#first i was asleep and second of all i had to think a lot with this- plus i kept getting distracted | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aeyumicore · 6 months ago

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wasteland

decades after the destruction of judgement day, you return to the abyss meadow—now an empty wasteland. a painful walk down memory lane has you remembering all the sinful things sylus did to you on the day he’d brought you to the blooming field of blood-red datura.

━ .ᐟ✧ PAIRING: dragon!sylus x female reader (afab)

━ ✧.˖ GENRE: smut, porn with plot, porn with feelings/angst, angst with slight/no comfort (depends how you want to look at it), fluff, continuation of myths

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 15.9k

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, dragon!sylus, two dicks!sylus, dom!sylus, monsterfucking, HEAVY SPOILERS and references to sylus’s lore/myths (beyond cloudfall), themes of depression/trauma/loss of a loved one, marking (scratching and biting) and possessive behavior, implied virginity loss (both mc and sylus), slight BARELY coercion (trust me mc is more than willing), p in v, fingering with claws, eating out, face riding, horns as handlebars, belly bulge, belly swelling from cum, double penetration (in v), slight bondage with sylus’s tail, no protection, breeding kink, talks of mating and pregnancy, multiple orgasms, somewhat angst no comfort (depends how you look at it), has some comfort, some fluff, lots and lots of smut, knotting, fucking with knot, lots of overstimulation, boobie play, lots of making out, lots of biting, use of Y/N, use of petnames (sweetheart, little dragon, dove, sparrow, love, sorceress), slight references to ‘please & thank you’ fic (easter egg dialogue hehe), will add more warnings as needed

━ .ᐟ✧ LINKS: wasteland song - has arcane spoilers (please listen to before reading) | wasteland song - no arcane spoilers | beyond cloudfall myths | ao3

━ ✧.˖ A/N: helloooooo she is finally here jfc. first and foremost PLEASE listen to the song linked above before reading as it was a HEAVY inspiration for the angst portion of the fic, as well as parts of the fluff. of course it’ll still make sense without watching and listening but i think it’s much more impactful with, otherwise the lyrics are whatever haha.

the song is wasteland - royal & the serpent from the netflix series arcane by riot games! highly recommend watching if you haven’t :)

secondly, this fic contains HEAVY HEAVY spoilers and references to ‘beyond cloudfall’ - sylus’s second myth set, which i’ve also linked above. if you haven’t done those and care about spoilers, i would not recommend reading this. also it won’t make as much sense if you don’t know what happened in those myths, but the smut still makes sense re: sylus is a dragon.

please enjoy <3 i will admit this was really difficult for me to finish, i don’t know what it was, i lost steam half way through and really had to force myself. i am not 100% happy with the way it turned out, but i also did really enjoy writing it! i think i cried multiple times writing this lmao

will likely be on a writing hiatus. if i do write it will be for caleb :D until next time friends. i love you <3

THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL NEVER POST MY FICS ON OTHER TUMBLR BLOGS. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND ON AO3.

✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖ nsfw | minors dni | 18+ only | minors dni | nsfw ✦ . ˖ ✧ .ᐟ ˖

♫ I've held on for as long as I can, For the ones that I had to defend, I've been strong every day of my life, If she wants, death could take me this time. ♪

♪ This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow, I used to have strength, but I ran out of hope, I know it's my fault that I'm here all alone, This world is a wasteland, Please let me go, go, go, go, go, go, go. ♫

♫ If I could just lay my head down and rest, If there was nothing to fight or protect, Maybe then I could finally be free, Maybe death is like falling asleep. ♪

Hollow requiems echo in the recesses of your numbed soul, overtaken by the howling of the violent wind. Your heels crunch against barren ground, covered in fragments of basalt and granite, a speckled sea of death.

It was hard to imagine that this very valley was once covered in countless blossoming blood-red datura, peppered across the vast green fields of the meadow. Like the twinkling stars in the open night sky you’d spent many hours staring up at, atop the cliff top lair you briefly called home, years ago.

The memory of the blooming flowers, nestled against the stark contrast of those powerful ebony horns, the faint notes of requiems once sung under the gleaming moonlight, taunt you as they resonate in your aching mind. Your tail flickers, soul clenching in distaste.

Or perhaps it was your fragmented, barely-beating, heart. It was hard to tell these days.

You draw a shaky breath, willing your body to continue forward. It’d been decades since you’d last come here. After the events of the last Doomsday, events that you were all too familiar with, Philos had fallen to chaos and ruin. Tarus City was no exception.

And of course, the meadow had not been spared.

Guilt gnaws at you, clawing deeper than any beast ever could. The meadow–the resting place of your beloved. Your dragon.

Sylus.

Of course, it looked a little different now. Nothing like the day he’d pressed his lips to your forehead for the last time, his soul returning to the clouds above.

You stare out into the rolling hills of charred forests, the arid rivers snaking through the canyon like a dragon’s spine. Flecks of ember from the destruction of Doomsday still flit against the winds around you like dancing midnight petals. But there’s no flowers in sight. Not a single one.

The endless crimson mountain range stretches around you like an aegis, almost as if trying to protect the innocence that was once kept hidden here. A lifetime ago.

What a joke.

Everything you had ever held dear, ripped from your hands. Flaunted before you, reminding you of how helpless you’d been to fate’s cruel whims.

♪ This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow. ♫

“What I desire is to live freely and die without regrets.” You’d said that, once upon a time.

Did you?

If you died tomorrow, could you say you had no regrets?

Your fists clench at your sides, your claws digging into your palms, sure to break skin and draw blood. You knew the answer to that.

You’d devoted your life to filling countless troves with what treasures remained on the empty husk of Philos and enacting revenge on the members of the Sanctuary and Legion that’d survived Doomsday. Revenge and plunder, just like old times.

The day those horns had dawned from your head, your tail descending from your spine, you’d become one with Sylus. He gave you power; he gave you freedom.

So why now, when you’d accomplished everything you’d always wanted, did your life feel anything but free?

Everything you thought you’d wanted.

So what did you want now?

“You know, Tarus City can have flowers that bloom everywhere, as far as the eye can see.”

Your breath catches in your throat, the sound of his voice in your mind is as clear as the first time you’d heard it in the obsidian chapel. The same moonlit chapel in which you’d promised your souls to one another.

Lead weighs on your chest as you gaze out at the desolate fields, once a spiritual sanctuary for Sylus and you. Could it ever return to the way it was? Could flowers really bloom here again?

You’d give anything to see just one of those ruby moonflowers again, petals the same shade of scarlet as the eyes you’d dreamt of, time and again.

But like those beautiful eyes, you knew deep down. You’d never see those daturas again.

♫ I used to have strеngth, but I ran out of hope. ♪

You resolve yourself to go numb, as you had countless nights before, when dreams alluded you and nightmares sought you. Your body moves mindlessly on its own, your eyes glazed as you watch the cloudless sky above.

Would Sylus be disappointed if he saw you now? An empty shell of the sorceress that’d unsealed him from the Abyss and freed him in more ways than one.

Once upon a time, you could put on a brave mask in the face of losing your dragon.

But over time, the memory of his body, heavy and whole, fading in your arms, the petals of his soul slipping through your trembling fingers, etched itself into your soul. No matter how hard you tried to forget, you’d always remember. And because of that, your courage quickly turned into a searing rage that consumed every fiber of your being.

What would he think?

Well, you’ll never know will you? The voice in your head taunts, unmistakably yours, yet foreign and faraway.

Since you’re the one who plunged that sword into his heart.

♪ I know it’s my fault that I’m here all alone. ♫

Eventually, you find yourself atop a small clearing overlooking the entire valley. An eerie sense of familiarity grapples at you as you stare out into the horizon, feeling nearly as empty as the land before you.

You’re not sure when it started to happen. The days started to feel longer. You could no longer hear the melody in songs, see the beauty in patterns, taste the flavors in fruits you once loved.

All things unnecessary to a dragon’s survival.

Were you surviving? Your heart was beating, blood coursed through your veins, air traveled through your lungs, and yet…

You didn’t feel alive.

♫ This world is a wasteland. ♪

The wind howls on, the swirling ash making your eyes prickle. You turn on your heel to leave. There’s nothing left for you here. Nothing but fragments of the life you could’ve had, with Sylus.

But as the sun melts into the sky, descending into the crimson expanse of mountains, your soul is hit with memories so clear you double over, clutching your shoulder as it throbs.

“Only you and this flower…can touch me here.”

You stifle a sob, your other hand coming up to cover your mouth as you stare out into the bittersweet dusk. The way the waning light descends the scarlet contours, perfectly framing the once picturesque grove. And then it hits you, all at once like a wave crashing against you, pulling you under, until you can’t breathe.

This is the exact spot Sylus had taken you to the first time he’d brought you to the Abyss Meadow. After the night you’d promised your souls to one another.

The exact spot he’d let you weave those same delicate daturas into his horns, grimacing adorably the entire time as you did so. Where you rolled around the meadow grasses in his willful arms, revenge and the Sanctuary a long forgotten thought, just you and your dragon.

The spot he’d kissed you for the very first time. The first of what you’d thought would be a lifetime of kisses shared with him.

Where you’d shared yourselves wholly, bodies and soul, every touch a promise, every kiss a vow.

The mark on your shoulder burns, your vision hazing with tears that you’re not sure you can blame on the ash anymore. Clenching your eyes shut, you blink them away, trying to steel your resolve and push the memories back down, where you’d kept them hidden for decades.

♪ I'm not ready to face it. ♫

But they rattle violently in the cage you’d built for them, your spirit is unrelenting. Or perhaps, it’s the remnants of his own soul etched into yours that refuse to let you fade completely into the darkness.

♫ Don't go saying goodbye. ♪

Eventually the branding waves of agony that radiated from the bite thrum to a pulsing halt, replaced with a heat that was all too familiar. You finally crack open your teary eyes, your vision filled with the breathtaking canvas of sunset.

The colors cast the withered meadow in the same breathtaking glow from that day.

♫ There's a beauty in changes, and I wanna try. ♪

–

Red.

Growing up in the Ivory City, you were surrounded by nothing but the blinding incandescence of white marble that was said to symbolize purity and prosperity. On the other hand, the children of the Sanctuary had been conditioned to associate the color red with Doomsday, the Fiend, and death.

But as the flecks of vermillion heat sparkled in Sylus’s eyes, his sultry gaze flickering to your lips, you knew you’d never known a color so beautiful.

“But only for one person,” he murmurs, claws gently gripping your neck, his other hand stroking the datura he’d placed behind your ear. Sylus takes a second to admire the delicate flower, imagining Tarus City covered in them. And you, among them, serenading those familiar requiems for him.

His hooded eyes meet yours again, and a low growl elicits from his chest as his body is overcome with a burning need to claim you. His beloved.

“Sylus…” you plead breathily, squirming under his gaze and shifting atop him, still straddling him in the field of blooming red moonflowers. Sylus hisses, his slackened jaw twitching and his claws digging into your chin, bringing you closer.

“You had better watch yourself, my little sorceress,” Sylus purrs dangerously, fighting to maintain control, “I should warn you–”

Your heart hammers, pounding audibly in your ears, as Sylus pulls you the rest of the distance in. His bottom lip grazes against yours as his eyes flutter shut, his breath hot and sweet, “I don’t have the patience to wait any longer.”

He wastes no time before furiously crashing his lips to yours, claiming what was his. His claws are deliciously possessive as they trace your racing pulse, savoring the way your body trembles under his touch.

You moan into his open lips when his fingers softly wrap around your neck, the tips of his ebony talons tracing soft patterns into your skin. He smirks against your lips, taking the opportunity to push his hot tongue against yours, tasting every inch of you.

The world around you fades away, your senses filled with only him. You can vaguely feel his tail wrapping around your thigh, the tip stroking the bare skin of your calf as you tightly clutch his hips.

The raw passion of his tongue against yours makes it feel as if he’s nearly breathing fire into your soul, his body growing more demanding as he feels your heat pulse against the growing bulge in his pants. The intoxicating smell of your arousal nearly sends him into a frenzy, and it takes everything within him to not throw you under him right then and there.

When you finally pull away to breathe, you’re a panting blushing mess. Sylus on the other hand only smirks up at you, his frustratingly beautiful face lightly dusted in a peachy sheen. Overcome with the urge to wipe the smug look off his face, you brush your thumb across his kiss-bitten bottom lip, forcefully resituating yourself on his lap. You bite back your grin when he hisses, his claws digging into the fat of your hips.

“What did you mean, when you said ‘you couldn’t wait any longer’?” you tease, fueled with confidence as you watch his vermillion eyes darken, the muscles of his abdomen tensing as your hands trace their way down his body. When your fingers graze the blood-red gem embedded in his chest, Sylus’s hand catches your wrist, his grip firm yet tender.

He brings your hand up to his mouth, pressing your palm into his lips, “Do you really need me to say it?”

You bat your eyelashes innocently at him, pouting, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Sylus’s chest rumbles as he chuckles, his eyes gleaming mischievously. His eyes never leave yours, the heated desire in them making the arousal between your legs increase, as he kisses your fingertips one by one.

“Dragons are solitary,” he says, kissing the pad of each finger. His tail uncoils from your thigh, only to loosely wrap around your waist, reminding you of how the mountain cat would twist its tail around your ankle.

“We grow up together, in packs,” his words are melancholic, as if remembering a painful memory, but when his ruby eyes return to yours they shine as bright as the waning sun above you, “But when we reach adulthood, we tend to go off on our own.”

You pondered his words, waiting for him to go on and doing your best to swallow the lump of emotions that’d formed in your throat at the thought of Sylus, alone for centuries. He nips at your fingers, his tongue coming out to lick tenderly at your skin.

The swirling heat in his crimson orbs are shadowed under his thick eyebrows, the very eye you’d been so drawn to boring into your newly intertwined souls.

“Can you recall what that human said that day at the market? The merchant?”

You nod curiously, biting back the shiver as Sylus continues to lick at your skin, daring further and letting his canines graze you, “Yes. That the Fiend would meet his destined archnemesis once more.”

His hands abandon yours, settling instead around your waist. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of your hips as he beckons you down towards him, the corners of his lips quirking upward as he watches you squirm, a faint gasp escaping your parted mouth when his claws inch their way up your exposed back.

“Archnemesis…” he scoffs cryptically, pushing your body down against his chest, wrapping his thick arms around your smaller body, “Such a foolish human concept.”

Sylus shifts so that you’re lying completely on top of him, his tail securing you against his heavy abdomen, the unmistakable outline of something large and terrifying pressed against your core.

“Fate binds souls together–it’s written in the cosmos far above the clouds before the existence of time. Two souls that are a reflection of each other, in enmity and devotion. It’s much more than a mere destined archnemesis. This is the way of the world.”

The weight of his words begins to dawn on you, the meaning of them pressing heavily on your thundering heart. Sylus presses his lips to the mark he’d left on your shoulder in what felt like a lifetime ago.

“Ngh–!” you cry, Sylus’s teeth sinking into you. He bites down, tail constricting around you, wanting to hold you closer–tighter. You squirm against him, fingers pulling at his silver tresses, nearly seeing white as the pleasure and pain simultaneously shoots out from the crook of your neck, ebbing into every nerve of your body.

You can feel Sylus’s smug smile against your throbbing skin, his own hips coming up to grind torturously against you. He’d grown painfully hard, his cock unbearably hard in the restraints of his pants, fighting its way to get to you.

“Dragons live in solitude for the remainder of their lives,” he continues, his lips suddenly at your ear as you’re panting into his hard chest, trying to control your pathetic moans, “But some are fortunate enough to find–what you humans might call–their soulmates.”

Sylus grabs your jaw, forcing you to focus your hazy eyes on his. Though his grip is bruising, his thumb strokes soothing circles into your skin.

“A dragon mates for eternity, in this life and the next. There is only one–if even that.”

“Archnemesis, soulmate, mate. Call it what you will,” he whispers huskily, the desire in his voice palpable as he brings your chin in, his eyes darkening with a mix of lust and adoration. Your chest flutters as you take in the implication of Sylus’s words. The puzzle pieces of your fractured life began to fall into place–the Sanctuary, the weapon inside you, the golden lamp you’d treasured. Everything.

“I have known your soul was destined for mine, long before you pulled that Gods-forsaken sword out of my chest,” Sylus growls, nearly feral as the last of his patience snaps. You dissolve into a fit of squeals as Sylus effortlessly flips you under him, his hands cupping the back of your head and your lower back protectively as your body hits the plush meadow grass.

“And I can’t wait a moment longer.”

He wastes absolutely no time in bringing your lips to his once more, swallowing your moans and replacing them with his own heated breath. Your hands claw at any part of Sylus they can reach, nails leaving behind a red trail of passion that makes him groan with excitement.

Possessed with the need for more, you wrap your thighs around his waist, using your legs to cage him against you. Sylus’s grip in your hair tightens as he pulls away, a string of saliva connecting your feverishly panting lips. His other hand comes down to clutch your thigh, his fingers crawling under your dress.

“Y/N. Do you know what you’re doing?” he pants, chest heaving, pupils blown with a lust so dangerous that your instincts are screaming at you to run. You bring your hands up to cup his face, mustering up all your courage.

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” you whisper, your eyes fluttering as you trail your fingers down his chest, resting them right above his belt and letting your fingernails delicately stroke the hair that leads to his pelvis.

A primal snarl erupts from Sylus’s chest at your blatant teasing, and in the blink of an eye you find your wrists bound above your head, his thick tail wrapped around them like a rope, his knee forcing your thighs apart.

“Just so you know, my love,” he leans in, face inches from yours, his arrogant smile hauntingly beautiful and terrifying all at once. He dips into the crook of your neck, heated breath washing over your mark, “Dragons are not known to show mercy.”

“I can handle it, Sylus,” you retort defiantly, though your trembling voice almost betrays you. Sylus only chuckles, his eyes glinting wildly at you, swirling with the darkness of all the things he wants to do to you.

“That’s my girl.”

You’re unable to speak further, crying out when Sylus’s fingers, that’d found their way under the skirt of your dress, demandingly cup your leaking sex, his lips latching onto the burning mark on your shoulder once more.

His tongue on your neck alone is enough to have you writhing under him, begging and pleading for more. The pleasure is so overwhelmingly blinding that your eyes are squeezed shut, body convulsing involuntarily to even his gentlest touches. You’d surmise that it must’ve had something to do with what he’d said about your fate bonded souls, that made your body react so violently to his.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t let you ponder it further, his finger dipping in between your dripping core to snap your attention back to him.

“Are you still with me, sweetheart?” he coos, brushing his middle finger up and down your weeping slit, careful to only brush against you with his calloused skin, keeping his claws tucked away. You glare up at him, weakly slapping his forearm that was wedged between your shaking thighs. You open your mouth to snark at him, but Sylus uses that moment to stroke your clit with the pointed edge of his talon.

“Sylus!” you cry, halfway between a moan and a scream, “Ahhngh–p-please!”

“Mmm? What’s that?” Sylus murmurs, twitching his fingers to ever-so-slightly caress your aching clit with his claws. “Begging for more already?”

Your back lifts off the ground, the feeling of his fingers on your cunt so sharp and dizzying that your mind is caught between wanting to squirm away but needing to chase more. But it seems your body knows exactly what it wants, arching further into his hand, forcing his fingers further into you.

Your hands come up to grasp the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair and gently stroking the base of his jagged ebony horns. Sylus freezes, his jaw tightening, a choked grunt escaping him, despite how badly he tries to hold it back. It doesn’t go unnoticed by you.

“Sylus?” you whisper incredulously, your fingers pausing, “Does that hurt?”

Sylus doesn’t answer, his breath coming out in shallow and needy pants, eyes shut as he hovers above you. His fingers have stilled, though still between your folds. Your worry dissipates when your eyes drift down, trailing down his trembling abdomen, all the way to the lump in his lap that ruts desperately against your thigh.

It’s then you realize that your formidable dragon does indeed have a weakness.

How adorable.

So with Sylus’s finger still parting your soaked lips, you use one hand to tenderly grab one of his horns, the other hand coming down to palm his bulge. His reaction makes you bite your lip with satisfaction, as his knees nearly buckle, still hovering above you, and his eyes filling with a volatile hunger.

“You never learn do you?” he bites out, but he doesn’t pull away, his body only leaning further into your touch. His head nuzzles ever so slightly into your fingers that are still intertwined into his hair, stroking his horns.

“I would say I’m faring quite well, wouldn’t you agree?” you croon, emboldened by the way his hips thrust down into your open palm, even if only imperceptibly.

At your adorably bold words, Sylus smirks at you, head cocked in amusement. His red eyes glimmer, a thick cloud of predatory desire swirling in the pools of garnet.

“You shouldn’t taunt a dragon, my love.”

You shriek when Sylus’s finger enters you, claw and all. You’re so wet that the brief sting of his lethal talon only serves to intensify the overwhelming waves of ecstasy he’s so deliberate in giving you. His finger moves so intentionally inside you, careful to only use the tip of his claw in ways that will have you clenching him for more.

Sylus swears under his breath as he watches the way you writhe against the ruby flora, his erection growing unbearably painful and wet within the constraints of his pants.

Dragons may not have the ability to recognize beauty. But as you clung to him, nails digging into his skin, sweet voice only capable of calling out for him, your wide eyes fluttering open and shut in overwhelming ecstasy…

Sylus knew there was nothing more beautiful in this world.

“Sy-Sylus,” you cry, “It’s t-too much. C-can’t–!” The dangerous feeling of his claws inside you is starting to make you delirious, your head dizzy with the need to come undone all over his fingers. The foreign pressure in your abdomen scares you into trying to scamper away from his hand, finger flicking inside your constricting walls

“Hm? Don’t you trust me sweetheart? I know exactly how much my little dragoness can take,” he murmurs gruffly, his thumb pressing harder into you. It seems Sylus knows exactly what he’s doing to you, because his tail wraps firmly around your waist, locking you in place, demanding you receive every bit of him.

“You can take another, hm?” he asks, but his tone all but commands it.

Your eyes widen; honestly you don’t think you can. Just one of his fingers has you feeling like you might pass out from the unfamiliar feelings of pleasure. Just one of his fingers has you feeling so full you might combust.

He’s on his knees between your legs now–the juxtaposition of such a formidable being kneeling before, pleading for your pleasure, makes your body clench with even more anticipation.

“D-don’t know if I ca-aan,” you whimper brokenly, body still pathetically arching into his hands, chasing an ecstasy you don’t even know if you can handle.

Sylus tuts gently, “Tch–you can. I need to stretch you out here before anything else can happen.”

You shiver at his words, trusting the foreboding warning wholeheartedly. Sylus was a dragon, after all, and you had no doubt he would be well-endowed, like everything else about him. Probably much more than your poor human body would be able to take.

And the thought of that alone makes you crave him like nothing before.

So you nod slowly, and Sylus smiles, the pride evident in his eyes.

“Good girl.”

Sylus tips your chin up towards him with the tip of his claw, capturing your lips into a kiss that steals your breath away. At the same time, he slips another finger into you.

He swallows your cries, and your fingers frantically grab hold of the grass around you, tearing and shredding at the green blades. If it weren’t for his tail wrapped around your waist, holding you in place, you’d be thrashing wildly, the ecstasy of his two fingers and claws inside your plush walls nearly unbearable.

Sylus’s nips at your lips, before his tongue replaces them and stakes claim to every inch of your mouth. He groans into you, using his spare hand to palm his painful erection, still restrained in the confines of his pants. When he pulls away, saliva dribbles down your chin, his lips trailing kisses down your jaw and to the shell of your ear.

“So tight around just my fingers,” Sylus seethes hungrily, his hand moving faster now, breath coming out shallow and hot against your ear, “I’m the only one that’s ever been here, hm?”

He curls his fingers inside you, his claws grazing just slightly against the spongy surface of your walls, demanding a verbal response from you. His voice drips with a possessive intensity that makes your entire body throb.

“Of course,” you whine, slightly embarrassed as your body arches up to meet his hand's ministrations, close to coming undone, “Wh-When would I have…at the Sanctuary…?”

A deep and satisfied rumble of satisfaction comes from Sylus’s chest, as he buries his face into your neck, inhaling your scent. Almost like a purr.

“Mine.”

With two of his fingers scissoring in and out of you, stretching you out to your max, you quickly feel like you’re about to absolutely burst, the edges of your vision turning white, stars clouding your sight.

“Ngghnh–Syluus…” you slur, your eyes watering, slightly terrified, “C-can’t anymore. Feels like m’gonna explode–!”

Sylus growls excitedly, fingers moving more insistently, literally trying to pull the orgasm out of you. The sounds of his palm slapping against dripping pussy grow louder and louder, all your senses overwhelmed until you’re on the verge of losing consciousness to it all.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Sylus praises, his canines at your earlobes, his own voice tinged with a primal hunger that’s barely held back by a thin string of restraint, “Cum for me, just like that.”

Though his words are simple, there’s an underlying command that lies just beneath the surface. Sylus would never stoop as low as to beg for anything, dragons were incredibly prideful beings after all, but more than anything he needed to see you cum, right now–for the very first time. Something he’d imagined more times he’d care to admit, on the many late nights you’d shared looking up at the moon after a journey of ravaging and plundering treasures.

So instead of begging, Sylus sinks his teeth into the brand on your shoulder, once again laying his claim on you. Your sweet taste fills his mouth and he can’t stop the muffled moan that escapes him, devouring you to his absolute content, fingers never faltering once.

Your eyes roll into your head at the indescribable sensation of pain and pleasure that surge from your neck, the shockwaves connecting with the same spasms of ecstasy that emanate from his fingers buried in your cunt.

“Sy-Sylus—! Ngh–It’s c-coming!” you can’t stop yourself from screaming unabashedly, though it didn’t matter as Sylus made sure there wouldn’t be anyone for miles and miles, for this very reason.

He doesn’t respond, alternating between biting and licking affectionately–aggressively–at the place he had marked you as his. His tail tightens around you, making you feel so deliciously suffocated, in the best ways. Making it feel like your very life depended on him.

Your next breath of air, your unrelenting pleasure, your soul.

Sylus, Sylus, Sylus.

With a strangled cry of his name, you feel the foreign sensation of a tension cord snapping in your gut, followed by a warm gush of mind numbing euphoria that consumes your entire quivering body.

Sylus swears under his breath, his fingers slowing but not stopping, helping you ride out the lasting waves of your very first orgasm. He releases your tender skin from his teeth, his hot breath blowing against you. His claws capture your chin between them, gently pulling your head back down to meet his eyeline.

“Look at the mess you’ve made, Y/N,” Sylus hums, slipping his fingers out of you and lifting them so you can clearly see the way they’re dripping with something clear and wet. Your cheeks burn in embarrassment.

“It’s not m’fault,” your voice comes out annoyingly shaky, still recovering from the earth-shattering experience. You swat his hands away weakly, “Stop. S’embarrassing.”

Sylus chuckles, letting you push his hands back towards him. But he tenses suddenly, the thick muscles of his arms locking. The planes of his sharp jaw twinge, his entire body rigid, like he’d just been struck by lightning.

“Sylus?” you whisper, sitting up and cupping his cheek into your palm, “What’s wrong?”

Sylus’s eyes are locked onto his fingers, his nostrils twitching. You’re mortified when Sylus brings his fingers to his face, his movements almost trancelike.

“Don’t do that,” you protest, eyes wide, moving to grab his wrist. But Sylus dodges you easily, swiftly removing his arm from your grasp, the smell of you on his fingers intoxicating him to the point of madness. The sheer primal hunger in his blood-red eyes is so far away, you almost don’t recognize him.

You’re acutely aware that you’re currently no more than a little rabbit trapped in a lion’s den. If it weren’t for the way his tail still wrapped around your waist so tenderly, you’d think he was the same Fiend that nearly lost himself and killed you that day.

Sylus doesn’t speak, his chest heaving erratically as he brings his fingers up to his lips, tongue catching every rivulet of your slick. His pupils dilate, locked onto you, a storm of emotions brewing beneath the carmine pools, his primal instincts nearly taking control. One thing swims to the surface above them all.

Hunger.

In a fraction of a second, you find yourself pinned to the grassy floor again, your head thudding to the ground against Sylus’s protective hand. Your wrists are bound above your head, with one of your thighs held open by Sylus’s tail and the other with his knee. His lips are everywhere, first at your neck, then down your shoulder, lingering at your mark, then trailing down your collar, to your breasts.

“Mm–ngh! Sylus?” you can hardly speak as he lingers at the swell of your chest, “What are you doing?”

“I can taste you,” he hisses, reaching your naval. You can vaguely recall the conversation you’d had with him awhile back–that dragons couldn’t understand a song’s melody or see the beauty in patterns.

Taste the flavors in food.

“More,” is all he’s capable of biting out, before prying your thighs apart. Of course, Sylus had no idea what it meant for something to taste sweet, how the burgundy jewels of the pomegranates you loved so much tasted. But if he had to take a guess…

They’d be nothing compared to the honey he had found between your legs.

“But–I thought dragons c-couldn’t…ah–!” you trail incredulously, yelping as Sylus hooks one of his arms under your knees, sweeping you briefly off the ground so he can yank your skirt off in one swift motion.

You’re left in only your drenched undergarments, skirt thrown somewhere to the side as Sylus resumes his relentless journey into your inner thighs, leaving a trail of angry hickeys in his wake.

“We can’t,” Sylus pants into you, suckling on the soft plush of your thighs, eyeing the glistening folds of your cunt that peek through your sodden panties like his next prey. He’s so close that you can feel his hot breath against your core, and it only makes you wetter.

“But apparently I can taste this.”

The moan you let out is more beautiful than any melody you could ever sing for him, as his mouth closes over your clit, tongue wedging between your slicked lips.

“W-Wait Sylus, m’sensitive!” you protest, still coming down from the way he’d just made your body explode minutes earlier, your core quivering against the heavy demand of his lips. But as you sit up on your elbows and peer down at the silver-haired dragon between your legs, taking one look at Sylus, you know there is absolutely no getting through to him.

Sylus has his mouth latched onto you, like he’s trying to drink your essence right from the source. His nose is buried right beneath your clit, every slightest movement causing the strong ridges to brush against the taut bundle of nerves, making it difficult for you to think straight.

You try to sit up further, but Sylus’s large palm comes up to flatten against your stomach, forcing you back down. He looks up at you, eyes dark and eyebrows furrowed, practically glaring at you.

“Don’t deny me of this,” he growls pleadingly, the sheer need in his voice making your toes curl against the grass.

The strength of his hand has you flopping back down, your body already succumbing to Sylus, yet again. You want to curse your traitorous body as it grinds into his greedy mouth, your mind battling your body’s instinct to chase the feelings that only Sylus can seem to give you.

Why not just give in? That’s what Sylus had been teaching you, right?

Live freely and die without regrets.

You grab two fistfulls of Sylus’s soft silver hair, pulling him impossibly closer to the apex of your thighs, shivering as he moans into you. His thick arms wrap around your thighs, holding on greedily, claws digging in.

“I should punish you for keeping this from me,” Sylus pants, pulling away for a brief second, giving you a pointed smirk. He uses his thumb to wipe the sheen of your arousal from his bottom lip.

“You can’t always get what you want Sylus. Sometimes you have to work for it,” you quip breathlessly, reeling from the sudden lack of his warm and wet tongue.

Sylus chuckles, dark and rich. The dangerous glint in his ruby eyes is one that is all too familiar to you. Your skin crawls, pebbling with goosebumps, and before you can scamper away from him, his fingers come down with a resounding wet ‘smack’ against your unsuspecting cunt.

“Sy-Sylus!” you cry, halfway between a screech and a moan, your body convulsing into a painful arch as it reaches up to meet his palm. Sylus uses that moment to hook his other hand under your back, lifting your body up with one arm, and hoisting you into the air.

You flail as he swings you around, pulling at his hair until you grasp his horns. Sylus hisses, and you find yourself back on the soft grass matted floor. But this time you’re on your knees, straddling Sylus’s face.

“Sylu–ngh!” your eyes widen when his tongue licks at your slit, “P-Please! This is embari-ngh-sing!” It’s impossible to get your words out coherently when his tongue is moving so insistently, trying to drain every drop of your essence.

He digs his claws into the tops of your thighs, trying to pull you down, despite the way you fight to keep yourself propped up on your heels.

“Don’t resist,” he tuts, his voice muffled and rough, “Sit, love.”

”No!” you protest petulantly, sobbing in ecstasy as he sucks down hard on your clit, as if punishing you for your disobedience, “I’m heavy. Don’t wanna squash you.”

“Do you truly think so little of me?” he scoffs, positively offended, his breath warm against your core, “Sit. Now.”

You bite your lip in uncertainty as you stay hovering above him. Sylus remains patient, indulging himself instead by sinking his teeth into the soft skin of your inner thighs. You tremble, nearly doubling over as he suckles on your leg, biting a trail of flowery bruises leading up to your core.

You remain stubbornly, but shakingly, upright. Sylus sighs, losing his patience completely and yanking you down by your thighs, leaving you with no choice but to completely fall onto his waiting mouth.

Your eyes roll back, knees buckling entirely, when Sylus’s tongue enters you, stretching you out over his overeager lips. Your entire body nearly gives out, as you fall forward, your hands barely coming out in time to catch you before you collide with the meadow floor.

But when your palms are supposed to meet the grassy floor, Sylus catches them instead, your fingers intertwining desperately. The tips of his claws stroke your burning skin, terribly soothing compared to the way his tongue was ravishing you so filthily.

Your body reacts to him so readily, your hips starting to grind down almost instinctively, much to Sylus’s satisfaction. His cock twitches, heart nearly pounding through the veins that bulge along the sides, at the idea of you using him for yourself. He hums in pleasure, pressing a teasing kiss to your clit and whispering, “That’s it sweetheart, take what you want from me.”

His words make you squirm. Your hands card through Sylus’s soft silver locks, grabbing hold of his ebony horns for leverage. Sylus growls at your core, the vibrations of his low rumble making you writhe and grind harder onto his lips, your body being pushed toward another explosive release.

“Hah, c-can’t anymore!” you cry, gripping his horns tighter, riding his face for dear life. Sylus doesn’t speak, but his enthusiastic tongue wordlessly conveys his words for him.

You might not be able to, but you will.

Your thighs cling to him, hips rolling into him with wild abandon. Everything about him, his honeyed words, his expert tongue, his possessive fingers make your body desperate for more, to take everything it wants. You’re so lost in your own pleasure that you don’t notice the way Sylus is likewise losing his mind beneath you.

The way you grip his unbearably sensitive horns makes him jerk with need, the taste of your arousal a never ending drug on his tongue. Above all, the way you rode him, the way your body sought exactly what it desired, the way you surrendered to desire, to him, in this moment.

You truly were the other half of his soul.

“O-Oh go–od Sylus!” you moan brokenly, your voice hoarse from the incessant cries, bordering on screams, for him. Your thumbs dig into where his horns meet his scalp, your chest heaving violently as you try to stay upright on his tongue, coming undone across his eagerly waiting lips.

Sylus growls in relief, his enthusiasm bordering on obsession. His tongue laps up every honeyed drop, savoring a taste he knew he’d become all too addicted to. Luckily for him, he’d have you for the rest of eternity. And he fully intended on tasting you, devouring you, every day of his life.

As you start to climb off his face, Sylus grabs you before you can crawl onto the floor, away from him. He carries you as delicately as he would the blooming daturas that surround you, laying you before him, settling between your parted thighs.

“Sylus,” you murmur breathlessly, looking up at him. The waning sun peeks out behind his head, the sky a sunset sorbet that is beginning to melt into the indigo of approaching night. With the fading sun behind him, he is an utterly devastating sight for sore eyes.

You loop your arms around his neck, dragging him down to you. He grunts, letting himself be pulled down to you, a ghost of a smile on his kiss bitten lips.

“I want…” you murmur hoarsely, trailing off as you let your fingers fall, tracing the muscles of his chest, drifting further south until they are grazing the defined contours of his abdomen.

Sylus’s fingers grasp your chin, bringing your eyes back up, where you meet his fiery gaze. His thumb presses into your bottom lip, prying your mouth open gently.

“Go on, my dove,” he hums, his voice practically a purr as he presses the lethal tip of his claw onto your tongue, “Tell me what it is you want.”

You open your lips to speak but between your sore throat, parched from your incessant moans, and the foreign desire still growing in both your gut and your heart, you were far too ashamed to speak further. But with the way Sylus was staring at you, his right eye flickering dangerously, you knew he could see right into your soul.

Sylus’s lips turn up into an absolute shit-eating smirk, his beautiful deep garnet irises gleaming with a rich amusement.

“Can’t speak anymore?” he chuckles amusedly, his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“That’s alright,” he murmurs, his voice taking on a snarl that’s simultaneously dangerously edged yet velveteen. The ends of his claws trace your pulse as his fingers venture down, making your breath hitch. You shiver, giddy at the idea that those very talons, that were capable of such destruction, were now caressing you with so much tender passion.

“All you’ll need to be able to say is Sylus, hm?”

You light absolutely ablaze at his filthy words, your stomach churning in anticipation at what you know is coming. What you want more than anything you’ve ever known.

His fingers, that’d found their way to the swell of your chest, shred the delicate straps of your corset with the slightest flick of his claws. You squeal as your naked body is exposed to the elements, writhing as the wind nips at your bare skin.

“Hey!” you protest hoarsely, sitting up, your arms darting to wrap around your chest, “Was that really necessary?!” But of course, Sylus is far quicker than you. He catches your wrists easily, holding them in his hands, leaving you beautifully exposed before his hungry eyes.

“No,” he smirks cheekily, face coming inches from yours, his breath fanning across your lips. You glare at him in annoyance, which only makes his grin widen.

“Now it’s my turn to take what I want,” he murmurs, pushing you flat against the grass. With your hands still restrained against his palm, he kisses down your neck, leaving a trail of claiming bruises along the way.

“Beautiful. The truest treasure,” he rasps between kisses. He lingers on the mark on your shoulder, not being able to help but to indulge himself there.

A stream of unabashed moans escape your lips as Sylus bites down, hard. So hard you think he might draw blood. His canines are so close to your pulse; your instincts scream at you to flee, but your soul forces you to stay.

Pain and pleasure, it was all the same. If Sylus was giving it, you wanted it.

This is the man fate had destined for you. Your dragon.

And you fully intended to show him that as well.

With his head at your shoulder, his own neck exposed to you, you couldn’t help but press your lips into his pulse. Sylus tenses in surprise, unwittingly sensitive, but he doesn’t pull away. In fact, his body bucks into yours, his pelvis pressing into you, as if desperately seeking something from you.

“You never learn do you, my little sparrow?” he bites out, his voice rough and raspy. Despite his words, he doesn’t pull away in the slightest. You smile into his neck and gently sink your teeth into his soft skin, desperate to mark him in the same way he’d marked you.

Sylus's breath grows erratic against you, his chest heaving unsteadily. His hands come up to hold you possessively against him, his powerful tail coils around your arched waist, like you might disappear at any second. Your fingers thread into his hair, hooking onto his horns again, as you continue to kiss into his neck.

But suddenly, Sylus is yanking himself away from you, his tail prying you off of him.

“Too much?” you mumble apologetically as you watch him straighten up, waiting for him to settle back down.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he props himself onto his knees, focussed and dangerous. Like a predator before the hunt.

“No. It’s not enough.”

With that, he’s undoing the buckle of his belt, his darkened eyes never leaving yours. You can’t help but bite your lip as you watch the bulging veins of his forearms, his hand reaching into his undone pants. Sylus looks devastatingly handsome as he undresses himself before you, eyeing you like his next meal.

You don’t get to see him pull himself out before Sylus is back on you, his lips fervently attacking yours. You don’t know what’s changed, because the Sylus that’s kissing you right now has completely thrown restraint to the wind, like he’s trying to claim every fiber of your being with this one kiss.

His body is so imposing atop yours that, even naked, you feel nothing but warm and safe in the evening breeze. He’s so close, you can feel his eyelashes on your cheek. But you can’t stop pulling him closer, moaning in satisfaction when he holds you bruisingly tighter.

Still, you want more of him.

Your hand inches down to grasp his manhood in your fingers, pulling away from the kiss with a choke. Being a dragon, you had no doubt that Sylus would be larger than what you’d been told was average from the other women at the Sanctuary. As soon as your fingers make contact, Sylus’s tail is roped around your wrist, the thick scales digging into your burning skin, his eyes filled with a volatile hunger.

He doesn’t pull you away. His tail wrapped around your wrist seems to be more of a silent warning.

If you continue, there’s no going back.

Sylus’s eyes follow you carefully, his right eye shining as he seems to read your every whim and wonder. Every doubt, every fear, every fantasy.

“You can take it, sweetheart,” he coos reassuringly, reading your mind like the back of his hand, thumb catching a stray tear you hadn’t even known had fallen, “I’ve more than prepared you.”

You eye him skeptically, taking a deep breath, peering down at where your bodies are firmly pressed together. Your breath hitches at how pathetically small your hand looks wrapped around him, his erection as beautiful as it was terrifying.

How many fingers had you been able to take earlier? Two?

You were fucked. Literally.

“Y/N,” Sylus calls, his voice taking on a tender warmth that you rarely heard from him, clearly able to read your nervousness.

He grips your chip and tilts your face back up to meet his eyes. Hoisting you up by your waist, he sets you on his lap so that you’re straddling him, wrapping your legs around his hips. His cock stands proudly, arousal smearing all over your bare navel, brushing against your clit as he presses you so deeply into his body that it rests between your leaking folds. Fitting like a puzzle piece.

“I have waited over a millennium for this. For you. I can wait a millennium more, until you’re ready.”

Your body immediately reacts to his profoundly heartfelt words, your chest constricting and your core fluttering. It’s not hard to decide what you want, right then and there.

“I trust you, Sylus,” you say firmly, voice still raspy and hoarse, “I want you. Please.”

Sylus curses under his breath. One forearm wraps around your ass, lifting you and his other hand angling himself so that his thick leaking head is nudging right at your entrance, begging to be inside you. You writhe at the friction, your hips rocking onto him on instinct.

The silver haired man growls, arms tightening around you like a vice, “You drive me insane, Y/N,” he rasps into your ear, his breath hot and heavy.

At long last, he presses himself into you. Crying out, your nails dig into his shoulders, sure to break skin. The discomfort was immeasurable, your body wildly confused by the intense pain but the strange feeling of intimacy.

“I don’t think I can–I can’t!” your hips locking, eyes welling with tears. The stretch was beyond anything you could have ever fathomed, and you were almost sure he would break you.

“You can, you can,” he soothes, almost desperately, like he was terrified you might ask him to stop. Every muscle in his body was locked and tense as he fought the urge to ram right into you, ravaging you like every instinct was telling him to do.

With even just the tip barely inside, he knew this was far too dangerous. The feeling of you wrapped around him was far too addicting, one of few things that threatened to make him lose all humanity to the untamed dragon blood flowing through his veins.

You always were his one weakness.

The urgency, the desperation, in his voice makes your tummy flutter, your body tightening in response to him.

Sylus hisses, his tail constricting around your waist, claws digging into the fat of your hips, “Don’t tighten up. Not if you want me to be gentle.”

“Am I?” you moan as he shifts, sinking slightly more into you, “M’sorry Sy. D-didn't mean to.”

A low rumble ripples from his chest as he does his best not to slam you down the rest of the way down onto the hilt of his cock. Which was nearly impossible because every time he moved at all, he swore your pussy was trying to choke him out.

“Is it all the way in yet?” you whisper, fighting to keep your voice level. You had never felt more full in your life, your gut on the verge of splitting. The pain and since dulled into a somewhat bearable ache, but it was by no means comfortable.

“Half way, love,” he murmurs, pressing a tender kiss to your forehead.

Your eyes widen in shock, “W-What?!” You look down between your bodies, and sure enough, Sylus was still hoisting you halfway above his impossibly massive member. There’s a faint smear of red across the sheen of your combined arousals. Your blood.

Before you can speak further, Sylus presses his lips to yours, stealing your breath as his own. He swallows your moans, his tongue and cock simultaneously sinking further into you.

A string of saliva connects your lips when he pulls away, his fingers tenderly holding your chin, his darkened scarlet eyes piercing into yours. His right eye glimmers with a dangerous edge.

“You’re doing so well, sweetheart,” he rasps, still hanging onto his last thread of his control, “You can take it all, can’t you? Perfect little mate.”

Your chest and core simultaneously flutters at his words and you’re fueled with a newfound confidence and an overwhelming wave of lust. It really seemed that Sylus knew exactly what to say to you to have you wanting more.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you roll your hips, trying to inch your own way down him, practically able to feel his pulsing veins throbbing against your gummy walls. The pain from the stretch was still there, but Sylus had prepped you so thoroughly that it was beginning to be difficult to feel anything but good.

“I can take more Sylus,” you murmur into his ear, pressing a wet kiss into his throbbing pulse, “I want more.”

An animalistic snarl rips out from deep within Sylus’s chest. His fingers squeeze literally bruises into your hips as he whispers back into your ear, breath hot and heavy.

“Yeah? That’s my girl,” he rasps, trying to contain his hunger, before lowering you the rest of the onto his cock, seating you entirely on his lap.

He gives you a second to adjust, licking the tears that had started to stream down your cheek. It quickly feels unnatural, and you’re desperate for some friction, the pressure of him at your cervix too intense.

“Ngh–Sy-Sylus,” you moan, “Please, move–do something.”

Sylus twitches inside you, your words fueling him with the desire to breed you full of him, “You’re playing with fire, my little dragon.”

He wraps his thick arms around your body and begins to bounce you up and down on his lap, trying to keep a slow and gentle rhythm, doing his best to ensure you’d be in as little pain as possible.

Of course it didn’t matter, with his sheer size alone, pain was inevitable.

But so was pleasure.

Your body had begun reacting to Sylus all on its own, your hips rolling into Sylus’s sculpted abdomen, trying to pull him deeper into your saccharine heat.

“Ngh–haah…Sy-Sylus!” you splutter, fingers clawing deep red welts into the ropes of muscles on his back, “Feels…”

His tail tightens around your waist, the tip stroking along your thigh, almost affectionately. His pace grows increasingly more vigorous, more excited, as he watches your face contort in different phases of pain and pleasure, “You feel incredible.”

His words, the feral rasp in his voice, so animalistically raw and primal, makes your entire body clench with excitement. And Sylus can feel all of it, every quiver, every twitch.

“You’re so damn tight,” he bites out, rutting up into you, “Trying to break me?”

“You’re–ngh–s’dramatic,” you tease, weaving your fingers through his hair and stroking his horns.

Sylus’s tail grips you, his body tensing as you gently provoke the sensitive ebony spurs. You can swear his rhythm falters, but he composes himself instantly. The rough scales lining his muscular tail sink into your skin, leaving beautiful little crescents behind.

“Am I now?” Sylus smirks, his tone warning you that you’ve used up all his mercy. Your cries amplify as Sylus’s intensity picks up, his pelvis slamming into your cheeks. You’re so caught up in the borderline violent thrusts that you don’t notice when Sylus’s head dips down, his lips latching onto your breast.

“Oh Gods,” your voice is hoarse and broken with desire, nearly drowned out by the wet slaps of his body pounding into yours. On the other hand, Sylus’s mouth is deceptively tender, suckling so gently, teeth grazing so intentionally. His coarse fingers pinch the nipple that he can’t attend to with his tongue, all the while still driving himself deep into your gut.

His free hand comes down between your bodies, the slick that had smeared there coating his fingers as he finds your clit, sending your eyes into the back of your head. The valley echoes with a broken record of your combined cries of pleasure and the lewd sound of wet skin colliding.

“Does every inch of you taste this damn exquisite?” Sylus demands breathlessly when he pulls away from your breasts. The way you felt wrapped around him was making it difficult to control his instincts, needing to remind himself that he needed to be careful with you.

“Hah…only t’you–! Only for you,” you can barely register the words coming out as your ears pound, your vision starting to blur as the same tension you’d felt twice earlier starts to build in again.

A possessive growl erupts from Sylus’s chest, unable to contain his instincts. But the corners of his lips quirk, a pleased smile gracing his features.

“Only for me, hm?” he licks a stripe from your neck to the mark on your shoulder making your entire body shudder.

Sylus’s talons dig into your thighs, now using both the strength of his thighs and arms to fuck you relentlessly onto him. Your back arches backward at the sheer force of his body and you use your palms to catch yourself on the ground behind you. Sylus’s tail steadies you, but at this angle he reaches a new depth inside of you, his impossibly thick cockhead roughly caressing a sensitive spot inside you that has you seeing stars.

“O-Oh Gods, oh Go-ods! Sylus–!” you chant like a broken prayer, your lower half rolling into Sylus’s lap impulsively, like it was the most natural thing in the world. You use your hands that are planted on the ground behind you to give you leverage, just letting your body do whatever feels right, feels natural.

With every roll of your hips, your clit brushes against the silvery mat of wet hair painting Sylus’s pelvis, making your eyes gloss over with a fucked out bliss that has Sylus nearly coming undone himself.

His eyebrows furrow, red eyes swirling with shadows as he watches you atop his cock, his mate. The distinct outline of him strains against your delicate skin every time he thrusts into you, bulging against your naval.

Did you have any idea how insane you were driving him right now?

He hooks his hand behind your waist, just one palm enough to cup the small of your back and pull you back to him. He pulls you flush to his body, your bare chest pressed against his, your hearts pounding against one another.

“I’m a selfish man, Y/N,” he rasps into your ear, fighting to not explode into your gummy walls.

“S’okay,” you cup his face in your hands, pressing your lips to his in a chaste kiss, “I love that about you. I love you.”

Sylus’s tail tenses, still wrapped possessively around you, your proclamation making him snap. Before you know what’s happening, you find yourself being thrown back onto the grassy floor, Sylus’s hands cupping the back of your head as he sets you on the ground. Somehow, he still finds a way to keep himself snug inside you, unwilling to pull away for even a split second.

“Sylus!” you cry out, half in surprise, half in excitement, as his heavy body presses down onto you, his lips less than an inch from yours, cock nearly in your throat.

“Sweetheart,” he groans, voice coming out unusually…frenzied.

He truly was a selfish man, in every sense of the word.

“You can take another for me, right?”

“Another?” you squeak when he licks your cheek playfully, tenderly.

“I’m pretty sure I can…cum–” you flush at the word, still slightly reserved with your newfound sexuality, “–again.”

Sylus chuckles huskily, pressing a soft kiss into your lips, “That’s not what I meant.”

Though he keeps his voice level, he couldn’t keep his heart from hammering erratically in his chest. You felt so indescribably perfect wrapped around him, he couldn't even fathom that it could get better than this.

You were everything he imagined, and then some.

You groan when he shifts to his knees, repositioning himself. Sylus moves his hand to grab the base of his length, and you’re about to protest, not wanting him to pull himself out of you.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, you feel the odd sensation of something else poking at where he had already had you completely full with his ridiculously thick cock. Something that was grinding against your clit, like he would with his thumb, toying with you as if also trying to get inside you. Something equally, if not more, massive than what was already nestled inside of you.

There was no way he thought he could possibly fit more inside you.

With your eyes wide, you shakily, address the silver haired man hovering above you, “H-How did I not see that you have t-two?!”

Sylus throws his head back with a breathless laugh, his entire body shaking. He strokes your cheek with the tip of his ebony claws, staring wryly at you with his sparkling crimson eyes.

“The same way I can hide my wings.”

He strokes the leaking tip of his second cock along your clit, making you shiver. You can’t deny how good it feels, and how exhilarating the thought of it is. The way he looks at you, desperate, feral, and with all the intensity a hunter would stare at its prey.

It makes it impossible for you to think coherently, the lust overpowering all sensibility.

“You can take it,” he coos encouragingly, using his second tip to smear your combined slick around your taut opening, as if preparing you to take him.

“You could–ngh– barely get one in, what makes you think I’ll be able to take two–!?” you writhe, forcing the words out as Sylus continues to slowly rock into you.

Your squirming only makes you tighten further on Sylus, working him up further. His second cock had hardened to the point of pain, no matter how firmly he stroked it. It needed you, and nothing else could satisfy him.

The desire on Sylus’s face, on his body, is palpable. You can see the beads of sweat gliding down his sculpted face as he restrains himself, his chest heaving as he tries to lock his instincts away, a dark storm of frustration in his eyes.

“Oo-kay, I’ll try,” you murmur, hoping to the Gods you’ll live to see another day. Sylus’s carmine eyes light up, a proud grin donning his devilishly handsome features.

“Good girl.”

He forcefully pounds against you, still only letting his second cock grind against your clit. Every thrust causes it to glide against you, rubbing against the sensitive bud, like he was fucking the lips of your cunt with it.

Your fingers claw at the ground as the anticipation boils, waiting for him to just put it in.

“Sy–ngah–just do it alr–”

He presses his thumb into your lips, interrupting the beginnings of your frantic rambles.

“Breathe out.”

Just as Sylus’s hips are about to snap against your cheeks again, you feel him finally push himself into you.

Your eyes go wide, mouth agape, as he stretches you until you fear you may actually pass out. You’re so wet that it doesn’t take much to coax it through the initial stretch. But it still hurts, far worse than when he’d initially penetrated you.

However there is also far more pleasure than before. The two sensations tug at one another, making your mind reel with tumultuous chaos. A tormenting mixture of ecstasy and torment, threatening to shatter your mind.

“S-Sylus, I-I can’t, s’not gonna fit,” you whimper when the stretch becomes too much. Peering down, you see that you’d taken the entire head of his second cock, and you don’t think you can take any more.

Sylus groans, his eyes squeezed shut, a storm brewing within him. The feeling of your perfect cunt wrapped around both of his cocks was unlike anything he could have ever imagined, and he was at war with the feral part of himself that was threatening to break free and take you like he was in rut.

“It will fit, my love,” he soothes tenderly, his fingers rubbing soft circles into your hips.

He bends down, taking your chin in his fingers to pull you in for a kiss. But before your lips meet, he whispers heatedly, eyes overcast with a swirl of inexplicable emotions.

“You were made for me, Y/N. Of course it’ll fit.”

His eyes flicker to your lips, before coming back to your eyes, silently asking for your okay before proceeding. As much as he wanted this, more than anything he wanted you to want it too.

Your heart swells, core fluttering at his words. Sylus hisses when he feels your walls clenching against him, inadvertently sinking further into you.

Gasping, you pull him the rest of the way towards you, circling your arms around his neck, and pushing your lips onto his. You take that moment to arch into him, letting him push deeper into you, biting down on his lip as he sinks further to the hilt.

Sylus kisses you so fiercely that you don’t even notice that he’s fully inside you, both cockheads pressed as deep as they will possibly go. Just as he claims every inch of you with his tongue, his arousal coats every part of you, marking you from the inside.

He pulls away with a snarl, his entire chest shuddering, a visible sheen of sweat glistening on his muscled body, “Sweetheart, I need to move.”

You nod, eyelashes fluttering as you fight to keep your eyes open, “Mmngh–you can move, Sy. I-I want you to.”

Sylus’s eyes darken, his palm slamming down on the ground beside your head. He’s completely hovering over you now, his lower body pressed so deliciously into you. Like he owned you.

Laid out against the tapestry of blooming datura, you made his heart stutter, his right eye twinging with inexplicable desire. You were more magnificent than any work of art. After 1,600 years walking these lands, Sylus finally knew what beauty was.

“You’re perfect,” he murmurs, slowly pulling out of you before rolling his hips back into you. He’s so deep, stretching you so full, body so heavy on top of yours. You can’t feel anything but him, and it makes you want to come undone all over him again. That sensation in your gut, that you had become all too familiar with, had already built to a near bursting breaking point.

“Soo deep–angh–s’fuuull,” you slur, graspingf his horns again, stroking them affectionately, letting the rough ebony edges ground you.

“Fuck,” Sylus curses sharply as you grope his sensitive horns, barely able to contain his own moans. His knees nearly buckle, using only his arms to keep him propped up over you. Squeezing his eyes shut, he takes a deep breath, forcing himself to regain his composure.

His hips roll into you like the tides of the ocean, his pace smooth and rhythmic. There’s a filthy wet ‘smack!’ every time his pelvis hammers into you, the ecstasy your bodies create together makes you leak uncontrollably, even so tightly plugged up by both his lengths.

“Feel me right here, love?” he grounds out, using one hand to press down firmly on the soft plush of your stomach. You squeal when you feel him pushing down on you, forcing your sensitive spots to clamp down on him. With two of his cocks inside you, there’s absolutely no space for that, the pleasure it brings you sharp and overwhelming.

“Yes-yes—! Please!” you plead, hoping he’ll have mercy on you. He’s driving you closer and closer to another orgasm, and you don’t know if you’ll survive this one.

Sylus can feel it too, the way your saccharine walls begin to squeeze him so sweetly, your beautiful starry eyes hazing over—too fucked out to focus, your clit hardened to a pebble against the slicked mat of silvery hair dusting his pelvis.

With you like this under him, mercy is not something he’s interested in.

In fact, Sylus had never felt like more of a beast than he did now. And the only thing he had an appetite for was you. The only thing that could sate his hunger was feeling you come undone so exquisitely for him again.

He plants one foot on the ground to give him more leverage, letting him thrust down into you more powerfully. Your thighs were spread so widely to accommodate him, your feet swinging wildly as he rolled his pelvis so deliciously into you, his entire body cascading like tidal waves.

“S-Sylus–ngah!” your relentless moans for him would be embarrassing if you weren’t so deep in the hole of lust, “Soo full–ngh–feel s’full–!”

“I know, love,” he purrs, “You’re so beautiful, with me inside you.” He softly strokes the bulge in your tummy, sending shivers down your arched spine, the sensation so otherworldly.

He delicately, but firmly, grabs the back of your neck, his fingers long enough to enclose over your entire throat. Gently, he pulls you forward, forcing you to look down at where he’s palming your stomach.

“Taking me so damn well,” he growls, his fingers threading into your hair now, gripping with just enough tension to make you tremble with excitement. Your forehead knocks against his, his damp bangs fluttering against your eyes. Your fingers dig into his shoulders, nails clawing into the thick ropes of muscles there.

“Mngh–Syluus, I can’t take much more. M’close again–!”

His hand forces you to watch where he was literally rearranging your insides and has you teetering off the cliff of climax, hanging on for dear life. Sylus’s pace only quickens, his hips pounding into you with reckless abandon now, unable to stop himself, any previous gentleness long gone.

As a Fiend who’d spent his entire life plundering the world of its treasures and riches, he’d come to know insatiable greed. Dragons inherently took and took, feeding off the gluttony of the human soul, unable to quench their own need to acquire.

He’d spent a millennium acquiring the most exquisite jewels, extravagant weapons, rarest heirlooms–what he wanted, he took. And yet, every waking day was the hollow echo of a broken harmonium.

But now, with your angelic little cunt wrapped so perfectly around both his cocks. Your nightingale voice that so often innocently serenaded him, moaning his name like a prayer, greedily begging for more. Your fluttering, doe eyes, glimmering back at him with an entire universe of emotions–desire, anticipation, greed, love.

Sylus realized he’d never known true desire. Not until he’d met you. Nothing he’d ever experienced compared to what it felt like now, to want you–to need you.

And he’d desire nothing, now and forevermore, if he had you.

Sylus’s fiery breath fans across your lips, his hand holding the back of your head demandingly, voice raspy with an unyielding desire, “I can feel it, sweetheart.”

“Don’t make me beg, hm?”

His heat fueled words, all but a demand, make you shake to your core. Your body’s perfect reactions to him only make Sylus more vigorous with need, growing impossibly harder inside you. One leaking tip brushes relentlessly against your g-spot, the other bullying into your cervix, damn near trying to find its way into your chest.

“Sy-Sy–ngh–m’cumming–! Please–!” your neck is hinged back in an ear splitting cry, your hips arched so deeply into Sylus that your spine feels like it might snap.

“Sh-shit–just like that,” Sylus grits, groaning as your cunt tries to wring him dry, “Just like that, sweet girl. Cum for me.”

Your body convulses, goosebumps littering your skin, as Sylus continues to fuck you through your orgasm, your vision blurring and tears seeping out from the corners of your eyes.You don’t know if it’s because you’ve cum three times already, or because he has you absolutely speared on both his massive erections, or maybe because he looks down at you with all the adoration you think one could hold for even the stars. But this orgasm is far more explosive than the previous ones, and it makes you scream into the night.

You release fiercely against Sylus’s body, the wet gush of release simultaneously erotic and strange. The muscles of your thighs trembled viciously. Your cries of complete and utter pleasure are strangled, your voice nearly gone now. Sylus is cooing sweetly into your ear, but you can't hear him through the blood pounding in your head, your eyes having a hard time staying focussed.

You don’t even notice when Sylus shifts, now on his knees, his fingers grasping the plush of your hips. Your back now rests against the matted meadow floor, your vision filled with the sky that was slowly filling with stars.

But your sight is incredibly shaky, Sylus’s grip on your hips bruising as he pulls your body into his relentlessly, still chasing his own release.

Your senses slowly start to come back to you, the feeling of his cocks still rutting deeply into you sobering you up. The feeling was strange; it was by no means painful, but it was sharp and made you wince.

“Ungh, Sy–s-sensitive,” you whisper, your throat scratchy. Though his thrusts are rough, possessive, he’s somehow still careful with your body, making sure you’re not a complete ragdoll against his demanding pull. You crane your neck slightly and see that, during your momentary orgasmic state of incohesion, Sylus had placed his pants under your head, and what was left of your clothing under your naked back.

The simple gesture makes your heart skip with inexplicable happiness as you gaze up at him, admittedly growing aroused again, watching him.

His sweat matted silver bangs had been tousled back, as if he had run his fingers through them. Thick eyebrows, arched downward, darkening his already smoldering irises, watching you like you were the reason the sun rose every day. His entire body was layered in a thin sheen of sweat that made him appear as if he was chiseled from marble, like the sculptures you’d see in the Ivory City.

“You know, dragons like to mate in the sky,” Sylus groans, a near ramble, delirious with desire, clearly near his own release. His tail flickers wildly behind him, and you use your calf to rub against it. He tenses with a strangled moan, snapping his hips particularly harshly into you. Your eyes roll back as he bruises against your cervix, your sensitivity at an all time high.

“Sylus!”

“One day, hm? Right now, there’s nothing I want more than to see you spread out amongst these flowers.”

Another series of desperate ruts that have you writhing at the intensity.

“We have all the time in the world.”

His honeyed vows have you keening, your body reacting viscerally. Sylus reels when you clamp down on him, doubling over with a strangled groan.

“Not gonna last much longer if you keep doing that,” he pants into the crook of your neck, chest heaving. You loosely wrap your weak arms around his neck, nipping at his earlobe, enjoying the way he flinches.

“Please,” you beg, knowing how much he loves your greed, “I want you to, Sylus.”

A rumbling growl emits from Sylus’s chest, still pressed against yours. Your brain is far too exhausted to register how quickly he moves, maneuvering your thighs until they’re pressed against your breasts.

“Yeah?” Sylus snarls, his entire body caging you in, thighs closed over yours. You swear you can hear your muscles groan in protest, not meant to be this flexible. He’s practically sitting on you, except he keeps most of his weight off of you. From this angle he reaches the deepest he’s been able to, locking you in a mating press that he’s determined to breed you full in.

“You want me to cum in you, sweetheart?” he rasps, completely feral–too far gone. He’s ramming down into you now, using the strength of his thighs and gravity to knock the air out of your lungs, cocks reaching deep down your throat.

“Too-nghn–too deep!” You don’t know how it’s possible but you feel the coil in your core building again, and you’re certain you won’t survive it this time. It’s too fast, too sensitive, too taut.

Sylus groans, the sound of his pleasure making your mind spin. His rhythm stutters, and you swear you can feel him pulsing inside you, literal vibrations rocking your core. You’d like to think he was as close as you were, again.

“Needs t’be deep, love. If you’re going to give me an heir, hm?”

Your eyes widen at his words, heart skipping a beat. Sylus falters again, feeling you tighten at his words, before smirking crookedly at you.

“So damn tight. Does my sweet girl like that idea?” he croons, almost condescendingly, but threateningly serious.

Your vision is blurred with euphoric tears, but you can clearly see Sylus’s enchanting eyes looking down at you as they had many times before. They were always intense, the carmine hues able to peer right into your soul. But the heat in them now, as he watched you writhing in ecstasy under him, would put a wildfire to shame.

You look up at him through your dewy eyelashes, grasping his shoulders, and nod wordlessly, unbelievably aroused by his lewd words of passion.

Storm clouds swirled in his scarlet eyes and he leaned down impossibly closer to you, pressing your bodies tighter together, forcing himself deeper.

“You’re going to take my knot like a good little mate, hm?”

You weren’t entirely sure what that was, but the way Sylus said it just dripped with a possessive sensuality that made you want to submit to his every will. Your stomach flutters at the thought of it, and so you nod eagerly.

“Ungh–anything, Sy–! Anything for you.”

Sylus snarls, nearly baring his teeth, unable to contain the sheer primal joy he felt from your sinful words. He was already having a hard time keeping his instincts at bay with how you felt wrapped around him, underneath him, but now you were on the verge of making him snap entirely.

Did you have any idea what you were doing to him?

“The world needs more dragons, don’t you think?” he snarls, his hand pressing down roughly on your stomach where his two cocks threaten to erupt inside you. The implications of his hand cupping your stomach send you over the edge once more.

Gods, you’d be so beautiful carrying his brood.

“C-Cumming Sylus!” you whine, voice pathetically broken, body spent beyond belief. Your nails drag through his shoulders, piercing his skin and spilling blood, as every nerve in your body lights ablaze under his touch.

Sylus sinks his teeth into the sensitive spot on your shoulder, needing to claim you as he pushed himself to the edge. Your cunt convulses viciously against him as you cum, the feeling of your perfect heat milking both his cocks pushing him to cum with you.

“F-Fuck, Y/N–!”

Sylus explodes in you with a strangled groan of your name, his release thick, plenty, and scalding. It sends a claiming heat from your core all the way to your fingertips, making you shiver as you shudder with the waves of your climax, crying repeatedly for him.

You feel like you might burst, your stomach swollen with not only his cocks nestled in you but the sheer amount of cum he was still spurting in you. If you weren’t so blissfully fucked out, it might’ve been a bizarre sight, your tummy bulging with the weight of his unending seed painting your walls cream.

“Mine,” he groans into your neck, sinking himself back into your mark, still rocking into you, still spurting white into you. There’s far too much, leaking out of where he was still connected to you, rutting into you.

It quickly becomes too much; you’re not sure if you’d become too raw or if you’d simply had enough, but a strange pressure begins to build. And soon that pressure becomes a stinging, painful stretch.

“Sy-lus,” you whisper, tapping at his chest frantically, “W-Wait please. Something hurts.”

Sylus affectionately licks at the mark he’d branded you with, releasing your legs from the mating press he’d held you in. You whimper in relief when the tension in your hips finally releases. Sylus gently wraps your legs around his waist, but the growing pain between your thighs doesn’t subside.

“It’s my knot, love,” he growls, his voice gruff and gravely. His entire body trembles at the sensation of his knot swelling–filling you, the idea of his seed being stuffed deep inside you making it difficult for him to calm his raging instincts.

His hand palms where your thighs meet the plush of your rear, kneading into your ass and gripping you closer to him. You instinctually squirm away, the stretch becoming unbearable. But you quickly realize that you physically can’t. You’re literally locked onto him.

Sylus hisses, holding you in place, desperately trying to get you to stop moving.

“Please, sweetheart.”

From the sweat dripping down his brow, his jaw clenched so sharply it could cut stone, you realized his knot must’ve been incredibly sensitive. If you weren’t the one getting stretched out onto it, you might’ve even teased him.

“Just so big, t-too much,” you squeak as he swells further inside of you, not sure how much more you could take. You look down at where his abdomen is pressed into you, the area a pearly mess of your coalesced spend.

You could vaguely see that Sylus had in fact slipped one of his erections out of you, occluded by the sight of the other still engorged and locked inside you. You briefly wonder if the other one is also swelling with a knot. Had he pulled it out for your sake?

“How–nghah–how much more?” you pant, trying your best not to clench down.

“Almost. You’re taking me so well, Y/N,” Sylus murmurs, deceptively sweet, when all he wanted to do was ram his second knot into you. The battle between his innate draconic instincts, wanting to claim you full force like a beast, and the dual need to protect and cherish you, the last bit of his soul that was untainted.

You squeeze your eyes shut and nod, burying your face into his neck. His scent invades your senses, and you can’t help but moan, lips latching onto his racing pulse. Sylus groans, fingers grasping the back of your head and pressing you deeper into his chest. His tail wraps around your waist again, needing to be closer to you, deeper in you.

“Look at you,” he groans breathily into your ear, the swelling finally seeming to finish, “Taking my entire knot, hm?”

With his entire knot wrapped in your perfect heavenly cunt, Sylus can’t help but start rocking into you again. He’d cum so thickly inside you that his knot actually begins to thrust ever so slightly, the friction sending his eyes reeling backward.

Your eyes blow open, wincing at the feeling of prickling overstimulation. But when you see him, you find yourself not wanting to tell him to stop.

Sylus’s pearly white canines have dug into his kiss bitten lips, a rosy blush dusting his sharp cheeks. The emerging moonlight makes his argent hair even more ethereal, mussed back in an adorably messy way. His breath is heavy–desperate, face contorted in pure euphoria as he slowly thrusts into you again.

When you look up at him, you catch him watching you, his eyes overcast by the furrow of his thick eyebrows.

Reflected in the sea of searing vermillion, the adoration and worship burning brighter than the moon that illuminates a halo behind him, you see your soul reflected back at you. A soul that had been burned black, a puppet without a heart, consumed by revenge and contempt.

Until a fiendish dragon had plucked her out of the Abyss, and breathed fire back into that very hollow vessel of hatred, illuminating her spirit golden with greed.

That very greed not only saved your life, but showed you what it meant to be alive.

You let him slowly fuck his knot into you, whimpering as he stretched you to the point of breaking. Oddly enough, you didn’t hate the feeling, even though it stung. In fact, your body seemed to crave it, crave his body claiming yours.

“You feel so fucking incredible,” Sylus growls, his movements growing more and more insistent with every passing moment. From his gravelly voice you can tell he’s quickly losing control. Your eyes flutter upward, becoming overwhelmed, your poor body unable to take any more.

“Syluus, no more,” you grip his forearm, voice weak. Sylus stills when he hears the genuine pain in your voice. His lips are instantly at your temple, pressing kisses into your damp skin.

“Apologies, my love. I got carried away.”

Sylus shifts, cradling you so that you’re now on top of him, his strong arms holding you protectively. His knot, still swollen, rests tightly inside you, plugging you full of his thick seed. You listen to the thrum of his heartbeat, the two of you laying there in a serene silence that nearly lulls you into sleep.

“You are my fate,” he murmurs imperceptibly, pressing a soft kiss into the claim on your shoulder. His tail has found itself wrapped around your body again, the thick and cold scales digging pleasantly into your burning skin.

“Hm?” you mumble, sleep creeping in on your consciousness like a thick misty fog.

Sylus’s chest rumbles with a deep chuckle, his fingers carding through your hair. He can feel his knot slowly beginning to subside, though his body still rides high from the passion.

“Nothing. Sleep, my little dragon.”

–

“Sing for me.”

Sylus’s wings are cocooned protectively around your naked body, seeing as he had absolutely shredded your clothes earlier. The two of you sat against the trunk of a large willow, with Sylus’s back pressed against it, and your back pressed against his chest, his thighs caged around yours. His tail rests on the ground, coiled around your feet, flickering every so often.

You’d awakened to a moonlit tapestry of stars and had stayed to admire them in the serenity of the valley, instead of heading back to the chapel.

You crane your neck to look back at him, “What, no please?”

Sylus arches an eyebrow at you, “Were you always this cheeky?”

You can’t help but let out an amused snort, “Were you always this demanding?”

Sylus grimaces, bordering dangerously close to a pout, “Will you sing for me?”

“My throat is sore,” you whine. It was wholeheartedly the truth; your voice was raw from your prior vigorous…activities. But the adorable sulk on his face has your resolve slipping away.

“Just a little,” he murmurs, his bottom lip jutting out ever so slightly. You don’t even think he realizes he’s pouting.

You turn your eyes back to the night sky with a giggle. He always demanded you to sing for him, especially when you’d watch the moon together. It was almost a ritual for the two of you. And you rarely denied him.

♪ “This world is a wasteland where nothing can grow,” ♫

Sylus’s wings tense around you as you start singing, his chin resting on the top of your head. The gentle lilt of your voice sent a shiver down his spine, as he tried to recognize the lyrics. But he realized you hadn’t ever sung this one for him before.

♫ “If it weren't for you, I'd be here all alone,” ♪

You keep your voice low and steady as you sing the melody, staring up at the moon in the cloudless sky. It shines even brighter than it had that night in the chapel.

♪ “I know in my heart this is where we belong.” ♫

The next lines get caught in your throat when a droplet of water splashes on the crown of your head.

Odd. There hadn’t been any clouds in the sky.

You tilt your head all the way back, trying to get a better look at the sky, “It’s starting to rain.”

Sylus’s upside down face blocks your view, looming over you. He gently grasps your chin and brings your lips up to his, capturing you in a slow and tender kiss.

A few more raindrops fall onto your cheek, making you shiver. The valley rain is strangely warm.

When he releases your lips, Sylus wraps his arm around your chest, holding you to him. His heart pounds so heavily you can feel it thrumming against your naked back.

“Oh! I think the rain stopped Sylus!” you gasp, holding out your palms and extending your arms beyond the shade of the willow to try and catch some falling rainfall.

Sylus’s chest vibrates with laughter. He presses his lips into your hair, taking a deep inhale of your scent. Your pheromones nearly have him throwing you under him again, blood rushing south.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, his voice muffled against your head, shifting so his erections aren’t pressing into your spine.

Turning to look at him, you giggle in surprise. The silver-haired dragon was not typically a man of many ‘thank yous.’

“For what? Singing?

Sylus doesn’t answer immediately, staring up at the silky glow of the full moon. His normally shadowed irises glisten unusually bright under the radiance of the stars.

He’d always wanted someone to watch the moon with.

Sylus looks at you. The corners of his lips are curved in a barely-there smile, but his crimson eyes behold you such devotion that your breath catches. Deep inside the recesses of your consciousness, you can feel your soul tremble, as if being caressed by the claws of another.

“Yeah. For singing.”

–

A drop of water splashes against your cheek, shaking you out of your reverie.

You frantically wipe the tears from your cheeks away with your fingers, but the water only continues to fall.

Looking up, you realize the sunset had faded into night. In your reminiscing, clouds had overtaken the sky, crystalline raindrops starting to cascade from the heavens.

It’s…raining.

It hadn’t rained for decades in Tarus City, not since that day atop the Highest Court of Justitia.

Not until now.

♪ This world is a wasteland. ♫

You reach your hand out to catch some of the falling water in your palm, enjoying the sensation of the droplets splashing against your tepid skin.

A fleck of ebony ash drifts into your palm, the lingering orange ember fading away like a melting sunset when it meets your wet skin, tragically beautiful.

Like a body fading into crystals of midnight, getting swept up into the clouds.

♫ Don't let me go, go, go, go, go, go, go. ♪

The raindrops mix with your tears. You’re not sure how much time passes with you standing there in the rain, a mess of silent sobs. Seconds, minutes, hours, you’re not sure how long. Time seems to lose meaning as you stand there, your emotions coming out in an endless stream of tears. Eventually your eyes dry, your body dehydrated with nothing left to shed.

But the rain doesn’t show any signs of relenting.

When your bloodshot vision focusses just enough for you to regain your sight, you watch as the rainwater seems to melt away the thick layers of soot that had caked the meadow floor for decades.

The rain was pouring down like silver threads now, gathering into the streams in the depths of the meadow. The way the water trickled down the spine of the empty riverbanks almost made it seem like the valley was alive again.

You look up at the sky. Darkness had come quick, especially with the amount of rain clouds that had surfaced. There weren’t many stars visible, the twinkling lights hidden by the smog and the clouds.

But as you watch the billowing storm clouds, the wind picks up, parting the column of clouds into two, allowing the glow of the moon to illuminate through.

Your breath catches as you behold the sight of the moon. It was a full moon tonight, a halo of argent brilliance.

The same moon you’d watched together here, on that night.

You couldn't recall the last time you'd allowed yourself to gaze at the moon like this. It felt wrong–to watch the night sky without Sylus. Or maybe you were just too much of a coward.

Wherever he was, was there a moon for him to gaze up at too?

Standing here in the valley, under the bask of the moonlight, you feel closer to him than you had in a long time. There’s so much you wanted to say to him, to apologize for–to explain. But you struggle to find the words, your voice caught in your throat, drowning in unrelenting rain and inexplicable emotions.

Your heart drops when the light wanes, the moon getting swallowed up by the unending storm clouds, the moment passing as quickly as it had come.

Some words are like the moonlight hidden by the clouds. Once the moment passes, there’s no need to say them anymore.

The rainfall drizzles to a stop, leaving you a soaked and shivering mess in the creeping darkness. Though the rain has stopped, the clouds remain. They blanket the entire sky, reaching towards the valley. They trickle over the tops of the scarlet mountains, spilling down like a waterfall.

You’re about to turn to leave when another falling fleck of ash flits in front of your face, tickling your eyelashes.

You catch it in your open hand, waiting for it to dissolve into the dewiness of your palm. But it just lays there, whole and unyielding. Picking it up, you examine it carefully, before tentatively twirling it around between your fingertips.

What you thought was a fleck of ash wasn’t actually, but a midnight datura petal.

Your eyes widen in shock, cradling the fragmented bloom in your palm as if it were a newborn hatchling. Whirling around, you search for any possible signs that there could be flowering daturas in the valley. But the ground is covered in nothing but melting ash, as far as your eye can see. Surely nothing could have survived here.

But the flesh feels healthy and supple as you pinch it gently between your fingertips, as if it’d just been freshly plucked.

Wrapping your arms around your soaked and shivering body, the petal tucked in between your fingers, you look out one last time into the vast expanse of ashen scarlet hills.

Somewhere out there, there is a blooming datura. If even just one.

“Tarus City will bloom once more–as far as the eye can see.”

You let the wind carry your voice off, louder and stronger than you’d intended. The meadow listens, your words echoing into the heart of the valley.

“But only for you, Sylus.”

You bring the datura petal to your lips, pressing it tenderly there. For a second, you contemplate holding onto it. Taking it with you.

But perhaps that’d been your mistake all these years.

Holding on when you should’ve been letting go.

You unclasp your fingers, and the wind lifts the petal from your hands. As it flutters past your shoulders, there’s an inexplicable warmth that emanates from Sylus’s mark–the faint traces of the bittersweet scent of cindered blossoms tickling your nostrils.

It drifts higher, towards the call of the wild–the mountain ranges beckoning it toward them. Higher until you can barely make it out from the expanse of the twilight sky.

Higher, until it disappears beyond the cloudfall.

♪ Don't let me go. ♫

.ᐟ✧ THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND AO3. i am not @/aeyumicores or @/aeyumiicore or any variations of my blog name.

✧.˖ i do not permit translations or reposts of my work on tumblr, ao3, or others. please do not reuse my blogpost headers, dividers, or layouts. these are original designs of my own.

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millermouth · 3 months ago

Text

Summary: You’ve never felt fully at home in your own skin, but that has never stopped Joel from showing you just how much he wants you. One night, you gather the courage to show him what you’ve been too afraid to share, and he shows you exactly what it means to be wanted, worshipped, and seen.

|| smut MDNI 18+, Joel is down bad in love, self conscious reader, no physical description (except 'soft belly') but reader is insecure of their body, no specific timeline, age gap mentioned but not specified, pinv, f!receiving oral, little bit of (f!receiving) ass play, dirty talk, praise kink, daddy kink, soft!joel, he calls you like every pet name in the book. some aftercare || notes: joel miller in reading glasses hello? dont kill me for being a little bit of a cornball in here. joel is a cornball when he's in love. Yes I know I wrote the word pretty a lot! That’s the point!!! Inspired by this request

Joel’s bed became home long before you were ready to admit it.

It’s where you feel safest. It’s where he tugs you into his chest first thing in the morning, rough hand splayed over your back like it belongs there, murmuring something low and sleep-thick against your temple. It’s where you read curled into his side at night, him propped up against the headboard in that worn old Henley, eyes flicking lazily over the pages of whatever book you handed him, while yours is gripped a little tighter, the latest thriller mystery that has your heartbeat ticking up by the final chapters.

He had told you to stop reading them before bed once, but he didn’t really mean it. Not when you curled tighter into him, not when your hand slid across his stomach and stayed there gripping him like you needed to be close to something steady, something warm. Something like him.

Joel loves you like this. Warm and soft and pliant in his bed.

It’s one of his favorite places. Not just for pressing you down into the mattress and filling you, not just for the pretty, breathy sounds you make when you’re too far gone to think about what you look like or where his hands are. No—he loves the quiet moments, too. The ones where your limbs are tangled up with his, hair a mess, lips kiss-swollen, your skin still carrying the ghost of his touch.

And every now and then, when you’re asleep on his chest or laughing at something dumb he said, he still finds himself wondering how the hell he ended up with a girl like you.

You’re so much younger. So much softer. He doesn’t know what you see in a man like him—older, rougher, carved from all the years you haven’t had to carry yet. You could’ve had anyone. But you chose him.

You’ve been together a few months now, and he still hasn’t wrapped his head around it. Still doesn’t know what he did to deserve your trust, your sweetness, your sharp quick wit when he least expects it.

He tried to keep his distance at first. Tried not to look too long when you smiled, not to follow the sound of your voice like a damn tether every time you were in the room. Told himself it wasn’t right. You weren’t for him. You were good. But you kept coming closer.

And once you started to pursue him—sweet and fearless and so goddamn certain—his resolve didn’t just crack. It collapsed.

The years between you didn’t matter to him anymore. The guilt didn’t matter. The voice in his head that told him to stop, that warned him he was too old, too jaded, too broken to ever deserve you—it all went quiet the second you looked at him like he was worth wanting.

He had to have you. To feel you, hear you, know you. So he gave in.

But there was still something there he didn’t quite understand, even now. Something that never quite leaves him.

Because every time he takes you to bed with the singular thought of getting you naked, of taking you until he gets his fill, until you’re trembling and wrecked and crying out his name—every single time, he sees it.

That flicker of hesitation.

He watches your shoulders shrink inward. Watches the way your hands move to cover your belly the second his fingers slip beneath your shirt. The way your breath stutters like you’re already bracing for something—even if it’s just his eyes.

You never say it out loud. You don’t have to.

And every time he settles over you, broad chest looming, palms sliding down your sides with reverent slowness as he lays you down on his bedspread, you ask him in that sweet, uncertain voice:

“Can we turn the light off?”

And Joel… hesitates.

Just for a second. Just long enough to take one more look at your face—flushed and perfect and lips swollen from letting him kiss them until they’re bruised. He always obliges. Always reaches over and clicks off the bedside lamp without a word, even if something in his chest aches as the room goes dark.

In the low moonlight, he can still see pieces of you. The softness of your belly. The curve of your thighs. The arch of your back when you start to melt beneath his touch. And he reveres it. All of it.

Worships you like you’re something holy.

But even in the dark, he notices everything.

The way your breath hitches when he kisses down your body—not with pleasure, but with discomfort. The subtle tension in your limbs when he trails his lips past your ribs. The way you squirm when his mouth lingers at the tender skin between your stomach and mound. Not because it’s too much. But because you don’t want to be seen.

And it kills him a little every time.

Because he wants to see you. All of you. Wants you to know that there is not a single inch of your body he doesn’t adore.

But still, like many nights before, he obliges you tonight and reaches over to turn out the light at your request.

The room falls into darkness.

Joel wakes to the warm and golden light of the morning, the kind where sunlight filters through the blinds in soft, slatted beams, pooling across the hardwood floor. The kind where the world outside feels far away, like it can wait a little longer while the house stays quiet.

His mind fully catches up to the scent of coffee and the soft creak of floorboards.

The bed is empty beside him, blankets still warm, your pillow carrying the shape of your head. He rubs the sleep from his face and swings his legs over the edge, the weight of last night still humming low in his chest.

He finds you in the kitchen.

You’re at the counter, barefoot, wearing nothing but his t-shirt—one of those older ones, soft and stretched out, the hem barely brushing the tops of your thighs. Your hair’s a little messy, skin still marked in places from where his mouth had worshipped you in the hours of the night.

You’re so focused on pouring coffee into your favorite mug—the pink one with the little chip at the rim, just big enough to catch your lip if you’re not careful—that you don’t hear him come in.

He steps in behind you, silent as ever, warmth radiating off his chest before you even feel his hands.

One arm slips around your waist, the other gliding up beneath the hem of the shirt you’re wearing—his shirt—until his hand splays flat across your stomach. His lips find your neck a second later, soft and unhurried, brushing along your skin as he breathes you in.

You stiffen, just a little. It’s not resistance, you could never resist him, but your body goes still beneath his touch, that automatic flicker of self-consciousness rising to the surface like it always does when he touches you in the daylight.

Still, you don’t move away.

Joel’s voice is low and rough in your ear, all gravel and morning warmth, “‘Mornin’, darlin’.”

You smile, small, a little sheepish, but it’s there. “Morning.”

His hand drops lower, fingers brushing the curve of your hip, then sliding up again, slow and lazy. His other arm tightens around your front, keeping you pulled against him as his lips trail from your neck to your cheek.

“Joel—” you murmur, half a protest, half a laugh, squirming under his touch.

“You look so pretty like this,” he says, voice thicker now, rougher with sleep and want. “So sexy in my shirt, honey.”

You go quiet. Not because you don’t like it. But because it still hits that spot—the part of you that flinches at being seen. You press your lips together, focus on the coffee in your hand, as if the words might disappear if you just don’t look at him.

But Joel sees it. Feels the shift. The way you tense ever so slightly when he calls you nice things. Like the words don’t fit, not yet. Like you still haven’t figured out how to wear them.

He kisses your cheek again, slower this time.

“I mean it,” he adds softly.

You nod once, a breath catching in your chest before you murmur, “I know.”

Joel leans in and kisses the back of your head, just behind your ear, then murmurs against your skin, “Put the coffee down for a second.”

You glance over your shoulder, suspicious but smiling. “Why?”

“Just do it, baby.”

With a soft sigh, you set the mug back on the counter. Before you can ask again, he’s turning you in his arms, hands firm but careful on your hips and over the shirt, as he spins you to face him.

He steps in close, real close, until the backs of your thighs press against the cabinets and his hands come up to cradle your face. Big, warm palms on your cheeks, thumbs brushing the softness there like he’s memorizing the way you feel under his touch.

Then his hands squish your cheeks between his hands, just enough to puff your lips out like a fish.

Your brows furrow as you try in vain to pull away. “Joel—!”

“Say it,” he says, dead serious despite the ridiculous hold he has on your face.

Your eyebrows knit further as you still. “Say what?”

He smirks, dipping his head until your noses bump. “Say: I’m pretty.”

You groan, giggling despite yourself as you try to wiggle free. “Joel, oh my god—”

He holds on, pressing exaggerated kisses to your squished face—your cheek, your forehead, your nose and your puffed out top lip. “Say it. Go on. I’ll wait all day.”

“Fine!” you huff, lips barely moving from the way he’s still holding your face. “I’m pretty.”

He grins, loosening his hold just enough so you can speak properly, though he keeps his hands right where they are. “Didn’t hear you.”

“I’m pretty,” you repeat, cheeks heating as you say it, soft and unsure but not sarcastic. Not deflecting.

Joel beams, eyes crinkling at the corners, kissing your lips as he loosens his hold on your face. “Damn right you are. Prettiest girl I ever saw.”

You can’t help but smile now, wide and a little bashful. You duck your head, but he catches you again, presses a kiss to your lips again, sweet and unhurried.

And when he backs away and you finally reach for your coffee again, cheeks still warm, he’s watching you like he’s already counting the seconds until he gets to do it all over again.

That night starts like any other night.

Late, quiet, the house dipped in soft shadows. The windows are cracked just enough to let in the evening breeze, the hum of cicadas drifting in with the warm air. Joel’s in bed already, reading glasses sliding down his nose, thumbing through the same page of his book he’s read three times without taking in a single word.

He’s waiting for you to join him, your book is still closed on the side table. You’d excused yourself to the bathroom before you could even cuddle up in bed beside him. You had said you needed two minutes.

That was fifteen minutes ago.

He figures you’re brushing your teeth. Or lost in one of your little bedtime routines—rearranging things on the counter or doing your 10 step nightly skincare. He doesn’t mind. He’s gotten used to your rhythms the more you stayed over. Grown to love them, even.

But then he hears the bedroom door open, and when he glances up, expecting to see you in one of your usual pajamas, his breath catches. You’re not wearing one of his big T-shirts or those soft cotton sets you like so much.

You’re standing in the doorway in white lace, delicate and sheer and almost ethereal in the low glow of the lamp light.

It damn near knocks the air out of him.

He forgets all about the book in his lap—doesn’t even feel it fall to the mattress as his gaze rakes over you, slow and disbelieving. His jaw goes slack as he removes his glasses and sets them on the side table.

The bra—he doesn’t know what it’s called, not that it matters—looks daintier and more delicate than anything he’s ever seen in his goddamn life. Feminine in a way that hits him right in the chest. It wraps around you like it was made for your body, hugging your curves in all the right places. The straps are thin, dipping into the softness of your shoulders, and the lace cups give just enough to let his imagination blur with what’s already in front of him.

The matching bottoms sit high on your hips, scalloped lace tracing the tops of your thighs, giving him a perfect view of the skin he’s only ever touched in the dark.

Your hair is pulled back behind your shoulders—intentionally, he thinks, like you wanted him to have the full view.

Your lip is tucked under your top teeth, and your eyes flick down for a second, uncertain—then back up again.

But then you smile.

Shy, but proud. Like you’re showing him something precious and a little terrifying. Like you finally believe, even just a little, that he might actually mean every word he’s ever said about you.

Joel shifts to the edge of the bed, jaw tight with restraint as he beckons you to him. Slowly, you make your way over, and he soaks in the look of your thighs as you move, the way your body is begging to be marked and taken. His hands curl against his own thighs like he’s afraid to touch you too fast, too hard, and shatter the moment.

But when you move to stand between his knees, and he lifts his eyes up to meet yours, you don’t flinch.

He lets out a long, shaky breath. Then his hands lift slowly, reverently, palms brushing along the outside of your thighs, up to your hips.

His voice is low, almost reverent. “Christ, baby… look at you.”

You let out a nervous laugh, eyes dropping for a second—but you don’t cover yourself. Don’t twist away like you usually do. You stay right there, between his knees, close enough for him to smell the soft scent of your lotion and whatever little perfume you’d put on just for him.

Joel lifts his hands, slow and sure, and holds your hips, warm, steady, splayed wide like he wants to cover all of you. His thumb strokes gently over your skin where the lace ends, just above your hipbone.

“You did this for me?” he murmurs, looking up at you.

You nod once, eyes still shy but glowing with something soft. “I wanted to. I…I know I usually…”

“I know,” he says quietly, thumbs stroking your skin under his touch. “Don’t gotta explain nothin’ to me.”

His voice is gentle, but there’s something else beneath it now. Thicker. Hotter. Like he’s barely keeping a lid on what he really wants to say.

You bite your lip again, tucking it under your top teeth as you gauge his reaction. Joel leans in, eyes never leaving yours, and presses a kiss between the valley of your breasts—slow, open-mouthed, just wet enough to make your breath stutter.

You exhale, body already leaning into him, melting under the heat of his mouth, the drag of his stubble, the way his hands are rubbing slow circles along your thighs. His fingers toy with the hem of the lace between your legs, pinching the delicate fabric between them, like he can’t decide whether to rip it off or worship it.

“You know what this does to me? What you do to me, angel?” he rasps, voice rough now, filthy and unfiltered. “You got me starin’ like a damn animal. Don’t even know where I wanna taste first.”

He kisses the underside of your breast, and even though it's covered by lace, he bites softly at the curve, tongue soothing the mark he leaves behind. His hands move to grip your ass tightly now, pulling you closer, positioning so your stomach and hips are flush against his chest.

“You’re so fuckin’ pretty, baby. Every time I think I’ve seen all of you, you go and give me this?”

His eyes flick up, hungry and reverent. You squirm, a tiny whimper slipping past your lips, but Joel doesn't back off. He presses another kiss to your stomach, then just above your belly button, murmuring into your skin.

“Timid little thing—but deep down you like it, don’t you? Like when Daddy talks like this?”

Your thighs twitch under his hands and you nod.

He grins, feral and soft all at once. His hands slide up your sides, palms hot and steady against your ribs, thumbs brushing the edge of lace as his mouth follows—slow, open-mouthed kisses trailing higher, tongue flicking against the fabric covering your breasts. His tongue pokes out over the lace of your bodice right where your nipple would be, teeth grazing over the hidden but pebbled skin. Your jaw falls open as you watch him.

“Goddamn,” he mutters, breath catching against your sternum. “You wore this just to drive me crazy, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

One hand lifts, fingers tugging gently at the strap of your bralette, sliding it down your shoulder. Then the other. His movements are careful, almost reverent, as he peels the lace down and away, baring you inch by inch.

And when your breasts spill free, his breath catches audibly.

“Jesus Christ.”

He sits back just far enough to look. Just for a moment. Just to see you.

“Prettiest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmurs, thick with awe and heat. He brings his hands up to grip the flesh of your breasts, kneading them together, “Bet you don’t even know what you do to me, baby.”

You bite your lip again, that flicker of shyness still dancing across your face—like you have to physically restrain yourself from trying to cover the revealed skin. But no. Not this time.

Joel leans in and licks a slow stripe over one nipple, making you gasp. He drags his tongue in a lazy circle, then sucks it into his mouth, groaning low in his throat like he’s tasting heaven.

You whimper, your hands flying to his shoulders, fingers gripping him as your back arches on instinct.

“That’s it,” he growls, pulling back just to press a kiss between your breasts before taking the other into his mouth, this time sucking harder, leaving it damp and peaked from his tongue. “Let me hear you, baby. Wanna hear every sound you make when I touch you like this.”

Your hips roll against him, thighs trembling as you stand between his legs.

“Sensitive little thing,” Joel mumbles against your skin. “Just needed someone to show you how fuckin’ perfect you are.”

He kisses lower, down the underside of your breast, then back up again, licking softly, sucking just enough to leave the faintest mark.

“M’gonna take good care of you tonight, baby,” he breathes, dragging his mouth back to your nipple. “Gonna take my timeand take every fuckin’ inch of this sweet body. You gonna let me?”

You nod, breathless, voice caught somewhere in your throat,“Y-yeah.”

Joel looks up, eyes blazing, lips slick from kissing you.

“‘Yeah’, what? Tell me, honey.”

Your begin to squirm as you tell him, “I want you to, Daddy. Please.”

Joel groans like it physically knocks the air out of him. His hands trail back down your sides, slow and reverent, fingertips grazing the lace waistband still hugging your hips.

“You’re killin’ me, baby,” he murmurs, dragging his mouth lower.

He kisses down your stomach, tongue peeking out to trace the little dip of your navel, his hands smoothing down your hips and behind to cup your ass again, fingers squeezing tight. The lace panties are all that remain, soft and delicate, slightly damp already with your arousal. He noses along the waistband, breathing you in.

“Fuck, you smell so good,” he growls, teeth catching gently at the fabric. “Bet you taste even better.”

Your hands slide into his hair, tugging gently as he tongues over the lace, not pulling it down yet—just feeling you through it, his mouth wet and hungry over your hips and tummy.

You moan, your hips grinding against him again as he teases you, his one hand reaching down to drag his fingers over your clothed mound, the slick of your folds soaking through. He groans at the feeling before pulling back with a sharp exhale, looking up at you with wild eyes.

“On the bed. Hands and knees. Now.”

You blink, heart leaping, but you don’t hesitate. You scramble onto the mattress, crawling forward on shaky limbs until you’re positioned right where he wants you—on all fours, back arched, breath quick and needy.

Joel groans behind you at the sight, pulling his shirt over his head before dragging a hand up your spine, slow and heavy.

“Goddamn, baby. Look at you.”

Once he’s climbed onto the bed behind you, spreading your knees a little wider, he kneads at your ass with both hands, reverent and gentle. He settles his body lower, shifting on the bed until his face is level with your center. He drags his thumbs along the backs of your thighs, spreading them a little wider, groaning low when he sees how soaked the lace of your panties is—slick and clinging to your folds, a perfect puffy outline of everything he’s about to taste.

“Look at this,” he breathes, like it’s something sacred. “Fuckin’ drenched for me.”

You gasp when you feel his mouth again—not on your skin, but over the lace. A slow, deliberate kiss right to the center of you, hot and wet and perfectly placed. His lips part, tongue nudging against the fabric, teasing your clit through the sheer barrier.

It’s maddening.

He hums, the vibration making your hips twitch.

“Fuck, baby… I could spend all night like this. Kissin’ you through these pretty little panties. Smellin’ you. Feelin’ how worked up you are for me.” He nuzzles in deeper, breathing hot against you, licking a wide, slow stripe up the center of your heat—through the lace—then mouthing at it, sloppy and wet, soaking it even more.

You sob, spine arching, thighs quivering where they try to stay upright. Joel groans against you.

“Can’t believe you wore this just for me,” he mutters, dragging his tongue back down. “So fuckin’ soft. So sweet. Pussy’s beggin’ for it, ain’t she?”

You nod frantically, already breathless. “Yes—God, Joel, please—”

He chuckles darkly, biting gently at the fabric. “Please what, baby?”

“Take them off,” you gasp. “Please—need you.”

Joel pulls back, and you feel the shift in the air before you feel his hands—rough palms curling under the waistband of your panties, fingers brushing the skin of your hips as he peels the lace down slow. Agonizingly slow.

“Anything for my girl,” he says.

Joel’s broad, warm hands palm at your ass, kneading every inch as he situates himself behind you. He dips lower, mouth pressing open-mouthed kisses into the flesh of your left cheek, then the right, before his teeth sink down into the soft meat.

You yelp, hips jerking at the sharp nip.

“Prettiest noises too,” he murmurs into your skin, kissing the sensitive mark he left behind. His hands spread your cheeks, thumbs firm as they open you up for him—and when you peek over your shoulder, you find his eyes locked on your center, gaze dark and fixated, the pupils blown wide.

When he catches you looking, his eyes flick up to meet yours.

“She’s flirtin’ with me,” he says, grinning like the devil.

Your face burns, and you let your head drop into the pillows, hiding from the embarrassment that curls through your belly—hot and helpless, tangled with molten want.

Joel’s lips find your skin again, slower now, more reverent as he holds you open. His tongue drags between your cheeks, a deep, teasing stroke that makes your whole body tense. He kisses your slick folds with a wet, lewd sound that makes you gasp.

He hums, low and satisfied, then laps at your dripping arousal like it’s his first taste of water in weeks.

“And the prettiest pussy,” he rasps, lips brushing your folds. “You know that, darlin’?”

You moan, unable to answer, as his tongue pushes deeper. He flattens it and licks slow, wide strokes up your slit before circling your clit. His nose bumps your entrance, barely prodding, teasing you as his tongue works your clit in tight, filthy circles.

Your hips start moving without your permission, grinding into his face, seeking more.

Joel groans like you’re his favorite meal, tongue flattening again, letting you push into him.

“That’s it, baby,” he coos, eyes fluttering shut. “Ride my face.”

You mewl, your body bucking, wild and desperate, grinding into him like a goddamn bronco at the fair. Your walls flutter, your core pulsing with pressure as it builds, and builds, and builds.

Your thighs begin to shake.

Joel’s grip on you tightens as he takes over, tongue working your clit with expert flicks, fast and relentless.

The pressure in your belly snaps like a pulled cord, your spine arching as your orgasm crashes over you. You cry out, pushing yourself deeper into his mouth as you come, loud and wrecked, your fingers gripping the sheets.

Joel moans into you like he’s the one coming undone, tongue never faltering, coaxing every last wave of pleasure from your trembling body. Even as you start to come down, breath catching in your throat, he doesn’t stop. He just slows, letting you twitch and gasp and shake through it.

Then, you feel it. The warm, wet pressure of his tongue pushing up past your folds, over the skin between, then circling your tighter hole. You jump at the intrusion, a sharp gasp breaking from your lips—but the haze of your orgasm makes your body soft, receptive, already melting for him.

You whimper, hips twitching. Joel just groans again, closing his lips around your sensitive rim, suckling gently.

“F–fuck,” you whisper, unable to think, to move, to breathe.

He licks you there once more before planting slow, open-mouthed kisses up your spine, up to the small of your back, your shoulder blades, and finally your neck.

Then he’s curling over you, beard scratchy against your skin, his lips brushing your cheek.

“Turn around,” he whispers, voice low and rough, "Wanna see your face when I stuff you full a'me,"

You can’t help but giggle at the tickle of his scruff against your neck, still dazed, still boneless, but do as you’re told—twisting under him until you’re on your back, staring up at him.

Joel’s eyes, though dark with hunger, hold something else too. Something deep and aching. Something sweet.

And then, with that same steady tone he uses when talking patrol routes or fixing fences, he says, “Now. Here’s what’s gonna happen, sweetheart.”

His lips brush your jaw, then your ear.

“I’m gonna fill you up so deep, fuck you so full of my cock, my cum, me, that when you look in the mirror tomorrow, all you’re gonna see is how fuckin’ beautiful you are—‘cause you’ll still be wearin’ what I did to you tonight.”

Your chest heaves, the words settling deep in your stomach, curling there like heat and honey.

“Joel, I—” you start to say, only to gasp when you feel the hot, thick head of his cock nudge at your entrance.

“You feel this, honey?” he murmurs, pulling back to look down between you, voice rough and reverent. “Feel how bad he wants you? How bad I want you?”

You nod, gripping his forearms tight, your thighs falling open even wider for him.

He notches just the bulbous tip inside you and hisses at the wet heat.

“Jesus,” you breathe. “I feel it, Joel, I—I… pleasepleaseplease—”

“I know, angel, I know,” he pants, his thumb stroking your inner thigh, grounding you. “Now I wanna hear you say it.”

Your brain lags, thick with need, swimming in lust and love and the ache to just feel him.

“W-what?”

Joel watches you, eyes burning into yours.

“Say, ‘I’m pretty, Daddy.’”

Your whole body flushes, lips parted in disbelief, already whining at the way he just knows how to unravel you.

You groan wordlessly, bringing your hands to your face to hide. He is so on your shit list for this.

Joel chuckles darkly, pushing in another inch, and you whimper behind your hands.

“I’m waitin’, darlin'.”

You squirm under him, thighs trembling, skin turning hotter and hotter by the second. Every nerve in your body is screaming for him to move, to fill you, to do something.

But Joel waits. He always waits—until you give in, until he gets what he wants.

You lift your hands from your face slowly, eyes hazy, cheeks heated, lips parted. He’s watching you like a man possessed, one hand gripping your thigh, the other wrapped around his pulsing member with agonizing patience.

“M’pretty,” you whisper.

Joel’s brow arches, lips curling, “Not quite, sweetheart. You know how I want it.”

Your chest heaves. Your pussy clenches around just the tip of him, and even though you see the twitch in his jaw, he still waits.

So you gather your courage, heart pounding in your throat: “I’m pretty, Daddy.”

Joel’s smile breaks across his face, so bright and full of something so tender it nearly knocks the air from your lungs. It almost pulls you out of the heat of it, the haze of arousal, until your core clenches and he sinks into you just a little deeper.

You gasp, the stretch sharp and perfect.

He leans down slowly, hands braced in the pillows beside your head, lowering himself onto his forearms until his chest is flush with yours, until there’s no space left between your bodies.

He’s still not fully sheathed in you.

“Again.”

“I… I’m pretty, Daddy,” you breathe, voice shaky as your pussy tries to adjust around the thick stretch of him.

“The prettiest,” he nods, and his lips mold to yours as he finally pushes all the way in. Your mouth falls open with a gasp, the sound swallowed by his tongue slipping between your lips, hot and hungry, as he bottoms out. His balls press firmly against the slick, wet crevice of your ass, and the mess between your thighs is obscene—your arousal dripping, sticky and hot, soaking the sheets beneath you.

Joel groans into your mouth, loud and wrecked like its been trapped in his chest for hours. His hands come up to cradle your head, keeping you right there beneath him as he begins to move, slow at first, pulling out a few inches before rolling back in, the full weight of him rocking your body with every deep thrust.

“Shit,” he mutters, voice low and reverent. “Pussy’s so damn tight.”

He pulls out slowly again, then drives back in hard, enough to jolt you up the bed, the sound of it lewd and perfect. His brow furrows, eyes fluttered shut as he focuses on the way your walls cling to him.

“Fuckkkk,” you mewl as he continues sawing into you, filling you and stretching you around him, buried to the hilt.

Joel grins, feral and hungry, sweat starting to bead at his brow.

“Sound even prettier when you take my cock.”

He sets a rhythm—deep, grinding thrusts that hit all the way up, filling you to the brim. His body covers yours, chest brushing your nipples, beard scratching your throat as he nips and kisses every inch he can reach.

“Been thinkin’ about this for so long, baby” he grits out between thrusts, hips slapping against yours. “The way you’re always hidin’ yourself from me, coverin’ up like you’re not the most beautiful fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen.”

Your hands claw at his back, your legs wrapping around his waist, trying to pull him impossibly closer.

“I got you, honey,” Joel pants, head dropping to your neck as his arms wrap around you, pulling you into him even tighter. “And you’re gonna start seein’ it for yourself,”

His pace picks up, rougher now, slamming into you with the kind of need that’s barely human.

“Gonna fuck you so full you forget every goddamn lie you ever told yourself in a mirror. Gonna make sure the only thing you remember is me—how you sounded, how you looked, when I wrecked this perfect little body.”

You’re gasping, whimpering, shaking beneath him, stars flashing behind your eyes as he pounds into you like he’s never going to stop.

“That’s it, baby. You take it,” he growls. “Take my cock so good, like the good girl you are for me. Fuckin’ made for me.”

“Joel—” you cry, voice breaking.

He lifts his head, eyes wild and tender all at once.

“Say it again, sweetheart. Tell Daddy how pretty you are.”

“I—I’m pretty,” you choke out. “I’m—fuck, I’m so pretty, Daddy—”

He loses it.

His hand slides under your thigh, hooking it up, opening you wider, deeper. His hips slam into you harder now, the rhythm filthy, brutal, perfect.

“I know, baby. I know. Look at you. My good girl, look so beautiful takin’ it so fuckin’ well.”

His other hand comes up to cradle the back of your neck, guiding you forward as he sits back—craning your head up so you can look down, see exactly where you’re joined.

Your mind barely registers the softness of your belly, too focused on the thick stretch of him splitting you open, the obscene way you take every inch. You both watch as he drives into you, slick and deep and devastating, a ring of your last orgasm glistening around his cock. The pressure builds again, white-hot and unbearable.

And Joel knows—he feels it in the way you clench, the way your voice goes high and desperate, the way your hands grip him like you’ll fall apart if you let go.

“You gonna come for me again, sweet girl?” he pants, fucking you into the mattress. “Gonna let Daddy feel you pulse around his cock?”

“Yesyesyes—Joel, I—please—”

“That’s it,” he snarls, “give it to me.”

You shatter.

Your orgasm crashes through you with a scream as he releases your neck, letting you arch your back, trembling as you milk his cock with spasms so tight it makes Joel curse, a broken sound from deep in his chest.

And then he’s coming, hips stuttering, burying himself to the hilt as he spills inside you, filling you just like he promised. His voice breaks on your name as he grinds through it, hands gripping you enough to leave bruises, breathing ragged.

Neither of you move for a long moment. Just the sound of your breathing, tangled and uneven. His chest heaving against yours. Your legs shaking around his waist.

His hand slides up, cradles the side of your face. His thumb brushes gently beneath your eye, even though you’re not crying—but something about the touch makes you want to. Makes your throat ache.

“Hey,” he whispers, voice all gravel and reverence. “You okay?”

You nod, eyes still fluttered shut, heart pounding. “Y-yeah.”

Joel presses a soft kiss to your lips—barely a touch, like he’s afraid of ruining you more than he already has. Then another, and another, until you're giggling quietly beneath him, too dazed to hold it in.

He smiles, the kind of smile he doesn’t show anyone else. The kind that barely reaches his eyes, because he’s still looking at you like you’re a dream that might disappear if he blinks too hard.

“Look at me, baby.”

You do. You always do when he asks.

“You’re so beautiful,” Joel murmurs, voice low and rough with what sounds almost like awe. “You know that?”

The words hit you deeper than they should. You suck in a sharp breath, trying to even out your breathing, but your lungs don’t cooperate. Your eyes dart away, suddenly misting and too overwhelmed by the intensity in his gaze—by the sincerity written all over his face. It's too much. Too close. Too real.

But Joel’s hand is already there, catching your chin gently, tilting your face back toward his. His thumb grazes the edge of your jaw, soft and steady.

“No,” he says, barely more than a whisper. “Don’t do that. Not tonight. Not after everything you just gave me.”

Your chest stutters, emotion building so fast and so sharp you feel like you might spill over with it. Your fingers twitch against his back before finally settling, drifting across his damp skin in slow, absent circles. You take deep, calming breaths to settle yourself. Breathe in, breathe out.

He’s still inside you, still heavy over you, like neither of you are ready to let go just yet. Your limbs are tangled, the air still thick with sweat and heat and something quieter—something softer.

The room is quiet now, the kind of quiet that doesn’t feel empty. Just your shared breaths, slow and unsteady. The low thump of his heart where his chest presses to yours.

Joel shifts only slightly, just enough to press a kiss to your cheek. Then another to your jaw. Then your temple. The way he moves is unhurried, like he’s memorizing you. Like he’s kissing more than just skin—like he’s kissing the pieces of you he’s afraid to speak out loud.

It makes your chest ache.

“You’re being so sweet,” you whisper, throat tight almost like it’s a secret.

His lips hover at your lips, pressing gently but not fully, “I don’t know how not to be,” he says softly. “Not with you.”

You close your eyes, pressing your face into the curve of his neck. His scent wraps around you—salt and skin and something warm and comforting that’s just him. The warmth blooms under your skin again, curling around your ribs, spreading down your spine.

“I love you.” he says, like it’s always been there, waiting. Like it’s not a confession so much as a truth that finally found its way out.

Your breath catches. Not from fear, not from panic, but from the sheer weight of it. The gravity. The sound of those words, spoken into the low light of the room while he's still buried inside you, holding you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever touched.

Your eyes flutter open. You don’t move. Not yet.

Joel doesn’t either. But his voice dips low, softer now. A hint of uncertainty laces the edges. “Too much?”

You shake your head instantly, and your hands rise to cradle his face, looking up at him, fingertips brushing his temples like you need to anchor both of you in this moment.

“No,” you whisper, a tear finally escaping your eye. “No, not too much.”

Your fingers slide into his hair, tugging gently as you pull him down and press your lips to his. And when you pull back, your words are trembling but sure.

“I love you too.”

He exhales like he’s been holding that breath for years.Then he kisses you—slow and deep and home, his mouth moving against yours like he’s sealing the promise between your bodies.

taglist: @mrs-hardy-hunnam-butler-pascal, @anxiousscribbling

#joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #joel tlou #tlou joel #tlou #the last of us

2K notes · View notes

rimzaaa · 14 days ago

Text

Happily Ever After

Oneshot!

Pairing: Frontman(inho) x Female reader(y/n)

Fandom: Squid Game (오징어 게임)

Summary: What if the final game never truly ended? What if love survived the arena?

Y/N thought she had lost everything. The man she loved—dead. Her world—shattered. But when the mask comes off, and the truth is revealed, she's forced to face her deepest heartbreak all over again. With a newborn in her arms and her past standing in front of her, will she walk away… or risk everything for a second chance?

This is a story of betrayal, grief, found family, and the kind of love that crawls out of hell just to hold you again.

Warning: Violence & death. Blood & trauma. Canon-typical content. Emotional breakdowns. Heavy angst. Redemption arc. Some soft comfort & fluff. Mentions of suicidal ideation (brief)

Author's Note: This is my first ever fanfiction for Squid Game, and it’s centered around my favorite character—the Frontman (aka Inho/Young-il). I wanted to give the show an ending that we all think the characters deserve. This story means a lot to me, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feedback and reblogs mean the world 💌

Words Count: 4.2K+

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

The air was thick — heavy with the scent of blood, sweat, and fear.

Only three players remained: Y/N, Gi-hun, and Player 222 — Jun-hee’s daughter, too young to understand the stakes of the game.

They stood on the broad, red-stained surface of the triangle-shaped platform, raised high above the arena floor. It was wide enough to move, to run — or to fight. The ground beneath them felt solid, but the danger lay in the unspoken rule: one of them had to fall.

Y/N clutched the child tightly against her chest, her breath quick, her heartbeat louder than the ticking clock. A few feet away, Gi-hun stood in silence, eyes locked on the next shape — the circle, waiting for the moment someone would make the first move.

Time was running out.

Only two players could jump forward.

High above the arena, behind the wall of dark glass, the Frontman stood in silence — his mask reflecting the soft glow of the lights. The VIPs lounged nearby, laughing, drinking, placing their bets. But he wasn't listening.

His heart was pounding.

There they were.

Y/N and Gi-hun.

Two names from a life he barely recognized anymore.

Two people he once knew... back when he was still young-il.

Originally, he had entered the games as a player with one mission — to keep an eye on Gi-hun. But the moment he saw you, everything changed.

He fell for you. Hard.

Quietly. Helplessly.

And without telling a soul, he made himself a promise:

He would protect you. No matter the cost.

But now, as he watched from the shadows of power, that promise echoed bitterly in his chest.

Because all he could think about…

was what happened last night.

⟣ FLASHBACK ⟢

The room was dimly lit. Player 100 and Player 333 were fast asleep after the luxurious dinner arranged for them as finalists. Gi-hun and Y/N, however, remained awake — watching over the baby girl Jun-hee had entrusted to them.

Suddenly, a pink guard entered the room and walked toward them.

“The Leader wants to see you both,” he said flatly.

Gi-hun and Y/N exchanged a glance before standing up and silently following the guard.

The elevator doors slid open with a soft beep.

And there he was — the Frontman, seated calmly on a couch in his all-black uniform, his expression hidden behind a dark mask.

Gi-hun and Y/N walked in slowly, stopping in front of him.

“Sit down. This will take some time”

He said in his cold, commanding voice.

They obeyed, taking seats across from him.

“I have an offer for both of you.”

Both Gi-hun and Y/N stared at him, confused.

An offer?

The Frontman reached into the pocket of his long coat and pulled out two daggers, placing them on the table between them.

“Go and kill the remaining two players,” he said evenly. “And I’ll make sure you both walk out of here. The next game won’t happen — I promise you that.”

“Why should we trust you? Why would you help us?”

Gi-hun asked sharply, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Y/N, meanwhile, was silent — her eyes locked on the man behind the mask. Something in her gut told her something was coming… something big.

The Frontman’s eyes flicked between the two of them beneath his mask.

He took a slow breath, then reached up — pulling back the hood of his uniform.

Then, without a word, he removed his mask.

And looked straight at them.

“…young-il?”

Y/N whispered, her voice trembling, her breath catching.

Her hands shook as she stared at the man she had once fallen in love with inside these deadly walls — the man who had whispered soft promises to her in the dark. The man she’d mourned. The man she thought was long dead.

He wasn’t.

He was alive.

Right in front of her.

Part of her wanted to throw herself into his arms, to cry into his shoulder and tell him how much she missed him.

The other part wanted to grab that dagger… and drive it into his throat.

She clenched her fists tightly in her lap, her heart unraveling.

“young-il… you…?”

Gi-hun looked stunned, disbelief washing over his face. The man he once trusted — the one who had fought by his side — was the Frontman?

The Front Man lowered his head.

“In-ho”

He corrected quietly, barely above a whisper. There was guilt in his voice. Shame in his eyes.

He turned to Y/N. She was gripping the hem of her t-shirt tightly, her eyes glassy with tears — but she refused to let them fall.

“Why?”

Her voice cut through the silence like a blade.

“Why did you do this to us?”

Before In-ho could answer, Gi-hun suddenly stood up, grabbing one of the daggers off the table, rage flaring in his eyes. He raised It as if to strike but stopped just short — trembling, breath uneven.

“Why did you kill Jung-bae?”

He asked through gritted teeth.

In-ho didn’t flinch.

“I’m sorry for what happened to him,” he said. “But killing me now won’t fix it. Someone else will just take my place. You both need to get out of here — with that baby.”

There was a flicker of desperation in his voice.

Despite everything — the lies, the betrayal, the pain — he was still trying to protect them.

“I swear I’ll explain everything. But please… just do what I’m telling you. Go back. End this. I’ll make sure you both survive.”

Gi-hun scoffed bitterly, shaking his head before storming out of the room — dagger still in hand.

Now only Y/N remained.

She sat frozen in her chair, staring at the man across from her — the man she once gave her heart to.

In-ho slowly rose from the couch and stepped toward her.

But she was faster.

Y/N snatched the second dagger from the table and stood, holding it out toward him.

“Don’t… don’t come closer.”

In-ho froze.

“Don’t you dare come near me,”

She snapped, voice shaking.

“You’re a liar. A killer.”

Those words sliced deeper than any wound.

He had been called that before. Many times.

But coming from her?

It shattered something in him.

“Y/N”

He whispered, taking a step forward.

“Don’t!”

She screamed, stepping back.

“Don’t come any closer or I swear… I’ll kill myself.”

She pressed the dagger to her throat.

In-ho’s heart nearly stopped.

His hands flew up in surrender.

“Okay — okay. I won’t. I promise.”

“Y/N, please… just listen. Just this once.”

His voice cracked, stripped of all command.

He was no longer the Frontman now — he was just In-ho.

A man begging the woman he loved to believe in him one last time.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her voice was a whisper.

“You’re not young-il. You’re not the man I fell in love with.”

The words hit him like a bullet.

He couldn’t speak. Only watched as a tear finally slipped down her cheek.

“Please, Y/N,”

He breathed.

“Don’t say that. I know I’ve done horrible things. I’ve lied. I’ve killed. But my love for you — it was never part of the game. It was pure. It was real. It is real.”

She let out a bitter laugh.

“Pure? Do you even know what that word means?”

She lowered the dagger. Stepped back.

“I loved you. I really did. But now…”

She paused. Her voice cracked.

“If you love me — even a little — you’ll help us. You’ll help us all escape this sick, twisted world of yours.”

The words struck deep.

She threw the dagger to the floor with a sharp clatter.

Then turned.

And without looking back…

She walked away.

⟣ PRESENT ⟢

Y/N trembled with fear, but her grip on the baby girl remained steady as she cradled her tightly against her chest.

Across from her, Gi-hun stood frozen in thought, still lost in everything that had happened — and likely still struggling to accept the impossible truth: Young-il… was the Frontman.

“We can’t stay here forever,”

Gi-hun’s voice suddenly cut through the silence.

“We have to think of something.”

Y/N stepped closer to him, lowering her voice as if afraid someone — or something — might hear.

“Gi-hun…”

She glanced around warily, then met his eyes.

“Maybe… maybe we should wait. What if what In-ho said… what if it’s true?”

Gi-hun stared at her in disbelief.

“What?”

His voice cracked with pain.

“You think that man — the one who killed Jung-bae — will save us?”

The memory of that moment was still fresh in his mind.

The blood. The scream. The mask.

“Do you…”

He paused, his voice thick with emotion.

“Do you still love him, Y/N?”

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

She didn’t know the answer.

She’d spent the whole night convincing herself that In-ho was a monster — a liar, a murderer. But some part of her — the part that remembered whispered promises and warmth in a cold, brutal world — refused to let go.

“I don’t know,”

She whispered, eyes falling to the floor.

“But… I want to believe him.”

She didn’t dare look at Gi-hun after that — afraid of what she might see in his eyes.

Behind the dark glass wall, In-ho stood silently, watching it all unfold alongside the laughing, drunken VIPs. He didn’t need to hear her words to know what she was saying.

And God…

It was already tearing him apart.

His thoughts spun in every direction — calculating, panicking, hoping.

He turned his head slowly toward the VIPs, who were already placing bets and laughing about who would fall first.

His jaw tightened behind the mask.

He was running out of time.

But if there was even a single chance to stop this game — to end all of this — he was going to take it.

Gi-hun ran a hand through his hair, eyes flickering between Y/N and the baby in her arms.

The clock was ticking.

Tension rising.

He turned his gaze toward the last platform — the circle.

There wasn’t much time left.

If they didn’t act soon, all three of them would be eliminated.

“I’ll do it”

Gi-hun said quietly, not looking at her.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then turned to face her.

Stepping closer, he placed his hands gently on her shoulders.

“Y/N…”

His voice was low. Shaky. Thick with emotion.

“This baby — she’s innocent. Jun-hee entrusted her to us. She deserves to live.”

A beat.

“And you…”

He paused, his lips quivering slightly.

“I know you still love him. In-ho. And I don’t blame you.”

“You’re the best person I met here,”

He continued, voice breaking.

“And I know he loves you too. He won’t let you die.”

He tried to smile — a pained, trembling thing — as tears welled in his eyes.

“I have no one left.”

His voice cracked.

“My daughter… she’s safe. She’s happy. That’s enough for me.”

He looked down at the baby nestled in Y/N’s arms and smiled softly.

“I’ll go.”

“You both need to live.”

Y/N’s silent tears streamed down her face as she stepped forward, wrapping her arms tightly around him.

“No… I can’t let you die for us,”

She whispered, shaking her head desperately.

“You can’t just give up your life like this.”

Gi-hun held her close, his own tears falling freely now.

“Someone has to.”

He pulled back gently, brushing a hand over her arm. Then, leaning down, he pressed a soft kiss to the baby’s forehead.

“Keep her safe, Y/N.”

“And take care of yourself, too.”

“I’m sure In-ho will come for you.”

He smiled faintly, then began stepping backward.

One step closer to the edge.

Y/N sobbed, her voice breaking apart as she screamed:

“NO! GIHUN, DON’T!!”

But he didn’t stop.

In-ho watched as Gi-hun stepped backward, inching closer to the edge of the triangle-shaped platform.

He stopped — just a few feet from falling.

This was it.

Now or never.

In-ho’s jaw tightened, fists clenched. His heart was hammering in his chest.

He couldn’t let Gi-hun die.

Not after the promise he made to her.

Behind the glass wall, his eyes stayed locked on Y/N.

She had fallen to her knees, crying, screaming, begging Gi-hun to stop.

The baby lay beside her on the platform — unaware of the nightmare unfolding around her.

In-ho’s chest burned with guilt.

The sight of her like that — broken, helpless — was unbearable.

“Goodbye, Y/N”

Gi-hun whispered, a faint, resigned smile on his lips.

And just as he was about to fall back—

BANG.

A gunshot tore through the silence.

Y/N screamed.

Gi-hun flinched, stumbling forward in shock.

Behind the glass, the room exploded into chaos.

In-ho stood holding a smoking gun — and one of the VIPs lay dead at his feet.

The remaining VIPs froze — stunned, furious, terrified.

“What the fuck did you just do?!”

One of them roared.

In-ho didn’t answer.

He simply raised his gun again, pointing it toward the one who spoke — who immediately backed off in fear.

“This game ends here”

He said, voice thick with rage and barely-contained grief beneath the mask.

He turned to one of the pink guards and gave a sharp nod.

Seconds later, the cold robotic voice echoed through the entire arena:

“The game has been stopped.”

On the platform below, Gi-hun and Y/N stared upward — eyes wide.

They knew.

They knew it was him.

Y/N lowered her head, tears still slipping down her cheeks — but a deep part of her exhaled in relief.

A part of her that knew he would come for her.

That he would keep his promise.

Another VIP stepped forward, but In-ho fired a shot into the ceiling — making him freeze instantly.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“You can’t do this!”

Another VIP spat.

“We fund your games! You exist because of us!”

In-ho stepped forward slowly, like a shadow rising.

“I’m ending this game.”

His voice was cold now. Final.

“And I’m ending you with it.”

The room was suddenly flooded with guards — all pink suits, all armed, their weapons now turned on the VIPs.

In-ho walked toward the exit.

“Boss!”

The black-mask officer called out.

“What do you want us to do with them?”

In-ho didn’t turn around.

Didn’t flinch.

“Kill them all”

He said quietly.

Then walked out of the room.

Gunshots echoed in the distance as In-ho stormed through the corridors, heading straight for the game arena.

His mind raced. His grip tightened on the gun still warm in his hand.

A pink-suited guard came running from the control room, nearly stumbling as he approached.

“Sir!”

In-ho stopped and turned toward him. “What is it?”

“We’ve got a problem. Coastal guards — they’re headed this way. We believe they’ve located the island.”

In-ho’s expression remained calm behind the mask, but inside, he knew this day would come.

His brother. Jun-ho.

He always knew he’d find him eventually.

In-ho followed the guard into the control room. A monitor flickered, showing the coordinates and proximity of the coastal ships — closer than ever.

Without hesitation, In-ho crossed to a locked panel on the wall.

He took a key from his pocket and unlocked the hidden compartment.

Inside: a single red button.

He didn't hesitate even for a second — then pressed it.

A piercing siren blared, echoing across the island.

“We’re leaving”

In-ho commanded, his voice like steel.

Guards scattered into motion around him, collecting hard drives, burning papers — prepping the evacuation.

On the Platform…

Gi-hun and Y/N looked up in alarm as the siren wailed through the sky.

“What… what is that?”

Y/N asked, her voice trembling.

Was In-ho behind this?

What was he planning?

Or worse… had he changed his mind again?

Gi-hun rushed to her side, knelt down, scooping the baby girl into his arms and wrapping his free arm around Y/N’s shoulder.

“Stay close,”

He whispered.

“Whatever’s coming… I’ve got you both.”

Suddenly, with a mechanical hiss, the center of the triangular platform began to open — revealing a hidden lift.

Both Y/N and Gi-hun stumbled back, stunned.

The platform rose again…

And there he was.

In-ho. Standing in his usual frontman dress. Mask still on.

“You… what the hell are you doing?!”

Gi-hun shouted, stepping forward as he carefully laid the baby back down.

“What’s going on?!”

Y/N froze, staring at In-ho — her chest rising and falling fast.

She wanted to scream, but something about his eyes beneath the mask told her… he hadn’t given up.

“I’m keeping my promise,”

In-ho said quietly as he stepped forward.

“There’s no time to explain. We have to move. Now.”

“This siren — what does it mean?”

Y/N demanded, her voice cracking between rage and fear.

In-ho knelt beside her, took off his mask and gently lifted the baby into his arms.

Gi-hun made a move, but Y/N’s small shake of her head stopped him.

In-ho looked down at the baby, his expressions changed just for a second. Maybe the memories of his unborn child hit him. He quickly composed himself then looked up at her.

“The island is rigged to explode. We don’t have much time.”

A beat.

“Y/N, please… just trust me. I’ll explain everything later. But if we don’t leave now, none of us make it out.”

Gi-hun took the baby from In-ho and gave Y/N a solemn nod.

“He’s right. Let’s go.”

Y/N stood, still glaring at In-ho.

He reached out a hand to help her up.

But she ignored it. As she was still angry at him. She stood on her own — proud, guarded.

In-ho lowered his hand and curled it into a tight fist, but said nothing.

He led them both out of the arena, through a hidden back corridor.

A hidden dock. A ship waiting.

The guards had already boarded the other escape vessels, leaving behind only the sound of alarms and the ticking clock of destruction.

Gi-hun boarded with the baby, Y/N right behind him.

In-ho hesitated, turning for one last look at the island.

And then he stepped aboard.

Moments later, the engines roared to life, and the ship sped away from the shore.

As they sailed into the horizon, a massive explosion lit up the sky behind them — the island engulfed in flames.

It was over.

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

The sky was dark, moonlight hidden behind drifting clouds.

The steady sound of waves filled the air as the ship cut through the black ocean, heading toward the nearest safe dock.

Inside a quiet room below deck, Y/N gently rocked the baby girl in her arms — her tiny eyes fluttering closed, unaware of the world she’d survived.

Meanwhile, up on the deck, Gi-hun stood at the railing, staring blankly into the ocean, lost in thought.

Footsteps approached.

In-ho came to stand beside him, silent for a moment. Then he held out two small bottles of soju.

“You remember?” he said softly.

“We promised we’d drink soju together… once we made it out alive.”

Gi-hun didn’t even glance at him.

He let out a dry, bitter scoff and shook his head.

“I made that promise to young-il.”

In-ho lowered his head, guilt crashing over him like the waves below.

“I know,” he said quietly.

“And I know you hate me for everything I’ve done. You have every right to.”

He looked over at Gi-hun, whose eyes stayed locked on the horizon — silent, hard, unreadable.

“But let me fix things now. Whatever I can. I did… horrible things. I thought humanity was dead. But you—”

In-ho swallowed hard, voice thick.

“You proved me wrong.”

Gi-hun finally turned his head, surprised.

“You were going to give up your life… just to save Y/N. And that baby. You showed me… there are still good people left in this world.”

The man who once orchestrated death games… now standing beside him, confessing his defeat?

Gi-hun didn’t know how to respond.

Not fully.

But after a long pause, he reached out — and without looking — took one of the soju bottles from In-ho’s hand.

“Finally,” he muttered under his breath.

He opened the bottle, still not meeting In-ho’s eyes.

But that single action said enough.

In-ho smiled faintly.

He didn’t speak again. He knew forgiveness wouldn’t come easy.

But maybe, just maybe…

This was the first step.

Y/N gently laid the baby down on the bed, her hands lingering on the blanket.

She leaned back against the headboard, eyes fluttering closed.

Click.

The door creaked open.

She sat up instantly.

In-ho stepped in and quietly shut the door behind him.

“Can we talk?”

His voice was low. Hesitant. Not the voice of the Frontman. Just… his.

Y/N didn’t turn to face him.

“There’s nothing to talk about” she said, rising from the bed.

She turned her back to him — because she knew the moment she looked into his eyes, she’d lose all her resolve.

In-ho walked toward her slowly until he stood just a few steps away.

“Y/N…” he breathed.

“I know you hate me. And I deserve that. But…”

His voice cracked.

“Please believe me — loving you was never part of the game. I lied, yes. I did unforgivable things. But you— You were the only truth in all of it.”

His eyes shimmered. His voice, shaking.

Y/N turned sharply and stepped toward him, rage flooding through her chest.

She grabbed his collar with trembling hands.

“How dare you.”

Tears spilled from her eyes now — raw, broken, endless.

“You LIED to me. You faked your death. Do you even understand what that did to me?”

“I wanted to die. Because in a world where you didn’t exist — what was the fucking point of living?”

In-ho’s eyes dropped to the floor.

Her words shattered him.

And then — he fell.

Dropped to his knees.

Like a broken man — like a boy who lost everything.

He wrapped his arms around her legs, clinging to her like a lifeline.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry I made you feel that way…”

His voice was barely a whisper, thick with the weight of every buried emotion he’d ever carried — ones he’d never shown the world… except to her.

Y/N stood frozen — watching him.

The Frontman. The cold-blooded man behind the mask.

Now crying like a child at her feet.

She slowly knelt down, trembling, and gently cupped his face in her palms.

She wiped his tears away with her thumbs.

“I… I want to forgive you,” she whispered.

“But I can’t. Not after everything you did — to me, to us.”

In-ho’s heart lurched. His breath caught. Was this it? Was this the end?

“No” he whispered urgently, cupping her face.

He pressed his forehead to hers.

“Don’t say that. You don’t mean it. I know you don’t. Please — just one chance. Let me prove I’ve changed. Let me be better.”

He pulled back, searching her eyes for anything — a flicker of hope, the softness she used to show him.

But all he saw was pain.

So much pain.

She didn’t answer. She just shook her head.

And something inside him broke.

“Y/N, please…”

His voice cracked under the weight of desperation.

His hands trembled.

“I’ll protect you both — you and the baby. I’ll take you far away from this hell. I’ll keep you safe. Just… please don’t leave me like this. Please—”

He was spiraling — voice unraveling, panic rising.

She slowly stood up.

Took a single step back.

And that was enough.

“It’s over, In-ho.”

⋆｡°✩ 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑 ✩°｡⋆

The house smelled of warm vanilla and sugar. Y/N had just finished baking Yu-ri’s favorite cookies.

Yu-ri — that was the name she’d given Junhee’s daughter. Now one year old, chubby-cheeked, bright-eyed… the spitting image of her mother.

Tiny footsteps pattered into the kitchen.

“Mama.”

Y/N turned with a soft smile. Yu-ri stood there, rubbing her sleepy eyes with her tiny fists. She was still half-asleep, but hearing her voice always filled Y/N’s chest with a bittersweet ache.

She knelt, scooping her up into her arms and kissing her temple.

“Did you sleep well, sweetheart?”

Yu-ri gave a slow nod, wrapping her small arms around Y/N’s neck.

Just then, her phone rang from the living room. Y/N’s face lit up when she saw the caller ID.

Gihun.

She pressed the green button, settled on the couch, and gently placed Yu-ri in her lap.

“Hey! Gihun. How are you?”

“I’m good. What about you? And how’s the little queen?”

“She just woke up. Moody as always”

Y/N laughed, just as Yu-ri peeked into the camera and babbled: “Un..cle!”

Gihun chuckled, but his eyes glistened with tears.

“She looks… just like Junhee,”

He said softly, and a flicker of pain crossed his face.

Sensing the shift in mood, Y/N tried to steer the conversation gently.

“So? Adjusted to American life yet?”

Gihun had moved to the U.S. a year ago to be closer to his daughter — trying to start fresh, to live differently.

“Yeah. You could say I’m figuring it out.”

Then, a pause.

“Y/N… Inho called me last night.”

Her smile faded.

Inho. The man she had once loved. The man who had broken her.

The memories crashed into her like a wave — the betrayal, the lies, the pain… and somehow, still, the love.

“I forgave him,” Gihun said gently.

“He’s changed, Y/N. And I hope, someday, you’ll be able to forgive him too.”

Before she could respond, the front door creaked open.

“I’ll call you later, Gihun.” She ended the call and placed the phone aside.

“I’m home!”

A familiar voice called.

Yu-ri’s entire face lit up.

“Appa! Appa!!”

She scrambled off the couch and ran to the door.

Inho walked in, catching her in his arms instantly.

“Aww, appa’s little princess” He whispered, kissing the top of her head.

“Can appa get a kiss too?”

Yu-ri giggled and gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, making him laugh.

He stepped into the living room, holding her, and Y/N stood nearby — a plate of warm cookies in her hand.

“Yu-ri, come baby. Let’s eat.”

Yu-ri gasped excitedly, “Yayyy!” and reached for the cookies.

Inho gently set her down, and she happily took a big bite.

Y/N turned to head back into the kitchen—

But Inho caught her wrist.

She turned to him.

He dropped down on one knee.

A small red velvet box in his hand.

Y/N’s heart stopped.

“I know you weren’t expecting this”

Inho began, his voice trembling.

“And I know you haven’t fully forgiven me. But it’s been a year… and I’m so thankful you decided to give me a second chance that night”

“Today, I want to make it official. I want to be a father to Yu-ri. I want to be yours — forever.”

“Y/N"

"Will you marry me?”

Tears welled in her eyes.

Could this really be happening?

The memories of the games, the horror, the heartbreak… it all came crashing back — but so did every moment of change, of healing, of the quiet love that had grown again.

She nodded slowly, her voice breaking:

“Yes.”

Inho’s eyes widened, stunned.

“I forgave you, Inho. I just never said it. You’ve changed — and you’ve proven it.”

“But promise me… you’ll never go back to who you were.”

He stood, pulling her into his arms.

“I swear. I’ll spend the rest of my life giving you both the happiness you deserve.”

He slid the ring onto her finger.

They both smiled through their tears.

And then he leaned in and kissed her — a soft, emotional kiss filled with everything they couldn’t say. Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck, returning it with just as much love.

“Oooo…”

Yu-ri’s curious voice made them break the kiss and laugh.

Inho picked her up again and tickled her until she squealed with joy.

Y/N grabbed her phone with a grin.

“Time to tell someone the news.”

She video-called Gihun.

“What happened? You ended the call so suddenly earlier—”

She raised her hand.

The ring sparkled on her finger.

Inho stepped in, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“WHAT? He proposed to you?!”

Gihun’s jaw dropped.

“Damn! I’m so happy for you both,”

He said, his voice cracking, eyes glassy.

“We have decided to officially make Yu-ri our daughter” Inho added.

Gihun nodded in approval.

“After everything… you two deserve this. A real, peaceful life.”

“Finally,”

He smiled.

“A happy ending.”

Y/N and Inho echoed together:

“Yes"

"Happily ever after.”

1K notes · View notes

docrobinavitch · 1 month ago

Text

chasing ghosts

dr. abbot x f!resident!reader masterlist content: 18+ mdni, sexually explicit content, lots of angst, age gap, swearing, alcohol, mentions of child death/multiple casualties at the beginning during a shift words: 8.1K synopsis: you and jack share a kiss during your second year of residency and you spend the next two years trying to outrun those feelings. until the pitt's annual summer party. jack abbot is down absolutely fucking horrendously. like i meaaaaan unprecedented levels of yearning. a/n: hi, i think i blacked out while writing this. eyeeeee had so so much fun. i hope i did jack justice. let me know what you think!!!!

The annual summer party for the Pitt is an all day affair in order to make sure everyone, regardless of who’s working what shift that day, has a chance to stop in.

You wouldn’t think it, but the ER knew how to throw a good party. In the morning, it started with brunch at a place downtown with bottomless mimosas, top tier pancakes, and a drag performance. After brunch, they’d go hang out at the park by the river for a few hours before reconvening for dinner and bar hopping downtown.

Jack Abbot was off today, but still skipped all the morning and afternoon activities in favor of the evening. His sleep schedule was built that way now and even on his off days, it was rare for him to be out during the day. Besides, he was hoping he’d run into you there after your own shift.

You never came to these types of events, but that didn’t stop him from hoping every time. His eyes were always searching, hoping they’d stumble upon yours.

He hadn’t seen or spoken to you much in the last two years, since you switched to the day shift. When shift change occurred, you largely avoided him. He asked Robby about you and Robby always said the same thing, “She’s a great doctor, but she keeps to herself.”

It hadn’t been like that when you were on the night shift. You were shy, sure, but it hadn’t taken Jack very long to pry you out of your shell.

He wondered sometimes if you regretted it, now. Letting him in.

Now, he was making the rounds at the first bar of the night, not so subtly looking for you.

“You’re pathetic,” Robby teased as he sipped his beer.

“Huh?” Jack said, finally bringing his eyes back to the man in front of him.

Robby smirked knowingly, “She is here, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” He said, “But her boyfriend is supposed to be meeting her here.”

His heart stuttered in his chest, “Boyfriend?”

Robby nodded, “I didn’t know she was seeing anyone until today. I overheard her mention it to Heather.”

Fuck. Not only were you seeing someone, you were bringing him here, to meet everyone in the Pitt. You must’ve been serious about him, then.

“Do you know where she is?”

Robby tilted his head as he looked at Jack, “You sure you wanna go down that road?”

“I just want to talk to her.” He said, and it was true. Mostly.

The two of you hadn’t had a real conversation since the week before you had requested the shift change. That night on the roof. He felt it was long overdue for the two of you to sit down and talk about it like adults. Maybe Robby was right, maybe it was much too late for that.

But Jack couldn’t accept that.

Robby sighed heavily, “I saw her go upstairs to the rooftop bar with Heather and Samira twenty minutes ago.”

“Thanks, brother.” Jack clapped him on the back as he headed up the stairs.

***

You liked the quiet of the night time. Being awake and working when everyone else was asleep brought with it a sort of peaceful solitude you couldn’t quite explain.

But Jack hadn’t needed you to explain, he had understood it intrinsically.

The night shift, of course, could become hectic and even nightmarish at times. But if you stepped outside for some air, either on the roof or the ambulance bay, the quiet of the night cocooned you in safety.

And that’s where you were that night two years ago, on the roof and leaning over the railing, trying to catch your breath.

There had been a six car pile up almost immediately rushed in after the day shift had trickled out. Ten patients. Four of them were in critical condition when they arrived, in that terrible purgatory between life and death. For five hours, you, Abbot, Shen, and Ellis had bounced between them. Still, you lost all four of them.

You had kept it together for the half hour after you had called the last patient, despite the fact that you had felt Jack’s eyes on you the whole time.

But he seemed able to keep it together, to not fall apart, so you would too. The knee jerk response to impress him, to make him proud of you had never quite dulled in your two years of residency. It felt a bit fucking pathetic, actually.

Worse, still, that he seemed to notice how badly you craved his validation and so gave it freely.

“Hey,” He stepped close to you, his warm breath caressing your cheek, “Go take a break, I’ll come find you in fifteen.”

“I don’t need a break.” You said quickly.

“You do,” He said, undeterred, “You’ve been staring dead eyed at the board for the last two minutes. Shen tried to call you over for a code stroke thirty seconds ago and you didn’t blink.”

You turned to him finally, panic on your face, “Fuck, seriously?”

You started to walk to go find Shen and the stroke patient, but Jack grabbed your arm, “Nope, uh-uh. Break first. Now.”

It was rare that Jack wasn’t joking with you, trying to make you smile. Now he looked deadly serious. Like he would physically remove you from the floor himself if you refused. You must’ve looked like shit.

“Okay.” You said finally, “Fine.”

He released your arm, but his eyes trained on your every step as you walked away, “I catch you on a patient in the next fifteen minutes and I’m sending you home.” He called after you.

You raised your hand over your head in a thumbs up to signal that you’d heard and kept walking.

And that was how you ended up on the roof. Bathed in the moonlight with the quiet midnight streets of Pittsburgh below, silent tears streamed down your cheeks as you greedily sucked the night air into your lungs.

You weren’t aware of time passing and your mind had gone blissfully blank until you heard him come up behind you.

“How come you, Ellis, or Shen didn’t need a break?” You asked, your voice wavering, “Is there something wrong with me?”

He leaned over the railing at your side and turned his head to look at you, but you avoided his eyes, knowing they’d be soft and warm and inviting. You did not need to see him looking at you like that right now. Just like you had been trying not to notice the way he watched you more than the others, touched you more than was necessary, handed out praise to you more generously.

“Not even a little bit.” He said softly, voice rough, “You were perfect down there. Nothing else you could have done.“

You breathed out a shaky breath, “Then why does it feel so bad?”

“Because you’re human,” He said softly, “And because you were the only one of us to call time of death on a seven year old tonight.”

You swallowed, tilting your head up towards the sky so you could see the moon. A moon that seven year old kid would never see again. “Does it ever hurt less?”

“Fuck, no.” He sighed, “But it makes you a better doctor, I think. Or at least, that’s what I tell myself to try to make it all mean something.”

Finally, you looked at him, and the sight of your red rimmed eyes wrecked him, “It does make you a better doctor,” You hiccuped and gave him a small smile, “The best, probably.”

He shook his head, smirking, and looked down at his hands, “Careful, kid. You keep talking like that, I might think you actually like me.”

Feeling brave, you nudged your shoulder against his, “I mean it. I feel really grateful that you’re my attending. I wouldn’t want to learn under anyone else.”

He pushed his shoulder back against yours and your hands brushed where they each grasped the railing, “I came up here to make you feel better and somehow you’re the one comforting me. How did you get so good at deflecting?”

You laughed through your tears and he relished the sound, “I learned from the best,” You said pointedly as you looked over at him.

“See,” He pointed at you, teasing, “That’s what I’m talking about. Much better. You’re way less unsettling when you’re mean.”

You smiled and he found himself staring at your mouth, enraptured by it, really. The truth was, he had noticed the ways in which he was better when he was around you. Both as a doctor and a teacher. You made him want to be better. He knew he had been giving you more attention than the others, bordering on an inappropriate amount. And he knew, before he came up to the roof, that he’d have a hard time being alone with you and not imagining what you taste like or what your soft skin would feel like under his calloused hands.

He thought you felt the same, but you could be hard to read sometimes. Sometimes, he swore you leaned into his touch, other times you jumped away from it as if he had burned you. Sometimes you went whole days seemingly trying to avoid him, others you followed him around like a puppy waiting for a pat on the head and for him to tell you what a good girl you are.

But now, fuck, now you were gazing at his mouth, too. And he tried, really fucking tried, to rein in the desire. He shouldn’t have kissed you. And he would think about it every day for days and weeks and months and years how badly he wished he could take it back. Not because he didn’t mean it or didn’t want it, but because it had started this downward spiral of silence and distance until you were so far away he hadn’t really seen you up close in two years. If he could go back, he would’ve told himself it wasn’t worth it. Because having only this much of you day in and day out while he yearned for more was better than having nothing at all, than you slipping through his fingers like grains of sand.

But he didn’t know then what he knew now.

Cautiously, he moved his face towards yours, waiting for you to pull back. But inch by inch he moved, and you stayed put. And when he was close enough to share breath with you, he met your eyes and was greeted with pupils that had completely devoured your irises. No color in sight, just an endless abyss of desire and want. Your breath faltered when his lips just barely brushed yours, and he stilled for a moment before his self restraint crumbled.

The kiss was hesitant and gentle, at first. Jack kept his hands to himself, slowly kissed you in a way that repeatedly seemed to ask Is this okay? Is this alright? Are you okay? Are you sure?

It was you who deepened the kiss first, tongue darting out to swipe gently at his lower lip.

And the cord between you, that was already so tenuous and frayed, snapped.

His hands shook as he touched you, moving from your waist, to your neck, to your face. It was like his body knew first what his brain didn’t, that he was taking too much and not enough, that hours and days and months and years of touching you would never satiate him anyway and he should just fucking quit while he was ahead. His traitorous mouth that moaned into yours was a bottomless, greedy pit and it could never have you, not really, not even as it sucked desperately at your neck in a useless attempt to mark you as his.

The marks would fade and you would fade from him along with them.

He thinks now he probably knew as soon as you pulled away, at the panic in your eyes, that he had lost you before he had even really had the chance to have you.

But he would deny it to himself, even as you ran off the roof ignoring the way your name came out strangled from his throat.

He would deny it when you didn’t look at him the rest of the night, when you pretended not to hear when he tried to talk to you after the shift change that morning.

He would deny it when you handed him your shift change request form after a week of avoiding him, asking for his signature as you looked anywhere but at him.

He would deny it when his broken voice asked “Is this really what you want?” and you only silently nodded.

Jack Abbot knew he had lost you, he wasn’t delusional, but he could convince himself it was only temporary. He was patient. So fucking patient. He’d find you again, when you were ready.

***

Jack could admit that you having a boyfriend had not been part of his plan. Not that he had a plan, more so an overwhelming sense that if he waited long enough, you’d fall back into him.

But you had still been fleeing the ER at shift change without acknowledging him. He was patient, but it aggravated him to no end, the way you seemed so unaffected. Sometimes it made him feel like maybe he had made it all up in his head and that you had never wanted him at all. But then the film would play on loop again in his head and he knew he didn’t imagine your blown out pupils or the way you deepened the kiss first or the way you moaned when his mouth plucked bruises from your neck like ripened strawberries.

You had wanted him just as badly, he was sure of that. He just couldn’t understand why you were still acting like he didn’t exist.

When he got to the rooftop and looked around, he found you first at a table in the corner, eyes glued to your phone. Another quick glance around and he saw Heather and Samira talking at the bar.

Perfect. You were alone.

When he crossed the roof and sat in the empty seat next to you and you didn’t immediately look up, he realized you had marked his presence on the rooftop as soon as he got here.

The man was like a fucking sonar to your brain. You knew when he was in the same room as you before your eyes could track him. Tonight was no different.

“You look like you could use a drink.” Jack said.

Oh, you hadn’t realized how much you had missed the pleasant roughness of his voice, how it soothed you effortlessly. It practically sent chills down your spine.

You swallowed, continuing to stare at your phone. The second you met those warm hazel eyes, it would be over for you, you knew. It was the reason you had avoided him so diligently the last two years.

“Heather and Samira are getting me one.”

He wordlessly held his own drink out to you. When you stared blankly at it for a few moments, he shook it lightly, ice rattling against the glass, “It’s just a tequila soda. It’s not poison.”

Against your better judgment, and perhaps to indulge that stupid fucking instinct in your head that demanded you not disappoint him, you took it from him. You did your best not to pay attention to the sensation that shot across your skin when your fingers brushed, but the traitorous goosebumps spread across your arms anyway.

You took a sip and handed it back to him, still looking at your phone.

“Why aren’t you with them at the bar?”

“I had to take a call.”

“From your boyfriend?” Finally, fucking finally, you looked at him. It was disdain all over your face, but fuck it, he’d take it. He smirked and held his hands up in surrender, “I didn’t ask, Robby told me. Said he was meeting you here.”

Quickly, you looked back at your phone and he saw your throat bob, “He called to say he couldn’t make it, so.”

Jack watched you carefully, the way you frowned and your mouth turned down just slightly. You were upset, and not just at him.

“I’m sorry,” He said softly, but you scoffed at his apology and shook your head. And that pissed him off, “Look, you may fuckin’ hate me, but I still care about you and I mean it. I’m sorry if he stood you up. I don’t like seeing you sad.”

You rubbed at your forehead in agitation, “I don’t hate you. I’ve never fucking hated you. That’s the problem.”

Well, that was news to him. But he decided not to comment on it. He didn’t want to piss you off anymore than he already had, which seemed to be an awful lot considering he had just got here.

“How long have you been together?” You shot him that annoyed look again, “Christ, I’m just making conversation.”

“Right,” You said sarcastically and shook your head, but you answered all the same, “Two and a half years.” You said quietly. It hadn’t quite caught up to you yet, what you were admitting when telling him that. It took a couple of moments for your brain to catch up, but by then it was too late.

But Jack’s brain was already there, making the mental calculations you had long forgotten about.

Two and a half—? No, that—That couldn’t be right. Because that would mean—

Your face and ears had reddened and you wouldn’t look at him.

Jack’s ears were ringing. He started to say your name—

“Dr. Abbot,” Heather and Samira were back, the latter handing you a drink, “Catching up with your old resident?”

He forced a smile and stood, acted like his world wasn’t fucking falling apart around him, like you hadn’t just dropped a fucking bomb on him in casual conversation.

He was impressed with his ability to hold damn near cheerful conversation with Heather and Samira until he was able to excuse himself.

And this time, it was you who called after him when he left the roof.

“Jack,” Your voice was a soft plea behind him. It was a language he used to be fluent in, but clearly, he didn’t fucking know you anymore. He was starting to think he never had, “Jack, wait—“

He rounded on you in the stairwell, you still a couple of steps above him so the two of you were eye level, “Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”

You seemed to be caught off guard that he had actually stopped, and just blinked at him for a moment, “What difference would it have made?”

“What difference—?” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, “All this time I’ve been driving myself out of my goddamn mind trying to figure out what I did wrong when it turns out I was your fucking, what, side piece? Affair?”

“Affair?” You hissed incredulously, “We kissed once!”

He squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head, “Does he know?”

“What?”

He was quickly becoming frustrated with your inability to keep up with the urgency this situation demanded. To him, at least, the whole world had shifted around him. And you were behaving as if he was the one acting crazy.

“Your boyfriend, does he know? About us?”

“Jack,” You said breathlessly, “There is no us. There was never an us.”

Jack shook his head, “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” You asked, exasperated.

“I’ve been pining after you for two fucking years and you’ve compartmentalized so goddamn well that you’ve convinced yourself it was nothing. That it meant nothing.”

For a second, he thought he saw a flicker of the version of you he used to know. Your face faltered for just a second, but then the walls were immediately back up, “I don’t owe you anything.” You said coldly, “It’s not my fault you’ve spent the last two years chasing a ghost.”

You stared each other down for a few more moments, the rage pulsating between you, before Jack broke your stare by tossing back the rest of his drink, “You’re right,” He said finally, and turned away from you to head down the stairs, “I’m sorry I disrupted your evening. Won’t happen again.”

You sighed, “Jack—“

“It’s Dr. Abbot,” He said coldly, turning back to face you again, “If you don’t mind.”

Your face fell marginally and he almost took it back when he thought he saw your lower lip wobble, but he couldn’t be sorry. If you wanted to pretend like there was nothing between the two of you, then he would do the same.

He turned again and jogged down the rest of the stairs. He needed another drink. Or seven.

***

Your hands were shaking. You stood in the stairwell staring stupidly after Jack for longer than was acceptable. You couldn’t go back upstairs to Heather and Samira like this, they’d know something was up. And you certainly couldn’t follow after Jack.

You should just go home. It was a stupid fucking idea to come here in the first place, you knew it was. And still you had come, why?

Because some part of you wanted to see him? No matter how much you denied it? Never mind the fact you had basically only invited your boyfriend because you knew his presence would keep you accountable if you were forced to be alone with Jack?

You hadn’t wanted him here, not really. Not for reasons that made sense. If you were honest with yourself, which you hadn’t been in a long, long time, your relationship had been over for at least six months.

Seeing Jack again, hearing his voice again made that very clear to you. And a part of you hated Jack for it. You had been able to convince yourself for two years that your current relationship was as good as it would get. Your mistake with Jack on the roof was just that, a mistake. Nothing more.

You had thought after all this time Jack must’ve felt the same. He fucked up and kissed his hot, younger resident, just once. He hadn’t meant to and he would be glad it was all over. You had been doing him a favor, you thought.

But when you had allowed yourself to look at him, really look at him tonight, that hadn’t been what you’d seen. In fact, he was angry with you. He had looked at you with such hurt and betrayal as if all this time he had been in love with you.

It didn’t make any fucking sense. You sat in the stairwell and pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes. None of it made any fucking sense.

You should go home.

***

Robby eyed Jack with silent suspicion when he joined him back at the bar and ordered two tequila sodas. He knocked the first one back in one go and then rested his head in his hands on the bar top.

“So it went well, I take it?” Robby asked mildly.

Jack glared at Robby and then looked back at his drink, “She has a boyfriend.”

Robby nodded, “Right. I’m glad we’re on the same page about that, now.”

Jack shook his head and felt the tequila make its way through him, “No, you see, she’s had a boyfriend. Since before she moved to the day shift. The same one.”

Robby was silent for a moment, then, “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Jack knocked back his second tequila soda and ordered another.

“Alright, I can see you’re upset, but all the tequila sodas in the world aren’t going to make you feel better.”

“No,” Jack agreed, “But maybe it’ll stop me from thinking about her for just a while.”

Just then, as Robby was trying to subtly get the bartender to cut off Jack, Robby’s phone buzzed with a text from Heather.

What did Abbot say to Y/N? Found her crying in the stairwell. She won’t stop.

He sighed heavily and turned back to Jack, “You made her cry?”

“What?” Jack looked at him incredulously, “No.”

“Heather says she’s sobbing in the stairwell.”

Oh, he hated the way that sent an ache through him. There was a time when he would’ve taken off running to get to you if he had heard that. Maybe even just earlier today. Not now, though.

“Believe me, her eyes were fucking bone dry when I left her.”

Robby’s phone buzzed again.

Never mind. Finally got her to say something coherent. Broke up with her boyfriend over the phone. Nothing to do with Abbot.

Christ. Nothing to do with Abbot. Right, Robby thought and rubbed a hand down his face, somehow he doubted that very much.

Robby looked back at his friend, debating if he should deliver this news to Jack or not. But Jack was very drunk now and he’d probably just tear after you like a man on a mission. Neither of you needed that right now, Robby thought. He’d tell Jack in the morning.

***

Heather and Samira sat on either side of you as you tried and failed to explain everything to them. You were very bad at this. Having work friends. Shen and Ellis had tolerated you, always including you, buying you coffee, but you knew really you were mostly third wheeling. And you hadn’t minded it. You had always tried to draw a firm line between your work and personal life, which is probably why the situation with Jack fucked you up so badly.

Heather started again, “So you and Abbot—“

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you switched to the day shift.”

“Yes.”

“And Jack also wanted you moved to the day shift?”

This is where things got murky for you. Tiredly, you rubbed your eyes, “I don’t know what Jack wanted because I never asked.”

“He didn’t know about your boyfriend then, either?”

You shook your head slowly, “I thought the fact that I was his resident was excuse enough. I left because I didn’t trust myself around him and I thought it’d be easier on us both.”

“And today was the first time you’d really spoken in two years?”

“Yes.”

“And this one conversation spurred you to break up with your long term boyfriend on a whim?”

You looked at Heather and smirked, “So you’re getting it now? Why I should be institutionalized?”

Heather and Samira both laughed, but Heather shook her head, “I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re finally being honest with yourself about your feelings. Which is really fucking brave.”

“I say we go to the next bar and get very drunk.” Samira said, standing.

“Oh, I— No,” You shook your head, panicking, “What if he’s there?”

“Oh, I hope he is.” Heather laughed and the two of them linked arms with you.

***

Robby walked silently next to Jack as they made their way to the next bar, his hands stuffed in his pockets, “Brother, I really think maybe you should just sleep this one off.”

Jack turned to Robby, “It’s only 10 PM which is roughly 10 AM by my standards. So there will be no sleeping from me for a while. But you, by all means, can go home.”

Robby inhaled slowly through his nose. He was fucking exhausted, but he didn’t trust Jack in this state. And he had seen you go off with Heather and Samira not too long ago, headed in the same direction they were walking in right now.

So he kept walking, eyeing Jack every so often until they got to the bar.

He should have just gone home, probably.

Because once they got to the bar, all hell broke loose.

***

The room was spinning. The text had come in just moments after back to back lemon drop shots and your vision was blurred. You were unsure if it was from tears or the alcohol.

“Hey, what happened?” Samira was shouting in your ear over the din of the bar.

You passed the phone to her wordlessly as you ordered another shot. You needed to be belligerent if you were going to survive this.

Samira’s jaw dropped as she watched the video. She scrubbed back and forth a few times before she handed the phone back to you.

“This is the boyfriend who couldn’t meet you here because of ‘work’?”

You nodded.

“Well, you made the right call then, breaking up with him.”

You laughed humorlessly, and then you were sobbing, “I don’t know… why I care…” You hiccuped, “I don’t think I’ve loved him for a long time.”

Samira sighed, rubbing a hand down your back, “It sounds like you tried really hard to salvage the relationship. Probably feels like a waste of almost three years of your life now,” This renewed your sobs and Samira looked at you with alarm, “I’m not saying I think you wasted three years, I just mean, it probably felt that way— I’m gonna go find Heather, she’s much better at this sort of thing.”

Alone, you ordered a drink and wiped at your cheeks. You knew Jack was next to you before you smelt his cologne and sighed heavily.

“Don’t worry,” He said softly, “I’m just getting a drink and then I’ll go as far away from you as possible.”

You only nodded. The man you had chosen to fight for had stood you up to go to a bar across town and make out with the coworker he swore for months you had nothing to worry about while your best friend unknowingly filmed him from across the room.

The man you were beginning to suspect had been in love with you for close to four years now, you had spent the last two years running away from and now he hated you.

It felt like a big cosmic joke.

You rested your head on your arms and willed him away so you wouldn’t have to confront the long string of bad decisions you’d made that had led you here.

But Jack just couldn’t resist when you looked so miserable, “Are you alright, kid? Hate seeing you like this.”

You pushed your head up and met his eyes. Despite your earlier argument, he was looking at you with tenderness and concern. He meant it, that he cared, you could see it all over him. It made you want to burst into tears again. And maybe that’s why you decided to poke the bear, see how far you could push, what would make him really, truly loathe you? It was what you deserved after all, right?

You turned your head away from him and unlocked your phone, tapping to the video your friend had sent, hitting play and sliding it over the bar top to Jack, “You’ll be happy to know this is what my boyfriend was too busy doing to meet me tonight. Some sort of fucked up karma, I suppose.”

Jack’s face betrayed nothing as he watched the video, but you thought maybe a muscle in his jaw ticked. He slid the phone back to you, “Whatever you think of me, I’m not enjoying this.”

You scoffed and shook your head, looking down at the bar top.

“I’m serious. I would never—“ You hear him sigh in frustration, “Just because I’m hurting doesn’t mean I wish you were hurting, too. If anything, if you were happy, maybe it’d all make more sense to me.”

He tapped his finger on top of your phone case, “That guy’s a fucking idiot. You deserve way better than that.” You chewed on the inside of your cheek, carefully avoiding looking at him, “Hey,” He said and crooked a finger under your chin, gently pulling until you met his gaze, “You deserve better, okay?”

You were conscious of the fact that you wanted to kiss him. And you knew he saw the way your eyes drifted dangerously to his mouth.

“I did the same thing to him.” You said quietly, still staring at his mouth, “Only seems fair.”

Jack released your chin and shook his head, “Don’t compare what we did to… To that.”

He sounded disgusted and it made you want to laugh, “How is it any different?”

“That is just drunken lust.” He leaned towards you on his forearms, “What we did meant something. Maybe not to you, but it did to me.”

“And that makes it better?”

“Did it mean something to you?” He shot back.

His face was very close to yours now, you could smell the tequila on his breath.

“Tell me,” He said slowly, “Tell me it didn’t mean anything to you and I swear to God, I’ll walk away and you’ll never hear from me again.”

You swallowed, blinking rapidly to clear the watering of your eyes. Of course you couldn’t tell him it meant nothing. You had thought about it nearly every day for two years.

But you were drunk and a fucking wreck and you didn’t know anything anymore except that you still remembered exactly what Jack Abbot tasted like and that he was looking at you right now like he would get on his knees for you in this crowded bar if you asked.

“I should go.” You whispered softly, broken, and slid from your bar stool.

He let you pass, but then called after you, loudly enough that people around you quieted, “What the fuck are you so scared of?”

You turned back, knowing that your face was flushed from the attention of others, “Goodnight, Dr. Abbot.”

***

“Hey, let her go,” Robby stood in front of Jack who was now trying to exit the bar and follow after you, “You’re drunk.”

“I’m fine,” Jack insisted, and when he looked around Robby, he saw it had started to downpour outside, “She’s drunk and it’s storming out there.”

“Heather will check in with her and make sure she gets home okay.”

Jack looked from the door to Robby a few times before sighing and running a hand through his hair, “Sorry, I just… She really gets under my fucking skin.”

Robby nodded and tried to stifle a yawn, “I noticed.”

Jack sighed, “Go home, Robby, seriously. I’m not gonna do anything stupid. I promise.” He shook his head, “I should probably just go home, too.”

Robby offered a sad smile and clapped him on the shoulder, “It’ll all make more sense in the morning, brother.”

Jack snorted, “Historically, that has never been true for me.”

***

It felt pretty melodramatic to be standing in the park overlooking the river as it poured. It was all very Jane Austen of you, you decided. Except Mr. Darcy would not be showing up to declare his love for you, Mr. Darcy was likely dry and headed home in his UberX.

You didn’t know where home was anymore. Luckily, you hadn’t moved in with your boyfriend yet. It was one of the many things that should have been a red flag, the fact that you hadn’t had a desire to cohabitate with him. You liked when he left in the morning and you liked the nights where he got home too late and went to his own apartment so as not to disturb your rest.

But still, there were traces of him all through your apartment. You didn’t want to be there.

You’re not sure how long you sit in the warm rain before your phone buzzed. You expected Heather or Samira, but were shocked to see Jack’s name on the banner, alerting you to a text.

Jack hadn’t texted you in something like two years.

I know I shouldn’t be texting you, it read, But I just want to be sure you got home safe. Please text when you’re home.

After staring at your phone for a few minutes, now soaked with the rain, you attempted to dry the screen with the sleeve of your jacket. It worked only slightly, but allowed you to hold down the text and “like” it.

After about thirty seconds, the speech bubble appeared on your phone to indicate he was typing.

Well don’t just fucking like the message. Are you home?

You could lie, you supposed. Probably, you could walk into PTMC and sleep in an empty room upstairs.

But you were growing tired of all the pretending.

no. You replied finally.

His reply was immediate, Where are you?

in the park.

It’s raining.

excellent observation, dr. abbot.

You stared at the screen as his speech bubble appeared and disappeared, over and over, for a couple minutes.

Send me your location. Then, almost as an afterthought, Please.

This was a bad idea, probably. After the events of today, you should not be sending Jack Abbot your location. You should not be speaking to Jack Abbot at all. After today, you should probably resign from your residency and maybe join a convent.

You watched as seemingly of their own volition, your hands tapped all the right buttons to send Jack a pin.

A few moments later, he texted a screenshot of an Uber being sent to your location with the car information and license plate.

i don’t want to go home. You sent him in a rush.

Yeah, I got that, he replied, The Uber is bringing you to me.

You blew a long breath out between your lips, you sure that’s a good idea?

Nope. Uber’s pulling up now.

Sure enough, headlights lit up the raindrops behind you. You turned to see the car, quickly giving the license plate a cursory once over to make sure it matched what Jack sent.

You could send the car off. Say it was a mistake. Not get in. Showing up at Jack’s apartment soaked to the skin in the middle of the night, still drunk and emotionally unstable felt like boarding a train you knew would derail.

You still got in the car, though. You didn’t have anywhere else to go.

***

When Jack opened the door to his apartment, the frigid air from his AC assaulted you and you shivered, wrapping your arms around yourself.

He stepped aside to allow you in and you kicked off your water logged shoes.

You had been here only once before, the first week of your residency. Jack would host a team dinner (early, so you could all still make your shift in time) whenever a new resident was added to the night shift.

You had been really nervous you recalled, until Jack had cracked a joke that made you choke on your soda.

It had been almost four years, but his apartment hadn’t changed much at all. It was neat and tidy, nothing out of place. The furniture was well taken care of, but everything was in varying shades of gray and blue. The only hints of personality being some pictures on his fridge, vinyls by a stereo, and some books on a shelf.

But one photo on his fridge caught your eye and before you knew what you were doing, you were walking to it.

Early in your second year of residency, you had presented your research on cardiogenic pulmonary edema outcomes in the ER at a conference in New York. Jack had shown up without telling you he was coming. He stayed near your poster all day while you presented to interested passersby, giving you a thumbs up or “solid work” when you needed it, smuggling you snacks, making sure you drank water. And at the end of it you remembered he took you out to dinner and told you how proud he was of you and what a great emergency medicine doctor you would be.

You had taken a picture with him in front of your poster and this was the photo on his fridge. You had a huge smile on your face and Jack had an arm wrapped around your shoulders.

“I didn’t know you had this.” You said softly.

He didn’t say anything so you turned to look at him, but his eyes were trained on the photo, “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes,” He said finally, walking by you to his bedroom.

You watched in his doorway as he pulled a pair of clean sweatpants and a t shirt from his closet and placed them at the edge of his bed, “The shower’s in that room,” He pointed to a door off the bedroom, “There’s clean towels under the sink, use whatever soap you like.”

He started to walk past you, but you grabbed his arm, and he stopped, eyes snagging on the hand that was touching him, “Thank you.” You said softly.

His eyes slowly roved upwards until they met yours. He searched your face, though you weren’t sure what he was looking for, then pressed a kiss to your forehead before he left the room.

***

After you were showered and changed, you wandered out to the living room where Jack sat on the couch, an arm draped over his forehead. He had taken his prosthetic off and it was propped up next to the coffee table.

When he heard you pad into the room, he cracked his eyes open, “Feeling better?” You nodded. “Good. Take the bed, I’ll sleep out here.”

But you still stood there, staring at him, arms wrapped around yourself, “Do you love me?” You asked, voice small.

He stared at you for a moment and sat up, running a hand over his face, “Have I not made it painfully obvious?”

“For how long?”

He shook his head and smiled at you incredulously, “You don’t get to do this.”

“Do what?”

“You’ve been in control of this,” He gestured between the two of you, “From the second I fucking met you and now you’re trying to what, decode the situation? See what outcome is most advantageous? I mean, Jesus Christ, what do you want?”

“What do I want?”

“Yes,” He said, “Not what seems correct, not what seems rational, what is it that you want?”

“I—“ You shook your head, “I don’t– I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” He said firmly, “Do you want your cheating boyfriend?”

You frowned, “No.”

“Did you ever want him?”

You huffed in frustration, “What do you mean?”

“I mean when you chose him over me, was that what you wanted?”

“That’s not a fair characterization of what happened—“

“Was it what you wanted?”

You faltered, “It was what was safest.” You said softly.

He smiled at you sadly, “He couldn’t hurt you if you didn’t love him, right?”

You stared up at the ceiling, willing the tears back into your eyes, “I didn’t think it meant that much to you.”

“You never gave me the chance to tell you.” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, “I’ll ask you again, what do you want?”

You looked at him, eyes watering, and you swallowed hard before you moved to him. He watched you as you placed a knee on either side of his legs, straddling his lap. His eyes followed your every movement reverently, your face just above his as you rested your forehead against his. His hands knotted themselves in your hair, “I’m scared,” You breathed shakily into his mouth.

“Of what?” He asked, his mouth near centimeters from yours.

“Of you. Of wanting you too much. Of losing you. Of everything.”

“I can’t promise you that this will work,” He said softly, “But I can promise I’ll fight like hell to make it work.”

You swallowed, “Because you love me?”

Finally, he laughed, “Yes, I fucking love you. Now be quiet.” He said before he kissed you.

He tasted exactly like you remembered, except tonight, there were remnants of tequila on his tongue. It was like he was trying to make up for lost time, the way he kissed you on that couch. He pushed his tongue into your mouth almost immediately, like he was searching for something he’d lost. Already, you were out of breath, hips grinding down on him without realizing. He sucked your lower lip into his mouth and bit down gently, groaning when you rubbed yourself on his growing erection.

“Slow down,” He chastised.

“You started it.” You reminded him.

“Fuck,” He moaned and then pushed you off him so he could crawl over you, “You’re sure?” He asked as you looked up at him, hair fanning around your head on the couch cushion like a halo.

You nodded, “I want you.”

He smirked and lowered his head to yours again, pulling kisses from you as one hand worked its way under your t-shirt. Your skin was smooth and soft there and he inched up slowly, until his fingers just brushed the underside of your breast. Touching you like this, he thought a lot about that night on the roof, the way he had kissed you like he knew he was already out of time.

Now… Now the world seemed to open up. He could take as much time as he wanted. You weren’t going anywhere, not this time. You were his and he wouldn’t let you go so easily again.

Gently, he tugged the t-shirt over your head so he could look at you and he was unable to suppress the sigh that tumbled from his lips. He squeezed your breast with one hand, thumbed your nipple and watched it pebble as you sighed. Still watching you, he pinched your nipple lightly between his thumb and forefinger and your eyes rolled back into your head as you writhed beneath him.

He kissed you, fingers still teasingly rolling your nipple between his fingers, and then he began to kiss down your jaw and neck until he was able to suck your nipple into his mouth. The moan that fell from your lips when he swirled his tongue around you went straight to his cock.

He was overly conscious of the fact that because he had imagined this very moment for two years minimum, likely longer, because he had imagined it hundreds of times while getting himself off, it was likely he would last all of thirty seconds once he was inside you, once he felt the real thing. So he would make this last for you.

Jack shimmied the sweatpants off of you and forgot that because you were here and you had just showered, you weren’t wearing panties. And suddenly, he felt feral.

“Jesus Christ,” He shook his head looking at you, it felt like maybe he was dreaming a little, having you naked beneath him. He felt almost delirious with it.

You looked up at him, those pupils once again whole saucers, “Touch me, please?” You whined.

He kissed you again, licking into your mouth as he reached a hand down between your thighs. You gasped as he fully sunk a finger into you. When he moved his mouth back down to suck on your other nipple, your back arched and it sent him into another dimension, being able to make you feel like this.

With two of his fingers pumping you slowly and a thumb on your clit, he felt the moment when you climaxed before you cried out, “That’s it, sweetheart,” He said softly, “Look so pretty when you come for me like that.”

As you caught your breath, you watched as he pulled his fingers out of you and then sucked your juices from his digits. “Taste so good, too.”

Your eyes stayed locked on one another as he reached for a wooden bowl on the coffee table. He took the top off, pulled out an aluminum packet, and closed it again. And suddenly you were giggling, “What?” He asked, ripping the package open.

“D’you fuck mad bitches on this couch or something, Jack?”

He rolled his eyes, but smirked, “Shut up.”

When he slid into you, forehead pressed to yours, you gasped at the sensation. You had thought about this countless times before, Jack Abbot above you, like this. What you had never really thought about was that maybe while he did it, he’d be looking at you like he was in love with you. And it nearly shattered you.

“I love you,” You murmured into his mouth as you felt him beginning to come undone, “I love you so much.”

He moaned your name as he finished and collapsed against you, damp and breathless, “You love me, huh?” He said after a moment.

You lightly scratched the back of his head, “I’ve loved you for years,” You said softly, “Just spent a lot of that time denying it.”

He pulled his head back and kissed you messily, your chin grasped firmly in his hand.

“Better late than never.”

#the pitt #the pitt fic #the pitt x reader #jack abbot #dr abbot #jack abbot x reader #dr abbot x reader #dr abbot smut #dr abbot imagine #mine

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erwinsvow · 2 months ago

Text

𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐦𝐞 — 𝐚.𝐜.

summary: you take care of lena, clean up around the house, and always leave dinner for him when he gets home late. and among constant and never-ending change, you are andrew's northern star.

pairing: andrew cody x babysitter!reader

word count: 13.3k

warnings: read carefully! age-gap dynamics, reader is said to have recently graduated college, i basically ignore anything from the show that wouldn't make sense in my perfect little world. smut—arm humping, oral sex, penetration, the tiniest bit of breeding if you squint real hard.

author's note: and here she is. also known as shea wants to write about doing things to pope's arms.

you used to complain if someone called you their nanny. you’re just a babysitter. this would not—could not—be your full time job. it’s just so demanding. you love the kids you take care of but the idea of saying that you’re a nanny makes it a little more real. like you wouldn’t be able to get out of this, despite how hard you’re trying.

you just don’t want to be a babysitter forever.

but the first time mister cody introduces you as lena’s nanny, you don’t think you mind it all that much.

babysitters are temporary—girls in high school looking for money to pay for coffee and nail appointments, covering date-nights and overtime at the office.

nannies are permanent—it’s a career. you’re responsible for the kid pretty much twenty-four hours a day. kids with nannies are rich, mom and dad too busy at work to be at home. from the little you deduced, nannies buy groceries and make three meals. they go to doctor’s appointments and organize play-dates with other nannies.

you do some of those things for lena. her uncle tries to take her and pick her up from school when he can, and when he calls to tell you that he won’t be able to make it every now and then, he sounds so sorry about it, you don’t know what you can do to reassure him that it’s okay. lena’s young, she doesn’t care about stuff like that so deeply. and she likes you, which helps matters a lot.

you had finished the last few classes you needed to graduate a couple months ago. before that, you’d have to tell mister cody no, i’m sorry occasionally, something that you really didn’t like doing. he seemed like he had enough going on without the babysitter cancelling.

and besides, after you had told him that your classes were done, you were supposed to tell him that you would be looking for a real job, something with your degree, that he should start looking for a real nanny for lena. you were supposed to politely, yet firmly allude to how you’d been scrambling with classes, finishing assignments in the car in between picking up his niece and after she’d fallen asleep at night. how you missed an important lecture because the pediatrician’s office was running behind an hour and lena’s grandmother wasn’t available to take her.

instead, the second you had met his eyes (which were terribly green and incredibly sad), you had folded, and told him you’d be available whenever he needed. and you thought maybe that would garner you a smile—and you’d been wrong. he had looked your way for about five seconds, muttered thank you, and walked away.

and maybe if you could resist those terribly green and incredibly sad eyes, you wouldn’t have wound up as a full-time nanny. life could always be worse—that’s the motto you’ve grown up with. there are so many worse things in oceanside than spending every day in a pretty house by the beach and taking care of a quiet little girl.

if not anything else, you could start making payments on your student loans, if you wanted. mister cody paid you in cash, and he paid you way too much, probably his way of apologizing for how much you had stepped up in the last couple months. but again, you didn’t really mind anymore. maybe if it was another family, you would care more about finding a real job.

but you like lena. you like her uncle, too, you think, as much as you can like a man who is virtually silent and stares at you like he’s boring into your soul when you’re making dinner. you like him because he’s good with her, you can always tell he’s trying his absolute best, his hardest with her. (it doesn’t help that he’s cute—cute in the way that strays are, like you wish you could fix everything wrong with him and reassure him that he’s doing enough, and tell him to stop staring and just come tell you what he’s thinking instead.)

the first couple months were the hardest. lena wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. she hated school, hated all the things she had still cared for when her dad was alive. you’d tried bribing her with trips to the beach, the playground, ice cream with extra fudge and sprinkles. all the things that kids liked. but she wasn’t just a normal kid—and it seemed that you and her uncle were the only ones who understood this.

you didn’t realize you had such a maternal instinct inside of you. maybe it’s because the other kids you’d babysat in your life had been brats, sticky handed toddlers going through the terrible twos and making your life hell while you were trying to pass your classes. lena is the opposite.

she’s the saddest child you’ve ever met, and you know nothing that you or her uncle do is going to fix it overnight.

but progress comes in stages. the first step had been getting her to want to eat again. you’d sat on the couch next to her, watching a nature documentary that her uncle had probably left playing on the tv.

(he is a whole other can of worms—he doesn’t sleep or eat that much either, and one time you had come in really early to get some work done before getting her to school. he’d been awake, watching something just like this, at five-thirty in the morning. and when you’d asked him when he’d gotten up, he had shrugged, and murmured something that sounded suspiciously close to i don’t sleep. that’s your next mission, because you can only focus on one at a time.)

“you hungry, sweetie?” you didn’t want to be pushy. she wouldn’t like that, would only retreat further into herself. you wanted her to come to you when she was ready to eat. lena shook her head and focused back on the television. “okay. well, if you get hungry later, i’ll eat with you.”

lena says okay in her quiet voice, holding onto a stuffed animal and staring ahead. you wait a couple of hours—there’s always something to do in the house. you clean up, wiping counters and sweeping while she stays on the couch. you check in every now and then to make sure she didn’t fall asleep.

and then, thirty minutes before her new bedtime, she comes and sits on the chair by the dining table while you’re wiping it down.

“can we get pizza?” she asks, and you nod right away.

“of course we can. what kind do you want?”

another thirty minutes later, the pizza’s there, and you’re both eating slices of pepperoni and spinach. you’ve formulated your plan for the rest of the night—her uncle’s still not home, which means you can crash on the couch or stay awake. you decide to stay awake, since there’s no follow up text from him. if he wasn’t going to come home tonight, you’d expect the standard, concise message; won’t be back tonight. is lena okay?

and you’re stupid, because you think it’s sweet that he always asks if she’s okay. like you wouldn’t call him the second something went wrong, like he doesn’t believe that you’d trust him with that information before anyone else. but there’s no texts tonight from the contact you’d saved as andrew cody (lena’s uncle).

lena’s finishing her last slice and you’re cleaning up when you hear it—the rumble of his truck pulling up to the house. then a minute later, footsteps and the front door opening.

“what’s all this?” he asks, and you have to remember to find the words.

you don’t know why that happens when he comes around—you’re usually great with dads. maybe it’s because he looks tired, more tired than usual, at least. his copper curls are messed up, like he’s been running a hand through his hair all night. lena’s uncle is always stiff, but it seems worse today, somehow.

(another thought seeps in, an uninvited guest in your mind, about how you’d really like to take care of him. he just needs some sleep, a little peace of mind. that’s it. you’re still trying to figure out the best way to give it to him.)

“we got pizza, uncle pope,” lena fills in, setting down the last piece of crust you knew she wouldn’t finish.

“there should be enough for you,” you add, smiling at him. he doesn’t smile back, but you’re used to that at this point. and you can tell what’s about to come. “lena, can you go brush your teeth and get your pajamas on for me?”

she nods and climbs off the chair, running into her room.

“it’s past her bedtime,” he starts, taking a few steps closer to you. “and pizza for dinner-”

you interrupt him, even though you probably shouldn’t. you close up the box, setting it on the island and you go back to wipe the table.

“she’s not eating, mister cody,” you put the paper towel down, getting your bearings in order to face him, make the dreaded, never-ending eye-contact. “when kids don’t eat you have to meet them halfway. i thought this was better than her going to bed without eating at all.”

he keeps looking at you. you think you should be a little nervous, but you don’t get like that anymore. flustered, sure, but not nervous—lena’s uncle is just kind of a starer, and you’ve gotten used to it by now.

“i’m sorry. i’ll run it by you next time, i promise. i just wanted her to eat something.” he’s silent for a while, like he’s processing what you said.

“yeah. okay. thanks.”

you smile again, a small one. the kitchen’s clean now, or at least as clean as you can get it. you’re sure that when you’re back in the morning, it’ll be spotless, which you can only assume is one of mister cody’s nocturnal activities. you have a routine before leaving—you say goodnight to lena, make sure you didn’t leave anything behind, and tell her uncle you’ll see him in the morning.

he doesn’t normally say anything back, maybe a grunt of acknowledgement. so you’re surprised tonight, when you grab your bag and your keys and hear—

“have a good night.”

“you too, mister cody.”

it took time, but you’ve gotten her schedule better. she eats dinner with you now, whatever semi-healthy thing you can think of with the stuff in the pantry and the groceries you picked up while she’s at school. her uncle leaves money for that sort of thing—an envelope filled with hundred dollar bills. it’s labeled lena’s babysitter in stiff, neat handwriting and he told you to use it for copays and ice-cream and anything else that lena needs. but it feels wrong to use his money when he already overpays you, so you just use your own.

you thought he might not have noticed that the envelope isn’t getting any thinner, until one morning when you arrive and see him counting the notes in it with his head down. now you’re the one staring—watching his arm flex and the muscles move as he flips through the bills. he wears the same kind of shirts every day, short sleeve button-ups, and every day, you are subject to watch his forearms while he does whatever he does. it’s a cruel and unusual punishment.

the worst had been when you needed a box down from the cabinet, the one with the muffin tins and cookie cutters. he had appeared behind you and taken it down for you in seconds, carrying it to the kitchen for you. you had been staring then too, uncomfortable and slack-jawed and wondering why his arms had your mouth dry. (you know the answer, it’s just better to live in denial, you think.)

“good morning, mister cody.” you set your bag down on the sofa, heading inside to get started on breakfast. you open the fridge, taking out a carton of eggs and orange juice and avoiding looking right at him. you don’t need to be flustered before seven-thirty am.

“you haven’t been using this money,” he states. you wish you could figure out what his tone means—there’s no inflections, no emotion simmering behind the words. it’s just cut and dry, stating a fact.

“well, i-” you turn back and look up from the stove and your words die on your tongue. he’s standing up, looking right at you, a fist full of cash like he’s going to make you use it one way or another. a single vein running through his arms tenses. your gaze flickers from it to his eyes quickly, looking at you like he wants you to start listening to him.

“i, um, i had enough.”

“you should use it.”

“but you already gave me a lot, so i-”

“i want you to use it.” the way he says it, it’s not a request.

“right. i-i will. is lena awake?”

“she’s getting ready.”

“great. thank you.” you turn back to the eggs with a flushed face. and even though you’re not facing him anymore, you can tell he’s still staring at you.

“i might not be back tonight.” you turn around and meet his eyes again. terribly green, incredibly sad. you’re too far now to see the brown, but you know it’s there. “i…i’ve got some work. it’ll be late, if i do.”

“thank you for the heads up. i, uh, i’ll crash on the couch then.” you think he might say something else, but you’re not sure. it’s silent for a moment, while you get the eggs onto a plate and hurry into the hallway to get lena.

she comes out first, carrying her backpack. you follow with her hairbrush for once she’s done eating, getting her already packed lunch out from the fridge to sort into her bag. there’s a whole routine that you had learned when you first started babysitting her, and now it’s just a way of life. filling up her water bottle, checking the calendar on the fridge to make sure there’s nothing you’re missing, pulling her jacket from the closet if it’s cold outside.

you get the bottle out, glancing back at her uncle. he’s leaning in while lena takes a bite of the eggs, probably telling her that he won’t be home, and to have a good day, and all the other things you’re sure he says to her. then they hug, and you feel like you’re intruding.

he picks up his keys, which rest in the small blue bowl by the door where yours sit too. and without thinking, you call out after him.

“have a good day at work.” he doesn’t say anything back, but he looks at you before he leaves. you don’t even know what he does for work.

“ready for school?” lena shakes her head no like always.

the days are long, but the weeks are short. you bring lena to school, but they have a half-day, so there’s no point in going home for the day if you need to be back in a couple of hours. so you head back to mister cody’s place, focusing your attention on cleaning the remnants from breakfast. you check the fridge, making note of how much fruit and milk you have left, scribbling onto a piece of paper for later. and for once, you listen to him, taking a single bill out of the envelope and putting it into your wallet. there’s other hundred dollar bills in there too, ones you need to deposit.

it hasn’t been making sense lately. a lot of nannies live with their families because it avoids the wastefulness of paying rent for an apartment you hardly ever visit. you pay internet and electric for a one-bedroom that’s empty the entire day. and now that you’re done with classes, you don’t even need to work on anything late at night or even at lena’s house. you carry around a book with you, and you think you’ve even left a couple on the coffee table, just for the future.

you don’t know why you still have your apartment. well, you know why—mister cody has never mentioned you moving in. and he probably never will, because he doesn’t want you to. but it just doesn’t make sense the more you think about it. you show up between six and seven and sometimes you don’t go home until ten. sometimes you don’t go home at all.

after making your list, you rack your head of things you can do to occupy lena’s time today. the library has a weekly reading, and there’ll be other kids there. you like to pick things so she can get some company from kids her age, so she’s not only stuck with you and her uncle all the time.

closer to when school gets out, you get in the car, bringing in your emergency bag with a change of clothes and your toothbrush since you’ll be staying the night. it’s not an entirely uncommon occurrence, which is why the bag, and a couple others like it, is always ready to go. you go to the bank first, depositing everything except the single hundred-dollar bill you took today. then you drive by the park, see if they’re having any of those pet-therapy sessions today. and then finally school to pick up lena.

the rest of the day goes how you planned. you forget how exhausting it is keeping a little kid entertained for hours on end, unsure of exactly what her uncle pope and his brothers do with her sometimes, when you struggle to fill up a couple of extra hours. the grocery store—where you splurge and buy ingredients to make stove-top smores because lena asks and you’ll take your wins where you can get them—then the library, where you take out a couple of books for lena to read at home and smile when she’s talking with some of the other girls there, then the playground for an hour, before home for dinner.

you make spaghetti while she finishes her homework, and review her homework while she changes into pajamas. and then it’s time for the routine she loves so much, just like her uncle, a nature documentary about penguins while you toast the marshmallows on a fork.

an hour later, lena’s asleep in bed, and you’re scrubbing hardened chocolate off the counter next to the stove. you don’t want more work for her uncle when he’s back, and you’ve learned lena’s a heavy sleeper, so you get to cleaning. it’s not like, as pathetic as the thought is, you have anything better to do.

and then about two hours after that, it’s eleven-thirty. it’s right around the latest that mister cody has ever come home, so you’re pretty sure he won’t be back tonight.

the only thing you have to look forward to in your apartment is the shower you take after a long day. you’ll have to make do with the shower inside the room where mister cody sleeps, since lena’s is close to her room and filled with products for an eight year old, and at the very least, you need adult shampoo and soap.

the room is bare—you would have guessed it’s a guest room if you didn’t know better. you’re not nosy, but you look around, trying to see if there’s anything there that makes the room her uncle’s. you know there’s still another bedroom, the one her parents used to share, since lena sometimes goes in there when she can’t sleep. so this was a guest room, and now it’s mister cody’s, and now you’re lurking in it.

besides for a closet full of clean-pressed button up shirts and organized shoes, you can’t discern anything that makes this room his. there’s not a single thing out of place, from the garden-variety decor that someone else had picked to the artwork to the sheets. the bathroom is more of the same, the entire place having that lemon-cleaner smell to it.

you turn the water on and strip, trying to avoid thinking about how you’ll be sleeping on the couch after this. and even inside the shower, you stare at the two-in-one shampoo bottle and the old spice body wash—old spice. who would have thought?—like you can’t believe what you’re looking at. you inhale the scent for longer than you need to. wrap yourself in a clean towel that doesn’t belong to you. brush your teeth with his spearmint toothpaste. and then you open your overnight bag, and find nothing but sundresses and bathing suits.

it’s past midnight, and you’ve grabbed the wrong bag. you need to get up in about six and a half hours to get lena ready for school, and you’re not positive you have the correct bag in the back of your car.

hesitantly, you open one of the dresser drawers. there’s black and white t-shirts folded precisely, tucked in evenly. one drawer up there’s folded socks and boxers.

you chew on your cheek. he did say that he won’t be home tonight. there’s no way he would know you took anything if you ran a load of laundry as soon as you woke up and folded it after morning drop-off. he might not even be home until the afternoon or evening, for all you know.

your tiredness makes the decision for you. the couch isn’t that comfortable, and you refuse to sleep in the shirt and jean skirt you spent all day in. you take a white shirt and black boxers, and then sneak back in for a pair of black socks because the living room is cold at night. and then you set your alarm, turn on another documentary—this one about hummingbirds, wrap yourself in the throw blanket on the couch, and close your eyes.

andrew comes home at quarter to three. it would have been a lot sooner—he doesn’t like leaving you alone here at night with lena if he can avoid it—but he doesn’t always have control over it. a bullet had grazed deran and he’d spent two hours cleaning up that mess, and then they had to organize their splits before leaving. he had to make sure to stay for that—he needs the cash to pay you, rent for baz’s place, money to put into lena’s savings account.

but he hates leaving you alone in the apartment with lena. not because he doesn’t trust you, but because he knows now it’s not safe, not without him there. he likes to get you home early but it’s rarely the case, and then he feels like he should pay you extra since he’s making you drive home alone in the dark.

telling you to stay is a better option. you can sleep in his room—it’s not like he’s going to sleep in there anyways. but he doesn’t say that, doesn’t need the nanny thinking there’s something wrong with him too. so he settles for telling you to stay the night, and letting you decide where you’ll sleep.

you always pick the couch. and sometimes, he’s not back early enough, sometimes you’re already up making breakfast or gone out for the day with lena by the time he’s back.

but tonight, you’re asleep on the couch. he sets down the bag with the cash on the couch, hovering over you. the television is still on, stuck on a are you still watching? screen, covering up a photo of some birds. a breath leaves him when he realizes you’re watching what he always watches. you’re knocked out—he can tell since the front door opening didn’t wake you like it sometimes does. you’ve kicked away the blanket you usually use, and he thinks for a second he should just cover you up and let you sleep.

but he doesn’t. he stands over you, staring at your sleeping form. he doesn’t like it—how pretty you are when you sleep. it’s a distraction that he can’t escape, knows that the next time he closes his eyes, he’ll think of you. that the next time he sits on this couch, he’ll be able to smell your skin. you snore softly, chest rising and falling evenly.

and then he notices it—the plain shirt, black socks with a familiar logo. are those his boxers? and now he definitely can’t look away. he puts the pieces together—your hair is wet, meaning you must have showered and then put on his clothes before coming back out here. if you were going to do all of that, why didn’t you just sleep in his room?

yes, pope decides, he needs you to sleep in his bed. he needs the couch anyways, since he won’t be sleeping, so he might as well bring you inside.

he lifts you carefully, not wanting to stir you accidentally. his shirt is a little big on you, hanging off your shoulder. you stay sound asleep the entire short walk to his bedroom, not stirring even when he sets you down. you must have been really tired, but that makes sense, given the fact that you’ve been out all day with lena.

he thought about sticking a tracker on your car, but the first time he was taking care of lena, after baz, you had shared your phone’s location with him so he could keep track. you had offered it, voluntarily, saying something about how that’s common with babysitters now, and that you never go anywhere without your phone so he won’t have to worry about you leaving it at home.

you thought reassuring him that he would always have lena’s location in his phone would make him feel better. and maybe it had, but he’d never mentioned it again after that day, never brought up if he actually checked it or not.

(it’s not like you would know if he was using it, it doesn’t work like that. deran had explained it to him.) he did check it, pretty frequently, actually. he checked it after you’d leave when he got home, after lena was asleep. he’d watch your little circle drive home and pull into the parking lot of your apartment complex. it wasn’t as bad of an area as it could be, but it wasn’t that safe either. he liked to check it every now and then too, middle of the night, saturday evenings when he was home with lena and you got to leave early or had the day off.

he assumed, somehow, that you’d be in bars or parties at your college, maybe. but when he looks at your location late at night, you’re always at home. he checks other times too—but he’s just trying to keep you safe. (that’s what he tells himself—that finding another babysitter than lena liked and that he trusted would be a hassle. he needs to keep you safe.)

but it doesn’t seem like you like any of that stuff. he’s never seen you drink the beer in the fridge, though you offer one to him every now and then. you’ve met smurf and deran and craig before, like when you’d go to drop off lena before one of your classes, back before you had finished school.

you were smart—he knew that much. that was the kind of good example he needed around lena, someone who had gone through school and finished. he didn’t know what your degree was in, but it must’ve been something smart, something important. you were always typing on your computer and reading books. whatever it is that you studied, he wants someone in lena’s life that can help her with that stuff, stuff he doesn’t know much about, when it’s time.

you were smart enough to turn down every joint or bump that craig offered. you never accepted a drink from smurf that didn’t come from a can that you opened yourself. and baz used to tell him that you were just a local college kid, that you didn’t have any family nearby or anyone to occupy your time, really.

it didn’t make sense—pretty girl like you. he would have thought you had a boyfriend, but if you do, you’ve never brought him around. and if he didn’t live with you or live at that coffee shop you liked that was down the street from your apartment, then he didn’t know if you even had one. maybe he shouldn’t spend any time thinking about your hypothetical boyfriend, but that’s just what comes up sometimes when he thinks about you for too long. like right now.

you look peaceful lying in his bed. your eyes flutter quickly like you’re having a dream, and he sits on the bed next to you, watching you sleep. your hair falls across your face, and his finger twitches. he almost moves his hand to brush the hair away, but he decides not to, settling for just watching you for another minute or two.

the bed creaks slightly when he gets up. no one uses it much, so it’s a little weary. he doesn’t think the noise is anything, but your eyes blink open. the door’s open, light from the living room illuminating a sliver of the space.

he thinks he should get out before you can ask any questions, but he doesn’t, hovering over the bed while you look around.

“andrew?” and god if it doesn’t sound different coming from your lips. you’re too tired to remember that you usually stick with mister cody, which is so formal it hurts. it sounds real, sincere, not filled with fear or anger or anything else. you haven’t even said anything and he thinks he’s losing his mind.

it’s just the way you say it. there’s no question attached, no demand, no sacrifice. just you, making sure it’s him.

“that couch is bad for your back,” he says.

he knows it is, the couple times he tried to lay down and stare at the ceiling. he’s always sore, muscles screaming and joints aching but he knows how to ignore it. he doesn’t think you should start feeling like that. feels angry at the very idea that you would be sore after spending a night on the couch, taking care of his niece, looking after baz’s house. doing all the things that he’s too busy to do.

you take care of things. you do a good job too—figuring out how to get lena to eat and sleep again. making sure her routine doesn’t go awry just because he’s gone on a job all day. you remember things that he doesn’t even know about—activities with kids after school and how the school has soccer practice starting soon. you think a couple steps ahead when it comes to lena, and sometimes, he doesn’t think you see it as a job.

like when you make enough breakfast for the three of you. leave dinner on a plate inside the microwave with a note on the counter. when you clean like it’s your house, make sure things stay in the place they’re supposed to, which is so much harder when there’s a kid around. he’s not stupid—it’s why he gives you so much money each week, shoves an envelope into your hand despite your protests. why the first thing he does after he gets his cut is make sure you get yours.

and as hard as the thought is to swallow, he doesn’t think he could do all of this without you.

“mmh-” you agree, making a soft noise. he wishes he could engrain it into his brain and replay it whenever he wants. “i thought you don’t sleep?” you ask, and he sees your lips turn up into a smile. he wishes the lights were on.

“i try,” he replies, realizing that he’s still hovering over you. he wonders why you weren’t scared the moment you woke up. “sometimes. i try.”

“do you wanna try now?” you ask, whispering. and he goes silent—because what is he supposed to say that?

you reach out in the dark for his hand, and he flinches, taking it back. but you don’t retreat, reaching out again until you’re grasping his fingers.

“try for a couple hours. i set an alarm,” you say, and the way you say it, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea. you have a way of convincing him, or maybe it’s just late and you’re tired, and your sleepy voice isn’t helping matters. nor does the fact that you don’t seem even remotely concerned that you’re inviting him to come sleep on the bed next to you.

you sit up a little, and he regrets even staying as long as he did. you need your sleep, unlike him. you’re still holding onto his hand, and your skin is warm on his. it couldn’t really be, but it feels like it’s burning his, where your palm rests against his, where your fingers twist with his.

“hey,” you start, slow and soft. “don’t think about it. just sleep for a little.”

“yeah,” he says. “okay. a little.”

you move over, and when he lays down—back straight against the mattress, staring up at the ceiling—it’s warm where your body was resting. you’re still holding onto his hand, not letting go. your grip is loose enough that he could free his hand easily, and even if it wasn’t, he could overpower you if he wanted.

but he doesn’t want to. and somewhere between your slow breaths and how you rub his knuckles, running your soft skin against dozens of old scars—because that’s his punching hand—andrew falls asleep.

you can hear it, his breaths getting steady, evening out. your hands stay together in the middle of the bed, between you, and you wonder for a split second how you’re going to deal with this in the morning, how you’ll make sense of this in daylight. the semblance of a professional relationship you had maintained this entire time might turn into dust in a couple hours. and then you breathe in andrew’s comforting scent, clean linen and saltwater, and fall back asleep.

the best thing about this house is the light and the waves. golden rays pour in through the half-way open blinds and you can hear the ocean crashing against the rocks in the distance. it’s the perfect way to wake up, even if it is six-thirty and your alarm is going off in the living room, where your phone must be.

you need to get up. you don’t want lena to wake up from the noise, even though you know she won’t—that girl can sleep through anything. it’s a problem for when she’s older, when she goes to college and there’s no one besides a roommate to make sure she doesn’t miss class. even half-asleep, you smile thinking about it.

and somehow, when you look on the other side of the bed, it hits you that it wasn’t a dream. andrew is asleep next to you, still in whatever clothes he was wearing throughout the day. a short sleeved button up and pants. you’re surprised that he didn’t fall asleep with his shoes on.

he looks very calm when he sleeps. the lines of tension on his forehead and around his eyes are soft when he’s like this, his hair a mess and cheek smushed against the pillow, against your hand.

he’s still holding your hand. it makes a certain kind of warmth rain all over you, flooding you from inside out. he’s on top of the covers and you’re under the throw blanket, and you don’t remember doing that, which means that he did.

an exhausted, half-asleep andrew cody covered you up before he fell asleep on top of the covers. he fell asleep holding your hand and your chest hurts because he won’t wake up holding it still, since you need to go turn that stupid alarm off.

he never sleeps, you know this. he’s never been asleep when you show up early, never heading to bed when you leave for the day. this bed is pretty much always made, sheets never rustled and not a pillow out of place because no one sleeps here. you hope you can start changing that.

you don’t want to pull your hand away from him. it’s so simple, so sweet that you can’t bring yourself to do it. that this whole time, andrew just needed someone to sleep beside him. you rest your head back on the pillow, continue staring, creepy as it is. you’ve never been able to study him like this before, have never been close enough.

the hand holding onto yours is softer than you’d imagined. the veins running through his forearm are thick and tense, even when he’s like this. you think it might be from how tightly he’s holding onto your hand, like even in his sleep he’s worried he might lose you somehow.

andrew cody has freckles—all across his arms and on his hands too. there’s a splatter of them across his nose and cheeks, places where he must have gotten burnt as a kid, maybe when he was lena’s age. the tips of his ears flush pink while he sleeps, and he snores. all things that make you smile, things that are so personal you feel your face getting warm, like you shouldn’t have access to that information.

you need to turn that god-damn alarm off, before it wakes him up. you think you’d rather die than disrupt the few hours of peaceful sleep he’s getting right now. so you wriggle your hand, trying to find the best way to get it out of his grip and make sure you don’t wake him in the process. nothing’s working, even in his sleep he’s thrice as strong as you. the generic alarm tone keeps going in the background.

you lean in, pressing a chaste kiss to andrew’s cheek, whispering that you promise to be right back. and for a split second he moves around, and you regain control of your tingling hand.

the bed creaks a little when you get up, but you do it slowly so it’s not too loud. walk to the couch as fast as your bare feet will take you, looking down and realizing you’re still in andrew’s socks.

(his shirt and boxers too, but you’re choosing to ignore that for now. if someone walked in through the front door in this moment, it would look like you and him were something other than a guardian and babysitter. you think you’d actually enjoy trying to see him explain to his brothers why you’re in his clothes head to toe. you might like this more than you think you did.)

you can hear the ocean again once the alarm is turned off. it’s a beautiful thing to wake up too, you think, pulling open the curtains and looking outside on the street. people are on runs, doing yoga on the beach, watching the sunrise with their dogs.

and inside, andrew cody is sound asleep.

the first part of your day is waking up lena. she grumbles and takes five, sometimes ten, minutes to get up after you go in there. in that time, you set out clothes for her and then head back to the kitchen. you have a habit of making sure her backpack has everything—the colorful pens she’s always telling you about and yesterday’s homework. if she forgot something at home, the school would call andrew, and then andrew would call you, and you hate adding more work to his life. so, you make sure it’s all there before she leaves.

then breakfast—eggs and toast if you’re running late, pancakes if you got there early. it’s seeming like a pancake sort of day.

you make the batter and then pull out the bag of chocolate chips and head back to lena’s room. you use the semi-sweet morsels as an incentive to get her up, which works like a charm. while she’s changing and brushing her teeth, you make three pancakes. two for lena, and the first one you peeled that’s never quite as good is for you.

lena comes to the table to eat her pancakes, and you tell her to stay just a little quieter than usual because her uncle pope is still sleeping.

“really?” she asks, and you feel something inside of you twist in discomfort. as if you had imagined before you met him, maybe he was sleeping, that maybe this was something recent. you smile at lena.

“yeah, sweetie, really.”

you bring lena to school, come back home, and check on andrew—who is still sleeping. you cover him up with the blanket you’d slept under and then make three more pancakes and some scrambled eggs. there’s no bacon in the house or you would have made that too.

you scribble it on the grocery list and then head back inside the bedroom, carefully perching yourself on the edge of the bed and maybe a little too comfortable, too quick, run your fingers through his messy hair. he sighs against the pillow and it makes you smile immediately. you keep going, fingers not stopping until you see his eyes fluttering open. you don’t want to make him uncomfortable, though you don’t want to stop either.

“i made breakfast,” you say quietly. andrew looks up at you, and then to your slept-in side of the bed. he moves, sitting up in the bed and you take back your hand tentatively. his hair is soft like you’d imagined.

he wipes his face with his hands, rubbing at his eyes. and when he looks at you, you feel any prudence that once was inside you melt away. well-rested, sleepy andrew cody, waking up in the bed you shared last night, while you tell him about the pancakes you made for him. you couldn’t have imagined this, for some reason, which makes it feel all the more real.

“what time is it?” he asks, in a gruff, sleepy voice.

“almost nine, i think.” he looks up at you quickly.

“lena?”

“i brought her to school already. you-you were sleeping. i didn’t want to wake you.”

“when did you get up?”

“six-thirty. my alarm. remember?” you do remember telling him about it before you fell asleep, one of the last things you had said in a conversation that feels like it was light-years ago.

“yeah.” you know better than to expect anything right now. he’s always been quiet, sentences curt and expressions relatively blank. you’ve had a few hours to simmer in it—think about what’ll happen tomorrow and next week and what it means to sleep in the bed next to the man whose niece you babysit. he just woke up a few minutes ago.

“well, there’s pancakes. and eggs. there’s no bacon but i’ll go get some later-”

“did you eat?” you catch his eye. perched on the bed next to him, you can see more than just green. brown too, around his pupils. not nearly as sad as they had seemed yesterday.

“yeah. i had one.”

“just one?” you don’t have an answer for that, but unusually confident, you stand up.

“i’ll have a bite of yours if you come eat with me.”

and though you couldn’t have imagined it last night, you end up leaning against the counter with andrew, splitting bites of chocolate-chip pancakes (yours drenched in syrup, his comparably dry as a bone), and luke-warm scrambled eggs.

he washes the dishes, and you put them away. it’s incredibly domestic.

“i’m sorry about your clothes,” you say, sliding a plate back into the cupboard. “um, i’ll wash everything today.” you had to bring it up at some point.

and then andrew turns to look at you. head to toe, he stares, gaze flicking up and down for what seems like eons. you don’t have a guess for why, maybe he’s trying to decide if he’ll accept your apology.

(he’s trying to memorize it, capture it like a picture in his brain, seal it up and hold onto it forever. how you look right now—his white shirt, with nothing underneath, which must be why he can see the outline of your breasts when you turn to put another dish away. his boxers, that you bunched up around your waist, his socks, one rolled up around your ankle and the other halfway up your calf. did you go to the school drop-off in his clothes, too?)

“and i can wash your jacket too, i’m sorry. it was kind of cold and i don’t know where my hoodie is. i-i’m sorry.”

he turns to look at you again. you seem worried, chewing on your cheek, waiting for his answer.

“don’t wash the jacket,” he says, and turns back to the sink. he doesn’t want it to stop smelling like you, but you don’t need to know that.

“yeah. sure. i won’t. sorry again, andrew.”

his heart thuds in this chest at the realization that you might never go back to calling him mister cody.

the two of you finish the dishes. he wipes up the counter while you put away lena’s things, and then he grabs his keys and puts on his shoes. you stand there watching, feeling awfully close to something like a wife watching her husband about to leave her for the day. and when you open your mouth, you can’t stop it from coming out.

“do you know when you’ll be back?”

“i’ll be here for dinner. can you pick up lena?” he doesn’t want to leave you, but there’s about ten texts and three missed calls on his phone that he needs to deal with. when he shrugs his jacket on, it does, in fact, smell like you. it might be enough to keep him calm the rest of the day.

“yeah, of course. well.. i’ll go start the laundry.” a vision of you peeling off your—his—clothes plagues his mind momentarily. “i’ll see you later?” you say, smiling hesitantly.

and without thinking too much about it, andrew comes up close to you, leans in a little awkwardly, and kisses your forehead.

“i’ll see you later.” he leaves you there in his shirt and socks, blinking stupidly at the door.

andrew does come back for dinner. you make an attempt at chicken parm at lena’s request, which really just turns out to be a sort of chicken parm-casserole situation, but lena likes it and the garlic bread tastes good, so you will call it a win for now.

while you’re simmering sauce and frying the cutlets, your mind flicks through everything you know about lena’s uncle. he’d never once been anything but nice to you—nice is one way to put it. polite is another. courteous, appropriate, reserved.

one night you had been waiting for him so you could leave, and he’d come home with lena’s other uncles. you had introduced yourself and smiled nicely, and when you left and gotten into your car, it hadn’t turned on. you remember debating if you should go back inside or just call triple a and wait, but somehow, andrew had known something was wrong. he had come out a few minutes later, told you that he would drive you home while his brother stayed at home and that he’d be back in a minute.

he’d dropped you off at home and told you he’d come get you in the morning. and you had slept anxiously that night, wondering what was wrong with your car and how much of a disturbance it would be to andrew to come get you.

but after the two of you had dropped lena off at school—again, disturbingly domestic—he brought you back to the house. and without any words at all, he worked on your car while you sat and watched. you held a flashlight when he needed it, and he said it shouldn’t happen again when he was done.

and you guess that’s the kind of man andrew cody is.

true to his word, andrew comes home in time to eat dinner with you and lena. after dinner, since it’s friday, you let her have a brownie and a half, the ones you’d made earlier that day. you have one too and you offer one to andrew, but he shakes his head, and you’re only mildly disappointed.

you haven’t been home, so you’re wearing one of the dresses from the wrong overnight bag you’d brought here. (your disappointment goes away when you notice that he hasn’t stopped staring at your exposed thighs since the minute he walked through the door.)

lena watches a cartoon before bed and you try to clean up the rest of the kitchen, but it’s hard, since andrew’s done most of the leg-work already. he tucks lena in and you gather your belongings—and true to your word, you did laundry and put his clothes back in the exact place you found them.

(you did steal another pair of socks, but you hardly think he minds now. he kissed you goodbye this morning like he was actually your husband, or something, and every minute you spend in this house washing dishes and scrubbing counters next to him is not helping. he stares at the straps of your dress like he could slip them off your shoulder with his mind, like it’s the only thing he’s thinking about. you don’t mind.)

“she’s out,” he says, coming back into the living room. you’re sitting on the couch, knees tucked to your chest while you change the channel to one of those documentaries you’ve been so fond of recently. you turn to smile at andrew and he comes and takes a seat next to you.

“that’s good. i can go soon.” but you make no effort to move, staring at the screen in front of you. this one is about sea-life, shades of blue flooding ahead of you both.

“you can stay,” andrew says, quiet like always. “if you want.” his voice is deep and gravelly, and the words he says scratch an itch somewhere deep inside of you, and the relief is visible on your body. you sink a little further into the sofa, knees falling next to andrew’s, thighs touching.

“if that’s okay with you.” you whisper it, as if saying it too loudly might make the entire idea crack open and fall apart.

you two stay like that for a while. you don’t know when, but andrew swings an arm around your shoulder, and you rest your head against his chest, collapsing into his comfortable grip. you can hear his heart beating, can feel every breath he takes. his hand brushes the top of your shoulder every time you breath, and his other hand is clasped with yours. you watch schools of fish and pods of dolphins, and you think that any other night, you could fall asleep like this.

“andrew?” you ask, still staring straight ahead. you brush your fingers over his knuckles like you had done last night, and you can feel his hand tense under your touch, until it finally relaxes. “do you want to go to bed?”

“yeah, kid,” he says. “let’s go to bed.”

and you’ll be damned if the domesticity doesn’t kick you in the stomach, sucker punch you in the chest and knock all the wind out of you. andrew turns the tv off, puts the remote back in the right place. and then he picks you up, and you make a quiet noise of surprise, underestimating him momentarily. you should know better.

one hand wraps around your legs and the other around your back, bridal-style (fitting, you think), and he sets you down on the creaky bed. you worry, how loud it’ll be and how you’ll have to be quiet but then andrew hovers over you, nothing but a tiny lamp brightening up the room, and you lose your train of thought.

“you sure you wanna do this?” he asks, that rough voice again. like you’ve thought about anything else for the last twenty-four hours. you nod quickly, bringing your hands to his chest, and then his arms, fingers tracing the sinewy veins and thrumming muscles up and down on both sides. his eyes shut while you do it, breaths getting heavy and deep. but you keep going—it’s only fair. you’ve only thought about it a million times.

“does that feel good?” you whisper, and he lets out a quiet, almost painful groan.

“y-yes,” and you smile, fingers moving on their own while you lean in for the kiss you’ve been waiting for.

andrew’s mouth is hot, and his kisses are like fire. as soon as your lips touch, he pins you all the way down, his body weight on top of yours. he kisses you the same way he had held your hand last night, the same way he held you on the couch, like you’ll slip away if he stops for even a second. your lips start to ache, but you moan quietly into his mouth, letting him swallow them while you still stroke his arms. one day, you’ll crawl into his lap and play with his hands until he’s sick of you, but today, you need to feel him.

you can’t do much from your position, but you can wrap your legs around his waist, one hand going towards his chest to pull at his shirt. he takes it off in one motion, yanking the fabric at the back until it comes off, messing up his hair while he pulls it. your free hand goes there, running through his hair again. you use it to steady yourself, gaining leverage while he keeps kissing you like there’s nothing else for him to do. like his life depends on it. he thinks it just might.

“an-andrew,” you get out in gasps, moving your mouth away for a second. “i need to breathe,” you pant, but he doesn’t stop, kisses your cheek and your jaw and buries his face in your neck. you feel the skin there between his lips, then his teeth, and you grip hard on his arm while he keeps going. you want him to keep going, you want to see the marks he leaves tomorrow and every other day. you want everyone to look at you and know that he’s the one who left them. and you think your wish is about to come true.

your fingers let go of his arms and he groans against your skin—there’s no words but you know he didn’t want you to stop. instead you guide them to both sides of his face, staring up at him and then bringing him back in for another kiss. you think you’d be perfectly content to do this forever, that you could spend hours, days, weeks in bed kissing andrew cody. that you’d be stupid to ever leave this bed, leave this house, when there’s a man here who kisses you like each touch of your lips is a prayer, like he’s here to worship.

he’s not hesitant anymore, not wondering if you’re going to pull away and walk out and ask to pretend this never happened. you keep your hands on his face, and then work down to his jaw and neck, clasping your arms around to keep him in place.

and his mind is empty. he thinks he should know what to do with you, with your labile body flush against his, all the things he’s been thinking about for the last months, if not at least what he was thinking since this morning. you’re still in your little dress, one of the thin straps fallen over your shoulder and dangling on the skin of your upper arm. he pulls away and you whine, another noise he wishes he could capture somehow. it’s a melody, one he wants to keep hearing.

you wish he hadn’t stopped the kiss, and you expect him to lean right back in after you both catch your breath, but he doesn’t. andrew’s hovering over you, eyes fixated on your shoulder, staring intently at the strap of your dress.

“andrew?” you whisper, the hand on his neck rubbing the tense skin there, wondering if you could get your kiss back. “is something wrong?”

his lovely eyes flicker up to you, staring while you swallow and wait patiently. maybe you’d been too eager, maybe he was having regrets—after all, you’re the nanny and he’s the dad and maybe you’d been too presumptuous in assuming that he wanted you as badly as you wanted him—

“no. nothing’s wrong.” you sigh a tiny breath of relief, it comes out before you even notice. but andrew is nothing if not perceptive, and he wraps his hand around your back and lays you back on his bed.

“why did you stop?” you question, flustered and embarrassed as the words come out, sounding like a spoiled child. but you suppose you had been spoiled these last few hours, getting everything you wanted—his hot touch, breathless kisses, the ability to finally see what the veins on his arms feel like under your palm.

he doesn’t answer your question, just flicks his eyes back to your shoulder. and then he leans in, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the end of your collarbone, tracing more kisses down through the length of your shoulder, stopping when he reaches the skimpy cotton of your dress. you take deep breaths, watching it happen in front of you. he repeats the same with the other side, pulls the strap down like he’s unfolding a gift, kisses your skin like you’re his present. and you think you are.

there’s nothing between you two except your thin dress, and you pull on it eagerly, trying to get it off, when his hands come and stop on top of yours.

“you’ll rip it,” andrew says, fingers going towards the zipper in the back, undoing it slowly.

“i don’t care,” breathless, eager, unable to wait even another minute to get what you want. he pulls the zipper all the down, your dress falling off as your shrug out of it.

and you want another kiss, you want his touch, you want something, anything—but all you get is andrew staring at your naked body. and you think somehow this is worse than anything else, anticipation burning in your belly painfully. your thighs feel sticky and sore and your underwear is soaked through. and all he’s done is kiss you.

“you’re perfect,” he says quietly, and you feel your entire face burn hot. you don’t think you’ve ever felt like this before—and you know how andrew is. he doesn’t lie, he doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.

you tilt your head up, pressing your lips to his for a moment, a soft kiss in contrast to the ones from earlier.

“so are you,” and you kiss him again, smiling against his mouth. he feels it, though he doesn’t smile back. and when he pulls away, he looks down at you, naked and willing in his bed, smiling up at him and telling him he’s perfect, when you don’t even know half the monster he is. “you are,” you repeat, watching andrew’s eyes as he thinks a million thoughts in his head, carries a million burdens on his shoulders. “even if you don’t believe me. i think you’re perfect.”

you feel cheesy saying it, though you know there isn’t another man in the world who needs to hear it more. you can hear him make a noise of protest, like he doesn’t think you mean it, and incredibly desperate for him to believe you, you sit up.

your hands go to sturdy shoulders while you try to get him to move, until he’s sitting back against the headboard and you can crawl onto his lap. he’s silent, watching you as you do it, exposed body flush against his skin, and yet, you don’t feel scared. you don’t feel embarrassed, or worried. you just want to make him feel good.

you start with a kiss to his jaw. andrew’s body tenses under yours, the slightest bit of contact making him groan and buck up, his hands tight on the soft skin of your waist to keep you both steady. you work your way down to his neck, pressing kisses everywhere in your path.

“do you want to know what i’ve thought about you?” you ask, though you don’t wait for an answer. you kiss down his chest, stopping at the strong muscles of his chest and the old bruises and scars that cover some of them. “i thought that you’re so good at taking care of your family.” you move down to his abs, more kisses, hearing more noises from andrew that you never would have thought he would make for you. he takes shuddering breaths, not replying to you but grunting from pleasure while you keep going. “i thought that you’re so good to me. that i don’t have to worry since i know i can always come to you.” you think of your car and the money he gives you and how you woke up in bed despite falling asleep on the couch.

finally you make your way to the waistband of his jeans, undoing the belt with surprisingly steady hands. he reaches down, his hands covering yours for a moment, but you stare up at him with your glassy eyes, not even pulling the entire belt off, just enough to get you what you need—what you want. and then you undo his zipper, tug down his boxers, and take his girthy length into your hand, stroking up and down while still staring up at him.

“can i take care of you, andrew?” and you don’t realize how it must sound to him, his head thudding back onto the pillow. you press a gentle kiss to his leaking tip, both hands wrapped around his dick and stroking while you wait for your answer.

“y-yes, yes-” and you don’t wait any longer, taking as much of andrew into your mouth as you can fit. you drive your mouth up and down, your hands twisting around the base, everything wet and warm and sticky from your spit. and you think you would do this forever, that you would do this everyday if you could hear the noises he makes and how his body takes the pleasure you give him. you gag around him, feeling his hand snake into your hair, pulling you off gently. you smile up at him, though you’re sure you look like a mess, hot tears running down your cheeks and lips shiny and wet.

but you don’t stop—licking up and down until you bring him back into your mouth. you can feel how embarrassingly wet you are right now, can feel yourself leaking onto your thighs and the sheets, wanting friction as badly as you wanted to make andrew feel good right now. and then you hear it—andrew’s moan, louder than any of the other noises and full and from the chest. he bucks up into your mouth and you take it, ready to hear what he sounds like when he finishes, when he pulls you off of him.

“andrew—” you whine, as though you were the one about to come. he pulls you up, naked bodies pushed against each other, and kisses you until you feel light-headed.

“not until you do,” he murmurs, and you feel dizzy all over again.

“but i’m not done,” still eager to kiss the rest of his body and tell him how good he is, until he starts to believe you. you wrangle out of his loose grip, knowing full well if he wanted to stop, he could have. he could pin you down and do whatever he wanted to you and you wouldn’t be able to fight him, a thought that makes you feel like you’re going to faint. but you resume quickly, starting at his shoulders—stopping to admire all the sunspots spattered there—and starting your journey again, working down his bicep and to his freckled forearm, the ones you stared at whenever the opportunity presented itself, the one you thought about all the time.

andrew doesn’t know about that, and you’re not sure you can bear to tell him. it feels too revealing, despite how you’re naked on top of him, your breasts pressed against him and wet pussy on top of his hard, leaking dick. but sure—that’s what you get nervous about.

you stop and trace all the veins with your fingers, feeling him pulse underneath you, repeating on both sides. he’s got his head tilted back, soft groans filling the empty space between you as you keep going. if they’re this sensitive for him, you can only imagine what it would feel like for you, especially the one leading down to the middle of his wrist—and then the words slip out before you can realize you had said them out loud.

your face goes hot again. he looks up at you a little confused, and you have to stop yourself from collapsing and burying your face into the pillow next to you.

“andrew?” you ask, shy and embarrassed and yet not stopping yourself at all.

“you… you like my arms?” he says, and you feel your face heat up.

but so many things have happened already that you couldn’t have even dreamt about twenty-four hours ago, so you think it’s worth a shot. (that’s a lie. you have dreamt about this, so many times that you’ve woken up in your bed covered in a cold sweat, that you’ve burned through a vibrator and ruined pillows imagining what it would be like to rub yourself against his veiny arms. you guess you’re about to find out).

your fingers trace the length of them again.

“i like everything about you,” you say quietly, understanding just how silly you sound. “but we don’t have to do anything.” you try to cover your tracts, worried you’ve just messed up the incredible time you’ve been having so far littering his body with kisses and feeling butterflies in your cunt from the fact that andrew will be inside of you soon.

“how would you-” andrew starts, and you watch him carefully as he gets out the next few words. “do it? how?” and it’s just cut and dry way he speaks, though it’s really going to your head (and other places) right now.

“well, i-”

“show me.” oh.

you feel yourself pulse and throb in response to his words. even below you, you can still feel how hard andrew is. you try to start positioning yourself, but you must be moving too slowly for him, and you feel his hand on your ass, grabbing you and pushing you up to his chest, face to face. he lays his arm next to you, watching your naked body as you try to balance yourself between it, his free arm on your hip, keeping you steady.

when you lower yourself, just an inch or two, just until you feel the ridge of his forearm and you can decide what to do after realizing that you are, in fact, doing this, andrew curses under his breath.

“fuck, you’re so wet.” he can feel it. feel you, on his arm, leaking, for him. you take a deep breath, pressing your hands against his chest to keep your balance, moving your hips up and down slowly. and your eyes flutter shut because fuck, if it isn’t better than every fantasy you’ve ever had.

you hadn’t known that your pathetic attempts to recreate this at home would have never lived up to the real thing, and now you realize you’ll never be able to go back to anything else but andrew, that no one else could make you feel this way. months of pent-up desire leave your body as you rock yourself against him, finally getting the stimulation you’ve been craving.

when you open your eyes, just for a second, you see andrew, his eyes glued to where your pussy meets his arm, his breaths heavy and deep, like he wouldn’t look away from the sight before him for anything.

and then you feel the veins rub against your clit, and your eyes roll back into your head. you keep going, trying to muffle your moans and sighs, but you can’t get the image out of your head—andrew staring at you, like he wanted this as much as you’ve wanted it, like he needs to see you cum like this. you start going faster, the friction and the slide from your juices making it easier and the veins rubbing at you just the right way—

he leans in, putting one of your peaked nipples into his mouth, flicking his tongue against it, before letting go and repeating the same with the other one. but it’s really when andrew starts talking that you’re pulled over the edge, his hand hot on your back.

“please,” he says, and you feel yourself falling into it, hanging onto every raspy word, so much better than you could have ever dreamed, “-i-i need you to cum for me. i need to feel you, i need to see it, please-”

and you do. you always listen to andrew, all the white-hot tension wound up in your belly releasing, flooding your entire body with the relief you’ve been wanting all night. your body tightens up, stopping, but he moves you with the huge hand on your hip, makes you rub on him all through it, pulling your body like you’re a toy for him.

your mind is empty while your toes curl and uncurl, thighs aching and sore in this position. andrew ushers you towards him, and you collapse on his chest, heaving and sweaty and tired—and the realization hits you that he hasn’t even been inside of you yet.

he kisses you while he has you trapped in his arms, your eyes shut as you breathe him in, moan into his mouth and let him swallow it.

“y-your arm,” you get out, realizing you’re not speaking in coherent sentences. “i’m sorry-”

“why?” he asks, and you shut up instantly. “didn’t know you liked them that much.”

he laughs quietly, a sound you have only heard a few times. you laugh against his chest for a moment, before pulling him in for another kiss. this time, it deepens, and he gets you on your back in front of him before he pulls away. you stare up at him, mind empty and chest heaving, seeing how his eyes stay on your tits, and you reach up, putting your hands on his chest while he hovers over you.

“it might hurt,” he says, and you feel your entire body tighten, your walls clench at his words. there’s nothing but truth behind his statement—it’s not meant to be arrogant or boastful, he’s warning you. it’s going to hurt, you know it is—you could barely fit half of him in your mouth and it took you both hands to be able to comfortably stroke him.

but the way he says it elicits a fire in you, and suddenly you need him now, no matter how much it hurts.

“i don’t care, andrew, please,” you beg, staring up at him. he still hovers, licking his lips and staring at your how tits bounce while you beg him to fuck you—a thought that he cannot process, even with you splayed out in front of him. he brings his arms out, fingers teasing your sensitive nipples until you’re covering your own mouth to avoid being too loud and you think you’re going to black out. (even in the dim light you can see the shine on his forearm from you, and the memory of it takes over your mind like a twister.)

“i have to stretch you out first.” the words possess your body like a demon. andrew takes your knees and spreads them apart, and no matter how hard you try to close them, you can’t compete against him. when he slides in one huge finger, your eyes roll back. he slips in so easily, the noise is obscene. the second finger goes in just as quickly, but there’s more resistance. two of his fingers are at least three of yours (if not more, you think, and then you want to faint again). the stretch is delicious, your pulsing walls realizing that this has been what you’ve been craving all along. that no toys or pillows or fingers of your own could ever compare.

when he slips a third finger in, he doesn’t change the pace. just keeps pushing them in and out of you like you’re a toy he’s testing the limits with, seeing how much you can take before you break. there’s no instructions for you besides to sit back and take it—and your toes curl and your head spins at how good he feels. the stretch hurts, but you want it so badly, you hear yourself crying out and saying incoherent things. you think you see andrew smile from where he is, watching your cunt suck his fingers in, his entire hand coated in your juices.

and when he hovers over you, bringing his tip to your entrance and prodding against you for a moment, you think you’re in heaven. he’s so flushed, tips of ears and his cheeks pink, sweat coating his body, just like yours. you can only imagine how hard he is, how you’ll get to feel how hard he is soon enough. his eyes stay at your pussy, pushing in, just barely, but you need more. you bring your hands to his arms, holding onto him while he slides in, and when you feel him push all the way in—so much bigger than you could have imagined, three of his fingers is nothing compared to this, nothing, nothing, nothing—he’s on top of you and kissing you.

whatever noises you make are tuned out—your ears are ringing and you can’t hear anything besides andrew’s grunts and moans as they come into your mouth. you keep kissing him, pulling on his lower lip and feeling his tongue on yours, but your entire body goes slack when he starts on a brutal pace, pulling all the way out and slamming into you. the bed is creaky, and the only noise besides it is the obscene one—the squelch of your soaking wet cunt taking andrew all the way, the repetitive slap of his skin meeting yours. you feel everything—the pressure of his hands while he holds you incredibly tightly, the fullness in your cunt that makes it feel like you can’t breathe.

and then andrew kisses your lips and makes a noise that makes you leak even more, and you know you’ll be just fine.

“i-i want-” he starts, and you feel him slow down the pace slightly.

“please, andrew,” you beg, and he resumes, fucking into you with an intensity that reminds you how badly he wants you, how long he’s wanted this. it reminds you of every time you caught him staring, every time you smiled at him wondering what he was thinking. and now you think you know—maybe he was thinking about something like this.

“i want another one,” he says into the skin of your neck, feeling him lick the sweat there and kiss the skin. “i want to feel it while i’m inside-” and god if you can’t comply. you want to do every single thing he tells you for the rest of your life, you don’t want to make another decision without andrew cody.

he changes the position, pulling out of you for a second and making you whine again. (spoiled, you think, he’s spoiled me for anyone else forever.) he holds both of your knees up and spreads them wide and wraps your arms around them, keeping them in place. and then he slides back inside of you in one swift movement, making your eyelids flutter shut. he doesn’t get right on top of you, leaving space between you that makes it impossible to lean in for a kiss, and you keep whining, impossibly and irrationally angry that you can’t kiss him, wondering why he wants you like this, when you feel his fingers circle your clit slowly—then quickly.

your head falls back onto the pillow. andrew can feel you pulsing around him, walls clenching every time he rubs your sensitive clit, and that’s what he wants, that’s what he needs, wants to feel you cum around his dick and squeeze him even tighter than you are right now. wants to see how you look completely fucked out, wants to see if you can give him a third. (he’ll get it, he decides, later. he’ll give you a chance to breathe, get you water after this. all the things he would do to take care of you, just like how you deserve, how a husband would take care of his wife.)

because at the end of the day, isn’t that what you two basically already are? you couldn’t be a girlfriend, because you have to get comfortable around a girlfriend.

no, he thinks, watching your fucked-out, flushed body take him like you were made for it. you already know him, know what he likes and doesn’t like, know how to make him feel good like you had been inside of his head already. you have been inside. you’re all he thinks about. that’s a wife, that is something that is forever, what the two of you have.

he doesn’t realize how hard he’s going, how fast, or how you’ve been squealing with your entire body tensing while he was stuck in his thoughts about you. this time when you finish, it explodes through you, the electric current staring from your core and spreading to every finger and toe. you jolt, legs shaking and head heavy, the after effect rolling through you while andrew keeps fucking you, keeps going even though he should probably stop. you’re incoherent, writhing and crying and feeling completely numb and like your entire body is burning all at once.

and when you blink open your watery eyes at andrew, smile sweetly and reach out for a kiss, one that he happily gives you, you say it quietly.

“i love you, andrew.” and you feel his thrusts stutter, his body weight almost collapsing on you. you feel andrew cum, feel it filling you up while you listen to his quiet moans and run your hands over his tense muscles, saying sweet things that he can barely understand in this state.

he rolls over minutes later, not pulling out until you were done kissing him. the room is filled with nothing but your heavy breaths. you need a shower, and you need to sleep.

you curl up on andrew’s chest like you had been on the couch what felt like a lifetime ago. you play with his fingers and he runs his other hand up and down the expanse of your arm. you can hear birds outside—and you know you need to get up soon, but you can’t find any words.

“you think that was enough?” andrew asks, and you look up at him with a confused expression. he looks at you with so much sincerity you feel like crying. your andrew.

“what do you mean?” you ask quietly, still not sure what he’s even talking about. your head is spinning and your eyes are tired—every part of you is tired.

“we can go again after you get some sleep. it might take more than once.”

“andrew?”

“you don’t have to worry about it. i’ll figure it out. i won’t stop until i put a baby in you.”

♡ thank you for reading

#why am i so nervous about this #pope cody #pope cody x reader #andrew cody #andrew cody x reader #andrew pope cody x reader #babysitter reader

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soundsofpleasure · 3 months ago

Text

by chromoji

Was ridiculously horny all day thinking about a new acquaintance I‘ve been getting quite dirty with. Ended up sexting with him near the end of a drunk evening with family, almost came in the cab on my way home & then was desperate for some proper release once I jumped into bed while he was asleep after cumming 15mins earlier. Had to keep quiet given it was already 4am, but some louder breaths & „fuck“s still made their way into the recording. Lots of wet noises though. Was already dripping wet most of the day, I‘ll be real.

First time ever submitting something & only did so because I got that turned on by listening to them that I came a second time, so please be kind. 🥹

#her #wet sounds #2456 #chromoji

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trashytracktales · 3 months ago

Note

hey gurlll first thing first id like to say that im IN LOVE with ur fics. not to be dramatic but im seriously on my knees whenever u post bcs how do u write them so GOODD😭😭😭😭 so i have a request hehe🤭 u can totally ignore this. no pressure!

if u would consider this, hear me out. lando and reader are childhood best friends. they are like two peas in a pot but something made them fought (nothing specific, u can write anything!) that had them not talking for almost 6 months which never happens. since they have the same circle of friends, they got invited to a vacation in portugal. the tension between them is like WOW. then one night, when everyone was already asleep, they had another argument maybe make it like an angry confession that leads them to ANGSTY HOT LONGING YEARNING MINDBLOWING SEX but turns out it was one sided where reader kinda disappeared the next morning lol idk u can imagine the rest. OK THANKS LOVE YA💋

Not quite us | LN⁴

🛥 summary ──── A cold winter fight shatters their friendship, but it’s the heat of the Portuguese sun that brings them back together, months later.

🛥 pairing ──── Lando Norris x fem best friend!reader

🛥 rating ──── explicit

🛥 warnings ──── 18+, mature/sexual content, descriptive language, mentions of drinking, angst and emotional tension, arguments, swearing, jealousy, smut, unprotected sex, manhandling, passive-aggressive behavior, pining, emotional miscommunication, past relationship dynamics.

🛥 word count ──── 8.6k

🛥 date ──── Apr. 23, 2025

🛥 a/n ──── Wrote this one straight off the vibes, just went with the flow and let the request guide me here and there. Sometimes the chaos cooks itself, so I hope you guys enjoy it either way ♥︎

IT’S NEW YEAR’S, and Lando would have a lot more fun if he stopped looking across the room every twenty seconds. But he can’t help himself. If someone looked at him right now, it would be so easy to read it in his body language: he is exasperated, beyond frustrated, and maybe a little drunk. His fingers encircle his glass so tightly that his knuckles have turned white, and his jaw clenches every time he sees the way she flinches when her boyfriend talks back to her.

Suddenly, the music gets too loud, the champagne is too warm, and even if he’s trying his damn hardest to pretend otherwise, his night is completely ruined.

She’s sitting on the edge of a sectional couch with her phone clutched in one hand, refusing to look up at her man, her face carefully blank in a way that screams something is wrong. All it takes is a blink of an eye and he walks towards the exit, visibly annoyed, leaving her behind.

Lando frowns while taking another sip of his drink, forcing a smile as one of his friends says something he doesn’t quite register. Still, he nods along anyway. But all he can think about is her. The girl he’s known since he was seven years old. The one who always matched his chaotic energy. The only one who managed to beat him at Mario Kart and made fun of his haircuts and once almost peed herself laughing during a round of mini golf when they were thirteen.

His best friend.

Or at least, she used to be.

It has been different for a while. They only see each other at events now, like birthday parties and New Year’s gatherings. It sucks, but it’s better than not seeing her at all.

It started shifting the day she met her boyfriend — some guy from uni, older than her, quieter, a bit too polished for Lando’s liking. She said he made her feel seen. Lando didn’t say anything then, just nodded, smiled and pretended he wasn’t dying a little inside.

He told himself he was just being protective, but truth is, he never liked the guy. Something about him felt off, and Lando noticed it in the way he was too controlling and dismissive at times. But Lando had no proof, therefore, no real reason to speak up. So, he stayed quiet. Let the distance grow. Let the invites slow. Let her disappear into another life that didn’t include him the way it used to.

There are a few minutes left until midnight, and he’s still watching her. She smoothes her dress with the palm of her hand, breathes slowly a few times, then gets up from the couch, apologizing with a small smile every time she bumps into other people in her path. Then, she disappears down the hallway, shoulders hunched, phone still in her hand. Her head is down, like she’s trying to avoid any potential encounter. At that sight, something in Lando twists and, for a moment, he thinks she’s going after her boyfriend, his body instinctively tensing. But he relaxes when he realizes she’s just turned right instead, stepping out onto the balcony.

Without thinking, he sets his empty glass down and slips away from the crowd, past the streamers and glitter and flickering lights, heading in the same direction she went. It doesn’t surprise him when he finds her deep in thought, typing on her phone then shoving it angrily into her purse.

Her back is facing him, arms folded over the railing now, the cold air nipping at her exposed shoulders. She must be freezing, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s also not turning when she hears more steps, then the door closing.

She lets out a breath, but it’s not relief. More like she’s trying not to cry. “Hey, Lan.”

She doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s him. They’ve spent so much time in each other’s company that she’s memorized his footsteps, the sound of his sigh and the hesitation in his voice before he speaks whenever he’s unsure of his words.

Lando pauses a few feet behind her, careful, like he’s afraid she’ll shatter if he’s too loud. “You alright?”

Without waiting for her to answer, Lando just shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders from behind. The girl stiffens for a second, then lets his scent settle around her like a familiar comfort.

She knows things that no one knows about him, like the way his laugh changes depending on who he’s with, but the real one, the high-pitched one that sounds like a hyena giving birth, only comes out when he’s with his friends. She can tell when he’s nervous just by the way he starts tapping his fingers against his thigh. She knows he prefers sleeping with the fan on, even during the winter, that he can’t eat spicy food without tearing up, and that he pretends to like certain people just to keep the peace.

Her best friend.

Or at least, he used to be.

“He left,” she finally says, her voice just a whisper.

Lando moves to stand beside her, copying her posture. “What happened?”

“He said he was going home, but I don’t know.”

He blinks, confused. “Midnight’s in, like… five minutes?”

She shrugs, wiping under her eye with a knuckle, trying to be discreet. “Yeah, well. Apparently I was laughing too loud and drinking too much and fooling around. I was embarrassing him. So he left.”

Lando stares at her, stunned. “It’s a party. What the fuck is he expecting you to do? Sit quietly in the corner and sip water?”

Her laugh is short and sad around the edges, “No, but I know he doesn’t like it when I’m loud or hyper or… whatever.”

There’s a long pause in which she reconsiders her behavior, thinking that maybe her boyfriend is right. Meanwhile, Lando tries to find the right words to counter every single lie that asshole has fed her, the annoyance flooding back in. He turns his head to look at her, and her profile knocks the wind out of him. Her eyes are wet and tired, like she’s trying to hold herself together for longer than just tonight.

“Don’t listen to him,” says Lando quietly, playfully bumping his shoulder against hers, “I love your loud laugh.”

She looks over at him then, a warm wave of safety covering her from head to toe, despite the cold that feels like it cuts across the skin of her face. The words settle heavy between them: I love your laugh. Not ‘it’s nice’. Not ‘it suits you’. I love it. It means more than he probably meant it to. Or maybe it means exactly what he’s never had the guts to say out loud. Until now.

Lando swallows before continuing, “I don’t get it,” he says, “You should be with someone who wants to hear you, no matter how loud or hyper you are. Who knows how lucky they are to be in your presence.” She laughs, as if dismissing his words, but Lando insists, “I’m serious. I still don’t understand why you’re with him.”

The girl lets out a shaky breath, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “He wasn’t always like this.”

“I know.”

Lando’s answer sounds a little too sarcastic and, in response, the silence stretches between them once again. But it’s not empty this time. It’s charged. Heavy with everything they’ve never talked about, and all the months they spent apart.

She turns her eyes back to the view, but her fingers tug his jacket tighter around her body. And then, without looking at him, she speaks again, “No, you don’t. We didn’t talk much lately, so you wouldn’t know.”

Lando wastes no time, “And whose fault is it?”

She shifts her body towards him abruptly, “What is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugs. “Dunno. It was just a question.”

“Right,” she nods once. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you about it. I guess I just… needed my friend for a minute.”

Lando nods too, and steps close enough that their arms brush. Before she can say anything else, he leans in, uncertain but determined, and wraps his arms around her. Her cheek presses against his shoulder, seeking his comfort. The only problem is that there’s nothing casual about how Lando’s heart starts to race. His arms come around her tightly, holding her like his life depends on it, even though she’s the one that’s been ditched by her boyfriend on New Year’s.

They stay like that for a while, their breaths fogging between them in the cold night air. The space they share gets warmer, which makes her snuggle into his chest. She smells like citrus and champagne and every memory he’s ever tried not to think about too hard when he was missing her.

The girl pulls back slightly, enough that her face is tilted up toward his. And when he reaches to cup her cheek, her skin is smooth beneath his palm, her lips slightly parted like she might say something, but doesn’t. They just stare at each other, the same way you only look at someone when you’ve missed them for too long, and you’re finally close enough to touch but terrified to move any further, thinking that maybe they’re not even real.

The countdown begins in the background, a little muffled through the glass door, people shouting numbers like a slow drumbeat from the inside.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

“Break up with him,” Lando’s voice cuts through the haze, rougher than he intended.

One.

The cheers erupt from every direction. The sky bursts into a sea of light above them, fireworks flaring gold, silver, and pink. The noise is distant, like it’s happening on another planet. They wouldn’t know, because they don’t even look. Instead, her eyes are still searching his, confused and a little broken.

He could lean in and take it all, just this once, and blame it on the alcohol.

But she blinks, breaking the ephemeral magic of the moment. She takes a step back, then another, slow and cautious, until she’s out of his arms. “What?”

Lando doesn’t move. “You deserve better.”

“Lando…”

“No,” he shakes his head. “He treats you like shit,” his voice rises gradually, dipped in more emotion than he probably wants to show, “And I don’t know what’s worse: that you know it or that you allow it.”

She looks at him as if Lando is shapeshifting right before her eyes, and he does it far too quickly for her to have time to process.

“Stop assuming things about me,” she warns, all the warmth between them dissolving in an instant. “You don’t know.”

“I know he should’ve been here, kissing you right now. I know he made you cry instead,” he says, stepping forward, closing the distance that she put between them earlier. “I know he left you at a party alone because you were laughing too loud,” he continues, mockingly. “Do you hear how fucking ridiculous that sounds?”

Her voice is sharper next time she speaks, “You don’t know the full story, Lando. He asked me to go home with him, but—”

“I don’t care,” he interrupts her. “Looks like he ditches you whenever you’re too much for him. And I can bet this isn’t the first time he’s made you cry, is it?”

She scoffs, “Oh, so now you’re paying attention?” she asks, adopting a defensive attitude. “It’s been months since you’ve shown any interest in me.”

Lando flinches like she just slapped him. “You’re the one who stopped showing up. It’s cause you’ve gotten busier. With him, eh?”

“Smooth, Lando,” she fires back in a disappointed voice. “You pulled away first,” she reminds him, pointing a finger at his chest; tears threaten her eyes again, but she blinks rapidly to clear them away.

“Yeah, because I didn’t know where I fit anymore,” he says, his voice cracking around the edge of frustration. “You were always with him. Always defending him. I didn’t want to be that friend who hovered too close or some asshole that oversteps your boundaries. Because, believe me, I was so close to cross a lot of those before deciding to back the fuck up.”

She stares at him, incredulous, as if all the months they have been apart have completely changed her childhood best friend. “So, instead of talking to me, you just ghosted me? Very mature.”

Lando’s jaw tightens before replying, “I needed space.”

“You disappeared,” she corrects him. “You didn’t just take space. You shut me out.”

“That was me respecting your sorry ass relationship.”

“No,” she laughs dryly. “You were trying to make a point.”

Maybe, Lando thinks, looking away. But that’s not the whole truth. It’s painful, not to mention frustrating, to watch someone you care about being treated badly. It may have been selfish on his part, but Lando couldn’t stand by and watch the girl who deserved it all get only a piece of it.

“You don’t like him,” she continues, voice quieter now. “I get that. But instead of saying it, you just judged me from a distance.”

“No, I don’t like him,” he admits. “Matter of fact, I despise the guy. But not just because of who he is. It’s because he changes you.”

Her eyes narrow. “That’s not true.”

Lando laughs, but he’s not amused in the slighlest. “You went from having fun to crying in a matter of minutes. Because of him. How many times has this happened before?”

“He never—” she tries to warn him, before Lando cuts her off again.

“Keep defending him,” he says, irritated. “Because God forbid someone call you out when you’re being steamrolled by someone who doesn’t see your worth.”

“And God forbid you admit that maybe you’re not always right!” she snaps. “You don’t get to parachute in and act like some moral compass. If that’s the case, where the hell have you been all this time?”

The question silences them both. He can’t say too much without saying it all, and she’s waiting for something that won’t get to her. Not yet.

Disappointed, hurt, and extremely tired, she shrugs his jacket off and throws it at his chest. “Happy fucking New Year.”

𝟳 𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗛𝗦 𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥

📍 Somewhere off the Algarve coast, Portugal

AFTER THE HECTIC life she’s lived in the past few months, a weeklong yacht trip along the Portuguese coast is all she needs. Blue water, rosé on deck, and most importantly, no drama.

She says yes before she even checks the guest list, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Everybody in their group knows about the social distancing between her and Lando. Plus, she always checks his calendar, keeping an eye out for the weekends he’s away, racing, meaning she can tag along without stressing that they’re going to bump into each other.

Of course, she still watches his races. Just because they stop talking that doesn’t mean she stopped caring about the dream that Lando has been striving for since childhood. That’s also why she knows that Lando will be in the UK for at least another week, as he mentioned in the post-race interview, which won’t interfere with their little getaway.

By Friday, however, things change drastically. It’s only when she’s already halfway to the marina — after spending the entire afternoon shopping with the girls — that Max texts her.

BTW, just so you’re not surprised… Lando is flying in tonight. I know things aren’t great between you two right now, but he’s still my friend as much as you are, and I didn’t wanna lie or make it weird :D

You okay?

For a moment, everything seems to slow down, including her heartbeat. All the sounds that surrounds her fade into the background, while she tries to steady herself against the sudden rush of emotions.

Is she okay? Well, for the most part yes. But that’s because she haven’t seen Lando in months. There are many ways she can react when they’ll finally be face to face again, and she can’t decide which is worse. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter, because she simply doesn’t have the time to analyze every scenario.

I’ll survive, she texts back.

She will.

She has to.

It gets dark pretty late, but the night is warm, balmy with salt and wine in the air. They decorated the boat’s upper deck with a string of lanterns, their golden glow flickering against the white hull, gently illuminating the space. The music thumps lazily from a speaker somewhere, low enough not to overwhelm the sea’s waves but steady enough to pulse through bare feet on smooth wood.

Someone’s uncorking another bottle of vinho verde, and a few of the girls are still in their swimsuits, legs tucked beneath oversized linen shirts as they lounge across sun-warmed cushions.

She’s also barefoot, her skin kissed pink from the day, a loose skirt swaying at her thighs as she spins around one of the support poles, smiling wide; she decided, hours ago, that she won’t let anything ruin her vacation. It’s the first time in months she’s felt this light, and has no intention to let the feeling be washed away by the waves of a past so distant.

Only when she realizes that she is, in fact, invincible and that nothing can shake her confidence, she hears a familiar laugh, the same one she’ll recognize anywhere. But she doesn’t turn to it immediately. Instead, her body stiffens as fast as if it’s controlled by a remote.

He’s here and, suddenly, the breeze curling in from the sea feels somehow cooler. It’s just a voice, but it’s his, and it sounds so melodic in her ears, even after all this time.

When she finally turns around, all the noise dials down.

Lando’s standing on the deck like he’s never been gone, a duffel thrown over one shoulder, his curls slightly damp from the flight or the heat or the mist. He’s in a loose, black tank top and shorts, his sneakers untied like he didn’t even bother to fix them. He’s already smiling when he sees Max coming to greet him with a drink in hand, sliding easily into hugs and handshakes. Everything is so normal that she almost rushes to the stairs to jump into his arms.

As if he hears her thinking about him, Lando looks up and their eyes catch mid-movement.

The music doesn’t stop. No one freezes. The conversation continues. And yet something just between them shifts, making Lando still for a moment. His smile falters slightly. The duffel slides off his shoulder and drops at his feet. His gaze lingers longer than it should, because he seems genuinely surprised, like he hadn’t expected her to look the way she does — lighter, freer, happier than the last time he saw her.

Like a low-budget movie, they just look at each other for a while and then, barely perceptible, Lando nods once. It is a subtle, tired gesture. Not warm, but not hostile either. More like: I see you. I’ll behave.

And she nods back: I see you too. I’ll try.

That’s all that it is. A small breath of peace in the warzone. Because they both know that this vacation isn’t about them. There are too many people they both love here, too many memories tied up in this group to be so selfish as to ruin everyone’s fun.

With that, Lando disappears below deck with a few of the guys, and the party continues as if nothing happened.

SOMEHOW, THEY’VE MANAGED.

It’s the last night on the boat together, and not once have they really spoken. Just kept on with the civil nods and carefully timed appearances. She took the mornings on the upper deck with a book and her sunglasses pulled low, while he suck to afternoons with Max and Keegan, sunbathing and pretending not to look over when she passed by.

Every time they went out for dinner, they sat at opposite ends of the table, pretending to be invested in conversations that barely held their attention.

When they went to explore the nearby cliffs and hidden beaches, they naturally split into smaller groups, Lando ending up with the boys, as usual, taking the off-road buggy trails that wind through dusty hills, while she tagged along with a few of the girls. They didn’t walk near each other. Didn’t even end up in the same group photo.

But the glances were a constant, and all of them have carried them both here, almost at the end.

There’s a bizzare quiet in the air tonight, the kind that only the sea can create — so deep, violent, and alive at the same time.

After soaking in her own heat for hours, she decides to step out of her cabin for a breath of fresh air.

They’ve ordered seafood for dinner, and her relationship with it is not exactly good. A small breeze brushes across her face, lifting her hair slightly, carrying with it the clean scent of salt. The boat rocks gently beneath her, and the stars above are strewn carelessly across the sky like spilled sugar.

The second she steps into the dark of the corridor and turns toward the small galley, her heart skips a beat. For good reason. Lando’s already there, barefoot and shirtless and deep in thought in the low light, leaning against the railing like he belongs in the night. One of his hands is resting on the cool metal, while the other is wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead.

His head turns when he hears her cat-like steps, eyes catching hers in the dark.

The only sounds are the gentle hush of the waves against the hull, and the occasional creak of the boat. Neither of them says anything, as if they don’t even know how to speak to each other after throwing cutting words at each other, all those months ago. The silence between them doesn’t make them feel awkward. Maybe just a little guarded. However, it’s very depressing, really, not having anything to say to the person who once knew absolutely everything about you.

It would be very easy for her to turn on her heels and walk back into her cabin, avoiding Lando, just like she has done all these days. But then she hears his whispered voice, and his mellow intonation is enough to make the entire planet stop from spinning.

“Everything okay?”

She swallows, caught in the stillness of the night as if she’s a thief. “Yeah,” she whispers back, even though it sounds more like a question than an answer. “Felt a bit sick.”

He nods slowly. “The shrimp?”

“The fucking shrimp,” she agrees.

Lando shrugs. “Ew.”

His reaction triggers a wave of warmth that washes over her, forcing a smile while thinking about the past. The memory flashes rudely uninvited. Still, she weclomes it with nothing but nostalgia in her heart. They were eight, crammed into a bed on a family vacation, and she’d eaten her weight in shrimp and clams at dinner, proudly declaring herself a seafood queen. Hours later, she threw it all up, right there, in bed, all over him. Lando woke up screaming, drenched in the smell of stomach acid, fish and betrayal and, ever since, he couldn’t even stand near a fish without gagging.

Cautious, she edges forward, bracing her arms on the railing only a couple feet apart from him, eyes fixed on the black stretch of sea. The moon paints a silver path across the water, waves shifting like oil under its light. For a few minutes, they just stand there like two ghosts, side by side, watching the view, but probably stuck in different memories.

“So, I’ll go back inside,” she says a little unsure.

His voice cuts through the quiet, “Stay,” says Lando without hesitation.

It’s not just the gentle plea that catches her off guard, but the way he says it. Like he means it more than he means anything else right now. Possibly more than he meant anything else ever.

Awkwardly, she moves forward, letting herself lean closer to him. That’s how she finds out that physical distance means absolutely nothing when it’s the emotional distance that kept them apart. More than that, there are many things left unsaid that fill that void.

Out of sheer curiosity — or plain stupidity, she’s not sure yet — the girl begins to walk uncertainly towards the edge of the space that separates them.

“You remember New Year’s?” she asks, the words coming out softer than she expects.

There is no trace of hatred or resentment behind her voice, which surprises her. She understands that she has, without realizing it, moved beyond their most tensed moment so far. And all that’s left now, besides her curiosity, is the fact that no matter how much time has passed, the two of them still know each other on a level they haven’t reached with anyone else.

Lando doesn’t look at her, but his jaw flexes. “Hard to forget.”

“I threw your jacket at you,” she continues with a small laugh.

“And stormed off like you were in a romcom.”

“To be fair, you were being a dick.”

He chuckles then, and the sound is gentle yet painfully nostalgic. “I probably was.”

“You talked like you knew everything. It was…” she hesitates, fingers tightening slightly on the rail, “A bit cruel. Even if it came from a good place.”

Lado nods. “I know,” he says, “I guess I didn’t know how to talk without sounding like some immature tantrum just because I was missing my friend.”

She glances at him then, studying the curve of his profile in the moonlight. The familiar slope of his perfect sculpted nose. The way his curls fall just a little longer then she remembered. The way he speaks but seems so deeply forgotten in the memory of that winter night.

“I broke up with him the next day,” she admits.

He turns, his eyes searching for hers. “Yeah,” says Lando, “I figured.”

Even though she tries her best, she can’t read his demeanor. He seems tense, even though their conversation isn’t hostile in any way. Not yet, at least. Still, Lando looks as if he’s bracing for some sort of impact that she’s not aware of. There something softer in his expression, though. Something hesitant that encourages her to keep him in that memory.

“I think about it sometimes,” she continues. “That night. All of it.”

He nods again. “Me too. ”

She looks over, eyes wide and cautious, but Lando doesn’t look away.

“But,” he continues, “I won’t apologize for what I said. Because I wasn’t wrong. You do deserve better. And maybe I had no right to say it the way I did, but I’d rather have fought with you than keep watchig you shrink yourself for someone who didn’t even appreciate you.”

His words hit like the waves, tightening her throat. “I get that. But in the moment, it made me feel…” she begins, eyes filling up with tears, “Like you stopped respecting me because of him. And I felt stupid for being so blinded that I lost sight of all the things that were the most important to me.”

The way Lando looks at her now makes her heart sink. Not with pity. Not even with regret. Just a dull ache, like he’s been carrying it with him for months, and he’s too tired to hold it tightly anymore.

“Come on, you know that’s not true,” he says. “I was just irritated and drunk. Watching you disappear like that wasn’t easy, and I didn’t know how to ask you to stay without sounding like a selfish prick. I should’ve just said something,” adds Lando. “Instead of sulking and keeping score and acting like you betrayed me for living your life,” he looks away then, back to the endless sea, eyes half-lidded like the movement of the waves might offer him something easier to face. Anything but this.

He had time to think and weigh his actions. But it all came down to those last few minutes, when it suddenly became too much for both of them.

“I missed you, Lando,” she confesses after a while, letting the words out in a small voice.

The silence that follows is no longer heavy with avoidance, but an intimate warmth that somehow infiltrates under her skin. It merges with all the sadness caused by the time they spent apart and, together, they create a new kind of feeling that she doesn’t yet know how to name. And, for some reason, she’s in no hurry to do so.

Uncertain yet courageous after hearing her admission, Lando’s hand finds hers along the railing and, to his surprise, she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she threads her fingers through his, like she was already waiting for it. For him.

It’s weird, she thinks, how their hands fit together like the end of a sentence that finally makes sense. So she keeps it there, feeling his pulse in her palm like it’s the most normal thing in the world. They can’t look at each other, though. And suddenly, the waves are so much more interesting than the mess they’ve created, their soft undulation bewitching them both, mirroring their feelings in a sick, twisted way; tamed at the surface, yet storming somewhere deeper.

In the chaos of her mind, she can feel the gentle way his thumb brushes the side of her hand. The way he squeezes her afterwards. Like a promise. And she knows, without either of them saying it, that this was always going to happen. That they are inevitable, like gravity pulling them toward the center of each other.

“Are we gonna go back to being cold in the morning?” he finds the strength to ask, voice barely above the hush of the tide.

Truth is, she doesn’t even know what the next few minutes will bring, let alone the next morning.

The girl turns her head slightly, her cheek pressing to his shoulder. “Well, I don’t know how to be your friend nowadays,” she admits, not to make him feel bad, but because that’s the only thing she’s sure of. Her truth.

Lando sighs, “Yeah, that’s not quite us anymore, hm?”

It takes another crushing silence before Lando turns to her completely. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter they can’t be friends anymore, because they’re way past that. Lando is way past that. All he wants is one chance to show her how much it means to him; every word, every touch and every single thought that’s been haunting him for days on end.

He looks like he’s on autopilot when he brings his other hand up to brush her jaw. After his movement, she takes the next step and leans into his touch. She opens her mouth, maybe to say his name, but the words don’t get the chance to get out, because Lando grabs her firmly and pulls her toward him. Hard. Like he can’t take the distance anymore.

His mouth crashes into hers without any warning. It isn’t careful. It isn’t sweet. It’s the result of months of silence, of aching, of watching and wanting and never having. It’s teeth clashing, breath catching, fingers curling so hard into skin that it’ll leave marks.

She gasps into his mouth, as if the ground is crumbling beneath her feet, but at the same time, it’s the most exciting feeling she’s ever felt. Her arms are instinctively wrapping around his shoulders, pulling him closer like she’s been just as consumed by what they didn’t say. Lando fists a hand in her hair, the other gripping her waist tight enough to bruise. He’s all fire, hot and desperate, and there’s not enough water that surrounds them to cool what’s raging in his chest.

He gives her the kind of kiss that says I missed you too and I’m sorry and I never stopped thinking of you all at once. Her hand constricts around his bicep, grounding herself in the feel of him: his salty lips and the way he exhales with a relieved sigh like she’s air after being underwater for far too long. It’s impossible not to feel how much he needed this, because there’s nothing left unsaid in the way he holds her. The truth — his truth — was always there, waiting for the moment they’d both be brave enough to let in.

The kiss deepens before either of them realizes what’s happening. And it’s her who leans in a bit further. That brings him back to the present moment, not because she is just as desperate, but because of how much she means it. How much she wants this. It’s right there, in the way her mouth moves over his, open and urgent, like a need that’s been burning for too long. It makes Lando groan silently when her teeth graze his bottom lip, her tongue flicking against his like a dare. A dare that he answers to, meeting her halfway, teasing, then licking into her mouth with a skilled confidence that makes her head spin.

Oh, he’s a good kisser.

Dizzy from the sudden intensity, she clings to his neck, tilting her head as he takes control, his hands finding their way back to her waist after roaming up and down her body, guiding her back a few steps until her spine presses lightly to the railing. The breeze kisses across her bare legs, her thin nightdress doing nothing to hide the way her body shivers. Or how hard he gets against her. She feels it instantly, like a sharp contrast between his swim trunks and her body, and it sends a jolt of heat right between her thighs.

Her breath hitches once they stop, glancing up at him, caught between amusement and want. “What are you so excited for?”

Lando meets her gaze with an innocent grin twitching at his lips as he shrugs, “Sorry.”

She can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation she finds herself in. Loud. The kind of laugh that throws her head back a little and makes her cover her mouth when she realizes its heat.

Lando just watches her, enchanted by her mere existence. And, without thinking twice, he asks, “How can anyone be embarrassed by that laugh?”

The sudden comment silences both of them. Lando, because he just heard himself saying it out loud. And her, because of how sincere he sounds. How tender.

Still grinning, he lets his forehead fall against hers. They may never encounter such a moment of peace again, so neither of them hesitates to take it where it’s supposed to go to: her tiny cabin. The narrow door clicks shut behind them, and the space is barely big enough for one person, let alone the two of them tangled in something so close it’s hard to tell where tension ends and need begins.

She backs into the bed, and Lando follows, eyes fixed to her like she’s the only girl ever. When they finally collapse onto the mattress, it creaks under their weight. Their knees bump. Shoulders brush. Lando’s arm wraps around her waist in an instant, and she fits there like it’s hers. That grip. Him.

Somehow, he’s bigger than she remembers. Or maybe she’s just never noticed how broad his chest is, how his legs stretch past the foot of her bed, how small her frame feels when she pulls him into her. And now, in the closeness of their embrace, it’s impossible not to feel it.

It intimidates her, but she keeps her hands all over him, warm skin meeting her palms. Her eyes roam without shame, wandering from his abdomen up to his pecs and then stop on his freshly kissed lips. Her fingers trail along his arms, feeling the strength carved into muscle by years of racing and tension. She watches the way goosebumps rise under her touch, and when her hand flattens over his chest, just above his heart, Lando exhales heavily, with a slight shudder.

He doesn’t look away, though. He doesn’t have the heart or enough willpower. He simply looks back at her, eyes burning, as if seeing her underneath him like this is the only normal thing in their messed up lifes.

“I need to know where’s your head at,” he says, his long fingers brushing the outside of her thigh.

She closes her eyes for a moment. Mostly because she finds it hard to pay attention when her childhood friend — the skinny little boy who used to be blown away by the slightest breeze — is now on top of her in the flesh, displaying groups of muscles she’s never seen on his body before, let alone touched.

Her hand stays on his chest, “Am I ever going to get my best friend back?”

His hearts breaks a little, because he realizes that both of them know the implications of her question. The answer, too, but she still wants to hear him saying it, because that’s the only thing that’ll make it true.

Lando’s eyes search hers for a moment too long, and something in him rearrange, the muscle in his jaw tightening before he leans in. “No,” he simply replies.

She figured. Still, it is not necessarily the answer itself that makes her emotional, but the way Lando said it, as if it is torture for him to even admit it.

“I can’t ruin myself over and over again, pretending that what I feel for you is small. It never was.”

She nods, lifting her hand to the back of his neck, threading her fingers into his hair and pulling him down until their lips are barely brushing. Lando’s hands are pulling at her, slowly sliding the straps of her dress down. He takes his time, undressing her like he’s unwrapping a present he’s waited far too long to touch. And when she’s standing there, bare and warm and only for him to see, he sits back to stare and take as many mental pictures as he can.

“You’re…” he starts, voice nearly breaking, “So fucking beautiful.”

She presses closer, hands moving to his shorts with urgency. Lando lets her, barely breathing and, when the last layer falls away, she looks down at him. All of him. His golden skin that glows in the dim light filtering through the porthole, muscles tightening under her hungry touch.

Impatient, his hand slides between her legs while maintaining eye contact, his fingertips brushing over the soft skin at her inner thigh before he presses just lightly against her entrance. The reaction is immediate, a sharp breath followed by a soft whimper that catches in her throat. Her hips instinctively lift toward him, and his own breath wavers at the sound.

“So wet,” he breaks off, almost spiraling from the realization, from finding out just how much she wants him. Just like he wants her.

For a moment, there’s something feral in his gaze, something that won’t let her move her eyes. Like he’s balancing on a tightrope of restraint, and she’s the drop waiting to pull him under.

“It kills me,” he admits. Then he leans in, lips brushing against the shell of her ear, “But you need to be quiet, darling.”

She nods, her breath still uneven, knowing it’s going to be anything but easy.

Lando presses a kiss to her shoulder, then her collarbone before he continues, “Even though I love it when you’re loud, you’ll have to save that for later.”

Just the thought of her, waiting for his next move all warm and wanting, has his cock already pulsing in his palm. He strokes himself slowly, gaze locked on her as she shifts beneath him, spreading wider with a shaky inhale.

As curious as ever, she glances down between them, eyes filled with want, and he watches her bite her lower lip at the sight of him, so hard and ready. The gap between them closes quickly, suspended in that final moment before everything changes. Her fingers curl into the sheets, watching Lando lining himself up, just barely brushing against her clit. Then, he pushes in with a whimper that sounds like it’s been clawing at his throat for months. Like this moment has been sitting just under his skin, waiting to become real.

“Fuck,” he pants, silently. “You feel better than I ever imagined.”

Right now, all her senses are inhibited by him. The weight, the stretch, the warmth, the way his hands frame her hips like she’s the only thing keeping him in check, and she’s the only reason why Lando isn’t unleashing hell yet. Her legs wrap around his waist, holding him close, as if her body already knows what her heart won’t let her say.

Lando. Lando. Lando!

But he shakes his head, his voice going lower than normal, “No, baby, Let me.”

The bed is laughably small, making Lando huff out a frustrated breath, one arm sliding under her thigh as he shifts them both, gripping her firmly to guide her where he needs her. It’s not graceful in any way, but there’s something about the way he manhandles her, lifting, adjusting, controlling the angle until it’s perfect, that makes her head fall back with a gasp.

He exhales through his nose, lips pressing in a thin line to avoid making sounds that could get them both into trouble. “There. That’s it.”

She lets him move her, pliant and trusting, her breath getting heavier when their skin brushes in all the right places. Every thrust is slow at first, drawing soft moans from her mouth that only make him harder. The way her body reacts only fuels him, encouraged by the way her lashes flutter, and the way her hands slide into his hair when she can’t find the words. She couldn’t say it anyway. Can’t give voice to what’s blooming and breaking inside her.

But Lando feels it in the way she moves with him, and how her body opens like it was always meant to. That pushes him to thrust harder, feeling like the entire boat shakes at the force.

“Easy. You’re gonna break the bed,” she says against his jaw, her voice a breathy laugh.

“Wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve broken over you,” he mutters back, but there’s no malice in his tone, except a dangerous affection that’s always lived under his skin when it came to her.

It makes her curious to know what he means, but just as she’s about to ask, Lando finds that angle where their bodies align like puzzle pieces that should’ve never fit but somehow do. He rocks into her so sweetly, and that’s enough to silence her. The answer is in the way her breath stutters. The way her fingers grip his arms. The way her body pulls him in and clenches around his length like it’s never known anything else.

“Shit. Again, please,” Lando breathes wetly against her skin. “Do that again,” he repeats, already buried to the hilt, grinding against that perfect spot inside her, that once he found it, it’s impossible to stop. “Mhm. Let me make it right.”

“You said you can’t,” she challanges him, barely able to speak. “So stop taking your sweet time, Norris,” she pants, breathless but defiant, smirking even as her thighs tremble around his hips.

Lando lifts his head, curls damp against his forehead, eyes dark with a sudden annoyance. “Yeah? That’s how he’s had you all this time? Quick, in and out, job done?”

Her smirk drops into a scoff, her hands pressing against his chest like she might shove him off. But she arches into him instead, loving the way her back rubs against the mattress with each push.

“If anything, he had the balls to be honest with me.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he thrusts deeper, making her gasp mid-retort. “Stop defending him, will ya?”

The sheets are already half off the bed, twisted and forgotten, heat pulsing like a heartbeat between them. Lando starts moving inside her with a relentless rhythm, as if trying to erase anyone who came before him with every shove. But she won’t give him the silence he craves.

Not anymore.

Her head tilts back, sweat glistening at her collarbone, but her eyes are sharp, ready to catch his reaction. “No wonder you drive like that. Always trying to prove you’re better than the last guy, aren’t you?”

His hips slam forward, hard enough to make her gasp again, fingers bruising against her waist. “That’s rich coming from the girl who settled for someone who didn’t even know how to fuck her, let alone treat her right.”

She bites her lip, not in surrender but to hide the moan that slips out anyway. Her nails dig into his back, dragging down like a punishment until he grunts. “You’re such a coward,” she snaps. “At least he didn’t treat every conversation like a race he had to win.”

All of a sudden, Lando slows his movements, grinding deep, making her eyes roll before he fucks back into her harder than before. Only to make a point. Only to see all the places he takes her to.

“‘Cause he had the habit of abandoning before it even started, isn’t it? How many times did you have to fake it?”

Her eyes snap to his, speechless, but Lando doesn’t blink. He grins at her, knowing he is waiting for an answer he’ll never get.

She kisses him then, hard and angry, pouring all the emotions she never thought Lando, of all people, would ever awaken in her. Then she pushes him, her legs squeezing around his waist, her action emphasizing the duality of the thoughts going through her mind.

“Just so we’re clear. You’re not the first to try and fuck me into forgetting,” she finally replies.

At that, Lando stops for a breath, not from exhaustion but from the way her words claw straight through his big ego. He slams into her again, smiling at her, hand catching her thigh to spread her wider. “But I’m the one who’s going to succeed.”

She’s so close, he can feel it in the way her body aches to keep his cock inside and how her insults start to blend with moans. What amazes him, though, is the strength she has to continue their little argument, as if they’re not in the middle of something else right now.

“Never thought you could be such an asshole, it’s unbelievable.”

Lando doesn’t even blink when he speaks again, “He made you cry on New Year’s,” he growls, voice sharp, like a blade slipping between her ribs. “And I’m the asshole?”

Before she can throw a retort back, he tilts his hips, changing the angle, and drives into her so sudden that it knocks the breath from her lungs. Her back arches, while her hips are lifting to meet every punishing thrust.

“Lando,” she moans his name, arms winding around his shoulders like she’s holding on for dear life.

She can feel him in places she didn’t even know could feel. He’s fucking her with such intensity it turns into a blur of slick skin and strangled whimpers, the bed creaking beneath them.

The banter dies somewhere along the way, and all that’s left behind is the heat, the pounding rhythm, the kind of pleasure that makes thoughts disappear and stars dance behind their eyes. Her brows are scrunched, eyes glazed, and she realizes she’s about to scream. Actually scream.

Luckily, Lando places a hand over her mouth just in time, muffling the broken sounds pouring out of her throat. It takes her by surprise, realizing how well he knows all her signals without ever telling him. But it’s easy for him. Especially when he sees the way her body’s trembling under his weight, and the way her eyes plead and challenge all at once.

He nods, hips pistoning into her, watching her come apart beneath him, a quiet, shaking mess.

“Yeah,” he grunts as quiet as possible through gritted teeth, “That’s it. Just me now.”

The words hang in the sweat-soaked air as she comes around his length, clenching so tight it nearly takes him with her. Lando doesn’t stop moving. Instead, he talks her through it, his voice breathless against her ear.

“That’s my girl, let it all out. So fucking perfect.”

Her nails sink further into his back, riding the aftershocks with his cock still buried deep, stretching her in all the ways she was craving. It brings him right on the edge, and with a frustrated cry, Lando pulls out, the head of his cock flushed and swollen as it rests hot and heavy against her thigh. He lets himself go at the sight, thick ropes spilling messily onto her skin. Sticky. Warm. Heavenly.

“Lan,” she breathes, half a protest, half a moan, reaching up to drag him back on top of her.

Lando can’t resist the pull. Not when her touch unravels him with every glide of her fingers over his skin. He used to dream of it, but the reality is always better. He kisses her again, softer this time, letting the moment stretch before his hand finds the curve of her breast, fingers teasing with just enough pressure to make her arch against him. Patiently, his thumb sweeps over her nipple, circling, pressing, feeling it harden under his touch.

It makes her whimper, her hands fisting in his hair. Lando’s lips find the column of her throat then, biting gently just beneath her jaw. Her sounds light him up like the fireworks they didn’t witness that night. He trails his kisses down to her collarbone, one palm flattening over her stomach before traveling back up.

Somehow, the chaos has slowed, but the heat is still there.

Their bodies are tangled in ways that no one could tell where she starts and where he ends, the mess between them so satisfying. When their eyes meet again, he sees her flushed cheeks, the sheen of sweat on her brow, and her chest heaving. Her eyes are so vulnerable as she looks back at him — her Lando, stripped down and completely wrecked.

And without a single word, he slides back in.

No sharp words, no angry breathing. Just the sound of their pants, the wet glide of his cock moving inside her, the weight of emotion that neither of them dares to name. Every thrust is unhurried this time around, his sweaty forehead resting against hers, like he’s trying to memorize the feel of her walls fluttering around him, the way her thighs lock around his waist with each roll of his hips.

It’s not just sex anymore. Is so much more than that, something that will linger for a quite some time after they part tonight. And they both know it.

When the pressure builds again, it’s different. There’s less fire. More ache. She blinks up at him, and her lips tremble. Tears pool at the corners of her eyes, not from physical pain, but from the overwhelming closeness of it all.

Lando sees it, and kisses them away.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers.

And when he comes again, it’s with a quiet groan right against her lips, buried deep as her body pulls him in, taking every drop of his pleasure and keeping him as if he belongs to her from now on. All of it. All of him.

The silence that surrounds them afterwards feels too full. She lets him stay there, wrapped around her, her fingers idly tracing his back. But her gaze is distant, fixed on the ceiling, already somewhere else.

For now, at least, they can coexist in the same world, breathing each other in until the reality will catch them from behind.

But that’s a problem for tomorrow morning.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ MASTERLIST . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Thank you for reading!

None of my works are available for reposting on other platforms. Reblogs, likes, and comments are deeply appreciated ♥︎

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yanadolls · 17 days ago

Text

i can't help it, i want u!

18+, mdni ୨୧

dom nagi x fem reader, age gap (legal ofc), creampie, unprotected sex, risky sex, praising

you had been eyeing him for a while now, even though you felt guilty about it. after all, it was your best friend's brother, who was probably too old for you in the first place.

why did you even like him in the first place? you had no idea. he was lazy, unmotivated, and very unhelpful when it came to giving a hand to your bestie around the house and with errands. she always complaining about him to you, and you agreed with her! good on her for scolding him and forcing him to get out of his room.

but on the other hand..nagi was so fucking attractive to you. the way he was so effortlessly strong and so good at soccer had you blushing like crazy, and his muscles and abs? it had you soaked, thighs squeezing together whenever he walked out shirtless. his sleepy eyes, messy hair, and tall height was so hot, you couldn't help but fall for him- and hard. whenever your friend left the room temporarily, you were more touchy towards the white haired man, scooting closer to 'watch him game', when in reality you were admiring him and taking in his soapy scent from his previous shower. you wanted nagi to look at you, so much so you would dress a bit different whenever he was around; short skirts, tank tops, low tight jeans.. you were frustrated because you thought that nagi never noticed, but he definitely did.

tonight, you were staying over at their house once again. your best friend was long passed out at this point, but you were anything but close to sleeping and it had been this way for the past hour. your mind was on nagi and how close he was today, still feeling giddy from when he complimented your makeup. it felt wrong to be crushing on him but you just couldn't help it- guys your age weren't satisfying you, and nagi was everything you ever wanted right now.

with a held breath, you carefully snuck out of your friend's room and shut the door, before heading to nagi's room. after a minute of hesitation, you knocked on his door and waiting a couple seconds. you could hear his mumbled approval of entrance, and when you walked in and saw him..it was like the wind was knocked out of you.

yet again, he was shirtless, abs fully on display for you as he leaned against his headboard, only the dim light of his lamp illuminating the room while his eyes were locked onto his phone. in the corner of his vision, he noticed that it was you that entered rather than his sister and that surprised him a bit.

"hm..? did my sister send you in here for something? i'm not going to the store this late."

why were you in here anyway? your cheeks were already heating up as you approached his bed, only in short shorts and a tank top.

"no, i just wanted to see you. can i hang out?"

"me? uh.. i mean i guess. you wanna watch me play or something?"

you never really hung out with him alone for longer than 10 minutes, so you were a bit more nervous this time than usual. with a silent nod, you crawled onto his bed and sat right beside him, thigh against his.

"she fell asleep really quick, and i wasn't able to. was thinking about you.."

you were more bold tonight, you wanted something to happen. you couldn't forget about how his fingers were brushing against your plushy thigh earlier- that must have been a sign, you thought. clearly, your words did affect him enough right now because he messed up his shot in his game and almost died. a scoff left his lips, pouting a bit as he quickly locked in and killed the enemy. he didn't look up at you, but nagi's attention was definitely on you now.

"think about you too. a lot actually, but don't tell my sister that or she might stop bringing you over."

you felt a flutter in your core. he had such an effect on you without even trying, it was almost angering. you carefully wrapped your arms around his muscular one, cheek pressing against his bicep.

"i won't. been wanting to be alone with you for a while, anyway."

"mh. mutual."

you paused for a moment as you watched him play, debating your next words. you felt the tension between the two of you, stronger than ever tonight, and nagi wasn't playing his best right now; he was distracted by your closeness. in a moment of confidence, you decided to just go for it.

"..been thinking about you fucking me, too."

the moment those words mumbled out of your mouth, nagi's finger slipped which resulted in an immediate game over. you thought he was about to get mad or even disgusted and kick you out.. but when he looked down at you, his eyes told you he had other plans.

"haah.. nagi, slow down..!"

you gasped out under him, eyes rolling back from how good nagi was pounding into you. his cock was so big it hurt, stretching you out and touching your cervix with each thrust. you made nagi's patience snap- all the nights he spent fucking his fist, wishing it was your sweet cunt instead, all lead up to this. the lazy genius adored how much smaller you were- how risky it was to be fucking his little sister's bff. he had wanted you the same way for so long, maybe even longer than you.

"such a good girl f'me.." he cooed softly beside your ear, soft droopy eyes looking at you from the side. he rolled his hips sensually into yours and you squealed, squirming on the mattress from how good the older man was fucking you. his hands gripped your waist, holding you down with only a tiny amount of his strength as he connected his mouth with yours for a heated kiss. your teeth and tongue clashed with his, and nagi was already obsessed with the feeling of your soft lips against his chapped ones.

"what would my sister think if she saw this, hm? p-probably think i'm a weirdo for fucking someone almost a decade younger, but you wanted this too didn't you? and you're taking me so well..knew you would be the best."

you whimpered at his words, walls clenching around him at the mere thought of being caught like this. his praises were making you feel hotter, love bubbling up in your heart for him. in your eyes, the age wasn't wrong at all. you were both adults, so what if nagi was a tad bit older? you loved it.

"ah- n-nagiii.." you panted out, "p-please, wanna cum so bad..need more!"

"yeah?"

nagi huffed and moved down to your neck, sucking deep hickeys on your skin and littering them in so many noticeable places that would be hard to cover in the morning. he wanted evidence to be left of what happened between them tonight.

"fuck, y/n.. you have no idea what you do to me. pussy is incredible, can't believe i didn't hit on you sooner.."

nagi's pace quickened as he pressed more weight onto you, heavy cock abusing your tight hole. you weren't exactly having quiet sex- your best friend could very well wake up and walk in, but that wasn't even on your mind right now. you were drunk on nagi's dick, and he knew it. the man could tell you were getting close from how much you were moving and squeezing around him, and found you utterly adorable looking so vulnerable under his touch.

"you're so perfect, aren't you? gonna fill you up so nicely, stuff you full with my load over and over till the morning and my sister won't have a fucking clue."

you whined, totally in love with the amount of attention you were getting from him after longing for it for months. he made your tummy flutter and your heart race- whether he was talking so dirty to you or saying something sickly sweet.

"cumming, ah- i-i'm cumming! oh nagi, l-love you so much!"

you shrieked out as your back arched off the bed, gushing all over his cock. he groaned out, sloppily thrusting a couple more times into your cunt before pressing deep inside you, finishing in your womb.

you were a panting mess underneath him, but he wasn't done. that little 'love you' at the end of your orgasm struck him to his core. nagi was starting to really think that dating you wouldn't be so bad after all- even if you would both face severe backlash from his sister.

"you still with me, baby? we have a whole night ahead of us, it'd be a hassle to make me spend it alone. mh, i love you so much.."

AN; older nagi makes me combust all over the screen >.< this is lwk shit ugh WHATEVER

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paulyenvol6 · 4 months ago

Text

As Slow As You Need

Marcus Acacius x female reader (OS)

Idea by the wonderful @mrspascalsworld <3

Chapter two Chapter three

You have just married Marcus Acacius and despite ignoring him for the first few weeks of your marriage you can't help but eventually fall for him...

Contains: smut, p in v, unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), virginity loss, slight possessiveness, shy and inexperienced reader, soft!dom Acacius, caring Acacius, talking you through it, implied age gap (I imagined reader to be in her early 20s and Acacius around 50) angst, slight aftercare, mentions of pain and discomfort, arranged marriage, sort of enemies to lovers

Wordcount: ~10,612

Masterlist

The bracelet was too tight and painfully cut into your flesh.

That was the first thought that was in your head as you stood in front of Marcus Acacius and you wanted to slam your head against a wall so badly because this was supposed to be the most beautiful moment in your life and instead you were on the verge of crying. Perhaps it would have been the most beautiful moment if it wasn't him.

A part of you just wanted to let the tears flow, break down and make it physically impossible for you to marry him but you couldn't do this to your father. This had been his last wish and every time you cursed this arrangement in your thoughts you remembered your father's tired pleading eyes making it impossible for you refuse his demand.

You had promised that you would marry Acacius and frankly, you hadn't thought about the consequences of it until after your father had been dead. It wasn't just a little kindness so your father could fall asleep peacefully knowing that you would be taken care of, no you were about to spend the rest of your life with Acacius, a man that made a shiver run down your spine every time he laid his eyes on you. There was something so intimidating about him that you feared to be alone with him. He radiated dominance and authority and perhaps even a little danger.

The whole procedure was a fever dream. Your body was separated from your mind, your legs doing what they were supposed to do, carrying you down the aisle by Acacius' side but you didn't feel anything. You were numb, expressionless which almost made you think that the people around you might believe there was something wrong with you but it was the only way to cope with all of this.

Time passed way too quickly for your taste and then the feast in celebration of your wedding was over and Acacius was about to lead you to your bedchambers. The two of you had barely exchanged a word except a 'Thank you' when you handed him a jar of wine or a 'Excuse me for a second' when he went to speak with one of his friends.

You couldn't remember if you had said anything at all to him though. You were a ghost, a lifeless shell that did just what it was supposed to do like smiling at all the congratulations and looking pretty. That was what you would be to Acacius after all. Someone to put his babies inside and be used as a stress relief. And this was what had killed his last wife and now it was your turn to be humiliated and turned into his plaything.

The fact that you were still a virgin didn't exactly calm you either and now was the first time you felt something. It wasn't pleasant; a bitter feeling was creeping up in your belly spreading all throughout your body and making your heart pound fast in your chest. You couldn't tell if Acacius noticed your discomfort and merely didn't care about it but his night was a lot busier than yours as no minute passed in which no one came up to him talking about some matter that you couldn't care about less.

When you felt that the night slowly came to an end you would have liked to stop time or perhaps even reverse it so you could tell your dying father that you loved him more than anything else in the world but you couldn't do him this favor.

You wanted to run out of the building and hide in the stables right next to your villa you had always gone to when you were in trouble or cried about a fight with your siblings. When you were a child you had believed that no one could find you there but this dream had been shattered when your sister had dragged you out of there by your hair when you were 12 after you had broken her favourite doll. It was better than nothing though, you bitterly thought and watched your clenched hands giving away just how tense you were.

Your whole body suddenly twitched when you felt a hand on your bare arm and you turned your head probably looking like you had just seen a ghost.

"My lady," Acacius' deep voice brought you back to the present moment. "I think it is time for us to leave."

'No, it's not,' you wanted to answer, cross your arms in front of your stomach and sit here until the sun would rise in the morrow. Maybe you could sit here until Acacius was even older than now and would be too old to bed you.

"Yes… of course," was what you mumbled instead well aware that this wasn't a proper way to address your new husband in public but honestly, you didn't care. This whole thing couldn't get any worse so why worry about what other people might think about you?

Acacius rose from the chair offering you his big hand which you grabbed and you felt his rough skin against yours. You almost stumbled over your own feet following him but fortunately didn't fall down although it might have been a good way to avoid the inevitable bedding ceremony.

Acacius led you out of the magnificent hall to the corridor and you blindly followed him too focused on breathing and controlling your wobbly knees. Perhaps he noticed your mental and physical state to some extent because he didn't let go off your hand while guiding you up the stairs.

He started talking to you for the first time when you passed the library and a new wave of shock ran through your body at the sound of his voice.

"Did you enjoy the festivities, my lady?" he asked calmly which only made you angrier because you felt pathetic almost clinging to his helping hand while he had never seemed more at peace.

"Yes," you shortly answered staring ahead of you but felt his eyes on your profile.

"That's good to hear."

Then there was silence which would have been unbearable in any other circumstances but not with him tonight. Right now you rather welcomed it because you had a feeling that every movement, twitch or sound escaping Acacius' mouth only unsettled you further. He seemingly was oblivious to what you needed right now because he tilted his head towards the library that you had passed by now and looked at you again.

"Do you enjoy to read? I am most proud of the collection in there."

You slightly nodded still avoiding his gaze and dug the nails of your free hand in your palm just to feel a little bit like yourself. "I do. Yes."

You knew that you were more than impolite and Acacius could have snapped by now but he received your answer with a nod of his head but then remained silent until the two of you arrived in his bedchambers.

It was a comfortable big room that was beautifully lit by countless candles and you would have enjoyed the view if your eyes hadn't fallen upon the big four poster bed that made the center of the room.

Not only were you afraid of the act itself, but more importantly, you didn't want your husband to see you so vulnerable. He would regard your bare and naked body the way you were born, touch your most intimate parts and eventually melt with you and everything inside of you twisted and turned at the thought.

You didn't really know this man but what you knew was that he was evil and vicious, that he was violant and rough on the battlefield and he wouldn't be any different when he was laying with you. You could quite literally smell the danger off him and only had to look into his dark eyes once to know everything you needed to.

The tears collecting in the corner of your eyes were inevitable and you couldn't stop them from escaping either. You didn't care about it; he should see them and maybe if he had any humanity left in him he would feel bad although you were certain that after decades of fighting in bloody and brutal battles one couldn't be moved by a couple of tears running down the face of a stranger.

You felt awkward standing next to Acacius quietly sobbing and when he finally turned to you his eyes remained on your face for way too long. You turned your head away from him covering your eyes with your hand because all of a sudden you chose not to be seen by him which he allowed for a moment before gently, yet firmly pulling you towards the bed by your arm.

Something inside of you shifted, your heart beating loud and your eyes widening in shock because it would finally happen now but your were incapable of speaking up and try to stop him. He pushed you to sit down on the bed your hands instantly wrapping around your own upper body while dropping your gaze to the floor beneath you.

You couldn't see his reaction and what he might be thinking but when you felt a hand on your shoulder a sob escaped your lips and you squeezed your eyes.

"My lady," he cooed softly rubbing your cold skin. "I'm not going to touch you. I promise."

It took you an embarrassingly large amount of time to understand his words but once you did you slowly looked up to him his eyes looking surprisingly warm.

"What?" you breathed, your bottom lip trembling so hard you tried to control it by pressing your lips together.

"I will not touch you. You clearly don't want me to."

His words were still too surreal to accept so the crease between your brows only deepened and you couldn't allow your body to relax just yet.

"B-But I thought we… I thought we have to," you whispered so quietly that you almost didn't hear your own words but Acacius did.

"We don't have to do anything. I'm the General, little one. I think I can decide when I want to bed my wife."

Your big eyes stared at him almost as if you were waiting for him to deliver bad news but Acacius just tilted his head looking pitiful as he took in the mess on your face.

"Do you remain a virgin?" he then asked which was followed by another twitch of your body and your eyes narrowed again.

"Y-Yes," your shivering voice cut through the air questioning why he was asking but your husband just ran his eyes over your face and then sighed.

"Go to sleep. I have a feeling you need it."

Sensing that you didn't react to his words at all, he lifted his eyebrows slightly leaning back and giving you a curious look.

"I will not harm you. I give you my word."

You let out a bitter laugh shaking your head and then hissed out sharply. "How am I supposed to trust you? How do I know the worth of your word?"

Silence. You were about to chuckle again but then Acacius next to you rose to his feet approaching the table nearby.

"You don't. But this is all I can offer you," he said and not sure how to react you nervously toyed with your fingers your sobs slowly quieting down.

"Sleep now," he then repeated while tidying up the table looking unbothered which made the blood in your veins boil. Eventually you complied though, lying down on your back moving as close to the edge as possible so when Acacius joined you you wouldn't touch any part of his body.

He had been kind to you thus far but firstly, he might do so just to take what was rightfully his the next day or the day after and secondly, this didn't change the way you saw him. Maybe he was just old or not in the mood tonight and the picture you had of him couldn't be shifted 180 degrees just because he didn't rape you in your wedding night.

He was the enemy and now you would be bound to him for the rest of your life serving him in the bedroom and spreading your legs for him whenever he wanted you to just so he could get rid of his adrenaline. This wasn't how you had imagined your life at all but it was too late to change anything about it. All you could do was not make it easy for him. Whatever the reason was why he hadn't taken your virginity tonight you wouldn't be on your knees thanking him for it but remain your own person independently living your life.

These were the kinds of thought you fell asleep with. It was a chaotic, restless night shifting from one side to the other waking up every few hours. You didn't know whether it was the new environment or the person next to you but either way, when you woke up the next day you were sweaty and felt not at all well rested.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next days passed and you stayed true to your promise bringing as much distance as possible between the two of you at all times. It became your obsession, your purpose to not allow anyone to treat you like Acacius' wife, let alone think of yourself this way.

You have convinced yourself not to believe in your new status as a wife and instead acted as though nothing had changed except your residence. That way you didn't have to deal so much with your role as the general's wife and fled from reality.

At first Acacius granted you this freedom, seemingly satisfied with seeing you at lunch and supper but allowed you to do whatever you wanted the rest of the day. He was gone most of the time anyway so he didn't mind you strolling through the city during the afternoon just as long as a guard or two were with you.

But the quietness didn't last that long and the first time that the two of you really spoke since your wedding night was when Acacius entered your bedchambers one afternoon while you were writing a letter to a friend.

It was his physical state that shocked you and made you stare at him totally forgetting about the paper the ink was dripping onto. He was covered in blood, open wounds clearly visible on his face and arms and it almost felt surreal seeing him walk in here as if nothing was wrong.

Your mouth was open as you waited for him for some kind of explanation which didn't come so you cleared your throat while your husband took off his shoes not even as much as glancing at you.

"Ehm… Are you alright?"

He lifted his gaze running his eyes over you and then shrugged his shoulders. "Yes. Are you?"

"You're hurt," you said quietly ignoring his question and unable to hide the shock in your voice.

It wasn't like you were concerned about his well-being because you couldn't have been farer from feeling attached to this stranger but it was the fact that you hadn't believed that his time on the battlefield caused him to look like this.

"Yes. But it will heal."

With these words Acacius walked to the table you were sitting by and poured himself a cup of wine. Perhaps it was still the surprise mixed with your curious state of mind that made you expectantly tap with your fingers on the wooden table as you confidentaly raised your chin.

"Why haven't you consumated our marriage yet?" you asked a lot more secure than you felt.

You didn't know why you were asking this. You should be glad that the things were the way they were but if you were being honest with yourself it actually was mere curiousity. You had come into this marriage expecting him to use you for sex and to produce heirs and now you were married for a week and he hadn't touched you yet. There had to be a reason.

Acacius chuckled lowly taking a sip from his wine while intensely watching you from over the cup. Then he curled his mouth into a smile.

"Because I had the feeling you don't want me."

You rolled your eyes flaring your nostrils because you grew angry at how he was acting all caring and kind making you believe that your well-being was actually important to him.

"I didn't think you would care," you replied clenching your hands into fists.

"I do. You're my wife. I want to protect you."

"I don't need anyone to protect me," you shouted jumping to your feet and flashing your eyes at him. "I don't need you. I don't need anyone."

Acacius sighed putting the cup back on the table and licked over his lips to remove the remains of the liquid.

"What do you want then? Do you want me to take your virginity or why are you asking me?"

You quickly shook your head and took a step back just in case.

"No. But I… I don't want it but I don't want you to protect me either. I just want you to leave me alone."

Acacius lifted his eyebrows resting his hands on the back of a chair. "I'm your husband."

"This is an arranged marriage," you breathed trying to make yourself look as tall as possible in front of him but didn't stand a chance.

"We should just live our lives the way we want to and mind our own businesses."

He smirked and then pursed his lips as he looked you up and down.

"I might be wrong but I did mind my own business the last couple of days. It was you who came up with this just now."

Of course Acacius was right and you felt your cheeks growing hot at his words desperately trying to come up with an intelligent answer.

"But I don't want anything from you. I don't want you to protect me and I don't want you to harm me. I want you to ignore me."

Your husband sighed looking disappointed like he was talking to a little child and you once again were reminded why you hated this man so much. He was arrogant, self-centered and so smug.

"Good night, my lady," he eventually spoke with his husky voice and made his way over to the bed on which he fell with a groan and turned to his back so his wounds could heal during the night.

The remaining blood glistened in the dim light and it almost made it look black. There was a strange beauty about him laying so peacefully while his face represented a brutal battle field and you couldn't take your eyes off him for a few seconds before approaching the bed as well taking your right side of the bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next few weeks passed relatively peacefully and despite cursing yourself for it and trying to convince yourself into believing that it wasn't the case, you started to adjust to this new life as well as to Acacius as your husband.

It took you quite some time but you figured out that he was far from being the person you had thought he was. It happened a lot when he returned from the battlefield. You would wait in your chambers looking him up and down and felt unsettled by the way his body was marked and violated. Perhaps you realized that he was in such great danger every time he stepped outside the villa and that there was a chance that he wouldn't return which seemed to make you see that he wasn't as selfish and arrogant as you had thought he was.

And then there was the fact that he still didn't demand anything of you and let your body untouched for the next weeks as well merely giving you little smiles that you yet didn't return. You just couldn't let show that a small part of you grew to trust him and so you kept up the stubborn facade treating him coolly although you believed that he might have noticed a small change in you.

The longest Acacius was gone was for two weeks and it felt strange to be in the villa without him. Of course you usually avoided his gaze and barely said anything to him when he entered your chambers in the evenings but there was a familiarity to it that you now seemed to miss. It had been your ritual; sitting by the table either writing or reading something and then watching him walk or stumble into the room depending on how much he had drunken.

You had even come to say goodbye to him, letting him kiss your hand and bringing out a quiet "Take care, Acacius. I'll be looking forward to your safe return."

It seemed like your husband wasn't sure whether you had actually meant these words or just said them for custom but either way, it looked like you had figured that you had no choice but to adjust to this new life and had gotten used to having him around you.

But now you spent the nights alone and although you would never admit it, it again took you some time to adapt and there were moments when you wondered if you had been unjust. He wasn't manipulative and vicious after all and sometimes you asked yourself why you had even believed him to be that way.

He was kind to you. Patient and undemanding and had never asked anything of you. It only got worse the next couple of days and when Acacius finally returned you felt something new. It was like things had changed between the two of you and you saw him in a different light as he stepped through the door, his hair messy, his face once again covered in dirt and wounds and his eyes so incredibly tired.

"My lady," he said slightly bowing his head but you didn't listen to him. Instead you smoothly rose to your feet slowly approaching him your eyes fixed on his harmed face.

"Acacius," you whispered seeing his forehead furrow at the unfamiliar softness in your voice.

He clearly hadn't been blind to the way you had started to accept this union and even seemed to tolerate it, by not hardening your face every time you saw him but now your eyes searched for him which was something new.

"I…," you started almost shyly lowering your head.

"What?" he softly asked you craving to run his thumb over your cheek but stopping himself before he would scare you off.

"I want to clean your wounds," you then breathed and Acacius couldn't help himself but smile at your words. Who would have thought that going away for a few days would be enough for you to start trusting him?

He didn't want to spend too much time wondering what had provoked this change in your though and instead finally allowed himself to touch you even though he just did so by briefly brushing over your shoulder.

"Yeah?"

You nodded dropping your gaze feeling both intimidated and reluctant about what you had just asked. But when your husband encouragingly offered you his hand you bit your lip and took it.

"Do you want me to sit down then?" he asked doing his very best to help you, sensing how nervous you were but you determindely shook your head which surprised him.

"You don't want that?" he demanded to know brushing with his thumb over your fingers while you escaped his piercing eyes once more.

"No," you whispered so quietly he had to concentrate really hard on the sound leaving your mouth. "I want to take a bath with you."

To say that Acacius was surprised was an understatement but he couldn't deny the excitement growing within him. Days ago it had looked like you were cursing him by merely observing him and like he was the last person you wanted to see after a long day and now you wanted to show yourself in your most vulnerable state and additionally look after his wounds.

"Whatever you like, my lady," he said taking in how beautiful you looked in the dim light and then offered you his hand once more guiding you to the huge bathtub in the room right next to your bedchambers.

Acacius was just about to start to peel off the layers of his armor but you were faster putting your hands on his broad shoulders staring at him almost as if you were mesmerized. Then you took on the task of undressing your husband and when his breeches were all that covered his body you gave your best not to stare at him but of course he noticed your wide eyes as you regarded his muscular upper body.

There was something so incredibly intimate and close about the scene that you felt your hands starting to shake even though it also might be caused by your nervousness.

Acacius gave you a smile before entering the bathtub leaning his head against the edge and sighing in pleasure clearly giving you the privacy to get rid of your clothes without having to feel his eyes on you.

The truth was that he wanted nothing more than to see and feel you but he wanted you to be in charge of everything that would be happening between the two of you so he closed his eyes hearing the swishing of your clothes and then the next thing he noticed was the water splashing a little.

Acacius opened his eyes a little and looked right into yours as you sat in front of him in the bathtub your eyes on his cuts and wounds again.

"Do they hurt?" you asked your voice barely more than a breath while getting closer to your husband.

"A little," Acacius truthfully answered his eyes following you reaching to a shelf close by to grab a ointment that would soothe the burning pain.

Your pupils were widened when you started to examine the wounds on his face and Acacius couldn't quite recognise whether you were still in awe by how damaged his body looked or scared of him.

He hissed out quietly when the salve made contact with his flesh which instantly made you flinch but Acacius was quick to run his hand over your arm signalising you that you were doing fine.

"It's alright. It's going to help me with the pain."

You nodded reducing the distance between the two of you again and your lips were so close to him now that he wished he could kiss them or at least trace them with his thumb. And then there were your hands that so gently and carefully applied the ointment on his skin that one could confuse you for a life-long and loyal wife instead of a little girl that despised him. There was softness and love in your touch, so much that Acacius closed his eyes giving himself to you and allowed himself to stay in the llusion.

"Acacius?" your voice cut through the air all of a sudden which made him lift his eyelids making out your face in front of him.

"Yes?"

"You are a good warrior, right?" you carefully asked stopping applying the salve for a second to wait for his answer.

"Yes. I'm experienced. I've been doing this for almost 40 years."

You drew your face like you were thinking and then bit your lip.

"But… But there must be a point when one… I mean one can't do this forever, right?"

Acacius chuckled and it was a low and deep, yet friendly sound. "Are you trying to say that I'm old, love?"

You broked into a shy smile as well shrugging your shoulders and then continued to lubricate the little cuts on his neck.

"No," you nevertheless answered your eyes on his neck while Acacius took in the beauty of your face that looked so concentrated right now.

"I'm trying to say that everyone gets old some day. And I'm just asking myself when a warrior stops fighting in battles and retires."

The corner of his mouth lifted again but his smile faded as he felt your knees against the inside of his thighs. You were kneeling between his legs and definitely were too close right now so he cleared his throat trying to collect himself and only then answered you.

"It's his choice. When he decides that he's not able to keep up anymore, he retires."

In addition to the closeness of your body it was also hard not to look up to that little amount of your skin that was exposed. The water covered most of it but the swell of your breasts peaked out and it took everything in him not to stare inappropriately. He could swear that this was harder than any battle he had ever fought in his life and closed his eyes to force himself to breathe properly.

"Acacius?" your soft voice spoke once again and he was absolutely smitten with the way you finally seemed to enjoy his presence and said what was on your mind.

"Yes?"

You stopped your hand movements again chewing on your bottom lip while staring at the water as though it was the most interesting thing you had seen in your entire life.

"I think I want you," you whispered with a surprisingly stable voice and now Acacius was officially speechless lifting his eyebrows and slightly leaning back against the wall of the bathtub.

"Are you sure, love?" he asked after a while caressing your bare shoulder to signalise you to look at him but you still avoided his eyes too embarrassed by your confession.

And yet you nodded which made him break into a smile. Suddenly his hands were on your waist his thumb drawing patterns over your skin as you finally had enough courage to look him in the eyes.

"Let me take care of you then," Acacius whispered his heart pounding loudly in his chest at how you nodded again your hands reaching up to hold on to his broad shoulders. He cupped the side of your face finally feeling the softness of your skin and then gently pulled you towards him to connect your lips.

It was a careful kiss. Like the two of you were getting to know each other and slowly explored the other person. There was nothing demanding or rushed about it; Acacius carefully nibbled at your bottom lip leaving small kisses and when he pulled back your face was flushed and your eyes were glistening with a new adventurousness.

"You want more?" he asked his hands lingering at your cheeks and after an airy "Yes" had escaped your mouth your husband sat up straight in the bathtub his hands at your waist again.

"Let's get you out of here then. The bed is going to be a lot more comfortable."

You followed his movement grabbing the edge of the tub to support you and managed to rise from the slippery ground with Acacius' hand assisting you. You stepped out of it waiting while he followed you but kept your eyes on the floor not wanting to stare too obviously either.

The air was thin now, filled with your louder breathing and the heat your bodies radiated. And still there was such a gentleness in everything he did so that nothing about it felt too fast or intense to you.

Your husband picked up a towel from a shelf which he wrapped around your upper body so carefully that you almost started to pur like a cat. He made sure that you were properly covered and then rested his hands on your shoulders.

"Turn around, love."

His voice was like a curse and a gift at the same time because it embraced you like a warm blanket but seemed to enter your body heating you up from inside and causing your core to throb and pulsate so uncomfortably that you craved to rock yourself against something. Or someone.

You followed his voice like you were hypnotised without even questioning what he was going to do. It was strange because a few weeks ago you had believed that you would never going to be able to trust him and now here you were offering yourself to him in such a vulnerable state.

But all Acacius did was collect your wet hair and then comb through it with your wooden comb. Never would you have thought that his rough hands could do something so precisely and carefully but you found that you could fall asleep to this feeling.

When he was done he turned you around brushing with his thumb over your chin and stole yet another kiss from your lips. You smiled against his lip feeling yourself melt in his arms which scared you to some extent but right now you couldn't bring yourself to fight the urge to give your body and soul to Acacius.

The man you had sworn to marry because you hadn't been able to refuse your dying father's wish. The man you had despised from the moment you had walked down the aisle. The man you had avoided at all costs these past weeks but right now something about it felt right. You were a stubborn and proud person and hated to admit that you had been wrong but perhaps you had been mistaken this time. At least you hoped so because you simply couldn't believe that an evil man's touch could be this tender.

Acacius' hand glided over your arm all the way from your shoulder to your hand and then invited it to lay in his while his eyes had followed the motion.

"Do you want to go to bed?" his voice brought goosebumps to your arms and of course you nodded.

It was all it took him to guide you to the center of the room and once there he turned to you giving you the softest eyes you had ever seen and you wondered if these could actually be the same you had been so scared of in the beginning of your marriage. He took your face in his big hands and you unconsciously snuggled your head against him.

"Let me take care of you, sweetling," he murmured holding you as if you were made of glass and would break at the slightest roughness.

"Yes. I want it. I need you."

You really didn't want to beg him but it felt right to you to show him that you wanted him after having treated him so coolly. Acacius gave you yet another kiss on the corner of your mouth and then pushed you back until the back of your knees hit the edge of the bed.

"Lay down for me," he spoke, his voice just a slight whisper that brushed over your skin like a light feather.

Mesmerized by his radiating warmth you climbed on the bed resting with your head against the cushion and awaited his next move.

He regarded you lovingly keeping his eyes on you at all times almost as if he wanted to make sure you wouldn't vanish into the air and then took off the towel covering his center that you hadn't even noticed he had wrapped around his body.

By now you couldn't bring yourself to feel ashamed by the way your eyes glanced to his cock gulping at how massive and heavy he looked but your attention was drawn to his beautiful face again when Acacius approached you.

Everything was slow and slight, giving you the time to stop him if need be but you didn't even think about it. You craved to be embraced and loved by him. You wanted to feel his hands on your body, melt with him and become one. You wanted him to whisper things in your ear that that were only meant for you and praise you until you forgot your name.

"You look so pretty, darling," he said and then you saw his face coming closer to yours as he climbed on top of you his hands instantly reaching down to graze over your cheeks.

You smiled, light-heartedly receiving the compliment and spread your legs for him so he could settle in between them. Then he kissed you again your lips feeling beyond swollen by now but he tasted like cinnamon and pepper and so you gladly parted your lips letting him devour your mouth.

His hands were on a mission feeling every naked inch of your skin which mostly was your face and neck and shoulders and finding pleasure in the way Acacius teasingly rubbed over your skin and traced your veins you soon noticed your core yearning for stimulation which led to you buckling up your hips in search for anything he would give you.

Your husband obviously noticed how he enhanced your desire with each stroke and brush and soon kissed his way down your neck until his mouth was on your collarbone.

"You're perfect. The most beautiful girl I've ever laid my eyes upon."

His words were muffled by the way he pressed his face against your body but you heard them clearly and felt the blood rising in your cheeks. You let yourself go completely concentrating on how his mouth savoured your neck and shoulders until his hands traveled to the hem of the towel that still hid most of your body.

"Can I take this off?" he politely wanted to know and although you didn't hesitate when you nodded with your head you were glad he asked for your permission every time he did something. It made you feel like you were in control of everything that was happening and you could stop him at any point.

Acacius slowly removed the fabric until you were completely bare underneath him and it seemed like he was now too eager not to stare as well. His gaze fell upon your chest and then wandered down to your stomach and your core taking his time to examine you as though he didn't intend to bed you but paint your picture. It intimidated you because no man had ever seen you like this so you nervously clutched the bedsheets keeping your eyes on him to try and read his facial expression.

When he noticed it he let out a quiet chuckle and then grabbed your hands next to your body. You bit your lip as he lifted them up in the air and then pressed kisses alternately to the back of your left and right hand.

"No need to worry, my love," he said soothingly tracing the delicate veins on your wrists with his thumb. "No need to worry about anything. I got you. You're looking so beautiful like this and all you have to do is listen to my voice. I'll take care of the rest."

Acacius dropped your hands again so your arms fell to the side of your body and a shiver ran down your spine seeing how he looked like he was about to eat you alive. Not in a bad way though.

The blood in your veins was quivering, making your mind blank and utterly in awe of the way his mouth curled up at the view before him. He ran his eyes over you again for a brief moment before lowering his face to your collarbone tenderly kissing and biting your skin and then he dared to travel further south.

Your perky nipples simply looked too delicate and pretty not to lick over them and soon Acacius was addicted. The best part about it was perhaps the way you squirmed underneath him and then there were the little moans escaping your mouth when you were too lost in pleasure to concentrate on surpressing the noise. If it were up to him he would have wanted you not to hide anything and instead let him listen to all of your little squeaks and sighs.

He took his time teasing you although his mind drifted to your perfect pussy that he only had seen for a short moment thus far every few seconds. But this was about you after all. This was about making you feel comfortable and safe and slowly teaching you everything there was to know about the act of making love. Because this was what tonight was about; making love.

Acacius knew that he could be dirty and primal in bed, making his partner break and beg and getting off on a little power-play. Perhaps he would introduce you to this side of him at some point if you were up to it but definitely not tonight. Tonight he wouldn't make you beg for anything. He would fulfill your wishes even before you would be able to express them, gift you indescribable pleasure all while looking out for your comfort. He would go slow, test your waters and give you time to adjust to anything that he did and Acacius had a feeling that it was just what you needed after having treated him with such coldness these last weeks.

His tongue was twirling around your left nipple sucking it into his mouth every now and then but he made sure not to neglect your right breast. His hand massaged your flesh gently grazing the outline of your breast and rubbing over your nipple or taking the nub between two of his fingers. It was heavenly to him and Acacius had a feeling that you didn't enjoy it any less.

He hadn't estimated you as a very vocal person so he was thrilled by your quiet moans that he was sure he would be able to turn into cries if he continued like this.

Soon he made his way further down though leaving wet kisses on your stomach which made you lift your head slightly questioningly flickering your eyes at him.

"What are you doing?"

"Making you feel good, my love," he replied softly caressing your waist and giving you these warm eyes of his. "All you have to do is relax and feel my touch. I promise it will feel divine."

You narrowed your eyes not yet fully trusting his words and heaved yourself on your elbows.

"But-But I thought you would…"

You left the sentence unfinished but Acacius seemingly knew what you were alluding to as he gave you an assuring smile his hands stroking the curve of your hip.

"I can do that if you want me to. But you need to be prepared because otherwise it might be painful to you."

"Painful?" you repeated with round eyes feeling frightened as you hadn't expected the act of love to be hurtful.

"You are a virgin. The first time can be painful but I'm going to try my best to make it pleasant for you. I'll give you my fingers first and make sure you're properly lubricated and then I'll go slow."

Your eyes hectically wandered over his face taking in each of his words with a trembling feeling in your stomach but Acacius was quick to soothingly kiss your stomach.

"It's going to be fine. But if you want to stop that's fine as well."

Did you want to stop? Did you want him to roll off you, take out the lights and go to sleep? Definitely not. You were scared of the pain but you needed to feel him now and with the slight fear came also a curiousity about what the act of bedding was about. He seemed so certain and confident in everything he was doing so you wanted to know what he would be capable of making you feel. Therefore you shook your head helplessly reaching down to him and felt your heartbeat fasten at the way your husband instantly took your hand.

"No. I don't want you to stop, Acacius."

Hearing his name roll off your lips awakened a new form of lust in him and he bit down hard on his bottom lip in order to prevent himself from growling lowly.

"I'm glad to hear that," he then said gliding his hand down your side after carefully putting your hand back on the bed.

He crawled even further down your body until his face was almost on the same level as your most intimate part and if Acacius hadn't given you another tender smile you would have felt anxious and fearful about letting him see you like this.

You had learned that this wasn't the way of things. A husband wasn't supposed to see his wife's sex this close but concentrate on his duty. What Acacius was doing right now made the blood in your veins throb and you knew that a part of it could be traced back to the nervousness and uncertainty about what he was going to do to you while another part was simply craving to feel him with every inch of your body.

"Just relax, sweet girl."

With these words he lowered his face to your center and you curiously lifted your head attempting to see what he was doing but you suddenly gasped for air as you felt his tongue on this special little spot between your legs grazing over it carefully almost as if he wanted to get to know your body.

"Ah," you sighed digging your toes in the mattress next to him and instantly pressed your lips together in order to stay quiet from now on. But that didn't align with what Acacius wanted because he looked up to you his brown eyes full of warmth mixed with a hunger that drove you insane.

"No need to stay quiet, love. I want to hear you. Don't you hold back anything."

Then he licked over your slit quietly humming at your taste which sent vibrations all throughout your body.

"Acacius. Fuck, that's so good," you moaned your hands reaching down to hold on to his locks while trying to keep a clear mind.

He concentrated on your clit for the most part, circling it with the tip of his tongue, gently pressing into it and sucking on it. He soon noticed that you found a special liking in feeling him blow air over your little nub and was happy to comply watching your little squirms and your trembling legs with pleasure.

Only when you writhed beneath him restlessly shifting with your hips he firmly grabbed them pushing you down and letting out a growl that told you to stay still for him.

"Stay here, love. Let me enjoy you," he said at one point and you felt your cheeks heat up at his words.

You followed his command because when you did so, Acacius showered you with praise and compliments telling you how good you were for him and it never failed to make your heart flutter and your pussy uncomfortably clench around nothing.

But your husband soon changed that as well, literally touching you just where you needed it without even having to ask him to. He kept his mouth on your clit kissing it as if it was the most precious and delicate little spot in the world when you felt one of his thick fingers at your entrance tenderly inserting it inside of you.

You jolted at the intrusion and narrowed your eyes as this was something you had never felt before but Acacius knew just what you needed running his left hand over your hip in a soothing manner while whispering sweet things against your pussy.

"It's alright, darling. You're doing so good for me. I'm just gonna open you up a little bit, hmh? So you'll be able to take me."

You let out yet another moan and Acacius, feeling you relax around him, went deeper until his digit was fully buried in you.

"That's a good girl…," he growled rewarding your clit with a skillfull twirl of his tongue and then as he started moving his finger in you your hands in his hair tightened pushing him closer to your center.

"Oh," you gasped bending your neck to watch his activities between your thighs but all you could see was his head pressing himself so close to you, you would assume he was looking for heaven.

Acacius fingered your cunt while continuing to give you pleasure with his mouth, now gliding his tongue over the underside of your clit which earned him tugs at his hair by your demanding hands. You needed him, wanted to feel him in more ways than you did right now and forgot that it simply wasn't possible.

"I want you to come for me, darling. I want you to soak my face," his voice cut through your clouded mind and you made out his face through half-litted eyes.

"How?" was all you asked which he reacted to with a low chuckle.

"Listen to my voice. And do what feels right. Your body will know what to do."

You couldn't deny that you trusted him, your body and mind completely surrendering to him and so you did just what he had asked of you.

You let your head sink back in the cushions sprawled out underneath him and let him do with you as he desired. He was like a magical creature bringing you so much pleasure with just the tip of his tongue that you asked yourself if sex was always supposed to be this way because if yes, you thought you might never want to do anything else in your life. Or perhaps he was just a god or a witch and had enchanted you.

There was this prominent tense in your thighs that seemed to grow the longer your husband kept going and soon you knew it was about to burst and take utter control of your body. You hummed to yourself feeling your core clench and almost couldn't hear Acacius whispering to you, his mouth still busy smearing your wetness all over your clit.

"That's it… you can let go. I'll catch you, my love. You're a fucking dream, baby, god…"

And then the tension was freed spreading in your body like a disease and you felt like your whole world was shattering into a million pieces; but in the best way possible. You closed your legs around Acacius, buckled up beneath him and squeezed your eyes while trying to deal with these overwhelming and new emotions.

"I'm right here, just breathe for me, sweetling. There you go… Just like that," he talked you through it and crawled up to you again to hold you through your high.

Your hands clung to his shoulders welcoming him so close to you and you heavily panted in his ear while he tried to calm you down.

"That's right. You did so wonderfully for me, darling and I'm so proud of you."

Slowly, you came back to him your eyes still a little glossy but you smiled up to him feeling high on this peacefulness and the effects of your release. Acacius ran his thumb over your cheek and then kissed your forehead endearingly.

"You're so perfect. I wanna make you feel good all the time."

You nodded eagerly still not able to process how good this had felt. Never had you believed that being with a man could be that amazing and you truly wondered if everyone was as good as Acacius or if he was merely talented.

"I want that too. But now I want you to take me, Acacius. I want you to take my innocence."

He bit his lip which was so hot to watch that it felt obscene and smiled looking at the ceiling as his mouth came down to your neck once more sucking on your veins and your sensitive thin skin.

"I will, sweet girl. And then you're gonna be mine until the end of time. You want that, love?"

You nodded although you probably would have agreed to anything he asked of you right now.

"I want that. I wanna be yours."

You didn't know what it was; maybe just his appealing aura or the confidence in everything that he was doing, either way, you felt this craving to be his alone. The desire to snuggle against his chest and feel protected and cared for.

Acacius parted your legs a little more so his hips pressed you down into the mattress and when you felt his finger at your throbbing entrance again you jolted.

"Shh sh," he cooed you starting to fuck you with his finger again. "I don't want you to be in pain when I fuck you."

That was the moment when you were reminded again of what he had told you earlier and Acacius could instantly see the slight panic in your eyes.

"Please be careful, Acacius," you begged him which made him feel stitches in his stomach.

"I'll go as slow as you need me to. I'll be careful and stop if you change your mind. I promise."

You nodded feeling a familiar warmth in your lower belly despite the little part of you that feared the inevitable pain. He steadily thrusted his finger in you until adding a second one that stretched you but you listened to him and focused on breathing.

"There you go, love. I know what you need, you just concentrate on me, alright?"

"Yes, Acacius," you panted clasping at his broad shoulders that felt so strong beneath your touch.

Your husband let you adjust to his thick fingers for a while before fucking you with them as well and it didn't take long until sweat was covering your forehead your pupils dilating. It definitely wasn't as good as feeling his mouth on your clit but his presence so close to you and his body caging you underneath him as though he had just found the most precious and treasured price that he never intended to let go already made you go feral.

You forgot the time fully giving yourself to the way his fingers filled you up, hyperaware of every contact his skin made with yours but at the same time feeling your mind relax, and then hazily blinked a few times when you felt him pull out of you.

"Are you ready to take it, sweet girl?" he asked his voice sounding rougher and thinner now as well.

"Yes. I can take it, please."

He chuckled lowly the vibration transferring over to your body and you possessively wrapped your arms around his back; as if there was anything that could possibly make him stop right now.

"I know you can. Because you're being such a good girl for me all the fucking time."

Goosebumps covered your arms at his words which made you wonder if this was a normal and natural reaction to such simple words but you didn't question it any further as you heard him nestle between his thighs and then you glanced at his cock that was beautifully lit by the dim lighting.

He had wrapped a hand around the shaft his red tip glistening with precum and groaned as he dragged it through your folds collecting your wetness. He noticed the way your body had stiffened up a little your eyes wide open and made sure to soothe you by kissing your shoulder and embracing you in a soft hug.

"It's alright, darling. It's going to be fine. But we can stop if you want to."

You were quick to shake your head helplessly clinging to his arms.

"No. Please do it."

And then Acacius didn't need any further permission and guided his cock to your hole his hand lingering at your cheek.

"Breathe in. Just like that…" he mumbled and felt the way your body tensed.

"And now out…"

Just when you felt the air escaping your lungs there was a sharp pain in your center making your eyes go as round as coins and you choked on a gasp.

"It's alright, it's alright," he quickly purred making sure your eyes were on him. "It's gonna be better soon. You're doing so wonderful for me, just breathe and try to loosen up."

It burned incredibly and you wondered if he was completely inside because it already hurt so badly although it seemed like he had only pushed inside a little thus far. Your nails dug into his skin surely leaving marks but Acacius didn't mind solely focused on talking you through the pain and comforting you.

"Look at me, y/n. Look at me, darling."

Your stinging eyes searched for his pupils hectically flicking over his face but something about him made you forget about the way you felt like your pussy was being ripped apart. Time stopped and you just watched his beautiful face slightly drawn with pleasure but clearly concerned about you as there was a deep crease between his eyebrows.

"Good girl. How are you feeling?" he wanted to know and despite feeling incapable of delivering a coherent sentence you nodded your fingers firmly holding on to him.

He waited like this until he felt you relax your muscles the pain beginging to fade and then pulled out just a little bit only to thrust back in, still very slow and careful and yet the intrusion was enough to bring fresh tears to your eyes.

"You feel perfect. And I promise you it's gonna be better soon."

You tried to believe him forcing your center to welcome the pain rather than fighting it and in addition closed your eyes breathing steadily just like he had told you. And he turned out to be correct; a few more minutes later the pulsating burning ache started to disappear until you eventually felt confident enough to arch your hips a little.

Acacius had tried his best to hide how much everything about you affected him the whole time but this gave him the rest. The way you buckled up trying to get him to move and how your eyes rolled back when he slid his hand between your thighs again finding your clit and rubbing a few comforting circles around it. He needed to claim and devour and he just hoped that it was what you wanted as well.

At first your husband followed your gesture backing out again and then filling you and this time it was so much better that you gave him a wide smile.

"That's good, Acacius. I want more, please I need you to fuck me."

Perhaps it was the additional stimulation on your clit that made you grow eager instead of his thick cock stretching you but either way, he intended to give you just what you wanted.

"Alright, love," he replied and then began to fuck you at a slow pace.

In the first few minutes it was still a strange and unfamiliar feeling to melt with someone this way but along with his skillfull fingers he actually managed to envoke new noises leaving your mouth soon. Acacius was blind with lust almost feeling like an animal that intended to lay claim to his prey and picked up the pace while still looking out for your well-being of course.

"You like that? You like me fucking that sweet pussy like that?"

Although the phrase was meant to be filthy and wild, your husband made it somehow sound warm and gentle. If it was his voice or the soft features of his face you didn't know but a new wave of pleasure hit you.

"Yes I like it. Oh fuck, I need you," you cried against his shoulders that were now gently pressing you into the bed.

It was dirty, primitive almost begging and urging your husband to go quicker, reach deeper inside of you to hit that magical spot but you didn't care. All you cared about was Acacius who was so tender with you and at the same time awakened these intense feelings in you that you had never felt before.

And he complied, his tip repeatedly grazing over that spot in your body and there was something so delicate about it like he intended to kiss it just the way he had kissed your clit earlier only that this time it was his cock making you feel that way.

You couldn't deny the slight stretching burn that still ran throughout your body every now and then but it was nothing compared to the accumulating tension that now wasn't new to you and told you that you were about to burst again. His touch on your clit became lazy, rapidly rubbing over it and when he kissed you sloppily you knew that he probably was just as close as you.

"Come for me, darling. Give me a second one, I know you can to it. You respond to me so beautifully and I know you want it."

You had difficulties comprehending him as his voice was muffled by your chin which he covered with kisses and yet you did just as he had told you reaching your second high of the night at the same time as he came inside of you, ropes of his sticky cum filling you to the brim. He collapsed on top of you in the moment you arched on the bed the weight of his body pushing you down as you shivered and trembled and little sighs escaped from your mouth.

"Acacius," you cried tasting every sweet second of this divine release and then just listened to both of your loud pantings while watching him savour the effects of his orgasm.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he cursed inhaling deeply as he watched your red face that made you look like you had just exhausted yourself but in his mind you had never been more radiant. This was his work. He had been the one to make you feel like that and his heart seemed to explode in his chest almost incapable of believing his luck.

"I don't think you're aware of how fantastic you are," he whispered in your ear which made you smile like an idiot.

"Thank you," you answered wanting to bump your head against the wall because why couldn't you think of something more clever?

He rose his head again taking in your face and each detail like your swollen lips or your flushed cheeks and then kissed you upon your brow.

"You need some sleep now in order to be fit in the morrow."

You pursed your lips in disappointment feeling how he rolled off you but when Acacius offered you his arm you were quick to wrap your arms around it and clench your body against it.

"You will not leave me, right?" you anxiously asked which made your husband run his hand over the back of your head his fingers playing with single strands of your hair.

"Never."

This was just what you had wanted to hear and you contently closed your eyes feeling like this was a position you could find some sleep in.

"If something troubles you, you're going to wake me up, alright?" he asked but you almost couldn't perceive the content of his words anymore as you were slowly drifting to sleep.

"Yes, Acacius," was the last thing you whispered before you entered the lands of dreams, firmly clinging to your husband and a smile on your lips.

#marcus acacius #marcus acacias x reader #acacius x reader #marcus acacius x you #general acacius #general marcus acacius #marcus acacius x female reader #marcus acacius smut #marcus acacius fanfiction #marcus acacius x reader #marcus acacius fic #pedro pascal #gladiator ll #marcus acacius x y/n #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal fanfic #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction

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silhouettecrow · 2 years ago

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365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 291

Adjective: Giant

Noun: Window

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Giant: of very great size or force, or gigantic; used in names of very large animals and plants, e.g. giant hogweed, giant tortoise

Window: an opening in the wall or roof of a building or vehicle that is fitted with glass or other transparent material in a frame to admit light or air and allow people to see out; a pane of glass filling a window; an opening in a wall or screen through which customers are served in a bank, ticket office, or similar building; a space on the inside of a store's window where goods are displayed for sale; a means of observing and learning about something; a transparent panel on an envelope to show an address; (computing) a framed area on a display screen for viewing information; an interval or opportunity for action; an interval during which atmospheric and astronomical circumstances are suitable for the launch of a spacecraft; (physics) a range of electromagnetic wavelengths for which a medium (especially the atmosphere) is transparent; strips of metal foil or metal filings dispersed in the air to obstruct radar detection

#so i accidentally fell asleep last night #then this morning i forgot i still needed to post this #(i legit said 'oh! i forgor!')#anyhoo i had my zoom job interview which i think went pretty well #they said theyd get in touch with me early next week about whether ill get a second in-person interview #so im excited about that and hoping it all works out in my favour #on a different note im thinking about starting house of leaves #i dont know if im fully ready to tackle the task of reading it but i want to try #i want to consume more sentient haunted house media and where better to start than house of leaves #as for the writing prompt i think there are lots of routes to take with it #when i first spun this combo i thought of the massive 'windows' in the garden/meeting area in the palace in howls moving castle #(you know the place where madame suliman meets with sophie)#so i may write about a room like that or perhaps even a greenhouse #thanks for reading #writing #writer #creative writing #writing prompt #writeblr #trying to be a writeblr at least

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yuujispunches · 1 month ago

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Babysitting emergency ~ R.S.

Pairing: Ryomen Sukuna x Reader

Summary: Sukuna is in charge of babysitting his little nephew for an evening, should be easy enough right? Turns out it isn’t so he finds himself knocking at his annoying neighbour’s door.

CW (content warning): cuteness overload, modern AU (no curses), ooc Sukuna (he’s kinda nice), Sukuna is an architect for literally mo reason, some light cursing.

AN: This is way too long because I got too into it hahahah but I think really like how this turned out 🤍 English isn’t my first language so I’m sorry if there’re any mistakes. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! :)

Requests are open so feel free to send yours! (you can check the list of character I write for on my pinned post)

Masterlist

There were very few things that could rattle Sukuna Ryomen. Earthquakes, client meltdowns, the occasional burst pipe on-site, those were all things he could handle effortlessly. But standing in his living room in a faded black hoodie, sweatpants, and socks that hadn’t matched since 9 a.m., he was definitely rattled.

The source of his current crisis was none other than a pink-haired five-year-old named Yuji, his nephew.

The kid was adorable. When he was asleep. Awake? He was a human pinball, a juice-powered chaos gremlin with endless questions and zero fear.

“Uncle Suku, can I feed the fish again?” Yuji called, already climbing onto the kitchen counter.

“We don’t have a fish!” Sukuna snapped, catching a juice box midair. “That’s my garlic press!”

Yuji grinned, completely unbothered, as he jumped down and ran in circles around the coffee table, dragging what used to be a potted plant behind him like a leash.

It was only noon.

Sukuna pinched the bridge of his nose. His sister had begged him, really begged him, to babysit while she and her husband attended a last-minute emergency at her office. He’d said yes because he was a responsible adult with a flexible work-from-home schedule and because, well, he wasn’t heartless.

But this? This was slowly turning into a war of attrition.

He tried distracting Yuji with cartoons. Didn’t work. Tried coloring. Yuji drew on the wall. Tried snacks. The living room now smelled like stale applesauce and childhood regrets.

Sukuna’s eye twitched as a toy firetruck zipped past him and hit the front door.

He needed backup. But not just any backup. His neighbor. He stared at the wall separating his apartment from hers.

You’d lived next door for about six months. Too cheerful. Too nosy. Always humming in the hallways and leaving little potted plants outside your door like this was some rom-com set instead of a downtown apartment building.

And you loved to get on his nerves.

Whenever he bumped into you in the hallway, it was like sparring with a cartoon character. You smiled too much. Talked too much. You once called his very expensive minimalist furniture “cold serial killer chic” and he still hadn’t forgiven you.

But Yuji liked you. A lot. And right now? Sukuna was desperate.

With a long-suffering sigh, he knocked on your door. It opened a few seconds later, revealing you in leggings, a hoodie, and fuzzy socks. You were holding a mug that said BITE ME in cheerful bubble letters.

Your eyes widened. “Well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Brooding himself. Need to borrow a cup of angst?”

“Help me.” Sukuna said flatly.

You blinked. “Sorry, come again?”

He cleared his throat. “I said… Help. Me.” He said it like the mere act of those words leaving his lips physically hurt him. It probably did in fact.

You leaned in slightly, eyes twinkling. “Did you swallow a thumbtack, or did you actually just ask me for help?”

“Yuji.” He said simply, gesturing behind him. A loud crash followed.

Your smile widened. “Say no more.”

——————————————————————————

Fifteen minutes later, you were in his apartment, crouched on the carpet, helping Yuji build a pillow fort. The kid had immediately latched onto you like a magnet, and you? You looked completely at ease.

Sukuna watched, leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed.

“Okay, Yuji, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to guard this pillow castle from the evil broccoli overlords.”

“Broccoli is gross!” Yuji shouted.

“Exactly!” You said solemnly. “They must be stopped.”

Yuji saluted you. “Yes, General!”

Sukuna felt like he’d stepped into an alternate universe. One were his heart did weird things when he saw you laughing at something his little nephew did. He wasn’t handling it well.

“How do you do that?” He asked finally.

You didn’t even look up. “Do what?”

“That. Handle him like you’re some sort of… tiny human whisperer.”

You shrugged. “It’s not that hard. He just wants to play. And not be barked at like he’s a military recruit.”

Sukuna scowled. “I wasn’t… Okay, maybe a little. But in my defense, he colored on my tax documents.”

You laughed. “Honestly? That’s kind of iconic.”

He groaned. “Of course you’d say that.”

Yuji popped up from behind the couch. “Uncle Suku, can she stay forever?”

He sputtered. “No.”

“Yes.” you said at the same time.

Yuji laughed, then returned to his fort.

Sukuna rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks for stepping in.”

You waved him off. “I love this stuff. Chaos is my natural habitat.”

“I can tell.” He muttered, eyeing the glitter stuck to your sleeve.

You grinned. “Admit it. You’re relieved I came over.”

He looked away. “I… You’re not entirely useless, I guess.”

“A glowing review.” You said. “Should I write that on my resume?”

You ended up staying all afternoon. Sukuna tried to pretend he was annoyed by it, but the truth was… the apartment felt lighter with you in it. Your laughter made Yuji light up. Your presence calmed the room. You even helped him clean up after Yuji crashed for a nap on the couch, completely worn out from fort-building and broccoli slaying.

“You want tea?” He asked, half-grumbling.

You raised an eyebrow. “Are you offering because you’re being polite, or because you’ve realized I’m delightful?”

He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’m offering because you stopped him from destroying my apartment and my will to live. Tea is the least I can do.”

“Romantic.” You said dryly. “But sure.”

He handed you a mug and sat across from you at the table, eyes half-lidded, arms folded.

The silence was surprisingly… comfortable.

“I still don’t get why you hate me.” You said after a moment.

“I don’t hate you.”

“You kind of do.” You smirked.

He exhaled. “You’re loud.”

“And?”

“Too cheerful.”

“And?”

“You rearranged the mailboxes that one time.”

You laughed. “Because they were in the wrong order. You’re such a Virgo.”

“I’m a Scorpio.”

“That tracks too.”

He gave you a look, but the edge in his eyes was softened by something else. Amusement?

“Okay.” You said, sipping your tea. “Let’s lay it out. You’re grumpy and tense. I’m sunshine and rainbows. Opposites attract.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“Maybe,” You said with a shrug. “Is it working?”

Sukuna opened his mouth, then shut it. For the first time in years Ryomen Sukuna had been rendered speechless. The silence stretched for a bit.

Then he stood and walked to the sink, muttering, “You’re insufferable.”

You smiled behind your mug. Because you knew that in Sukuna language that wasn’t a no.

——————————————————————————

You came over again the next weekend.

This time, Sukuna asked. Not begged. Not pleaded. Just a text that read:

You busy? Yuji’s back. Bring sugar.

You arrived ten minutes later with cupcakes and a grin.

Over the next few weeks, it became a pattern. Sukuna watched Yuji during the day. You popped over to help when you could. The three of you became an oddly functional little trio.

You learned that Sukuna was surprisingly good at drawing. That he secretly loved cooking shows. That he kept extra fuzzy blankets but pretended they were for guests.

He learned that you used sarcasm as a shield. That your last relationship ended because someone told you to “stop being so much.” That you secretly worried you were too loud for quiet people like him.

He told you, one night while Yuji was snoring in the other room “You’re not too much. People just suck.”

You smiled so hard it hurt.

He noticed. He was utterly screwed.

——————————————————————————

The day it all changed, Yuji had just left with his mom, and the apartment was quiet again. You were helping Sukuna pack away the last of the kid’s toys.

You held up a plastic lightsaber. “I’m keeping this.”

“You literally didn’t buy it.”

“I earned it with emotional labor.”

Sukuna smirked. “You’re ridiculous.”

You put the lightsaber down and looked at him.

He was closer than you thought. Still in his black hoodie, hair a little messy, he had red finger paint smudged on his left cheek and his eyes were dark and unreadable.

“I like you, you know?” You said softly.

He didn’t respond right away. Then he stepped forward. His hand found your waist.

And just like that he kissed you.

It was warm and slow and soft in a way that made your heart ache. No snark. No banter. Just the press of his lips on yours and the quiet hum of understanding between two people who had somehow, impossibly, become each other’s favorite chaos. When he pulled back, you blinked in shock, your heart almost beating out of your chest.

“Wow.” You whispered. “That was…”

“I should’ve done that weeks ago.” He said.

You smiled. “You absolutely should’ve.”

He hesitated, only for a moment, just enough to make you squirm a bit. “Wanna go out sometime? Like, a real date. No Legos involved.”

You looped your arms around his neck. “Only if you promise to let me win at Mario Kart.”

“Not a chance.”

“Then I’m in.” You beamed at him.

——————————————————————————

The first date was his idea. Which, honestly? Surprised both of you.

It started with a knock on your door, three days after the kiss. You opened it expecting mail or a neighbor with a Wi-Fi emergency. Instead, there was Sukuna, in a navy-blue jacket, holding a small paper bag and looking like he’d spent twenty minutes pacing before mustering the courage to ring your bell.

He cleared his throat. “Put on shoes. I’m taking you somewhere.”

You blinked. “Wow. So romantic. You didn’t even offer me a rose or tell me to pack a bag for a mysterious getaway.”

“I brought food.” He held up the bag like it was a peace treaty.

“What is it?”

“Gyoza from that place you like. The one with the sarcastic waiter.”

You smiled, grabbing your coat. “You’re lucky I’m easy.”

He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “That’s debatable”, but his ears were pink.

——————————————————————————

The date started at a park. Sukuna led you to a quiet, tree-lined path, where you sat on a bench under the soft glow of streetlamps. The weather was cool, the sky cloudy, and for some reason, it felt oddly cinematic.

“You brought me to a park?” You teased. “What are we, eighty?”

“I considered a rooftop, but someone’s afraid of pigeons.”

“I was attacked once.” You said firmly. “They’re sky rats.”

Sukuna rolled his eyes and handed you the gyoza bag. “Eat before you get even more dramatic.”

You bit into a dumpling, humming contentedly. “You know, I never expected you to be the ‘pack a picnic and stroll through the park’ kind of guy.”

“I’m not. But you like this kind of stuff.”

You paused mid-chew. He kept looking straight ahead, refusing to meet your eyes.

“You remembered I like this?”

He shrugged. “You talk a lot. Stuff sticks.”

Your chest tightened with that stupid, fluttery ache that happened every time he did something unexpectedly sweet.

And of course, being you, you couldn’t help but push a little. “So… is this your idea of boyfriend material?”

He gave you a dry look. “Don’t push it.”

“I dunno…” You teased, bumping his shoulder with yours playfully. “I might have to make you a Pinterest board.”

“If you do, I’ll set your phone on fire.”

You giggled, and for the first time that evening, he smiled. A real one. Small, lopsided, and rare as hell.

You didn't kiss that night. You both kind of wanted to, but something about it felt too… gentle. Like rushing would break it.

So instead, you walked home with him in silence, hands brushing occasionally. When you reached your door, he said, “Same time next week?”

You grinned. “Only if you bring dessert.”

——————————————————————————

By the third date, he was holding your hand.

By the fourth, he’d let you see his apartment’s second bedroom, the one filled with sketchbooks and drafting tables and old, half-finished models of buildings.

He told you, without looking at you. “I used to want to design theaters.”

You sat beside him on the floor, tracing your fingers over the paper. “Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “Money. Clients want modern. Steel and glass. Emotionless. Easy to clean.”

You whispered, “But you wanted magic.”

He looked at you then, really looked at you, and said quietly. “Still do.”

That was the night he kissed you again. Not a maybe-kiss, not a I’ve-wanted-to-do-this-for-weeks kiss.

It was a you matter to me kiss.

And that’s when it started.

——————————————————————————

The relationship, if you could even call it that at first, was chaotic.

You were still neighbors. Still bickered like you were trying to win a verbal UFC match. But now he’d kiss you when you were mid-rant. Now you’d steal his hoodies like it was your God-given right. Now you sat on his kitchen counter and kicked your feet while he cooked, and he let you eat the last dumpling without pretending to fight you for it.

Yuji figured it out before either of you said anything.

One Saturday morning, while you were helping him build a pillow fort version 3.0, he looked up and said, “Are you Uncle Suku’s girlfriend now?”

You blinked. “Uh…”

Sukuna, from the other side of the room, said “Yuji.” In almost a warning tone.

“What?” The kid said, frowning. “She’s here all the time. And you kiss. That’s what girlfriends do.”

You covered your face with a pillow.

Sukuna walked over, ruffled Yuji’s hair, and said, “You’re too observant for your own good.”

Yuji beamed. “Does that mean I can call her Auntie?”

“No- ” You and Sukuna said at the same time.

Yuji pouted. “Lame.”

——————————————————————————

It was bumpy, of course. Sukuna didn’t exactly slide into domesticity. The first time you left your hairbrush in his bathroom, he stared at it like it was a live grenade.

“You’re moving in?”

You blinked. “It’s a brush, not a lease agreement.”

“I’m just saying, that’s how it starts. First the brush. Then you’re here every night. Then I wake up and there’s throw pillows on my bed.”

“God forbid you experience lumbar support.”

Eventually, though, he got used to it. You being there. Your humming in the morning. Your socks in his drawer. The way you curled up on his couch and tucked your feet under his thigh like you belonged there.

One night, after too much wine and too many old horror movies, you looked at him,flushed and sleepy, and said, “I think I’m in love with you.”

He froze.

You panicked. “I mean, not like in love in love. Not in a weird way. Just, like, casual love. Like a chill-”

He kissed you. Long. Firm. No hesitation.

When he pulled back, he said “I love you too. Ever since you knocked on my door with a batch of welcome cupcakes.”

You blinked. “You don’t say anything for ten minutes and then just- ?!”

“I was trying not to freak out, okay?” He snapped. “You caught me off guard.”

You snorted. “You? Mr. Stoic? Freaked out?”

He grumbled. “Shut up.”

But you didn’t.

You laughed, leaned into his chest, and said once again “I love you.”

And this time, he whispered it back immediately.

——————————————————————————

Dating Sukuna was like learning a new language.

He didn’t always say the right things. Sometimes he snapped when he meant to ask. Sometimes he shut down when he should’ve opened up. But he showed love in small, quiet gestures.

A thermos of your favorite tea on his counter when you were sick. An extra key on your keyring that you definitely hadn’t put there. A grumble of “Don’t be late” when you had a big meeting.

And you? You loved out loud. Sticky notes on his mirror. Spontaneous takeout at midnight. Kisses on the back of his neck while he worked on new sketches.

You argued, of course. Loudly. Often. Once about the right way to fold towels. Another time about whether Die Hard was a Christmas movie, which, by the way, you won. Once about the color of a shower curtain.

But the make-ups were always worth it.

Sometimes that meant soft apologies whispered under the covers. Sometimes it meant passionate, desperate kisses against the kitchen counter.

Sometimes it meant cuddling on the couch with Yuji between you, asleep, while the TV played forgotten cartoons in the background.

——————————————————————————

One night, months into the chaos, you were curled up on Sukuna’s bed, flipping through one of his sketchbooks. He was brushing his teeth, hair damp from the shower, wearing the gray sweatpants that absolutely should’ve been illegal.

You held up a sketch of a tiny theater with stained glass windows and velvet curtains.

“I love this one.”

He spat into the sink. “Old. From college.”

“Why didn’t you build it?”

He shrugged. “Too sentimental. No one wants that crap.”

You hesitated. “I do.”

He glanced at you in the mirror.

You closed the book. “I want all your sentimental crap. All of it. The weird sketches. The hoodie you never wear but won’t throw away. The grumpy texts. The yelling. The quiet. I want all of it.”

He turned. You waited.

Then, softly, he said, “You already have it.”

You smiled. “Even the hoodie?”

“Especially the hoodie.”

You laughed, and he climbed into bed beside you, pulling you into his chest.

——————————————————————————

Six months after the first kiss, you officially moved in. Not all at once, it started with your toiletries, then your sweaters, then somehow your cat, who terrorised Sukuna for the first week.

The building super made a joke about it one day in the hallway.“You two finally caved, huh?”

Sukuna just smirked, one hand on your lower back.

“Better than her breaking into my apartment every other night.”

You elbowed him. “I never broke in.”

“You climbed through the fire escape.”

“Once!”

“You brought tacos.” He conceded. “So I let it slide.”

——————————————————————————

One morning, while brushing your teeth beside him, you looked at him in the mirror and said, “You know I love you, right?”

He met your eyes. “I know.”

“And you… love me too?”

He leaned down, kissed your toothpaste-foamed cheek, and said “Unfortunately.”

You grinned.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was yours.

A slow-burn romance with yelling and laughter and pizza stains. A relationship built on bickering and babysitting and the most unhinged five-year-old matchmaker alive.

And somehow, against all odds? It worked.

——————————————————————————

You two had decided to keep your relationship to yourselves for a while, not that you were ashamed of it because you weren’t in the slightest. You just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet of living in your own little bubble, but given that there was a five-years-old that was the embodiment of ADHD that knew… the secret was meant to come out rather sooner than later.

It happened at a family barbecue. A simple, innocent Sunday afternoon.

Sukuna’s sister had invited him, meaning, both of you to her house just outside the city because she wanted to thank you for “Not allowing her brother to throw Yuki out of the window”. It was a yearly tradition: kids running around, way too much food, and at least one uncle getting into an argument about lawn maintenance.

You didn’t expect much. Just decent grilled corn, a slightly-overcooked burger, and maybe a chance to mess with Sukuna’s head by being overly charming to his extended family.

You didn’t expect Yuji to completely detonate your secret relationship like a tiny pink-haired grenade.

——————————————————————————

“I told you.” Sukuna muttered as you got out of the car. “My family is nosy.”

You slipped on your sunglasses. “And I told you: I’m adorable. They’ll love me.”

He gave you a deadpan look. “You stole my last piece of cheesecake last night.”

“And yet you still let me wear your hoodie this morning. That’s love, baby.”

He made a noise that could’ve been a scoff or a suppressed laugh. You counted it as a win either way.

You walked into the backyard hand-in-hand, a detail you both completely forgot until it was too late. Music was playing, kids were screaming, and the smell of charcoal filled the air.

Sukuna’s sister came over first, grinning. “There he is! The brooding menace himself.” She said as she hugged the brooding tattooed man next to you. “And his emotional support ray of sunshine.” She beamed at you, as she embraced you.

She laughed as hugged you both. “It’s about time you brought her around again. Yuji hasn’t shut up about her.”

“Of course not.” You said. “I’m his favorite adult.”

“Excuse me?” Sukuna said.

“I don’t make him eat vegetables.”

“You bribed him with marshmallows to get him to brush his teeth.”

“And it worked, didn’t it?”

Sukuna muttered something about bad influences and childhood cavities, but his hand didn’t leave your lower back the whole time.

You tried to play it cool. Smile. Be casual. Only… it was hard to stay subtle when Yuji was running toward you at full speed, arms wide.

“AUNTIEEEE!”

Sukuna flinched like he’d been hit.

You bent down to scoop Yuji into a hug. “There’s my favorite little chaos goblin!”

“I missed you!” He said. “Uncle Suku was so boring last week. He wouldn’t let me use the hose indoors.”

“Because I’m not a psychopath.”

You whispered to Yuji “We’ll stage a mutiny later.”

He giggled and kissed your cheek loudly.

That was strike one.

——————————————————————————

Strike two came later when one of Sukuna’s cousins, a tall guy with a man bun and too many opinions about kombucha asked. “So, what’s your deal with the grump here? Just friends?”

You opened your mouth, ready to deflect with your usual “I’m his handler” joke, but Yuji beat you to it.

“They kiss a lot!” Exclaimed proudly, licking a popsicle. “Like, a lot a lot. I saw them one time on the couch and Uncle Suku said I had to pretend I didn’t.”

Dead silence. You blinked. Sukuna blinked.

The cousin blinked and grinned. “Ohhhh.”

You covered your face.

——————————————————————————

Strike three came barely a minute later when Yuji, still unaware of the social nuke he’d dropped, said to Sukuna’s mom, loudly. “Uncle Suku said he’s gonna marry her one day but he’s being a big chicken about it.”

Sukuna choked on his beer. You very, very calmly set down your lemonade before you dropped it.

Yuji looked up at his grandmother innocently. “Right, Ba-chan? He said he was gonna do it soon. With a ring and everything. Like on TV.”

The silence was now legendary. Sukuna’s mother turned slowly to her eldest son.

He coughed, red-faced, and muttered “Kids say weird things.”

“Oh no.” You said, barely holding back laughter. “Let’s hear more about this ring, chicken man.”

“I’m going to exile him.” Sukuna growled. “I swear to God.”

——————————————————————————

You didn’t bring it up again that night.

He was flustered enough. You could tell by how much he was cleaning. Sukuna never cleaned while angry, only while thinking. While trying to process. And judging by how many times he rearranged his spice rack, he was practically having an existential crisis.

So you let it go, for about a week at least. Until you noticed him acting… weirder than usual.

You’d wake up and find him staring at you like he was trying to memorize every freckle on your face. He kept checking his coat pockets, muttering under his breath. He googled “best restaurants with rooftop views near me” and pretended he didn’t. He even said “I love you” first one night and then acted like he hadn’t.

You were no genius, but you could put two and two together. Still, you didn’t say anything.

Because this? Watching him unravel like a tightly wound spool of sarcasm and anxiety? This was fun.

——————————————————————————

The night it finally happened, he invited you to dinner. Which wasn’t weird. Except he was nervous. Weirdly nervous.

“You okay?” You asked, brushing lint off his shirt as he fiddled with his keys.

“Fine.”

“You look like you’re about to testify in court.”

He scowled. “Just get in the car.”

He took you to a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city. Very fancy. Very romantic. Very not Sukuna.

You raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Trying to get laid or trying to hide a body?”

“Shut up.”

The dinner was good. The wine was better. And you were just starting to feel that warm, fizzy buzz when Sukuna reached into his coat pocket.

Paused. Frowned. Checked the other pocket. Then the inside. Then his wallet.

“Everything okay?” You asked, eyeing him as if he had just grown a second head.

“I… I forgot something.”

You tilted your head. “What’d you forget?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood up so abruptly he knocked his chair into a waiter. Then he mumbled “Be right back” and practically sprinted down the stairs.

You stared after him.

Okay you thought to yourself, So either he’s proposing or he just remembered he left the oven on.

——————————————————————————

Ten minutes later, he came back, flushed and out of breath, holding…

A tiny, slightly crumpled black velvet box.

You blinked. He sat down, still panting.

“Had to run to the car.” He muttered. “Was in the glovebox. Under your fuzzy socks.”

You stared at him. Then at the box. Then back at him.

“You kept a ring next to my socks?”

“I panicked!”

You covered your mouth, trying not to laugh.

He exhaled and pushed the box toward you, not opening it, not kneeling, just sliding it across the table like it was a cursed artifact.

“I was gonna do this right.” He said. “Fireworks. String lights. Maybe a cat in a tux.”

“A cat in a- ”

“But then Yuji opened his gob, and you started looking at me like you knew, and I started panicking every time you reached for a coffee mug like you might find it by accident- ”

You opened the box. Simple. Silver band. A small, round-cut diamond in a vintage setting. Elegant. Understated. So you.

You looked up, eyes glossy. “You picked this?”

He shrugged. “You said you liked rings that look like heirlooms. You were half-asleep. Probably don’t even remember saying it.”

Your chest ached. You stood, walked around the table, and sat on his lap, not caring that half the restaurant was now watching.

“You’re a mess.” You whispered, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“And you’re a menace.” He said. “I think I’m about to have a heart attack, so can you please just put me out of my misery?”

“You didn’t actually ask, you know.”

He rolled his eyes. “Will you marry me, even though I’m emotionally stunted and allergic to sentiment?”

You grinned. “Absolutely.”

He kissed you. Not gentle, not shy, but completely, hopelessly yours.

Applause broke out from a nearby table.

You flipped them off without breaking the kiss.

——————————————————————————

You didn’t tell Yuji until a week later.

He was on your shared couch, watching cartoons, shoveling goldfish crackers into his mouth. You sat beside him. Sukuna stood behind the couch, arms crossed, trying not to smile.

“Hey, champ.” You said. “Guess what?”

Yuji looked at you.

“We’re getting married.”

Yuji gasped. Loudly.

Then jumped up and screamed. “I WIN! I WIN! I TOLD YOU!”

You blinked. “Told who what?”

He pointed at Sukuna. “He said he wasn’t gonna do it until next year. But I said he was a big chicken and he was gonna do it this month! I win!”

Sukuna stared at his nephew like he was an ancient demon haunting his bloodline.

“Did you bet on my proposal timeline?” You asked.

Yuji looked smug. “I also bet with Ba-chan. She owes me ice cream.”

You howled with laughter.

Sukuna groaned. “Why do I feel like I’m being outsmarted by a five-year-old?”

You leaned into him, kissing his cheek. “Because you are.”

Neither of you would change a thing.

Tags: @noooo-onee @suna-yoshihara @hawkwithsocks @pickledsoda

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