuation, or do i legitimately want to be in a romantic relationship with him? wait, what’s a romantic relationship? WAIT, WHAT IS LOVE? (tw1ce kpop fans gtfo of my post lmao)

i proceed to analyse my behaviour towards him to try to determine if it’s legitimate romantic attraction. heart flutter, check. stumble over words, check. spew dumb shit in front of him, check. try to subtly catch his attention in a group setting, check. actually play along with his teasing, check. actually initiating conversations with him with HIM as the subject, check. (please note that after one too many creepy dudes’ advances after i try to be friendly and open and bubbly and polite because that’s just how i am, i consciously made an effort NOT to ask questions about THEM in any conversation i had to engage in with them because i frankly dgaf about their lives and i don’t want to make them think i did. i only used to ask out of courtesy because they asked me something first. but now i’m like fuck that. in my current situation, i actually still do not really care about what he does if it doesn’t concern me LMAO, but i ask just to give the impression that i do.) wishing i could see him for one more time, check.

BUT WAIT! i could wave that away with the explanation that i’m infatuated with him. i don’t know what romantic attraction REALLY is, but i’m going to take a leap of faith and guess it entails stuff like, do i want him to be my confidante and vice versa, do i want to hang out with him at the end of a long day - is that more tiring for me, or is that going to be rejuvenating, etc etc i’m basically basing my expectations of a romantic relationship on behaviours of a happily and healthily married couple, which i suppose COULD be misguided, but i don’t know any better...

so, do i?

but FUCK, BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION. i don’t know my own preference. “um yeah that’s why you date, to get to know the other person better and shit” ssSSHHH!! i don’t jump into Big Things like relationships unless i’m REALLY sure it’s not going to end in a disaster (plus depleted social capital that i could’ve avoided depleting... ugh We Live In A Society)

right now the issue i’m griping about isn’t whether i’m gonna end up happily ever after with him. i’m venting my confusion here because i don’t know how seriously i should take these feelings towards another person. it’s occupying a LOT of space in my mind and it’s honestly getting in the way (mental effort, time, focus) and i have other things to do. i just want peace of mind.

confusing emotions are useless.

[leiascully]

Okay: canon compliant / canon compatible / canon complicit / canon contemptible as defined in this post.

A lot of my fics are canon compliant or canon complicit, like the whole series of fics I’m, uh, still working on (The FBI’s Most Unwanted), i.e. they fit smoothly into canon and attempt to preserve the chronology and events OR they are dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing with canon in a sulky, eye-rolling way.

Some fics are canon compatible and go along with canon but don’t necessarily conform entirely to it, like Endeavours Too Short Of Desires and Ceremony of Innocence or the bunkbeds story.

Here’s the thing, though: I think the fics I’ve written that have gotten the most attention are canon contemptible, which is to say, they acknowledge canon exists as they fly past it in a convertible throwing the bird.

That includes Visitor/Resident and all the other fics in that series (except the cabin fic, which is canon compatible, because you don’t know it didn’t happen), Baseball Metaphors, Sláinte (I guess this could be considered canon compatible if you ignore Scully treating Pendrell like a stranger).

(Also the porn.  Y’all like the porn.)

Anyway, it’s funny, because most of what I read (you know, when I read fic, which I barely find time for these days, which is tragic) is canon compatible, like Parabiosis.

[greenapricot]

Hello! Just wanted to say... I accidentally came across your blog a short time ago and NOW I'M HAVING THE FEELS. MORSE FEELS. LEWIS FEELS. HATHAWAY FEELS. I re-binged half of the Lewis already. Half of Endeavour too, for the first time. It's so gorgeous (and I know how his story will end, from Morse, and that's just. Whole other layer of heartbreaking, I CAN'T). ALL THE FEELS. Also I wondered if you have any fic recs to share in this verse? They deserve better (but also just RIP MY HEART OUT)

I keep not replying because my instinct is to try to write a really comprehensive rec list with detailed descriptions of exactly why I love each of these fics. But it’s been two weeks and I keep using the spare moments I have to write fic instead of writing out recs. So, I figured better to just make a list then a perfect list that I never actually manage to finish. :)

Lewis fics I love, all of which I have reread multiple times, pretty much all Lewis/Hathaway (with some Lewis/Hathaway/Hobson in there too):

by Jackie ThomasDesire Lines https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733084/chapters/10816991  Winter’s Breath https://archiveofourown.org/works/1691843Wonderland https://archiveofourown.org/works/8535940/chapters/19568656The Izzy Series https://archiveofourown.org/series/475600

by divingforstonesThe Weighing of the Heart https://archiveofourown.org/works/12950898/chapters/29603037The Long Day Wanes https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816228Knight at Arms (A Quiet Conquest) https://archiveofourown.org/works/14173806The Surrender of James Hathaway https://archiveofourown.org/works/3811156/chapters/8493097

by complicatedlightThe creation of home https://archiveofourown.org/works/12895044/chapters/29458659Shadow passes, light remains https://archiveofourown.org/works/6924109/chapters/15795721Stranger Than Fiction https://archiveofourown.org/works/3505865/chapters/7706270Hey Man! Leave Me Alone! https://archiveofourown.org/works/976661/chapters/1921223

I really cannot recommend highly enough every single thing by the three writers above (I had a hard time narrowing down which fics I was going to call out here). The Eradication of Japanese Knotweed on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela by owlsurfingbirdhttps://archiveofourown.org/works/3748108/chapters/8316907

Vita Nuova by Atropos_leehttps://archiveofourown.org/works/1605449/chapters/3417557

The End of All Our Exploring by hedda62 https://archiveofourown.org/works/625373

each to each by Jenwrynhttps://archiveofourown.org/works/315556

Simple Physics by Mazarin221bhttps://archiveofourown.org/series/33487

Object of Affection by sarrenhttps://archiveofourown.org/works/600462/chapters/1082960

Also, I tag fic that I want to remember in pinboard so there’s a bunch more Lewis here: https://pinboard.in/u:greenapricot/t:Lewis/ and Endeavour: here https://pinboard.in/u:greenapricot/t:Endeavour/

And while I’m at it, a little bit of self-promotion, my fic is here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapricot

[rwbyremnants]

THIS CHAPTER: WhiteRose: facial, intimate conversation.

Crosshares (Coco/Velvet): Dom/sub, petplay, collars, strap-on sex, cunnilingus, bridling, doggy style, anal fingering, squirting/female ejaculation, strap-on fellatio, aftercare. 

NOTES: YAY FOR VOLUME 5! I got an early look at it in theaters and so far, so good! To commemorate it coming out for First Members I figured I would make sure to release a chapter today. Let's hope this season doesn't wreck us like 3 did haha! Sorry again for the sidetracking, though at least this is Crosshares, which there should definitely be more fic of. Also, White Rose moments. Next up… we’re coming up to the end of the fic in these next 5 chapters, and it’s about to get a LOT kinkier. Strap in (or strap on)!

=Chapter 25

Yang wasn't the only Xiao Long sister having her Dust-grown dick sated. Ruby had just thrown her head back against the pillows of her bed, groaning out to the high heavens as she gained her own release. Weiss wasn't exactly going to miss the chance to play with her partner's length when it was so obviously present and ready for action.

Once finished however, she pulled up the sheets that had covered her lower half, and the entirety of Weiss. She had been told not to look, apparently because the heiress was slightly more nervous about being seen in such a vulnerable position, but now the deed was done, she needed to peek. And she would stay quiet until she spoke first.

The heiress had splotches of Ruby's cream all over her face, and though when the sheets lifted she had been smiling contentedly, now she blushed a deep scarlet when she noticed Ruby could see her. However, she looked less angry and more ashamed of herself as she averted her gaze.

"J-just..." Clearing her throat, her voice was even quieter when she said, "I'd explain but you would probably make fun of me."

"N-nah... I'm too tired for that." She laughed and panted, holding the duvet up to allow Weiss to catch her breath again, and to invite her back up again. She was certainly not too tired for a cuddle.

"I just... so I've heard that... men like it when girls allow themselves to be covered with this," she began as she crawled up to flop down next to her partner. "And I thought I might find out what the big deal is, and also whether or not you, not being a man but having a man-part currently, would enjoy this. That's all."

Tilting her head, she examined the features more closely. Yes, it was rather interesting to see Weiss covered in small bits of her own juices, like she owned her. But it also made things a little awkward. To put it in clearer terms, she wouldn't kiss her currently.

"It's okay, I guess… But I think we should clean you up."

"R-right!" Weiss laughed nervously. "This was silly, wasn't it? It's silly to want to try it... and... to kind of like having you all over me, right?"

Grabbing the tissue on the bedside desk, she placed a hand on her cheek, very slowly using the other to wipe away the small dots of white on her. Of course, all while she did so, the blush remained there, and she even chuckled, "Heh... I guess that part of it is… kinda hot."

The warmth of the laugh finally made Weiss relax a little. "Of course, the novelty wears off rather quickly, so, um... thank you." Then her smile grew slightly mischievous. "You were really ready to go, weren't you? Practically demanded I service you the minute you got in the door." Narrowing her eyes, she then folded both arms across her chest. "Speaking of which… where on Remnant did you leave your panties?"

"O-oh! You noticed, huh?" But Weiss wasn’t budging. This was something she didn't quite know how to answer. Was she to tell of her adventure with Blake? She'd just come to terms with her feelings with Weiss; would it really be a good idea to then blow it with that confession?

But she couldn't lie. No matter what, she couldn't; not to the woman she loved. "…Blake. She’s got ‘em."

"Blake borrowed your panties? Huh... I didn't know you two were the same size." Weiss sighed as she snuggled against Ruby's side, face now relatively clean and holding only the tiniest hint of pink in her cheeks. Even though she had not climaxed herself - though helping Ruby had awakened her urges very slightly - she found herself quite contented to leave things as they were this time.

"Well… not exactly." Now she'd really thrown herself in it. "We kinda, um, had an encounter. I wanted to know more about how to pleasure… what you have right now. And she wanted to know about what I have, since Yang has one sometimes now. So we… kinda had show and tell, heh."

"You what?!" It wasn't an angry exclamation, but there was definite shock. "You and Blake?! How long has this been going on?"

What was once a calm blush and an elated grin had been replaced with a nervous disposition. Hunched shoulders, and eyes wide in fear. "I-it hasn't been ‘going on’. Nothing is going on!"

"But you just said you... I mean, if nothing's going on, what did you guys do, compare schematic drawings?!" Then she remembered another aspect of Ruby's confession. "And why would she need to keep your underwear?!"

"I... We... I don't know!" Close to tears already after such a short time, Ruby was lost for words. She could have ruined everything in one stupid night. How on earth could she explain this correctly. "I never really… practiced. On myself, I mean. I didn't know how to do anything for you when you don’t have a Dust-dick. S-so Blake offered to help me learn what to do with a vagina… so I can be good at it, eventually." Already, the water was coming to her eyes. "B-but no, I was wrong, I know I was! I-I shouldn't have done it, I should have asked, I- I-"

Stricken at the sudden change in Ruby's mood, Weiss fidgeted with her hand. This wasn't her strong suit, comforting distraught friends. How did one go about this? Obviously, all her anger and exasperation had been thrown out the window, but now she wasn't sure how to make that clear.

"Well... I would have appreciated you letting me know you were planning to do something like that beforehand." Not quite right. Placing a hand on Ruby's shoulder, she tried again. "But... I suppose it would be rather hypocritical of me to fault you for doing anything with Blake when technically, so have I."

"I know, I should have. And I would! But it sorta just… happened. I was asking Blake for tips, she asked what for and why, then we got… carried away." It was the truth, except with pieces left out. Ruby knew how to satisfy a sex enough to being a quick climax, and probably knew how to drive Weiss insane with desire. What would she possibly want additional teaching for?

"So that's why your phallus looked so... so red." For whatever reason, though Weiss did feel mildly turned on by the notion of Ruby having a sudden "encounter", she also felt an irrational jealousy bubbling up. It wasn't right, not even remotely, but she wanted Ruby all to herself. Despite the fact that she had expected Ruby to share her with Yang. Was she insane?

"Um... did you enjoy yourself? Did you learn a lot, did she?"

"We learned a lot, yes. She learned more than me, though, because we were interrupted by Jaune and Pyrrha. Had to hide before I could hold up my end of the deal." She had purposefully left out the answer to the question of enjoyment.

"Jaune and Pyrrha? Wait, wait, that's... that's not the point. I mean, where did this happen?" She felt as if her brain was being pulled in a dozen different directions.

As was Ruby's. The answers were hard to come up with, even if they happened just an hour or so ago! "T-the library, in the romance section? I was, um, looking for books about this…"

Now Weiss definitely felt turned on at the idea of Ruby being so indiscreet in such a public place, even while she was fighting the strange urge to track down Blake and give her a swift kick in the behind. "That's... interesting." Cheeks warming again, she cleared her throat to provide an excuse for that. "Well, like I said, I... don't have any right to tell you not to do that, considering our current arrangement. If you and she wanted to... have more lessons, even. You aren't my servant; obviously you're free to do whatever makes you happy."

"That's just it." She found herself turning in the heiress's direction, looking right up and into her eyes. What was about to be said, wouldn't be easy. But nonetheless, it was needed. "It was a fun lesson, and yeah, I enjoyed myself. But it's…" Swallowing, she attempted to let the last few words out. "She’s not you ."

"Oh?" That could mean a LOT. But she was afraid of being wrong. Weiss decided to keep playing things casually with her words, but she saw no reason not to caress the shoulder she was gripping with her thumb. "And... is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

It was now or never. If Ruby was going to allow herself to get really mushy, now was the chance. "I wanted tips, to impress you. So that, when I’m in the mood for more than snuggles and kisses, I'm actually good at it. Because I want to make you happy. Want to make only you happy."

A few seconds passed as Weiss took those words in, mulled them around. "I s-see... that's really what you want? To make me happy? Even though I'm such a selfish jerk most of the time?" It was hard for her to reconcile this confession with the news that Ruby had been intimate with Blake earlier the same evening, even knowing it was merely an educational endeavour. Her head felt hazy, but down deep beneath the confusion and fear, she felt a prickle of something new. Something that, if she had to give it a name, could be "joy". Finally, she managed to whisper, “Wow.”

There was so much more to it than that. So many words she wanted to say. About everything to do with her, her smile, her laugh, how even when she was grumpy she somehow looked very cute. But the smaller girl was far too awkward to say any of that. And even more awkward to say the word she knew it meant: love. All she could do was press her face against her neck, nuzzling into her to hide her face from view, as she nodded.

"Ruby..." She had to do something more. She had to speak up, to at least try to compete with this tender thing Ruby had told her - especially because she had already heard the "three little words" from the girl during an unguarded moment. It wasn't fair for Ruby to always be the one telling Weiss how much she meant while she never gave her anything in return.

"Do... I make you happy?" she finally asked in a fearful whisper. "I mean really, not just sort of happy or happy once in a while."

"Yes." There was no hesitation. As Ruby huddled up to the girl, she couldn't even hesitate to answer that question. "You make me… very happy. Just want to do the same for you."

"But you do. So much!" Hesitating only for a moment or two, hoping she wasn't about to make a mistake, she blurted, "And I don't care how many times either of us 'explores' with other people, that's- it doesn't matter in the end, does it? As long as you and I, w-we're the ones who hold each other at the end of the night!"

The words brought a smile to Ruby's lips. She knew this was hard for Weiss. Extremely so. She'd been raised to keep those sorts of emotions to herself, and to remain calm and composed. And although she had never said it herself, Ruby was fairly confident Weiss's father wouldn't exactly be over the moon with having a daughter who had a girlfriend.

But if this was to be, that would be hurdle to be jumped over at another time. Now, there was a different one.

"Do you love me?"

"What?!" Weiss squeaked, voice sounding high and strained. "Th-that's an absurd question! Wh-what is 'love', anyway? Obviously I do or I wouldn't be cuddling with you right now! Gosh!" One of her hands fisted in Ruby's short, sporty hair. Yes, clearly she did; she was simply abysmal at showing it.

It was confirmed. Weiss loved her. Weiss Schnee actually loved her! She wanted to scream, she wanted to call to the high heavens that she was in love, that they both were. But more importantly, she wanted Weiss. And rather than poke about for more information, she sought to put her new knowledge to the test.

A hand delicately cupped her cheek, making her look toward her so their eye contact could lock again. Lips a hair apart, she whispered softly, "I love you, too."

"Oh, ugh," Weiss grimaced, though without any real conviction. "Why do you have to be such a sap all the time? Is that some sort of patented Ruby Rose modus operandi?" Then she leaned in and left a light peck on her lips. "But I... I do..." She tried quite hard, hoping to find more courage than she possessed, but in the end her eyes had to close before she could finish. "Love you."

With her own eyes also closing, she soon leant forward, pressing her lips into Weiss's as she began kneading them gently. Just as Blake taught her, she slowed right down, making an effort to feel closer to her before progressing any longer. And she was right. The kiss felt softer, yet more intense. Slower, yet it made her heart race! She wanted more, yes. But working to get there would be so much sweeter.

Surprised by the tenderness that replaced Ruby's usual eagerness, Weiss hummed in appreciation as her hand trailed through the hair of her partner, drinking in every sensation. When her leg raised up higher, she even felt the soft wet length that remained exposed - and felt no real physical reaction, no urge to either pull away or reinitiate their carnal activities. It was just part of Ruby, however temporarily, and she allowed her leg to rest against it fully to show just how little it mattered.

Several minutes later, she pulled away and breathed, "Wow, I don't know how anybody could ever not love you."

"Oh, I'm not that big of a deal... Just a normal girl, with normal knees." Well aware that it sounded ridiculous on its own, Ruby decided to distract her by brushing her nose across the heiress's, smiling softly.

"Mmmmh," Weiss couldn't help but breathe at Ruby's affectionate action. Already, she felt herself beginning to doze. "I like your normal knees..."

"I like your normal knees, too." She smiled, kissing her forehead gently, before huddling into the girl's side. Thanks to their similar sizes, either position suited either girl. It mattered not to them who would be the big spoon.

As Weiss drifted off to sleep, a couple of thoughts warred within her mind. Firstly, that she was fiercely protective of Ruby's well-being; if she had told her anyone other than Blake wanted to do things "for educational purposes", she might have gone screaming off down the hall after them. She was aware by now that both of them were just as inexperienced, so it made sense that they would finally try things out together just to learn. Secondly, that even though she still lusted after Yang, and even Blake to a far lesser degree, that if she were being forced to choose between all of them, there wasn't even a choice to be made.

And thirdly, that she had a plan for their next outing into the forest… but maybe before then, she could think of some other fun things to try. A few stray thoughts that were bumping around in her head. But before that came to pass, there would need to be a few discussions. Best to sleep on it for now.

The funny thing was, she had no idea that other discussions would be taking place at the same time, or shortly thereafter. Including one that wasn’t even amongst the members of Team RWBY, but another team…

"So with things g-going as well as they are with myself and Carmine," Velvet's timid voice spoke into the room, "I've been thinking... am I ready to take the next step? She's putting out every signal that she wants to take me to bed, and that's something I'm fairly sure I want now, but obviously I don't want to jump the gun! So sh-should I go on with it, or is it too soon? Please, I don't trust myself to make this decision!"

"Hmm... That is a concern. How long did you say you'd been seeing her again?" The other woman found herself stroking the rabbit Faunus's hair, and her ears. Stroking right from her head to her bare lower back. In fact, she had been doing that for a fair while. The two had began to talk about how Velvet's personal life had been progressing, and from the sounds of things it hadn't. Most people would chat about such things over a meal, or coffee.

Not Coco Adel and Velvet Scarlatina. They were in the beginning stages of their ‘play’.

Velvet wore nothing, apart from a leather collar and leash. Her ‘master’, wearing a rather form-fitting corset and garters, along with her usual sunglasses and beret, held the leash firmly in her iron grip. Before every session, they allowed for a moment to get used to one another's presence whilst in their attire, to keep things casual before they really got things going. Today, that was when Velvet began to talk.

"A little over a week." The lower Coco stroked along her back, the higher her hips rose to meet the hand. Though her conscious mind hated to have it touched, her tiny tail began to tingle in anticipation. She only hated to have it touched because she didn't know how to react to the intensity of the sensation. "Is that too long? We both make moves, then someone will get too uncomfortable to do anything more, and... I mean, should I just have a few pints and let myself get swept along?"

Delivering a soft scratch to said area above her tail, Coco mused on that question. As experienced as she was, dating never was her strong suit. She'd tried it and it wasn’t her speed. Sex – hell yes. Romance – not so much.

"Perhaps a quiet drink between you two would be the best plan. You mentioned she had an apartment? See if you both could have a night in with some drinks. Loosen things up."

Nodding and gulping, Velvet fought down a reaction to the sensation. It was building and she knew it was going to happen, but did her body have to make it so easy? "Y-yes, perhaps that's b-best."

Too late. Before she could stop herself, she was rolling onto her back and holding her arms and legs in the air, face flushing very slightly at what her Faunus instincts were encouraging her to do against her human wishes.

"Good girl…" That was more in-character this time. Their play was about to begin; that much was made obvious when she tugged at the lead, pulling the Faunus's head closer to her for a moment. This allowed her to see the wide smirk on her face. "Do you want a treat then, pet?"

"Yes, Master," she sighed contentedly. Though she was always anxious to see what direction their play might take, she was never scared - not since their first session. That had been an awful one in which she used their safeword, breaking down crying, but Coco had held her and comforted her so completely that from then on, she was never frightened in her chamber of demented pleasures again.

"Alright then. Sit." The first command. It was definitely a simple one, just to get started. As she waited, she continued to give advice; sometimes they would do two things at once like that. "Why not ask her if she wants to? It may be awkward, but it makes things clear that way. Cut through the bullshit."

"Really?" Velvet asked, even as she rolled over and pushed up onto her knees, both hands palm-down on the floor. Hoping it would further please her master, she even took the pained effort to force her tail to wag - underdeveloped as it was, this was not an easy feat for her. "Just like that, right out with it?"

"Yeah. I mean... Look, you know I'm not very good at relationship stuff, but it's about communication, right? No matter how awkward it may seem." The actions certainly did please, and made Coco lean down toward her pet's neck, whispering softly before delivering a soft peck to it. "Very good."

A quiet sigh fell from Velvet at the contact, and she leaned very slightly toward the lips - but not too much. That was frowned upon. "I just don't want her thinking I'm... some sort of tramp who is only after a good time. It has been a while, though..."

"Then tell her. It sounds like she's just as awkward, too, but fumbling around gets you nowhere." Parting from the girl's neck, she then sat back on the bed again, twirling her finger to gesture her next trick. "Roll over."

Without hesitation, she bent forward to crouch lower and rolled onto her back, then further over until she was upright on her hands and knees again. Her collar fit just loosely enough that it spun as she did, so there was no complication there.

"Hopefully you'll get to meet her, Coco. You'll never meet a sweeter girl, or smarter - you'd be surprised how much she knows, especially since most smart ones end up being snobbish!"

Another kiss was delivered as a reward, this time to her jawline, and for longer. The treats were getting more intense, which meant the tricks were too. "She does sound like a lovely girl, so long as she treats you right."

And then she pointed to the bedside table, specifically to one particular drawer. From their previous sessions, Velvet would know exactly what was meant when she demanded, "Fetch."

"Yes, Master!" She dashed to the drawer, then looked over her shoulder questioningly. "Hands, or no hands? W-we forgot to settle on that beforehand."

"No hands, pet. Not tonight." Coco smirked, lowering her glasses to get a decent look at her teammate.

A slight flush stole over the pet's face. She tried not to show how much more she liked it when she had even less humanity during their play. Most people – especially the White Fang supporters – would never understand how much this appealed to her baser instincts. They would tell her she was undercutting the efforts for Faunus equality… but this wasn’t about how they were treated in normal society. It was about what gave her comfort at the end of her day, behind closed doors. That and that alone. And as long as Coco understood that, they could have a very special brand of fun together.

Keeping her palms on the floor, she used her nose to nudge at the handle a few times until the drawer was open an inch or so, then wedged her chin in the gap to drag it the rest of the way open. Once she had accomplished that, she clamped her teeth down as delicately as she could around one of the leather straps sticking up out of the drawer and crawled back over to Coco, the silicon phallus swinging back and forth as she did so.

"Gooood girl." Once she had returned, she held her hand underneath her mouth. "Drop it." Which Velvet did immediately, smiling up at her master. Again, she wagged her tail, this time making her hips move a bit with it. Hopefully Coco wouldn't check very soon, but she was already quite wet in anticipation.

She spared no time. Right from when it was dropped into her hand, she began to slide the straps up her legs, putting them into position for the best fit. "Didn't you say she dated Blake before? The black-haired girl in first year, right?"

"Hm?" Sitting back on her haunches, she simply waited patiently with her body while Coco prepared and they spoke. "Oh... that's right, she did mention that. What of it?"

"She's a little young, ain't she? Or am I missing something? Thought you said she was already in a professional field." Once fully strapped in, she then sat back onto the bed again, confidently commanding, "Beg."

Sitting up higher, Velvet held both fists under her chin and tilted her head to one side. "She is, but... alright, I would probably have been more careful to check on that myself, but she didn't know her age at the time. I can't really find fault, it's not my place."

"Good girl... Bend over." There wasn't a reward that time, mainly because the reward was about to come from the actions of the girl in command. But as she eagerly awaited for Velvet to get ready, she mused a little more. "Oh, okay that makes sense. Gotta be careful with that."

"Yeah. Mostly, I feel sorry for her not knowing... Blake should have spoken up far earlier." Leaning forward again, she made sure her hindquarters were raised slightly more than she normally would have comfortably. "Should I turn around?"

"Yeah, I agree. But again, this is why communication is key. Like in this case, it is." And with a chuckle, added, "Yes, I do want you to turn around. Silly rabbit."

"Yes, Master." Turning artfully, she presented herself fully to Coco, thighs twitching in anticipation. "I... I'm sorry for the mess back there."

"Mess? What mess, pet?" Kneeling down behind her, she pulled the leash quite firmly, making sure that she remained where she was close to the ground, as she went to inspect the wetness between Velvet's legs.

"Oh deary me... Someone is getting overexcited."

"S-sorry!" Velvet lamented again, ducking her head down between her shoulders, wishing she couldn't feel droplets of moisture running down her inner thighs. "I t-tried not to this time, but I can't help it!"

"Well, I'm going to have to clean this up, aren't I?" she asked, pressing her hand against the wetness there, slowly pressing her fingers into the folds as she began to stroke the length of them. Now was a time to enjoy the movements in silence for most people. But not these teammates. "So, when are you next going out?"

A moan rose out of her and slowly tapered off. "T-tomorrow night, actually. She wants to take me to a fancy restaurant and treat me to a dessert, says... says it's cute when I make a fuss about sweets."

"Oooh, that sounds fun. Just don't get yourself into a sugar rush. You know how that ends up," she teased, not only about their conversation, but in their play as well. Then she continued to tease by circling her clit just the once while she was up there, then bringing her fingers back down... And again... And again...

"Mmnnhhhh," she sighed with deep gratitude, carefully holding herself completely still. There was no need for her to push backward, or widen her legs, or do anything at all; her Master would take care of her. As always, she would take care of everything. "I... I won't, I'll just have enough f-for a treat!"

How Coco was able to keep up normal conversation was a mystery. Especially as her own sex was beginning to grow warm with desire. She too would be in Velvet's state at this rate. "Some ice cream or something?" Drawing her hand away at last, she pulled the lead through her arms and legs, resting them just under her knee to trap her head in position. Low down. The only view she would get would be that of her own sex from there.

And she was allowed to witness as Coco held the phallus into her hand, lining it up with her entrance once confident the area was wet enough.

"Y-yes," Velvet agreed, stomach doing somersaults as she waited with bated breath for Coco to enter, watched another droplet fall from her own well-prepared entrance. Sometimes her master eased into it gently, sometimes she rammed into her without any consideration. This could be either night. "And y-you know how I like... strawberries."

"Strawberry sundae. Perfect." Tonight was going to be a gentle night it seemed, and Coco very slowly pushed her way into the pinned Faunus girl, slowly working inward. The ramming could be done later, she thought.

"AhhhhHHHhhnnn!" spilled musically from the Faunus's throat. It always felt so good to be claimed by her master this way! There had been some other aspects of play she somewhat wanted to try tonight, but she wasn't to bring them up or ask for them in the middle of proceedings; that was to be taken care of before they started. Maybe next time.

If there ever was a next time. Of course Carm had other sexual liaisons, and there was no reason she shouldn't, but... if they started seriously seeing each other, the arrangement may have to change. She wasn't sure. Part of her would be sad not to have Coco as a Master anymore if that's how things wound up, but in the end they would always be friends - and Coco could find new pets.

"Aaaand there we go." She smiled, grinding her hips around against Velvet's once her phallus was buried deep inside if her, trying to test the sensations. Caress her inner walls.

More gasps and pants of pleasure filled the air. Not much more would be needed to send her over the edge this time; all the near-misses with Carm resulted in one extremely frustrated libido. Her clit cried out to be touched, but this wasn't a day in which she could do anything of the sort, and so she only arched her back more, provided a more inviting target for her master.

Even wagging the fluffy tail again, feeling her own sex heat up from the difficult action. Why were those areas connected in her body? Wasn't that strange?

"So, how much do you want tonight?" she asked, keeping the phallus still to allow her pet to concentrate for a short moment. It wasn't something she usually asked, but with her going out later, she felt the need to ask. She wasn't exactly going to go too hard if she would need to recover.

"Ahh... hahh..." Gulping, Velvet tried to make her mind less cloudy. Did she want the cattle prod again? No, that would probably wear her out and might leave her body too sore tomorrow. Then she remembered what she had been thinking about a minute or so ago. "The... put the bit in my mouth? Ride me like that?"

"The bit, eh? You up for trying that this time around?" Although she then drew the phallus back out of her again, heading over to the drawer to fetch said bit. However she then realised; she wouldn't be able to talk. "What's the safety signal going to be? Cause I'm gonna keep going till you tell me to stop."

Velvet nearly shed tears at the sudden exit, but she forced herself to take a few breaths so she would be able to answer. "W-we... I'll paw at my ear again, like the time you had me tied up and I was fellating you. Is... is that alright?"

Taking the bit out of the drawer, she paced slowly back over to Velvet again, but this time, when she grasped the lead again, she pulled her upward suddenly, parting her legs. "Perfect. One more trick first."

"H-huh?" Velvet asked. She could be asking for a few different things; by now, the pet already knew most of her master's appetites. Unfortunately, there were too many appetites to choose from, so she decided to be blunt instead of dancing around it. "What does Master want?"

Yanking the lead upward once again, she managed to pull Velvet's head up toward her inner thighs, up to her own soaking wet folds where they lay between leather straps. The trick was now obvious.

"Lick."

Cringing involuntarily at the feeling of the wet length resting against her own forehead, especially knowing it was her own juices making it so wet, Velvet fell to licking immediately, switching between cleaning the outside and the inside. Coco was delicious but sharp, as always. She wanted to use her hands to better spread her, but she wasn't allowed today, so she merely placed them on her thighs for support as any other animal might.

"Hhhmmm," she sighed contentedly right away, placing her other hands on the woman's scalp to keep her friend still. Parting her legs slightly more, she spread herself further to assist in her actions.

But between slight gasps of pleasure, she looked down toward her. "Maybe don't start with s-s-such intense stuff as t-this..."

With a light blush, she pulled back to gaze up at her master. "You m-mean... with you, or with Carm?" After asking, she fell back to work. In point of fact, she felt incredibly flattered to get to touch Coco's sex directly; that was a rarity. Usually she would be asked to wear a phallus, then tied up and ridden, or else it would be worn backwards and she would be mounted and literally ridden around the room. Once, they had fitted a rubber sleeve around both of her ears... that had been a unique experience.

"With Carm. You wanna go s-sloooooww- more on the clit." Her advice turned straight back to their play again once Velvet went back to her licking, as she began to grind herself against Velvet's actions.

Nodding and filing away the advice, Velvet began to tease the clit at the end of every lick, swirling her tongue around the tiny nub with relish. She loved the feel of it in her mouth, how much larger and pronounced it was versus her own tiny, nigh-invisible button. Coco had bemoaned that on a few occasions. But this was a clit a girl could really work with! And she did - hungrily.

"Aaaah! Ooh... Yes!!!" she groaned once more, tipping her head back as she relished in the feeling. Velvet was good, very good!

But she wanted to tease Velvet more. And so, she pulled herself away, taking a moment to swallow and regain her breath. But before Velvet could be allowed to close her mouth, Coco held it open, placing the bit into it. "Back to the ground."

A delicious shame shot through her body at having the bit stuck in her mouth. It was what she wanted; to be the pet, to really lose herself in the role for a few minutes. This was so much easier than navigating the real world.

Nodding, she lowered herself back to hands and knees, blinking up at her master with large eyes as her lips settled more comfortably around the soft bit. It was designed for a human mouth, and much kinder to teeth than a real one would be. For good measure, she moved her backside back and forth very slightly to show that she was ready and willing to please.

This time, Coco wouldn't be as kind. Even if it was to give her the treat. Aligning the phallus with her entrance once again, she grasped the reins firmly, giving a firm tug as she threw herself forward, thrusting the entire length of the phallus into her body. Thanks to the tugging, there was no chance Velvet could escape, or back off; which made it all the sweeter.

"HHHHNGGH!" Velvet cried out around the bit in mild pain and intense pleasure. That was the ache she was after, this was the bodily punishment. She was to be used for this purpose, then rewarded by the master for doing her job. And if she enjoyed a little carnal pleasure into the deal, that was merely a bonus. Arching her back, she tried to lessen the strain on the object in her mouth and the way it tugged at the sides of her cheeks, even though she knew that to be futile. Coco was going to ride her hard until they were both satisfied.

Hearing the call of pleasure made Coco grin with delight, and caused more heat to come to her sex and cheeks again. And it was only going to continue, over and over again without stopping. She was going to be sure to keep slamming into her hard, either until she was worn out, or until Velvet used her safety signal. As was usually the case for their evenings.

That was why there was always two words. One indicated she was done for the evening, and the other indicated it was an action she didn't like. There were very few occasions when Velvet used the second one, but with everyone it drew Coco to a stop, and then back to a comforting “aftercare” session. And even at the times when Velvet would try to decline aftercare, Coco would insist on the importance of recovery.

However, once in a while Velvet wanted to ramp up the level of intensity even more than usual. The bit was gloriously degrading, and put her in her place... but maybe yet more theatrics were in order. With slow and deliberate movements, she began to pull forward, as if to race away from Coco should she let up on the reins. Playacting that she did not want her body to be used, that she yearned to escape.

"Ah ah ah…" With a very firm tug again, both on the reins and the lead, she held Velvet back in place. And to increase her punishment, she ramped up the speed. Now her movements were hard and loud, the constant smacking of Coco's hips against Velvet's rear had echoed through the room, and there was no sign of it stopping at all.

"You're not always a good girl, huh? You need discipline, is that it ?"

A deep grunt of defiance came from Velvet at the harsher treatment. What good was having a master who tamed her if she never put up any resistance? Even as her climax started to build, as wet slapping sounds filled the air, she lowered her shoulders and strained forward, turning slightly to the right to try and bolt away. Part of her needed it to be harder or she wouldn't be able to finish without her clit being touched - she had always been that way, ever since their sessions first began. Coco was only too willing to assist her there.

And another firm tug kept her back, as she pulled the leads right up by her chest. And then leaning down over her body, she began to lean toward her ear, whispering softly into it, "Silly little rabbit… someone is earning herself some very rough treatment." And right after, she delivered a firm slap to her rear, only then to reach toward it. In between her cheeks and underneath her tail was an area she loved to tease, but one she had never entered. Velvet's second opening.

"Maybe you want some of this, huh? Want me to claim your ass?"

Velvet's eyes flew wide. A mere flinch had been her reaction to the slap, but this was more than she had reckoned on dealing with tonight. Her anus was an area Coco had always loved to pay an inordinate amount of attention, one she seemed to covet equally with her other openings. Also, it was responsible for most of the times Velvet had needed to use a safeword. For some reason, she didn't mind being dragged by the neck down to lick the tops of her master's boots, or humping a table leg while being watched like a hawk, but a single fingertip resting on that tight hole made her shake like a leaf.

And shake she did, especially her head from side to side. No, that was not what she wanted... but she didn't use the word, or the gesture that was taking its place currently. Not yet. Maybe Coco only meant to tease her there again, not to do as she had threatened. Her subservient mind needed to give all that she could right up to the point she honestly could take no more.

"No? Are you suuuure?"

And as she continued to slam herself against Coco's sex, her finger never left that area. In fact, it began to circle the ring of muscle over and over again. Even though she had said so about this, she was able to feel how her muscles were reacting to such a thing. How the muscle quivered and spasmed.

Of course, Coco wouldn't go in; not tonight. With her lover expected to be going out at some point, the last thing she wanted to do was leave her unable to sit down properly.

Most definitely against her conscious will, Velvet panted and moaned around the bit as the thick length pounded into her - and as her secondary entrance was casually explored. Every circuit of the tiny ring left her mind screaming with conflicting emotions, her legs trembling. Of course she liked it; Master knew best. She just didn't want to like it.

And as was usually the case when Coco decided to play with her rear, Velvet felt her orgasm building twice as fast as before, but she forced herself to hang on, to try her best to pretend it wasn't happening. That the action she resented wasn't so erotic that it was going to send her reeling into the finish line so soon.

"Come on, you know you want to have an orgasm now... And then another, and then another…" As was normally the case, she would usually continue right up until one of them could take no more. It didn't matter the amount of orgasms usually, but it was very rare Coco left Velvet at one. Despite her appearance, and her personality, Velvet could go for quite a while.

And so slamming over and over, she adjusted herself slightly to hit the special set of nerves. The ones that made Velvet's heart race. That was all it took for her to crash through the barrier into her first. She had already been on the brink from the semi-unwelcome attentions with the finger, so it only took that angling downward to make all the difference. Screaming into the material of the obstruction in her mouth, she rode wave after wave of sharp pleasure that pierced through her mental fuzziness.

The worst aspect of the fact that Velvet was capable of multiples was another unique trait: she was also what was most commonly referred to as a "squirter". This had horrified both herself and Coco the first time it occurred, but once they realised it was not the substance they had originally feared, Coco came to regard it as a charming quirk. It amused her that thin jets of clear pleasure would splash over her - or down upon floor, calves, and boots, as it was presently.

But no matter how bad it got, Coco did not stop. As she could feel the slight additional tightness from Velvet's inner walls contracting, she only thrust even harder against said area, hoping to spur on another orgasm quickly and swiftly. And whilst doing that, she tugged at the bit harder, to the point of managing to yank her off the floor. Their actions were terribly rough, in extreme contrast to Velvet and Carm's soft actions.

Flailing both hands in the open air, Velvet felt a startling vertigo as she had no way to brace herself, no recourse. It was only for a few seconds, but she felt as if she were free-falling. It was the kind of exhilaration she could only derive from these sessions… and from simple moments with her new paramour.

Another orgasm rose to the surface. It wasn't quite as easy to break as the first had been, but she knew it wouldn't take much more - though her master was riding her no less hard than before, still slamming her hips into a fleshy backside with reckless abandon. For sheer theatrics, she let out a loud, long whimper.

Grinning mischievously, she took her finger away from Velvet's rear end, she instead reached even lower. She knew what Velvet craved, her clit to have some attention. And in a rare moment of generosity, she obliged. Reaching around, as she continued to thrust into the sex, she pressed her finger against her clit, circling it just as fast as her movements. She really wasn't letting up this evening, not until she begged for mercy.

Instantly, the pet screamed against the bridle as a second climax crashed through her entire being. More thin liquid splashed over her own legs. Seconds. It only took seconds from when she began touching her clit for it to happen. She must have been really hard up if they were coming this easily!

Yet the thrusts were not relenting. Not in the slightest. Her sex was just beginning to feel rubbed raw, but she continued to enjoy it vaguely, as if through a thick fog. Aching was setting into her muscles from how often they were spasming, from her position in the floor. Her cheeks were in pain from the bit. Why couldn't she simply ask Coco to stop? More honestly - why didn't she want to stop yet? What more could they do now that she had already climaxed twice?

"Hmmm you are resilient tonight. I'm glad it's tomorrow night you're busy; plenty of time for me to keep you going."

That was slightly out of character. Truth be told, she did enjoy her playtime with her friend. And if this was to be one of the final times with her, she wanted to make the most of it. Yes, she had Fox on occasion, but it was a pleasure to have experience with pets of both genders. And still be dominant. Just as the Faunus seemed to desire, she continued the brutal pace regardless of the orgasms oncoming. How did Velvet keep going?

Slightly unusual for their sessions no matter how long, Velvet widened her stance. She usually played her part, simply took the physical torture and loved it - she didn't respond favourably no matter how favourably her body received the treatment. Now, however... she was widening her legs. She was slamming her hips back against the savage assault on her sensitive flesh. Maybe she couldn't in actuality, but part of her seemed to believe she really could keep this up forever.

But Coco could not. For the first time, whilst still continuing her assault, she found herself panting for breath. Her own legs were aching, her hand was cramping. If this continued for any longer, she would end up having to give up herself. She couldn't allow that. There was no way she would allow for it.

So to hide her panting, or any of her own moans, she instead pulled Velvet right up against her, biting very firmly into her skin. Her hopes were that the pain would be enough to push her over the edge. She wouldn't accept defeat any other way.

Luckily for her master, that turned out to be just the thing; it had been quite some time since Coco had last used her teeth so suddenly like that, and Velvet's worn out body was ill-prepared for such a sudden flash of pleasurable pain. This third orgasm was quite a bit weaker than the first two had been, but she stopped her own gyrations and shivered and moaned all the same, delighting in the tingling sensation that rose up the backs of her thighs. So glorious.

Finally retracting back, she asked in a gruff voice, "Have you... Had enough? Are you... ready to end this yet?"

Hearing the weariness in her master's voice, the pet batted at her ear once, then tapped the bit in her mouth with a knuckle. At the very least, she wanted to be able to speak again.

Coco understood the sign; that Velvet only meant the bit. But as she was getting weary and tired, she deliberately made out she misunderstood. She used the chance to stop her movements entirely, taking a small moment to catch her breath, and stop her movements against her clit. Only then did she instead wrap her arms around her lovingly, delivering a much softer kiss to her neck.

"Hnn..."

"Hmhh?" Apparently, playtime had drawn to a close before Velvet was expecting it. Reaching up, she flicked the bit far enough forward so she could spit it out, where it hung loosely under her chin. "Master, are you alright?"

Then she flinched. She hadn't meant to call her that; it was probably because there had been no official "end" to their session. Still, she needed to know the answer to her question.

That question had a rather simple answer. With another light spank to her cheek, she smiled softly to her lover, continuing the loving cuddle while she had her upright. "Absolutely. Just exhausted."

Finally hugging back, she whispered, "Too exhausted for me t-to... reciprocate? I know you don't always want me to, but you helped me get off three times; it hardly seems fair."

Raising one of her eyebrows, she looked up toward her rabbit-eared friend. It was true she wanted the favour returned, but allowing her to have that power was never quite something she liked. "How do you suggest?"

The wariness in Coco's tone made Velvet duck her head. "N-no, I... didn't mean the full 'pet' treatment, though I wouldn't be opposed! Just... using my mouth for a bit. Or my hand. B-but I don't have to if you don't want me to!"

"Hmm…" It would be nice to have 'full service' from her lover, demanding sexual acts from her as she relaxed and accepted. And so, releasing her grip, she smiled. "Alright then. Take me."

Already, Velvet found herself missing Coco's warmth, but she had a whole new source of warmth now. She was going to be given the chance to grant her master pleasure - one that didn't come along often. Her heart raced as she was suddenly expected to do things on her own, to think while in the moment. Could she do this?

Then she reminded herself that she would be expected to do this someday with Carmine. Perhaps someday soon. Gulping, she began to gently caress Coco's outer thigh, just a sensual gesture that didn't go too far. "H-how do you want me to take you?"

"Surprise me."

This was indeed a test of Velvet's independence. She knew Velvet always preferred power to be out of her hands, never in it. But it was a skill she would need. Closing her eyes, she laid back on the ground, parting her legs to allow Velvet entry however she pleased. Fingers or tongue, she didn't mind.

Now she was really on the spot. Where should she start? Where would she be allowed to start? Coco's smile wasn't smug exactly, but there was a very slight challenge to accompany the affection and satisfaction. Acting on instinct, she dropped her mouth to the phallus, still slick with her own juices, and began to lick along the surface as her hands gently caressed both of her inner thighs. Perhaps a little pre-show before she moved along to the main event.

Behind the sunglasses, she wouldn't be able to see the delighted expression. One full of desire and arousal caused by her show. This object had just brought Velvet to three orgasms in a row, and now she was licking it. Licking her own juices off it. This truly was an amazing treat.

Of course, the taste of herself normally teased Velvet, as well, but after already being sated it was merely a strange and unpleasant ordeal. Though she didn't intend to do it for long. Briefly allowing her mouth to close around the head for her master's benefit, she then released it and began to trail kisses down the length, obviously heading for somewhere specific.

"Hmmmm..." She grinned, leaning back even further and fully relaxing. She could feel her partner's hands trailing down her thighs, brushing delicately over them. It was a rather heavenly experience. "Y-you're good, you know?" she encouraged, wiggling her hips playfully. "Carm will be impressed."

"H-hopefully," she breathed. As her mouth began to trail over creamy thigh flesh, she asked, "So... I have to ask, am I still Pet-Velvet, or just Velvet now? J-just want to understand the rules right now."

"Well... Let's use this as practice for Carm. You'd be you normally. Do to me, what you think she'd like. If it's something I feel she wouldn't like, I'll tell you," she assured, resting one of her hands into Velvet's hair, scratching softly. "Knock yourself out."

Nodding as she mulled that over, the Faunus bent to kiss the soft lips beneath the harness with a firm determination. If she were going to do this as she would to Carm, there should be no nervousness, no hesitancy that might make it seem as if she didn't want to do this. There had been enough of that going on already.

Sighing contently, Coco continued to relax into Velvet's movements, parting her legs even further to allow easier access. Velvet was talented, she just lacked the confidence. It was a terrible shame that Coco always tried to assist with.

Feeling the legs opening further, she felt encouraged to allow her tongue to loll out and drift lazily from the lowest point of Coco's sex all the way up to her clit, relishing the sharpness again. So much better than her own! Making sure to moan in appreciation, she repeated the action, slower still the second time. Moaning eagerly, Coco found herself grasping at Velvet's hair. As best she could to spur on the actions even further, she wrapped her legs around her, resting them on her back to try and keep her still.

"Yeah... M-more on the clit."

"Mmhmmm." She was sure to add extra vibration to her humming of affirmation as her lips encircled the clit, hoping Coco would feel and appreciate that. Then she slid her lips further inward so her tongue could flick over its surface, feeling the tiny bump of flesh throb under her teasing. Oh, but she could do this all evening.

"Oh! Y-Yeah! T-That's good!" she managed to force out a moan. In fact, it didn’t take any forcing; Velvet was far too good at this! Thanks to her movement earlier when she was teased, she was already nearing her own limit. There was only one thing she could think of to make it better.

"I think you're r-ready to g-go in."

Pulling back, Velvet moved her hand in to glide up and down along the wetness, thoroughly coating her own digits. She wasn't planning on stopping, only asking a question. A sudden streak of curiosity stirred up within herself - she wanted to see how her normally-dominant teammate would respond.

"You... want me in? Tell me how bad you want me inside you! Let me hear!"

That was a switch. Now Velvet was becoming the dominant one in this situation. Is this really what she was going to be like with Carm? Such an odd thought astounded her. That someone so calm and ready to be the one to receive pain could so readily become the dominant party with another partner. It was interesting to experience, in so many ways. Maybe she could even teach Velvet how to do that in future. But for now…

"B-Badly. Please, put those sweet fingers in me."

The ease with which Coco complied sparked something in Velvet. It wasn't a complete reversal of their roles - she could never in all her wildest dreams be that dominant, it simply wasn't in her nature. However... she could surprise Coco by showing a flash of indignation. One of revenge.

"You asked for it. S-sorry." The muttered apology was the only way she could force herself to go through with her plan. What a miserable Dom she would make! However, she wouldn’t worry about that for the moment. Allowing her mouth to fall to the clit again, she reached down with her fingers, further and further down... and pressed gently against her master's tightly-closed ass.

"W-WHOA!"

Yelping in surprise, the legs holding Velvet in place began to twitch rather harshly, her hands gripping firmly into the girl's hair. She had not expected that at all! It was a place she had never let anyone touch, regardless of play. Her instinct was to kick her away, or shout at her, but Velvet was so sweet and patient in all ways… even this one. It was making it hard to form the words to tell her to return her focus to her other opening.

And the tongue on her clit kept going, it continued to lap at her clit, bringing her closer and closer to her limit. How could she focus on telling her off when she was getting off? "G-God… damn , Velvet!"

However, Velvet was not finished. Most of her entire body had been clenching, braced for the worst as she attempted something that seemed quite dangerous. When Coco only seemed startled instead of angry, she decided to test things even further. After all, she was constantly threatening to truly explore that part of her during play - teasing the little hole, taunting her over it. Regardless of whether or not Velvet liked the teasing, she had always wondered if Coco wanted to try it so much... because she had tried it on herself.

Which is why she kept her tongue going to distract her partner from the finger as it began to poke past the accepting muscles. It wasn't just on the verge now, it was just the barest fraction of an inch inside.

"V-Vee... VEE!"

It sounded like she was struggling to hold on now. Of course, the safe word applied to Coco as well; if she felt things were going too far, she also had the power to call it out. But she didn't want to. As much as she was nervous about it, she wanted to let Velvet explore it. Besides, Velvet was already on her way in, already bringing the usually dominant woman to a very submissive state. And close to her limit.

"J-Jesus, Vee! You're gonna... I... i'm gonna... Huuuuaaaahh..."

The lubrication from all that wetness made this so easy. Velvet even felt a tiny tingle of arousal coming back to herself from listening to Coco so out of sorts; it wasn't normal. In fact, this was the first she'd ever heard of her master losing control on the situation. Once or twice, she had purposefully allowed her pet to do things that seemed as if she were being dominant, but it was always at her direction, it was always orders being carried out. This was the first time Velvet had managed to completely catch her off her guard and bring her quivering under her power.

The flexing of the muscle was its own hypnosis, the way it opened invitingly and then tried to close again. After a few seconds, she found her finger had slid in up to the first knuckle. This was amazing! How much deeper would it go? Moreover, how much deeper could she get before Coco finished?

Not much longer, not much deeper. Coco was already at her limit, and was struggling to keep going. But she wanted to. For the sake of Velvet's future love affairs, her confidence, she wanted to see what she was capable of. So far, she was very sure that Carm was in for a wild ride.

"Y-yeah! YEAH! Make me feel it!"

Only now did Velvet feel her eyebrows shoot up. Make her feel it? Could she not feel it already?! Those words made it sound like Coco needed the finger deeper, but that would be insane. This was way past how far she expected this to go as it was! But she complied. Pushing against the resistance, the finger slowly made its way inside until it was up to the second knuckle, her mouth attacking the clit without relenting in the slightest. If this wasn't enough, maybe she would have to use both hands.

But it was. The woman couldn't hold herself back anymore. A constant attack on her clit and her rear had finally brought her to defeat, and she cried out loudly. Her back arced and raised off the floor as she felt a powerful orgasm flow over her, making her quiver all over. Oh yes, she enjoyed that very much.

And the pet knew this. Still, even with writhing of her body and the sounds from her lips, she did not withdraw from either her clit or her rear. In fact, she only stopped to take a long lick of her entire sex before more passionately feasting on the nub again, beginning to flex the digit slightly, pushing into alternating sides of her inner walls. Maybe both of them could achieve more than one climax tonight. Coco could call it off anytime if she so chose, but if she didn't…

Alas, as much as she would continue to push Velvet over and over, Coco herself could not go on. After a short while, she only felt uncomfortable with the finger still in her rear, and when the tongue constantly went against her clit. It was unfortunate that the most dominant member of the party could barely sustain herself for more then one orgasm.

"C-carrot!"

Blinking in surprise, Velvet's head shot up so fast the phallus connected with her forehead, letting out a loud, wet SLAP! as she stared at Coco. "Did... did y-you say 'carrot'?!"

"Y-yes! Okay, I c-can't take anymore!" she groaned out. This time, it was she that was reduced to a blushing mess, and she was thanking the gods that she had her sunglasses, else she would never be able to cope with the embarrassment. How could she allow herself to be dominated so easily?!

"I-I admit it... Carm's gonna be so lucky if she can g-go multiple."

A small, blissful smile began to play across Velvet's face. It wasn't the first time she'd seen Coco blush, but it was as rare as a blue moon, and this was a brighter red than she'd ever seen.

"Well," she murmured quietly as she began to very... very slowly draw the finger out, still wriggling it the tiniest bit. Just for fun. "I don't imagine I'll be doing this with Carm anytime soon! Just wanted to see... you know, if you enjoyed this sort of thing. Did you? I mean, I didn't hurt you or anything, did I?"

"N-no. No way. I really… really enjoyed it." Coco confessed. Once again she groaned as she felt the finger moving inside her rear, knowing she wouldn't be able to take much more of that. She was certainly a woman who preferred to give rather than receive. Most of the time, she wouldn't even finish. She would never allow her partners to keep going that far. Winding her up, yes. But orgasming wasn't a very common thing for her, and she preferred it that way.

"You know me, Vee. I'm quiet about what I like. But yeah, that was good."

Hearing the humiliation and frustration in Coco's voice, Velvet stopped playing and gently slid it the rest of the way out. Then she sat there with her head bowed. "Yes, I know. I'm really sorry for asking, it probably caught you in a moment of weakness and... and you wouldn't ordinarily consent to this. B-but for my part, it was quite fun! I like making you happy here." Her lips briefly pressed against a thigh. "And not just by letting you scold my body, th-though that's really important, too. But of course, that's just my desire, and you're not supposed to j-just change what you do and don't like to do for me. S-so... so yeah."

"Hey." Coco stopped her right away, managing to sit herself upright again and holding her arms out. She wanted to hold the woman in her arms again. Their cooldown session. "If this is our last session, it was pretty damn fun. And I don't mind you using me to explore. It'll help you in your future."

Gratefully, Velvet sighed as she melted against her master's embrace. It was so warm and inviting, and comforting. Coco always smelled fabulous and strong, no matter what she had been doing before. Now, the hot smell of sex interlaced with the usual potpourri of other scents. This also comforted her, which was perhaps odd but that's because she associated the scent being this strong with aftercare, with soothing words and hands petting hair.

"Who knows? Perhaps this isn't our last session. Perhaps it's just..." But she didn't elaborate. No assumptions. They would only feel worse if they promised a lot of things and then were forced to break those promises later. "We'll see, huh, bunny rabbit? See how things go." And then she began to pet her friend's hair, softly stroking it and her ears to allow her to calm down. Delivering a soft kiss to her neck.

The cooldown sessions were all about descending gently from the massive highs they had during their activities, and healing any possible emotional wounds that were caused. The first time they played and left Velvet a crying mess, Coco soothed her with lots of soft kisses, and continued to hug her closely to let her soak into her body warmth. She wouldn't release her until she was fully recovered. Now, it didn't take very long for them to both cool down. A few minutes or so.

Careful with the hand that had been "active" recently, Velvet embraced her back and lay there for another minute or so. Then she stretched her neck out and pecked Coco on the cheek. It was as close to her lips as she ever dared kiss; that was not Coco's way, and it would be rude for her to ignore a good friend's needs. Still, if the rule wasn't in place, Velvet would likely be pressing their lips together on a regular basis.

"So... any other tips for me? Or do you think I'm ready?"

The exhausted giggle seemed to explain enough. Coco was absolutely tired out. "Are you kidding me? That was amazing. I mean, wow..."

Blushing to her roots, Velvet sat up and softly caressed her master's leg before she stood, stretching her sore muscles. "Ooh... oh my, I'm quite worn out from all that! Th-think I'll just nip out and wash up, if that's alright with you. Is it?"

"Absolutely, go clean up you messy bunny." She gave a playful wink, before hauling herself up as well. Although, she could hear a faint knock at the door. "Besides, I think my one o'clock is here."

"Oh! Oh, I- whoops, one moment!" Scrambling around the room for all her discarded clothes, she managed to dress in a manner of minutes. This was only possible after months of practice, due to being barged in on by all manner of people mid-coitus. Finally, she trotted back over to Coco with her boots in one hand.

"Can you unlock my c-collar, please?"

"Hey, what are you worried about? You do remember Fox is blind, right?" There had been many occasions in which Coco had used this fact to her advantage. Dressing herself, sneaking Velvet into other rooms, slipping her clothes on... He was the only one due back at this time, it had to be him. But, as she was asked, she wandered over to Coco, gently unlocking the leather collar from her throat and placing it back into their drawer. Maybe they would even use it again someday.

"I know that! I j-just... he might have someone behind him, or who knows? Why do you always make fun of me for being s-shy?!" It was an old and feeble complaint; she didn't really take any such needlings to heart. They joked with one another in the way that Coco pretended to be mean and Velvet pretended to take offense. Rubbing her throat, she tiptoed to the side of the door on her bare feet and crouched, boots in hand, waiting to spring through the opened door once Fox had walked inside.

Coco could only chuckle to herself, quickly throwing a jacket over her own nearly naked form as she wandered over to the door. Even if Fox was followed by someone else, she didn't really care so much. It was simply another challenge to ignore them. The woman really wasn't phased by anything.

And especially not phased when she did open the door, and their ginger-haired teammate walked in. He took in one single inhale through his nostrils and smirked.

"Am I late for the party?"

Velvet tried not to die of embarrassment as she fled. But overall, she was still as happy with her sessions as ever. And she had a whole new adventure to explore with another friend soon.