#he can be anywhere and be anyone and he just....isn't

[nonbinary-potatoes]

Prompt: Amortentia 08/11/12 @rosekillermicrofic

Word count: 666

Potions class was a drag. It was too early on a Monday morning to be labouring around the potions lab and following complex instructions to make a ridiculous potion and its antidote.

Evan was working with Barty, like usual - they always worked together in any pair activity. They'd just become even more insufferable since staring N.E.W.T.S, and since getting together but that was besides the point. Slughorn lumbered into the room and charmed his chalk to begin scribbling on the blackboard while he babbled nonsense about spare copies of the textbook being on the shelf at the back.

"Today we are working on potion antidotes, the first half of the lesson is theory and then you'll get the chance to brew the antidote for amortentia and test it on mice" Slughorn droned on, opening his own copy of the text book and writing notes for the class to copy and simply going on and on about ingredients and measurements.

Barty, who was sat on the stool beside Evan, had also seemed to have had enough of the monotone drone that was escaping Slughorn - he'd written over a foot of parchment on antidotes already and slid it over for Evan to copy while he attempted to initiate a game of footsies. Evan was shorthanding the notes, making bullet points and the occasional badly scrawled diagram while Barty tapped his foot against his ankle. Evan kicked him in the shin.

After an eternity of theory, Slughorn pottered off into his personal storeroom and returned with a large silver cauldron filled with a pearlescent white liquid. Barty leaned over and whispered, "It kinda looks like spunk," giggling away to himself, Evan suppressed his laughter badly before muttering back.

"Its his proof that he isn't getting down with Minnie"

Evan snickered a bit more while Slughorn directed the class to gather around the potion, groaning about being forced to walk to the front of the class Evan reluctantly walked the few paces there with Barty at his heels. The closer he got the potion, the more he noticed the way the steam spiralled away from it and left a potent smell in the air.

"Can anyone here tell me what this potion is?" Slughorn droned, and of course, Barty rose his hand. "Mr Crouch" Slughorn visibly deflated slightly - not many teachers appreciated that Barty didn't even seem to need their guidance to get all Os in his classes.

"Its amortentia, characters by its pearly white colour, spiralling steam and multi faceted scent which changes based on the individuals preferences" Barty answered, a small grin on his lips as Slughorn awarded him house points for his knowledge. It only took Slughorn looking away for a few moments to check his class notes for Barty to slip some of the potion into a vial he had in his pocket - Evan didn't question the presence of the empty vial in his robes, he was used to Barty being weird.

Barty leaned close. "Smells like you," he whispered, winking and jabbing his tongue out playfully. Evan rolled his eyes and took a deeper breath of the air around him, taking in how it smelt. A few things he could pick up were distinctly Barty: green apple sweets, that dusty smell of books from the restricted section, and burnt sugar. But there was also the scent of his sisters tangerine handcream that she nevwr went without, and Regulus when he'd just been swimming in the sea because he couldn't stop smiling when they were at the beach, apple crumble from the great hall because that was his favourite. Evan could've sworn he could even smell his dorm room - a place that always felt more like home than anywhere else.

The potion really did smell like love. Romantic, platonic, familiar, and even objective. It was almost beckoning Evan to stick his head in the cauldron and drink the lot, just to feel that warmth and joy fill his lungs and seep into his veins.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey, just today I've decided to stop seeing my parents and siblings for an indeterminate amount of time, and to possibly even break off all contact if it has to come to that. They refuse to acknowledge me as the person i really am and I can't keep sacrificing my mental health and me up for that. Will you please pray for me? And if it's not too much to ask, do you perhaps have a bible passage to strengthen me during this time? I still want to stay close to God, because I know the way God created me was correct and good. Thank you

~Micha (they/them)

Hi Micha,

What a difficult, courageous thing you've done. I will absolutely hold you in my prayers; I pray you will find relief in having finally made the hard decision, and continue to live into flourishing.

The Bible story that comes to my mind is a strange one, only told by Mark (3:20-35):

Very early in Jesus's ministry, as he gathers followers and gains attention, his family is apparently very concerned.

Perhaps they know this path puts him in danger; or maybe they just worry about his "lifestyle" reflecting badly on them. Either way, they know they have to "take control of him;" after all, he's clearly "out of his mind" (v. 21).

So his mother and siblings hurry to a house where Jesus is teaching, but it's packed so full they can't get inside. So they send a messenger in and also call for him from outside (vv. 31-32). I can just imagine their calls: "Please honey, this isn't like you! Who influenced you to go this way?" "You're the man of the house, you can't just abandon us to hang out with queer friends and say edgy things!" "What will the neighbors say?"

But when Jesus is told his family is out there calling to him, he answers, “Who is my mother? Who are my siblings?” Looking around at those seated around him in a circle, he said, “Look, here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is my brother, sister, and mother.”

We know Jesus's love for his mother. I am sure he loved his whole family with the infinite depth of God. Yet he risks losing them, says hard words he know will probably hurt, because if they make him choose between them and living out God's will, he has to choose God's will.

We don't know whether he ever reconciled with his siblings; they don't appear anywhere else in the Gospels. Maybe this was their last encounter, not even face-to-face. Maybe his brothers could not abide his abnormal lifestyle and chose to cut him out of their lives.

But we do know Jesus reconciles with Mary, the mother who proclaimed divine revolution as a newly pregnant teen (Luke 1:46-55) — yet who seems to waver now, either out of fear for her son or failing to understand that what he's doing now is the revolution.

But I like to imagine when Mary hears what Jesus says about family, the implication that she is only mother to him if she continues to help him in living God's will, she immediately corrects course. She will keep supporting him, even when she doesn't fully understand.

Sure enough, Mary supports him all the way to the cross, all the way to the grave. They are present for each other, comforting each other through the worst moment of both their lives.

[Jesus even fuses his biological family and his found family together from the cross. Now that he will no longer be the "man" in Mary's life who offers her legal and social protection; and now that he won't be there to love on his Beloved, he offers John to Mary, Mary to John. "Woman, here is your son. John, here is your mother!" (John 19:25-27)

Is that queer or what?? As his final act on this side of the tomb, Jesus essentially makes his mother and lover mother-in-law and son-in-law! ...I can't not think of the AIDS crisis, where dying partners would pass their beloved's care over to surviving loved ones.]

___

Jesus always prioritized chosen family over biological family. A biological relative can be part of your chosen family, but belonging to that family is no more automatic for them than for anyone else.

Jesus shows us that when family fails to support us in doing God's will — in this case, taking up the invitation to co-create yourself with God, to commit your own small rebellion against the status quo, to prophecy resurrection as embracing your queerness brings you to new life — they cease to be family in the way that matters most.

That rupture can be mended at any point, if and when those who did harm seek to make amends — and receive consent to do so. Whether or not reconciliation ever takes place, we seek out others who will celebrate us and support us in our efforts to glorify God with our lives.

___

God of love, Hold Micha close in this time of loss and and changed relationships. Comfort them in the knowledge that this rupture is no fault of theirs, but caused by parents and siblings refusing to embrace all they are, and failing imagine a fuller Kin(g)dom, a vaster love, a more colorful Image of God.

Spirit of courage and wisdom, guide Micah towards those who will delight in all that they are. Help them build a family founded on love, equity, and mutual support. Wherever their journey takes them, make your unconditional love, your unwavering presence known to them.

Amen.

[cuttyclowngirl]

Daima EP.5 Spoiler Review/theories

• While Panzy's eye color means nothing in regards to her lineage, she does come from an important lineage as some of us suspected. Panzy, princess of machine otakus. Glorio not immediately recognizing her by name or appearance likely implies either 3rd world demons aren't interested in the royal family in general or Panzy's very existence is somewhat restricted to those who live/work at her castle. Could it be that she never actually received a collar as a result of that? Is that why she wears the scarf?

• Glorio very clearly doesn't want anyone outside of Goku's circle to join in regardless of any help they can offer. (Not part of Dr Arinsu's plan?) No choice now. Panzy's a helpful mechanic.

• Glorio did in fact speak to King Kadan, who did not in fact request that Glorio seek out those who defeated Majin Buu; implying that Glorio "snuck" into King Gohma's castle & gathered intel on Goku & crew in episode 1 before being "sent out" by King Kadan. Even a 3rd world demon who does "work" in the 1st world shouldn't be able to get anywhere near the castle of THE SUPREME KING of the DEMON REALM. He was let in. Dr Arinsu popped up unannounced in episode 1 & Glorio just happened to be spying behind a pillar? Nah.

• The 3rd demon world being the biggest, (yet worst off) world in the entire realm might just maybe imply worlds 1&2 have slightly lower gravity, but probably not.

• King Kadan is a man of seemingly righteous anger (Glorio describes him as an uncivilized Mafia boss) who wants to get rid of King Gohma & somehow assume the throne of Supreme King. For "peace". Is that actually possible? Was he perhaps promised that position by a manipulator in the shadows? (Dr Arinsu?) Panzy said her father "only steals from criminals & only kills bad people", which is usually a set up for a heartbreaking reveal that'll leave Panzy in tears. Or it could be nothing.

• Apparently those awful collars even function as tracking devices.

• They even have onigiri in the Demon Realm. Cute. Implies demon rice fields & unique demon ocean seaweed.

• Panzy has a knife she hasn't used yet. Judging from all that courtyard soldier training going on at her castle, she probably picked up a few moves from watching & learning.

• It was nice hearing Goku introduce himself with both his names. His interactions with Panzy are cute so far, as I'd hoped. Panzy herself is charmingly stubborn, insisting on getting her way without throwing tantrums/ throwing a fit.

• In the 3rd world at least, the inhabitants live up to a thousand years. This likely doesn't apply to the Glinds who live for a VERY long time.

• Every Majin (demon) can use at least one magic spell. So could magical enhancement explain Glorio's strength?

• Goku can canonically touch his nose with his tongue.

• Panzy implied that there are next to no Glinds in the Demon Realm due to the vast majority leaving ages ago, as many of us suspected. Though based on the passive aggressive conversation Shin had with Glorio episode 3, there might be a handful of Glinds somewhere in 2nd world.

• So the stick with blue cloth tied to it from the OP isn't a grave marker, but a path marker. Based on the sound of the wind (in the scene in this episode) & the direction the cloth was blowing, you're supposed to take the path the cloth points to. (In the OP the cloth is blowing to the right, then the camera pans to the right, where Goku & crew are seen traveling)

• Panzy confirms that Dabura was still a bad guy prior to the events of the Buu saga, so thankfully he hasn't been retconed as a good guy King. (Wouldn't make sense)

• Dende's caretaker (nanny?) is cute. Hope she gets a name. Much smarter of King Gohma planing on raising Dende so he can have his own personal set of dragon balls & probably get rid of Neva. (So it was probably Degesu's idea)

• I want to know what those demon onions have seen...

• The Tamagamis have never been defeated. Their poor win streak's about to be demolished.

• Smart of Shin (Supreme Kai) to bring up the pin number issue with King Kadan, who introduced us to a demon (of currently unspecified gender) named "Hybis" (Hibiscus flower?) who loves ballet & will head out to pick up/help Vegeta & crew. Hybis also shows off a device that's visually similar to the dragon radar, but also Babidi's energy reading device we saw Spopovich using when Gohan went SSJ2 at the tournament in the Buu saga. Just cooler. (Panzy is also seen holding a similar device in the ED) I swear, if the eyeball on Hybis' belt turns out to be the Tertian Oculus...

• Shin straight up drops "universe 7" in front of Goku, who doesn't register it & that's hilarious. Shin also finally shared his suspicions of Glorio with Goku, bringing up things we've been bringing up & such. Goku was Goku about it.

• I wasn't ready for the children's book art style bit when King Kadan ordered 3 men to steal a plane for Hybis from the "Nemophy Gang".

• Man, someone must've put a plane curse on Glorio, cuz bro has ZERO luck in that department. A 4 day trip & it breaks down in 2 minutes. (Guess Kai-Kai isn't an option)

• Hope we return to Kadan castle from time to time to introduce us to a few of those background characters like cool, pretty, buff red head with the silly ah chest plate.

• Wonder if Glorio actually has any of that liquor King Kadan offered to provide.

• Cute detail of Goku carrying luggage with his nyoibo.

• I super hope that axolotl tailed stuffed animal Panzy brought along will actually be sold IRL. I want.

[shiroi---kumo]

⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ Everything in this place is upside-fuckin'-down and he hates it. Fuery is trying to show him around the place with Pinkie as their guide. They got brought to another strange man he could call lollipop mk. 2 if he wanted to because even though they have described him as the word 'orange' he sure isn't what he would fuckin' call that color.

"Valo - Aamunkoitto - "

All heads turn at the new voice as there is a man of bright green hair as tall as a tree and if he remembers right he was the silent guy with tall dark and broody.

"Hey Tree Guy." The teenager injects before anyone else can answer. "Where the fuck is yer friend n' didja ev'r find sugar cube like ya said ya would?"

He watches as pink eyes lock in on him and stare for a moment. He's quiet and the teenager finds himself crossing his arms over his chest as he waits for an answer.

"Sugar Cube?" He can only say as he tilts his head in question. "I'm afraid I don't follow. Anyway I came to tell Valo and Aamunkoitto that not only did we bring the bring back safely... but Sinfonia had him."

He doesn't have a chance to explain what he means because apparently no one knows fuckin' names in this joint before the lollipop duo are near leaned over themselves at the other name that got mixed into that mess.

"Sinfonia?!"

"He's alive?!"

Tree guy is nodding and he doesn't know why this sin-phony-whatever wouldn't be. There is something here he's missing. Maybe he's important to them and they would understand why it was so imperative that he found Al some time fuckin' soon hopefully.

"Joo. He's alive. He's with Sielu right now, and His Highness is resting. The doctor put one of those sugar lines in Sinfonia's arm for the time being because he's very sour. Very very sour."

"Thank Tiamat they're finally together. He needed this."

"Maybe Sielu will finally start feeling a little better. He must be so relieved to have his bond."

⋯✧・♪♫♪・✧⋯ It's nice to hear that Valo and Aamunkoitto are here and together no less. Being without your bond is hell and it's not a hell he ever plans on experiencing ever again. Sielu is clung to him so thoroughly he almost wonders if the man is trying to push himself inside of him so their spirits can truly become one. What color would they be then?

Green probably with the yellow dominance of his orange and that would be fine with him. That would be more than fine. Then he would have the toxins required to keep away anyone in this world that dare threaten the being his heart beats for. He doesn't care if Sielu crawls right into his chest. His breath is his anyway. He's always belonged to him and that has never changed - even now - even after all these years.

But the sound of his love's voice is breaking his heart. He can hear the break in it. The fear. The uncertainty. The loneliness.

Just what did that bitch do to him? He'll tear her throat out for it the next he see her.

He can hear all of it in Sielu's voice as he begs him not to leave. Not to go anywhere. To stay right here with him and he can't think of a place he'd rather be. Sielu swears he'll do whatever he needs to "get him better" and how he'll take care of him now. So all he can do is stroke his hand gently through blue locks as he holds the smaller man as close as he can with this thing stuck in his arm and they were right - he wants to tear it out.

He wants to tear it right out because Aqua comes before whatever it is. Is it really sugar? He supposes he'll have to find out. It certainly feels like it is.

"En lähde minnekään, rakkauslaulu. Lupaan. Olen täällä ja olen sinun aivan kuten olen aina ollut."

( I'm not going anywhere, Love Song. I promise. I'm here and I'm yours just like I always have been.)

"Joten itke kaikki mitä tarvitset. Ei hätää. En jätä sinua enää koskaan. Olen pahoillani."

(So cry all you need to. It's okay. I will never leave you again. I'm sorry.)

Sitriini wants to know if he's angry with him for being late.

But it's better late than never, isn't it? He thinks so. It has him near frantically shaking his head, shoving his face into the man's side just so he can be as close as possible. It still doesn't feel close enough. It never will unless they mix their Mist, but this will have to do for now.

"Ei, ei," he squeaks. "I could never be mad at you. Not - not for this. I'm just glad you're here again. Just don't go. I'll take care of you and get you better. Whatever you need. I promise."

Pale hands twist into tattered fabric. He can't breathe in enough of the smell, yet still the floral undertone remains and he can't say he wants his bond to be covered in it - but he also can't tell whether it's real.

Maybe Revon will have an answer when he returns. It will make more sense when he can ask, even if the answer scares him. If Herba had her hands on his bond for any length of time, he doesn't know what he'll do.

He doesn't know if he'll be able to fix that kind of damage. He certainly hasn't fixed it in himself, regardless of how hard he's been trying. Maybe he needs to think about something else.

"Valo is- here. Valo. Remember, we looked for him? And Aamunkoitto and Revon. They are here. With Pilvi's human and Cid. The doctor. They are nice. I like them. You will too, I think. I missed you. Please don't leave."

[swan2swan]

It's late at night and I just feel like saying it...

Voldemort was an underwhelming villain

[criscura]

I want to get to the good part of this blastvoid thing I'm writing but i do NOT want to write the part before it and I'm procrastinating so fucking hard

Like i know what i want and it'll be satisfying but it's like the reverse of eating beef jerky, where this is the tough gross part you just need to swallow before getting to the fucking SPPIUCCE

[fractiflos]

Yoichi would definitely have the other users do a group costume for Halloween.

There's only so many group costumes for 9 people though, so they did a Wizard of Oz theme:

Yoichi is Glinda the Good Witch. He enjoys bopping people with the wand.

Second said he didn't care, so Yoichi made him dress up as the Wicked Witch of the West. Look who cares now. Too late. He refused to put on the makeup, but the others tried anyway, so he just has random streaks of green paint on his face.

Third saw what happened to Second and chose to be the Wizard of Oz, since it didn't look to bad. It is also a multi-layered joke that not even he fully gets.

Hikage is the Cowardly Lion. Banjo forced the costume on him, but it was actually really comfortable and he uses it to sleep.

Banjo is the Tin Man. No reason for it, he just thought the costume looked cool.

En was voted to be Toto since he's the shortest. He then went feral and bit Banjo for laughing, further convincing everyone they made the right choice.

Nana is a flying monkey. Everyone was surprised she picked it and was prepared to laugh at her, but she pulled it off really well. She also kept grabbing people and floating them up, then dropping them (not high enough to hurt).

Toshinori is the scarecrow. I think we all know why. Don't worry, he had a lot of fun, and as a bonus, no one recognized him. No one was scared of his face either since they assumed it was part of the costume, so he enjoyed being able to make children smile instead of flinch away in fear.

And finally, Izuku is Dorothy. Yoichi had him do it because he's clearly MC material. "Just ignore him," says Second. That, and he already has the red shoes.

[rockafirevevo]

has anyone noticed the world is getting so much smaller lately

[good-to-drive]

If I was crazy rich I would pay the cast and writers of Santa Clarita Diet an unacceptable amount of money to make a 2 hour movie finishing the show, and then pay Tom Holland and Paul King an unacceptable amount of money to not make a movie about Fred Astaire.

[il-predestinato]

.

[sunderwight]

Headcanon that Shen Yuan was hotter than Shen Qingqiu, actually.

Like yeah SQQ being a cultivator gave him a boost to enough attributes + being in a stallion novel where everyone is either unrealistic hot or dog's butt ugly got the Shen Qingqiu body extra points, and he wasn't bad looking to begin with. Plus not being ill is vastly more important to the new Shen Qingqiu than those extra hotness points (Without a Cure notwithstanding). But part of the reason why he's kind of like, meh, at least I'm not hideous or anything, is because Shen Yuan's original body was a knock out.

I also like him as chronically ill, and, as many people know, beauty standards and sustained suffering are not as incompatible as they should be. Shen Yuan was conventionally attractive in part because conventional beauty standards seem to want everyone slowly dying all the time. But even setting that aside, the man had flawless bone structure, an appealing figure, captivating eyes, and the kind of voice that stopped people in their tracks.

All of which was a contributing factor to his antisocial lifestyle, actually. Despite the fact that Shen Yuan does enjoy company and requires a certain baseline of social enrichment for his enclosure, his internalized homophobia and closeting did not play well with overtures from interested parties (regardless of gender). The only way to minimize the odds of him being asked out on dates was to essentially become a shut-in, especially since even Shen Yuan can only make so many excuses before he himself starts to notice that he's going to a lot of effort to avoid specifically that avenue of socialization. Far better to just remove himself from any risk of it, and then vocally lament that oh no he's just too much of a nerd to get anywhere with women!

Anyway this largely doesn't matter much outside of sheer comedy potential for any situation where SY gets his old body/life back. Like imagine a reveal scenario where the System is going to transport them back to their old lives.

Shang Qinghua: well bro I guess this is gonna be the ultimate test of love, right?

Shen Yuan: what do you mean?

Shang Qinghua: our husbands are gonna see what we looked like back before we were glorious cultivators! they're going to have to track us down in our mundane, kinda shitty pre-transmigration lives! it's gonna be at least a little embarrassing, right?

Shen Yuan: *gets his old body back*

Shang Qinghua, normal human with average looks: ...

Shen Yuan, exemplary 11/10: ?

Shang Qinghua: what. the fuck?? bro what the fuck why are you hot???

Shen Yuan: don't make it weird

Shang Qinghua: make it weird??? why were you sitting at home reading my shitty novel when you could have been out there building your own harem???

Shen Yuan: stop exaggerating

Shang Qinghua: oh my god you've always been like this. this is it, isn't it? it wasn't even brain damage from the transmigration or something--

Shen Yuan: hey

Shang Qinghua: --you've just always been completely unaware, haven't you? every time I wrote a beautiful woman who didn't know her own appeal you'd be jumping down my throat--

Shen Yuan: because that's a stupid trope--!

Shang Qinghua: --JUMPING DOWN MY THROAT EXACTLY LIKE THAT but this whole time THIS WHOLE TIME it wasn't even a glow-up issue, you've just been that, personified, yourself--

Shen Yuan: look I know I'm not ugly but I'm not I'm hardly that good-looking

Shang Qinghua: YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE THAT TROPE AGAIN! oh my god. how many broken hearts did you leave behind when you died?!

Shen Yuan: none, I wasn't even seeing anyone--

Shang Qinghua: yeah full offense but I am nottt taking your word for that. I bet you had a harem you didn't know about in this lifetime too. I bet you had a fan club, like an anime prince

Shen Yuan: *mumbling*

Shang Qinghua: what was that?

Shen Yuan: I said... only in high school...

Shang Qinghua: oh my god

Shen Yuan: it wasn't a big deal!

Shang Qinghua: *frantically trying to see if he can find any trace of it on the internet now*

[colourmornings]

Quick note on Charles's speech for fic writers or anyone interested, really.

Charles uses tag questions, where he ends a sentence with a question, doesn't he? I see a lot of "innit" thrown at the end of sentences, which is right, sometimes.

There is unfortunately grammar. First off, if the main verb is negative, the tag will be positive, and vice versa.

When the main verbs in the sentence is a form of "be" or a modal verb (must, could, would, have, will, can, do etc), he's going to repeat that same form at the end of the sentence. An exception to this is a positive main verb of "I am" in which case the tag will be "aren't I?"

"[You're] Not going back to hell, are you?"

"I wouldn't wanna be dead with anyone else, would I?"

"No, we're not going anywhere, are we?"

"Well, I can't see where you're pointing to, can I?"

"We don't want a repeat of the infamous puppy debacle of '94, do we?"

He uses "innit" a lot less than people think, I think. It took me a while to find examples of him saying this, I ended up having to search a transcript. It follows the same rules as above, except the subject is always a thing, or the pronoun "it," and the main sentence is positive, so that the tag can be the negative "innit" (isn't it). *Edit* "innit" is not used as a question! It's mainly used to reinforce a talking point! (Thank you @elizabear). While the other tags are like rhetorical questions, this one is flat tonally and can end with a period, too.

"Boxing's a gentleman's sport, innit?"

"Magical void, innit?"

"That's the injustice we fight, innit?"

When the verb is not one of those above" he uses a form of "do."

"Well, that sounds a lot like you, doesn't it?"

"Wanna keep things professional, don't I?"

Charles also ends a lot of sentences with just the word "yeah."

"Psychic thing makes case work go a lot faster, yeah?"

I am usamerican, but I have a masters in Linguistics. People who actually use tag questions, though, please add on or correct me!

[hawnks]

You're jealous. It makes you lash out, makes you meet Keigo with claws and teeth and cruel, irrational accusations.

You pack a bag after your last big blow up, shame dogging your every move. A week. Maybe a little more. However long it takes you to stop feeling like a monster, to rein in these dark impulses that have taken hold of you.

He stops you at the door with a firm grip around your arm. Looming over you, leaning down until he's in your space.

"Why?"

How can you even respond. Why? Isn't he angry with you? Doesn't he see how unreasonable you're being?

You tell him the truth. "I'm embarrassed, Keigo."

His hold on you tightens. "So you're running away?"

"I'm not--" You let out a long breath. "I just need to calm down. Get a hold of myself."

"You can do that here. At home."

You tug. He doesn't release you.

"I don't want you to see me like this."

His expression turns stormy.

"You want to keep secrets from me?" You can't even question this before he's continuing, eyes amber bright and sharp as he pulls you further into his space. "You don't want me to see you what --jealous? Don't I have a right to know? Don't I deserve to be with you for this? We're lovers, and you still want to hide pieces of yourself from me?"

Trembling, you let yourself be drawn back into the penthouse. You couldn't fight him even if you tried.

He sets you on the bed, so he can push you down, curl up on top of you, all around you. Caging you in.

"There," he says. "You're not going anywhere. Would it help if I told you about all the times I wanted to kill anyone who touches you? How about how I want to lock you up, forever and ever? I can show you the collar I picked out, if that would make you feel better." He leans up so he can nibble your ear, whisper, "Or you could put it on me, if you want."

[ceilidho]

hound dog

prompt: You pick up Ghost from a bar for a one night stand. Too bad Ghost isn't interested in a casual hook up. (nsfw, 6.7k) [based on this old post] [on ao3 here]

-

Rare is the day when a stupid girl doesn’t do stupid things.

This is just one of many such occurrences. Stepping into the dimly lit dive bar—the one miles from your place, reeking of tobacco and leather and motor oil, the noxious perfume of week old sweat and weed stinking up the joint, pardon the pun—with too much eyeliner and mascara on, and a skirt too short for you—and would you just stop fiddling with it? But you can’t because that would mean admitting that it barely fits over your ass, that putting on a skirt so short was a choice, an invite, a teasing little taunt to the men in the bar saying, what are you waiting for? I’m asking for it, aren’t I—

What’s that saying again?

Ah, yes. Choices made in anger cannot be undone.

It’s why you’re planted at the bat some six weeks after being dumped, two weeks after being ghosted for the third time in a row, a smile on your face despite your crumbling self-esteem. Pride hanging in tatters. Grimacing when you find the bartop sticky with congealed liquor, the residue sticking to your skin when you quickly lift your elbows off. But there’s a time for self-pity and a time for getting it the fuck togther. This just happens to be one of the latter times.

“What’m I gettin’ you?” the bartender in front of you asks, barely impressed with your get-up. Not even attempting to conceal his distaste when he eyes you up and down, lingering on the way your tits are practically spilling out of your top. 

“Do you have any cocktails?” you ask. Wrong question. The eye roll isn’t even suppressed for your benefit when he makes it clear to you, in no uncertain terms, that it’s whatever he can pour straight from a bottle or the fancy bar for cityfolk down the road. He says it like that, the word practically sneered out. Cityfolk. 

Nerves shaken, you sip at your red wine after he leaves you to your own devices, your glass poured straight from the box. It could function passably as lighter fluid if the circumstances called for it. Still, you swallow it with a positive attitude, emboldened by the knowledge that you’re here for one thing and one thing only:

to get fucked within an inch of your life by one of the greasy-haired, cut-wearing, cigarette-smoking men lining the bar. 

Even the thought sends a thrill down your spine. 

It’s an age old question, isn’t it? What’s a girl to do (when her love life’s falling apart / when her credit score just bottomed out because her ex-boyfriend ran up her credit cards behind her back / when her job’s steadily becoming unbearable but quitting would mean scrambling to find a job that’ll pay anywhere near to what this one’s paying her) to get a drink around here? 

Evidently, the answer isn’t to use a dating app; you can say that confidently after waiting around in fancier bars than this for several no-show dates. 

You’re feeling appropriately over the whole thing. Ready to call it quits. Uninstall all of the apps on your phone and hire a matchmaker or ask a friend to set you up with a coworker of theirs. But that’ll be later, down the line when you aren’t dealing with the issue at hand.

The issue being that—

you’re really fucking horny. 

Embarrassingly so. Enough that you were willing to travel miles away from home to avoid accidentally hooking up with anyone you might run into later on while out getting groceries or on a morning run. 

It’s just better to play things close to your chest. Keep your romantic life and your sexual exploits far apart (not that you’d know much about keeping things separate; you’ve never had much of a sex life to keep hidden) lest you get mired in a stickier situation than you’re comfortable being in. 

Despite the rough start, the bar you chose seems promising. There’s a man at the other side of the bar that keeps drawing your eye. It’s the hulking size of him at first, then the grime clinging to the folds of his skin, worn in from years of hard labor. He looks like a man fresh off a fourteen-hour shift or a fortnight spent on an oil rig in the middle of the Baltic sea, freshly washed ashore, kelp and barnacles still fused to his skin, not yet pried off. 

Rough is the only word you’d use to describe him. A face covered in nicks and old scars, his upper lip slightly puckered and scarred from cleft lip surgery. When he turns his head to say something to the bartender, you catch a glimpse of a cauliflower ear, the cartilage of his tragus and antihelix swollen and deformed. 

He’s exactly what you’ve been looking for. If you’d given it more thought, you think you could’ve conjured up an image of the man across the bar all by yourself. It’s like someone plucked him straight out of your head. Big and brawny, broad shoulders that you can imagine dangling your ankles off, and well-muscled arms that you can imagine digging your nails into. It would take both of your hands and extra to wrap around his bicep. The thought makes you shiver.

You try to catch his attention subtly. Looking over at him from under your lashes, quick, smoldering glances meant to draw his attention to you, so that he approaches you first. You keep waiting for the moment when he’ll notice your stare and hold your gaze, a question being asked and answered between your eyes before reeling him in with a coy little smile. 

But when a half hour goes by without a single glance your way, your hope begins to wane. 

He doesn’t look up no matter how many times you glance over at him. It’s frustrating; you know he feels the weight of your stare. His disregard is purposeful, deliberate; like he knows your attention is fixed on him but he can’t be bothered to so much as return your stare. You wonder if that means he’s got a lady at home, a little bird cooped up in his house that he’s more eager to get back to after he’s had a drink to take off the edge than flirt with some trussed up floozy at the bar.

That makes you squirm, self-consciousness rearing its ugly head again. Maybe you made a mistake coming here. 

It’s not as though you’re being completely ignored, it’s just that the caliber of men that have approached you so far haven’t really inspired much, carnally speaking. You’ve sent the few braver ones away, a half-hearted thanks but no thanks when they offer to buy you a drink. Most leave without a word, though a few mutter obscenities under their breath before shoving their hands in their pockets and stalking away. Bitch. Dumb cunt. 

Calling it a night feels like a natural next step. With the attitude you keep getting from the bartender and the way the only man you’re remotely attracted to refuses to so much as glance your way, it doesn’t feel right to stay out any longer. Embarrassment heats you like a low grade fever, warm in your belly. Wine sloshes around in your stomach when you slip off the stool, hunger now another pressing concern. 

You’ll ask him on your way back from the bathroom. If he turns you down after that, you’ll slink off into the night with your tail tucked between your legs. There’ll always be next weekend to try again. You promise yourself that because the alternative is acknowledging how defeated this entire experience has left you, no less disappointing than going on the same boring first date with a guy from Tinder. 

In the bathroom, you dab your face with water and stare at your reflection in the dirty mirror. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in years; finger smudges and white strains streaked across the glass. You wonder how many strangers have fucked in this bathroom over the years. The thought makes you grimace even more when you notice that the floor is slightly sticky, the ground sounding tacky beneath your shoes. 

When you come out, the man from across the bar is waiting by the door, so close that you flinch, eyes widening. The narrow hallway means that he’s barely three feet from you when you stand in the doorframe. 

“We leavin’ or what?” he growls, voice as deep as you thought it might be, gruff and husky. 

He’s just as imposing in front of you as he was from across the bar. Maybe more so. You’re forced to crane your neck to look up at him this close, lips parting on an inaudible exhale. There’s something about a brutish man that’s always taken your breath away; everything from the blunt chin to the pronounced brow. His face is flecked with pale, keloidal skin; rubbery nodules from old injuries. 

Dumbstruck, you can only nod, following behind him when he turns away from you, headed towards the parking lot out back where his truck is parked. 

You’re really doing this. You’re really doing this. That’s the only thought in your head when he unlocks his truck and pops the door open for you, waiting until you’re buckled in before slamming the door shut. 

He’s quiet on the car ride back to his place, unconcerned with getting to know you or defusing the tension in the truck. You can’t say you blame him. There’s a reason you chose a bar so far from home as a hunting ground. If you wanted to get to know someone, you would’ve met someone at a coffee shop. 

When you ask his name, he grunts it out like it’s an inconvenience. Simon. He doesn’t give you more than that, even when you awkwardly ask him what he does for work. Blatantly ignores your questions. The rebuff smarts for some reason, makes you frown and duck your chin to your chest, shoulders hunched.

His demeanor is so off-putting that halfway through the drive, you wonder if you misunderstood him somehow, if he means to drive you home instead of taking you back to his place (but that can’t be right, otherwise wouldn’t he have asked for your address?). It’s just hard to reconcile his churlish attitude towards you with his ostensible invitation to fuck. 

Maybe he doesn’t intend to fuck you at all. Maybe you managed to pick up the one serial killer in a twenty mile radius and stupidly followed him back to his truck without telling anyone who you planned to go home with. Your blood curdles at the thought, hackles raised when you imagine him sizing you up from across the bar, all prettied up and doe-eyed, easy prey. 

Your breathing picks up. “I, um…actually, c-could you…could you just drop me off at my place?”

Simon rolls his eyes so hard that it’s almost audible. “Not gonna kill ya, bird.” 

That doesn’t go a long way towards reassuring you, but you don’t dig your heels in and demand he take you home either. 

“Do you live nearby?” you ask, suddenly chatty. Why, oh why.

Simon looks over at you, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gear shift. He drives a manual, you notice. A few too many seconds go by in silence. You wish somebody would just staple your mouth shut already. 

“Yeah,” he says finally, turning back to watch the road, taking a left turn up ahead without using his signal. So it’s that kind of drive.

You keep your mouth shut for the rest of it lest he decide you’re too much of a hassle and turn back. You’re poised right on the edge of something new and exciting, and the thought of that slipping through your fingers makes you feel a bit crazy. So many men before have shown you that same snap dislike. Like you’re tolerable over text or as a dimensionless photo, but not as a flesh and blood person, the real mechanics of you all wrong. It’s an intolerable thought—that people can only like you when you smile and keep your mouth shut.

Still, you’ll do it now, for a price. 

Part of you expects him to pull you into his lap when he pulls into his driveway and puts the truck in park. It’s what you’ve seen in movies. The rest of the night plays out in your head in piecemeal flashes; ravenous passion, hands tearing clothes off each other’s bodies, a shoe left on the porch in your hurry to get inside. Hungry, devouring; slick mouths parting for barely long enough to breathe.

Then Simon cuts the engine and gets out of the truck without so much as a glance your way, like you aren’t even there.

He still comes around to open the door for you. You frown at him through the window, affronted. Baffled at his continued nonchalance. Like even keeping your mouth shut isn’t enough to keep a man’s interest. Where you expected passion and fervor, you’re met with cool indifference. 

Simon pops the door open. “Get out.”

The house itself is nothing special. A two-story cookie-cutter house built in the seventies; weathered, beige-coloured vinyl siding and a neatly trimmed lawn, with a few patches of overgrown grass and weeds. There’s a trailer parked in front of the closed garage, a few planks of wood strapped down in the bed. When you follow him up the walkway, you notice how quiet the neighborhood is, and for some reason that makes you even more jittery. 

You stop in the doorway, frustration breaking your timidity like snapping an ampoule. “Do you even want to—” fuck me, goes unsaid. Too humiliating to even ask. But you ask anyway, the question itself implicit even in so few words. 

Dark eyes stare down at you, impenetrable. You’re struck by the sense of something primordial slithering under his skin. His expression is hard, his face carved from granite; when his expression shifts, it’s like watching tectonic plates create mountains, plates pushed upward by mantle plumes.

He fits a big paw under your chin, fingers pressing into the fat of your cheeks hard enough to make your lips purse. Your heart skips a beat when he angles your head from side to side, looking you over like a pet he’s considering bringing home. You almost go cross-eyed when he bends down, his forehead nearly brushing yours, so close that you can smell the scent of cigarettes clinging to his clothes, see the grease smudged on his face and the folds around his eyes. 

A grin flickers across his lips, gone as it came. “Yeah. I do.”

And doesn’t that tie your stomach in a knot? Your nerves in a pretty bow? 

Inside, his house is just as unremarkable. You’d know in a single glance that a single man lived here; a functional, no-frills living space. Nothing more than a worn couch, a TV, and a few pieces of obvious hand-me-down furniture. It’s hard to glean anything from the minimal decoration around his place, but he doesn’t give you much of a chance to look around. That’s not the point of why you’re in his house. 

“Eat anything yet, bird?” Simon asks from the kitchen, opening the fridge without purpose. It looks like more of a reflex than anything, the first thing he does the second he gets home for the night and the last thing he does before going to bed. From the size of him, it makes sense; his body is muscle on muscle, covered by a healthy layer of fat, just a surface layer over the bulk beneath. 

You shake your head. “No.”

“Have a bite, then.”

“I’m not, uh, hungry though,” you deflect rather than saying the obvious, which is, I came to your house to have sex, not make sandwiches at the kitchen counter together. 

He shuts the fridge door, pinning you with his stare. “Your call. Could’ve used the energy though.”

You swallow. 

The first thing you do after he herds you into the bedroom is try to pull him into a kiss, cupping his cheeks and standing up on your tiptoes. Before your eyelids flutter shut, you catch a glimpse of a cocked brow. Then you press your lips to a slack mouth that doesn’t move no matter how much passion you infuse in your kiss and feel embarrassment flare up in your guts. 

Bastard. You should’ve expected that he wouldn’t kiss you back. 

“Sorry,” you mutter, breaking the facsimile of a kiss and dropping back down onto your heels. 

You flinch when he grabs you by the back of the neck and reels you back in, forcing you back onto your tiptoes, “Don��t be,” grunted against your mouth before fusing your lips together. A pathetic keen climbs up your throat, eyelids slipping shut. 

His greed leaks from him like tar, his kiss so messy and violent that you’re almost too jarred to do anything apart from hang on. Teeth clack against yours, a horrid sensation, the lust in your belly abating long enough for the real world to slink back in and you get flashes of it: hands winding around a thick neck, a scratchy cheek against your lip when he twists his head to angle your noses better, a tongue shoving into your mouth unceremoniously, no finesse at all. Straight to the main point. 

A shudder wracks you from head to toe when you try to break the kiss only to find the hand on your neck firm, holding you in place. The subtle reminder that he can do whatever he wants with you, that you willingly went home with a man big and strong enough to pin you down and fuck you however rough he wants. 

“Simon,” you whine, squirming against him, gasping a breath and his name again when he wrestles you back into the kiss. “No—Simon—”

“Stay fuckin’ still,” he snarls against your lips, and you freeze, knees going weak when his fingers dig into your jaw to hold you in place.

The endorphin rush nearly makes your vision white out. A sudden winter storm, the blood rushing to your cheeks and the tip of your nose, your breath coming out quick and choppy. Lungs barely filling up with each inhale. 

“Get this off,” Simon growls, tugging on your skirt when you don’t move fast enough. He doesn’t wait for you to catch up, content to wrench your skirt off himself instead, your panties along with it. 

It takes your breath away, how fast you go from clothed to partially nude. Trying to match his fervor is a losing game, so you just try to keep up. Your hands tug at his belt, desperately trying to undo it, and he chuckles when he notices; big hands paw at your ass while you shakily pop the buckle out of the first loop. 

He takes over after that, popping the button on his jeans one-handed. 

“Wanna handle the rest?” he prompts, an eyebrow jutting up, expectant. Lazy with his arrogance; oozing rugged masculinity. It’d infuriate you if it didn’t get you so hot. 

Your fingers are numb by the time you pull his jeans down, kneeling at his feet and gazing up at him with wide eyed devotion as he kicks off his boots and shakes the pants off his legs, nothing under his jeans. His pale white thighs are dusted in fine blond hairs, mottled with burns and scars and old, faded cigarette marks, like someone used his legs as an ashtray. The thought makes your throat close up.  

He shucks off his shirt while you stare at the shaft heavy with blood hanging between his legs, drooping with its own weight. Flushed red at the head and streaked with dark veins, leaking a steady drip of precum. The hair at the base of his dick is of a darker shade, gold like straw. 

Your stomach swoops at the sight, dropping to the pits of you. You swallow. Maybe you’ve bit off a little more than you can chew. A lot more.

As if sensing your unease, a wide hand is suddenly firm on the back of your head, urging you closer. “Gonna give it a kiss?”

It’s not a question. You know that and you know that you’re way out of your league; that if you panic now you’ll flounder. So instead of fighting it, you lean forward and press a shy kiss to the weeping head of his dick. 

You lick your lips instinctively when you draw back, lapping up the precum smeared across them. The taste makes you wrinkle your nose. It’s salty; bitter. Not altogether pleasant. 

Simon wraps a hand around his dick and holds it to your lips. “Open your mouth, bird. Get me nice ‘n wet.”

A shudder rolls through you, but there’s little else you can do except part your lips and squeeze your eyes shut. It’s a struggle to fit more than just the head in your mouth, his dick too wide to take more than that. Your eyes water at the stretch, the musky taste of his cum overwhelming. 

Any experience you’ve had before this pales in comparison. It’s like the first time all over again. His cock is heavy on your tongue, instantly making your eyes water. The grip he still has on the base of his cock tells you that he doesn’t expect you to swallow the whole length (an impossible task; you go cold with dread at even the thought), but Simon doesn’t hesitate to grip your head firmer when he feels you falter, forcing you to take as much as you can.

When you gag, he shushes you. “Keep at it—you’re fine.”

You wonder if he thinks by saying it, it makes it true. You’re very much not fine, struggling to breathe through your nose and suck him off without scraping his cock with your teeth.

Your exhale when he pulls you off his cock by your hair is full of both relief and trepidation. Your lips feel swollen and tender when you touch them with your fingers. 

“Can we please have sex now?” you ask, dazed enough to be bold. 

Simon cracks a smile at that, endeared somehow. “Gotta get up for that, bird.”

You have to brace your hands against his chest when you get to your feet, the blood that rushes to your head making you wobbly. Even on your feet, he’s so much taller than you, a behemoth. Men like him have always been your type, but Simon is really in a league of his own. 

Glancing up at him from under your lashes, you bite your lip. You’ve seen that in movies before, starlettes bringing men to their knees with just a look. Coquette; demure. It’s harder to replicate than you thought, but you’ve never rehearsed this before. This is a one-time, live performance. The culmination of everything you’ve ever read or watched or studied. 

You keep up the ruse of being sexy by crawling onto his bed on your hands and knees, dropping down onto your elbows once situated in the middle of the mattress. The debauchery of wiggling your ass back at the man who took you home from the bar would overwhelm you if you weren’t playing a part right now. Role playing. This isn’t who you usually are, but if it’s only for one night, you can force out the self-scrutiny and timidity. 

Silence hangs in the air like a bubble, waiting to be burst. You fight the urge to look over your shoulder at him. 

Then Simon exhales, breaking the silence. Goosebumps ripple down your arms. 

The mattress dips under his weight when he settles behind you, hands immediately sinking into the flesh of your ass and pulling your cheeks apart. No preamble. You open your mouth to say something, but thick, coarse fingers are already dipping between your thighs and playing with your hole, sinking a finger in up to the first knuckle. 

You breathe out shakily, shoulders tensing. The sheets reek of him, musky and ripe; you concentrate on that instead of the fingers penetrating you, getting you ready for his dick. Your walls squeeze tight around his fingers when he forces another one in. 

When he finally feeds his cock into you, the stretch is nearly unbearable. The sharp stab of pain that accompanies it almost makes you flinch away, but Simon drags you back by your hips.

“You’re not going anywhere, bird,” he rumbles. “Relax. It’s going in.”

What can you say to something like that? 

His whole frame presses you into the mattress, the breath forced from your lungs. Bigger now that he’s got you on your belly. Suddenly making two hundred pounds seem less abstract, more real. He bullies as much of his cock into you as he can, paying no mind to the way you squeal and kick your legs. 

“Real tight cunt,” Simon grunts, humming with his pleasure when his hips punch forward and your pussy squelches around his length. So lewd.

His knees on either side of you keep you trapped in place, nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. All you can do is lie under him and let him rut between your thighs, gasping for breath with every thrust. The sweat is slick down your back, half yours and half his. 

“Ya let other men fuck this cunt, bird?” he asks. It sounds hypothetical, like it’s said half to rile himself up, and though it prickles at your nerves, you don’t complain too much because he fucks you rougher after the words slip out of his mouth. 

When you don’t answer him though, concentrating more on filling your lungs and not biting your tongue off, he grabs your face and twists your head until you’re looking over your shoulder at him, neck aching with the strain. 

“Answer me,” he demands, sounding almost pissed off. 

“N-no—”

“Good,” he grunts. Satisfied.

His words should piss you off. How dare he ask you about fucking other men as if he were your husband or boyfriend. You have half a mind to cuss him out, but then he pumps his hips forward and your face goes numb from pleasure. Electric impulses zip up and down your skin, sizzling your nerves. 

Besides, maybe it’s hot that he’s acting like you belong to him. Like you’re his; his girl that he picked up from the bar after a long shift, eager to go home and lay her out on the bed so he could fuck his pretty girl into a tongue-tied stupor. It certainly does it for you, a thin filigree of pleasure winding its way down your spine. 

It’s an intoxicating fantasy—being wanted by a man in a real, visceral way. It’s one you’ve never gotten close to before, never even grazed with the tips of your fingers, no matter how far you stretched out your arms. You don’t know what men see when they look at you, but it can’t be anything worth keeping. 

He fucks you like he wants to pry you open and leave a piece of him inside. A big hand fits around your neck and tightens; a collar, a manacle. 

Hard to feel anything but grateful though. It’s everything you wanted but never thought you’d get out of this experience. You expected to feel like a body on a butcher’s block, hacked limb from limb. Marble ribbing on the inside. Brought to a high only to be left out in the cold after. 

You never expected apotheosis. You never expected the filth murmured into your ear, the lurid, coarse diatribe in surround sound, all perfect fuckin’ pussy, can’t wait to shove my tongue inside, gonna make you suck my cock while I eat that perfect cunt out—

All—

Perfect fuckin’ girl; you don’t give this to anyone else, do ya? Knew you were gaggin’ for it back in the bar, but wanted to wait ‘n see; turned the rest of ‘em down, didn’t ya? Not a fuckin’ slut. Jus’ for me—only hungry for my cock—

It’s too rough, too much. Overpowering. Musk and body heat and raw strength, his forearms planted on the mattress on either side of your head. The scent of him suffocating, smothering. Heady. In your pores, on the back of your tongue, in your belly. He’s everywhere.

If only you could put it into words. The fire in your belly growing so wild, so out of control, that it threatens to incinerate you. Thinking dangerous thoughts—that you could be his, that he wants you so bad he can’t stand the idea of anyone having you before him, that he’ll kill anyone that touched you before, rip them apart with his bare hands, cut out their hearts and slice it ‘em up real thin so he could feed you the strips with his hands—

“Fuck—” Simon pants in your ear, pulling his cock out of your cunt. You whine, clenching down on nothing, suddenly empty, until he turns you roughly over onto your back and grabs one of your flailing ankles, hooking it over a burly shoulder. “Cunt this good oughta be locked down. Should just chain your leg to the bed so I can wake up to this pussy every day. Would’ya like that, bird?”

Like it? You think wildly—

Keep me, keep me, keep me, pleasepleaseplease.

The leg not hooked over Simon’s shoulder gets pulled around his hip, spreading your legs wider to accommodate the width of him between them. The scour of his voice threatens to erode you, smash you to pieces. There won’t be anything left after he’s done with you. 

He’s just so big. Built like an ox, broad and solid. When he braces his forearms on either side of you, his biceps bulge, skin pulling taut over the muscle. The dark hair of his pits is stark against pale flesh. 

Blood roars in your ears and over you, he moves like a wave, filling you up again and again. You’re swimming in uncharted waters now; gazing out into an unfamiliar and dangerous sea. A swell this big might take you right under. 

Too bad for you, the hazy adumbration of danger in his words is pitted against the maw in your soul, the deep, cavernous hole that yawns wider with each passing year. 

For years now, you’ve had the same dream: overlooking a sea of evergreen peaks illuminated by a silky moonlight hue, winding a long, narrow road darkened on both sides by tightly clustered trees, your arms wrapped around your chest. Cold layered like a skin, sinking deep into your bones, cold wet like a damp hate; trees clustered around your wandering soul, spurned into wandering like a little undead ghost with teeth clattering in Morse code, saying: so many wrongs done, it is almost incomprehensible.

Is it too much to ask to be wanted? 

You need it like air. 

The issue is that—

more than horny, you’re really, really fucking lonely. 

For years now, you’ve had the same dream: a dream of being a lighthouse keeper, skin saltwater slick, seafoam on the backs of your knuckles, slathering over frozen fingers clutching at the gallery railing. Beckoning something to you.

What it is, you do not know.

“Look at tha’,” Simon says wonderingly, grabbing your face and yanking it towards him, forcing you to meet his eyes again. “Just needed to get turned out on a fat cock, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah,” you gasp. “So good, Simon, ohmygod—”

“Only this needy for me, right?” The glint in his eye is terrifying.

“Only you, only you—”

“That’s right,” he growls, bearing all of his weight down on you, forehead to forehead. His sweat-slick chest slides against yours, cock buried so deep that you can taste him at the back of your throat. Dark eyes stare down at you with an intensity that steals the breath from you, glossy like he’s rapidly losing the ability to be consciously present, but ever attentive to the pleasure rippling across your face. 

When his cock grinds into the soft plug of your womb, his eyes narrow when yours bulge, and he batters that spot until you seize up and spasm around him. His buzz cut gives you nothing to hold onto, so you dig your nails into the bulky planes of his back instead. 

“Fuck—hold on, Christ, fuck; here it comes,” he spits, the veins in his neck protruding when he grits his teeth. 

Your blood goes red hot when he rams deep into you, each thrust deliberate. Hips losing their rhythm. You don’t notice the first spurt of cum, too preoccupied with the smell and weight of him blanketing you, infiltrating every crevice of your body, but the second is hot. Scorching. You ignore the screaming alarm at the back of your head, barely coherent enough to parse out its meaning. All you can focus on is the warmth spreading inside you and your own walls pulsing around his cock, milking his release out of him. 

Time blurs. You lose some of it. 

You don’t come back until Simon rolls over onto his back, taking you with him. His cock is still buried inside of you, his cum running out in rivulets, pooling at the base of his dick lodged at your entrance. You’re going to be messy when he finally pulls out. 

Despite the ache already setting in, you feel reborn. Renewed. The old, dead skin flayed off. You can’t imagine how you’ll feel when you’ve got your energy back, when even tracing your eyes across the other side of his room doesn’t take tremendous effort. The traces of him littered around the room make you curious. A half empty glass. Steel-toed boots sticking out of a half-opened closet. A damp towel crumpled into a ball on the floor. 

You squeeze your eyes shut. There’s no use trying to fill the gaps in. Whoever Simon is won’t matter in the light of day. You repeat this to yourself until it sticks. 

When you try to get up, planting both hands on his chest, he pulls you back down, forcing your head onto the pillow of his chest. “Simon, the sheets are wet—”

“I’ll deal with it later,” Simon says, eyes already shut, on the verge of falling asleep. “Now shut up. You’re ruining the fucking afterglow.” 

You wake up the next morning covered in bruises and bite marks and dried cum between your thighs and on your belly, so sore that even twitching your finger hurts.

It takes awhile for everything to come back to you. When it finally does, consciousness snaps back into you, discomfort giving way to quiet self-satisfaction. You managed to do it. Your first one-night stand. A real milestone. The tacky sheets beneath you are proof enough of your accomplishment. 

The sadness slithers in when you realize that it’s over. One and done. In a half hour or so, the man plastered against your back and breathing heavily on the crown of your head will wake up, groggy and bleary eyed, and side-eye you until you put back on your clothes from the night before and slink out, tail tucked between your legs. A few hours delayed from when you were planning to throw in the towel at the bar, but still. In the end, it always comes around. 

A gruff voice at your side tells you to quiet, bird—s'too early for your bitchin’ before manhandling you onto your stomach and shoving his raw cock into your cunt and it’s only now that it dawns on you that you were too horny last night to remember to ask him to use protection. 

The thought is wiped from your head when he bucks his hips forward, impaling you on his swollen length. You lose track of time after that. 

Breakfast is an informal affair. Cereal from a box and a bit too much milk, and a cup of instant coffee. You wince when you sit down across from Simon at the kitchen table, your inner thighs still tender and pussy sore from the battering it just took. If it strokes his ego to see how gingerly you sit down, he doesn’t show it. 

It’s weird sitting across the table from him after last night. Hard to just leave it unaddressed, the truth simmering in the air. The red marks across his back make you wince, cheeks heating. Thin crescent marks and scored nails. It’s hard to reconcile yourself with the girl from last night. 

He eats in silence for the most part though, ravenous after the night before. Doesn’t comment on the state of his shoulders or the way you shift on your chair. Not even bothering to make eye contact with you. Your appetite takes a bit of a hit watching him shovel food into his mouth, hardly even pausing long enough to breathe, but you’ve seen plenty of hungry men eat before. 

Still though, silence has always had a way of getting under your skin. You’re not comfortable around it, prone to chattering. So you can’t help the way your mouth opens and the words come out involuntarily. 

“Do you do this a lot?”

“I don’t shit where I eat,” Simon grunts dismissively.

The expression makes you grimace. “So do you usually pick up girls elsewhere or—”

The look he gives you could melt the flesh off your bones. You realize your misstep, interrogating the man you just fucked about his other hookups. Best not to ask questions. It’s not like you’ll see him again after this. 

These last few moments are bittersweet. There won’t be many opportunities like this in the future, mainly because you don’t think you’re cut out for one-night stands. Last night proved that. As good as it was—and for as many times as you came, another time in the wee hours of the morning when Simon rolled over on top of you and shoved your legs apart to eat you out (a midnight snack)—in the light of day, you feel world weary. Like something monumental happened and passed you by. 

You almost want to thank him for making it special, but the anxiety around finally pissing him off is more than you can bear. You want to leave on a good note. It’s better this way. You’ll never have confirmation about whether he’d eventually grow tired of you like everyone else. Never know if he’d one day manage to lose interest in the real you, not the made up sex kitten from the bar. 

It’s better this way.

You tell yourself that when you push your chair out and stand up, hands fisting in the oversized shirt Simon made you wear before leaving the bedroom. “I should get going.”

He stops eating, staring up at you. His eyes are inscrutable, and the longer he stares, the less you understand his look. 

You shift from foot to foot. “Thanks for… I had a good time.”

Simon doesn’t say anything, but when he drops his spoon into the bowl, the metal clang makes you flinch. 

His silence leaves you off balance, like you’ve overstepped somehow. All motion stills under his scrutiny. 

“Got somewhere ya need to be?” he asks, a vague, almost menacing undercurrent in his voice. It’s said like a warning. There shouldn’t be anywhere else you need to be. 

“I…—don’t you want me to leave?”

He looks distinctly unimpressed. “You gonna walk home like that?” His words make you tug at his shirt, pulling it down to cover your thighs.

Your whole life has been made up of misunderstandings. Missed opportunities. Men who you thought loved you vanishing into thin air. You’re a poem often lost in translation. A long game of hide and seek; people run towards you then feign right, leaving you in the dust. 

Whatever this is, you don’t recognize it. 

You swallow on a dry throat. “…No?”

Simon searches your expression for something before he nods, satisfied. “Then sit the fuck back down. Finish your damn breakfast.”

You sit back down (wincing when you do) because the alternative is admitting that you don’t know what’s next. That you’re out of step again, but this time without that sinking feeling in your belly. A wild fluttering instead. That thought again that maybe you’ve bit off more than you can chew. 

What’s that saying again?

Ah, yes. Choices made in anger cannot be undone.

[neckromantics]

We don't talk enough about how absolutely devastating and romantic and hot the idea is that Astarion would know the scent of your blood anywhere.

How quickly he would notice when you've even the slightest of nics? When, no matter how focused on anything else he might be at the time, he always comes to check it out?

You'll be peeling a piece of apple with your pocket knife when it slips in your grip. The sharp edge of the blade slices a shallow cut into the meat of your thumb, and you inhale sharply through your nose even though it barely hurts at all. Instinct has you sucking your injured digit into your mouth with a soft curse– the sweet juice of the fruit you were snacking on quickly overpowered by the metallic twang of blood.

You nearly jump out of your skin when he appears over you not a moment later. He makes some offhand comment about how careless you are. Takes hold of your injured hand and tuts like he intends to tease, but he isn't fooling anyone.

He stands so close, jaw ticking as he clenches his teeth, a tension in his shoulders that tells you he's doing everything in his power to keep composure. Your blood calls to him like a moth to a flame, and as funny as you find it in the moment, you don't have the heart to tease him for it. It's actually kind of endearing.

He'd only get quicker in noticing as time passes.

Especially after you've been traveling together for a few years, and he's come to know your scent better than his own. Which only makes sense considering how often he's got his nose pressed to some part of you. (He thinks you smell good.)

At this point, when you get injured in battle, he often catches the fragrance before you've even processed that you've been hit.

He'd suck in a sharp breath through his teeth– a hiss so loud that it catches your attention just enough for you to spare him a glance as you fight.

It's all you need to see just how blown his pupils are from where you're standing, mostly because his gaze is laser locked onto you to second you search for him. His movements turn faster. Deadlier, as he scans the field before you. Determined. Hungry. Angry. He's searching for the sorry wretch that dared to get the best of you– that dared spill even a drop of his beloved's precious blood upon the soil.

You've already taken them down, of course. Poor sap might have gotten a good dig in at your shoulder, but ultimately didn't stand a chance once he properly pissed you off.

Astarion's eyes go heavy.

Half-lidded in that special way of his and only darkening further as he appraises you. You can practically feel it as he follows the line of your throat, zeroes in on your pulse point for a moment, before settling to watch the warm crimson that's beginning to soak into the sleeve of your tunic.

You see a bit of concern in those eyes, but then he sees your smile and– A flash of hot, honeyed desire catches you by surprise.

You suddenly can't tell if it's just the blood loss making you woozy or if he's about to make you swoon like a maiden from an old romance novel. You try (and fail) to keep a straight face when he sinks his dagger into his final opponent's neck without so much as a glance their way.

There's a splash of red against pale white skin, and a lifeless body dropping to the grass by his feet. Your heart stutters in your chest, and he all but moans in response to the sound of it. A mere four paces and he's on you– hands and teeth and tongue exploring every inch of your exposed skin, ripping open parts of your armor to gain better access, like you're not stood in a field of gore and ruin and freshly spilled blood.

You cling to him like a lifeline.

Before he drags you away to camp– to a warm tent and a soft bedroll where he can have his way with you for as long as you and your mortal body will allow him– he has you down a potion of healing or two.

And it's a good thing one of you has a Lesser Restoration spell handy somehow, cause you're most definitely gonna need it.

[rubys-domain]

*tags again*