#gorging forme

[gothoffspring]

I'm a hot girl, pop girl, rich girl I'm a bitch girl, fast girl, "catch me if you can" girl You a swerve girl, who the fuck are you, girl? You just wanna be me

[b-dangerous]

CRAMORANT GORGING FORM NOM NOM NOM PIKACHU NOM NOM NOM SWORD SHIELD

[7roaches]

also im expanding on my last rb its been a while since i watched f&c and i frankly do not care enough to go back and see if im misremembering shit but after a while simons wet cat babygirl thing was hella overmilked to the point where it was hard to take him remotely seriously as a grown ass man and at times as a character wit depression bc after ep 2ish anytime there was something actually deep to sit with it was like. instantly negated with some kind of in your face remark or something idk

[ourpokemonteamtournament]

Reminder: Only the overall poll winner will be put back in the tournament.

If you vote please reblog to help us get as wide a net as possible. Round 16 Masterlist

[candiedcatnip]

Gortash + Durge = Gorge

Is this anything.

[andypantsx3]

contents: general bakugou x princess reader; 1.1k, fem reader. lowkey dedicated to the loml @ofmermaidstories even tho there's e2l undertones.

thinking about being a princess forced into a political marriage. your father is ailing and with no sons in his lineage, your country risks dissolution and open war if you do not marry.

already several of the more prominent families are forming factions; those with eligible sons are desperately trying to engineer opportunities for themselves, those without are amassing foot soldiers and weapons.

you cannot stand any of the pompous, greedy, egocentric princelings put forth by the noble families; men who care nothing for the country or its people, men with no thought for policy or justice—men who would gorge themselves on wine and women as the country crumbled at their feet.

even with a husband, there is no guarantee against a coup, not unless your husband is formidable enough to suppress one.

there is only one man you can stomach the thought of assuming the throne, one man with a head for strategy, a sense of duty, and a reputation strong enough to suppress the growing threat of political discord.

you find general bakugou katsuki in his quarters in the small hours of the morning, unable to sleep for your nerves.

"princess," he rasps, opening the door in nothing but his breeches. your face burns as you're confronted with the sight of a man's naked chest, miles of bare skin, golden in the glow of the torch lights.

"general," you say, resolutely raising your eyes to his face. there is no time to dance around the issue. "i need you to marry me."

bakugou's blonde hair is bed-rumpled, his manner sleep-soft, though his gaze is sharp. he watches you for a long moment before answering.

"'s an awful unromantic proposal," he says, an eyebrow raising.

despite his honorability, he's always had a way of grating on your nerves, and he knows it. you can't stop the reflexive scowl that paints your mouth, nor the irritability that seeps into your tone.

"i am being serious," you say, crossing your arms.

bakugou's eyes follow the movement. you are suddenly all too aware that you've marched through the castle halls in nothing but your night rail, too overcome with the thought of what must be done to pay the appropriate attention to your wardrobe.

"what, you lookin' to consummate it now?" he asks, gaze almost burning through the thin cotton of your shift.

your ears go hot. "can you stop being the most obnoxious man on earth for one moment."

bakugou leans an arm against his open door, bicep flexing with the movement. you try valiantly not to notice the way the shadows pool in the divots of his muscle, the way his trousers sit against the plane of his toned stomach.

"if you want me to say yes, you're gonna need to be a little nicer, princess," he says, mouth flicking into an awful little smirk.

"general—bakugou," you hiss. "do you want to watch the country you've spent years defending dissolve into nothing at the hands of these narcissistic, coddled fools?"

"rich words for a princess," bakugou says, his voice nearly a growl in the dim.

you are aware that you are sheltered as a royal. you are aware you are soft and naive. but you are educated, you are strong-willed, and you care. you may not be a son to your father, but you know you know have studied harder than any man on your father's court. you want to do your best for this country.

"do not mock me," you command.

bakugou's scarlet gaze trails over you, hot and liquid in the flickering torchlight.

"no? then what d'you want me to do to you?" he asks.

you fight down the furious flush of humiliation. "i want you," you repeat through gritted teeth, "to marry me."

bakugou's golden eyelashes dip as his gaze slides back over your crossed arms, then lower, all the way down to your bare toes. you feel horribly vulnerable under his scrutiny, even more knowing you are already at his mercy.

"you're serious," he rasps, eyes cutting back to yours.

"unfortunately," you grit out.

that draws another flicker of a smirk out of him. "and y'came running down here at midnight in your little nightdress because you were too scared you'd chicken out, is that it?"

that is absolutely it, and you hate that he knows it.

"will you marry me or not?" you demand, even your nose feeling hot now. "i don't know what my nightdress has to do with the question!"

"your nightdress is gonna have a lot to do with it if i say yes, angel," bakugou says.

you hate him. maybe it's better to just let the country fall to ruin, let some jumped up coalition of families amass power and overwhelm bakugou and his soldiers. with any luck maybe they will stab him.

you'll have to come up with another plan.

"fine," you hiss, turning on your heel. "message received."

but a hot hand closes on your arm before you can take another step, yanking you back to him. you stumble, barely catching yourself before bashing your nose into his chest.

"you know what you're asking for?" bakugou demands, leaning in to look into your face. "you know this wouldn't be easy."

"i know," you say begrudgingly. "but you are the country's best option—my best option. none of the men put forth are acceptable."

"don't like pretty boys, princess?" bakugou asks.

"you're plenty pretty," you bite out before you can think. horror overwhelms you when bakugou's smirk grows wider, a sharp white knife in the dark.

"think i'm pretty huh?" he says, his tone gloating.

"i think that you are awful and maybe i'd rather take my chances with a coup," you growl, trying to pry your arm from his grip.

but bakugou's hold tightens for a moment, and he leans down, close enough that his breath ghosts over the collar of your night rail.

"then if you're sure this is what you want, princess, you can have it," bakugou says. his thumb smoothes over the skin of your arm for just a moment, soft and feather light before he lets you go.

you step out of his reach, skin tingling, face flaming. there's no reason to delay, then. "fine, we're agreed. i'll see you in the morning. we'll announce it then."

you spin on your heel, bakugou's grunt of acceptance following you as turn back down the hall.

"see you in the morning, angel," he drawls, suddenly all agreement.

he may be the general between the two of you, but you know when it's time for a strategic retreat. you ignore his response and flee—your ears burning all the way to your chambers.

[snakedad]

To phy, what kind of serving size will fill your stomachs and do clothes bother you?

amount of *ahem* food depends on whether i'm going biped or quadruped. a single good-sized jackalope can fill my biped stomach nicely, and if i'm eating to be full i could probably fit around four average humanoids in my quadruped stomach. i'll be honest i only have an actual number for the quadruped form in ferrets. (209 is my current record)

i actually get a lot of control over the volume of my stomach! by default it's pretty quiet, but one of my breaths i have locked away can make things quite deafening in there, even if there's no actual digestion! i'm rather proud of that actually.

as for clothes... same as Old dragon Av. clothes are fine, but no accessories. that means earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and glasses. oh, and no shoes. other than that you can wear what you want. personally, i prefer to taste skin directly, but i'll admit there's something appealing to the more impromptu moments.

[im-his-druidess]

The Deal

No one asked for this, but I needed something dark and gross 🤷‍♀️

TW: Dub-Con turned Non-Con; Infidelity; Cheating; Rough sex; Forced sex; Slight fuck-or-die but not really; Dead Dove Do Not Eat; Unnecessary amount of commas

Setting up the arrangement with Charlie Hewitt left a sour taste in your mouth at the way he openly leered at you the entire time, but you just kept thinking about finally going to bed with a full belly to get you through his poorly concealed innuendos and crass language. It wasn’t until you arrived at the Hewitt’s home, telling your husband you were walking to the next town for groceries as an excuse, that your plan began to crumble. The memory of Charlie’s words making fear squeeze your lungs and bile rising in your throat.

Just when you think you couldn’t feel even more worthless, here you were spreading your legs for a man that wasn’t your husband, all for the chance to get food on your table.

Your husband acted just as worthless as you currently felt and invited his parents to move into your already cramped house without discussing anything with you. Four grown adults living in a one-bedroom shack of a house, with your husband barely making enough money to feed you both let alone two more mouths, was enough to want to pull your hair out. Of course, it didn’t help that your mother-in-law found fault in every single thing you did which your husband agreed with to stay on his mother’s good side. Coupled with your in-laws living beyond their means, including gorging themselves on food that you managed to scrap together, which often left you going to bed hungry and riddled with anxiety. So, when you overheard the local gossip hounds whispering how the Hewitt family would give meat from their job at the slaughterhouse in exchange for favors, it didn’t take long for you to come to a steely resolve. It might have been the numerous days without a steady meal, or how you were belittled everyday at your home, that made you snap and jump at the chance.

‘As much as I want a piece of that pussy…I made a promise to my kin. Tommy’s birthday is coming up and it is far past time for him to become a man despite what mama says. So that’s who you’ll be fucking today. If you got a problem with that then you can fuck off.’

He was so matter-of-fact about the whole thing that it made your head spin.

Relief that you wouldn’t have to sleep with that disgusting excuse of a man making you giddy, before realization at his words struck you like white-hot lightening. You’ve only seen Tommy Hewitt once and the memory was seared into your brain.

You had come across him as he lumbered down the main road on his way home from the slaughterhouse and you were frozen in your tracks as his hulking form stalked past you. He was a large burly man, with broad shoulders, huge biceps, and thick thighs, and his dark shaggy hair didn’t hide the fact that he wore some type of leather mask on the lower part of his face.

He still wore his bloodstained apron.

You had reluctantly agreed once Charlie “sweetened” the deal by promising double the amount of food he would give. Now, here you were, propped up on a bench in the shed while listening to Charlie whisper harshly outside the door. From his tone it sounded like he was scolding someone, Tommy to be exact when you heard his slow heavy footsteps nearing the door, and you swore your heart was going to beat out of your chest the longer you had to wait. From the snippets you could hear it sounded like he was giving instructions and you grimaced when you heard him give vivid instructions on what to put in where.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Tommy came stumbling through the door looking exactly like you remember minus the apron. You realized his blunt appearance was because he was being pushed into the room. Charlie gave you a dirty lingering look, shaking his head with a wistful sigh, before slapping Tommy on a broad shoulder before ducking back out.

The door shut with a firm thud and then you were left alone with the behemoth.

Fear and anxiety once more rushed through you fast enough to make you lightheaded, your heart pounding rapidly in your chest, and the man lingered almost awkwardly by the door. You dimly noticed that he kept his head down, stealing glances at you and your body through his curtain of hair, and you took a deep breath to gather your courage. The bench underneath you was hard and uncomfortable and you knew the sooner you got this over with the sooner you can go home and forget this entire thing.

With shaky hands you hiked up your skirt, removing your panties so they won’t get lost or ruined, and spread your legs. Your face burned in mortification at your actions, even more so when Tommy’s entire body jerked as if sucker-punched, and he didn’t even bother trying to hide the way he openly stared between your legs with wide blue eyes. You fumbled with the small bottle of oil you brought with you, knowing you weren’t going to get properly wet enough to make things less painful, and you quickly waved Tommy over. He approached slowly as if you were going to bite before settling between your spread legs. With him so close you suddenly realized just how big he was, your thighs straining to accommodate the width of his hips, and you nearly jumped out of your skin when a large heavy hand landed on your thigh. His skin was rough and overly warm, thick fingers digging into the meat of your thigh curiously, and you spotted his eyes darting over the rest of your body before settling back between your legs. Your nerves were starting to crumble at his slow pace so you reached down and began unbuckling his pants with trembling fingers.

His entire body tensed up and you mumbled a quiet apology, but your hands continued their work. You knew this was supposedly his first time, but you were anxious to get this over with. Tommy made a low grunting noise as he shuffled on his feet before you got his pants open and his entire body seemed to spasm when you reached into his pants to grab his dick.

You immediately paled at the sheer girth you encountered as you fingers weren’t even close to touching.

He was clearly proportionate to the rest of his body, but that also meant that he was hung like a fucking horse. You let go and fumbled with the vial of oil with a quick prayer for things to be over quickly. You ignored how he jerked his hips closer to you as if willing your hand back as he restlessly pushed his pants down with a grunt to offer you more room to touch him.

His cock stuck out just below his button-down shirt, almost drooping from the heavy weight, and the thick tip was an angry shade of red. You couldn’t help but compare him to your husband. He was larger in every single way, almost laughably so, and you had the brief thought of if you could even get that inside you. It twitched under your gaze. You looked away suddenly embarrassed and saw out of the corner of your eye his hips jerk once more towards you. You felt sweat pool at your lower back, the hot summer air doing nothing to cool you off despite being in shade, and you nervously wiped the sweat beading at your brow the back of your hand. You chided yourself and focused once more at the task at hand.

You poured a generous amount into your palm, nearly half the bottle, and steeled yourself before reaching down to coat him thoroughly. The sound he made didn’t seem human, the punched out garbled growl making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, and you held back your whimper of fright as he thickened even more in your grasp. You tried to not think of how you were going to struggle to take him into your body. You dropped him once he was completely coated and dumped more oil into your hand, steadfastly ignoring the way Tommy panted through his mask. You leaned back while taking a deep breath before reaching down and slathering yourself, working the oil into your cunt while simultaneously trying to stretch yourself with two fingers in preparation. It wasn’t long until you felt calloused fingers brushing against the back of your hand making you nearly shriek in surprise. You whipped your head down to see Tommy had moved closer, eyes completely transfixed between your legs, and you realized he was gripping himself with his other hand.

He was stroking himself at the same pace you were working yourself open.

Unexpectedly, heat simmered low in your pelvis at the sight and you couldn’t help but squirm in place. It was only about a minute later that you could tell he was getting restless, his hand squeezing his cock tight enough to make you wince, and you pretended to not notice him rubbing the weeping tip against your thighs. Tommy suddenly gripped your leg and spread you even further and you did whimper at the pain shooting through your hip at the unnatural position. He began grinding against your hand still buried in yourself, huffing in annoyance when he was denied entry, and you took a shuddering deep breath before moving your hand away to grip the edge of the bench.

“Go…slow, okay? Slow,” you muttered in a raspy voice and the only answer you received was the sensation of something blunt and sticky nudging at you.

He suddenly surged forward in an attempt to ram himself in, making you shriek and kick your pinned leg uselessly, but thankfully he just slid through your wet folds and brushed against your clit. He did that a few more times and was clearly growing agitated.

Even as you tried to weakly soothe him by weakly petting the hand holding you open, but that just seemed to work him up even more. Eventually the head of his cock notched at your entrance and he began to slowly push forward, seemingly learning from his mistakes, and you felt your eyes widen at the stretch. He was impossibly wide, nearly making you scream as your body attempted to reject the intrusion, but he was determined and those dark blue eyes never strayed from your straining cunt. You tried to help by shifting your hips, bracing one foot on the bench to widen your pelvis, and even stretching your other leg out to help ease the tension.

Nothing worked and you couldn’t escape the mounting pressure.

“It’s not going to work…Tommy, you have to stop. It hurts,” you pleaded, beginning to push on his thick chest while wiggling your hips away from him, and your vision blurred with unshed tears. Tommy didn’t like you pushing him away.

With a growl he pulled back, but your relief was short lived as he easily grabbed your hips and flipped you over and resumed his position. One broad palm was flat on your back between your shoulder blades, pinning you in place even as you squirmed and kicked, and you felt him trying to push in again with renewed vigor.

“Tommy, stop! I changed my mind! Get off of me!” you shrieked with growing panic only to have your shouts silenced by the feel of that fat head popping inside you.

Your eyes widened, body freezing and clenching down on reflex, and you barely had time to draw in a breath before Tommy drew back and slammed himself halfway inside you. The scream you let out was ear-piercing and your throat immediately felt shredded from the sound, but was cut off by him rearing back and slamming his hip back into you until he was eventually buried to the hilt.

His croaky moan of pleasure was covered by another scream from you.

Tears were now flowing freely down your face as you howled in pain, feeling as if you were being ripped in half, and you barely noticed Tommy’s other hand reaching down to paw at your wet cheeks as if to soothe you.

He only stayed still for a few seconds before leaning back and beginning a downright brutal pace. His hips were slamming into you with enough force to have the bench beneath you creaking ominously, your pelvis felt like it was going to shatter, and you had the stray thought that no amount of preparation would have ever prepared for you for him. Your gasping cries were short and choppy, from both his frantic pace and the hand pushing you down effectively squishing your lungs, but you still shrieked and yelped for him to stop or at least slow down to let your body adjust.

He didn’t listen.

He seemed possessed, grunting and snarling as he pounded into you mercilessly, and eventually your body went limp. You clawed helplessly against the wood beneath your cheek, blubbering incoherently, and prayed that Tommy would finish quickly. As if punishment for accepting this deal, you were granted no such reprieve.

He continued to rut into you like a mindless beast for what felt like hours, your insides swollen and throbbing as they were pummeled by his thick cock, and sweat was dripping off of him and mingling with your tears as he leaned over you to reach impossibly deeper. It wasn’t until his hips started stuttering and his thrusts turned deep and hard instead of fast and frantic that had you crying in relief at the telltale signs that he was nearing his finish. Then a horrifying realization dawned on you. Tommy wasn’t stopping. Instead it seemed he was spending longer and longer buried completely to the hilt, pressed flush against you as close as he could, and a new wave of terror-induced adrenaline washed over you.

“Not inside…Tommy don’t you fucking dare finish inside me,” you shrieked, renewing your struggles to escape him, and you grew increasingly wild as he only grunted at you.

You began writhing and attempting to twist away from him, kicking your legs and reaching back behind you to claw at his face, anything to get him away from you.

It only resulted in the hand on your back to slide up and fist painfully in your hair, nearly slamming you back onto the table hard enough for you to see black spots swimming in your vision, and his other hand grabbed your hip to further hold you in place. You continued to beg and plead for him to not come inside you, literally anywhere else but inside, but you were steadfastly ignored. His pace suddenly quickened, a low rattling whine escaping his broad chest, and you wailed as he stilled completely buried inside you. You felt his cock jerk and throb followed by a wave of scorching heat soothing your ravaged channel and you screamed in outrage and in despair. Tommy continued to grind into you, riding out his orgasm with small hurt noises escaping his throat, and by the time he was finished you were limp and shivering with shock. Realization of what all just happened rolling through your mind as fast as nausea rolled in your stomach at the feeling of wetness slipping down your thighs. Bile threatened to rise in your throat, silent tears spilling anew down your damp face, and your entire body felt both boiling hot and icy cold.

You wept quietly as he stayed buried inside you. He petted through your hair as if you were a frightened animal, his ragged breathing filling the stuffy air of the shed, and you swore you heard him cooing at you. You felt him lean down and nuzzle the back of your head as his hand moved from your hip to shyly pet over the back of your hand in some twisted form of affection after what just happened. The door suddenly swung open and you didn’t even have the energy to even twitch.

“Atta boy, Tommy! Heard that bitch caterwauling clear down the road!” Charlie shouted with clear glee and humiliation burned in your veins.

You heard the man move closer, no doubt wanting to leer at your crumpled body, but Tommy growled and moved his body more firmly on top of you. As if shielding you from view.

“Aw, what’s this, boy? You finally get your dick wet and now feel like you’re somebody special?” Charlie sneered and you felt the large body on top of you press even tighter to you.

You heard movement around you before a large item wrapped in brown paper tied with twine plopped on the table by your head.

“A deal’s a deal. Don’t be shy now. I’m sure Tommy would love to see you again,” he continued with a wheezing laugh, clearly finding the whole ordeal hilarious, and he walked back out of the shed laughing to himself.

Regret and disgust swirled in your gut at the sight of the paper bag, knowledge of what all transpired making you want to cry all over again, and you let out a small hiccupping sob. Tommy nuzzled into your hair once more, his body relaxing now that Charlie had left, and he resumed his petting. He was letting out a happy garbled sound, clearly not realizing how he had just brutalized you, and you squeezed your eyes shut.

You felt Tommy begin to harden inside you once more.

[dogbites-puppylove]

Devil Sins

The Batfam and the deadly sin that colors their life, and the virtue of their darling

TW:  Yandere behavior (obsession, possessive behavior and unhealthy ideations), mention of suicide ideation and s/h as well as gore

Tags: Yandere! Batfam x reader

Bruce Wayne: Pride    

Within Gotham, it's common knowledge that when crimes wretched hands come down to slit your neck you do not clasp your hands and pray to God, no - you whisper your tears into a puddle of blood and give your reverence to hold out for Batman. It is under no exaggeration that divinity in the cursed city leaves justice to crumbled bones and puddles of teeth and tongue, and its cruel master in the form of a man with no face. It's fitting, for a city of corruption and bile. Gotham’s god is its dark knight with steel for bones and scripture of flesh, man made Godhood with flawed creation in its wake. But man has never been meant to hold godhood, the pathway of immortals too cruel and demanding, even with those who have wielded its deadly blade of eons it rips into them. Tearing at seams and breaking into them until their pieces can be glorified in the stained windows of churches.     

Batman is divinity within mortal confines. There have been prayers and hymns in his name, retribution in his name and the painful dependency of creator and creation waged on him. Batman is an entity that is nothing but iron and brimstone, unbending and unfeeling, but Bruce Wayne, the man who created this creature whose only split from being a monster is a bloodied and beaten code, is painfully human. He feels each failure weigh on him, aging him past his own casket and decaying him even as he still breathes, it cradles his head during the night and whispers the screams of those he has watched fall.

Every time Batman stands tall, Bruce can feel something small and young turn decrepit and vile in his stomach until it erupts from him like bile from the back of his throat. He thinks it must be the humanity of a son who in truth, died with his parents in that alley. It slices his open, cutting his flesh to ribbons, and gorges itself on his organs only to fill him up with something inhuman. It's with bated breath with lungs that have been clouded with smog, that he waits for Batman to finally rule Bruce Wayne unfit and strangle him entirely.   

Darling: Humility

The Darling acts as the humility to his pride, dragging him to his knees so archaically Batman shrivels in your presence. You are his humanity given form, the antithesis to his claim of being the perfect hero. You lead him by the nose, walking him on a leash so flawlessly he thinks you might have been born just to keep him grounded. Every scrape or bruise seems to repel the mission Batman strives for and replaces it with nothing, but a man stricken that he hadn’t done better. Each burn or scrape, even a paper cut drives guilt into him and brings a physical ache to his body like you had beaten him with a bat. Each mark burns the shame of a failed hero and leaves only the pathetic begs and whines of a man that can only be human. 

If he could, he would spend his days by your side, affected by the intrinsic need to provide for you, leaving you physically and mentally unable and robbed of the ability to want. It's a desire that burns molten in his chest and drips down his limbs, it burns and aches at him as if trying to rip out of his chest and lick at your hand like a depraved dog. He would do anything for you, would render the world silent, bring you a heart on a platter, violate himself so terribly he could not know anything but his adoration of your presence and yet it still feels inadequate. A simple compliment from you leaves him bereft of ambition and scorn, leaving him on his hands clasped in prayer. 

Batman may have been his creation, but Bruce Wayne is your own tool, use him to get what you want, change him for your own needs just keep him at hand. He'll be loyally and wholly (obsessively and blindly, almost rabid) yours. God bends to nobody's will, but Bruce Wayne knows down to the electrons snapping in his synapse that his place in this world is by your side, whether you point, whenever you deem fit. You’re his god, and himself nothing but a faithful follower. 

Richard Grayson: Lust

Perhaps born from watching his parents, who should have been a constant, die in front of him a painful death filled with tourists' eyes and misplaced faith, right outside of his fingers grasps Dick has an inherent need to feel. For him, want runs in his skin like a conscious, whispering what he craves, giving voice to a voracity so impossible that it turns physical. He has known denial from the start, whether it be the blood of the man who stole his parents, a want that made his tongue ache and crawled at his ribs until his bones crackled, or the sweeter craving of a relationship, something that watered at his mouth. Want is something that has haunted him, growing obsessively until it reached lust.

Though sexual desire, of course, is something that is often attributed to it, it's not the only way lust presents itself. For Dick, it appears when he closes enough to reach out and feel flesh on his own, something tangible and it shocks him like a bad dog until he reaches out to soothe his skin. It appears in the dead of night when he can feel no other warmth than his blankets, even as he arches out and reaches pathetically into the air. It is a call of pathetic loneliness, so strong that when his younger brothers are cuddled drowning within him it is to try and get rid of the sudden echo, to try and merge them into one, until he is no longer Dick Grayson, and somehow a part of them. Somewhere in between the heat of a lover and the loyalty of a son, he realizes that being a part of a couple isn’t enough.

He wants like a man starved, all instinct and need, like a child who has been ripped out of his mother’s grasp before she has fed him fully, there is always something he’s not quite satisfied with. What he truly craves is a constant, a union, melting himself, and another so they can be poured into the same mold and make something new, indistinguishable from the other. And despite the carnal behavior of his want, he knows how to get it. He smiles full of charisma, grins with the sun and serenades with the moon to get his fixes, but each one leaves him starved, stricken for more. Like a bad addiction.

Darling: Chastity    

The darling brings a chastity in his life, though not to say he wants less, but in the way a husband will fully devote himself to their wife. It’s the deceptive nature of a couple announcing a pregnancy and accidentally alluding to nights spent in bed. The darling hits a spot for him that leaves him mind numbingly euphoric, like a high that is reached after weeks and weeks of suspension. Every kiss has him feral, no better than an animal and chasing after you, every negligence has him whining by your feet, clinging to you. He grows incredibly dependent on your presence, on your touch and everything beneath. 

With you his sharp mind bleeds into instinct, and the charisma he wields to pry himself into others good graces is left uselessly at the door. It’s a delusional dreamy trance, every hug sends him tumbling down further and further until his panting against your neck and thinking of nothing but you, you, you. He can feel himself slipping into your existence, swearing he can taste the coffee you drank in the morning, and can feel every cut or bruise you get without him present. His want for you is wet, sticky and binding, threatening to pull you over until you lose your mind along with him. 

It’s almost laughable how pliant he is with you, a touch to his arm can have him following you over a cliff, a peck to the cheek and suddenly his on your lap whining for more. For all he is hard and angry, full of vigilante fights and bruised skin you wouldn’t even have to hurt him to kill him. With you, he can indulge himself fully, so much so that he wants no other. In fact any other touch leaves him lacking, so utterly entranced by you that he can no longer feel another’s skin unless it’s yours.  To him, his darling and himself cannot be separated, they won’t go down in history but their names, but by the title for lovers. Nothing to define themselves but their own love. 

Jason Todd: Wrath

Anger, to Jason, is an old friend that lives in his bones and whispers in his ears with every movement. He has used it well his entire life, a melting anger of forged iron against his father to keep him defiant, a indigent anger filled with a son's tears for his mother, the roar of inequality and social class that steals from the batmobile and the blinding and rash rush that leaves him as robin. It’s at first a soft motivation that keeps him alive, any good street rat knows, or any street rat still breathing that to stop means you’re as good as dead. He covets his rage, it's youthful and idealistic and keeps his heart beating.

Of course, after the pit (after being beaten to death in a warehouse of gasoline and gunpowder, watching his own blood relax as he’s robbed of his own, coming back ripping from his own skin and drowned in green only to find out his father-father-had left him unavenged. Left him replaced and gone) his anger has grown into something primordial. Too old to be Jason’s but so familiar he leans into it. It grows from his bones like ivy and twigs, poking out against his flesh and sewing itself under his skin so that the slightest breach sends it out to take root.  Jason’s wrath is something that threatens to leave him choking blood, and yet it keeps him alive with the threat of keeping him running forever. It is the anger of a child on the poster who has never been found, and their stomach full of worms that burrows into his own. The tears of a case under the corrupt policeman’s file, and the ghosts scream in a house empty of their future. It’s all those who have ever been a statistic (as he has been) boiling over under his skin. Because Jason knows the wrath of the dead and unavenged intimately, it burns his memories in green and leaves his chest heaving with permanent mourning of mothers whose children were robbed and never found. It threatens to scratch away from the inside of his ribs until its nails finally rip him open in a mocking autopsy and wail into Gotham’s plugged ears.

Jason's violence, his actions and words, the bullets in his guns and glare under the hood are all reactions to this. As long as the world spins, as long as humans turn a blind eye to victims, and allow the injustice of the world to mold them, he will move. All his actions are an answer, a bullet through a man's cranium, the vengeance of a young girl with a ripped dress, a severed head, the relief of a child who watches their family bleed out for powdered death. Each and every shout of Red Hood, every puddle of blood he coats the ground on proof that he is still moving. Because Jason’s wrath is old and an answer, to the boy in the warehouse, to the boy in the ground and mounted not as a son but a soldier. It’s a solution to the fear that manipulates his chest that should he stop moving he’d be buried again. 

Darling: Patience

Jason is a man of action and violence, fear turned into anger because above all he is a man cursed with empathy. With his darling the fear that curdles his insides soothes, like a mother rubbing her child’s stomach and singing a special song to keep the pain away. The world will keep moving regardless of him taking a break, and he has the blinding panic of staying in time, and yet his darling is a perfect encapsulation of time. Something preserved beautifully, a painting stuck in motion, the words on his books that are remembered through words and tongue. The tint of red becomes a pastel pink, and suddenly he’s so, so weak.

With his darling he closes his eyes without fear of waking up decaying. A sweep of your hand against his cheek will pull a sigh of pleasure from his throat suddenly free of phlegm and blood, even a harsh hit will feel divine. His darling functions as a sort of “moment” , something trapped in time and solely for Jason. Much like opening a book, the story is forever clashing but the words stay all the same, waiting for the reader. It’s with you the anger that has kept him moving for so long, washed away, like the dirt clinging to his skin under water. It's freeing and leaves him shakily bare, with you he weeps, with you he grows and stays forever yours. You are life itself, something ancient and timeless at the same time. The nostalgia of losing a tooth and excitement of a birthday party wrapped into tender song and softer skin.  

It’s a common sight to see him cry when with you, prayer in the form of tears that are just for you. He spends his days in a lovestruck haze, almost as if he’s been drugged. For Jason there is no constant, no surety but you. He would do anything to keep you perfect, safe and just as you always are. He'll care for you much like a beloved heirloom, of course he loves you with a severance that would scare most, but you are something he seeks to preserve. Nothing can hurt you, will hurt you, you’ll remain untouched until you reach out yourself. Your presence alone is enough for him to intoxicate himself with, bask in forever. But should you give I’m a sliver of your attention, allow him to enter your perfect little world? He’ll be lost forever.

Tim Drake: Gluttony

The most intimate feeling Tim knows is hunger, perhaps not for food but for anything and everything else. Obsession is his most familiar form of companionship, stuffing picture after picture of his object of affection until he can drown in them. In his house of echoing walls and emptiness he comes to emulate it. He feels hollowness in his soul, some nights he wonders if he took a knife to his own side what he would find. Would it be organs? Perhaps a heart? Or would it be the void that has eaten all that made him and left him with a constant hunger to fill himself with? For a time, he manages to satiate himself with Batman and Robin, stalking and drinking them in over and over until one day it's stolen and left him with nausea so terrible. (And Tim still remembers the rawness of his skin as he is thrashing in his room, his throat bleeding from his wails of a boy he never met)

The more he gets the more he hungers, it’s something horrific and apathetic that leads him to chasing after his own fill. Case after case solved, fact after fact filtered and sorted through, Tim is insatiable. Like a well oiled machine, the fuel that keeps him going only works to find more fuel, it's a never-ending cycle of something that can no longer be deemed as human. Half of this can be attributed to the fact that it’s all the same to him, an angelic charity to a garish murder eh takes them and feasts on them all the sometime efficiency is more of a hook then anything, pulling others in so he can feast on them, devouring their mannerisms and habits, licking up and chewing on their thoughts until there nothing left of them. 

One could blame this on the fact that the identity of “Tim Drake'' has never really been sought out, so there’s no substance to him. Something useless will obviously stay shiny, clean and unused, it's logical in all the ways it makes Tim want to throw a tantrum. It drives his mouth to salivate until he’s drooling over another function he can consume, another person he can mirror, another morsel to disappear within himself. And yet with each new meal he can only feel the void echo back louder, as if he had never eaten at all. Like a fire consuming too much wood that it withers out in anger, as if the trees that had been cut never existed in the first place. It threatens to force Tim to disappear forever.

Darling: Temperance

The temperance his darling offers is in the form of a craving rather than actual fulfillment. After just his first taste of you, Tim has been enraptured for you, nothing comes close to your unique temperament, your reactions, everything that makes you, you. You leave his mouth watering for more, nothing else can settle against his tongue the way you can, nothing can mimic the way you fill his head with static and leave him filled to the brim. He takes whatever kindness you give him and uses it as an invitation to learn more about you, an invitation to bear himself fully. Any preference you have, a favorite color or show, even general food preference will settle into Tim as if it had been his all along. Where he used to drink black coffee, has grown a taste for your favorite creamer, your playlist will be playing in the back of his head as he switches through W.E. work, it’s all you, you, you. Like a puzzle finally coming together,

Tim’s brain finally quiets down and is forced to digest. Any sort of attention you give him is a five course meal, any scorn is just as quickly devoured. You don’t quite stop the habit of obsession, but you give it direction. Tim has never known such direct want until you, a den he has no plans to stop his indulgent habits. He is ravenous for anything you toss to him, your voice, a text, an opinion, even just a little note, whatever you do stays, It’s a blessing and a curse. Because while the hunger pangs back in your presence, now nothing else can even come close to keeping him occupied.

He’ll obsess over you, crafting himself to be your perfect companion just so he can stay by your side and continue feeding. Everything in your life has a shade of him, your job, your house, your hobbies, even your electronics, each one a special situation he created to have you just a bit closer. Nothing else can come close to you, he’ll make sure you're well taken care of, all he asks in return is you.

Damian Wayne: Envy

Damian’s life is a unique contradiction. He was born the sole inheritor of a Thorne he is meant to fight for, something only he can own and yet is so unworthy he is kept from it. It forces him into a sense of jealousy, inadequacy and egregious entitlement. He could have anything he needs, but only as long as he earns it, it gives him a longing sense of feeling everything is out of his reach. That even should he hold the sword in his hands it cannot be called his. Not in the way a dog can call its food their own, and not in the way a writer can crow over their own creation. It leaves him painfully envious of others, of their right to their own possession, it leaves him vicious and poisonous. Part of the reason he squirrels away animals with so much intent, is because they’d be “His.” He’s their sole owner, and as beings with a conscience they can prove their loyalty. 

His envy leaves him with harsh words and even deadlier scars, it forces him into a fine weapon and while it’s an ideal state for an heir it’s a broken state for a child. It leaves the boy wanting, fearful and anxious. His envy is young and childish, something not allowed, and it’s something weaponized. It’s part of the reason he defends the title of robin so freckly, not only because he believes himself right, but because it’s his in way the throne cannot be. Because it’s not a legacy he’s supposed to take, it's one he steals from himself. It’s his, in a way nothing has been since he first cried from the pit.

But even then, the title of partner that so many others have worn, cannot soothe the constant ire, the lashing out that comes with fear of being replaceable, of being nothing but a role, comes with. Because Damian has been born as his mother’s son, as his father's legacy, but not as his own person. It makes Damian feel unfit, unusable in the way he has seen his mother discard students who cannot kill. It burns him, kills him and with time he thinks he might just be a husk. Damian is nothing but competency and a perfect successor, a successor will never be their own.

Darling: Kindness

Ironically the kindness that tempers his own envy is not his own but instead, actions of his own darlings. He fully gives himself to you, gives you his very purpose to do what you want with. Should you order him to kill, order him to die, or to live he would do it without complaint. Tell him you want his heart and he will pry himself open and hand it over with a smile, tell him you want his laugh, and he will laugh himself manic until you tire of it. He is a fine blade, a weapon that has seen battle far too much already, and it’s your own kindness that stops it from going to battle. In essence Damian has made himself a role right by you, but has given up his autonomy of your manipulation. You’ve become his master, his owner and his loyal weapon.

Every action is your doing, every remark is for your benefit, and by giving himself to you, he can have you in a way nobody else can claim. Every smile, every hug, every word that you speak to him is something unique from a dynamic he has hand crafted, and therefore uniquely his own. He will store you away from others, wary of letting them stain you, and even more wary of letting them steal you. You’re his, his love, his heart, his blood, his purpose on this earth, and he cannot let another’s touch deter you from this. His darling is a salve to his aches, a bandage that wraps tight enough to manage to hold him together, and his actions are that with the purpose of binding you to him. Your purpose will be each other.

Author's Note: Another reupload! Previously known as lovesick-laboratories.

[ourpokemonteamtournament]

Wait Haven't We Been Here Before?

Reminder: Only the overall poll winner will be put back in the tournament.

If you vote please reblog to help us get as wide a net as possible. Round 26 Masterlist

[joonieskinks]

best friend's sister

simon "ghost" riley x reader | john's your older brother, simon is your lover, will it work? | fluff, mentions of needles, some brief smut | 1.1k

inspired by: starstuckmiraclekitty - love her writing

“Listen boys,” Price started, addressing the group with his hands on his hips. “She’s coming here to stay, and I want you all on your best behaviour. Think of her as my second set of eyes, go’it?” 

A string of “yes sirs” echoed throughout the room, Simon’s included, not thinking twice about the Captain’s little sister coming to the base, just another rookie in his view. 

He thought as much until he laid eyes on you for the first time. Your kind eyes, your gorgeous body and soft smile. You care so much about helping others, patching them up and sending them off healthy. You were good, kind, pure- a direct contrast to what Simon considered himself: damaged, broken, evil.

However you thought otherwise. It didn’t take long to notice the tall, brooding Lieutenant that was so close to your brother. His tall, muscular body, his gorgeous eyes that stood out amongst the dark of his mask. His humour when he was relaxed, his impressive skills and his empathy. Specifically towards you when you first arrived. Checking up on you, helping keep your supplies restocked and assisting in your training.

It was on days like this that you needed to focus on your breathing, trying not to lose yourself in the close proximity to Simon. His legs over your waist, hands wrapped around your wrists, pinning you to the floor below him. It took every ounce of restraint in his body not to tip the mask up, lean down and kiss your lips.

And Simon was no basket case, he picked up on your subtle hints. Your lingering gaze, the excuses you would muster just to touch his uniform, your heightened breathing with his presence. But you seemed to be completely lost when it came to him and his feelings. Although he’s not exactly obvious, he thought you could read his willingness to be around you and his touches as a sign.

Apparently not.

“Si, can we talk?” You asked as you locked his door behind you, fiddling with your fingers nervously.

“‘Course. What’s on your mind?” Your eyes met briefly before you needed to look away, attempting to conceal the blush on your cheeks. Simon gave you a minute, waiting across the room for you to take the first step. The leap, when he couldn’t. Somehow that sat better with him knowing it was you who initiated if it ever came to confessing to your brother. 

“Simon, I can’t keep going on like this. I just need to know...” You started, gathering as much courage as you could and taking a few steps closer to his form. 

“I want you, and I don’t think I can keep it to myself anymore.” Simon could only chuckle. 

“You weren’ exactly subtle, love.” He closed the gap between the two of you, his hand at your chin, pushing it upwards to look into your eyes. 

You smiled slightly at the implication, biting your lips as you took in the man before you. 

“I don’t want you to regret this, or get in trouble because of me.” You confessed softly.

“Trus’me. S’not something I’m looking forward to,” Simon started, using his spare hand to take the mask off. You could only look in shock as he bared himself to you - the trust, the love. You knew then and there he wasn’t someone you could just walk away from. 

“But I think you’re worth it.” 

“Simon, you’re gorg-” You started but were quickly cut off by his lips on yours, his hands around your waist, directing you over to his bed. Stripping you of your clothes, your sticky underwear and touching his bare body with yours.

It wasn’t long before his head was between your thighs, his tongue pressed against your throbbing clit, making you cum once, twice, thrice over. 

Taking his hard length, over and over again until he could finish inside you, holding you close, kissing your lips and whispering sweet praises. Cleaning you up afterwards, bringing you in and keeping you beside him all night. Night after night, and neither of you could get enough. 

After three months of sneaking around, concealing your love for eachother behind closed doors, it was you who slipped up. 

In front of none other than John. 

Simon came by the infirmary to hand off the extra supply of syringes you needed for standard blood work procedures. He put the box into your arms, nodding his head to Price as he lay on the bed for his standard checkup from you. Taking the box, you leaned up to kiss Simon on the mask as a thank you, turning around to unpack it all. You only realized your mistake after the fact. Both boys were frozen and deadly silent as the mistake sunk in. You turned your head around slowly, kicking yourself for not thinking twice. 

John was the first one to break. 

“So,” He huffed, pointing aggressively at Simon. “You’re the one who's been sneaking around with my sister.” John’s gaze staring daggers into your lover, who could only watch back in shock.

Fuck. 

John moved quickly, trying to shove off the elastic arm tie, ripping the blankets back to charge at Simon.

“John!” You screamed, grabbing at his arms to hold him back. Simon quickly darted out of the room, leaving you to handle your brother for the time being. He certainly didn’t want his Captain to (try) and kick his ass in front of you. 

“John! Listen to me!” Heaving on your sibling, begging him to stop. 

“I’m gonna kick his ass for this (sure you are, buddy). Swear on it.” John was seething with anger. 

“I love him!” You screamed, giving one more big tug before John let up, facing you.

“You- What?” He looked utterly perplexed, but you nodded reassuringly.

“I do. I know you may not approve now, but you’ll have to come to terms with it eventually, John. It’s not going anywhere. You can’t bully him away.” You exhaled frustrated. “I know you only want to protect me, but I’m an adult now, you have got to start seeing me that way, alright? I love Simon, and he’s been so good to me. Please…” You squeezed your brother's arm, a silent beg. 

John closed his eyes, rubbing at his forehead. 

“‘Swear to God if he hurts you Y/N…” He warned. 

“Never.” You promised, nodding your head rapidly and John let out the breath he had been holding in. 

“Fuckers’ still got a lot to answer for.”

John eventually came around - after some punches that didn’t land on Simon and an outburst that left him feeling ridiculous. He inevitably came to accept you two, stomaching you around the barracks, even allowing him to come to family Christmases…

Just on the condition that you two aren't so loud at nightfall anymore.

Gives the old man a headache. 

And nausea.

//

[repulsiveliquidation]

Rain || Alexia Putellas

warnings : smut (18+), somnophilia (consensual sex while asleep), anal sex, rimming, strap-on sex, choking, spanking, fingering, rough sex)

a/n : hii! just a little something i whipped up while at work today :)

There was rain pouring down outside, the sun hiding behind dark clouds. The pitter-patter of raindrops slowly begged Alexia to go back to sleep but she fought hard, the warmth beside her was way more tempting than a few more hours of sleep. 

She scooted over, arm slipping under the sheets to pull at the smaller form that was softly snoring beside her. She felt the heat of your skin, chest rising and falling steadily in your sleep. 

Soft kisses along your nape and shoulder lulled you out of your snooze, a grumpy groan already dragging through your voicebox. 

“Ale, it’s Sunday, go back to sleep…”

“Sí, sí, sleep.”

The captain wasn’t going to let you off that easily. She’d gotten back late from Sevilla last night and crashed almost immediately, staying awake just long enough to shovel food into her mouth. Now, with the whole day to waste with you, she didn’t want to miss a second of “personal time.” 

You’re snoring again, this time much louder and much clearer. Alexia sat up looking annoyed, staring at your back that faced her. Her eyes, having the mind of their own, wandered along the shape of you. There was a little skin showing along your back where your shirt was riding up, toned back teasing her intentionally. 

“Fuck mi amor, how am I supposed to resist you?” 

Alexia, in her stroke of genius, pulls the covers off gently and climbs out of bed. She tiptoes to the closet, rummaging quietly for her strap. She finds it and quietly runs back to get it on. 

Alexia stands beside you, clothes stripped off and strap hanging low from her hips. Very carefully, Alexia pulls the blanket off you, the pattering of rain now much softer as it stops. You’ve got the prettiest lace underwear on, a deep maroon that was secretly her favorite. 

You were fully on your stomach now, your snores an abbreviated version of what they were earlier, muffled by your pillows. 

Alexia lifted your matching lace top, the ruffled edges seemingly turned her on even more. There was a pause when you shifted under her and she quickly stood on her knees, taking her weight off you. You simply pushed a leg up towards your chest and sighed, nuzzling your face into the pillow. Alexia gently sat back down, softly kissing your exposed back as she fought to keep her hips from involuntarily grinding into you. 

“Mmh, you’ve always been so fucking beautiful princesa, even when you were sleeping.”

She slowly pulled your panties to the side, exposing your already soaking cunt. Her mouth waters, jaw aching as she scoots down to taste you. 

Her tongue is warm and flat against your pussy, lapping gently at your sticky folds. Her eyes make sure you’re still asleep, fingers very very gently pulling your thick thighs apart. You give Alexia no indication of knowing what she was doing, so she gets a little brave. She spreads your ass and watches your asshole pucker at her, practically asking her to have a taste. 

When she does, she watches as your eyebrows furrow in pleasure. You always were a little anal whore, the feeling of her tongue on your ass never failed to drive your arousal up. 

Alexia spat on your ass, thumb gently rubbing it in. It caught on the edge a few times and Alexia had to stop herself from clenching her own thighs together. Your pussy was dripping, the gentle throb of your heartbeat was delightfully obvious to Alexia. 

“Ale…?” 

“Bon dia, princesa,” Alexia whispered sexily, helping as you gently turned onto your back.

“Más, por favor,” you whined, legs draping wide open over her shoulders. Alexia grinned maniacally, nodding gently at your sexy request. 

A dainty finger slips into Alexia’s mouth, the noisy slurping that reaches your ears only makes the throb between your legs all the more intense.  

She pushes it into your ass gently, gorgeous eyes meeting yours as she gently fingers you open. You feel the stretch just a little more than usual, a pleasant ache plastering a satisfied grin on your face. Alexia pulls away to suck on her fingers a little more, pushing two digits into you when they’re wet enough. Your hips grind down into her slowly, fingers gathering a little spit from your mouth to use to play with your clit. Alexia audibly groans, watching as you double your pleasure. 

She gets that manic smile on her face again, pulling her fingers out of your ass before kneeling between your legs. You’re still playing with your clit when her fingers jam themselves into your mouth. You’re taken aback and gag loudly, Alexia’s eyes rolling into her head when you keen. 

Alexia fingers your mouth while you touch yourself, your fingers aching to slip into your pussy and mimic her fingers in your mouth. You can taste yourself on her fingers and that only spurs you on, your first orgasm building up hard and fast. 

She pulls her fingers away from your lips when you begin to gurgle your warning, soaking wet fingers expertly finding your pussy before slamming in to send you into your first orgasm. 

“Ale!” you moan, muscles spasming in pleasure. 

“Sí, buena chica,” Alexia praises, fingertips jabbing your sweet spot with no mercy. 

Alexia doesn’t bother to give you a little heads up, pulling away for less than a minute to prep her strap. She lubes it up and smears the rest on your asshole, pulling your thighs over hers before she’s pushing into you. 

“Taking me so well, beautiful,” she coos, thumbing softly at your swelling clit. 

“Ale,” you beg, “Ale, por favor.”

“Sí, te lo daré, cariño, I’ll give it to you.”

Give it to you she does. Her hips pound up into you, shoulders barely touching the bed. Your long manicured fingers can’t find material to hold onto. Blood rushes to your head and you can feel the world of pleasure consume you. 

Alexia bends you in half, thighs pressed tight against your chest. Her skin slaps yours, hips thrusting into your ass rough and hard. Her teeth are gritted together, eyes dark and lustrous. 

“Is this what you wanted, cariño?” 

“Fuck, yes!” 

Alexia turns you on your side, pounding right into you deeper this way. She takes a breast in her mouth, suckling hard as she fondles the other. You can barely moan, everytime you relish in a sensation she gives you a new one to drool about. 

“Hold yourself open, my pretty little slut,” Alexia leans by your ear to whisper, watching as you do as she says. She lubes her left fingers up just a touch, warming the gel up before slipping them into your pussy.

Now stuffed in two places, Alexia’s hips thrust in while her fingers pull out, repeating this sequence like a well-oiled machine. It was utterly dizzying; you were seeing stars. 

The captain, seemingly impressed by her own handiwork, now moved her freehand wherever else she could. She dragged her nails along your tummy, kneading your breasts one after the other. She gave them a few love taps that rattled them deliciously, making her eyes roll into her head just a little before they reached their final destination. 

Your neck loved Alexia’s hands. They wrapped around your throat so perfectly. Her thumb and index finger always pressed the right spot to deprive you of just enough air to give your vision a few black spots. 

“Fuck!” you choke, the tug behind your naval intensified as Alexia fucked you harder and faster. 

“Coming, my love?” 

“Can’t Ale, please–”

“Come, slut,” Alexia spat, hips pounding you into the mattress so hard the frame was shaking. 

You come and she lets go of your neck, the breath of fresh air that fills your lungs somehow intensifies your orgasm. You’re shaking and moaning her name, body trembling and twitching from the shocks. 

Alexia draws the hottest bath she can, gently climbing in with you in her arms. The steaming water soothes your aching limbs, bringing relief. 

She holds you close and leaves the softest kisses along your shoulder and neck. You giggle and settle into her arms, feeling safe and sound. 

“I missed you,” you mutter after a while, looking up at her as she smiles.

“I missed you too, princesa,” she whispers, tilting your head a little more to kiss you. It’s soft and tender, filling both your hearts with love. 

“I love you,” she whispers when she pulls away, strong arms wrapping tighter around you as the sound of more rain fills the room. 

[inkyajax]

compulsive consumption

character: sunday warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, fem reader, messy sleepy sex, dubcon at the start (somnophilia), extremely codependent relationship, a hint of a daddy kink, size kink/size difference, a lil bit of blood, overstimulation, creampie words: 2.3k

notes: maisie said exhausted almost asleep sex with sunday and somehow, this is what transpired

It’s become a ritual at this point; something special, something sacred, a ceremony you ardently anticipate each and every night, a sumptuous way to conclude the day and enter into sleep.

Because Sunday’s work day is long, tiring and tedious, and too often are there instances where you don’t see him at all—not a flash of silver-blue hair, nor a glimpse of ivory feathers—during your waking hours. 

But he always comes back to you in the deep of night, after the moon as passed its highest point in the sky, after you’ve slipped into a fitful dreamland, incomplete without its master. 

This you can be sure of. This you can expect eternally, always. 

He’s dead on his feet by the time he returns to the sanctuary of your shared bed, linen steeped in your scent, engulfing him in a sweet embrace the moment he burrows between the sheets. 

But it’ll never compare to the real thing. 

Large hands snake through the fabric, navigating it expertly, as they’ve done every single night before, as they’ll do every single night after. 

You’re wearing one of those lace-trimmed silk babydolls that he loves so much, shimmery material pooling around his wrists in bunched waves as eager palms slip beneath the garment. Lithe fingers curl around your hips, nails nipping the skin in a way that’s almost tender, embedding themselves in your flesh as Sunday anchors a good grasp. 

No panties—good girl.

Then he’s tugging you toward him, your limp body obeying easily, a soft noise vibrating deep in your throat. Little hands grope instinctually at the air, clawing at nothing in search for him, before you roll toward his heat, a moth to a flame, a bee to honey, an addict to their fix. 

Instinctual, automatic, right. 

“Sunny?” 

“I’m here, darling,” he nuzzles into your cheek, ribcage expanding against your torso as he inhales, deep and hungry. A slow exhale follows, as if he’s savouring the scent, intertwined with a soft hum. “I’m here.”

No other words are spoken as he shoves at his waistband, freeing his incessantly aching cock, one palm splayed on the mattress by your shoulder, keeping him precariously hovering above you, the other curling around the base of his cock, squeezing twice. 

He’s been thinking about this. He’s always thinking about this. 

It’s an insatiable craving that inevitably (and predictably) begins to flare up a few hours before it’s time for him to retire; an unbearable itch birthed behind his sternum, clawing at his heart, growing, spreading, infecting each limb and organ as time ticks by so that it has enveloped his entire form in torrid yearning for you the moment he’s off the clock. 

The blood in his veins prickles, surges with each step that carries him closer to his lover, almost as if it’s attempting to escape, becoming fervent at the thought of being close to you.

The only reprieve to be found is when he sinks into your sweet cunt—ill-prepared, Sunday’s desperation casting a dense haze of lust over his brain; a sick pressure pressing against the walls of his skull, rendering logic incoherent and unnecessary, reducing him to something primal and salivating.

Delicate skin stretches, strains, splits as your body opens itself up for his cock, a soft hiss inhaled through the gaps of your teeth, jaw clenching with the action. 

“I know, I know, I’m almost in,” he soothes, voice already gone hoarse from the way your body swallows him down, cunt gorging itself on his cock, cute little hole fluttering around his shaft as he bottoms out, almost as if it’s striving to suck him in further, draw him in deeper.

Greedy little thing. 

He always allows himself a moment to bask in the feeling—to bask in the warmth of your body wrapped around his in the most intimate, complete sense: cockhead pressed snuggly to your cervix, your thighs embracing either side of his hips, your ankles instinctually linking behind his back in a possessive grip, heels digging into the dimples cushioning the base of his spine as they try to push him in more.

A sigh decompresses his chest, his body draping itself over yours as all of the trials and tribulations of the day seep from his pores, your cunt an automatic remedy, an instant rhapsody. 

You’re drooling all over him, he can feel it—eager slick that pools around the base of his cock and streams down to puddle in the folds of his balls. It’s awe-inspiring, the way your body immediately reacts to his own—you’ve already soaked him, neatly trimmed silver curls dewy and glistening as they sop up your slick, and he’s done nothing more than fill you up with his flesh. 

A moan pries its way past his lips, an involuntary reaction, his hips grinding down into you, smearing your arousal across his skin in a thick glaze. It’s slippery, his pelvis gliding against your body with fluid ease, pubic bone rolling over your swollen clit in slow, hard motions. 

You’re murmuring something, pleads wadded up between your molars, gurgling on the back of your tongue as you burrow your face into his shoulder.

“Okay, okay, sweet girl,” he’s pacifying, the mattress dipping as his knees dig into it, bare palms running along your thighs in a smooth, tender caress. 

Nimble fingers hook behind your knees, gently unlatching your legs from around his waist and pushing them up, up, up, until your thighs are on either side of your torso and your heels are resting on his shoulders. 

And then, he begins. 

There’s no gradual build up, no anticipation or teasing—neither of you have the patience or restraint for that; not tonight, not ever—and his pace is ruthless right from the start, his thrusts kept quick and deep as his hips piston into you.

The harmony of wet, sticky slaps fills the room, intertwined with your little whines and his husky growls as his balls, thoroughly drenched in your essence, smack against your ass, a sordid metronome.

Sugar-stained breath wafts across your face in dense pants as his body shrouds yours again, crushing your thighs between heaving chests, the tops of your toes curling around the nape of his neck. The mattress dents further beneath his knees, strong muscles flexing as his rutting accelerates, the head of his cock grinding against your g-spot in harsh, shallow jabs. 

His name oozes from your lips, thick and lazy and swathed in spit, bastardized by his motions into a single syllable, your tongue never quite able to get the word out. It sounds like you’re drowning in it, almost, a precious garble of Sun-Su-Da-ay collecting at the back of your throat, sliced to pieces by pleasure. 

Lashes fluttering against drowsiness, your head raises off the pillow, yearning to string a smattering of sloppy kisses along his jawline. Sunday hums, head quirking to the side and presenting to you his stretched neck, a silent request for more. 

And you obey, like the perfect little angel you are, tongue following the curve of his neck in one smooth, flat, fluid brush—from the hinge of his jaw to the protruding knob of his collarbone. It gleams in the dim light and you sigh a little, proud of your work. He looks so pretty painted in strokes of you. 

Soft lips follow the path of saliva back up his throat, sealing yourself into his skin and giggling sleepily at the quivery little whine your motions evoke, Sunday nestling clumsily into your kiss. 

Silver-blue tufts cling to his temples and his forehead, plastered with sweat into defined points, his sunset eyes gone dark and glimmering, framed by heavy lids drooping beneath the combined weight of exhaustion and ecstasy. 

Despite the fatigue of the day, of his duties and obligations, he’s still absolutely ethereal, glowing in the radiance of your combined love, reinvigorated bit by bit with every sound he manages to tug from your throat—precious little moans and broken little gasps that he breathes in, gulps down, devours in time with the pumping of his hips.

They’re traded in exchange for sounds of his own, quiet whimpers and soft grunts exhaled onto your waiting, wanting tongue with every plunge of his cock. The appendage curls, hugging the sounds, melting them in the heat of your mouth and steeping your tastebuds with him before it darts back out again, tip lapping ravenously at his parted lips—tracing along his cupid’s bow, licking at the edges of his teeth, teasingly brushing the point of his own tongue, enticing it to come out and play. 

That earns you a chuckle, something wispy and warm spilling down your throat, genuine amusement molding his mouth into an open grin.

He gives you what you want, tongue lolling out from between spit-slicked lips—an offering to you, and one you take gladly, greedily, suckling it into your scorching mouth to wreathe your own tongue around it in a slippery embrace. 

A shudder ripples through his flesh, muscles seizing, and he whines low and needy in his throat, the only warning you get before he’s surging forward, front teeth clacking against your own, pinched lips splitting between sharp enamel. 

Copper floods his mouth, tangy and pungent, but it does not deter him, his own tongue charging at yours with such force you nearly choke on it. You swear he’s attempting to lick down your throat, tongue jammed at the back of your mouth and sweeping across it, as if it’s desperate to venture deeper.

His breath his hot against your face, ragged pants exhaled through his nostrils beading on your cheeks and upper lip. The snapping of his hips has turned vicious, voracious, fucking into you in time with his tongue, stuffing you full from both ends.

It’s a divine sensation, being so filled up with Sunday—whole, right, one, like you were incomplete before this moment, and will be incomplete after he’s gone, something vital missing—and you keep trying to siphon him in further, throat constricting as it swallows around the tip of his tongue.

He wants to give you more, front lips mashed between sharp incisors as his mouth shoves forward, another spritz of blood—yours, his, doesn’t matter—smearing across chins, sticky and watered down with saliva, a pale pink glaze. 

But his lungs are burning, huffs of breath tangling together within your conjoined mouths and scarfing down each other’s air, coughing around your lover’s exhales while oxygen slowly but steadily dissipates. 

He breaks apart with a discontented whine of his own, clammy forehead resting against yours as you each gulp down air, stuttered and wheezing. Wrecked, raw little noises spill into the space between your lips, continuously shattering your attempted inhales, fucked from your chests with the wild bucking of his hips.

Rapture has been building within the both of you, brought closer and closer by each drive of his cock, each drag over that swollen spot deep within you, each teasing drift of your clit over his skin, his thrusts turned jerky and desperate as he chases that bliss, as he endeavours to deliver it to you.

“Please,” you’re begging for it, the one thing only he can give you, a single piece of heaven, of him, carved from his soul and gifted to you every night. “Please, Daddy, please, please—”

He’s nodding against you in short, swift motions, forehead grinding into your own, his tongue laving messily at your lips, as if attempting to sop up the remnants of your moans. 

“I love you,” he manages to gasp out, rhythm never faltering, each ram into you harder and faster than the last. “I love you, I love you, I—a-ah—”

Hot cream fills your cunt suddenly, his cock throbbing almost viciously as it spurts endless loads of cum into you—so much, too much; your little womb can’t nearly take it all, stuffed and bulging before finally overflowing with his seed, thickly dribbling past the tight seal of his cock to gather in the ridges of the sheets, little rivers of silky white slowly seeping into crisp linen.

He always cums quick during these nightly rituals; you both do, too eager to have one another—a piece of one another—buried within you, or sheathing hard flesh and soaking into it, saturating it with your essence.

But it doesn’t stop there, because you can’t, because it is not and never will be quite enough to satisfy the ravenous craving you each harbour for one another. His hips don’t still, won’t still, not even after he’s emptied his balls into you and milked himself dry, jolting in erratic, juddering motions. 

Your own pelvis rolls up in lazy ruts and sloppy circles, half-baked sounds of pleasure drivelling from the corner of your mouth with sleepy spit. Sunday has since collapsed on top of you, his weight pleasant and grounding, his breath a humid constant against your sticky skin. His palms outline the contours of your body as his hips rock, fingers sinking into plush flesh to knead and grope in appreciation. Delicate vessels snap beneath his grip, tissues flooded with navy and violet, leaving a smattering of fingerprints seared into your flesh. 

You fuck until you’re both layered in sweat and slick, bodies gliding together effortlessly in smooth, wet movements, skin shimmering with one another beneath beams of silver. You fuck until your cunt is raw and puffy, chafed from the ceaseless rubbing, until you’re both sucking in hisses and jittering out strained whines from the shocks of overstimulation, routinely coursing through your frames in thick electric waves. 

You fuck until you’re both too exhausted to continue, pathetic humping slowing to something tender and sporadic before it finally halts completely, Sunday still buried to the hilt, and you fall asleep stained with each other—you in his sweat and his breath and his fractured, hummed out moans; him in your cunt with evidence of your conjoined arousal glazing his pelvis and his thighs and his balls, sticky sweet like syrup. 

It is the most blissful heaven either of you could ever dream of, nothing more pure than the ecstasy of entering sweet dreams submerged in one another, saturated with one another, bodies stitched together into a singular, perfect entity, breathing and being as one.

[nvuy]

im like itching for a boothill x single parent romance. LIKE WHAT IF they moved in next to boothill and everyones like "naww dont go near that guy hes scary and shit" but when kid sees boothill they get so intrigued by boothill they try to get close to him every time they see and hes just... scared? or paranoid, so he doesnt let them close. and then one time kid was still asking questions to boothill and stuff, parent was rushing looking for them, they see them, and then goes like "omf sir im so sorry my kid bothered you" and then boothill is like "nah its ok id do anyt- no what i mean we just met its cool btw lmao"

yk that one scene in a goofy movie where max get laughed at on the bleachers and then roxanne comes and picks him up and asks if he’s alright and then max starts babbling absolute gibberish yep

“So, how strong are you, mister?”

Boothill’s fingers are pressed against the girl’s tiny tiny hands. So small and little and squishy, and he seriously contemplated squishing her until she popped. His palm is cold against hers, and she giggles at the difference in size.

“Hmm…” He leans back on his heels in his squatting position in the front garden. He taps his chin in thought. “Don’t gotta clue. Anythin’ you need me to pick up?”

The girl gasps and there’s stars in her eyes. “Can you pick me up?” She stretches out her arms towards him.

He cracks a grin at her and ruffles her hair. “I dunno. You might be a bit heavy.” He’s teasing her, of course, but she pouts.

“At least try.”

“Alright, little lady.” He hooks his arms underneath hers and hoists her up easily, hands locked at her ribs. “How’s that? Good enough for ya?”

She hums thoughtfully, a cheeky smile on her face as she, too, taps her chin. “Now you gotta carry me for the entire day.”

It was his turn to pout. “N’aw. That’s no fair.”

“There you are!” There’s a rustle of footsteps and the jangling of keys to his left that made him stiffen for a moment, before your familiar face comes into view. Your eyes flit from him to your daughter. “I’ve been calling you for lunch.”

Oh, great Heavens.

“Hi, gorg– uh…” The ranger stumbles over his tongue and zips his lips shut when a small smile stretches into your lips. “We were– I was just– uh…”

Your daughter looks upset when Boothill gently places her back down in the grass.

“Just horsin’ ‘round,” he finishes. “I was just passin’ by, y’see? And your lil’ princess chased me down.”

You clear your throat, staring down at your shoes for a moment and trying to hide the heat rising from your neck to your face.

“I’m sorry about her,” you say to him. “She’s, um… hard to control.”

“That’s a good thing,” he whispers down to your daughter. “Means you got a free spirit.” He pokes her in the side and she giggles.

You give him another look and his eyes snap to the left, and a casual tune leaves his lips in the form of a whistle.

You offer a hand to the girl. “I made pasta.”

Your daughter practically barrels into your side, almost knocking you over with how her small arms wrap around your hips—she used to only be able to reach your knees. God, time flies.

Your eyes flit to the ranger once more. “Um… I made a lot so… if you’re hungry…” Your eyes trail down to his stomach before you swallow. “Do you get hungry?”

He studies your face for a moment with a pensive look.

Then, Boothill snorts. “Nah, sugar.”

Your face is burning. “Right. Well, you’re welcome to come in, anyway.”

“Oh, please have lunch with us!” your daughter all but begs. Her hands have now interlocked in front of her in a pleading gesture, and she’s offering him her most intense puppy eyes. “I can show you my room.”

He’s immediately swayed. “Well, it’s hard to say no to a cute thing like you.” He reaches down and pinches her cheek.

He watches you blink, perhaps taken aback for a moment.

He thinks you’re so beautiful, even if the apron you’re wearing is covered in sauce stains.

He almost starts cheering when you visibly perk up. “You’ll join us?”

“’Course! I’d do anythin’ for y–” He stops himself by digging his teeth into his tongue. “I mean… if ya insist.”

He can tell you’re biting the inside of your cheeks to keep yourself from smiling too wide. You pucker your lips and look elsewhere, face dark with blood.

Your daughter is strangely silent. He notices she’s enamoured with a bright blue butterfly floating along one of the bushes nearby.

“Cool.” You can’t think of anything else to really say. You rock on your heels absentmindedly. “I’d like that.”

His smile grows impossibly wider. “Would ya now?” He taps your nose once before he bends down to greet your daughter again. “Lead the way, little lady.”

“One sec,” you mumble, digging in your pockets.

You fumble for your ring of keys before you throw them quite badly at the cyborg. He manages to catch them well enough, fingers frozen over the steel.

Huh?

“It’s, um… the purple key. For the front door.”

Sure enough, one of the keys was coated in a deep purple.

Your daughter has already begun sprinting towards the front door. You’re half keeping a close eye on her through your peripherals, but your gaze wanders from her to watch him closely.

“I have a spare so… you can have it,” you continue slowly. Was this… too forward?

Boothill eyes you for a moment. A hand moves to his hips.

Then, in a flash, he pulls the purple key off of the ring it’s attached to and gently tosses it back at you. You struggle to catch them, but you manage with shaky hands and stuff them back into your pocket.

“‘Ppreciate it, pretty thing. You know just how to make a man swoon.”

He blows you a kiss with the steel to his lips and then tips his hat. He catches up with your daughter in no time, sweeping her off her feet and letting her slot the key in the lock to open the door.

You realise when he’s staring at you, one hand holding your own front door open expectantly, that you’re standing out in your front garden gawking at him like an idiot.

You quickly follow him inside, and he closes the door behind you. He’s quick to swing an arm around your waist when you guide him into the kitchen.

[sunderwight]

SV No Abyss Fluff "Feral Binghe" AU where Shen Qingqiu manages to get around having to throw Luo Binghe into the Abyss, but unfortunately this means he has to get him away from Jue Di Gorge before anyone else catches them, while Luo Binghe is steadily losing more and more control over his behavior. In PIDW, this stage of Luo Binghe's seal breaking was handled by virtue of him being in the Abyss, and just killing every single thing that crossed his path until the feral trance broke and his mind cleared up again. It was barely noticeable as a thing that happened, because being in the Abyss meant he was pretty much on a 24/7 killing spree regardless of his frame of mind.

But without the Abyss to field Luo Binghe's bloodlust, Shen Qingqiu's got to keep him relatively calm and distracted while hauling his ass out of a demon-infested gorge also full of potentially hostile cultivators, get him back to Qing Jing Peak, and then keep him under control until he can calm down enough to regain his faculties.

A task that should have been impossible, frankly, except that for some "mysterious" reason, Luo Binghe will still listen (somewhat) to Shen Qingqiu even while he's out of his mind? At least he will come back if Shen Qingqiu calls him, and he doesn't seem inclined to wander very far away either, and he seems to recollect Without-a-Cure on some level and fusses over Shen Qingqiu's flare-ups. Though in this case, the 'fussing' involves a lot more cuddling than Shen Qingqiu is accustomed to.

However, Feral Demon Binghe doesn't seem to be very good at differentiating friend-from-foe in basically any other case. The good news is, in this AU Binghe has a demonic form that makes him pretty much unrecognizable to anyone who didn't already see his transformation (a group comprised solely of Shen Qingqiu, Mobei Jun, and Shang Qinghua), the bad news is that Shen Qingqiu has to stop him from killing his own future wives multiple times (he even attacks Liu Mingyan!) and all the Cang Qiong attendees think that Shen Qingqiu has been kidnapped by some kind of rampaging demon beast.

[hier--soir]

a lover's pinch | eight

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: professor!joel miller x f!reader rating: explicit, 18+ mdni summary: the one where they get caught. warnings/tags: au, university professor joel, age gap [20 something years diff], ethically dubious relationship due to inherent power imbalance, domestic bliss, gratuitous descriptions of joel reading, joni mitchell, explicit unprotected piv sex, delayed gratification, dirty talk, finger sucking, biting, academic praise kink, cream pie, who's in the pic on joel's desk??, angst, confrontation, an orpheus and eurydice metaphor uh oh, those blue panties from 3 come back to haunt us. word count: 6.9k nice series masterlist | main masterlist chapter moodboard a/n: i need someone to make me write [or not write] the way j miller phd does in this... also sorry and i hope you like it and sorry again follow @hier--soirupdates if you'd like to be notified when i share my writing this is part eight of ALP. you can read the previous parts here: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Winter descends over Maine not with a bang, but with a whimper.  

The days and weeks fold together in a blurring mess of sleep ins and papers and coffees, until suddenly a month has passed, and you hardly noticed it slipping through your fingers.

You spend less time at home, and more tucked on one side of Joel’s couch, your feet in his lap as he lounges down the other end. You dip pale toast in runny yolks at the table, listening to him on the phone to Sarah in the other room. Hear him say I’m good, baby girl… I’m really good when she asks how he is.

You ride shotgun in the truck between his place and the university, slipping out the passenger door a little early every time. Walk the final stretch lest someone notice his glasses, your hair through the windscreen.

On campus you watch him up there on his stage, a burn in your chest, and see how he seeks you out in the after. How he props you above him and returns your gaze finally. Curls his body around yours and repents for every time he had to look away.

It's warm and it’s kind and it’s trading books with scribbled notes in the margins.

It’s rain smacking against the windows as you read, his scruffy chin nesting in the slope where your neck meets your shoulder, two sets of eyes staring at the same words.

It’s nodding off in his bed where the sheets have started to smell like your perfume, eyelids heavy as you wait for him to get home. It’s wearing only his clothes and being woken up by his face between your thighs, pupils blown and lips slick.  

It’s finding each other at the end of a long day and hearing him say, I thought about you all afternoon.

And this feeling of familiarity writhes between the slats of your ribs. A comfortable, quiet fondness that you see reflected in his eyes when he looks at you; that you hear when that tender mouth forms your name.

You gorge yourselves on it. Put lips to the crooks and thorns in each other’s bodies and suckle on that fondness, swallow, swallow, and watch the well never run dry.

The bleed is endless. Beneath the stain of time it floods and flurries, melting the two of you together until you start to feel certain it could never end.

Until, of course and at last, it does.

Sunday.

It’s late, you think. Somewhere in the mess where time blurs between sunset and midnight, Winter stealing hours that feel like minutes.

The curtains in his living room are drawn, low yellow light warming the room from a tall lamp in the corner. Blue spins in the on the record player, a gentle sway of sound that fills the room.

I like listening to Joni on Sundays, he’d confessed in the bathroom, bashful as he rubbed a towel over you, drying the wet ends of your hair and the slick skin of your shoulders.

He reads at the table now, strong chin cupped in his palm as his eyes flit across the pages of a textbook.

Something to do with conservation; a Minoan palace in Knossos, you think. He’d explained it earnestly, but his curls were soft and fluffy from the shower and his glasses were resting on the tip of his nose and so you’d found yourself zoning out, eyes going from round to heart shaped as you nodded along from the couch.

Every few minutes he grips his pen and jots down a note before glancing up to check on you. And whenever this happens you avert your eyes quickly, pretending to be enthralled by the half-finished essay on your screen. You have a feeling he catches you each time, because he keeps laughing softly, tutting under his breath as he goes back to reading, foot never stopping its tap-tap-tap in time with the music. The only time he gets up is to flip the record, and soon those little laughs and huffs start to mix with Joni’s bell-like voice, and the opening lyrics to California swell through the room as you type at a glacial pace.   

She sings, I met a redneck on a Grecian isle, and you glance up again, eyes turning wide and doe-like when you find Joel already watching you. He gave me back my smile, Joni sings. But he kept my camera to sell.

“How’s the writing going?”

“Good.” Liar. “Great, even.” Bad liar.

Joel’s eyes narrow behind his glasses, lips twitching in a clear attempt to smother a laugh, but he just nods, looking back down at his book.

He’s wearing home clothes. That’s what he called them. Home clothes.

When he’d said it, still pulling them on, you’d wanted nothing more than to grip his hands and stop him in his tracks, but you’d sequestered yourself to the other side of the room instead, sorely committed to the study evening he’d suggested. But he’s in soft grey sweatpants and an even softer looking white t-shirt, and every time he sips his coffee he hums happily against the rim of his mug, and his bare foot goes tap-tap-tap and Joni sings Oh, will you take me as I am?, and—

“Come here.”

You blink. His eyebrows raise expectantly, lips split into a broad smile now.

“Unless you’d rather stay over there and keep starin’.”

You reach him as The Last Time I saw Richard, the final track on side two, begins to spin.

Joni sings, all romantics meet the same fate, and Joel’s knees fall apart, thighs splayed so handsomely across his chair, inviting you to take a seat. You ignore the woeful lyrics and focus instead on the knowing smirk on his face, taking a step forward, and another, until you’re stood between his open legs.

He doesn’t touch you. Just smiles, all saccharine and easy, leaning back in his chair.

“Much left to do?” He points at the laptop in your hands.

“Maybe another hundred words,” you grumble and put it down on the table. “Today, at least.”

Joel hums, eyes flicking down. His gaze skirts across the bare skin of your legs, the soft sleep shorts you’re wearing; ones he puts on you himself, and knows you don’t have anything beneath.

“Come here.” He pats his thigh; stops you with a soft tut when you try to straddle him. “Naw, baby, like this.”

Soft hands tilt your hips, turn you until your back is to his chest and he’s drawing you onto his lap.

“Oh.” You smile, leaning your head back onto his shoulder.

Nose turned into the side of his face, you brush a kiss to the edge of his jaw and sigh in relief as he wraps his arms around your middle and squeezes.

The space between his chest and the table is a little tight; small enough that if you were to lean forward a few inches your ribs would knock against the wood.

As if he’s thinking the same thing, Joel leans forward. Presses you against the table, one hand coming up to hold your face. His fingers are soft on your skin, offering small amounts of pressure as he grips your jaw and encourages you to look forward.

“Gonna tell me what’s on your mind?” he asks.

The hairs on the back of your neck stand up a little, skin prickling at the shift in his tone. Still soft, still quiet, yet with something… demanding, shifting just below the surface.

“You,” you say, cringing at the way your voice takes on a higher quality all of a sudden. Steeling yourself, you add, “You’re distracting me.”

“Wasn’t doing anythin’,” he responds simply. “Just sittin’ over here, minding my business while you burn holes in my head.” 

“You know what you’re doing.”

“I cooked dinner.” He squeezes you again. “Fed you. We showered, and now I’m readin’.”

“You were humming.”

Joel kisses the shell of your ear.

“And tapping.”

He flutters his fingers against your hip.

“S’that such a crime?” he murmurs.

“No, but…” You sigh when his tongue snakes out, tracing the soft curve of your earlobe. “But it…”

“But but but,” Joel mocks, and you can feel his sick smirk against your neck, teeth teasing along your carotid now. “But all you can think about is my cock, ain’t that right?”

Your stomach falls away. Everything firm inside you turns to goo as he laughs, knowing he’s right.

“So needy,” he taunts you, holding your hip tighter as his length begins to thicken against your ass. “Had all day to ask for it.”

You don’t respond, tongue tied and more uninterested in your essay than ever.

“Just lookin’ for a distraction now,” he teases lightly. “The more you put it off, the harder it’ll be to get it done, baby.”

“I know.”

“If you know.” He hooks a finger over the waistband of your shorts. “Then finish it.”

“S’not that simple,” you whine, rolling your hips over his lap. A sharp puff of air warms the back of your neck, so you do it again. His hand tightens around your jaw.

“Just a hundred words, right?” he coaxes gruffly. “Come on now, I’ll make it worth your while.”

You feel his thick cock beneath his sweats, stiff and pressing between the crease of your thighs, melting what’s left of your resolve. You want to grind down against it. To pull your soft sleep shorts to the side and let him sink inside with no more pretence. But you put your hands on the desk, eyes on the screen, and Joel slides his warm palms beneath the hem of your t-shirt. Floats them over the curve of your stomach, the soft flesh around your ribs, waking thousands of tiny hairs that cover your skin until his fingers meet your chest, and he cups your breasts.

You shiver, lids growing heavy as he squeezes and tickles at your skin. Your nipples harden to peaks against his rough palms, and he sighs at the feeling, face resting against the back of your neck as he plays.

“Fuck,” you sigh, voice a broken buzz in your throat as he pinches one of your nipples between his thumb and forefinger. “I thought you wanted me to write.”

“I do,” Joel murmurs unconvincingly. “A hundred words, go on.”

Hands like lead on the table, it feels like an impossible task. Even more than it did ten minutes ago. You force yourself to lift your fingers to the keyboard, vision sharpening as you look for where you left off. You try to shut him out, try to ignore the way his tongue warms the skin on your neck, the way the hairs on his thighs tickle against yours, and begin to write.

But he doesn’t make it easy.

The second you finish the first sentence one of his hands drifts down your stomach to cup your pussy over your shorts. You flinch, heart galloping in your chest when he sighs in your ear.

“Joel,” you whimper, pleading already. “I can’t if you…”

“You can,” he soothes. The warmth of his palm is suffocating, so hot against where you’re already wet and wanting. Thick fingers press against the fabric, nudging it between your slick folds until it goes damp. “Just ignore me, baby.”

“Easier said than done,” you reply. You type five more words, chest rattling with heavy breaths as he paws at you, thumbing at your clit through your shorts.

His breath is hot and heavy against your neck and his soft curls tickle your skin as you try to focus.

“Ignore me,” he repeats, and you squeak as he tilts you forward. A rush of breath spills from your mouth, chest flush to the desk, ass suspended above his lap as he shifts behind you. And when he pulls you back down, you sigh pathetically over the fact that he’s pushed his sweats down.

The full weight of his length presses against you, nestled between the rounded flesh of your ass, and you manage to mumble his name.

“Just—” You’re panting now; considering begging. “—I can do this later. I will finish it later, I swear, just—”

Joel nudges your shorts to the side and presses a finger between your folds. A ragged gasp stutters out of you, finger jammed against the keyboard. A steady stream of kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk fills a line of the document as he smears your wetness up to your clit.

“Fuck,” you mumble, hips tilting forward, trying to chase the feeling.

“None of that,” he tuts quickly, other hand slipping down and pinching the skin at the inside of your thigh. You’ve only backspaced half of the k’s when he slips two fingers inside you. “Come on, now.”

Thirty words fly as he crooks his fingers inside you. Slow and gentle, thumb rubbing messy circles against your clit as he works you open.

“That’s it,” he coos, pressing a third finger inside. Your cunt sucks desperately at his fingers, the skin of your face warming as you catch a glimpse of your reflection on the laptop screen. Jaw hanging low, a silent prayer for relief written across the open slant of your mouth. “My smart girl. Knew they didn’t give you that degree for nothin’.”

You gasp and swat at his wrist, but a satisfied little smile cracks your face for a moment when he laughs. Only for it to fall seconds later when he lays a sharp bite to the back of your shoulder. You moan, voice cracking around his name, rutting desperately against his hand.

“You can do it,” he flatters you, sickly sweet and entirely convincing as he strokes at your insides. Curling and stretching until you’re turning to a wet trembling mess in his lap, wobbling through half-assed sentences that you aren’t sure even match up with your essay outline anymore.

“Good,” Joel murmurs. “That’s good.”

“Don’t look,” you slur out, heart pounding at the idea of him reading anything you’ve written in this state. “It’s f-for your class, you can’t look.”

“Not lookin’.” He noses at the back of your ear. Presses an open-mouthed kiss to the hinge of your jaw. “Just lookin’ at you, m’always just lookin’ at you.”

“I’ll finish it.” You switch up your tactic now. Voice low and breathy, the back of your head resting heavy on his shoulder, eyes longing to close. “Tomorrow, I’ll write it—”

“Tomorrow?” His thumb drags harder on your clit.

“Yes,” you gasp, stomach tensing. You feel a bit floaty all of a sudden. Locked out of your own mind, all thoughts spilling from between your thighs as desire grips you, consumes you. “Please, just…”

“What, baby?” he prompts. “Say it.”

“Just let me sit on your cock,” you groan. “Please, I can’t think right now, I’ll finish it, I promise.”

“You fuckin’ promise—Christ,” he grumbles, fingers drifting from your tight clutch. “Just a little more, baby, for me.”

You don’t even really know how it happens after that. Ears roaring, skin tight, everything is a blur as you write and write and write and he presses his leaking tip between your folds works you down onto his length. Hands everywhere, so warm, so rough, holding your thighs, your waist, your breasts, your shorts to the side. Slower when your gasps spin higher, you think, always knowing when to ease up, when the burn gets too much too quick.

Joel grips your thighs, prying them apart until your calves are on the outside of his, and then he’s shifting his legs open wide, giving your own no choice but to follow. You feel the full weight of him in this position. The long, thick stretch of his cock inside you as your legs dangle listlessly over his lap, toes straining and failing to reach the floor. You can do nothing but rest heavily across his thighs, those hands still everywhere all at once, and whine pitifully as your walls spasm and clench around him, coil inside pulling tighter and tighter.

Vision waning, the text on your screen warbles as Joel slips the pad of his finger against your clit and begins to play with it. Soft little rubs that have you going tense and leaning forward on the table, braced on your elbows and grinding down into his lap, desperate for release, for movement, anything. It feels like your brain is splintering into a thousand tiny pieces inside your skull.

“You’re so wet,” Joel rasps, forehead heavy against your shoulder blade as he groans. “Pretty pussy’s drippin’ all over me, honey. You really need it that bad?” 

You say something you think, mouth moving and eyes rolling as his hips shift up in a weak little thrust. Just one.

“Keep goin’.” He sounds pained, half-drunk as the words stumble out of him.

Your mind slips further from your grasp and you’re typing pure gibberish. Slurring messes of letters cloaked in perfect punctuation. Your fingers fly across the keys, painting commas and full stops and semi colons around complete and utter bullshit as your cunt flutters and your belly stirs.

His finger glides and his cock pulses and your vision darkens and you come. Shoulders hunched, table digging into your forearms, you fold forward and cry out as an agonisingly brief orgasm rips through you.

It’s over before it’s even begun, but Joel groans and offers a shallow thrust, your cry turning to a gasp as he grips your thigh for dear life.

“Oh good girl,” he murmurs, fingers slowing against your nerves, not wanting to overwhelm. “Fuckin’ squeezing me so tight, baby.”

“Joel.” There are tears in your eyes now. Liquid frustration that pools against your waterline and threatens to spill when he still doesn’t fuck you how you need him to.

“How much left?” he asks roughly, rocking his hips against yours in a steady pace now. Gentle, rolling movements that snag on the heels of your orgasm and hold it close.

“Huh?”  

“How many words?”

“I don’t…” Your eyelids flutter. “I don’t know.”

“Shit, sweetheart,” he laughs a little then, rueful but not unkind. “That’s gonna be hell to edit.”

With a furious groan you slam the laptop closed, the sharp smack of metal on metal filling your ears as he grips your hips and really starts to fuck you.

It’s not fast though, not rough. Just deep, lingering strokes that grind against the end of you and nudge you stumbling toward the edge. He pinches your clit between the tips of his middle and ring fingers, rubbing slow drags up and down against the hood like that. Moaning and sweating, you slip your hand over his. Press lower and let your fingers glide around his girth, thick and vascular between your thighs, hot skin wetter every time he pulls out of you.

“Feel that?” Joel pants, teeth nipping at the top of your spine. “You’re creamin’ for me, baby. Fuck, I—I need to taste it.”

“Shit—oh god.”

He grips your wrist and drags it up, chin harsh against your shoulder as he sucks your fingers into his mouth.

The groan he lets out is filthy as his hot tongue snakes out to lick the webbing between your fingers, and you tip your head to watch his eyes roll back. His thighs tremble beneath you, but you can’t be sure it’s not just the vibrations of your own body tricking you.

But no, it’s him. His hips stutter against yours, deep plunges stilting into shallow movements, and he stalls deep inside your cunt for a second on the end of every thrust, as if his brain is short-circuiting.

You hook your fingers in his mouth, the tips digging into the gums behind his teeth, and tug him back to reality. He nips at your fingers and moans, hand falling heavy between your thighs again. And he doesn’t stop now; keeps pushing and pinching and fucking and grinding until your pussy is pulling tight and slick around his length and your fingers are fanned loose and shaky across his face, and you can hardly breathe except to say Joel or please or oh my god.

“Can feel it,” he grunts breathlessly, skin smacking against yours in a sharp staccato beat. “Deep breath, baby, c’mon, let me have it.”

“Your teeth,” you gasp feverishly. “Bite me again.” 

“Fuck,” he snarls and then he’s grating the hard line of his incisors along your shoulder.

The sweet pinch of his canines digging into your back sets your cunt aflutter around him, mouth hung open in silent ecstasy as he fucks you full of his seed and you suck it in deep, tight with longing, still panting and high when it begins to drip from where you’re connected, spooling around his cock and smearing between your thighs and his.

His chest heaves against your back. Chest hair damp wet sweat, dripping through your thin shirt until it can’t decide whether to cling to his skin or yours. There’s an ache at the base of your spine, maybe a muscle pulled, and his thumb presses into the flesh there as if he can sense it.

Sounds come back slowly. Joni’s finished and the needle tracks around the runout groove on the record, a little crackle flaring every few seconds where the two channels join. Joel’s breathing too, rough against your shoulder, harmonising with the wet sound of his lips peeling from your skin.

You tilt your head to the side.

Wild eyed, cunt-struck, Joel knocks his nose against yours. Groans low when you flick your tongue out to graze across his bottom lip. He’s bitten it rough and ragged and red, and you want to soothe the sting. His glasses are on top of his head, smudged lenses tucked amidst wild fluffy curls.

You try to kiss him, hard and wet, but he stops you with a hand to your jaw. Cradles your face and strokes your cheekbone and wipes the spittle from your lips before kissing you lightly. Chaste and gentle, like the two of you are ten and have never kissed anyone before, have never been brave enough to use your tongues.

That invisible bleed in your chest drips heavier. You picture a thick spurt of red against your chest cavity as he kisses the corners of your mouth, the tip of your nose, your eyelids.

“You good?” he asks quietly.

You nod, smiling when his lips catch and drag across your skin with the movement of your head.

A moment passes like this. Searching kisses dotted over your smiling face. The swell of your cheeks, the ends of your eyebrows.

“Sometimes I feel like you aren’t real,” Joel confesses. A bare bones whisper that tickles the skin between your eyebrows, where his lips rest now. “Like you might just melt away if I don’t hold on tight enough. Disappear if I look away too long, and I’ll be stuck tryna convince myself that you were ever really here.”

Twisted up in his arms, you can feel the way his heart batters against his chest, thrashing through to vibrate against your back. He might as well be plucking the admission straight from your own mouth.

“I’m real,” you murmur against his neck. “I’m here, it’s real.”

“Me too,” he says. Something wet tickles your skin, but it’s gone in a second. Rubbed over by his thumb, soothed with another kiss.

I love you, you think, but when you speak it comes out as, “No melting.”

Joel laughs softly. Kisses you again. “No melting.”

Thursday.

“It was too much.”

“It was fine.”

“I said the word grateful three times.”

“Four, actually.” You chew the inside of your cheek and shrug apologetically. “I counted.”

“Jesus,” Joel sighs, reaching up to a drag a hand over his face.

He’s pulled his desk chair all the way across the office. Tie loosened and top buttons undone, he slumps in it a little. His thick knees almost brush against yours where you sit in his armchair.

“Hey, I liked it,” you smile, bumping his knee. “It was nice - shows you care.”

“Well, you ain’t all that hard to please,” Joel smarts, lip quirking up into a sly grin.

Mouth open in a scoff, you feign offence, dragging your laptop from your satchel and making a show of ignoring him.

“How the mighty fall,” he continues, sighing dramatically and tilting his head over the back of the chair. The light coming in through the window hits his face just right, and the grey hairs in his curls shine. “Grateful to have been your professor… asshole.”

“Don’t be precious,” you laugh softly. “You’re just embarrassed because you said you were going to miss us.”

“That was a lie,” Joel tuts, brushing you off with a hand in the air, biting back that grin. “I ain’t gon’ miss any of you assholes. And when those final papers come in—” He taps a finger against the top of your laptop “—I’ll be sayin’ my prayers that any of you can string a worthwhile sentence together.”

“If you’re lucky,” you drawl, batting his hand away. “You’ll teach some of us again next year. And when that semester finishes, you’ll say all of that shit again, because you’re a sap, Joel Miller.”

Joel stares at you for a moment, face softening, and then clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Smart ass.”

“And you love it,” you quip easily, only balking a moment later when the word hangs awkwardly in the air. Hands pausing on your keyboard, you glance up, neck hot, only to find Joel watching you still. Face suspended in a small smile; eyes light as he nods.

“I do,” he says after a moment. “But you’re on thin ice, wise guy.”

He plucks a book from his desk and spreads it open on his lap, either not noticing or simply not caring as you watch on, slack jawed. I do.

After a moment, Joel taps his foot against yours again. “Write.”

So, sucking in a breath, you do. Time passes and rain starts to drizzle against the window as you write, and Joel reads. Having forgotten to put a record on like normal, he hums lightly under his breath; some tune you can’t place but still nod along to. Every few minutes he turns his page, and the sound sends a shiver down your spine.

You hate the way he holds books. Hate the way he cradles the spines, thumb hooked around the footnotes to hold his page. Hate the way his fingers trace the stanzas as he reads, tender and patient, and always afraid to miss something. Hate most the way the tendons on the backs of his hands flex when he turns the page. How the veins around them go fat and blue the longer he does this, as if all the blood in his body is sprinting towards the words. It’s a dangerous sort of eroticism, watching him read. You hate how much you love it.

In need of reprieve, you focus on your own hands. Crack tired knuckles and stretch out cramps and aches, taking a moment to peer over at his desk. The picture frame you’d once been so curious about is propped on the edge of it once again.

You can see Joel behind the glass panel, sporting a shit-eating grin with Sarah, clad in a graduation gown, tucked proudly against his chest. Taken the day she finished high school, you know now. And you’d never noticed it that first time, months ago, but Ellie’s face rests in the corner of the picture. Pink tongue stuck out and eyes pinched shut; she’d snuck her head into the frame at the last second apparently.

You gaze fondly at it, and feel that familiar warmth in your chest over the fact that he’s put it back out. No more hiding.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Joel glances over his shoulder, and then smiles.

“It’s a good photo,” you say. “You look so happy there.”

“I was. It’s one of my favourites,” he nods, adjusting his glasses on his nose. He seems to consider you for a moment, eyes flicking around your face, fingers fidgeting with the corner of his page. “Hey, I uh… Sarah actually called yesterday.”

He pauses. Takes an unusually deep breath and folds the book shut.

“Okay.” You blink, confused. “Is she alright?” 

“Yeah.” He nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, she was uh, she was askin’ about the holidays, and if—”

The office door creaks open, and Joel’s mouth seals shut as Rachel walks hastily inside, rushed words filling the small room.  

“Joel, sorry, I need to grab—oh.”

There’s an odd pause after the words catch in her throat. A moment of uncomfortable stillness as the three of you inhale all at once, glancing around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

You and Joel aren’t touching, but your knees rest close, one of his feet in the space between yours on the carpet. Laptop propped on your knees, your final essay still lays open with a stream of edits pasted through the margins, cursor blinking at the end of the word nostos.

Joel, tie undone and sleeves rolled up, looks painfully casual in your presence.

“Sorry.” Rachel blinks, hovering awkwardly as the door clicks shut behind her. “I didn’t realise you had a… a meeting today?” The end of her sentence flares up, as if she’s confused, phrasing it like a dubious little question.

You offer a smile in her direction and hope it comes across as relaxed, a little encroaching even; as if you are the one who has interrupted; the one who should not be here.

“It’s fine,” Joel supplies easily, straightening in his chair to give her his full attention. His face gives nothing away. Stoic and calm, the way you’d imagine him to be if you weren’t here at all. “Everything alright?”

“Yes,” she says, frowning like she’s affronted by the question. Looks between the two of you again, listless fingers curling at her sides. “Just came to get that Livy copy back

You look back at your screen and will yourself to type something. To appear casual, studious, as if your heart isn’t lodged in the base of your throat.

“Sure,” he nods, gesturing vaguely toward his desk. “It’s in one of the drawers on the left.”

Rachel nods, walking over to the desk, and as her back turns you spare a glance at Joel. Find him already looking at you, eyebrows pulled down a little. Pink lips mouth It’s fine, married with a soft nod of his head, and for the second time in seconds you attempt a smile. 

There’s the sound of wood sliding against wood, and then a soft, tired kind of silence. The lack of sound seems to swell, the air in the room thinning, your eyes focusing on Joel’s fingers on the armrest of his chair, tap tap tap, Rachel’s unruly curls somewhere past that, her face downturned, looking at something. Wary breaths held in unison, synced heart beats racing. It’s fine, it’s fine, no melting.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

Your head snaps up. Joel turns in his chair and begins to ask what’s wrong, but all that ends up coming from him is a sort of choked noise, rough around the edges, and breathless in the middle. Chest on fire, you let yourself look past him to where she stands.

Her gaze is hard as she stares Joel down from across the room. A slip of blue; soft material visible between her fingers, held up for a stunned chorus to see.

Your hearing deafens a little as you look on, motionless, a vague memory of birthday boy and got your cute little panties all soaked thinkin’ ‘bout my cock? playing in your mind. Of a damp patch on his shirt as he tucked blue into his desk drawer.

Joel says Rachel’s name, you think. Can see the way his jaw moves, the way her dark eyes sharpen, flitting back and forth between the two of you. And then, like a volcanic eruption or the swell beneath a wave, realisation crests the hill and It’s fine cracks and crumbles and turns to dust in your grasp. You don’t know what she knows, or how she knows, you just know that she does.

“You… what is this?” Rachel’s face shifts into something uncomfortable. A warped, grotesque shot at a smile. But as her lips curl upward, eyebrows down, it’s nothing but a contorted mess that blurs endlessly between confusion, surprise, and then horror. “This… her? She’s the reason you—”

“Rachel.” Joel’s entire body is wound tight. You can see the edge of his jaw from where you sit; the way his shoulders pull back, tight he watches her.

Your body seems to hold itself together for a moment. Breath caught on an inhale, lungs expanded, eyes frozen on the hard line of his nose, the arm of his glasses—places you feel safe to hover. But then she speaks again, and everything lurches back into focus. Like a needle scratching on a record, or tires squealing as a car pulls to an abrupt stop at a red—the words make you cringe, chest deflating and face crumpling.

“Jesus Christ, Joel,” she’s saying, and her voice raises, louder to match the disbelief in her tone. “You… she’s a fucking student.”

When the fear hits it doesn’t come slowly. It strikes hard and solid; an icy sheet of dread that sucks at your fingers and numbs your extremities. Cool and abrupt, it sinks to your bones and promises that you’ll never again feel anything but this. It laughs in the face of your warm kind month, pressing its chilled ice picks to the back of your eyes until they burn.

Her words hang heavy in the air, thick weights that press down on three sets of shoulders, and you have never wanted anything the way you want to see Joel’s face right now. To look at him and believe that this isn’t as bad as you know it to be. See that mouth tell you it’s fine and remember how it tastes.

Instead, a fear-stricken Orpheus, you will yourself not to look at him. Despite that longing, the way your arms beg to stretch out, to hold and be held, you do not look. No, you don’t think you could suffer the double death of both knowing this is happening and seeing him know it too.

In his place, you let your eyes turn to Rachel, and find that she already stares at you, small mouth cracked ajar in incredulity.

Mind whirring, racing, stumbling; fumbling to pin back together the pieces of who you once were in her eyes and who you are now. This woman you admire so, whose career path you’ve dreamt of, whose wit and quirk has propelled you, invigorated you.

It’s agonising to watch—the way her face morphs into something so unfamiliar as she looks at you now. An expression that once held only admiration, kindness, marred here by an inexplicable sense of pity. Not hate, or contempt, which perhaps would be easier to handle. Easier than the way those dark orbs go round and solemn with worry as they fall upon your anguished frame. It’s a slap in the face; camaraderie washed down the drain like the dregs of a long overdue bath, as she grips your soiled underwear in her fist.

Joel says her name, you’ve lost count of how many times he’s said it now, and she spurns his attempt at placation like a snake. Fast and deadly, venom dribbling from her tongue. 

“Someone else?” she says, and her voice is like never before. Mirthless and cold, fury laced through every word. With a sharp jerk of her elbow, she tosses the underwear across the room. They land against Joel’s chest, caught silently in his fist. “You’re fucking sick.”

“This isn’t what you think it is—” Joel starts, and you think you hear his voice shake.

“It isn’t?” She laughs cruelly at that. “You haven’t been sleeping with one of our students?”

The cursor blinks on your screen. Nostos, nostos, nostos, nostos.

“Listen, can we talk about this somewhere else?” he asks. “Not like this, I—”

“Oh, is this not a convenient time for you?” she scowls. “Jesus Christ.”   

The urge to speak bubbles in your chest. You don’t even know what you’re going to say until the words are spilling from your lips, disjointed and warbled, a voice that doesn’t even sound like your own.

“I pursued him,” you say.

You can feel them looking at you. Can hear the way you must sound to her, like some kid and not a woman who’s almost thirty years old and just as much to blame. But you can’t stop it.  

“We’re both adults. He never made me do anything I didn’t—”

Joel says your name sharply. His fist, in the periphery of your downturned gaze, grips your balled up underwear so tight that the blue is entirely invisible within the thick masts of his fingers.

You suck in a breath, and it feels like the last bit of air in the room disappears into your lungs, so you hold it there. Keep it safe inside and figure that if all three of you were to suffocate then at least the truth, and all the foul consequences that come with it, would die here with you.

“Can you give us a minute?”

Silence falls in the lull after those words, and it takes a moment for you to look up, finally. To realise that the double death wasn’t in looking at Joel, but in understanding that he’d spoken these words to you, not her.

Eyes locked with his, you feel the fear move to your side. Hang low until it ebbs and flows in the space beneath your ribs—a sharp ache with no end in sight. He looks tired; resigned. Mouth thin and downturned, cheeks splashed with red.

You think you must say something. Some fumbling, awkward acknowledgement, because Rachel is giving you that look again and you can’t bear it. Can’t stand those eyes, that misplaced pity.

You collect your things, hands numb as you pile them into your bag and head for the door, skin prickling in defence against the silence that follows your movements.

Outside his office, alone in the long corridor, you know you should go. Should follow the wall down the stairs, out to your car, and not look back. Can you give us a minute? But that sharp ache leaves you cowering against the wall, limbs heavy, ear to his door. 

“Rach,” Joel says softly, and it’s so familiar that your stomach rolls, lids fluttering closed. “It isn’t what you think, just let me explain, alright? We met before the term began; before she was my student. Before.”

“And then?”

“What?”

“I said, and then?” Rachel’s voice is steely. “You met her before and, what, you saw her in class and decided it was fine to let it continue? You—”

“Everything was consensual. You know me, I would never—”

“It’s not as simple as that, and you know it. Did you not think about what would happen if you were found out? Her credibility will be destroyed, Joel.”

“I know—”

“I mean for fucksake, her first major presentation was given at a conference where you were the keynote speaker. How do you think this will look?”

“Fuck, I know. Can you keep your voice down, please.”

There’s a brief silence. You hear shuffling, feet against carpet, and a dull spike of fear flares in the back of your mind. The idea of getting caught a second time, eavesdropping from outside the door. Against better judgement, you don’t move, and Rachel speaks again.

“You’re wrong,” she says. “I don’t know you. I… you aren’t the man I thought you were.”

You don’t hear Joel’s response over the drumming in your ears. Hot blood thrashes and roars inside your body, veins pounding with terror. Hands shake damp and weary at your sides, thinking hard, hard, grasping for solution, for the chance to say I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, this is my fault.

But he must have said something because then you hear it. A low fragment of a human voice, words spoken clear as day. They slice through your ears and have you peeling away from the door, swallowed by a white-hot longing to disappear as you stumble down the hall, the stairs, until you’re sucking in cold air on the pavement outside.  

It’s raining hard now. Thin spray that comes at you sideways, lashing at your face and blinding you. You curl your back to the downpour and search thoughtlessly for your car, hands outstretched, those words of hers ricocheting off the inside of your skull.

When you find it, you press your key into the door and slump inside, and you still can’t avoid it. She might as well be standing right by the door, peering in at you. Shock in the jut of her brow, disappointment in the slant of her mouth as she whispers those words over and over through the crack in your window.

"I don’t care if you love her, Joel. I have to report you.”

refs:

joni mitchell's 1971 Blue album. [life changer]

the hollow men by t. s. elliot [fat juicy banger of a poem]

orpheus and eurydice from metamorphoses by ovid, tr. by a. d. melville

thank you for reading x